Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 31
31
Ander had no way of knowing how long they stood there, locked together in a secret embrace. Long enough for his legs to ache and the fire at his back to singe his fur. Long enough for him to almost pass out from sheer exhaustion. Long enough for it to feel like days.
They had tried to free her several times, but each attempt had failed for the same reason: fear. They were afraid of hurting Nilia, and they were afraid of what Ander might do once his last resort was taken away. They had tried to make him turn his back on an archer, they had tried to wait him out, they had even tried shooting at his back through the bonfire, slowly crumbling away, but still burning fiercely. In the end, it all came down to the knife at Nilia's throat. No matter how hard they tried or how brilliantly they schemed, no attack could be performed faster than Ander could drag the blade across her neck. They were stuck, and time was running out.
Suddenly, a commotion sprang up from one of the groups, with much shouting and shoving.
"Wardo, what are you doing!? Get back here!"
"I'm bored, Vekka! You're boring! Everybody's boring! This whole situation, which was so entertaining up until now, has become boooooring!!" Wardo extricated himself from the cluster, pushing Wolves out of his way, and made a beeline for Ander and Nilia.
"Hey, you're gonna get her killed! We need a plan first!"
"To formulate a good plan, you must first have perfect understanding of the situation, Vekka, and by the time you realize what's really going on here, the sun will have risen and our fun will be over!"
Ander glanced up at the sky and, sure enough, the West was still as pitch black as ever, but to the East, it had taken on a lighter shade of purple. It was natural, it was inevitable, but at the same time it felt impossible.
Dawn was coming.
That thought filled Ander with a kind of hope he was almost too afraid to touch. It was so fragile, it might shatter at any moment, but now that it was here, inside, he couldn't deny what his eyes were seeing.
The bonfire at his back wasn't the only thing giving off light anymore. He could see the walls of the village, the tops of the posts like sharpened teeth, forming a black line in the distance that zigzagged up and down against the dark backdrop of the forest.
Wolves' faces were no longer starkly split into halves of shifting firelight and pure shadow. The contrast was softer now, the shadows lessened.
What was happening on the other side of that evil mountain? Has the sun already risen above the horizon? Has dawn already broken for Grovenglen? If so, it meant he was literally standing in the Cora's shadow right now. All he needed to do was last long enough for the sun to peek over the mountain tops and he would be free. He would finally be free to be happy. He would -
Nilia pinched his arm, snapping him back into reality. Wardo had advanced to Garten's corpse, and was looking down at it with the same kind of bemused interest Ander imagined he gave anything unlucky enough to end up in one of his traps. He bent down, picked up the charred spear and bounced it up and down on his palms a little, getting a feel for its weight.
"Stay back!" Ander said. "I'll kill her, I swear I will, and then her blood will be on your hands!"
"Do as he says, Wardo!" Nilia added. "He's really going to kill me!"
"Yeah, probably," Wardo said, taking a step closer, casually twirling the spear between his fingers.
"Don't you care whether she lives or dies!?" Ander pulled back on Nilia's hair a bit, and she gave out a dramatic little scream, so realistic it actually made him uncomfortable.
"Not particularly, no."
The other Wolves weren't exactly thrilled with this latest turn of events either.
"Stop it, Wardo! Just back up! There's still time!"
"What are you trying to prove!?"
"That Wolf killed Garten, the strongest warrior of the tribe! What makes you think you can do any better!?"
Wardo chuckled, still coming closer and closer. "You want to know what Garten's problem was?"
Ander squeezed his body up against Nilia's. He kept his head low, looking through her hair at Wardo's sneering face. There's no way he'd be able to throw that spear as he was now, or get a large enough opening for a thrust. Not without -
"Compared to me, Garten always played fair!"
Ander realized what was about to happen a mere second before it did. Wardo lunged forward, the spear held above his shoulder, its black tip still covered with Ander and Hezzi's blood, caked onto the metal. He could feel the small of Nilia's back pull away from his belly as she gasped in shock, realizing what was about to happen.
Wardo planned to skewer them both.
Ander grabbed Nilia by the shoulder and flung her aside as hard as he could and -
He felt the tip of the spearhead puncture his skin and slide in between his ribs. It went in smooth, with hardly any resistance at all. It was cold. He could feel it inside him and it was so cold...
He couldn't breathe...
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