It takes him a moment too long, ears straining to hear the pups, for Basuin to recognize Kensy’s words. He turns, the sound of something sharp rattling around, to see Kensy fiddling with a metal tin.
“What?” There’s no reason for them to stir a den. These pups will die without their mother. A suffering death of starvation if a predator doesn’t sniff them out first.
Kensy is silent as he pulls out a piece of flint and draws his dagger from his boot. There are paper slips in the tinderbox he holds. Every soldier carries one around; Basuin has one himself. He feels the pacing of paws from beneath the earth under his palm, the anxiety running like a creek through the dirt.
And it hits him too late. Too late.
“Those gods of yours refuse to talk,” Kensy says, carving his blade against the flint. Shavings fall onto the paper. “So I’ll make them.” He strikes his knife against the stone now and it sparks, catching flame on the edge of the paper.
“Commander—” Basuin reaches, but Kensy flicks it toward the tree. The pups cry, a grating sound that burrows deep in Basuin’s eardrums. The flame races across the base of the tree, rounding the entrance of the den and catching on the dried grass circling the roots. It’s not enough, at least. The tree won’t catch.
But Kensy is smarter than that, and Basuin should know this by now.
“A perfect time to test out our new weapons,” Kensy says, pulling what looks like a hand cannon from his belt. But it has a flintlock trigger attached, bigger than on a rifle, something Basuin has never seen before. The weaponry that Ha’riste engineers build, it all smells of steel and gunpowder. This, too.
“What are you doing?” Basuin shouts, widening his stance and growing large—nothing threatens Kensy, nothing at all, but Basuin palms the dagger at his hip. “Kensy, by the gods—”
“What gods?” Kensy growls, his blue eyes hardened into the same steel sitting in his hand. “What gods are there? If they won’t reveal themselves to a godly boy like you,” Kensy spits, “then I’ll give them a show they can’t refuse.”
Basuin is too stunned to move. His mother—gods above, his mother. Kensy twists the barrel of the hand cannon, pulls it back with both hands aimed at the tree, and strikes the trigger back. In a flash, the forest is alight with fire, flames licking and curling white hot at the hanging branches and eating at the green leaves. The heat of it pushes Basuin back, his arms covering his face.
Fire races up the tree’s trunk, and Basuin screams Kensy’s name. Beneath the ground, the wolf pups scream in harmony with his own bellows, their claws scratching at the earth their mother dug them a home from.
In the wavering heat, Kensy stands unmoving, staring at the den. The cannon hangs from his hand, his fingertips singed black with gunpowder and burn blisters.
“Do your gods answer acts of cruelty?” Kensy asks, and he turns, a rueful grin on his face as he locks eyes with Basuin.
Basuin hears two choices—the crackle of bark as it splits under the sticky heat Kensy’s created, and the animals still yelping as their home begins to burn. He doesn’t think. He’s never thought about anything on the battlefield. He moves.
Lunging, his hands grasp at the tree’s roots as he dives into the fire. It’s hot. The flames beckon sweat from the sides of his temples like a god beckons worship from those at their feet. Fire licks at the leather of his armor. The sound of it all is maddening. Crackle, pop, roar.
Smoke is coiling in his lungs and the hair on his right arm has been singed off as the fire continues to grow above him. Basuin reaches into the den but he’s too broad to fit. Cursing, he rears back and strips his armor off, throwing it aside, his mother’s godstone rocking against his chest. He’ll kill Kensy for this. Fuck his duty, his oath.
Fuck whatever camaraderie they had. He’ll kill Kensy after he saves these pups.
Again, he tries, and again, he fails. “Come here,” he growls at the pups, fear beading across his forehead with the sheen of sweat. His heart thunders in his chest, lungs working too fast. “Please,” he adds, as if they can understand him. But they are burrowed deep in their den, crying for their mother who lies in the forest already dead. They’ll be next.
Basuin angles himself and shoves one arm down into the den hole, hand searching for the pups. His vision is blurry and black, ears straining to pinpoint their yelps. He reaches so far, stretches so far that it aches his muscles and he feels his joints lock up. He might dislocate his shoulder. The fire flicks at him.
Go away, Black Wolf, it warns him, blistering his skin.
“Please,” he begs.
With quick, jerky motions, Basuin’s fingers dig at the hole, scooping away dirt until it collapses. The earth here is not fragile—it’s strong, but he’s stronger. The fire is growing, tree completely ablaze, but he can’t stop.
His hands worked Isaniel’s breast over and over and over as the wind howled at him. If he shattered bone, he was unsure of it. But he kept going, and going, and going until Isaniel spit up blood and it dribbled from the corner of his lips.
The Blacksalt Sea, Isaniel said. You’re coming with me.
So he digs and he digs and he digs, fingernails bloody and raw, coughing up smoke the way Isaniel coughed up blood. He digs until he can no longer dig, until the flames make him hiss where they kiss his skin, until the den entrance is big enough for him to fit through.
Basuin reaches again, into the hole, and there is nothing but darkness. Then, a sharp bite to his searching hands.
“I’ve got you.” He grits his teeth, relief short-lived. “I’ve got you, c’mere—”
He wraps his long fingers around what he can, pinching the scruff of three bodies. He drags them toward the entrance even as they yelp and scream and scratch at his hands, the pain dampened by the fire that bites into him.
Their fur is soft against his chest as he gathers them there, pressing them to him as they squirm and struggle in his grasp. A paw gets tangled in the leather string around his neck, fighting for survival.
