The Book of the Barghest

CHAPTER THREE

The moon glowed brightly overhead, its face unshielded by clouds in the night sky. Normally the croaking of frogs and the

chirping of crickets would have filled the night air of Lake Pack, but with dead creatures polluting the water and no green

vegetation for a good distance, there was hardly any living thing out here besides the wolves that called the now-devastated

oasis home. Slow movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he shifted his weight, taking a few steps

out of the entrance of the alpha den before looking over his shoulder.

Gar was laying sprawled on her side with her back facing him, but he knew without a doubt that she wasn’t asleep; she had

yet to sleep since the night their pups died. He wouldn’t be surprised if her bloodshot eyes were boring holes in the dirt

walls of the den as she pictured Manta’s face. Part of him wanted to stay, was convinced that his mate needed him now

more than ever, but the other part of him knew that he had already tried everything he could think of, and the only thing left

was to give her some time to process alone.

Besides, there were other problems to attend to now.

He fully exited the den, following the hunched shape of the Oracle in the distance and easily catching up with the shambling

elder. She looked up as the alpha fell in step with her, giving a small grunt and a nod. “It’s time,” she muttered, continuing

towards the beach. While Lake Pack was usually found lounging in and near the water at all times, the spreading illness and

the unwell state of the lake was enough to keep them further inland for now, so all that greeted them was barren patches of

sand and pebble.

The elder stopped at what appeared to be a tightly packed clump of moss sitting on the shore away from the water, and she

picked it up before heading towards the water. With the flick of her head, she threw the moss into the water where the thin

clumps of vegetation began to unfurl and seemingly grow in the water. For a moment, the two watched the moss drift further

into the lake with very little to see, and then — slowly but surely — the moss began to give off a faint green glow, getting

stronger with each passing second until soon the entire lake seemed to be glowing the radioactive green color.

Starbloom had been the Packs’ method of communicating the need for a meeting for as long as the Oracle had lived and

discovered the odd plant, and with watchers from every pack on guard, there was most certainly a wolf from each headed to

alert their alpha of the development right now. The message was always the same: “It’s time to meet. Midnight, tomorrow at

Dawn’s Fountain.”

Whitewave had to admit, he wasn’t ready to surrender news of his certain failure in front of the other Pack Alphas. They

already thought so little of him since he hailed from Sled Pack, the pack of wolf-dogs. Proving his worth as the alpha of a

pack other than Sled had been difficult enough, but to admit he had failed in his duty to them all and quite possibly risked

every one of them being killed? Well, that was simply too much.

~CL1 didn't feel like fixing this one, but anyway, this is the last one I had written.