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43

"A few days ago, in the woods," Dorin began, feeling his heartbeat speed up inside his chest, thudding against his open palm. "I tried to kill myself."

Even Wardo was taken aback by that little revelation, his furious scowl momentarily dissolving into a look of confusion. The other Wolves had foregone all the chanting, the whispers, the pushing and shoving. All of them were simply listening, as Denko and Aisa had asked of them.

The blood didn't seem so thick and gory anymore, and the snow on the outside edges was starting to regain its colour, transitioning from streaks of red to threads of pink and finally back to white.

"I tried to kill myself because... every second I was alive felt like torture. I came to believe that a single moment of pain, followed by nothingness, would be infinitely better than struggling through the rest of the day, only to face the next day after that, and the next after that. I was so tired, I just wanted to go to sleep and never, ever wake up again, because being awake meant being aware of all the things I had done, and that meant being aware of all the pain and misery I had inflicted... and being aware of that pain and misery forced me into feeling it all for myself. It..." Dorin took in a harsh breath of freezing cold air, struggling to come up with the right words to describe the way he had felt as he pressed the tip of that dagger to his chest. "I was the one who crippled Danado. You all know it. I cut out his claws, and I liked it. I liked the way it felt, to have absolute power over another Wolf. It made me feel big, important, superior in every way. But I was a fool! The things I felt, they were nothing more than an animal's pleasure, mindless and feral, tearing into its prey. An animal simply does what it does in order to survive, but we don't. An animal is incapable of feeling remorse, but we aren't. An animal has no need to search for redemption, but I... but we..." Dorin looked down at his reflection, staring back at him from the pool of blood around his numb, freezing legs. There was a tear slowly rolling down the red Dorin's face, keeping time with the line of fire he could feel running down his own. The tears broke free, one clear and one red, one falling down and one rising up, to meet in the middle of the thin membrane that separated reality from illusion. They fused together into a perfect ripple, but instead of expanding, the pool of blood seemed to contract like an eye exposed to too much sunlight, retreating, shrinking, letting the snow come closer, taking back its place in the real world, sparkling white.

Dorin raised his head, not at all ashamed of the tears in his bloodshot eyes. "Or was she right? Are we nothing but animals? Is blood really all we care about? Is there nothing else in this world for us?"

They exchanged uneasy glances, but none of them said anything.

"I think that's the real difference between Lana and me... She believed there was no hope for any of us, that none of us would even want redemption, let alone seek it out. I think that's why she did what she did. Not because she was an animal, but because she saw what we were turning into. She saw that we were becoming even less than animals. She saw that we were becoming monsters."

Dorin looked straight up at the sky, dark grey like pyre smoke. "I was a monster. In some ways, I think I still am. But the rest of you... it's not too late! You don't have to do this! You don't have to go to war! You don't have to fight! You don't have to kill! Down that road lies nothing but misery and pain... I know it, because I feel it, every moment of every day... I feel it... misery and pain..."

Silence followed his speech, and Dorin felt his muscles go lax. His shoulders slumped and his hands dropped down to his sides, his fingers trailing in the ever-shrinking pool of Lana's blood. He felt deflated somehow, worn out, but he also felt a bit better.

Was it enough? Did they hear me? Did they understand?

Dorin didn't know, but that was okay, too. He had tried. That was the important thing. No matter what happened from here on out, he had tried.

A slow clap rang up from the crowd and Dorin lifted his face, the first spark of hope shining in his heart, only to have it extinguished a second later.

The one doing the clapping was Wardo.

"Brilliant, just brilliant!" he mocked, swaggering into the circle. "What a stirring, heartfelt little speech that was! Not pathetic or gag-inducing at all!"

Uncomfortable chuckles rose from the crowd, but they were few and far between, and Dorin was pleased to see Wardo's smile falter just a tiny bit. Things weren't going according to his plan, and that was a state of affairs he wasn't used to. Dorin wouldn't allow himself to relax just yet, though. If there was any aspect of Wardo's personality even more despicable than his disregard for life, it was his uncanny adaptability.

As if privy to Dorin's deepest thoughts, Wardo's smile suddenly crept back onto his face in full force. "I have listened to your words, Dorin, and I understand," he said, speaking slowly and calmly, as if addressing a hysterical child, or some wild creature that might jump up and bite. "I know it's been difficult for you, but it's all right. It's not your fault."

That set off an alarm in Dorin's head. "What do you mean by that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He spread out his hands, as if offering peace. "Dorin, you poor, tortured soul. You are quite ill, aren't you?"

As absurd as it sounded, Dorin actually felt slightly relieved. "Really, Wardo? Is that the best you can come up with? I'm saying these things because I'm sick?"

"Not sick in the conventional sense, no. But it is clear you are suffering from a terrible disease."

"I am not sick!" Dorin shouted, thankful for the fact that no one knew about... the things he sometimes saw.

"My children, you've listened to this stricken warrior, now I ask you to listen to me!" Wardo threw his hands in the air, and the way his necklace rattled around his bony shoulders made him look and sound remarkably like Shekka during one of her wild sermons. "It all started with Ander, the Wolf whose very name was a curse upon this tribe! The one who was responsible for the death of our strongest, most beloved son, Banno!"

Sober nods and murmurs of agreement all around. This was something all of them could get behind without question, something that didn't require any thought at all, and Wardo knew it damn well.

"Yes, my children! Ander was the one who started it all, and from there it spread to his father, the once loved Chieftain of this tribe and my predecessor, Kadai! He was a wise and powerful Chieftain, cruelly ripped form our lives without warning! The night he started acting differently was the night of Ander's trial. He demanded Ander be Thrown to the Wolves, when by all rights he should have been executed on the spot! It was just as young Torjo over there said, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life.' Ander took a life, and a life he should have given back, but Kadai showed him mercy and broke one of our oldest, most sacred laws because he had been infected! And what happened then!? It spread to Ander's little brother, Hezzi! Shekka's pure little drisa! I know you all remember the way he acted that night, the way he turned on all of us! One moment he was doing the Cora's work, about to take back the eye Ander had stolen from Banno, and the next, he betrayed us all! That was the night! The night of Ander's execution! Everyone that accursed Wolf came in contact with was corrupted by the foul disease carried by his breath! But did it stop there? Noooo!!"

Wardo was getting the crowd fired up again. They grunted and shouted, their fervour growing as their Chieftain spoke faster and faster, spittle flying form his teeth.

"From Hezzi and Kadai it spread even further! It infected Nilia, the ringleader of the band of traitors we seek to destroy this very night! Do any of you think it pure coincidence that she just so happened to be the she-wolf who spent the most time with them?"

"Noooo!" A resounding response from the crowd.

"From Nilia it spread to Mellah and Sorrin, and from them it spread to Danado, and from Danado it spread to Lana. Simultaneously, from Hezzi it spread to Renna, and from Renna..."

Wardo slowly turned on the spot, swivelling around on his heel until he came to a stop facing Aisa, still kneeling in the snow. She tried to keep her composure, but Dorin could see the way she flinched as the Wolves started to boo and scream.

"Oh Aisa, if only you were alone in this. I'm sure Shekka would have been able to cure you of your affliction, but alas! It is too late for that! This terrible curse has too many tendrils! It spreads out like a creeping vine, infecting everything it touches!" Wardo whirled about and pointed a hooked finger at Dorin's face, not unlike Denko had done mere minutes ago. It was amazing how different the exact same gesture could be depending on who was doing it. "You, Dorin! Did you catch it from Lana? From Danado? From Nilia, perhaps? When did this plague burrow its way into your heart and soul?"

Dorin smashed his fist against the ground, splashing blood against the snow in a crimson starburst, blooming outward like a hellish flower, melting into the white flesh of the earth in thorny veins. "There is no plague!" he shouted. "There is no disease! No illness! You're just making it all up!"

"Am I?" He crouched down and placed his hands on Denko's shoulders, who recoiled in disgust. "Then what about poor Denko here? He was never like this before, not until he went on that mission with you! Who did he catch it from, I wonder? You, or your quarry? It doesn't matter anymore, I suppose." He straightened up, shaking his head in disappointment. "I'm so sorry, Dorin, Denko, Aisa... I should have noticed it sooner. I should have done something. I should have ripped it out before it had a chance to take root! But I was too late..." He turned in a slow circle, his arms spread wide as if to embrace his people as a whole. "My children!" he bellowed. "What is this curse that has infected our home? This curse that has claimed the lives of our precious sons and daughters? Banno, Garten, Kadai, Lana, Hyker? What is the real killer here?"

The crowd was even louder now than it was at the start of the gathering - hundreds of Wolves stomping their feet and gnashing their jaws, explosive in their fury.

"What is it!?" someone yelled. "We'll fight it together! We'll tear its heart out!"

"I'll tell you!" Wardo screamed, his voice rising to a fever pitch. "This curse bears the same name as the one who gave birth to it! And that name is Ander!"

Screams of outrage aimed at a Wolf that was no longer part of this world. They thrust their spears at the sky and spat on the ground, cursing the name, and Wardo was loving it.

"Yes! Yes, my children! Look at these Wolves and tell me what they are, if not different from us? Look! Look at them! Look! Where we stand, they kneel! Where we prepare to go to war, they snivel and grovel! Where we take action, they break down and cry! Where we are strong, they are weak! That is what it means to be different!"

"The Chieftain speaks the truth!" Torjo shouted. "They are different form us! Just like Ander!"

"So are the traitors! It spread through them all!"

"It really is a disease!"

Dorin tried to argue, to fight back, but it was useless. He could barely hear himself over the tumult. His voice was drowning before it could even leave his throat, drowning in noise just as he was drowning in blood. He could feel it flowing over his ankles, rising all the way up against his legs. He didn't want to look down. He could feel ropes of gore swimming against his stomach, caressing his body like the coils of dead snakes.

"Yes!" Wardo bellowed, ecstatic. "We are the perfect beings in the all-seeing eyes of the Cora! Therefore, being different is a disease! A plague! Even more, it is madness! Pure madness! Complete and total -"

"Madness?"

No one saw Ivio walk up to Wardo until he stepped inside the circle, his fur plastered flat against his face and chest in streaks of dried deer blood and clay. In some ways, he looked like a giant newborn, but at the same time, he also looked like the victim of a terrible battle. He had ripped even more fur from his body during all the talk, and fresh bald patches were shining through in swatches of sickly pink. With all the blood, it looked like something had taken huge bites out of him, or like he had been ravished by a terrible disease (altogether different from the one Wardo was preaching) that had left his body riddled with collapsing pot marks.

"Ivio?" Wardo said, looking him up and down. "That is quite an... original design you've got there." His smile didn't seem quite as genuine as it was before.

There was something weird going on with Ivio, even more so than usual. Everything about him was unsettling, but Dorin couldn't figure out why. He was still the same hyperactive, overeager Wolf as before, more annoying than dangerous, but there was something... not different, exactly, but off about him.

The fingers on his right hand were freaking out. They kept stiffening and relaxing, as though he were trying to scratch and claw something in a dream. His left ear kept flicking back and forth, as if to shoo away a pesky fly. His tail swished to and fro, not at all in tune with the look on his face. The corner of his mouth kept twitching, making his expression flip back and forth between a smile and a growl in the blink of an eye, and the way he had his head tilted to the side made him look dangerously unbalanced. The only parts of him not spazzing out were his eyes, but that in itself became rather odd after a while, too, since he wasn't even blinking.

"Ivio? Helloooo?" Wardo waved his hand in front of the kid's face, trying to get some kind of reaction. "Are you in there?"

_I wouldn't do that if I were you..._Dorin thought, but it wasn't funny. Not at all. Ivio was the one Wolf on his team he had always assumed was the simplest and the easiest to understand, but recent events have turned that opinion upside-down. He had no idea what to believe anymore. Or what to expect.

"My parents named me 'Ivvy' because I used to scream in my sleep," Ivio said, still looking straight ahead with that tilted stare. "I did that a lot."

"Fascinating, now if you would be so kind as to return to your spot -"

"My mother was the one who added the 'vio' part. Because I kept twitching. But also because she said it would be mean to call me 'mad' and nothing else. She was afraid the other pups would make fun of me. I thought it was a silly thing to be afraid of. Wolves don't make fun of Wolves who are ivvy. They worship them."

Wardo looked like he suddenly stepped into something with a spectacularly rotten odour. "What did you just say?"

"I said that you are ivvy. And that the Cora is ivvy. And that Shekka-Kai is ivvy. Most of everybody here is ivvy. Some of them much more ivvy than me."

"Listen here you little milksop! You've served me loyally, if not competently, since the start of my reign, and for that, I will forgive one insult, but only one, you hear me? Now back off before I order you to be taken away!"

Except for his random little jerks and twitches, Ivio did not move.

"I'm serious, Ivio! Or has this disease gotten to you, too? Have you become different like Dorin here? Like Aisa and Denko? Like all those Wolves who died!?"

"I dunno..." Ivio's head tilted the other way. "Do other Wolves have dreams like mine, too?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I've always had them, the dreams that made me scream, ever since I was old enough to dream, I think. The dream where I was running from something, but I didn't know what it was. It was always too dark. Sometimes it was here, in the village, and sometimes it was out in the woods, or up in the mountain. Sometimes it was summer, and sometimes it was winter. Sometimes it was mud and sometimes it was snow. Sometimes it was broad daylight, but it would still be too dark to see. Sometimes I was lying in bed, and that was really bad, because those times I couldn't know if I was really awake afterward, or still dreaming. But no matter where I was, it would always come after me, and I would always run, but no matter how fast I ran, it was always just a little bit faster. It would always catch me. And then..." Ivio's eyes went wide and he slowly dragged his fingers across his face. "I'd feel it tear into me. I'd feel it stick its claws right here. Sometimes I knew it was a dream and I'd beg to just wake up, but I never did. I kept on dreaming. I saw everything, and I felt everything. I would watch it crack open my chest, and I would feel it start to... to dig into me, scratching at everything inside, like it was trying to go right through me. I would see it lower its head and put its teeth around my neck, but even though it was so close, and even though I could see everything else perfectly, I couldn't see it. It was always too dark. And then I would feel it rip my neck open, but I'd still be alive somehow, and I'd listen to it eat me, and I'd scream and scream, trying to wake myself up."

"We don't have time for this, you demented whelp!"

"Afterwards, when I was sure I was really awake, I'd try to tell myself it was just a dream, that I didn't really feel my lungs burning, that I didn't really feel my legs aching, that I didn't really feel the branches slap me in the face and the twigs stick me in the feet, that I didn't really feel that monster rip me open and eat me, that it was all fake, but I knew it wasn't. Mother and Father used to tell me they were only like pictures, that they couldn't hurt me because they weren't real, but aren't pictures real? They used to tell me that the thing chasing me wasn't really there, it was only part of the dream, part of a harmless picture. But if I'm in the picture, doesn't that mean I'm part of the dream, too? Doesn't that mean I'm the same as the monster? Doesn't that mean that, inside the dream, it's all as real as I am?"

"No, you blathering idiot!" Wardo yelled. "For the love of the Cora somebody take him away!"

The crowd parted reluctantly as someone pushed his way through, and the one doing the pushing was none other than Thoka.

"Ivio, what the hell are you doing!?" he hissed. "You're making a spectacle of yourself! Get back here before you -" He reached out, but the moment his fingers touched Ivio's shoulder, the mad Wolf's head flipped back as if on a hinge, completely upside-down, his unblinking eyes staring, his hair hanging in greasy red tendrils.

"My dream changed recently. Would you like to hear?"

Thoka jumped back and frantically wiped his hand on his vest, perhaps afraid that he might have caught something contagious.

Ivio's head snapped back up, making his hair fly forward and stick itself over his face in disgusting, wavy lines. His eyes stared through them like the bars of a cage, darting from face to face. "It happened the first night after I came back from the mission, and every night after since then. It was like it always was before, over and over again for so many times I don't even know how many times I've done it again and again, the same dream, the same picture. Me, running through the woods, running as fast as I can, running and running, trying not to trip, knowing that if I fell, it would all be over, jumping over roots and rocks and bushes and streams, running and running... But then I realised this wasn't the same as it always was. I didn't know how I knew, but I did. There was something different about this time. I could feel it inside. The stuff making me breathe so hard, run so hard, making my heart beat so hard, it wasn't fear, like I thought at first, like it usually was. No. This was excitement. I was excited because I knew I wasn't running, I was chasing. I was so happy. I ran, knowing I was just a little bit faster than the thing I was chasing, because that's the way it works. The one doing the chasing is always faster. I ran and I saw it. I saw it in front of me, trying to get away, but it was too dark to see what it was. I didn't care. The important thing was that I was the one doing the chasing, what I was chasing didn't matter, only that I caught it, only that I got my claws on it, only that I clamped my teeth around it. And that's when I realised..." He reached up and ripped a line of bloody hair from his head. It drifted down to the snow and lay there in a nauseating swirl of red against white. "The thing in front of me, running through the woods, the black thing that was too dark to see, it was the thing! The same thing in all the other dreams! The black thing that was always too dark to see! It was the same, except now I was the one doing the chasing! For the first time ever, I was in control, and it felt wonderful! It felt like I could finally, finally stop screaming and screaming and screaming..."

None of the Wolves were yelling at him to stop or to get out of the circle. Even Wardo was listening with an odd little frown on his face. Strangely enough, this unexpected story was just as engrossing as the one telling it, not because of eloquence or style, but because of that unholy blending of fascination and disgust. It was like finding a dead, flyblown woodpecker beneath a bush on a hot summer's day, boiling with maggots and reeking of death. Your first instinct was to pull back, and yet you just had to watch the worms crawl out of its empty eye sockets for just a few seconds longer than you actually wanted to.

Listening to Ivio was the same as watching that dead woodpecker, except this woodpecker was somehow still alive, flapping weakly, trying desperately to get rid of all the maggots crawling around inside its skull.

"It tripped and fell, and I was on it," he said, speaking softly. "I grabbed hold and I scratched at it, I yelled at it, I tore it open, I bit down on it and I ripped its flesh out. I ate it! I took big chunks out of it and I chewed it up and I swallowed and while I was eating I screamed and screamed that I would never scream again, that it would never make me scream again. I was so angry, but I was also happy, because I was finally free. For the first time, I had fought back and I had won. I had finally won. I had..." Ivio suddenly changed. The twitching stopped and he became perfectly still. Even his eyes, which had been jittering around inside his sockets mere moments before, now took on a strange, faraway look. "It wasn't dark anymore. Not dark at all. I was covered in blood, just like I am now. It was in my hair and on my hands... I could taste it in my mouth and running down my neck..." He looked down at himself, turning his hands over and over, as if mesmerized by what he saw. "I was... I was straddling something. It was warm and soft, kind of furry. The thing that had chased me for so long. The thing that had tortured me since I was a kid. It had fallen face-first into the snow, and its back was all clawed open. It was like a... like one of those roasts. When you leave it too long and the meat falls off the bone? It was like that, only raw. I could see where the ribs grew out of the backbone, and I knew I did it. I knew I should be happy with it, satisfied, but... but I wasn't. Something about it didn't feel right. It felt scary. So I... I reached out, and..." Ivio reached out in real life, as if he were re-enacting his dream for all of them to see. "And I took it by the shoulder..." He closed his fist over empty air. "And I... turned it around..."

Ivio did not move. He did not speak. He didn't do anything at all, and although Dorin could see that a number of Wolves were dying to know what happened next, none of them quite dared to speak out of fear of breaking the spell.

A single tear ran down Ivio's cheek, absorbing flakes of dried blood and clay along its path until it turned a muddy, infected red.

"It was me..." he said, and a strange sound rose up from the crowd, part gasp, part moan. "The thing underneath me... the thing I had clawed open... it was me. I was the monster. I was the one chasing after myself. I was the one being chased by myself. All along, for all those years, I was the one eating myself, and I was the one being eaten by myself. I looked down at what I had done, and I tried to wake myself up. I told myself, 'I have to wake up. I have to wake up.' When that didn't work, I tried to rip the fur out of my arms and face, but that didn't work, either. I couldn't even feel it. So I tried to claw myself open..." Ivio dragged his claws across his forearm, opening four thin red lines from elbow to wrist. "But that didn't work either. Nothing worked. So I..." He covered his face, blood slowly dripping down his arm into the snow. "I screamed! I screamed and screamed and I couldn't stop! I tried to scream myself awake but the dream wouldn't end and I thought it would just keep going forever! It was exactly like all the others! I knew I would just keep screaming over my own dead body! I knew... I knew this was as bad as the dream could possibly get... but... I was wrong." Ivio lowered his hands. The area underneath his eyes was smeared with a foul mixture of blood and tears. "The dead me... the one I killed, the one I tore open... It opened its mouth and began to scream, too..." Ivio sank down to his knees, staring down at the crimson spots of blood melting into the snow. "We stared at each other and we screamed... Our voices were exactly the same. Exactly the same... And suddenly I wasn't screaming because I was trying to wake up anymore. I was screaming because I was there before, where he was, so many times, and the way he was looking at me, so afraid, I knew exactly what he was seeing. A monster. I could see it all and I could feel it all, because he was me. He was supposed to be dead but he was still alive. His back was torn out and he could feel his own blood melt the snow he was lying on, making him sink deeper and deeper. He was staring up at this thing looming over him, pinning him down, too dark to see, too dark to understand. He didn't know why this was happening to him. He didn't understand why he had to suffer like this, why he had to watch this thing eat him night after night, powerless to do anything... Why? What did he do to deserve this? Why did it have to hurt so much?"

Ivio reached up and wiped his face. "That's why he was screaming. That's why he was crying. He was looking at a monster, and all he wanted was to be left alone... for the pain to go away..." He lowered his hand and, for just a moment, Dorin could imagine exactly what Ivio must have seen, staring down at his own undying body. For in that moment, the face staring out through the gap in that bloody mask was not that of an ivvy maniac, but that of a frightened child.

"I don't want to go to war..." he pleaded. "I don't want to be killed. But more than that, I don't want to kill. I don't want to become that thing from my dream. I don't want to do that to myself or anyone else. I just..." He looked around, at all the faces staring in at him, and he sighed. "I just want to be able to have a nice dream for once... just once..."

Ivio bowed his head, and silence descended upon the gathering. Warriors, hunters, trappers, tentwives, children, no one made a sound.

How did this happen? Dorin wondered. How did it come to this, the four if us kneeling in front of the entire tribe, begging for understanding?

Once again, he felt an incredible sense of time doubling back on itself, as if all of this had happened before. He looked over the heads of stunned Wolves, at the gate nestled between the northern watchtowers, half-expecting them to swing open and reveal Ander, standing there with a sad little smile on his face, back to bring peace to the world once again.

But the gates stayed shut, of course. Ander couldn't die for them a second time.

"That..." Wardo said, shaking his head in incredulity, "was the single most pathetic thing I have ever heard." He turned his head and spat a bitter white glob into the snow. "Poor baby, doesn't want to go to war because he might have bad dreams? Are you serious!?"

Wolves shifted their weight from foot to foot and gave each other uncomfortable glances, not sure what to do or even where to look.

But not all of them. Many (if not most) were just as disgusted as Wardo. They bared their fangs and muttered curses beneath their breath. Others kept glancing at the sky, trying to figure out where the sun might be behind that layer of thick grey clouds, counting the seconds, the minutes, the hours it would take to reach the mountain.

"Do you see what I'm talking about? This is it right here!" Wardo pointed a shaking finger at Ivio. "Can you see the difference in him? Where is the Ivio that used to froth at the mouth before every hunt? Where is the Ivio that used to jump for joy? Where is the Ivio that used to take on Wolves twice his size at every opportunity? That's the Wolf I want to have at my side! Not this... this..." Wardo kicked a cloud of snow in Ivio's face, making it stick to the blood in a fine white powder, "this crying little puppy! What happened to you, Ivio!? Huh!?" Wardo seized him by the hair and jerked his face upwards, forcing him to look his Chieftain in the eye. "I've seen the way you fight! You never gave a damn about your own wellbeing! I've seen you take a dozen blows to the face and keep on going, so desperate to prove yourself! So desperate to make everyone notice you, to make them acknowledge your power and tenacity! You were the kind of Wolf who would fight no matter what! If they broke both your arms, you would kick! If they broke both your legs, you would bite! That's the Wolf I want, Ivio! Where did that Wolf go!? What happened to him!?"

Ivio didn't seem particularly perturbed by the Chieftain screaming into his face, flecking his eyes and cheeks with drops of spittle. Quite the contrary. He simply regarded Wardo exactly the same way almost everyone else had regarded himself.

Like a small child who simply didn't understand.

"Didn't you listen to my story at all, Chieftain? That Ivio found exactly what he had been searching for. That Ivio finally caught the thing he had been chasing after. And you know what? He didn't like it one bit."

"Tch!" Wardo released Ivio's hair and stepped back, looking down at his palm in disgust. He wiped it on the snow (both sides) and straightened up, looking like he had bitten into an exceptionally foul gallbladder. "Is there anyone else?" he addressed the crowd. "Anyone else who's been infected with Ander's disease? Huh!? If you'd like to come out here and give a little speech, you'd better do so now, because we haven't got all day!"

A ripple went through the crowd as everyone checked the Wolves to their left and right, muttering and frowning suspiciously.

Dorin's gaze was more directed, and he quickly found exactly who he was looking for, huddled together near the wall. Seffer, Yanek, and Vekka, the three Wolves who had decided to keep their heads as low as possible after Hyker's death, and wisely so. Dorin could see the fear in their eyes as they looked around, trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Did the same thing happen to them, as well? Did they contract the same 'disease' as Wardo called it? Dorin wasn't sure, but he knew they weren't exactly the best of friends before everything went to hell, and yet, there they were, standing together, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, maybe not even aware of the fact that the distance separating them from each other wasn't nearly as wide as the distance separating them from everyone else.

Humming birds fly with other humming birds, crows fly with crows, weavers fly with weavers, and that was why Yannek, Vekka, and Seffer were sticking together, too. They had splintered off into their own little group, perhaps without even knowing it, but beneath the surface, down where instinct ruled, they understood perfectly well. They were different from everyone else now, and in this world, that was very, very dangerous.

Dorin caught Seffer's eye, and the sandy Wolf seemed to freeze in place as if caught in a snare. He shook his head, mouthed the words 'I'm sorry', and retreated further until his back was pressed right up against the wall. He looked away and gritted his teeth, as if he were in physical pain.

If Dorin could, he would have told him it was all right. There was nothing any of them could do, except throw themselves at the mercy of their fellow Wolves, Wolves who were still the same, Wolves who were still 'animals'. Even if Dorin believed such action could actually make a difference, he still wouldn't have asked it of them. Too many had already been dragged into his hopeless cause, and now, before it could go any further, he would put a stop to it. He could see this day ending in one of four ways, four paths leading to four different outcomes. Three of those paths were thin and overgrown with thorns and brambles, almost impassable, but the fourth was broad and smooth, wide enough for a whole army to march through, you could say. It was the three narrow paths he would aim for, one after the other. And if he failed, well...

He wouldn't really be losing all that much. Only his life.

"There will be no more speeches, Wardo," he said, feeling hundreds of eyes swivel back to him. "All that is left is to decide." He raised his head and spoke to the entire tribe, but not just the tribe. He spoke to every Wolf and every animal masquerading as a Wolf, he spoke to every soul and the darkness inside every soul, gathered together into the force Nilia had called 'hunger', the force that demanded death and sacrifice above all else, the force that thirsted for blood and would not take 'no' for an answer, the force that lived inside every Wolf to a degree, the force that constantly strove to turn everyone into mindless killing machines, all the same, all the same...

"Will you go to war? Will you rise up against a people that has done us no harm? Will you strike them and yourselves down for absolutely nothing? Will you reduce yourselves to what you see here, right now? Aisa, Denko, Ivio, and myself, we are all broken by the things we have done and the things we have felt, things we never even knew existed in this world, let alone our own hearts. How will you feel if you lose your loved ones by your own hand, as Aisa has? How will you feel if you follow orders blindly, never thinking for yourself, only to be struck down by your own eager savagery, as Denko was? How will you feel when you realise all you've been doing is cannibalizing yourself, piece by piece, your whole lives, as Ivio has? How will you feel when you finally take a life and realise that you have destroyed your own in the process, as I have? I can tell you right now, that taking a life changes something inside you. It breaks, it tears you open, and it hurts, and you have no one to blame but yourself. That is the first choice." Dorin took a deep, extra-slow breath and scanned the crowd. Everyone was listening intently, but it was hard to know what they were thinking. With all of them standing up, so tall, staring down at him, kneeling in this puddle of hallucinatory blood, he felt like he was on trial, like he was being judged.

The gates stayed shut.

Forget about the gates! They won't open! Pull yourself together!

"But there is another choice," Dorin continued. His throat was dry and scratchy and his lips kept sticking together because of the cold. It felt like the air was trying to put a muzzle on him. Or maybe it was the village itself, that 'hunger' flowing through the hearts of his people, riding the breeze like a cloud of poisonous gas. "It's a simple choice. An easy choice. A choice that will cause no bloodshed, no loss of life, and no destruction of self. We can simply stay here and live our lives like we always have. We can live in peace with one another and simply forget. We can forget about the Wolves who have fled from these walls because of our own murderous intentions. We can forget about the Foxes who call the Cora's shadow 'home', just as we do. We can forget it all!"

They stared. They breathed. They fidgeted with their axes, their clubs, their spears. They waited for him to finish.

"You can go to war. You can fight, you can kill, you can die. You can murder, and you can be murdered. Even if you survive, you'll still be dead, just like I was dead after I took Lana's life. You may think it's the only thing you've ever wanted, to feel alive by taking lives, to feed the hunger that has plagued our people for generations, but it's all a lie. That 'hunger' is the real disease here, the real reason for all our misfortune! It was the hunger in our hearts that killed Banno, Garten, Ander, Kadai, and Hyker. It was the hunger that forced our former comrades to flee for their lives. And now, it is the hunger whispering in your ears, telling you that I am insane, that I don't know what I'm talking about, that it will all be worth it, if you can just surrender yourselves and let it guide your bloodlust, everything will finally fall into place and you will finally be happy, that you'll finally find what you've been looking for all your lives. But if that's true... then why am I kneeling here right now, saying the opposite? Why is Aisa, and Denko, and Ivio? I am doing this to tell you all that this pain can be avoided. You can continue to live your lives whole and unbroken. All you need to do is stand down. Throw away your weapons. Go home. Be with your friends, your family, your loved ones. That is how you feed the hunger! That is how you get rid of that empty feeling, by filling it up, not by gouging it even deeper! That is the lesson I learned from Nilia before everything went so... wrong. But it is only now that I think I can fully understand what she was talking about, the difference between 'hunger' and 'love'. Hunger is what drives an animal to kill, but love... love is what drives us to save, and right now, that is what I am trying to do for all of you. I am trying to save you... from becoming like me."

---

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