Catherine sat cross legged on the ground. Baldrick the raven, son of Branoc, sat on her left shoulder. Balsamer, another son of Branoc, sat on Catherine’s right shoulder. Branoc had a large family.
The wolves had come, but they were not happy.
“The ravens told us that you wanted to see us again,” said the lead wolf, his fur bristling.
“Why so angry?” Catherine asked. “Did you not eat well today?”
“We are capable of finding our own food,” said the wolf. The other wolves growled their agreement. “We have helped you once, but we are not your servants. How many more times will you summon us?”
“There is much work to be done in these mountains,” said Catherine. “And I will have need of faithful helpers.”
“We are not your helpers,” the wolf growled. Once again, all the other wolves growled their agreement.
“Do not try my patience,” said Catherine. “I will have need of you in the coming days. You will get my summons from the ravens. We have many more battles to fight. I need you to be ready.”
“We fear your power,” said the lead wolf, “but we will not be turned into slaves without a fight. If you wish to rule us, then you will have to fight for that privilege.” Without another word, the wolf lunged at her.
Before Catherine had even registered what was happening, before the wolf’s teeth had time to chomp down on her face, Catherine’s hand shot out and grabbed the wolf by the throat. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that Catherine’s brain realized that her arm was keeping the wolf away by holding his throat. Something had taken control of her body. It was the familiar energy again. It lived inside her, and yet it was not her. It was some foreign intruder that had come to live with her. And then, that energy flowed through her arm, into her hand, and into the wolf’s body. The wolf yelped, and the whimpered, and then howled in agony. It sounded pitiful.
Catherine knew that she was burning the wolf alive just as she had burned Zed. She had not intended to kill the wolf, but the energy was flowing through her now of its own accord. And it did feel good. There was a euphoric feeling connected to the release of the energy. She didn’t want to stop.
But no, her brain came back to her, it wouldn’t do to kill the wolf. First of all, she had no real quarrel with the wolves like she had with Zed. It hadn’t been the wolves who had killed her father. Secondly, although she wanted to scare the wolves a little bit, she did not want to push them too far and make them implacable enemies. She was going to rely on them for a lot of help in the coming days.
Reluctantly, Catherine fought to regain control over herself. The energy could be controlled if she just tried hard enough. She forced herself to stop the energy, and let go fo the wolf.
As soon as Catherine released her grip, the wolf fled down the mountainside, yelping pitifully, with its tail between its legs.
The other wolves were now growling and barking. Catherine stood up. “Who’s next?” she demanded. “Fight me if you dare!”
The other wolves kept growling, but not one of them dared to attack her.
Catherine sat back down. The ravens Baldrick and Balsamer, who had flown up into the trees during the attack, returned to her shoulders. “Do not be upset,” said Catherine. “As I told you before, I will demand of you no unpleasant duties. You like to attack. You will have plenty more opportunities to attack under my direction. But you will only attack those that I direct you to.”
**********************************************************
It was late in the afternoon now. The sun was low in the sky, but it was not quite dark yet. The group sat in a circle on the mountain side. Some of them sat on larger rocks, some of them were seated on the ground.
Carlyle was the only one standing. He was at the head of the circle, and he was trying to convince everyone else..
Catherine sat just outside the circle, listening to the discussion with an expression of contempt on her face. The ravens Baldrick and Balsamer were sitting on her shoulders again.
Paul was talking. “I just, I just don’t understand what you want,” he said. “We defeated the robbers. We saved your home. And we lived to talk about it. Isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t we quit while we’re ahead?”
“But we’re not ahead,” said Carlyle. “We’re right back where we started from. What have we gained from that fight? The robbers are still alive to terrorize the mountain.”
“That’s the life of the mountain folk,” said Marcus. “It always has been. Life up here is dangerous.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” said Carlyle. “We are terrorized because we let ourselves be terrorized. But we could fight back. What if we were to eliminate the robbers completely?”
“You mean kill every last one of them?” asked Molly.
“Why not?” asked Carlyle. “Kill them or force them off this mountain. We beat them once already. We can do it again. Why shouldn’t we? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to walk around the mountain without being attacked?”
“But you can’t make these mountains safe by just getting rid of the robbers,” said Gabriel. “The robbers are the least of our problems. What about the goblins, and the werewolves, and the vampires and the ogres, and everything else?”
“Yes, but listen,” said Carlyle, and he paused to make sure everyone in the group was focusing on him, “What if we were to get rid of all of them? We don’t have to stop at just the robbers. We could fight against all the creatures on this mountain, and finally make it safe. Imagine, no more cowering in our homes every night! No more goblins. No more werewolves, vampires or ogres.”
“You’re crazy,” said Lucas. “You’d never be able to kill all the monsters on these mountains.”
“Why not?” asked Carlyle. “We’ve all fought the monsters before, haven’t we? We’ve all had nights when the werewolves or goblins have attacked our homes, right? And we’ve all beaten them back before. I saw my father kill ogres and werewolves with this very sword.” Carlyle held up Finn’s old sword to show them.
“Standing in your doorway and keeping the monsters out is one thing,” said Marcus. “Fighting them in the open is different.”
“Your father was lucky,” said Molly. “But we all know plenty of people who fought the monsters and died. And remember Jack?”
“Of course I do,” said Carlyle. “But Jack died because he wandered off by himself. If we all stick together, if we fight together and protect each other’s backs, we can win.”
“My father says that you’d be crazy to trust the mountain folk to protect you in a fight,” said Lucas. “He says that you can never trust the mountain folk.”
“My father always said the same thing,” said Carlyle. “But I’m not talking about our parents. I’m talking about us. Maybe the older generation on the mountain is untrustworthy. Maybe it’s true what they say--maybe the mountain folk are mostly criminals who came up here from the forest. But that’s not us. We didn’t flee to the mountains, we were born on the mountains. We all grew up here together. We trust each other. We’ve already proved we can fight together, haven't we?”
“Yes, we did,” Paul answered. “But then we had a reason to fight.”
“We still do,” said Carlyle.
“What exactly is the plan, Carlyle?” asked Shawn. “Do you want us to march up into the caves and fight the robbers where they live?”
“Yes,” said Carlyle.
“And then?” Shawn asked.
“And then,” said Carlyle, “once we’ve killed all the robbers, then we get rid of the bears. And then the wolves. And then the goblins. And then--.”
“You fool!” Catherine blurted out, stopping Carlyle in mid-sentence. “You complete and utter fool!”
Carlyle was momentarily taken aback by Catherine’s anger. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We don’t need to get rid of the wolves,” Catherine said. “We can control the wolves.”
“Yes,” Carlyle said. “I know, we all saw what you did this afternoon. But--.”
“And we don’t need to kill the robbers either,” said Catherine. “Why kill them when we can control them?”
“Because they killed father,” Carlyle responded immediately.
“I know,” said Catherine. “But we’ve already avenged him. We’ve avenged him ten-fold now.”
“It’s not enough,” said Carlyle.
“It’s enough,” Catherine said firmly. “You need to decide what you want. Do you want to continue to avenge father? Or do you want to make these mountains safe?”
“We can have both,” Carlyle insisted.
“We cannot,” Catherine said. “Not by ourselves. If you want to make these mountains safe, you’re going to need to realize who your potential allies are. The ogres cannot be reasoned with. They must be destroyed. The goblins cannot be reasoned with. They must be dealt with. But the robbers are human. They can be reasoned with. They can be dealt with. They can be controlled. And if you can control them, then you can use them to help us fight the real monsters on this mountain.”
“How will you control them?” asked Carlyle.
“We need to subdue them without killing them,” Catherine responded.
“And how are you going to do that?” asked Shawn.
“We need them to surrender to us. To do that, we’ll have to overwhelm them. We don’t have the numbers to overwhelm them, but we could surprise them, if we knew where there main hideouts were, and if we knew when they were least prepared. And fortunately,” Catherine stroked the feathers of Baldrick, “I have a way to get information.”
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