The tattoo must have been a beautifully rendered dragon. Charles could see it in the delicate skill used on the parts he could distinguish. It didn’t look so good now, distorted by death and by the ragged wound that cut through it.
Anna coughed at the additional smell she’d released, putting her hand over her nose. “Yes. This one.”
When she finished coughing, she said, “He used …” She stopped speaking, glanced at Charles, and closed her lips.
He could take a good guess at what she would have said if she hadn’t been worried about setting him off. This was another of the men Leo had allowed to abuse her. Charles did her the courtesy of swallowing his rage as best he could.
“Too bad they are dead,” said Asil, with a growl. So Charles wasn’t the only one who had heard what she didn’t say.
Anna looked at Asil, and said firmly, “No. It’s a good thing. I don’t need more avenging, Asil. Charles did that. I am thriving. But these men are bad men, and I am glad they are dead.”
“Where is Jericho?” Charles asked. They had all been standing around the bodies instead of searching for Jericho. That could only mean they had already found him.
He assumed that Jericho was dead—since everyone had been waiting with the bodies, but Juste said, “Devon has him located in a cave about a half mile from here. Asil told us to let Devon hold the fort until the two of you could make it up here.”
“Devon told you that Jericho had had trouble?” Charles asked. Devon was a wildling—and he’d have been on Leah’s list, the group of the safest wildlings.
“Not exactly,” said Juste. “Devon didn’t change to human for us, but he scratched Jericho’s name in the dirt. Leah and I decided to check it out since Devon’s place isn’t far. We found no Jericho and these the dead.”
Leah, looking tired and smelling of rotten corpses, said, “A few minutes after we got here, Devon showed up, too. He’s the one who ran Jericho down—probably he just knew where the likely places to look were. We left him to make sure Jericho didn’t run again, but we didn’t approach.”
She did not say that they were waiting for Charles, so that he could do his job: kill Jericho.
Asil looked at Anna, then met Charles’s eyes. “You and I should go up.”
Yes.
“No,” said Leah in a low voice. Then more clearly. “No. We have already lost Hester. We have to try to save him.”
She looked at Anna thoughtfully, and Charles had to fight back a growl as he realized that she hadn’t been waiting for him. She’d been waiting for Anna.
“She’s tired,” said Sage, before Leah could say anything.
Leah closed her mouth, but her body was tight with some strong emotion. He couldn’t tell what it was.
Grief, said Anna’s voice through their bond. She does not want to lose another wildling. Her voice was accompanied by a surge of hope.
It does not mean she is innocent, said Brother Wolf. Charles is grieved by those he sends on.
“No doubt,” said Anna aloud, answering Brother Wolf, but it sounded like a reply to Sage. Maybe it was both. “But there has been too much tragedy around here. If we don’t try, I’ll always wonder if I could have made a difference.”
“If you do try,” Asil told her, “and you succeed in giving him back a little control of his wolf, Jericho still will not last another five years.”
“Do you know him?” Anna asked.
Asil shook his head. “No. But I have talked about him with Devon in better times. Devon and he were friends, once. Closer than brothers. Now Devon is … Devon.” There was a wealth of sadness in Asil’s voice because Asil and Devon had once been very close as well. “And Jericho is so near to madness that he cannot even use words most of the time. The man he once was may not thank you for your help, Anna.”
Sage said, in a low voice, “I know him. The first year I was here, I got lost for three days in the middle of an ice storm. I didn’t know it was possible to be that cold and live.” She looked away. “I found out later that Bran had called all the wildlings, to send them out looking for me. Jericho found me and brought me to his cabin.” She rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. He was … sweet and shy. Brought me here, dried me off, and called Bran. I know his reputation—even then he was pretty bad off. But he lit a fire in the little stove—and went outside to wait for Bran to come and pick me up.”
Sage met Anna’s eyes. “I’m telling you this so you know I’m not just being expedient. He treated me well—and it surprised Bran that Jericho was able to do that. That was twenty years ago. And every day of those twenty years, Jericho has spent fighting with his wolf.” She waved her hands to indicate the dead. “This time it was the enemy. But next time it might not be. Jericho needs to die.” Truth rang in her last sentence—truth as she saw it, at any rate.
“Fighting is the right word,” said Leah, in a grumpy voice. “Since when is fighting a horrible thing? We are werewolves—fighting is what we do.”
Sage gave Leah a sad smile. “Sometimes, Leah, the kindest thing is to let them go.”
A long, wailing howl echoed through the trees.
Charles raised his face to the sky and answered in a like voice, so that their lone soldier understood there was help coming. Of one sort or another.
“If I take Jericho,” Charles told Asil, “it’s like as not I’ll have to do the same with Devon.”
The words were a blow—even though Charles knew Asil was well aware of that. Charles had only known the broken wolf his da had brought here sixty years ago. But he knew that Devon, in his glory days, had had a knack for making and keeping friends. Jericho, Asil—and even Bran had been friends of his.
“Devon will defend him,” said Asil, giving Charles a half smile. “Devon defends those he loves. That’s part of what made him the man he once was.”
Leah stepped closer to Anna. “You and I don’t always see things the same way,” she said.
“That is true,” his mate answered, meeting Leah’s eyes.
“I know you are tired,” Leah continued. “I know that this will only be a stopgap, but my mate gets so sad when the wildlings go on. He breaks his heart over them.”
“It would take more than those two,” said Anna, indicating Asil and Charles, “to keep me from trying to help. Bran isn’t the only one who gets sad when the old ones die.”
Leah would think that Anna was speaking only of herself, but Charles knew that Anna was talking about Leah, too.
And us, said Brother Wolf. We regret, too.
After saying her bit, Sage had moved away from the dead. She wrapped her arms around her middle and frowned off into the distance. The dead usually didn’t bother her much—a result of her early life as a werewolf, Charles had always supposed (it hadn’t bothered him at all to take care of most of that rogue pack). Maybe it was just that she was upset about Jericho, who had saved her life once upon a time.
Asil addressed Charles. “I’ve seen your mate almost die once today. That is enough times, I think.”