Chapter 50: Chapter Fifty: The War Begins
The Blood Moon did not set.
It hung in the sky like an unblinking eye, casting the land in shades of rust and shadow. By the time dawn should have broken, Rainfall’s borders were already crawling with movement wolves in human form, warriors in leather and steel, scouts darting between the trees. The air was alive with the smell of oil, blood, and the faint burn of silver dust.
David stood at the head of the northern wall, eyes scanning the black line of the forest. Faith was beside him, armored but still bare-armed, refusing to hide her scent. They had slept for barely an hour since Divine’s message arrived, their only rest stolen in the quiet moments before the council called them to stand.
Every wolf in the Rainfall Pack was armed.
Even the youngest warriors, barely past their first shifts, held blades or bows. Faith could feel their fear, their determination, and the thrum of the pack bond humming beneath her skin.
“This is it,” David murmured without looking at her.
Faith didn’t answer. She already knew.
The first howl came just before sunrise long, low, and full of hunger.
It was followed by another, and then a chorus, until the northern forest seemed to breathe with sound. The enemy.
Faith’s pulse quickened, her wolf rising under her skin. Her hands tightened around her blade, a silver-edged short sword meant for close combat.
“Positions!” David’s voice rang over the ramparts.
Rainfall’s warriors shifted into their formations, human and wolf interlocked in a lethal lattice. Shields raised. Bows drawn. Claws flexed.
The first shadow broke from the trees.
They came fast, Orell wolves in mottled gray and black, their eyes glowing faintly in the red light.
The clash was instant arrows loosed into the oncoming wave, bodies colliding with the sound of snapping jaws and tearing flesh.
Faith leapt down into the fray before she had time to think, her wolf half-risen, her senses sharpened to a deadly point. She dodged a lunging wolf, spun, and slashed silver edge meeting fur and flesh. The enemy’s scream split the air, and he crumpled at her feet.
Her breath caught. The scent of blood was thick, hot, and immediate. The world narrowed to the thud of her heartbeat.
Then another wolf charged, and she moved without hesitation.
She didn’t fight like she had trained,she fought like she was born for it.
Every motion was instinct duck, slice, pivot, lunge. Her wolf guided her blade, her human mind keeping pace only enough to choose the target. Around her, Rainfall warriors howled and bled, the battle shifting in brutal waves.
A snarl drew her attention one of the Orell warriors, larger than most, silver-tipped spear in hand. His eyes locked on her, recognizing her from stories, from warnings.
The Luna.
He came for her fast. She sidestepped, but the spear clipped her arm, burning like fire where the silver grazed her skin. She roared, the sound tearing from her throat more wolf than human, and drove her blade into his chest.
The impact was sickening, but she didn’t stop until he collapsed.
Somewhere across the field, she caught sight of David massive in his wolf form, black fur bristling, tearing through enemy lines like a living storm. His claws shredded armor, his jaws snapped bones. Every kill he made was another body between Faith and danger.
But the Orell Pack was relentless.
They had numbers, they had fury and they knew this land’s weaknesses as well as Rainfall did.
Faith found herself pressed back against the low ridge near the border wall, three wolves circling her. One lunged, another feinted left, the third going for her legs. She twisted, rolled, came up slashing silver cutting deep. Blood sprayed across her face.
When the last of them fell, she stood over their bodies, panting.
This wasn’t just survival this was war.
The battlefield was a chaos of movement friend and foe blurring in the frenzy of claws, teeth, and steel. Faith caught glimpses of Daniel holding the southern flank, arrows flying in precise arcs. She saw Elder Nareen chanting at the wall, her hands painting runes in the air, magic shimmering faintly against the Blood Moon’s light.
But the northern line was faltering.
“Push them back!” David’s voice, rough even in wolf form, echoed across the bond.
Faith moved toward him, cutting down anything in her way. Her muscles burned, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
When she reached him, his fur was matted with blood some his own, most not. He looked at her, and in his eyes was both relief and rage.
“You’re bleeding,” he growled.
“So are you,” she shot back. “We don’t stop now.”
It was in that moment she realized she had killed for the first time.
Not in fear or desperation but to protect.
And the knowledge settled into her bones like cold steel something she could never take back, something that marked her as much as the mate bond did.
By the time the Orell wolves retreated, leaving their dead in the red-soaked grass, Faith’s legs felt like lead.
David shifted back to human beside her, his chest rising and falling hard, his hands streaked with blood. He caught her by the arm, pulling her close, his forehead pressed to hers.
“You fought like a Luna today,” he whispered.
Faith didn’t tell him she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop hearing the sound of the ones she killed.
She just looked past him to the treeline, where shadows still moved watching, and waiting.
This was only the first clash.
The war had truly begun.