As the sunlight faded, soldiers from both the bear and dragon armies were assigned to build massive bonfires to provide light for the raging battle. The fires cast long shadows and seemed to highlight the piles of carcasses strewn across the field.

Lolo’s strength was becoming exhausted, and the dragons were finally able to get hits in against her. She had a couple of gashes on her right thigh that were bleeding heavily, and one lucky slice had caught the critical leather strap holding the pauldron in place on her left shoulder. Everyone now seemed to be aiming for that chink in her armor. The mail beneath the pauldron protected her from slicing cuts, but her shoulder was becoming horribly tender as the strikes formed angry welts and bruises where they landed.

The bear army was showing its inexperience. Their attack formations were sloppy, especially when compared to the defensive formations of the dragons. It didn't help that the dragons outside of Pack Hall had the bears outnumbered by a factor nearing three. General Starkam had to call his men back to regroup.

Six hours in, Lolo was approaching collapse, and the dragons seemed to sense her growing weakness. Her reaction time was getting longer. The force of her attacks was becoming pitiful. Lolo had to fall back on her talent for dodging and deflecting just to stay in the fight.

As dusk fell, someone struck from behind at her left shoulder again, but it was different this time. This time, she was gushing blood as a thin pike stabbed right through her mail and through the flesh of her arm. Pulling away from the pike, Lolo tried to spin around, but was met with another attack on her right side. Someone struck her face, and Lolo felt blood spill from her nose. She was getting dizzy from all of the blood loss. One well-timed hit to her back, and Lolo dropped to her knees. The dragons rushed her, men grabbed at each arm, and someone pulled the sword out of her hand. Struggling with everything she had left, Lolo kicked as more men rushed to capture her legs.

It took five men to restrain her. In the firelight, Lolo took fatalistic pleasure watching the enemy soldiers fight over who got to deliver the final blow against her.

From the corner of her eye, Lolo saw four figures emerge from the woods. One of them was inhumanly tall. “Of course they show up just in time to watch me die.” Lolo hurt thinking about what her death would do to her team, especially to Standig and Fortus.

The front gate to her right swung open for the first time since she’d closed it.

“Lolo!” it was Qingchi.

A scuffle started between Qingchi’s men and the dragon soldiers surrounding Lolo. They were quickly joined by Zhongyan and Haowan and all of their men. Undeterred by the arrival of the wolf princes, the dragons finished selecting Huo Lohse’s executioner, and someone removed her helmet.

“Lolo!” she could hear her brothers shouting. “Don’t touch her! Leave her alone!”

She closed her eyes to stop herself from tearing up as she listened to her brothers’ futile struggle to save her. She wouldn’t give the dragons the satisfaction of watching her cry.

The rest of the primordial team entered the battlefield to find Lolo being restrained on her knees and immediately joined the fray, fighting as hard as they could to get to her before she was killed. Standig charged with his shield, knocking soldiers every which way as Ulana, Fortus and Jadu cleaned up behind him, but he lost his momentum halfway up the hill to the front gate.

Someone howled, and for once, it wasn’t Lolo.

Huo Lohse opened her eyes to see Zhongyan with his face turned up toward the full moon, and she felt her own wolf spirit, exhausted as it was, stir to respond to the call of the Alpha. The night air filled with the howls of the entire Wolf Tribe army and the lights of the primordial Silver Wolf.

Lolo felt a brief surge in energy. All around her, the dragons appeared to be fighting the urge to flee. She wasn’t going down like this. Mustering every ounce of strength and spiritual energy she had left, Lolo screamed, and a great shockwave erupted from her body, throwing all enemy soldiers within twenty feet around her to the ground. With her brothers fighting to get to her on one side and her team cutting their way up the hill on the other, Lolo finally collapsed, utterly exhausted.

Fortus got to her first with Standig close behind him. Standig stood sentinel as Fortus peeled Lolo off the ground. He was losing the fight against his panic when Lolo opened her eyes for him.

“Fortus? Are you ok?” Lolo looked up to see tears streaking down his face. “I'm alright. I’m just tired.” She struggled to smile at him.

Torn between relief and his continuing panic attack, Fortus could only manage to pull Lolo into a hug. Jadu and Ulana made it up the hill, and Ulana joined Standig so Jadu could inspect Lolo’s injuries.

“Nothing life-threatening,” Jadu said relieved, “but she’s losing a significant amount of blood.” He patched up her leg and shoulder the best that he could under the circumstances in time for Lolo’s brothers to break out of the hall to join them.

“You’re the Alpha,” Lolo said, taking Zhongyan’s hand.

“No, you’re the Alpha, Lolo.”

“No, Zhongyan. I’m the Silver Wolf. You are the Alpha.”

“The Silver Wolf?”

“'Long story. I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

“Jadu, will she be ok?” Qingchi asked.

“She needs rest and some stitches, but yes, she’ll be ok.”

“Qingchi, how is everyone?” Lolo asked.

“We’re all alive. Pack Hall is a mess, and we have a lot of casualties, but we’ve beaten the dragons back out of the hall. And after… well, after your duet with Zhongyan, I think the battle is now almost over,” Qingchi said, looking around and assessing the battlefield.

Relieved, Lolo turned to look at Fortus who was calming down. “I need to meditate.”

“What? Now?”

“Now. Can you cover for me?”

Fortus helped Lolo up into a sitting position and recovered her sword and helmet for her. Jadu stayed on the ground to tend to Lolo’s injuries while Fortus joined Standig, Ulana, and the Lang brothers in a protective circle around her.

Getting into a meditative state was particularly difficult under the circumstances, but once there, Lolo felt instant relief as her wolf spirit fed on spiritual energy. Her body was in a lot of pain, and she was still physically exhausted, but all of that seemed more manageable somehow.

Around her, Lolo could hear the battle come to a standstill, and her meditation broke. With significant effort, she got to her feet. “What’s going on?”

Fortus pointed.

Down the hill toward Crescent Lake, a great rift had formed between the two opposing sides, and Lolo saw a row of fifty or so Wolf Tribe civilians being held at weapon point in front of the dragon army. A large, imposing figure that could only be the Dragon General stood in the middle of his hostages.

A message rippled up the hill through the ranks that General Yudha wanted to speak with the leaders of the Wolf Tribe military. Cautiously, Lolo, her brothers, and her team walked down the hill together, stopping at the head of the army.

“Xiao Shen!” In the dim firelight, Lolo spotted her baobe among the hostages, and Fortus had to scramble to hold her back.

“Lolo Yi!” he cried out to her. The dragon soldier holding him jerked Xiao Shen’s head further back in response.

“No!” Lolo was instantly sobbing.

“Mom!” Haowan shouted, barely restraining himself from running to her.

“Mom?!” Lolo spotted Beta Xini behind the Dragon General and her knees buckled. The more Lolo looked around, the more familiar faces she saw among the hostages. Tuliao and Genga, Xiao Shen’s parents, some of the farmers she’d studied with, a couple of the wolf elders, a handful of Xiao Shen's little classmates-- children.

“Shall we talk terms?” The Dragon General seemed to taunt.

“What do you want?” Qingchi asked, shaking from anger.

“I concede the battle. Allow my army to retreat, and we’ll return the hostages.”

Qingchi waved his hand, and any remaining dragon soldiers that had been separated from their ranks were granted safe passage back to the dragon army.

General Yudha paused to give orders to the lieutenant put in charge of the hostages. The lieutenant nodded. Then the Dragon General gave a curt nod to Qingchi, smiled wickedly as he made eye contact with Lolo, and ordered his men to retreat.

“Let them go!” Lolo half-ordered, half-begged as the dragon army disappeared into the forest.

“All in good time,” the lieutenant scoffed mercilessly.

Time ticked by agonizingly. It was clear that the lieutenant had been given instructions to make sure that the dragon army had a good head start before returning the hostages. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. The lieutenant gave the signal.

Lolo was deaf to her own scream.

The adrenaline hit, and she took off at a dead run, chasing the dragons into the pitch-black forest. She didn’t care about the men that had killed the hostages. She left them for the others that were after blood. She wanted the Dragon General.

“Lolo! Stop!”

She ignored him. Her heart was pounding in her ears.

“Lolo!”

She no longer felt any pain, just a searing hot rage.

She hit the ground hard as Standig tackled her from behind. “Stay out of this!” she snarled, pulling herself free to continue running.

Standig got up right behind her and tackled her again.

Breaking away a second time, Lolo drew her sword. “I’m warning you, Standig.” She turned to run again, and heard Standig draw his own sword behind her.

Clang!

“LET ME GO!” Lolo was screaming and violently throwing attacks at her friend.

“This is a suicide mission!”

“SO WHAT IF IT IS?!”

“Revenge isn’t going to bring them back, Lolo.”

Something inside of her snapped, and Lolo's ironic laughter oozed forward sounding shrill and deranged. “Revenge…. You wouldn’t even give me the chance to defend my people! No, you wouldn’t even give me that choice! Who are you to decide that for me? And who are you to tell me now that I can’t seek revenge?!”

“Lolo, I’m your friend. I can’t sit back and let you kill yourself!”

Lolo's cold laughter was strangled in her throat as she disengaged from Standig and dropped her sword in favor of her concealed dagger. Her face went blank.

"What are you doing? Lolo? STOP!!" She cruelly watched Standig's face as she slid the blade along her left wrist, lacerating the flesh and drawing a spate of blood that dripped in a syncopated rhythm to the forest floor with each thrum of her heartbeat. Standig lunged for her dagger, but she side-stepped him as he tumbled to the ground at her feet.

“Let me go, Standig.” Her voice was quiet and oddly detached.

“Give me the dagger!” Standig felt like he was in a nightmare, and he stood up again to wrestle the dagger out of Lolo's hands.

In response, Lolo switched hands, resting the edge of her blade against the tender flesh of her right wrist. “Let me go.”

“Alright! Alright, Lolo,” Standig was in tears as he dropped to his knees. “You win. Just give me the dagger, and I’ll let you go. Please?”

Lolo wasn’t prepared to trust that promise. Holding the dagger to her wrist, she stepped backwards, keeping eye contact with Standig to make sure that he stayed where he was. She didn’t even bother to pick her sword up. It didn’t matter anyway.

“Lolo,” Standig sobbed, “please. Don’t do this.”

Something about his tone sobered her. The adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream petered out, and Lolo was at once exhausted and dizzy. The anguish that threatened to drown her was not physical. Unable to hold it any longer, she dropped the dagger before dropping to her knees, and there, Lolo completely broke.

Afraid to approach her in case she resorted to self-harm again, Standig watched his best friend self-destruct, eventually fainting from her blood-loss. Standig ripped his pants to tie a cloth tightly around Lolo’s wrist in an effort to slow her bleeding. He then collected her sword and dagger before carrying her back to Pack Hall.