Chapter 82

Creed

"Here?" one of the human commanders we'd liberated from the garrison asked. There were many of them now. We'd gone from camp to camp, to another few small garrisons and most had opened the gates with welcome arms. Some were left with a skeleton crew of humans to man their posts with no idea how they could fulfil their orders.

"Here," I confirmed, coming back to skin as we crouched under a small rise and stared at the main border garrison.

It was a supply centre, a crucial point logistically as food, uniforms and weapons for the entire border were shipped out of here. As such it was heavily staffed, with both wolf shifters and humans and I needed to find out where the former were.

I glanced at my fellow shifters, cautioning them to stay quiet and where they were as I got to my feet, creeping around the edge of the garrison as I kept the shadows, the thick pine needles swallowing my steps. I waited until I got close to the rear gate of the place before sending up a howl.

Our ability to communicate over long distances and using a means humans could not decode was both lauded and distrusted by our human comrades and that was evident now. I heard the scuffle inside, lamps swinging in the darkness, marking each human as the clambered onto the parapets on this side of the garrison and peered into the night, but it wasn't their response I cared about. One howl, then another, then a whole host of them, communicated what I needed to know.

We couldn't howl coordinates, direct orders or anything specific. The wolf's mind kept innumerable amounts of data inside his mind, about weather, prey patterns and the environment, but not human concerns about who, what and when. Our high command thought us dogs, able to be trained to pass on this sort of information, but that's not how it worked. Feeling, that's what I caught, of frustration, rage and betrayal as well as the pace, pace, pace of being confined into a small space.

Not the stockade I reasoned. Unless they'd won the loyalty of some of the shifters inside the garrison they'd never be able to manage to cage members of my people, so they had to be in the barracks. The commander would've watched them all go to bed that night in their own part of the garrison, then used stout bars across the door to keep them in. I communicated that when I jogged back to the rest of our men.

"Locked up in the barracks?" one of the humans said, paling in the moonlight. "They'd do that?"

"If they're following orders." An ex commander of one of the smaller garrisons shot me an apologetic look. "They know they could never force you into the stockade."

"So they must trick us while we sleep," the shifter Harrow growled, looking over his shoulder at the men.

"They are following orders." I let my power bleed into my voice, knowing it would make my words seem all the more persuasive. "Orders none of them wish to put in place, but they follow them, just as we always have."

I had all of their attention now, because I knew what they were thinking about. Of all the times they kissed their loved ones as they marched away, off to do the king's bidding, never knowing if this was the last time you'd see them, but… I swallowed hard, the image of Jessalyn brought forward far too easily, her visage burning inside my heart like a flame that refused to go out.

"So what are ours, alpha?" another wolf shifter asked me, and it wasn't just shifterkind that paid me attention. Those soldiers that had deserted, they were used to taking orders, ones that made sense to them and right now they figured they came from me, so I told them what needed to happen.

"You're going to scale those walls?" A grizzled veteran eyed the walls of the garrison and then me. "They were constructed by master artisans. Each block has seamless joins. There's no mortar to gain purchase on."

"Don't need it." Kern, one of the shifters from the border garrisons grinned and the humans flinched at the sight of his fangs in the moonlight.

"Well, if you can scale those walls without help, what do you need us to do?" a human commander asked.

"Provide a distraction," I said, then explained exactly how.

I'd forgotten what it felt like, to prepare for a fight with a group of males you trust at your back. As I looked back at the mass of wolf shifters crouched down beside me, my heart wrenched. Not for want of Jessalyn this time, but for them. I was so damn far away from my pack, from my brothers, the men I had bonded my heart, my life force to. If I turned around now, it'd take days to get to the capital.

But I wouldn't.

Free the shifters. Free all of the shifters, that's what burned inside my chest. Once I did that, then I could return victorious, bringing each shifter to kneel at my queen's feet. That's what hardened my resolve as I turned to the others.

"Once we take this garrison, once we free our brothers," I told them, "ravens can be sent to each and every garrison in the country, with messages delivered to all of the shifter commanders in the army. They will all know that the treaty is broken and can do with that information what they wish."

I nodded slowly.

"Once we do this, we will be free." It felt like I met each and every one of their eyes now. "To return to the packlands, to your mates, your families…" Small rumbles escaped the chests of many a shifter. "To the capital, if you wish, to exterminate the greatest threat to our kind. The king brought his men to the packlands during the mating games. The king threatened our women and children with burning." Fangs were bared and eyes shone in the darkness. "The king made clear how little regard he has for us and our sacrifice." I rose up, my silhouette now apparent to any human standing on the parapets, but I thumped my chest with my fist rather than sink back down. "Pack doesn't fight pack, but that king?" I shook my head sharply. "But that king is not pack."

"The king is not pack…"

That was muttered around the crowd, the sound growing louder and louder, until I was forced to throw my head back and send up the signal howl. The humans gathered at either gate would be dousing their arrows in pine pitch, then set them alight with regulation flint stones and send them flying through the air. Not to burn the gates down, but to redirect the humans inside the garrison from where we intended to attack. I heard the sound of shouts and orders being barked out as we moved. We did not want the humans inside engaging with our humans. The fight was ours to make, ours to take and so I roared.

"But those inside are! We free them now and all of shifterkind."

I felt the moment when every single one of us took the half wolf, half man form, the combined madness of both driving us forward. We crossed the space between the trees and the wall in a breath, another having us leaping up onto the wall, claws punching into the raw stone. It was hard. I felt the reverberations all the way down to my bones, but I punched claw after claw into the stone, using it as leverage to launch myself higher.

We came like a wave, rearing up above the parapets, sending the few humans standing there stumbling back in shock. One threatened to fall off entirely, no doubt to smash his head on the flagstones, but my hand snapped out and grabbed his arm. "No," I snapped, setting him back to rights. "No!" I roared at an archer who raised his bow our way. "NO."

This was when the red haze rose inside my head, crowding out all thought, all feeling. The temptation to surrender to it, to become a merciless killing machine until such point all of my enemies lay dead around me or I did, but that was not how this was going to go. "Pack…" I growled to myself. "Pack… Clinging to that thought like it was a lifeline in the thrashing sea, it helped anchor me here, blinking until I caught the moment each man lowered their weapons. "Pack!" I barked, the wolf riding me now, stripping me of the power of conscious thought. "For pack!"

That was enough to convey my meaning. Shifters threw themselves off the parapets, landing down into the courtyard below, ducking and dodging the blows that came before disarming their opponents with well practised moves. Ones the army had taught us, wanting to hone us into the perfect weapon, never expecting that blade to be turned against themselves.

"Pack…" I muttered to myself, over and over again, until I heard the chorus of howls.

There. On the ground floor of the garrison proper, that's where the howls came from. I didn't need to shout out an order to my fellows, because they all heard the same thing. Cries for help, promises of destruction, pain and anger and disgust in their howls, they spurred us forward. I dodged out of the way of one human, shoving him to the side when he went to attack, then swept the feet out of the other before storming forward. Forward, always forward, that burned in muscles aching from the abuse I'd put them through to get right here, marching towards the garrison door.

"This is not insubordination," a puffed up man shouted, throwing himself between me and the door. I took in the insignias on his uniform, knowing what each badge meant. "This is open rebellion against your own people! Why would you strike back against the very people who strive to protect the country you live within?"

"Pack doesn't fight pack," I snarled, feeling my fellows cluster at my back. "Pack doesn't corral members of the pack in a cage like an animal."

"We were given orders." The man held up a piece of paper sporting the royal seal, his hand shaking only a little. "By the king—"

"Not my king."

Knocking the piece of paper from his hand would've earned me a whipping, then a stay in the stockade. I knew that because I wore scars all over my back, faded now by time.

"We must stay—"

"You must stay." I poked my finger into his chest, his eyes widening as he watched it turn from claw to fingertip. "Or you could come with us."

"What?" The man puffed up immediately. "And allow the Lanzenian devils across the border? The country will be in ruins before—"

"You are a wolf." I'd always fought the red haze inside my head before, because it felt like it was going to swallow me whole. It took away from sense, my control, my vision even, narrowing my focus down to whatever I'd decided was the enemy, but right now it did that to make something clear. I cocked my head, staring at the man and for once not seeing his uniform or his weapon or his badges of insignia, but this. "You are a wolf."

We knew that the humans shared ancestry with us, but each and every one of them seemed so blind to the world around them. They only sensed the seasons to complain about the heat or cold. They only saw potential farmland, not the forests or the plains and they didn't feel the other half of their heart.

"You are a wolf with his mate and his children at his back." I looked left and right. "With your packmates at your side. You fight for what you think is right."

"Yes—" the man said, hope in his eyes.

"You fight to protect your land."

"Yes." He said that simply, waiting for me to continue.

"You fight to enact the orders given to you from your alpha."

"Yes." He shook his head hopelessly. "The orders were most explicit. If we allowed our…" His pause was telling. "The wolf shifters to leave, we would be court-martialled and executed for our failure."

"Our comrades." I filled his gap for him. "Your pack, because you are wolves at heart." I looked around me, seeing each human soldier standing there, listening to everything I had to say. "You fight like the devil to protect that which you see as yours." Little mumbles there made me wonder if they saw my meaning. "You follow a strict hierarchy and don't dare disrespect those higher up than you and you…" I nodded slowly. "You follow their directives without question, but… what does the wolf say?"

This was risky. I could hear the shouts coming from within the garrison barracks right now, but only dimly as I paced in a circle, confronting each and every one of them.

"What does the wolf say? The one that paces, paces, back and forth inside your heart. The one that comes alive in the wild places, if you let it. The one that hungers for his enemies' blood, but not that of his fellow pack members. What does the wolf say!"

My voice echoed out through the entire courtyard, creating a quiet that was only broken by the sound of a beam being lifted free of the door and then left to thump down to the ground.

"That this is not the fight we signed up for," the commander said with resignation.

He was shoved aside as the door was thrust open, but he found his feet quickly as the shifters streamed free of the barracks, arriving wild eyed and in battle form to survey the courtyard.

"You are leader here?" one massive grey furred fellow asked me, his green eyes burning as they locked with mine. I noted his insignias and slapped my hand on my chest, standing tall and straight as I saluted.

"I am, sir."

"No need for that, son…" He looked me up and down. "Alpha."

"I am not—" I started to say, the red haze deserting me only to leave a terrible kind of exhaustion.

"A wolf that takes on the biggest garrison on the Kheanian border and frees us?" His hand clapped down on my shoulder and squeezed. "What else would you call him then?"

"Alpha," one shifter agreed with a nod, then another said the same. The title went up around the courtyard, repeated over and over, the sound growing louder as human and wolf throats shouted the same.

"So what the hell is going on, soldier?" the grey wolf shifter asked me.

"The king has broken the treaty," I replied. "I have brought word to… everywhere I could reach." I'd pushed my body too hard for too long, my body beginning to waver on my feet. "News has to be spread. Other males need to know… They threatened to burn down the packlands… The king…" My mouth was dry. No, my whole body felt like dust, ready to be blown away. People cried out as I dropped down to my knees. "The king does not rule with our support anymore."

"Rest, lad." The ground felt like the softest bed, exhaustion rolling over me like a soft, smothering blanket. "We'll see your news is circulated and a plan is formulated. You men can either stay here or…"

I didn't hear what offer he made, because I had to accept my own. Sleep would allow me time to renew, rejuvenate, because a fight was coming and I'd need every scrap of my strength for it.

"Jessalyn…" I whispered, a tear welling in my eye as I saw her in my mind, reaching out for me, lips moving.