It was on one of these days of rest that Keva found herself waiting for Javier and Huan Li to prepare their food in the early afternoon. They were all sitting outside, bundled up against the artic wind, and snow. The sunlight went away very early and it seemed like night was coming earlier every day. Keva found herself looking up into the dark cloudy sky.
The snow fell softly today. In the woods surrounding them, it made deep drifts up against the trees several feet deep in some places. The trunks of the trees were long ago buried and all that shown above the pure white of the snow was the green boughs of the evergreens that surrounded them.
Suddenly one of the wolves growled low in his throat. Keva jerked her eyes over to see Hysminai growling with his tail erect looking off into the dark woods. He wasn’t alone for long. Soter and Erato were soon up on their feet facing in the same direction as Hysminai. The humans looked in the direction the wolves were facing into the dark woods.
Keva heard it first. A terrible thrashing off in the distance. Tree branches splintered and cracked as something big moved, unseen in the distance. Michelle felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Javier said something under his breath, it sounded like a prayer.
The crashing grew louder and more intense as the rumbling grew closer. Keva was studying the trees and watching the snow being shaken from their places on top of the evergreen boughs overhead as the rumbling finally crashed into their view. Keva took an involuntary step backwards as the source of the disturbance charged toward them.
The pack faced a massive brown bear. The bear’s head was full of long and intimidating teeth, even for a werewolf. He was covered in thick brown fur that was peppered with snow. He stopped running and snarled at the group as it stood up on its hind legs and roared a challenge at them all. The bear stood well over eight feet tall and was incredibly intimidating.
The wolves had already shifted into werewolf form, the humans followed suit. The pack lurched in to attack. The bear roared at Keva who had taken point. Even at her six-foot ten-inch werewolf height she was dwarfed by the bear. Keva launched a full assault with her claws at the bear. The deep snow made her movements sluggish but her arms were still powerful and her claws raked the beast’s chest. This earned her a swipe with the bear’s powerful right claw across her face, which sent her careening into the snow, face first.
Soter and Erato moved in on the bears left side while Michelle and Javier moved in from the right. The two prongs got to the bear simultaneously and attacked in perfect coordination. The bear roared and, landing back on its four legs, it swiped back and forth at both groups. Its flailing claws were erratic and desperate as it tried to ward off the multiple claw swipes from the four different attackers.
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The bear backed away as Huan Li and Hysminai moved towards it from the front after picking up Keva. The bear rose up on its hind legs one last time and roared into the forest before turning around and ran at full speed back the way it had come.
The pack didn’t pursue the animal. They only wanted to drive it away, not kill it. Now that it was gone, they all shifted back to their normal form.
“I’ve never seen anything so big,” Javier commented.
“Yeah,” replied Keva. “That thing has got one hell of a right hook,” she said massaging her jaw, which had taken on a very reddish hue as drops of blood splattered the snow around her.
Hysminai trotted over to her through the snow and bit her hand. Keva sucked in air in pain, but the pain subsided quickly and her wounds sealed themselves just as fast. After a minute or two, the gash across her jaw from the bear claw was completely gone, without even a scar to remind them that it even happened.
“I understand now what you were talking about, Elder Huan Li,” Michelle said. “A beast as powerful as that would make an incredibly dangerous Shape shifter.”
The older man nodded. “Yes, and if they could be convinced to help us, they could be very powerful allies. But we have tarried here long enough.” The old man quickly gave out what small amount of food had been prepared. The pack ate the meager portions of warm food quickly and just as quickly cleaned up their campsite and packed their gear to move. Huan Li finished sanitizing the kitchen area before he picked up his pack and waited for the rest of them to follow suit. Keva and the rest of her pack shouldered their gear and moved farther north.
They were running low on food. The days stretched out in front of them, turning into weeks, as did the snow-covered miles of endless forest. They had been walking for so long. All of them were tired. The snow fell relentlessly and even in the dead of night when they dared to shift into werewolf form, their energy didn’t last long. There was nothing to hunt but very small game that gave little comfort to them as a group. Every time they shifted, they used up more energy and the food that they were able to kill and eat wasn’t enough even to regain their strength from shifting in the first place. It wasn’t long before the humans couldn’t shift at all from pure hunger. The wolf born could still hunt but their strength was waning as well.
Keva wasn’t ready to split them up. What if they encountered another bear? She felt her stomach rumble and every few steps one of their stomachs growled angrily at them. The wolves weren’t doing much better. They were showing their ribcages and as they moved through the snow, their tails dropped onto the ground behind them.
They had been traveling for over a month, maybe two? It was hard for Keva to focus or remember when they had got here. It didn’t matter anyway. All she could do was focus on putting one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other; that rhythm was the only thing keeping her upright. It had become her entire being, one foot in front of the other. Her arms were folded in front of her trying to keep warm against the bitter cold that continually beat against them.