Chapter 7
SEREH
A scrabbling noise jolted Sereh awake from a deep sleep.
Her heart thundered in her chest from some disturbing dream or simply from being so rudely awoken.
Blinking, she focused on Arrow standing in front of her, upright and rigid, yellow eyes glowing angrily.
She’d no idea what part of the night it was, but she couldn’t have been asleep for long. Her eyes were burning, heavy and itchy.
Sereh suspected what had woken her. As a howl split the night, her worst fears were confirmed. The wolves were back.
She scanned the small room desperately, her chest growing tight as panic threatened to consume her.
The dying fire provided the only light, a faint orange glow emitting enough illumination with which to see.
But the wooden door held firm. There were no sounds coming from immediately outside the annex.
Hopefully, the wolves had returned to the steading, where they knew a meal awaited them – but there was no way to know without going outside herself, and she had no intention of doing that.
She spotted a ladder to the left that disappeared into the darkness above. A loft? She pushed herself up and crossed to it, making as little noise as possible.
She tested the bottom two rungs with her sealskin boot, then risked climbing upwards. The loft was small, just big enough for her and Arrow. Arrow stood, immobile, a low thrum of menace coming from her.
‘This will have to do,’ she whispered. She lifted the backpacks up to the loft quickly, the weight pulling at her tired arms, then she scurried back to the ground floor.
Arrow stood where she’d left her, growling softly, her tail rigid, keen for a fight, or so Sereh suspected. But she couldn’t allow it. She needed Arrow, and from the howls outside, Sereh knew there were more wolves than Arrow could face down alone.
‘Come with me.’ Sereh grabbed her roughly by the neck and pulled.
Arrow resisted, glaring at the door, refusing to move.
Sereh could feel the thrum coming from her body.
Memories of when Arrow had been wounded bubbled up, and that had just been from a fight with the other dogs.
She couldn’t allow that to happen again.
‘This way. Now.’ She tried for firmness, but it was hard when she couldn’t raise her voice any higher than a murmur.
Sereh placed herself between Arrow and the door and pointed towards the ladder.
Her reward was a baleful look, unwillingness streaming from the wolf-dog, ears alert to sounds beyond her own hearing.
‘Come on. Up the ladder,’ Sereh whispered, angry now, her legs shaking with fear. Was that the noise of the wolves coming closer? Were the wild animals now stalking her and Arrow? And still the damn wolf-dog continued to ignore her.
‘Fine.’ Sereh huffed, bending to heave the large wolf-dog over her shoulder, as she’d done when Arrow was once too weak to walk. ‘I’ll carry you then.’ The wolf-dog was heavy, and Sereh staggered, but she was determined.
She wasn’t leaving Arrow alone to face her wilder kin.
With shaking legs, and a lot of wolf-dog fur in her mouth, making it hard to breathe, Sereh staggered up the ladder.
By the time she reached the top, she was out of breath and trembling.
Arrow slipped out of her grasp as soon as her legs drew level with the raised surface, and, with as much dignity as she could manage, stalked away from her.
But she didn’t try to jump back down. Sereh hauled herself up the last rungs and turned, grabbing the ladder to pull it up beside them.
She was taking no chances. She collapsed in a heap on the loft floor.
Arrow looked at her darkly in the distant glow from the heatstone, which remained down below. Sereh felt no remorse. There was too much wild wolf in Arrow – she’d want to confront the other beasts, and Sereh couldn’t let that happen. She was all she had left.
The single, solitary howl from earlier was joined by a cacophony of others. Sereh trembled, clinging to Arrow’s stiff, solid form.
It was going to be a long night.