"So what exactly are you?" Wolf asks. "The leader?"

We had been grilling Darra ever since he'd come back from Lord knows where. So far, we'd learned some things about his Pack, and about the so-called 'hunters' (probably mercenaries who were out to make a quick buck).

Darra nods. "I'm the Alpha,"

"Which is..." Wolf trails off, expectant.

"Basically just a fancy title for leader,"

"Ah," says Wolf. "Alright then,"

"Flare would be more then happy to explain it to you, if you asked him," Darra says.

I shrug. "It sounds pretty straight forwards. Although, you introduced Flare as Beta..."

"Second-in-command,"

Wolf and I nod in unison. "Well," says Wolf. "I have absolutely no more questions whatsoever about how you met these people or where the hell they came from, so I guess we're done here,"

I laugh. Darra rolls his eyes. "Once again, ask Flare. He's chatty,"

I sigh. "You know Dare, one day you're going to have to actually talk to us about something serious,"

"And I will. After all of the walking. Or during, we'll see,"

"Yes, and what was that about walking?" Asks Wolf. I had been wondering the same thing.

Darra heaves a great sigh. "Oh, trust me. You'll find out,"

Wolf rolls his eyes. I groan.

"The fuck do you mean, 'you'll find out'?" I ask incredulously.

"You'll find out," Darra says because he is, once again, the worst.

###

~Day One of the Migration~

During the day, we finish last-minute preparations for our move. Flare ties Dean's bag onto the grey-furred wolf's back with one of our ropes. Flare had attached the solar-powered watch to the top of the bag so that it can charge while we walk. Flare starts out carrying the food basket, but he shares the duty with Sam who will carry it tomorrow.

By nightfall, we're ready to go.

We set out an hour or so after sunset, walking first to the river where we drink our fill before we set out towards the mountains, walking along the river, following it upstream.

We walk and walk and walk. We walk until I no longer recognize the terrain and then we walk some more.

We don't talk much, focusing on the walk. Damon and Wolf trail a few paces behind the rest of the group, not having the stamina to keep up with us.

We take a break at sunrise, drinking more water and taking care of our bladders and whatnot in the bushes.

Then we're walking again and it begins to dawn on me just how much walking we'd be doing for the next however long. The mountains were three weeks away from Forest Spirit by carriage (excluding the needed breaks), which means that we will, in fact, be walking a lot.

I tell Sam about my revelation and we share a laugh before we're once again walking in silence.

At noon, we stop and drink some more before we retreat into the trees and get ready to sleep until nightfall.

Flare helps Dean with his bag and we all eat something from the food basket.

Alarra agrees to take first watch and we devise an order in which watch will be taken. The order goes: Alarra, Dean, Me, Flare, Sam, Wolf, Damon, repeat. We all know how hard Sam will be to wake up, so he grants Flare permission to pull his tail if he needs to.

After that's figured out, all of us, sans Alarra, flop into one big pile, reducing the space Alarra needs to watch over and increasing coziness.

My eyes slide shut and I drift off until my shift, which I take with miserable determination for the full hour and a half before I wake Flare and promptly pass out again.

~Day Two of the Migration~

We rise with the moon. Alarra and I hunt for anything we might stuff our basket with. We find a den of foxes and kill both the parents and the almost-grown kits. Flare helps Dean with his bag and I stuff the foxes in the basket. We relive ourselves and then we're off again. We drink from the river and continue along the path we'd started on.

And we walk.

And walk.

And walk.

And walk.

And- did I mention walk?

Damon and Wolf keep up better with the group then they did yesterday, but they still lag behind.

I don't lead the group so much as amble along near the front with Flare, who seems to be enjoying not having a basket full of carcasses weighing down on his neck.

We walk.

And walk.

And walk.

No one speaks.

We walk in silence.

Once again, at noon, we drink some water before retreating into the trees. Flare helps Dean with his bag. We all eat something from the bottom of the basket, so as to keep from having to deal with spoiling food. We pile up, laying pressed against and/or spread on top of one another.

Wolf is the first on watch. He'd taken his shift last night but only got through the first quarter before it was time to wake everyone up. I had told him that it was fine, but he insisted.

"Just-" Wolf frowns, thinking over his words. "What should I be on the watch for?"

"Well, if you see any humans and slash or bears, wake us up. If you see anything small enough to fit in the basket, kill it," I tell him.

Wolf nods firmly, taking that advice to heart, I'm sure.

I sleep until my shift, near dusk. I take my shift without complaint before handing the torch off to Flare and catching a few more winks before another however long walk.

~Day Three of the Migration~

"I've done the math," Flare tells me after we had been woken up by Sam. He tightens the rope around Dean's chest before tying it with his mouth and a single paw with surprising efficacy. "If we all take one shift a night, a shift lasting and hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, we should each get around nine hours of sleep and stay camped out for over ten, which means that we'll be walking for fourteen hours, including breaks,"

I shake my head. "So you were bored on your shift," I say.

"So bored," Flare says.

Sam manages to catch a large rabbit, and Alarra had caught a weasel during her shift. With both of them safely tucked away, Flare takes up the food basket again and, after everyone has taken care of their bladders, we set off, taking our morning drink before we're walking.

And walking.

Despite the roughly twenty-eight combined hours that we had already been walking, my legs don't feel tired. Wolves must be made for long journeys, I think.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

I'm sure Dean is regretting his choice to bring along all of his trinkets by now.

And we walk. And walk. And then we walk some more. Oh! Look! More walking! Joy.

"You weren't kidding about the walking!" Damon pipes up near dawn. We all laugh sufferingly, trading a few remarks about how we would have been better off with the hunters. We fall back into silence soon after. The silence Is far worse than the walking.

My brothers actually manage to keep up with the group today, and I notice that their movements are a lot smoother then they were yesterday, as well. I'm not surprised, it never takes long for freshly turned wolves to get the hang of their new bodies.

We take a break at sunrise, just like usual. Or, well, we try. Something that isn't usual, is the sight of a dozen teenagers splashing around and laughing on the opposite bank. For all my bluster, we honestly hadn't encountered a single human soul in the last three days. Now, however, there were teens pointing and gawking at us.

"What do we do?" Dean wonders.

"Keep walking," I respond. And we do.

We walk for another two hours before we take a break, given that we hadn't been able to before. We drink and relieve ourselves and rest our legs. Wolf catches a pheasant, and he looks so proud of himself that I too feel proud of him. Alarra cooes about it being his first kill all while Flare's putting it the basket. And then we're off again. Walking. Silent.

The riverbank wasn't perfectly straight, there were bends and twists and turns and inclines, but we don't deviate from our path. I knew for a fact that this river was fed by the mountain. It had been something I'd learned in school, although I had never really paid attention. Local Geography had been drilled into our tiny, stupid brains so hard that it was impossible to forget it.

Eventually, when we're close enough to the mountains, we will stray away from the river and into the forest. But for now, we stick to the river. We follow it upstream.

We walk.

And walk.

And walk.

And walk.

We stop, as usual, at noon, drink, then retreat into the trees. Flare helps Dean with his bag and we all eat something from the food basket.

Wolf has first watch again, so I collapse into the sleep pile and sleep until my own shift comes up. When it does, I take it, kill the rabbit that wanders too close to us, finish it, wake Flare, and fall back into the pile.

~Day Four of the Migration~

Wolf wakes us up, apparently having taken Sam's shift so that he could trade off tomorrow's first watch with Damon.

Flare helps Dean with his bag, muttering to himself about finding a better method. Alarra and I look around to see if we can find any food, but all we get to show for it is a relatively skinny squirrel.

With Sam carrying the food basket and our bathroom breaks taken care of, we set off again. We drink from the river and begin following it upstream again. We walk.

And walk.

And- wait.

We come across a deer getting a drink at the river. It shoots its head up, spotting us before taking off. Alarra takes off after it and I follow her example.

Together, we wrestle the animal to the ground and deliver a killing blow.

I pant, rolling off of the beast and standing. "Lunch break!" I declare.

We eat the deer, the seven of us eating it down to the bones, with only small scraps of flesh still clinging to them. We wash the deer down with river water and take care of business in the woods before we continue.

And we're walking again.

And walking.

And walking.

It's noon again, so we stop, drink, retreat into the woods. Flare helps Dean, and all of us collapse into a sleeping pile without eating from the basket. Damon has the first watch tonight.

Dean wakes me up and I take my shift without fuss. I wake Flare when it's his turn and fall back asleep.

~Day Five of the Migration~

Wolf wakes me up. Time for another night of walking.

We decide to eat whatever we have in the basket now since we didn't before we went to sleep. While Alarra and I hunt for a bit Flare helps Dean with his bag and everyone empties their bladders. We catch two rabbits and a fox, which Flare stuffs in the basket before he picks it up and we set off.

We grab a drink and then we're off. Walking. Again. Fuck.

"Is it just me or is this getting repetitive?" Wolf says about an hour into the walk.

"It's not just you," I say.

When we take our sunrise break, we hunt some more and catch a few more small varmints to put in the basket.

"This thing is going to reek of blood for the rest of eternity," Flare says as he stuffs chipmunk after chipmunk into the basket.

And then we're walking again.

Once again, I'm not so much leading as I am ambling along near the front. Flare ambles along close behind me, the other trailing behind us.

I'm not sure how long this will take. If my math is correct, we have been walking for over forty-six combined hours. How much longer will we need to walk? How many more hours will we spend walking along this river? How many days?

I try not to dwell on it, focusing instead on what to do once we had gotten established in the mountains. How would we expand the pack? There are a few towns near where we were headed, but unless the people of those towns are fond of hiking, it's unlikely we'll run across any of them.

At noon, we stop, drink, retreat into the woods. Flare helps Dean with his bag, we eat, and then six of us collapse into a sleep pile. Alarra has volunteered for first watch today.

I sleep. Dean wakes me up, I take my shift, wake Flare up, sleep.

~Day Six of the Migration~

Damon wakes us up.

Flare helps Dean with his bag. Sam catches a large rabbet and stuffs it in the basket before he picks it up. And we set off. We take our midnight drink and set back off along the path we temporarily had abandoned yesterday.

We walk.

And walk.

And walk.

And walk.

I feel drained, mentally exhausted by the monotony of it all. I almost wish something exciting would happen, but I know better than to do that. 'Something exciting' would probably be something that would simultaneously entertain and heavily inconvenience us. So, no, I don't wish something exciting would happen. I do wish that this wasn't such a long walk.

...No? Nothing? Come on. Not cool, powers that be. Not cool.

"Why is no one talking?" I ask after a couple of hours.

"I didn't know we were allowed to," Wolf says. The others murmur their agreement.

"Good lord!" I shout. "No, talk! Talk! Please, for the love of all that's holy, the silence is driving me nuts!"

The walking is a little less awful after that, with conversation filling the silence that I had once thought would suffocate me.

We take our sunrise break but don't stop talking.

Before I know it, it's noon, and we're drinking and retreating into the trees. Flare helps Dean with his bag, we eat.

Alarra takes first watch and the rest of us fall into the sleep pile, exhausted.