We Walk As Wolves

Chapter 21

Cass

What the bloody hell am I doing?

Cass stood in the middle of the Lost Forest, motionless save for the rise - though it felt more like a strangled heave - and fall of his chest. He stared at the long sword swinging from Dells's fingertips as the boy paced in front of him, not because he'd determined Dells wouldn't gouge him with it, but to simply keep his eyes away from the sharper one clenched in his own hand.

The Lost Ones stood to his right, the knives Dells had given them curled in their palms. With their long black cloaks abandoned in the cottage and the reflection of the sun's bright smile on the barks of the trees, Cass could see the fragility of their skin. They were all so pale, sickly pale. He wondered if this was the first time their skin had touched sunlight, even if it was indirectly. The Lost Forest seemed to swallow up the -

"Kid, are you listening to me?"

Cass stumbled backward with a yelp as a sharp prick lanced up his side. His eyes darted up, and he caught Dells's hard stare inches away from his own, the end of his sword sticking out of his side.

Cass swatted the blade away, blanching at the drops of red seeping through the fabric. "What the hell? "

Dells let the blade slide through his grip, but his eyes, bored and relatively uninterested, traveled down Cass's body until they landed on the suffocating grip he had on the hilt of his own sword. "Don't strangle the thing."

Cass tried to relax his knuckles, but his side burned and his head started to pound, like thick water clogged in his ears and nose. "I've never held a sword before."

"Clearly."

"It's kind of the same as a knife," Cove said, throwing his in the air and catching it with the other hand. "Just heavier."

"It has to be free in order to do its job," Dells explained. "You stem it, it stems you." When Cass stood there, examining the length of the weapon, a muscle near Dells's eye started to twitch. "Just give it a little practice swing. Like hitting a baseball."

"Dells, if I do that I'm gonna cut my own hand off."

"So help me, Cass, if you don't swing the damn sword -"

"Okay."

He released his grip on the hilt with a trembling breath, testing the balance of the sword in his palm, then gently rocked it to the left. It swung out, he rotated his wrist to keep it away from his body, then watched as it slowly came back to a rest at his hip.

He didn't think Dells had blinked. "All limbs accounted for?"

Cass rolled his eyes, wanted to tell Dells to get on with the training, but the glint of the boy's sword and the impatient glare in his eye told him it would be wise to remain quiet.

"Killing the Thief is your priority, yes. But he's not the only player. Back where you're from, people warn you to watch your back." Dells shook his head. "But here, you need to watch everywhere. Because everywhere is already watching you. Keep one eye on the Thief, and one eye," he tapped the ground with the tip of his sword, but didn't allow it to penetrate the dirt, "always on the Island."

Cass frowned. "I thought the island was on our side?"

"There is no side," Dells said, his tone hard. "The Island has a mind of its own that even it doesn't understand. It thinks, it breaths, it has a heartbeat. And it doesn't always keep our best interests in mind." He flipped his sword until it rested on the back of his neck, circling his arms over the top to stretch out his shoulders. "As much as I'd like to tell you that what the Island does is of its own accord, it still has pieces attached to the Thief. They have strings that connect them, and those strings have been corrupted. You may be the Equal and you may be trying to save it, but those strings are very much alive. And they're the parts of the Island that don't care what happens to you. They care what happens to it. So not only are you up against the Thief, you're up against the dirt you're battling on."