It was the strange dog who spoke up. “That sounds good, but what are we meant to do? Chained dogs and collared wolves, against the Wild and monsters and… gods?”
Jack still didn’t know. His head was full of a sick storm of fear and anger. It would have to be enough.
“We do what we’ve always done, what we did to the Sannock.” He felt a chill on the back of his neck as he said their name—murdered by wolves, butchered for their blood and meat. It was a deed to be ashamed of, not to hold up for people to rally behind, but Jack would use what they had. The Sannock, truly dead now the stagnant resection of the Wild they’d been trapped in had split open, were past being hurt by it. “We hunt them, we bring them to bay, and then we kill them.”
It would have worked better on wolves. The words would have tickled their pride, and the excitement would have spread through the Pack like contagion. They’d have howled for him, a new catechism to add to the canon. Dogs were more cautious. They liked to sniff before they leaped. Maybe that was their nature.
It still lifted a few chins and lowered some shoulders as the dogs glanced from him to each other. Only Tom glared sullenly from the shadows and clung stubbornly to his faith in the prophets’ half-promises. It was fragile, but it was faith.
Of course, it was Gregor who couldn’t resist the urge to foul it. He had never been able to leave well enough alone, even when it was in his best interest. His voice cut roughly through the uncertain silence.
“Sounds great, but…,” he said. Jack turned and scowled at Gregor, who lifted his chin and smirked at him. “Maybe we should get out of here first?”
Jack skinned his lips back from his teeth in a grin as an idea crystallized in his brain. The desire to spite his brother maybe wasn’t the best source of inspiration, but he’d take what he could get.
“Why?” he asked. Gregor caught up a second later and grimaced, caught between understanding and their old, comfortable resentment. Jack turned to sweep his gaze across the dogs as they listened. “Let the prophets come. They’re going to take us exactly where we want to go.”
Despite their wariness, the ferocity of his words caught the dogs up. Teeth flashed in quick, determined smiles, and they nodded grimly as they traded looks in the dim light. Maybe, Jack thought with a flicker of grim humor, he wasn’t the only one who found odd comfort in the old habits of hating Gregor.
The scuff of boots on dirt behind made him turn. Gregor met his eyes for a second and then looked away.
“You have the dogs,” he said. “But to be Numitor, you’ll need the wolves.”
A ROUGHhand hooked through the ring that collared Jack and dragged him up out of the dark. He squinted at the sudden transition to the snow-bright morning glare and lifted his arm to shade his eyes. The world was white, the sky starched-looking with the next fall, and fresh, crisp sheets of white snow lay over everything. The prophet who had ahold of Jack had pockmarked cheeks and ginger hair that crept back from his furrowed brow. He slapped Jack’s arm out of the way and looked surprised as he recognized his face.
“See?” Lachlan blurted as he stepped forward. “I told you it was them. The Numitor’s bastards.”
Gregor laughed at him as he was dragged up out of the hole. “Your parents get wed in a church, Lach?” he mocked. “Yer ma wear a veil over her fur?”
Color flushed up Lach’s face, freckles sprayed in dark splatters over his forehead and across his cheeks. He stepped in and backhanded Gregor across the face, hard enough to jar Gregor loose from the prophet’s grip and lay him out on the snow.
“Shut up,” Lachlan spat down at him. He kicked Gregor in the ribs and then the stomach. “You aren’t even a wolf anymore, and you were barely a man before, so who the fuck do you think you are to look down on me?”
Jack lunged at Lach, but the prophet who had him had a better grip. The metal dug in across Jack’s throat and split open the slice on his throat as the prophet yanked him back and then kicked his feet out from under him and put him on his knees.
“He’s the Old Man’s son,” Jack spat. He wrapped his fingers around the collar to pull it away from his throat. The nicest thing he’d ever said about Gregor, but whatever Jack felt about his brother, he was a golden son in comparison to Lach. “He’s my brother. And he’s more wolf than you. More man too.”
Lach stamped down on Gregor’s stomach. The impact made Gregor grunt, the breath shocked out of him, and curl up around the pain.
“He’s nothing,” Lach said. He bent down to grab Gregor’s collar and pull him up off the ground. Spit strung his lips together like stitches as he snarled into Gregor’s face. “The prophets will kill you, and I’ll lead the Pack into the Winter. It’smyname they’ll remember.”
Gregor snapped his head forward, and his forehead smacked against Lach’s face hard enough to smash his nose in a welter of blood and pulped tissue. The pale, freckled skin puffed and purpled as it swelled, and Lach yelped in surprise as he staggered back. Blood snorted and spluttered between his fingers as he tried to fumble the mess back into place.
It would heal, but noses were like joints—it would heal but that didn’t mean it would be pretty.
“They’ll remember you were lacking,” Gregor jeered. When he grinned, it showed bloodstained teeth. “Lacking Givens, the Prophets’ Puppet.”
Lach made a stuffy, inchoate noise of rage and let go of his half-molded nose to jerk his arm back and punch Gregor. His knuckles bounced off the side of Gregor’s face as he turned his head to the side to save his nose.
“I should never have listened to that bitch. I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Lach raged. “I could have made it last all night.”
The cackle of low, dirty laughter that escaped Gregor despite his swollen eye didn’t need any explanation. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”
Jack laughed. Someone else tittered with a stifled burst of repressed humor. Lach kicked Gregor again and turned to glare at the people who’d gathered to watch. Da’s inner circle was there, grim but resolutely not involved, and Jack glanced around to confirm the kids were missing. He’d got one wrong. Jaclyn was there, with a dark scowl on her four-year-old face as her da tethered her in place with a tight grip on her arm. But her ma’s stomach was flat, and the smell of sour milk hung around her. The baby had been born and taken while Jack was away.
She caught Jack’s attention on her and glared at him. If she couldn’t risk anger at the prophets, Jack supposed, he’d do to blame instead.
Kath was there too, her back stiff and her hair in damp, half-frozen elflocks around her face. She didn’t look at Gregor, but her lip curled when Lach called her a bitch.
