Page 61 of The SnowFang Storm

“Exactly? Come on, we’re making swags!”

Cye headed down the hallway and rattled Burian’s broken door, then plunged inside with all the bravery of a war-form warrior jumping down into a pit of snakes.

Jun deposited a mountain of evergreen on the coffee table. “There’s more, I’ll be back.”

Jangling and snarling from the hallway.

Time for coffee. I went to brew a pot.

Jun brought in more boxes of stuff and pushed the coffee table aside so we could have Evergreen Mountain and use the table for all sorts of bits and bobs. Cye cajoled (and half-dragged) Burian out of his room. Burian even had on a Santa hat at this point and let Cye drag him to the living room and push him down on the couch. Then Cye shoved two cords at him and some evergreen boughs. “Let’s start with the door swags. I’ve got a list of what everything means.”

He put his tablet down on the table for everyone to reference.

“Sorry, kids,” I told them, brandishing Sterling’s distinctive metallic-blue laptop. “I’ve got an assignment.”

“Awwww,” Jun said. Burian didn’t look up from his serious contemplation of the symbolic options listed on Cye’s tablet.

“We’ll make yours,” Cye volunteered. When he sensed me hesitating, he added with just a trifle bit of mischief. “It’s bad luck for the Alpha and Luna not to have one. Have to sweep out all the bad luck.”

He picked up a few branches and swept at some green needles to illustrate his point.

Jun flicked the TV to an eating contest. This one involving pumpkin pies. Cye complained about the mass produced garbage so he flicked it to Alien Santa Versus The Dinosaur Vixens but Burian swore he’d shank someone if forced to watch mathematically impossible nonsense, and considering he was the one holding the paring knife, it was back to pie.

I chose purple for my map. I doodled some dots where I knew a pack generally was, then sketched lines where I knew boundaries better. The three North American Elder packs I knew about (SilverPaw, AmberHowl, NorthernAura), and the larger packs like my mother’s FrostFur, then packs I had personal experience with throughout the Rockies and midwest, like EarthSpine and SaltClaw.

There was a lot of snickering and giggling and throwing things while I worked.

“The VineTail are in San Francisco, right?” I asked Jun as I speckled a few dots over San Francisco. The VineTail were the biggest pack on the west coast. That wasn’t saying much. There weren’t many packs west of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada.

“Napa.” Jun bent over his swag.

I doodled a spot over the general Bay Area. Close enough.

“And you’re from…” I asked Cye, because I didn’t know, and I’d sort of avoided asking since it was obviously a sore spot for him. He was clearly Australian, which probably meant he was some degree of feral. Maybe all feral. Much of Australia’s inland was a remote, cruel, sparsely populated desert. Although it was brutal and parched, many wolves had moved there over the centuries because it was remote. There were a number of powerful feral packs in the interior, dominated by the Elder RedRise, who had a massive territory that looped in a coastal city.

Cye looked up from tying juniper to a door swag. He said, in a smallish voice, “RedRise.”

I sighed at him. “Please don’t tell me you’re some disowned princeling.”

He actually smiled with relief and shook his head.

“So what’s Solstice like in SilverPaw?” Jun nudged me with a frond while I doodled purple borders.

“SilverPaw kept it very traditional. Nothing fun like the fireworks other packs like to do,” I said, hesitating to talk about it and trying not to be too obvious about burrowing deeper into my work.

The day of Solstice everyone in SilverPaw had come to the heart for the party, and the ceremonial hunt. The best hunters were named. The prey was preferably a grumpy winter bear, but a bull moose or elk would do, unless something like a mountain lion presented itself.

The hunters left at dusk, and the rest of the pack partied. Young warriors sparred to entertain. Songs, stories, food. When the hunters came back, they took the pack to the kill, and the hunters were feted for destroying the bad luck of the past year, and bringing bounty to the new.

“Ever been on the hunt?” Jun asked Cye.

Cye shook his head like it was a silly question. “Only the thirteen best hunters go. One for each moon of the year.”

“But most of the wolves are just kinda there, right?” Jun asked.

“There are two Fangs and three Harriers, but to even be in the back you have to be the best,” Cye said seriously. “Like the best.”

“What about you, Winter?” Jun asked. “You ever been?”

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