The two hunters holding them pushed Mura to their knees, and began to wrap their wrists in heavy, sinew-made ropes. Kuto finished the knot and yanked on the slack, jerking Mura’s shoulders painfully. Sera got to work on their feet, and soon their hands and ankles were bound like an animal ready to be roasted over an open flame.

  “What is wrong with you?” Mura hissed at the still watching T’aarak. “Fuck the contest—they’re our people! How can you sit here while they fight for their lives—where’s your damned loyalty?”

  T’aarak’s smile slipped, a darkness crossing over his face that almost made Mura regret the words they’d spoken. The older hunter took a half-step forward and crouched down over them, uncomfortably close.

  “My loyalty?” he said, low and with enough of an edge that Mura couldn’t help but lean back from the man.

  T’aarak flexed his gloved hands, clenching and unclenching his fists as he took deep breaths. Then he reached out and grabbed Mura by the face, fingers and thumb digging into their cheeks, and tilted their head so that Mura had no choice but to look in his eyes.

  “You have no idea the lengths I would go to for my tribe. The things I am going to do—the things I have already done—all to keep my people safe. You—”

  T’aarak sucked in a breath and pulled back suddenly, dropping Mura’s head into the snow and pinching the bridge of his nose. The others all watched in stony silence, expressions hard as stone, and Mura realised with a start that they were all still on T’aarak’s side. Content to watch their kind fight for their lives until T’aarak decided otherwise.

  “I understand you think you’re the best choice. That you could be a better Chief than T’aakshi, and that your leadership would mean our people being safer. What I don’t understand is how any of you can sit here and watch while wolves tear strips out of our kin!”

  Even now, prone in the snow as Mura was, they could see the ongoing battle below. T’aakshi’s spear flashed and flickered around the formation of slower fighters towards any wolf that came close, as S’aari loosed arrows at a steady pace. The group of hunters and the wolf pack traded blood for blood, T’aakshi slowing enough as his power ran out and exhaustion set in, that the wolves could occasionally make it past the deadly arcs and thrusts of his spear to the hunters beyond.

  A swipe of claws here, a grazing of teeth there—none of the beasts were fast enough to land a decisive blow on any of the hunters before the danger of biting metal chased them off, but Mura could see from here that was not the intent. The wolves were fighting a battle of attrition. Their number was thrice that of the hunters, and as long as they could continue to draw blood, they would eventually exhaust them and claim their prize.

  Mura turned their attention back to T’aarak, who had calmed himself, and now watched him with a strangely pensive look upon his face.

  “You know, Mura, it’s strange. All those years ago, when we carried you away from the burning ruins of that Su’kenai village, I was the most vocally opposed to allowing you into our home. How we could ever accept one of those animals into our home was beyond me. But you have proved me wrong. You are Su’roi—perhaps not in blood, but certainly in spirit.”

  Mura ground their teeth, neck straining, trying to keep their face away from the biting cold of the snow-covered ground. Mention of their birth would ever be a sore spot for Mura, and T’aarak mentioning it had them straining at their restraints with fury; only for the flame of anger to flicker and die at T’aarak’s final words. Only Shi and S’aahiri had ever really definitely stated that they believed Mura belonged. That they were Su’roi. For T’aarak of all people to say it, and to say it now out of all the times he could have…

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “What’s your point,” Mura ground out, with none of the venom they’d intended to lace the words with.

  T’aarak sighed, turning towards the battle below. “Apologising has never been one of my strengths. It was hard enough apologising to T’aakshi after what I did at the shrine.”

  He looked back at Mura, and Mura’s eyes widened at the sorrow they could see in the older man. It seemed to bear down on him, its oppressive weight visible in every age-line on his face and in the way his eyes were never quite able to meet Mura’s own. His shoulders, while broad and powerful, were slumped ever so slightly, with only a hint of a hunch. All of this T’aarak had kept hidden with thick furs and constant movement.

  But now Mura looked—really looked—it was all there, visible to anybody who cared to see. The broken man that had attacked T’aakshi at the shrine has not been repaired; merely disguised behind a veneer of the man T’aarak used to be. The man they all expected to see when they looked at him.

  “My point, I suppose, is that I wish I had known you better, sooner. Trusted your loyalty sooner. Perhaps if I had, you could have understood. Perhaps you still will, when all is said and done.”

  “What could I have understood?”

  T’aarak smiled, faint and joyless. “It no longer matters. My path—our path—is set. What I do, I do for our people. I know you do not want to hear this, but you don’t know the things that I do. A little blood spilled now, will save us rivers in the times to come.”

  Mura’s mouth had gone dry. He really meant to let them die. They all did. That alone was a terrifying enough thought for Mura, but it was his justification that had stood the hairs on their arms on end, and his words ran around Mura’s head like a frenzied puppy. A little blood spilled now will save us rivers. What did they know that has driven them this far?

  Below them, the battle raged on to its inevitable conclusion, as Mura and the rest watched from their safe vantage point above. Mura could see the tension in T’aarak’s party. Fists clung to spears like a drowning man clung to driftwood, as though loosening their grip even a little would break their resolve to follow T’aarak’s plan, and send them scampering down to the fight.

  Then S’era gasped, and Mura’s eyes darted back to the battle, and their heart leapt into their throat. T’aakshi had fallen. He crumpled to the floor, hands clutching at his head, and screamed. The wolves saw their opportunity, several at once darting to eliminate the fallen prey. This, in turn, forced the hunters to break their formation to protect T’aakshi, surrounding him in a wide circle.

  Now though, they were vulnerable. They fought off the first wave of wolves, but the creatures could sense that their victory was at hand, and quickly rallied for another strike. Mura could feel the tears pooling at the corner of their eyes, and more than a little desperately tested their restraints whilst trying to inch themselves forward, until boot pressed into their back, forcing the wind from their chest.

  “You were told to be still,” Kuto ground out, but even the grizzled veteran’s voice seemed without conviction.

  Mura gasped for breath, spluttering as they breathed in snow as well as air, and forced their eyes upwards toward T’aarak, who himself looked as shocked by the turn of events as the rest, and to the battle. Another wave of attacks broke against the spears of Shi’s hunters, but was immediately followed by another, and then another.

  Without T’aakshi’s ability to strike at speed, the wolves had lost their fear of steel and were coming at the group at far greater numbers, until, to Mura’s horror, one hunter fell beneath the weight of two wolves attacking at once.

  At the same time, the weight was lifted from Mura’s back as Kuto surged forward, making for the route down below. T’aarak was on him in moments, grabbing at his furs at yanking him close.

  “The plan is to hold, damn you!” he snarled.

  “Gods, T’aarak. The boy is unconscious—that’s all we need! There’s no need for the others to lose their lives!”

  T’aarak hesitated, loosening his grip and glancing back. Below, T’aallin had put his spear through the skull of one of the wolves pinning the fallen hunter down, and a follow-up swipe sent the other scattering away. It was Hota on the floor, and even at this distance, Mura could see too much crimson pooling around him onto the pure-white snow. Far too much.

  “Damn it—you all know what we need. Save who you can, but remember our goal. Remember what’s at stake. Move, hunters! Move!”

  T’aarak darted off at a run, spear held high and the others followed, leaving Mura bound and alone at the cliff edge, able only to watch what was to come.