Too many of us are focused on the blood. Henrey is on the ground, his wolf’s massive jaws clamped around his right arm and chest. He’s being shaken like a rag doll.
Blood splatters across the disturbed earth in a gory arc. Too much of it. The perfect cohesion of a Bonded pair turning in on itself, tearing itself apart.
But I have to fight through it. I must, for my sake. Forallof our sakes. Even for Henrey.
Refocusing on the raging stream of consciousness in my mind, I scrape the ruins back together, pulling the shattered halves of our pack back into cohesion. Anassa helps. Her growling, authoritative influence streaks across everyone’s minds.
It’s a tactical nightmare. My packmates scramble to salvage our strategy, calculating casualty projections, analyzing how this disastrous breach in our defense will affect the entire defensive structure.
Something slots into place in my mind. Aneedunlike any I’ve ever felt before, backed up by the emotions of countless packmates.
To close the wound. To reinforce our ranks. Toprotectmy pack.
The Daemos forces surge toward the gap Henrey and his packmates were meant to defend. The other Phylax meet them as best they can, wolves butting heads and blades clashing. My pack are successfully processing Kryptos information still, which warns me that the reinforcement in the north is starting to leave the east more vulnerable.
But we have no choice. The moment Henrey went down, Daemos gained too much ground.
The urgency of strategic command burns in my veins, but beneath it all is an icy unease. It creeps over me, acute enough to chill the electric connection of the pack bond. All because of a simple truth.
Henrey is going to die today.
Around the arena, the direwolves are becoming agitated. Howls echo off the stone walls. Frontline clashes become rougher, drawing blood and tearing fur. And I can’t… look away from him.
He’s still alive, still struggling with his wolf, but going pale, losing too much blood. His face is set in a horrifying grimace, his free arm pushing at his wolf’s muzzle as if he might free himself. But his right arm is far beyond the point of recovery.
This was Henrey’s dream. His lifelong hope was to make it here, to this arena, to partake in these Trials and become Bonded. He made it to the very last task.
And now his dream is tearing him apart.
Some of the Phylax riders around Henrey are backing up. One desperately attempts to remain mounted while his wolf snaps and nearly entirely rolls to tear at the Daemos wolf in front of it. The heightened emotion and savagery are fueling the Daemos wolves as much as they’re compromising the rest of us, as if the combined scent of blood and their own fear is strengthening them.
There’s still undue strain on the Strategos pack bond, but we’re starting to find clarity again. Through it, I know that the eastern side is sparsely defended now. And I know that the north is about to buckle and give way.
If we don’t act immediately, the Trial will end in complete failure.
Through the chaos of fur and fear, Henrey’s eyes find mine, the look freezing me in place—pure agony, mixed with desperate pleading.
His lips form a single word, clear even across the field.Please.
My heart tears in two, even as Anassa’s strategic mind delivers heavy, impossible truths to me.
First: our defensive line cannot be salvaged while Henrey’s wolf rampages.
Second: his wolfcannotbe stopped without killing it, which would also kill Henrey.
And third: a quick death now would be mercy, compared to being torn apart slowly.
Someone has to break formation to do this. Someone has to sacrifice their position in the strategic array to end this.
I make my decision quickly. I’m the Alpha; if anyone should make tough calls and risk themselves, it’s me. Anassa is fast, and she is merciless. And I’m…
I’m his friend.
“Hold strategic formation,” I project through the unity bond. “I’m breaking ranks.”
My pack’s collective acknowledgment shivers through me. They’re already recalculating for my absence—who will compensate for the gap my eyes and mind leave behind? I leave it in their hands.
Anassa and I turn to streak across the field, ducking under blades and dodging teeth, and several Kryptos wolves move with me, keeping eyes on me to communicate my movements. My packmates flow into the gap I left behind and reshape themselves around my actions.
