AN UNEXPECTED TREAT

Lights, creatures and harsh growls swarmed in on Icalave. He felt the cold breath of his Howl pass through his body as he tensed up preparing for the fight. Snaps of deadly jaws rattled with chains and the earth under paws was scratched. Icalave pulled himself down into a low stance, ready to pounce, all the energy in his body channelling into the large muscles of his hind legs. With a ferocious kick, dirt leapt up in a desperate hope to follow Icalave in the air, but proved to be to slow. A light wavered before Icalave heavily came down upon it. Screams of horror came from the creatures unknown and sounds of angered minds barked their ways up Icalave’s spine. With all the effort that he could muster, Icalave bounded off in a direction would put a safe distance between him and his death.
The sounds became more faint as the wind raced past Icalave’s ears. He kept them low, his tail stretched out to give him balance as he ran and weaved in and out of the gradually growing rock formations.
Eventually he stopped. The sky blared blackly down at him and the heaving of his breath cast a warm patch of air in front of him. His markings still glowed, so with a satisfied relief, they began to fade. He felt himself coming back into normal state and with it, the shock of exhaustion.
The gruesome barking still echoed in the distance, and lights from the small settlement still scurried about. Icalave flopped to the ground, accepting his temporary bound fate. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his hearing.
The screams of ghastly creatures echoed into the night. Insects crawling around on the dirt hurried around and the birds of the night quietly flapped their wings to prey on unsuspecting food. Scuttling sounds of dead plants scrapped across the ground, and unnatural smells filled the air.
Icalave drifted. He felt his mind submerging into the dream of his own relief, but something made him perk up his ears. It was renewed sounds of screaming. The deadly howls resonated louder than before and the shuffling of panicked paws spread into the night’s distance. He lifted his head back up and through his tired squinting eyes; he looked back at the settlement.
Lights were moving everywhere and an unusual ringing sound of clashing hard rocks swiped through the blackness. The new sound was so familiar to Icalave’s ears, yet he could not name it. Nothing came to mind except for the dusts of a lost memory. Icalave struggled to pull himself up, but managed non-the less, and with new curiosity, pelted back towards the settlement. Puzzlement was Icalave’s primary thought, but as he drew closer, he thought he heard the call of a known voice.
A few rocks caught Icalave unexpectedly and within the deep darkness that he was, it was hard for him to manoeuvre safely around them and most times met them with a thud. Blood trickled down his nose, warming it from the cold needles of wind that struck it as he ran by. An all-familiar Howl emerged from the centre of the settlement, exactly in the place that he had been encircled earlier. With full vigour, he bounded towards the source and was faced by the backs of the creatures holding the lights.
They were stout, but taller than Icalave himself. Some of the littler ones were cowering next to the legs of the two-legged creatures, like Budney did to him. Icalave took a deep breath in and only smelt fear from the Mann creatures, whereas the Wolve like shapes that were standing smugly next to them reeked of death. The death smelling Wolves were wrapped round the throat by a continuous loop of circles which then at the other end, were held in the paws of the two legged creatures upper limbs. He shuddered to think why these Death Wolves were paying such respect to these Mann’s, but Icalave’s thoughts drifted to what was in the centre of this besieging circle.
It was another white Wolve, similar to himself. The blue markings around its face glowed along with the ones that cascaded down the middle of its back, along the spine.
“Arssneq!” Icalave cried out, forgetting that he was standing right behind the backs of the Death Wolve and Mann. The glowing face swivelled in Icalave direction and also glowed with fear. The face of a frightened light carrier also turned round to face him.
A horrible shrill filled the air and the light was dropped. It went out. The loop of circles was also dropped and the Death Wolve next to the Mann also turned to face him. An emotionless face of greed and hunger was all that Icalave got to see before the powerful limbs of it pushed it forwards on top of Icalave. With a quick act of desperation, Icalave heaved and bit at it, hoping to show it that he was not going to go down without a fair fight.
It overcame him with might that Icalave knew not possible. It hauled him to the ground and kept him pinned. A shout of a Mann came and the Death Wolve shut it’s befouled mouth before Icalave was about to pass out from its disgusting stench of a breath. Even with the unsatisfactory light, Icalave could tell that there were a lot more teeth in this Wolvians’ mouth than what was normal. He could see the want in its eyes to tear him to shreds, but the powerful words of the Mann kept it stayed.
A powerful icy breeze ploughed over Icalave’s face. A huge force sent the Death Wolve lying off Icalave’s chest and white figure quickly puled him to his feet before he found himself, yet again, running with what energy he had left.
“What are you doing here?” Icalave protested ferociously at Arssneq.
“Saving your life!” He protested back.
“My life did not need saving, it was I that had to save you.” Icalave growled through his teeth as they panted along.
“Then we will call it even then.” Arssneq concluded with the confused growls of the Death Wolves behind.
“I told you NOT to come. You have disobeyed me!” Icalave shot at him. He could tell Arssneq felt the pain from it from his panting silence and his bowed down, disappointed in himself, head. They ran along in silence together before Icalave spoke again.
“Where’s Genera and Budney? Tell me that you did not abandon them?”
“Uh…”
“We must go back! Anything could happen to them! They are not the most well trained Wolvians like us, Arssneq. They could die at the fangs of those death reapers! We must go back!” Icalave sizzled through his teeth. He could feel the fur on the back of his neck become more rigid and in a snap he was running back towards the village.
“Icalave!” Arssneq called out, “Icalave!” But Icalave would not listen. Faster and faster he took his complaining paws, constantly sniffing the air for the sickly sweet scent that he knew so well. The light breeze that had formed was gently blowing from the west and on it; Icalave caught a small sample of what he was searching for. His paws grew ever more weary and suddenly he was upon the strong trail of Genera’s smell. Determined to find her, he bolted in the direction he thought most suitable, which was surprisingly, away from the village. A wave of relief over took him, but his desperation to find them did not cease.
A moment later, he saw her. Her white fur stood out from the pitch-black darkness and a shiver of hope ran down through his spine and into his legs.
“Genera!” He called at the top of his lifeless lungs. Pants ran out afterwards before he took a deep breath to call out again. “Genera!”
Her white face turned round to great him. It had a dazzling smile that tipped Icalave’s head over backwards with content. Slowly he came to a jog, and then walked up to her when all her features were profoundly visible.
“Surprise!” She announced with a bound.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“I found some weird stuff that is absolutely delicious! We stole it from the Mann’s settlement!” A huge grin was pressed from ear to ear on her face. Icalave went over to sniff the weird sack that Genera was bounding up and down in front of. Occasionally a black shadow would pass in front of her, so he presumed that Budney was also safely with her.
The sack smelt delicious. Icalave’s mouth watered. His stomach grumbled as a reminder that they hadn’t eaten for nearly days. This was certainly unexpected, but Icalave welcomed it.
“Would you care to do the honours?” Genera asked Icalave.
“Most certainly.” And with that, Icalave picked up the sack and thrashed it around with his teeth. The sack tore with a vigorous glee with the showering of pebbles of food. Flung everywhere, with the might of Icalave’s muscles, the food rained down on all three of them.
Icalave dropped the sack.
“Dig in, don’t wait!”
Icalave took a huge mouthful of whatever pebbles of food were left in the sack and chomped down on them with delight as the juicy flavours exploded I his mouth. The others were nose down on the ground, acting like large gusts of wind, sucking up the dropped pebbles before crunching happily down on the food.
Arssneq eventually found them, only by the lovely smell of their food and greatly joined in.
The night continued black over their heads, but the dreams of fresh green meadows became more and more present within their own minds. Soon, all was quiet, save the noise of deeps sleeps from the four huddled Wolvians.

Dawn broke, and they were all woken with a shrill of fright.