I concentrate on my breathing.
I don’t know how long I’ve been out here. I gave up keeping track hours ago. The night is bitterly cold, and there’s nothing for me to do but try and keep my attention on the forest around me, watching for movement in the trees. My eyes are adjusted to the darkness now, and I can make out white vapour, curling in front of me with every breath.
I’m a hundred yards or so up the slope from the Nomads’ camp. I can see the glimmer of their fire through the trees. I picked this spot carefully: there’s a slight depression in the slope, shielded from the wind, and there’s a relatively straight path through the trees to the camp. I scouted it out as the last of the daylight faded. I also made sure to test my leg, doing a couple of sprints in a clearing a short distance away. It hurts, and the cold makes the pain worse, but running won’t be a problem.
Harlan begged me not to do this. So did Finkler. Even Eric was surprised that I was considering it–he told me it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. He’s probably right, but I think that’s also why he and Finkler haven’t left yet. The risk is all on me. If I mess this up, I die. Eric and the others can walk away, slipping back through the forest. If I don’t, then Eric gets his seaplane–and this particular group of Nomads won’t bother him and his people any more.
I told them to get as close to the camp as they could, and be ready to go. All they could do was insist I wear extra clothing: a thicker jacket, a scarf, a thin beanie. It helps, but only a little. I have my hands jammed deep in the pockets of the jacket, and every so often I windmill my arms to keep my body temperature up.
Around me, the forest is silent.
I breathe in, closing my eyes. I feel exhausted, but my mind is working in overdrive.
I’ve had time to think about what I said to Eric, how I convinced him to come out here. On one hand, it’s hard to forgive myself for it–what I said was horrible. But at the same time I can’t help thinking that it’s the only choice I had. That’s what I keep coming back to. The anger I feel–that hot, burning rage–is what’s keeping me alive down here. In the end, getting to Prakesh and Carver is going to be about how hard I fight. I don’t have to give in to the anger, but I can use it as a fuel, powering me all the way to Anchorage.
But the problem with those thoughts is that suddenly the voice is there, whispering in my ear. It’s not Prakesh and Carver. It’s Okwembu. You want to find her. You want to make her pay.
And that’s the problem. I can tell myself I don’t have to let the anger control me, but what’s going to happen when I find Okwembu? When I’m face to face with her?
I exhale, and open my eyes. The moon has come out, spreading its light through a tiny gap in the clouds.
The wolf is right in front of me.
It’s the leader, the small one. Its head is tilted slightly to one side, studying me, as if asking why I would be stupid enough to be alone in a forest at night.
I meet its bright eyes, just for a second. Looking into them drives a spike of terror into my chest. I look away, and that’s when I see the rest of them, moving silently between the trees. Giant tongues pass across gleaming teeth. Clawed feet paw at the ground. There are too many of them to count.
“Thought you’d never get here,” I say. It comes out as a harsh whisper.
Harlan was right. The wolves might be aggressive, but they’re still animals. They’ll go for the easy prey: a single target over a big group. They must have smelled us from miles away, tracked us here, urged on by their rumbling stomachs.
This is going to be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. Worse than running the Core on Outer Earth, worse than defending the dock. Because there is zero room for error. One mistake, no matter how small, and they’ll have me.
But there’s no going back. Not now.
My hands grip the flare in my jacket pocket. Slowly, oh so slowly, I pull it out.
It’s a thin tube, ten inches long, the writing on it long since worn away. Eric gave me two of them. I considered using one in each hand, but I wouldn’t be able to light them quickly enough.
It’s only when the flare is fully out of my pocket that the wolf in front of me growls. The sound is so low it’s almost subsonic. It opens its mouth, long tongue dropping from its lips.
How long before they attack? I don’t even know if it’ll come from the lead wolf. It could come from behind me, or from either side. I can hear them, padding through the trees.
In one movement, I reach up, grip the tab on the bottom of the flare, and pull. The tab comes out, jerking away from the body.
Nothing happens.
The wolf cocks its head to the other side. I try to keep breathing, thinking ahead, getting ready to drop the flare I’m holding and go for the second one.
With a gushing hiss, the first flare ignites. There’s a white-hot flash at the end of the tube, and thick orange smoke begins pouring out. The smoke is lit from within by a cone of fire and sparks, and it turns the forest into a scene from hell.
The wolves go crazy. They bark and snap, clawing at the dirt, darting back and forth. Only the leader doesn’t move. But I see his ears flatten against his head, see the orange light reflected in his eyes.
I take one last breath, sucking in the scent of the burning flare.
And then I run.
I explode outwards, my arms pumping, running at full speed towards the lead wolf. It jumps back, scared of the fire, just like I thought it would be. It’s fast, but it doesn’t get back far enough, not willing to give up that easily. With a yell, I swing the flare upwards, slashing it across the wolf’s face. It yelps in pain, twisting away from me.
Behind me, the pack gives chase.
I’m reacting to things before I even register that they’re in front, leaping over rocks, ducking under incoming branches. The wolves are on me in seconds, coming in from both sides so fast that I nearly lose my footing out of pure terror. The speed of the creatures is appalling. They’re not just coming from the sides now–they’re sprinting ahead of me, turning back, legs scrabbling in the dirt as they try to change momentum for an attack.
I keep going, swinging the flare behind me. The burning tip smacks into soft fur, and there’s an agonised howl.
You can’t outrun wolves. Harlan was right about that, too. But they’ve never hunted prey armed with a flame burning at 750°C. Over a longer sprint, they’d take me–Harlan said that the flame only lasts for about fifteen seconds. But fifteen seconds is all I need.
There’s a steep drop in the slope ahead, a few feet, no more. I see the drop less than two seconds before I hit it, but I react instantly, slashing the flare across my left side to clear some space. Then I jump.
In the sputtering light from the flare, all I can see are teeth and eyes. Jumping doesn’t make me move any faster, but being in the air means I’m out of the way of the wolves–the longer I can stay airborne, the better.
I bend my knees, ready to take the landing, to roll if I have to. It’s not enough. I hit the ground badly, and my ankle twists.
The movement sends a shocking, agonising bolt of pain up through my leg. A single word blares in my mind, endlessly, like a siren: No, no, no, no.
A set of jaws snaps shut around my arm.
I react on instinct, jamming the flare right into the wolf’s face. It lets go with a yelp, and I’m up on my feet before I can think about it. Another wolf snaps at my leg, but I’m too far away, and its jaws close on nothing but air. My ankle is screaming at me. The terror blocks out everything, even sound: all I can hear is a thin ringing in my ears.
I look up, and there’s a Nomad ten feet away.
He’s young–my age maybe, no more. He hasn’t raised his gun, which is held slack across his chest. He’s staring at me, at the wolves, completely confused.
I have half a second to pick out the details: the dried scraps of face paint, the torn jacket hanging on his slender frame. Then I’m sprinting past him, and he’s raising his gun, yelling at me to stop. But he’s much too late, and the wolves take him, knocking him to the ground. His gun goes off, but I can’t tell if it found its mark. I don’t dare stop. Not for a second.
I get flashes of activity as I run through the camp. Bodies springing out of tents, shouting in confusion. An oil lamp knocked over, spreading fire across the ground. The wolves are darting back and forth, snarling, growling, unsure of what to do with such a large group of humans but driven on by hunger.
It’s what I was counting on. The only way through the camp, the only way to get past the men with guns, is to make the biggest, most insane entrance possible.
Two wolves have attacked a Nomad. I see him, blood spurting from his neck as he tries to push them away. On my left, a rifle is going off, the shooter repeatedly pulling the trigger. One wolf, more determined and focused than the rest, darts ahead of me, trying to cut me off. The flare is spent, and I hurl it at the wolf. It buys me just enough time to get ahead of it.
And I can see the seaplanes. They’re floating a few feet off the shore, just beyond the makeshift wooden platform. Their white surfaces glimmer in the light of the spreading fire. The door on the leftmost plane is open, exposing the dark interior.
There’s a Nomad in front of them, a scrawny stick of a man. He’s got his gun up, tracking me as I run towards him. I spring forward as he fires, tucking into a roll, my knees scraping across the platform as the bullet splits the air above me.
Then I’m up, leading with my shoulder, charging full speed into the man’s stomach.
He topples backwards with a surprised ooof, the gun whirling away, bouncing off the side of the seaplane. I feel his hands on my jacket, hunting for a hold. Then we’re tumbling into the seaplane, my body on top of his, my legs hanging out the side.
I don’t wait for him to get his breath back. I twist around and punch him, fist connecting with his jaw. He grunts, trying to buck me off.
I push myself upwards, and that’s when the lead wolf lands on top of me.