Treaty Bound

Chapter 9: A Midnight Run

   Hours of uncomfortable silence had given me a lot of time alone in my head, and with the wolf, but It had taken me almost no time at all to come to my decision. However, getting the wolf to first understand that decision and then agree to help me took a lot longer. Time well spent, I thought as I walked almost soundlessly through the dried yellow leaves littering the ground with a grace I never would have had on my own.

   As we got farther and farther from the light of the fire I was again amazed by how well I could see with only the light of an almost full moon to guide me. The leaves had faded from yellow to a mostly light gray standing out from the black of the ground and the darker grey of the tree trunks. The light of the moon seemed to outline everything in a silvery glow that I had not taken the time to notice the night before. The world around me seemed eerily beautiful.

   Once I was far enough away from the others I quickly stripped off my tunic and pants, not wanting to lose them or get them any dirtier than they already were, I hung them on a branch where I hoped I could find them when I returned.

   "I am ready," I whispered to myself. I didn't need to say it out loud but part of me needed to hear the words, if I was honest with myself I was far from ready.

   The wolf pushed against my mind and this time I let him take over without a fight. Again, in that brief moment, before the wolf took over, I felt the agony of my bones as they bent and snapped under the stress of the transformation. It took everything I had not to scream out into the night. As quickly as it began the pain suddenly faded away until it was no longer my own and for the second time in my life I had become a passenger in my own body. The pain I had felt, along with the other sensations of the change felt distant. The way you may grab your own hand in pain when you see someone else smack their finger with a hammer.

   As my jaw stretched into a wolf's muzzle I understood why both Luke and Bear had not screamed in pain when they had changed. They must have tamed their wolves while I still had to persuade mine to work with me. My other half let me know exactly what he thought about being tamed without the use of a single word as we took off running to the east; the world around me blurred into streaks of white, gray, and black as we ran. He must have had no trouble seeing what was coming because we jumped over and slid under the thick hanging branches of the oaks without losing a bit of speed.

   Even though I hate to admit it, I was terrified. I would have closed my eyes and waited for it to be over, but I didn't have eyes to close anymore, so I had to watch. Thought It took me longer than I will admit I soon found I was enjoying the run, even glad that I had been forced to watch. It's hard to stay frightened when for hours you hit nothing bigger than a twig. Once the fear was gone it was exhilarating. My muscles seemed to sing with energy as they stretched and contracted with each long stride. The completely new sensation of wind blowing through my fur was strange but pleasant; the same could not be said for the air rushing up into my nose. All that air carrying thousands of scents was even more overwhelming than it had been the night before. Remembering how it felt I stopped trying to sort through what I smelled on my own and let the wolf sort out all the scents until they dwindled down to only what was important, food.

   The Whitetail deer, wild boars, rabbits, and other animals small and large ran in terror to get out of our path. They were all blurs to me but I could smell the fear they left hanging in the air and it was making us hungry. The thought crossed my mind that maybe Lily had not been joking about what the smell of fear does to werewolves and I lost my appetite. The wolf was not bothered by what I was thinking at all and I feared he would not be able to resist his hunger and go chasing after one of the animals as they ran as if taunting him to chase them.

   To my relief, he never even slowed his pace to consider going after one. Focused completely on his goal he ran faster than I had thought possible and yet it seemed like he kept gaining speed. It was not until we ran headlong into a wall of stench so putrid that he was forced to slow his pace to clear his head. It smelled of unwashed clothes and rotting garbage and if I had a stomach at the time I would have been sick. The wolf knew the sent was hours old, but night had fallen long ago and the moon was high in the sky now. If they had made camp when we did then they could still be very close. I have no idea how he could stand the smell but somehow he followed the scent of the ogres at a fast trot.

   Even moving at a fast pace I noticed that each paw was carefully placed among the dry leaves to make the least amount of noise possible. I had never thought much about how fast or stealthy a wolf could be before that night. As I sat in camp making my plans in silence I had fully expected this to take all night and had even been willing to accept Luke's anger when he found me still making my way back. That was even if I could manage to sneak into the ogres camp and get back out with my life. Now I was sure that I could get in and out and be back in time to possibly get a nap in before morning.

   The wolf suddenly slowed to a crawl as we dropped low to the ground. At first, I could not see what in the patterns of grays and blacks had made him so cautious, and then slowly the sharp angles of the square framed cart stood out among the round curves and bent angles of the forest's branches. As we moved even closer another shape moved before us, The enormous round belly of an ogre rising and falling in the slow rhythm of someone who was asleep.

   Seeing all we needed to see the wolf turned and moved silently away from the ogre's camp. For the next part of my plan, I would need human hands and I could not risk a stray scream of pain waking one of the sleeping giants as I changed. The wolf cleared half a mile or more in a matter of seconds before stopping in a small clearing. Turning in a tight circle he scented the air and deciding this was a safe spot sat and waited.

   After several minutes of doing nothing, I could tell that he was getting annoyed with me and the feeling was mutual. I didn't understand why we were just sitting here wasting time when I needed to change back to human. Yes, you need to change back not me, was the impression I got from him but I still was not sure what that meant. Was he saying that this was my problem? That he was not going to help me anymore?

   "You cannot back out now wolf, I need your help," I yelled at him or I would have if I had a mouth.

   You need to change not me, was all I believed I was understanding from him in his way of speaking without words. I was quickly getting better at understanding his way of communicating and yet I still unsure of what he wanted me to do.

   "We do not have time for this. I need to change now," I put all my frustration into the thought this time.

   All I got back again was, you need to change not me. Third time must really be a charm because this time something clicked and I understood or at least I thought I understood what he was trying to tell me. I needed to force the change somehow, but I had never done it before. Until now the wolf always pushed for it and I either fought back or let him.

   "I wish to be human, I wish to be human, I wish to be human, " I had no idea a wolf could sigh until that moment. "Well, how am I supposed to know how this works?"

   Dried leaves crushed under his body as the wolf laid down resting his head on paws. His way of saying he had reached his limit of dealing with my ignorance and I was on my own.

   "Fine, then I will do this on my own. "

   He let out a snort that sounded remarkably like a laugh.

   I thought back to the other changes that I could remember. How it had felt just before the change happened and what had the wolf done. How had he forced the change to happen?

   Nothing that's what. He was a floating conscience with no body and no way to do anything but think. That was it! He had to think something to make it happen but what?

   I thought hard, replaying the changes over and over in my mind but I couldn't remember any of his thoughts. The changes just seemed to happen with no effort on his part, but that could not be true. He had asked me to let him take over when I first changed, but by that time the change was already well underway.

   The moon had moved a considerable distance by the time a useful thought finally came to me. The wolf twitching his ears about, listing for any danger that could be sneaking up on us, brought back a memory of something that happened when I was a child. I had seen a man wiggle his ears to make a group of kids laugh. They had all runaway laughing, but I found the ability fascinating not funny. I had spent the rest of the day looking at my reflection in the river trying to make my ears move with no luck at all. When I got home that night my mother sensed how disappointed I was and asked what was wrong. After I had explained about the man and what he could do and how I had tried all day I had almost expected my mother to laugh at me. To my surprise, she had smiled at me and wiggled her ears.

   I immediately begged her to teach me the trick but she told me that it was not a trick. She went on to explain that you simply had to learn to use a muscle you had never used before. She told me to pull up and down on my ear till I could feel that muscle and once I knew it was there I would be able to control it just like any other muscle in your body.

   The wolf shifted his ears around and I got the impression he was saying look it's easy. It had not been easy for me though. I spent the next week walking around the house pulling my ears. My father thought that I had gone crazy but my mother had encouraged me to keep trying. Then one day, to my surprise, I had finally done it. I ran to my mother and showed her what I could do and all she did was smile and wiggle her ear back. From that day on it has been mine and my mother's special way of saying so many things to each other without needing to say a word.

   I took a deep breath and pushed the now sad memory aside. I had to figure out how to flex a muscle I had never used or felt before and I didn't have a week to learn how this time. I thought back on my previous changes again but this time I knew what to look for. Unlike with my ear it was not a muscle but neither was it any particular thought, but something in between. I pulled on it with my mind and the wolf sat up expecting the change but nothing happened. I pulled again concentrating hard and pulled again, and to my surprise, the change slowly started to happen.

   This change was not quick and fluid like Luke's or Bear's had been and nothing like my other changes. The stretching and tearing of each muscle and bone was prolonged and the pain along with it. Screams tore from my throat till it was so shredded that no more sound would come from it. It was a slow torture that, to me, lasted for what felt like years.

    I am not sure how long I lay on the cold ground naked and shaking among the dry leaves. It was neither the coolness of dirt below me nor the chill of the night air that made me shiver. I could feel the cold on my exposed skin but that was as deep as it went. No, the shaking was coming from someplace deep inside of me and it felt like it was never going to end.

   But it had too, I couldn't stop now, I had to finish what I had started. I am not sure if it was the wolf or myself, perhaps both, but the thought gave me the strength of will I need to keep going. Slowly I pushed myself onto my knees and then eventually up onto my feet. By the time I felt stable enough to try walking the shaking had gone and had taken all the pain with it, even my throat seemed to have completely healed. Wiping the tears from my eyes I started trudging back toward the cart and the old woman I hoped was still alive.