Reprisal for our latest assault came swiftly. Early in the morning, there was a strange stillness in the air, as though the forest we slept in was warning us. My eyes opened and I listened, raising my head, alert that some danger approached.

Then the streaks and thrum of rockets raised the whole pack. The thunderous and deafening blasts were all around us, near and far. With smoke in the air and burning branches raining down, our ability to sense which direction they were coming from was challenged. I found my rifle and crouched next to a tree, looking around as the rest of the pack did the same.

Halo was changing, and the new wolves near him were somehow triggered by his shifting as he struck at them and bit them. I attributed this to their panic and the forced changes in the laboratory we had rescued them from. Somehow, they were like Type Two and could be forced into the change without moonlight.

I looked away from the steaming dogpile to the surrounding wood and saw Wolf Hunt soldiers behind cover, all around us. I said what I saw to everyone:

"We're surrounded!"

Wolf Hunt started shooting without hesitation. I saw one of our new pack members near me caught in the crossfire of Wolf Hunt's bullets. With her body riddled with holes, she fell dead.

I yelped in surprise and raised my rifle and returned fire. Wolf Hunt showed no fear, approaching and spraying tracers all around me that hissed and burned where they hit. I had to flatten myself to the ground and crawl up behind the tree I was beside, but there was nowhere to go. I felt bullets grazing me and splinters of wood hitting me.

A grenade landed near me, and I rolled to it and managed to throw it back, but it exploded the instant it left my hand. I was knocked unconscious by the blast, as shrapnel struck my body armor, and I was concussed by the detonation.

I couldn't hear anything when I regained my senses. A piece of the grenade was lodged in my arm, and I had cracked ribs and my vision was blurry, and then I could hear a loud ringing noise. I became aware of pain throughout my body and dozens of wounds from the explosion greeted me with fresh pain.

The pack was scattered, and Wolf Hunt was pursuing them one by one. I was passed over for dead by two Wolf Hunt who had their back to me and were checking the body of the woman I'd seen killed.

I found my rifle and got to one knee and raised it as they turned around, surprised I was still alive. I pulled the trigger of the hunting rifle and shot the first one in the side of his neck, directly through his armor. He staggered, dropping his weapon, holding his neck. The other one raised his weapon to finish me off. I would have died, but Halo came out of nowhere and tackled the Wolf Hunt soldier.

While Halo chewed through one of the screaming soldier's arms I somehow got to my feet, chambered another round in my rifle and shot the same one I'd wounded. My second shot was absorbed by his armor. I readied another shot while he clambered for his dropped weapon and shot him again. The third bullet went through his helmet and ended him.

I limped to his dropped weapon and lifted it. I made sure he was dead and fired a burst from his own weapon into him at point blank. Then I leaned on a tree and dripped blood from my wounds and watched Halo tearing apart the other Wolf Hunt.

My hearing came back, but I was still in a lot of pain and stunned.

The whole forest was an orchestra of gunshots, thunderous automatics, roars of beasts and agonized screams of the dying. I looked up and saw the twisted half-wolves only partially transformed circling me, orbiting Halo. The alpha wolf looked up at me and as one of the lesser wolves neared me, he nipped at them and drove them back. Then they left me there and ran towards a wounded Wolf Hunt.

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All around me, the dead lay on the forest floor. I wheezed, trying to suck air into my lungs. My armor felt tight and constricting, but I kept it on. As I stood there it wasn't too long before my breathing returned to normal. My wounds stopped bleeding, and I found I could walk with a limp, painfully.

I carried the rifle from the fallen Wolf Hunt soldier and took two extra clips off his dead body. I moved through our camp, seeing more dead Wolf Hunt soldiers than wolves. The fighting all around in the forest quieted down. After a few minutes, I heard the last gunshot, some distance away.

"Atanarjuat!" Bruna called to me in a stage whisper. I turned and saw she was not injured and felt relieved. I limped towards her position.

"I think they are retreating." I said to her.

"They'll call in reinforcements." Bruna worried. "Or an air strike on our position. We have to gather everyone and get out of here."

"Won't they expect us to run? They'll await our escape with an ambush. We can't get out of here all together." I thought quickly.

"They want us to split up. It will make us vulnerable." Bruna pointed out.

I exhaled, the exhaustion from my wounds taking a toll on me. Just sitting there and resting is all I wanted to do. One by one I watched the rest of the pack returning from fighting in the snow-covered forest.

"I'm glad the two of you are alright." Doctor Imbrium had hidden somewhere during the fighting.

It looked as though many of the pack were injured, but few were killed in the fighting. Wolf Hunt had underestimated us and paid for it. Lieutenant Colonel Rose announced:

"Wolf Hunt was defeated. Halo and those mad dogs are chasing the last of them. We must presume General Stone was given our location before they attacked. I'm not worried about artillery; they won't risk destroying the weapon as long as they don't know we left it behind."

He looked up as Frosty lumbered towards us with a machinegun on one shoulder and a prisoner on the other. I grimaced, unsure how I felt about taking a prisoner. Frosty dropped the Wolf Hunt soldier in the midst of us and aimed the machinegun at his head.

"He wants you to take off your helmet and your armor, he is not feeling very patient." McRaze told the prisoner.

The Wolf Hunt soldier surrendered to us and removed all of his gear, stripped down to his uniform.

"Captain Randon, we meet again. You're hunting my pack? It's like a suicide mission, yes?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose had a wavering anger in his voice I'd never heard from him before.

"My job is to keep wolves in their place." Captain Randon glared.

"Your whole team is dead, Captain. My pack has suffered some losses, that's the limit of your success. Wolf Hunt died for a few of my wolves. Is that your job?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose asked, regaining his composure.

"I thought we had you." Captain Randon admitted reluctantly. "And you won't last the rest of the day. You're the last of your kind, we saw to that already. General Stone will come, Dire Knights will find you and finish you off. Look at your pack, weakened, decimated. This is your last day, it's over. My job is done." Captain Randon stated.

"Then I suppose you'll appreciate being reunited with your men." Lieutenant Colonel Rose drew his handgun and aimed it at Captain Randon's face.

"No!" I objected.

"What?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose glanced at me, still pointing his weapon.

"Don't murder him, he surrendered!" I reminded my commander.

"Atanarjuat is right. You did surrender." Lieutenant Colonel Rose nodded and holstered his weapon. "We can't take any prisoners, so that means I'm going to leave you here. When we are gone, you're free to go. We aren't the monsters we're supposed to be." Lieutenant Colonel Rose started walking away. As he left, the rest of the pack followed. Captain Ranson was glared at and growled at, but he was spared.

"Go. You'll not see me again." Captain Ranson looked at me and said.

Bruna took my arm over her shoulder and helped me as I weakly limped along after the pack.

I took a deep breath as we passed by the dead. Something about sparing the life of the enemy made our cause feel more justified. He wasn't worth killing and becoming like those we fought against. I was sure that leaving him behind was the closest thing to justice that could have happened.

We reached a small lake by evening and found a cabin that was broken into. There we found Halo and the others, wearing clothes they had stolen. Halo said:

"We killed every last one of them."

To which the lieutenant colonel responded with sincere thoughtfulness:

"No, we did not. We left one alive, for he chose to surrender. It makes our victory complete, and we owe it to Atanarjuat. I'd have shot him, but it would be wrong. This day we triumphed above man and above monsters."