Chapter 46 The Night The Pack Fell
The great hall had emptied hours ago, the victory feast leaving behind a litter of overturned benches and spilled flagons. Samael lay in his quarters, sleep claiming him after the long night of drinking and reminiscing with Darius. His breathing steadied into the rhythm of exhaustion.
A frantic pounding on the door shattered the silence.
Samael bolted upright, hand reaching for the axe beside his bed. “Enter!”
A young guard burst in, face pale, eyes wide with terror. “Lord Samael! The pack is under attack! Rogues have breached the eastern gate!”
Samael was on his feet in an instant. “How many?”
“Hundreds!” the guard gasped. “They came from nowhere. The patrols are down. No warnings!”
Samael yanked on his tunic and breeches, buckling his armor with swift, practiced motions. “Sound the horns. Rally every unit. Where is Darius?”
“I do not know,” the guard said. “I came straight here.”
Samael grabbed his axe and a short sword, strapping both to his belt. “Go. Wake the barracks. Tell them to assemble in the central yard.”
The guard nodded and fled.
Samael rushed out into the corridors, boots pounding stone. Shouts echoed from every direction now, distant clashes of steel and screams cutting through the night. He burst into the central yard and found chaos.
Guards lay scattered across the cobblestones, some writhing in pain, others still as death. Rogues in black cloaks poured through the broken eastern gate, cutting down any who resisted. Fires burned in the stables. Arrows whistled from the walls.
Samael roared. “To arms! Rally to me!”
A handful of warriors staggered to him, weapons drawn but movements sluggish. “Lord Samael,” one gasped. “Something is wrong. My arms feel like lead.”
Samael scanned the yard. Half the patrols were on their knees, retching or clutching their stomachs. “The feast. The food was tainted.”
He sprinted to the nearest horn tower, axe in hand. A rogue leaped at him from the shadows. Samael swung, the blade biting deep into the attacker’s chest. The rogue fell without a sound.
He reached the horn and blew three long blasts, the call for full mobilization.
Wolves emerged from barracks and halls, but not in the numbers he expected. Many collapsed before reaching the yard, faces twisted in agony.
Darius appeared from the main keep, sword bloody, armor dented. “Samael! The council has turned! Corvin and the others opened the gate! They are with Vargus!”
Samael spat. “Traitors. What of the armies?”
Darius shook his head. “Something in the food or drink. Half are down. The rest can barely lift their weapons. Our chances of winning are zero. We need to fall back to the inner keep and hold as long as we can.”
Rogues surged into the yard before Samael could respond. Three charged Darius. He parried the first strike but took a slash to the arm from the second. Blood flowed.
Samael leaped into the fray, axe swinging in wide arcs. He cleaved the first rogue’s head from his shoulders, then buried the blade in the second’s chest. The third stabbed at him; Samael twisted and took the blow on his armor, then drove his elbow into the attacker’s throat, crushing it.
Darius killed two more, but a rogue’s dagger opened a gash across his thigh. He staggered but stayed on his feet.
They fought back to back as more rogues poured in. Samael’s axe rose and fell, each blow felling an enemy. Darius’s sword flashed, parrying and thrusting in a deadly rhythm.
“We are holding,” Samael shouted over the clash of steel.
Darius grunted. “For now. But there are too many.”
A rogue slipped through Samael’s guard and stabbed him in the side. Pain exploded. Blood poured hot down his leg. He roared and split the rogue from shoulder to hip.
Darius took a cut to the shoulder, then another to the ribs. He killed three in quick succession, but his movements slowed, blood loss taking its toll.
They killed fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Bodies piled around them. Rogues began to hesitate, circling instead of charging.
Then the needles struck.
A rogue in the rear ranks raised a small blowpipe. Two darts flew. One buried in Samael’s neck, the other in Darius’s arm.
Cold fire spread from the wounds.
Samael yanked the dart free. “Poison.”
Darius dropped to one knee, vision blurring. Colors bled together. Sounds distorted into echoes.
Samael swung his axe but missed, the rogue dancing back. His limbs grew heavy. The yard spun.
Rogues closed in. Hands grabbed them, dragging them across the blood-slick stones. Samael tried to fight, but his arms refused to obey. Darius’s sword slipped from numb fingers.
Vargus’s voice cut through the haze. “Bind them. The second and the gamma will watch their pack burn.”
Darkness swallowed them both.
Darius came to with the taste of blood and silver burning his tongue. His arms were wrenched high above his head, wrists bound with silver-laced rope that seared skin every time he breathed. The great hall stank of smoke, spilled ale, and fresh death. Loyal wolves lay where they had fallen, throats cut, eyes staring at nothing.
Samael hung from the next pillar, chains biting deep, blood crusting his beard. His eyes snapped open at the same moment Darius’s did.
Samael spat a mouthful of red onto the floor. “Traitor scum. Every one of you.”
Corvin smirked from the semicircle of council members. “Still barking, gamma?”
Samael strained until the chains groaned. “Fernando will come back. He will rip your spines out and wear them as belts.”
Sabine gave a sharp, mocking laugh. “Fernando is already dead.”
Samael froze.
Halric stepped forward, smug triumph in every line of his body. “Remember the little bottle a healer gave you, Samael? The one you swore would wake Alberto’s wolf? That draught came straight from me. It was never meant to wake anything. It was meant to finish Fernando. Slow poison. Untraceable. By now he is cold in the ancient home.”
Rolf grinned wide. “You killed your own Alpha with your own hands.”
Mara folded her arms. “How does betrayal taste, gamma?”
Veyne chuckled. “You delivered death gift-wrapped.”
Samael roared and thrashed so hard the pillar cracked behind him. “Lies! I will tear your tongues out!”
Darius threw his head back and laughed. The sound rolled through the hall like thunder, cutting every traitor’s smirk in half.
Every face turned to him.
Darius kept laughing, eyes bright with malice. “Dead? You truly believe Fernando is dead?”
Vargus rose slowly from Fernando’s own throne. “Mock while you can, second.”
Darius’s laughter died to a cold, cutting grin. “By now Fernando is already riding back. His mate walked through the Thornwood itself to drag him out of your poison. Alberto crossed the forest that has killed every wolf who ever dared enter. He survived. He saved Fernando. And right now they are coming for every single one of you.”
Silence crashed over the hall.
Corvin’s smirk vanished. “No one survives the Thornwood.”
Darius leaned forward as far as the chains allowed. “Alberto did. Ask yourselves why your spies felt nothing when the bond locked. Ask why the curse shattered. Fernando lives. And when he walks through those doors, he will make what happened here tonight look like mercy.”
Sabine took an involuntary step back. “Impossible.”
Darius’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “You poisoned the wrong wolf. You opened the wrong gate. And now you are all dead men who simply have not stopped breathing yet.”
Vargus descended the dais steps, boots ringing. He stopped in front of the two bound wolves.
“Pretty stories from chained dogs,” Vargus said. “The keep is mine. The pack is broken. Your Alpha rots with his human pet.”
Samael snarled. “Keep talking. Every word is another piece Fernando will carve off you.”
Vargus smiled without warmth. “Then let us finish the tale. Your last words?”
Darius lifted his chin. “See you in hell.”
Samael bared bloodied teeth. “He will use your skulls as drinking cups.”
Vargus turned to the black-cloaked rogues. “Cut their throats. Make it slow.”
Two rogues stepped forward, blades gleaming.