“Meat.” He grunted as if I had wrung the word from him.

“I have no meat, no food at all. You’ll get nothing from me but a fight!”

“You,” huffed another, in a parody of laughter. Mirthless, heartless. “Meat!”

I had paused a moment too long, looked too long at one, for another sprang suddenly to my back. He flung his arms around me, pinning one of my arms, and then suddenly, horribly, his teeth sank into my flesh where my neck met my shoulder. Meat. Me.

A horror beyond thought engulfed me and I fought. I fought just as I had the first time I had battled Forged ones, with a mindless brutality that rivaled their own. The elements were my only ally, for they were ravaged by cold and privation. Their hands were clumsy with cold, and if we were all powered by the frenzy for survival, at least mine was new and strong within me while theirs had been worn down by the brutality of their current existence. I left flesh in the mouth of that first attacker, but tear myself free I did. That I recall. The rest is not so clear. I cannot put it in order. I broke off my knife in the young one’s ribs. I recall a thumb gouging into my eye, and the snap when I dislocated it from its socket. Locked in a struggle with one, another pounded me across the shoulders with his stick, until I managed to turn his mate to meet the blow. I don’t recall that I felt the pain of that pounding, and the torn flesh at my neck seemed but a warm spot where blood flowed. I had no sense of damage to myself, no daunting of my desire to kill them all. I could not win. There were too many. The young one was down in the snow, coughing blood, but one was throttling me while the other tried to jerk the sword free from its entanglement in my flesh and sleeve. I was kicking and flailing, trying uselessly to inflict any sort of damage on my attackers while the edges of the world grew black and the sky began to spin.

Brother!

He came, slashing teeth and weight hitting our tangled struggle like a battering ram. We all went down in the snow then, and the impact loosened the Forged one’s grip enough that I caught a whistle of air into my lungs. My head cleared, and suddenly I had heart to fight again, to ignore pain and damage, to fight! I swear I saw myself, face purpled from strangling, the rich blood streaming and soaking and the smell so maddening. I bared my teeth. Then Cub bore the one down and away from me. He attacked him with a speed no man could match, slashing and snapping and leaping clear before the grasping hands could seize his coat. He darted back in suddenly.

I know that I knew when Cub’s jaws closed in his throat. I felt that death rattle in my own jaws and the swift spurting blood that drenched my muzzle and flowed out over my jowls. I shook my head, my teeth tearing flesh, setting all the life loose to run free down his stinking garments.

Then was a time of nothing.

Then I was sitting in the snow, back against a tree. Cub was lying in the snow not far from me. His forepaws were dappled with blood. He was licking his legs clean, a careful, slow, thorough licking.

I lifted my sleeve to my mouth and chin. I wiped away blood. It was not mine. I knelt suddenly forward in the snow, to spit out beard hairs, and then to vomit, but not even the acid taste of my bile could cleanse the dead man’s flesh and blood from my mouth. I glanced at his body, looked away. His throat was torn out. For a terrible instant I could recall how I had chewed down, the tendons of his throat taut against my teeth. I shut my eyes tight. I sat very still.

Cold nose against my cheek. I opened my eyes. He sat beside me, regarding me. Cub.

Nighteyes, he corrected me. My mother named me Nighteyes. I was the last of my litter to get my eyes open. He snuffed, then sneezed suddenly. He looked around at the fallen men. I followed his gaze unwillingly. My knife had taken the young one, but he had not died quickly. The other two …

I killed faster, Nighteyes observed quietly. But I have not the teeth of a cow. You did well, for your kind. He stood up and shook himself. Blood, both cold and warm, spattered my face. I gasped and wiped it away, then realized the significance.

You’re bleeding.

So are you. He pulled the blade out of you to put it in me.

Let me look at it.

Why?

The question hung between us in the cold air. Night was about to find us. Overhead the tree branches had gone black against the evening sky. I did not need the light to see him. I did not even need to see him. Do you need to see your ear to know it is part of you? As useless to deny that part of my flesh was mine as to deny Nighteyes.

We are brothers. We are pack, I conceded.

Are we?

I felt a reaching, a groping, a tugging for my attention. I let myself recall that I had felt this before and denied it. Now I did not. I gave him my focus, my undivided attention. Nighteyes was there, hide and tooth, muscle and claw, and I did not avoid him. I knew the sword thrust in his shoulder and felt how it had gone between two big muscles there. He held his paw curled to his chest. I hesitated, and then felt his hurt that I would hesitate. So I paused no longer, but reached out to him as he had to me. Trust is not trust until it is complete. So close were we, I do not know which of us offered this thought. For an instant I had a double awareness of the world as Nighteyes’ perceptions overlay my own, his scenting of the bodies, his hearing telling me of scavenger foxes already creeping closer, his eyes making no difficulty of the fading light. Then the duality was gone, and his senses were mine, and mine his. We were bonded.