Little Boy Lost

by Shane Dunphy

  ‘You should not be out on such a cold day, manchild,’ said the wolf. Its voice was low and hoarse, as if it had been shouting a lot. ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘My mother went out to hunt Greyfang, king of the wolves, many days ago,’ Joseph said, for he knew well that it was to Greyfang himself he was speaking. ‘When she did not return, my father went in search of her. I dare say they are near and will fall upon you any second. They will kill you and we shall make a fine rug out of your hide.’

  The wolf shook its massive hairy head, and its tongue lolled out, as if to taste the freezing air.

  ‘I fear, manchild, that you are mistaken. Your mother, I am sorry to say, shot me five years ago not far from here. She came hunting me, as I was hunting her, three weeks past. We met in the great cedar groves by the Purple Coach Road, and I killed her there before she could even raise her gun. Your father looked for me with his axe, but my guards stopped him before he reached our camp to the south. He cut the heads off three before he was taken down, but he, too, is dead.’

  Joseph felt the sting of tears, but also a great and terrible anger. Greyfang watched him with huge brown eyes, and saw the rage that was building within the boy.

  ‘Well, wolf,’ Joseph said, clutching the knife in his pocket. ‘If you have slain my mother and father, then I am bound to kill you.’

  Greyfang did not laugh, for he saw that the boy meant every word. ‘I cannot fight you, child. You are not yet a man, and I am old among my kind. Go in peace and wait for the years to add to your size and strength. If you still wish it then, we can do battle.’

  ‘I stand before you now, wolf!’ Joseph shouted, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  ‘I have sharp teeth and jagged claws, child,’ said Greyfang. ‘You have only soft flesh and a plump heart. I would kill you surely.’

  ‘Then so be it,’ said Joseph. ‘But I will cause you great hurt before you are done with me.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the wolf, ‘though it saddens me to kill a pup.’

  And with a roar, Greyfang sprang across the pond in a single leap. Joseph was ready, and just as the wolf was upon him, the boy pulled out his knife. Yelping in pain, Greyfang rolled away, the knife’s blade stuck deep in his grey fur.

  ‘You have claws after all, manchild,’ the wolf said, lying in the snow, panting like a huge dog. ‘You have wounded me.’

  Just then, Joseph heard barking, and out of the trees scampered three small wolf cubs. ‘Father, Father, why are you bleeding?’ they called as they ran to Greyfang, nestling against his flanks.

  ‘This hunter has left his mark upon me, children,’ said Greyfang, looking at Joseph.

  Joseph saw the cubs gaze at him in fear, and then look with worry at their father. He did not feel like a brave hunter at all, but more like a boy who has had very little to eat and has just learned that he is an orphan. He sat in the snow feeling sick and tired and very, very sad.

  ‘Are you going to kill us?’ one of the cubs asked him.

  Joseph shook his head. ‘I am not a hunter,’ he said. ‘I am just a boy.’

  Shakily, Greyfang stood up, and as he did so, the knife fell from his side. ‘Take your claw, manchild,’ he said. ‘You may have need of it in the future.’

  With the cubs at his heels, the great wolf turned away from Joseph and disappeared into the darkness beneath the trees.

  The dwarves were surprised to see Joseph arrive at the door to their cave town all alone as night was falling, but they brought him in and sat him by the fire and gave him meat soup thickened with biscuit crumbs. Sitting about the great hall, they listened as he told the story of how his mother and then his father had left him to hunt Greyfang and his kind, and of how he had met and fought the wolf and pierced him. The dwarves, who were far more sensitive than they looked, mopped at their tears with their beards when they heard the news of the deaths of the woodsman and huntress. Whitemane, the old chief, sat Joseph at his feet, and placed his thick-fingered hand on his shoulder. ‘Tomorrow, we shall ride out on our ponies and we will hunt every last one of these wolves until the forest is rid of them,’ he said. ‘You may ride at my side, and have your revenge.’

  The next day an army of dwarves rode out of the caves, dressed in armour fashioned from iron and carrying axes and swords. Joseph sat on a sturdy brown pony and rode beside Whitemane and his son, Redlocks. ‘We will bring a cartload of wolf heads back to the caves tonight, my boys,’ Whitemane said, laughing as they rode through the trees.

  They had not gone far when there arose about them the sound of many wolves howling. The voices of the beasts drifted through the winter air and came from every direction. The horses started to whinny in fear. They did not like the song of the wolves at all. The dwarves muttered and placed their hands on their weapons.

  Joseph did not even see the first wolf leaping from the cover of the trees, but before he knew it, grey shapes were springing upon the dwarves and knocking them from their horses everywhere he looked. The dwarves fought bravely, but there were too many wolves, and it was not long before most of the dwarves were either dead or dying. Joseph was too frightened to move. The brown pony neighed and tried to run this way and that, but everywhere it turned there was a wolf snapping at its hooves. Finally, the little horse reared, and Joseph was thrown from the saddle onto the cold, hard ground. He hit his head on the stump of a tree, and everything went black.

  When Joseph finally awoke, the first thing he saw was the night sky, with thousands of stars winking in the blackness. He found he could not move, but he was warm and comfortable. It took him a few moments to realize that he was lying amid a great bundle of sleeping wolf cubs, who lay atop and over him just like a blanket. He craned his neck, and was just about able to see a vast gathering of wolves in a clearing a little way off. Greyfang was in the centre of them, and he was addressing the group. Joseph could catch only the odd word, but this is what the wolves were saying.

  ‘I say we kill him,’ an old male snarled.

  ‘We kill for food, Silverbrow,’ Greyfang said. ‘You have eaten well today. I’d say the taste of dwarf blood is still on your tongue. What reason is there to slay the manchild? He is no threat to us.’

  ‘He brought the miners,’ a female said.

  ‘The dwarf men rode out because I slew the manchild’s parents, who were their friends,’ Greyfang said. ‘The huntress came to kill me, for that was her way. It was said by the forest folk that I bore her ill-will, and she wished to slay me before I did the same to her. I had no choice, in the end, though I tried to tell her I had no desire for her blood.’

  ‘How did this argument begin?’ Silverbrow asked.

  ‘I was out hunting fowl once, many years ago, when a large hound fell upon me. I had one of my sons from that season’s litter along to learn hunting skills, and I had to kill the dog, for fear it would take my pup. The huntress found us just as the hound died, and put a bullet in my shoulder. I fled, but she always believed I would return for revenge upon her.’

  ‘You promised us peace!’

  ‘You swore we would be free!’

  ‘You spoke of fat, idle dwarves and frightened men!’

  There was a great uproar among the wolves then, and Greyfang had to shout to be heard over them. ‘I tried to find the woman, to tell her I wanted peace. She would not believe me. Humans think we are vicious and evil, and nothing I can say would change that.’

  ‘Her mate came too,’ a young male shouted, coming right up to Greyfang, his teeth bared and hair standing on end all down his back. ‘He killed my brother Darkfur with his axe.’

  ‘Yes, Blackpaw, and you in turn killed him.’

  ‘I want the child!’ Blackpaw roared, and made as if to leap at Greyfang. The great wolf reached out one of his huge paws, and knocked the youngster aside as if he were a fly.

  ‘None of you will touch the manchild, for he is here under my protection,’ Greyfang said.

  A slender, fair-haired female wolf stepped up besi
de Greyfang.

  ‘I am Goldcrest, Greyfang’s mate,’ she said.

  The pack fell silent, for Goldcrest was known as gentle and kind, and was well loved. ‘This child, who never lifted a paw against us, has been sorely wronged. He is alone in the world, adrift in the cold woods without guidance. My husband and I request that he be given the shelter of the pack.’

  There was complete silence, then a great explosion of snarls, barks, yelps and howls, as the gathering of wolves all tried to speak at once.

  ‘A human in the pack? It is unheard of!’

  ‘He could never run with us. He has only two legs, and they are short.’

  ‘He is bald and pink, and his teeth are blunt and useless.’

  While all this had been happening, Joseph had been struggling to escape from the bundle of wolf cubs. By pulling this way and that, wriggling and squirming, he finally got one arm out, and gradually, a little at a time, pulled himself upright. On his tiptoes, he crept through the trees until he was just outside the circle of wolves and could hear what they were saying.

  You must remember, this was a very hard time for Joseph. He was lost and alone out in the forest at wintertime. He had just found out that his parents were dead, and now he had been captured by the very creatures who had killed them. He was afraid, but angry too. Then he heard what Greyfang said about his mother and father, and he was confused.

  If Greyfang had really been looking for his mother to try and make friends, and had only killed her defending himself, that meant it wasn’t really his fault. And if the other wolves had only killed his father because he had killed some of them, then that wasn’t their fault either. And now, Greyfang and his wife were asking the pack to look after Joseph, because they felt badly about what had happened. Joseph listened as the wolves began to say nasty things about him, and he got angry all over again. How dare they say he had short legs! And he certainly was not useless! Without thinking about it, he suddenly stepped out into the clearing among them, his knife in his hand and a fierce look on his face.

  The noise of the wolves roaring and snarling got even louder and fiercer, and three of the animals sprang for him at the same time. So quickly that Joseph did not even see him move, Greyfang was in front of the little boy, and two of the wolves were knocked aside by his great paws. The third landed behind Joseph, who turned to meet it. The wolf was too afraid of the sparkling dwarf knife to go any further, and there was also the sight of Greyfang, who now stood beside Joseph, his teeth bared.

  ‘I will fight any one of you,’ Joseph said as loudly as he could. ‘I am not afraid!’

  Greyfang placed a paw on Joseph’s shoulder, Goldcrest placed her smaller paw on his head, and all the wolves fell back.

  ‘You are a brave one, Joseph,’ Greyfang said. Then, to the pack: ‘I take this manchild as my son. Any one of you who harms a hair on him, I will kill. From this moment onwards, he is wolf.’

  Then Greyfang threw his huge head back and howled, and Goldcrest raised her voice and joined him, and one by one the other wolves added their songs until the night air was filled with their sad, beautiful music.

  So Joseph came to live with the wolves. For the first weeks he was always frightened, and barely slept at night. He was sure one of them would creep up on him and swallow him whole as he was asleep. But as the days passed, he came to understand that he was safe. Greyfang and Goldcrest treated him with great tenderness, and their cubs called him brother. That winter, they stayed deep in the forest, and were undisturbed by man, dwarf or elf. Joseph missed his mother and father terribly, and would often walk off into the trees by himself, feeling sad and lonely. But when he came back to the clearing where the wolves lived, one of his cub brothers would call him to play, and he would find that the bad feelings could be forgotten, for a while at least.

  Greyfang loved the forest, and in the first days of spring, he took Joseph and the cubs to many different, special places.

  They climbed to the top of Black Mountain, which stood right at the centre of the woods, where Greyfang told them of the golden eagles who had once reigned there.

  ‘I have never seen an eagle,’ Joseph said.

  ‘That is because the elves hunted them, to take their feathers to make flights for their arrows,’ Greyfang said. ‘The eagles do not dwell in the forest any more.’

  They walked the length of the Blue River, and Greyfang told them of the busy beavers, who once built fine dams all along the river’s course.

  ‘They sound like funny animals, with their flat tails and bushy whiskers,’ laughed Dapplecoat, Joseph’s favourite cub brother, ‘I hope we see one soon!’

  ‘You will see no beavers, my son,’ Greyfang sighed. ‘The dwarves hunted them for their hide, to make boots and coats. The beavers no longer dwell in the forest.’

  They roamed across the green hills, and Greyfang showed them the shallow, shadowy caves where the gentle black bears would sleep away the cold winters.

  ‘There was nothing prettier than seeing a mother bear playing with her cubs in the early morning sunshine.’ Goldcrest smiled at the memory, for she had accompanied them on this trip.

  ‘I would love to play with them,’ Joseph said. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘The last of the black bears was shot long before you were born,’ Greyfang told him, ‘by a huntress.’

  Joseph felt a deep pain in his heart when he heard this. ‘Not my mother,’ he said.

  ‘No, but one much like her,’ Greyfang said, and Joseph asked no more questions that day.

  Summer came, and the pack moved from their clearing to the northern edge of the forest, where the trees were thinner and herds of deer ran among them, swift as swallows. The wolves hunted what they needed to eat, and left the rest. Joseph did not like the raw meat they ate, but there were plenty of other things for him to live on: nuts and fruit and wild herbs and berries, and though he was sometimes hungry, it never lasted long. The forest always gave him something sooner or later.

  One day Joseph was playing with Dapplecoat in a wide meadow, when the cub sat up and said, ‘I smell something funny.’

  Joseph was always amazed by the things the wolves could smell which he could not. ‘I smell nothing, brother,’ he said. ‘What does it smell like?’

  ‘It smells like you, but stronger and hairier,’ Dapplecoat said.

  All of a sudden, there was a whizzing noise, and an arrow stuck into Dapplecoat’s side. The cub cried out and then lay still, panting hard. Joseph heard the sound of heavy footsteps, and turning, saw a big, dirty-looking man with mud-coloured hair and a thick beard, running towards them through the long grass.

  ‘Do not worry, brother,’ Joseph whispered. ‘He will hurt you no more.’

  Joseph lay down flat on the ground beside Dapplecoat, and waited, hardly breathing. He closed his eyes tight, pretending to be dead, and after a few moments, heard the big man stomping up to them. Even though he was not a wolf, Joseph could smell the hunter now. He smelt of sweat, tobacco and fried bacon, and the stench of him made Joseph feel a little bit ill. Joseph heard him stop, and then grunt in surprise. The man had shot a wolf, but he had not expected to see a little boy there too.

  The awful smell got stronger and stronger as the man knelt down to look more closely at Joseph, to see where he was hurt. When he did, Joseph stuck the knife he was holding, hidden at his side, into the big man’s arm. The man shouted in pain. Joseph stood up and roared just like Greyfang, jumping up and down and waving his arms. The man shouted again, dropped his bow, and ran away, screaming in a funny high voice.

  Dapplecoat had stopped panting, and there was a lot of blood coming out of the wound where the arrow was sticking. Joseph bent down close to his ear, and whispered, ‘Hold on, brother. I will get Father. I will run as fast as I can, and bring him to you. He will know what to do.’

  The boy found Greyfang drinking from a little stream not far from the meadow, and through his tears told him what had happened.

  ‘Get on my bac
k, Joseph, for I am going to run and you will not keep up with me,’ the great wolf growled, and Joseph did as he was told. Greyfang sprang forward, and the wind whooshed into Joseph’s face, and the trees whizzed past, and it felt for all the world as if he was flying. ‘Hold on tight, my son,’ Greyfang said, and Joseph wrapped his arms round the wolf’s neck, and laid his face against the fur of his back, and hoped his brother would be all right.

  Dapplecoat looked very small and he was lying very still. Greyfang licked the arrow, and gripped it in his teeth, but it would not come out. He nudged the little cub, but Dapplecoat did not whimper or move.

  ‘Can you make him well again, Father?’ Joseph asked, his voice shaking.

  ‘No, child,’ Greyfang said. ‘He is dead.’

  That night, Greyfang spoke to the pack.

  ‘I was wrong to bring you here,’ he said. ‘The great forest is not safe. We will never be at peace here, for there will always be hunters with arrows or guns or swords. Elves, dwarves or men, they are all the same. I can lead you no more. I am going into the mountains, where no men walk.’ He looked at Joseph. ‘My son, it is a hard place to which I take Goldcrest and my litter. There will be no trees with nuts, no bushes with berries. The wind always blows and the sun rarely shines. I do not think you can follow.’

  ‘The caves where the dwarf miners tunnel are not far from here,’ Goldcrest said. ‘I will take you there.’

  ‘But I am not a dwarf,’ Joseph said, his eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Nor are you a wolf,’ Greyfang said, and he would not look at Joseph, or listen to his arguments.