His skull cracked against a rock, and suddenly, horribly, he couldn’t see. The world was a blur, swimming before his eyes as if he were underwater. Trying to stand, he found his legs wouldn’t work.
Moon! She’s alone!
He dug his claws into the earth and dragged himself toward the courageous Mother-Dog, but there was blood in his eyes now. He could see her still fighting, raking at the attacking foxes, but there were too many of them. Too many . . .
Something gray was slinking past Moon’s back legs as she defended her shoulder. Lucky tried to bark a warning, but the sound was feeble; maybe he hadn’t managed to make it at all. The next thing in his vision was that gray thing again, crawling from Moon’s den with a small bundle of wriggling black-and-white in its jaws. A mewling, terrified pup . . .
Two high voices seemed to echo through his mind. “No, Fuzz, no!”
With a last surge of energy, Lucky struggled to his feet, swaying. The world whirled around him.
What was that? Among the trees!
Oh, he was imagining things now. His head wound must have flung him into a dream. He couldn’t help Moon from a dream.
Lucky blinked blood furiously from his eyes, staggering. No, there were forest-shadows. He couldn’t have imagined them.
There. Big ghosts in the woods, sleek and strong ghosts: not moving, just watching. Two great black-and-tan Fierce Dogs, still as stone, eyes burning. Dogs! Why don’t they help us? Why don’t they move? One of the dogs turned its head away. The other raised a paw, as if it might finally step out of the shadows. Lucky stumbled forward, then jerked his head up again. No. Lucky, you fool! There were no dogs; it was a dream. There were no shadows in the trees. . . .
Get away, dream dogs. This was what was real, this turmoil of blood and struggle and fear. Moon was defending her pups to the death, and he had to get to her.
He staggered forward. Two of them, and the helpless pups. Him and Moon, and six savage foxes.
If I have to die, I’ll take the Earth-Dog a gift—of foxes. Lucky opened his jaws in a howl of defiance and sprang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As the leader fox turned on him with bared fangs, Lucky snarled his furious challenge.
“I won’t go easily,” he warned them. “If you try to kill me, I’ll take you with . . .” But before he could finish, a blow knocked him sideways into the grass. Lucky yelped in shock, shaking his head violently.
Not a fox. A great brown shape hurtled past him, all muscle and fury and slavering jaws. Fiery!
Fiery landed among the foxes like a great falling tree, sending them yelping and flying onto their backs. Seizing a straggler, he flung it aside and lunged at another. Lucky, still woozy from the blow to his head, felt his heart swell with new courage. Struggling back to his paws, he plunged in alongside Fiery, fighting the foxes fiercely. He let loose a volley of barks, hoping it would alert some of the other dogs who still battled among themselves at the other side of the clearing, oblivious to the foxes’ treachery.
Only two of them must have heard, but they came racing at once—Mulch, his black ears flying, and Daisy, a small ball of teeth and fierceness.
“Help Moon!” Lucky had time to yelp before he was attacked once more, a fox darting in to sink its sharp teeth into his hind leg.
The pain was like a scorch of flame, but it finally cleared his head. Lucky snarled and bit, tossing the fox away.
From the corner of his eye he saw another fox slash viciously at Daisy, its claw slicing a line of blood across her muzzle. But she rallied, her eyes flashing; she sank her sharp little teeth deep into its throat, hanging on fiercely until it stopped moving.
Lucky dodged as another fox threw itself at him, then pounced on it, clamping its leg between his jaws.
“Out of the way, stink-dog!” one of the foxes shrieked. Lucky looked up and saw three foxes pouncing on Mulch. The black dog vanished under a pile of scratching, gnawing fury. Lucky saw Mulch kick helplessly at his attackers, blood drops scattering.
“Mulch! Hang on!” Fiery barked, a single swipe of his massive paw scattering the two foxes that were trying to take him down.
Panting, free of attackers just for a few moments, Lucky stood stiff-legged and barked, high and desperate.
“Alpha! Sweet! Bella! Help!”
At last, at last, his cries were heard. Across the clearing, dogs stumbled apart, shaking themselves, momentarily stunned. They all seemed to realize in the same moment what had happened. Alpha gave a high howl of fury, and plunged forward; behind him, like a single Pack, the rest of the dogs hurtled across toward Moon’s den.
Lucky was too busy tearing the three foxes from Mulch’s prone body to see the end of the struggle. He was only dimly aware of the onrush of the dogs, the yelps of the retreating foxes. One by one Mulch’s attackers fell away, scrambling off him and dashing to defend themselves, but Alpha and Sweet were moving among them now like Lightning, slashing and springing with deadly efficiency. Tails between their legs, the foxes fell over one another in their frantic bids to escape.
“Run time!” they called to one another. “Out, out, out!”
Silence, when it came, seemed very sudden. Lucky stood with his head hanging down, tongue lolling and flanks heaving. Three thin, gray fox-shapes were racing away into the undergrowth; the other three lay broken and battered on the churned, bloody earth.
The leader-fox’s voice cried shrilly into the eerily still air. “Be back! We come back, filthy dogs. For your other pup-prey!”
Then he was gone, and only the breeze stirred the bushes.
Grimly, Alpha lifted a limp fox-corpse into the air with his jaws and tossed it away from him. It thudded to the ground close to where Mulch lay.
As if their leader had broken some awful spell, Fiery let out a great baying howl of distress, and Moon lay down, whining with grief and shock. As two small bodies wriggled fearfully from the den behind her, she and Fiery curled protectively around their surviving pups, and Moon licked feverishly at their tiny heads.
Lucky couldn’t bear to watch them. “Daisy!” he barked gruffly. “Are you all right?”
The little dog shook herself, rubbing her muzzle against a patch of soft grass. “I’m fine, Lucky. It’s a scratch. Quick, it’s the black dog you should look after.” Daisy turned her nose unhappily toward Mulch. “He’s much worse.”
Together with the others of the Wild Pack, Lucky limped across to Mulch, who lay in a pool of thickening blood.
Pain jolted through his wounded leg, but that wasn’t what made him stop after a few paces. There was no need to go to Mulch. Flies were already settling on his wounded side, and the scent drifting from him was bitterly familiar.
Like Alfie . . .
“He’s gone to the Earth-Dog,” came Alpha’s growl. “Leave him.”
“No,” murmured Lucky, feeling despair take over.
“Leave him, I said! Mulch fought bravely, but he’s gone.”
The sound of Mulch’s proper name coming from Alpha’s jaws stunned Lucky, and he sat down heavily on his haunches. The leader hadn’t called him Omega. In death, Mulch had regained his status and his dignity.
The things Lucky had taken from him.
The black wave of misery that swept over him was worse than anything Lucky had felt before, in all his deceptions and double-dealing. Guilt and shame coiled around his heart and guts like a snake, crushing his innards. The pain was wrenching, so much worse than the gash in his leg.
I brought it on myself. And I brought this all upon the Pack.
He couldn’t contain the feeling inside him; it wasn’t possible. Lifting his head, Lucky let out a great echoing howl of grief and agony.
Snap turned to him, shocked, but she sat down and raised her muzzle to howl with him. Then Twitch was howling too, and Dart, and suddenly Martha and Bruno and Daisy were joining in. In moments all the dogs were howling to the sky, united in mourning.
No Spirit Dogs bounded across Lucky’s vision now.
They’ve deserted me, he thought, and so they should. His voice broke, his howl faltered, and Snap stopped too, to lick his ear comfortingly.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“No,” added Spring, at his flank. “You did all you could, Lucky.”
“You fought for Moon’s pups,” added Dart. “Mulch came to help you, and he died bravely.”
As the three of them resumed their mournful cries, Lucky found himself voiceless. He sat among the grieving dogs, their howls tearing through his heart. Whine was watching him very intently, but he found he didn’t care about that sly little brute anymore.
I did all I could, he thought bitterly. I betrayed my friends, and brought Bella and the foxes here, and destroyed Mulch. And Fuzz.
If the Earth-Dog opened her jaws to swallow him now, Lucky thought savagely, he’d go willingly. Without so much as a whimper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Packs were subdued as they cleared the camp of bodies. They dragged the three foxes out to the hunting meadow for the crows. Martha used her giant, webbed feet to push their bodies across the ground while Daisy did her best to help, despite the injury on her muzzle. She fought well, Lucky thought, watching her.
Over them all lay a sense of dread; Lucky could feel it like a wet slab of mud-slip. This wasn’t finished; there were things still to be done and said that were only waiting out of respect for the dead. Lucky didn’t dare look at Alpha, or even at Sweet; and he couldn’t bring himself to glance at his litter-sister. He had betrayed the Wild Pack for Bella, and she had given him nothing but lies.
For all the vicious fighting, no one had won, and they all knew it. The sense of doom and despair weighed in his belly like a great stone, and he knew he couldn’t bear the guilt he carried for long.
The Wild Pack turned to their own dead, gently moving Mulch’s and Fuzz’s bodies down under a brightly flowering bush just outside the camp.
Sweet turned and pressed her muzzle to Moon’s neck. “There’s no time for a long good-bye right now. I promise we’ll mourn them properly.”
The realization that he didn’t know how the Wild Pack honored their dead stung Lucky like a fox bite. He would fight to the end for these dogs, but he still wasn’t one of them—not really. Not yet.
Fiery and Moon crouched together beside the bush for a second, with Squirm and Nose trembling between them. Then they got up and walked away.
“Now let us settle this,” barked Alpha from his rock. “Both Packs, to me.” Lucky was almost relieved. At last his fate would be clear.
Some of the dogs trotted eagerly to the circle, keen to see matters resolved between the Packs; others, like Lucky and Bella, limped there, whether hurt or filled with dread. Alpha waited till all the dogs had gathered, then gazed around them with his cold, unsettling eyes. Sweet, at his side, looked almost as fierce and unforgiving as he did.
“You,” growled Alpha, turning to Bella. “Leashed fool.”
Despite everything, Lucky couldn’t help but admire his litter-sister’s staunchly defiant stance. As she stepped forward she looked Alpha full in his yellow eyes, her head proud.
“You brought foxes into my camp,” growled the dog-wolf, “and death to my Pack. If you want to speak before you die, do it now.”
The other dogs stirred uneasily, the Leashed Dogs whining and barking in protest, and Lucky’s fur prickled. Sunshine whimpered softly and Bruno’s brow creased in deep folds of anxiety. Lucky had been afraid of this; only Bella could save herself now.
“You denied us hunting and fresh water,” she told Alpha fearlessly. “We had no choice. If you’d listened to reason from the start, none of this would have happened. And you killed one of us!”
Alpha gave a belly-deep bark of anger. “You’ve had your vengeance for that, haven’t you? I wonder if it will be worth it.” The light in his yellow eyes was as dangerous as fire. “You Leashed Dogs invaded my territory. You had no right under the Law of Dogs—none. Unless you were willing to fight for it, and you couldn’t even do that until you’d made allies of those . . . vermin.”
Bella dropped her eyes. “The foxes lied to me,” she said softly. “I was wrong to bring them here, and I’m sorry.”
“You’ll be even more sorry.” Alpha curled his muzzle. “I’ll kill you myself.”
“No!” barked Sunshine, and Alpha turned to her, crushing her with his fierce glare. “Please don’t,” she whimpered more humbly. “Please. Bella’s a good dog.”
“A good leader,” put in Bruno. He threw Lucky a glance as if to say: Tell them!
But Lucky didn’t have the chance. The Alpha shook his head. “A good leader would have thought ahead. She put you in as much peril as she put my Pack, and it’s only our bad luck that none of you died. It’s time to rectify that. Bella of the Leashed Pack, come here.”
“Alpha, wait.” Moon paced forward, leaving her two remaining pups between Fiery’s protective paws. “May I say something?”
Every dog in the circle looked at her in surprise, but none more than Alpha. He licked his chops thoughtfully. “You of all dogs here have a right to speak, Moon. What is it?”
Moon turned, studying each dog in the circle very carefully. At last she tilted her head directly at Alpha, her gaze forthright.
“I lost a pup today because of these Leashed Dogs and their foolish leader,” she began.
Lucky’s heart fell. If Moon spoke against her, Bella truly was doomed.
“I have as much reason to hate them as you do, Alpha. More.” Moon’s ear twitched, and she shivered a little, then recovered, her voice strengthening. “But Bella told the truth. It’s obvious the foxes duped her; she never intended this to happen the way it did. That’s stupidity, Alpha, not wickedness.”
Alpha nodded. “That may be, but she may still deserve to die. I think you have more to say, Moon. Tell us.”
“We’ve all done foolish things. We’ve all made mistakes. And we’ll make many more in the days to come. Look how the world has changed!” Moon scraped the earth with her paw. “Who’s to say who will make the next deadly error? We need to stick together, live together. It’s hard enough for dogs to survive in the world of the Big Growl without turning on one another.”
Alpha gave a reluctant nod, but his voice remained stern and hard. “They also have to act properly. Respect the Law of Dogs.”
“I haven’t finished.” Moon closed her eyes. “They brought the foxes here; it’s true. But when they knew they’d made a mistake, they did their best to make it right. Three of my pups would have died today if not for Lucky and poor Mulch . . . and for this Leashed Dog.”
Moon turned her head to gaze at Daisy. The little dog’s eyes were wide and awestruck, and she trembled a little, but didn’t move.
“This Daisy came to my pups’ aid when Lucky called her, and fought like a warrior for their sake.” Lucky listened even harder as Moon continued. “And when they heard, so did the rest of her Pack. That means, in my eyes, they are forgiven. I still have two pups I might not have had.”
Moon lay down, her paws in front of her, as if she was too weary to say more. But Fiery licked Squirm’s and Nose’s little heads, settling them where they were, and lumbered forward to her side.
“I agree with Moon,” he growled. “It was our pup who died, but it was our other two pups who were saved. The Leashed Dogs were wrong to do what they did, but they did the right thing in the end. That shows courage and honor, Alpha, and I respect it.”
Fiery’s tail lashed slowly as he bent down to nuzzle Moon’s head. The other dogs stood in hushed silence, watching Alpha as he scowled down at the two mates. There was fondness in his frown, though, and Lucky found his hopes rising just a little.
“Beta. Do your job.” Alpha sighed and glanced at his elegant partner. “Advise me.”
Sweet scratched thoughtfully at her ear, then placed her paw gracefully back on the rock. “It’s true that they fought well,” she murmured. “Whether against us or for us.??
?
“And which of those carries most weight?” asked Alpha.
Sweet made a rumbling sound in her throat. “They would be worthy allies, and bad enemies. I suggest we put aside our differences with the Leashed Pack, Alpha. There’s more that draws us together than divides us. As Moon said, we are all dogs, and we’re living in a changed world. When I came here after the first Big Growl, I thought this Pack was safe from its effects, but I nearly died in the second Growl, and who knows what else is to come?”
“And their leader?” Alpha’s baleful gaze rested on Bella once more.
“Hmph.” Sweet gave her a cutting look. “I’m willing to do what Moon and Fiery want. It seems to me they have the right to decide.”
Alpha licked his jaws again thoughtfully, his pointed white teeth gleaming.
“Very well,” he said at last. “Sweet talks sense yet again, and she also talks me out of my instincts. Again. How shall we arrange this new order?”
Sweet sat down, eyeing the members of Bella’s Pack. “I suggest we invite their Pack to join with ours. But every one of them will have to accept a low place in the hierarchy. They must be loyal only to you. If they’re willing to do that, it’ll prove we can work together for the good of all.”
Alpha nodded as Bella’s Pack exchanged nervous but hopeful glances. Lucky stared at the ground, torn. Could Bella’s Pack really fit in with these true Wild Dogs? He shuddered to imagine Sunshine in the hierarchy, trying to find a place for herself that was survivable. How did he feel about the Packs uniting?
Bad, was the answer. And good. And everything in between. Lucky shut his eyes in despair.
He blinked them open when Alpha scraped his claws against the rock, a screeching sound against the stillness of the clearing.
“Very well. We’ll organize the Pack roles as best we can, if the Leashed Dogs agree to join us. Which they will, if they have any sense. We still won’t tolerate outsiders trespassing on our land, so they will join us or run far away.”
“And their leader?” prompted Sweet.