When they reached Eronenia Pass, spring was finally in the air and food was scarce.

The trip across farm country had proved lucky for the wolves. Hunting a sheep there, then a sheep here had kept them all fairly well fed. The exception was Thalaea, who sickened more each time she ate the raw meat.

As the snow cleared, she was able to find edible herbs to supplement her diet but it wasn’t enough. At some point, she had to resort to stealing from farmers.

This was more easily said than done. Most farm houses were as small as Natai’s house; so sneaking into one in the middle of the night would surely wake at least one member of a farmer’s family. Sneaking in during the day would mean being spotted before long, especially in her gray coat, soaked in houndsblood, standing out stark against the snow.

How could she possibly sneak in to steal a loaf of bread, or some jerky?

Ruk was the one who offered to solve this problem for her. He had a talent for stealth and he was all white, save his paws. He blended in with the snow just fine.

They waited by a farmhouse before dawn. They’d been watching this one for a while, and knew there were only three people in the house: farmer, farmwife, and an adolescent child. If the child went out to help his father on the farm, then they’d only have to worry about the farmwife.

Their luck held. That morning, the family hitched a wagon to a horse, loaded it up, and struck off across the countryside. Thalaea guessed they were heading to market, though they did not go in the direction of Heartpin Town. Perhaps they were going to…what was it called? Solai Parish? She thought that was the name.

She and Ruk grinned at each other, although no doubt her smile resembled the rictus of death more than it expressed the joy of living, and they bolted across the snow as soon as the family’s wagon had disappeared over a hill-crest. Thalaea was pleased and surprised to find the door unlocked. Scoas had been paranoid about intruders from Thaen: the three wolf packs were certainly much closer to the northern nation now, so shouldn’t the farmers up here be even more concerned?

She shrugged it off. The kitchen was still warm, the fire in the hearth banked to coals. The smells of spices and warm bread wafted over her and for a moment Thalaea felt her hearts break again. Woods, how she missed her farm-family!

Witch, Ruk growled, from his investigation of a cupboard. Thalaea went to join him. There’s nothing here, he said, pointing to the empty cupboard with a jerk of his head.

Thalaea frowned, then searched the next cupboard over. Nothing in that one too. Or the next. Or the next. She tried not to let panic take her over. If she couldn’t find food soon…they’d been on the trail for almost a month and she’d had to expel almost all the food she’d eaten during that time. She was skinnier than a tree; her hair was dead and thin; her skin chapped and lacking any moisture. She hadn’t seen a mirror in a while but she knew she must look like Death Herself.

Her rucksack grew heavier every day.

This entire kitchen was empty. Devoid of food. She shook her head, confused.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she rasped, lapsing into Minae as she talked to herself. Ruk watched her with growing concern in his eyes.

Briefly she investigated the other rooms of the house, and saw the error they’d made. The family hadn’t headed to market.

They had left home.

She came out of the bedrooms clutching her hair. Ruk stared up at her, clear worry in his eyes.

Witch, we will find you some food.

Thalaea gulped back a sob. Salt stung her eyes and wet trails danced down her frigid cheeks, creating small oceans in her sunken skin.

Ruk edged up beside her and nudged her thigh, whining a little. That grounded her, crashed her back into reality. Ruk’s behaviour was never so submissive. He must be so worried that he hadn’t cared about his dominance.

She must really be scaring him.

She fell to her knees and he licked her face. Despite her despair, she smiled. One couldn’t help but feel better after wolf kisses.

“We should check the root cellar,” she said, practicality finally reclaiming her frightened lizard brain. Ruk nodded in agreement and the two headed out of the farm house.

The root cellar was not much better than the kitchen, though Thalaea lucked out and found some potatoes and a few carrots. She’d have to cook the former, but the latter she could eat raw. Finding that little bit of food calmed her a good deal.

They investigated the barn, too, and were surprised to find most of the animals still there. Was the family coming back for them?

It didn’t matter, they determined. The packs needed to eat. Thalaea undid the stalls of a few sheep, and Ruk chased them out of the barn, towards where the rest of the wolves had stopped to sleep for the day. Thalaea went back into the farmhouse to roast the potatoes over the glowing coals in the hearthfire. Ruk brought back some meat from the farm animals the wolves had hunted and Thalaea pressed this against the coals in the fire, cooking it barely enough so to stomach it. There wasn’t enough heat left in the fire to cook that much, however, and she didn’t know how to build the flames back up.

A few days later, they’d found another farmhouse abandoned, and then another one a few days after that. None of them had live coals in their hearthfires; she wasn’t able to cook any food. The wolves ate well, and Thalaea was able to keep going with the few supplements to her diet. She wished she’d learned how to milk a cow, or a goat. Milk would have been a good addition to the few vegetables she was able to scavenge.

Then they came across no farmhouses for a spell. The snow had all but disappeared. She would have to be careful with water supplies from now on, as neither she nor the wolves had any idea if there were any rivers or springs ahead of them.

The hills steepened the closer they came to the looming mountains. The ground became rockier, the edible herbs fewer and farther between. They were out of farmland now and back to feasting on rabbits, ground-squirrels, and smaller rodents.

The pass didn’t register as such on them until they’d been on a wending path for several days. Thalaea belatedly realized where they were as she noticed how the path made traversing the steeper and sharper hills somewhat easier.

There were fewer animals. Thalaea thought she could smell mountain goat but she didn’t see any. Perhaps she was already delirious with hunger and hallucinating the smell.

Her body was stick-thin; the sunken skin stretched over thick bones. She thought her heartbearts had slowed but she was so tired and sick all the time that she no longer trusted any of her senses.

At the end of the night, as sun lit fire to the land, they found a large cave by the side of the pass. It was devoid of life, though it had held snakes at one point. They were all dead, or perhaps had migrated.

The cave was big enough for the three packs to squeeze into, and they felt safe enough now that they were far out of the farmlands that they could sleep with only two sentries. Thalaea curled up with her sleeping partners, her rucksack propped against the rock next to her, and slept, dreaming of meat cooked over a warm fire.

Eronenia Pass proved to be the hardest leg of their journey yet.

The packs chose to sleep extra long in the cave, catching up on lost rest from the headlong flight from Steelmint. On the second day, they roused to move before dawn for the trek through the mountains, reverting to their normal diurnal schedule.

This meant Thalaea no longer could count on the moon to track the time spent on the journey. It had taken perhaps thirty-five or forty days to cross the farmland to the foothills; then another ten or so to the caves. The moon would be waning now but she wouldn’t know the new moon until Laeanai became a man again.

The pass was anything but flat: it was steep, an uneven climb worn down by travelers in centuries past. Most of the wolves managed it easily, but Anandes and the pregnant females, Myila and Inarea, had trouble.

So did Thalaea. Her muscles were not strong enough, and she was not eating the foods that would help her build muscle. They’d found some mountain goats, as her nose had told her they would, but those wily, tough bastards were hard to hunt. They’d brought down only a few; so those wolves with the greatest need had eaten first. Thalaea had refused. What was the point? She would only vomit the meat back up. Better she go without. Perhaps she’d find a plant to sustain her.

She began to hear whispers in her ear as she lagged behind the other wolves; someone calling her name. She’d turn and see nothing. Soon the whispers followed her to sleep and she’d dream hellish nightmares that evaporated upon her first waking moment, leaving behind the feelings they stirred.

The sun burned hotter the higher they went in the mountains. It beat down on Thalaea’s white and green hair, making her head ache as her throat parched. She drank a mere thimbleful of water a day. It was the safest way to ration. One pod was depleted already; the second was running dangerously low.

On either side of the pass, the mountains rose and rose, touching the heavens. Snow flared on those faraway heights, but none at their level. Spring was here; all the snow had melted.

At some point they stopped climbing as the trail wended downhill again. Thalaea thought this would be a relief but found it even harder on her muscles and her air-starved brain. She stumbled and fell so many times that Laeanai took to walking behind her, so as to catch her coat in his teeth to prevent injuries. Her legs shook more by the day. She could barely speak now: her lips had drawn back from her teeth, fixing her face in a permanent snarl.

She might die in these woods-forsaken mountains. Unbearable thought.

Emerging at the bottom of the pass, they could see the forests of Thaen. How long had they been fenced in by the mountains? Thalaea was so grateful to see greenery again that she fell to her knees and kissed the ground, the little leaves. The earth hummed beneath her lips; she felt dizzy, heady with the life here, and soon she fell into it, singing its song happily.

She woke to water splashing her face.

It was afternoon. Ruk, Salia, and Isuena stood by her; Laeanai hovered worriedly. Stiffly she got up, sitting back on her rump. She didn’t think she could stand just yet.

She gave a small nod of reassurance to her friend and he settled down, sitting beside her before directing his attention to the Pack Leaders.

Thalaea bowed her head to the three alphas in deference. Isuena hmphed, as was her wont, and Ruk chuckled. Salia spoke first, explaining to Thalaea what had happened. The witch had fainted onto the ground after kissing the dirt and the packs had stopped for a break, sending scouts to look for fresh water. They’d found a river nearby and had carefully carried back cupped leaves full of water to revive her.

We haven’t rested for very long, Witch, but we don’t think we should stop right here. We’d like to get closer to forest’s edge before nightfall.

Thalaea nodded. I agree. These mountains are…unsettling. Her head felt much clearer, down and out of the pass. Perhaps that was also the effect of water, still dripping off her face. She reached into her rucksack and pulled out her Ill’ll pod, taking a few drinks. There wasn’t much left in it, but since there was a river nearby that didn’t worry her so much. Her parched innards soaked up the water eagerly. Had she urinated at all as they crossed the mountains? She couldn’t remember.

The scouts found a good place to camp nearby, Ruk said, sitting and scratching his ear. How unassuming he was! We can make it by sunset, if we go now.

Let’s leave, then. Thalaea got up, shakily. Laeanai offered his back for support, and she gratefully took it. There was no room for dangerous pride in a wolf pack.

The spot the scouts had found was a hundred feet from the river, in a valley between two hills that marked the border of the mountain range. The forest was still a few miles off; they’d reach it the next day, perhaps the one after.

Thalaea went first to refill her water-pod and take several drinks from the river. The water tasted faintly of salt — not the salt found in the sea but the deep salt in the earth. She could feel it scrub her insides as it trickled down. It left her belching.

When she walked back to the camp, the sun’s last rays were disappearing at the base of the mountain spine. She could barely see the wolves, but she could hear them. She could hear the commotion.

Myila was going into labour.

Already? Was it twenty weeks already? Thalaea stood still, shocked and confused. She didn’t think they’d been on the road for twelve weeks. Shouldn’t it be the new moon again? She looked up in the sky, but saw nothing. Yet all the wolves were still in wolf-form.

Witch! the strident voice belonged to Thalaea’s Pack Leader, and it shook the witch out of her stupor. She ran to Salia and asked how she could be of help.

Salia growled softly. Myila’s panicking a bit. You have hands; go stroke her fur while the midwives attend to the birth.

Wordlessly Thalaea went straight to Myila’s side. She knelt and put her hand on Myila’s neck, making soothing noises. Myila stopped thrashing, but she whined still.

It’s too early, she sent to Thalaea. She sounded terrified.

Your puppies are ready to see the world, Thalaea soothed, though she didn’t know if that was true.

They’re supposed to be born in the woods. Not out in the open.

Thalaea felt guilt twist her heart a bit. She continued stroking Myila’s neck, searching for something to say.

Here comes the first one! the first midwife announced. Myila whined and groaned, and a moment later Thalaea heard the midwife utter words of praise. The witch could not see so well, but she knew the second midwife now took the pup and licked the amniotic sac off, taking the plugs in the nose, too. Then there was the whimpering of a newborn puppy, and the midwife placed the pup next to his mother.

Myila raised her head and gave her pup a few kisses as he snuggled against her fur. She made a soft crying noise, half-happy, half-sad.

Thalaea bent down low, putting her head by Myila’s. Just think. By the time his eyes are open, we’ll be in the forest. The first thing he’ll see will be miles of trees; all the shades of all the plants. Smells and sights will join each other, and the forest will be his home.

Myila whimpered again, but it was happier than before, and she seemed more relaxed. Thalaea continued to stroke her fur during the birth, and soon Ruk’s pack had six more members, all mewling and whimpering at their mother’s side.

They had to continue on their journey, newborn pups or no. There wasn’t enough food in the birthplace area, and, while they were close enough to water, that didn’t change Myila’s need to eat if her body was to produce enough milk for the pups. Besides, Inarea was looking nervous at the sight of her pack-sister’s early birthing. She didn’t want to be out in the open when her own puppies decided to come. Without the cover of trees, all the wolves were skittish.

Thalaea sat in with the Pack Leaders while they discussed the issue and what they could do. The pups were too small to walk by themselves; their eyes weren’t even open. It was possible to designate six wolves to carry a pup each but that would be dangerous: the spring season this far north was much colder than what they were used to. The pups didn’t have thick winter coats to protect them. They needed to stay warm, preferably next to the body of another wolf but the wolves didn’t have pouches in which to carry the young.

Once the Pack Leaders had examined all the options they could think of, Thalaea made a sound that was the Wolf equivalent of clearing one’s throat. Six eyes turned to regard her; one pair warmly, one pair hopefully, and one pair with no small amount of disdain.

Ruk, Salia, Isuena, she said formally, bowing her head. I have a suggestion. She reached to her rucksack, kept by her side at all times, and opened it up. Underneath the Ill’ll pods was the long piece of fabric J’th had left her. The snake-woman’s pleated skirt. She showed it to the pack leaders, and each sniffed it in turn. By now it had absorbed the scents of Thalaea’s pack, and no longer smelled much like J’th.

I can tie this around me like a sling, as I’ve seen Minae carry their babes, and I can carry the pups within it. They’ll be warm next to my body, and we can stop as often as needed so they can feed from Myila.

The three Pack Leaders exchanged glances. Ruk shrugged. If you can convince Myila of it, it sounds like a plan. Certainly the best we’ve got.

Isuena made another noise of disapproval and stalked off. Salia shook her head.

That bitch gets on my nerves, she grumbled to Thalaea once Isuena was out of ear-shot. Thalaea said nothing, letting her Pack Leader vent. Thinks she’s so high and mighty, just because she’s a descendant of the first wolf-witch.

She’s descended from the wolf who found my namesake’s grimmerie? Thalaea was flabbergasted.

Salia snorted. So she says. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t roll in deer scat like the rest of us. The giant grey-red-brown bitch shook her head and stalked off. Thalaea tried to hide her smile.

Myila was more than amenable to Thalaea’s plan, and once Thalaea got the sling tied around her, tight at the bottom so the pups wouldn’t fall out, she gathered up the newborns and put them in. They mewled and whimpered a bit, but soon calmed down at the smell of wolf.

Thalaea had taken off her coat and rinsed it in the river the night before, hanging it to dry overnight. It was still stained, and probably always would be — but it no longer stank of dead hound. Once she’d suggested her plan to the pack leaders and had it accepted, she’d asked several wolves to roll around the coat, getting as much wolf-scent on it as possible. Last she put it near Myila, getting the pups’ mother’s scent on it too. They left it as long as they could, but it was getting close to afternoon, and they wanted to get as close to the forest as possible before nightfall.

It was enough, apparently. The pups calmed down and soon fell asleep against Thalaea. She smiled. She was carrying a warm bundle of love. She hadn’t realized how much she missed wolf cubs until now. She could smell their puppy smell — like heaven! This was the core of her existence: to protect her cubs. They were all her cubs, no matter their age, but carrying newborn pups reminded her in a way that travelling with adult wolves did not.

Myila walked next to Thalaea. After several hours, they had to stop, for the pups were awake and whimpering in hunger. Thalaea took the pups out of the sling one by one and set them by their mother; once they were finished feeding, she put them back in the sling. This process repeated itself twice more on that day’s journey, until they stopped for the night. The pups slept beside their mother that night, and Thalaea slept nearby, so they would get used to her scent.

It was another three days before they reached forest’s edge. It had not escaped Thalaea’s notice that while they were travelling north from the mountains the ground they walked on was less wild than the land to the east and west of them, and she deduced they travelled an old road. Her suspicions were confirmed upon reaching forest’s edge: there was a definite break in the forest, and the road they were on continued down through a tunnel of overgrown green.

The three wolf packs stopped at the edge of the forest. It was noon, but the sun did not seem to light much of the path within the forest. The road traveled into the dense woods, and disappeared into darkness.

Do we stay on the road, or head into the woods? Salia looked up at Thalaea’s question, and gave the wolf equivalent of a shrug.

Perhaps safer for most of us to stay on the road and send scouts through the woods. See what’s in store for us.

Ruk and Isuena agreed, and the host of fifty-odd wolves plus one biped walked into the forest.

It wasn’t long before they were met by short bipeds holding crossbows, shouting orders to stop.

Comment on this chapter in the Stranger Skies forum.