Home -- Wolv book 3

Seven - Ashes

"Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy."  -   Fitzgerald

Dried leaves crunched beneath my bare feet as the three of us rounded yet another bend in the tracks. I peered through the thin line of trees between us and the railway, squinting in the twilight at them with disdain.

Since we'd found out that Abrams was up here, we'd taken to following the tracks from a distance, skirting along them from within the shelter of the surrounding forest. It made for a bit of a challenging hike; rather than jogging along the flat, gravel rail bed, I'd had to hike over countless fallen trees and numerous boulders that dotted the forest. My two companions, while much better suited to traveling in the rough, weren't fairing much better than I--it hadn't taken long for their fur to get plastered with dirt and mud. With the last of the snow nearly melted, the ground was wet and muddy, making for a filthy trek.

But, on the brighter side...if anyone was flying around overhead, they would only see the railways tracks. The three of us would be safely tucked out of sight from the prying eyes above, beneath the pine trees.

Daanis leapt over a boulder and stopped, muttering under her breath. "I think you misjudged this distance, Humfrey!" she growled, peering at the tracks resting not fifty feet away. "You said that the radio station was close to the community!"

I held up my hands in a shrug. "I guess I was wrong. I still had a vehicle last time around, things went a lot quicker!"

"We've been following these bloody tracks for three days. Trust me, that is a lot of distance!"

I rolled my eyes, and climbed up the boulder after Mingan. "Believe me, I'm aware of how far we've walked," I muttered. Even if I wasn't aware, my body would be sure to remind me that I'd been hiking far too long for it's liking. Every step was accompanied by a tight, cramping pain in my heels and the thighs of my legs. My knees ached with a pain that would only disappear if I crouched down, bending my legs into more or less the position they would be in once I'd shifted.

The change truly was setting in much faster this time around. In only a few days, I'd already reached the end stages of the shift--all that was left to happen was the brutal, unpleasant portion of the change, where my bones and body would break and break again until they'd assumed a new shape.

I'd been feeling everything slowly get worse over the past few days. Simple aches and pains had turned into violent cramps; my stomach had been demanding far more food than I could provide, leaving me dizzy and blurry-eyed. I'd eventually passed out from hunger, just last night. My vision had turned white, the bite on my arm had burned white hot...and then, next thing I knew, I was waking up to Daanis holding a bloody piece of meat over my jaws. She'd caught and killed a pathetically anemic caribou, which had had just enough useful meat on it to wake me up.

I climbed down the opposite side of the boulder, following Daanis in the dusk. I ran my tongue over my teeth as I trailed her--my jaw had begun to really ache over the past day; it was as though there was a pressure building up within my skull and my bones, just waiting for me to stop fighting and let it out.

I slipped down a muddy embankment, stumbling down onto level ground next to Mingan. The grey wolv leapt back as I ground to a halt, spraying his fur with even more mud.

"Come on!" he snapped, shaking his fur out.

"Sorry."

"RRR! Whatever!" The two of us settled back into a jog behind Daanis. In truth, Mingan was the one doing the jogging; I was simply trying to will my legs forward as fast as they'd go. I was oh so close to finally wolfing out, and I knew it full well...but I desperately hoped that my friends didn't. The fact was enough to scare the daylights out of me; I didn't want any of their miserable sympathy slapped on top of that.