Moth

CHAPTER NINETEEN: IN THE WOLF'S JAW

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IN THE WOLF'S JAW

The moon shone full when Yorashi, alpha of the Chanku Pack, summoned the council of riders.

They had left their elders, mothers, and cubs in the crater. Ten thousand warriors made for the mountain, each astride a nightwolf--the horde of Chanku in all its might, clad in armor and bearing their blades and arrows. Every year, as the wolf's constellation leaped overhead and the full moon shone, they rode to the mountain in all their gear of war. Every year they mustered to hear their alpha speak.

Only this year, Okado thought as he rode, everything changes.

His alpha rode ahead of him, clad in steel scales and a fur cloak, his weapons across his back. Okado rode behind the leader, and Suntai--his fellow beta--rode at his side, her chin raised and her lips locked in a snarl, mimicking the growls of the beast below her. Like him she wore steel scales and a wolf's head helmet. Like him she bore a katana, a dagger, a bow and arrows, and a shield emblazoned with a moonstar.

You are my mate, he thought. He looked at her, admiring the lightning tattoos on her cheeks, the golden flecks in her indigo eyes, and the curves of her strong, lithe body, the body of a warrior. But soon you will be my queen rider.

When Okado stared over his shoulder, he saw the Chanku Pack cover the mountainside, riding behind their leaders. For the first year since the Chanku warriors had been banished from Pahmey, forced to live feral in the wilderness, the pack numbered ten thousand riders. During three hundred years of exile, they had grown from outcasts into an army. Their wolves growled, the moonlight lighting their fangs and red eyes. Upon their backs, riders held blades and bows, a horde grown too large for a humble crater, a horde that could sweep across Eloria. The omegas of the pack trailed behind, the older and weaker riders, but even an omega of Chanku was worth ten Pahmey soldiers.

"This will be my army," Okado whispered under his breath. "This horde will bring us glory. This horde will win back our birthright, the great city that should be ours."

He returned his eyes forward. The mountain loomed above them, glimmering black against the starry sky. Shaped as a wolf's head, the halved peak silently howled at the moon. Upon Wolfjaw Mountain the future of the pack would be sealed.

They climbed for a long time, warriors hungry for meat and blood and glory. They rode along old stone paths they had been treading for generations--since the first exiled warriors had come here for prayer. When finally they reached the mountaintop and stood between the great stone jaws, Okado looked north.

He saw it there upon the horizon, a distant patch of light like a fallen star.

"Pahmey," he whispered.

He had never been to that city. He had never seen it from any closer. In their exile, only here upon the mountain, standing between the stone jaws of the great wolf, could they see their distant homeland.

Suntai wheeled her wolf around and stood at his side. She stared at the horizon with him, eyes solemn, and the wind ruffled her long white hair.

"Our home," she whispered. "The home that was stolen from us."

Okado stared at the northern light. Suntai's ancestors had ruled Pahmey; she was descended from the Chanku nobles, great warriors who had built and governed the city. Their blood ran through her veins, pure and strong.

My blood is lowborn, Okado thought. I am from Oshy, a humble village. But that blood burns with fire. It made me strong. It made me stronger than all in this pack.