Rhamin

by Bryce THOMAS

  While the rest of the pack rested and Silvah bathed in the fast flowing stream, Rasci joined Rhamin to say farewell to Corvak. The huge black raven cawed and Rasci gave a low woof as if to say that he understood. Rhamin looked at him quizzically. ‘Do you understand him?’ he asked, suddenly shocked by the revelation.

  ‘A bit,’ Rasci replied as he woofed at Corvak again.

  ‘And does he understand you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rasci said proudly. ‘He knows what we are all saying.’

  ‘But how do you know their language?’ Rhamin enquired, his curiosity all consuming.

  ‘Well, Zelda, of course. She knows many languages. She knows the sounds of animals but she also understands the other languages of their minds and their bodies. When I sit with her she teaches me as best she can. But there is too much to learn. I fear I shall never be able to carry her knowledge on. Not all of it, anyway. Often she tells me tales of wolves many years ago, stories passed down to her from her elders when she was young.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rhamin nodded that he understood. ‘I think she is hoping you will be able to pass it all on when she has gone.’

  Rasci sighed. It was hard to think that one day the old wolf would no longer be with them. ‘She can go on for years yet,’ he said, a sadness passing a veil over his eyes. Zelda was so old, nobody knew if she was even related to them. She was at least five generations older than Rhamin.

  ‘You and Silvah do a good job of keeping her well.’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Rasci smiled, showing his rows of new white teeth. ‘She carries in her head such wisdom.’

  ‘She is a valuable member of our pack,’ said Rhamin. Rasci’s eyes suddenly lit up. ‘And did you see her seeing that bear off!’ he exclaimed proudly.

  As their mood lightened, a cooler breeze blew from the west, a sure sign of a change in the weather. Thick cumulus nimbus clouds were piling up on the skyline causing the sun to disappear suddenly and without trace for the last time that day. ‘We had better be making a start,’ Rhamin said, as darkness engulfed them. Turning to the rest of the pack, he said, ‘We each need to carry some food with us. Those back at the Darin are relying on us to return soon.’

  ‘Perhaps, tomorrow, we can keep on travelling through the day. If the weather is changing,’ Natan suggested, ‘it is likely to be much cooler.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rhamin. ‘We’ll all have time to rest once they have been fed.’

  And so, after gathering up as many huge haunches of the carcass as was possible, under the first cloud filled starless sky they had seen for many moons they set out for home, leaving Corvak cawing softly in the darkness to his mate.

  The pack travelled well during the night, heading towards a storm. Behind the far distant horizon, sharp daggers of light lit up the sky every few seconds. They all felt good, loping through the darkness with a spring in their legs such as they hadn't had for a long time. They were well fed, well rested, and heading to their favourite home, their Darin. It wasn’t long before the distant rumble of thunder could be heard from way ahead of them, and before dawn broke, the first heavy droplets of rain plopped onto their thick coats and onto the parched ground around them, each heavy droplet sending up a plume of dust like a tiny explosion. As the night passed and daylight began to force its way through the greyness of the sky, the crashing sound of thunder grew closer and closer and the flashing blades of light in the sky began to cut over their heads. At times it was so close that the static electricity in the air made the guard hairs in their thick coats stand on end. But wolves have two coats. The bottom fleecy soft coat is a thick thermal layer. Above that the guard hairs, as the top coat layers are called, act as a waterproof barrier better than any plastic raincoat that humans wear. The rain was cool and refreshing. The pack stopped several times, not to rest, but to put down their food supplies and lift their heads up into the air to feel the water running over their faces. They opened their mouths and let the heavy rain wash onto their tongues and over their teeth and gums. Nature had had its bad spell and now it was telling them that life giving water was here once again. It was back and, hopefully, it was here to stay. Water gathered in puddles on the dry dusty ground, which would take hours to become porous again. Only slowly over the coming days would the land sponge up the rain. Rasci and Natan danced around in the water, biting and snapping at it as it was splashed up by their plate-like feet.

  It wasn’t long before the pack was, once again, loping homeward, and by late evening, as the rain abated and as the face of the moon peeped though a break in the clouds, they arrived within five miles of the Darin. Here, they stopped and together they howled, calling to the waiting wolves to tell them that they were near, and they in turn returned the call. As they reached the Darin, Yeltsa was the first to greet them, tail sticking upright, nose pushing into Rhamin’s fur, squeaking and smiling with her mouth wide with excitement. No exhilaration is greater than the mood of the pack reunited. Zelda was next out of the cave, placing her head over Rasci’s shoulder and he doing the same with her as they walked jubilantly side by side. And then Bamar limped into the open, tail wagging as he balanced expertly on three legs. He seemed to be suffering pain. His leg hung loosely from the knee joint, but it did not lessen his happiness to see his pack return, not just safely, but with food to last them all for days.

  After the tail wagging and excitement had died down, Silvah went over to Zelda and fed her. Rhamin left a large slab of meat at Yeltsa’s feet and Rasci did the same with a whole buffalo leg for Bamar.

  Yeltsa looked thin. ‘Is everything all right?’ Rhamin asked her, peering beyond her to the mouth of the cave.

  ‘It is now,’ she replied as she began to eat. ‘But the pups are really dragging me down. I need food regularly if we are going to prevent them from suffering any permanent damage from their ordeal the other day.’

  ‘We’ll be fine now,’ Rhamin reassured her, resting his chin on her back as she ate. He remained there, close by her side, for some time, and then, tiredness overtaking him, he joined the rest of his hunting pack, and lay down amongst them to let sleep wash over him.

  –––––––

  The drought had not just affected wolves, of course. Animals throughout the land were washing in the rain, celebrating the return of life giving plant growth and slowly heading homeward to their summer habitat. A sense of calm permeated the world as they saw it. In the days following the rain, blades of grass sprung miraculously from nowhere painting the landscape in hundreds of shades of green. The evergreen trees of the forest seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as their huge trunks channelled up water to their needles. The deciduous trees were slower to respond. They had grown new leaves in the spring and those leaves had survived only because the trees found water supplies deep beneath their tap roots. But many younger trees had lost their leaves and, as the drought continued, closing their systems down into a state of hibernation just like in winter, they had become bare and lifeless. Some had died and those that had survived were going to take all the rest of the year to recover, sending out only a few new shoots to stimulate life before hibernating once again in the fall. With the resilience of nature, however, things were gradually returning to normal and because of the perseverance of the pack, the baby wolves and Lexa all survived.

  Male wolf pups grow quicker than their female siblings. A female will generally gain two and a half pounds a week in their first three months after being born, but a male will gain between three and three and a half pounds per week. At four weeks old, Ramusan was showing signs of growing up to be a giant wolf like his father and he was closing the gap between himself and his foster sister Lexa who, up till that time, had remained considerably bigger than the rest of the pups.

  However, as the cubs steadily developed their shapes as wolves with long noses and large feet, Lexa’s nose remained blunt and her ears didn’t start to become erect but remained folded over like loose curtains. And as time progressed, Yeltsa resigned hersel
f to the fact that Lexa would never look like the other wolves in the pack. By the age of eight weeks wolves are already covered in an adult– like hair, but it was obvious to the pack that Lexa was never going to grow a long coat like the rest of them. Whilst the dark coats of the wolf cubs began to lighten to silvery grey, Lexa’s coat remained dark. Her face and muzzle remained black, but her jowls and her eyebrows began to lighten, matching the tan on her forelegs, and as the wolf cubs’ eyes began to change from blue to amber, Lexa’s eyes began to go dark brown. And most unusual, where the other wolves had bushy tails, Lexa had merely a stump. But no-one in the pack seemed to take a lot of notice. To them, the cubs, including Lexa, were just the next generation.

  Ramusan was going to grow up to be the dominant cub, except for Lexa. Yeltsa often had to separate the two of them from their fighting game when Lexa refused to leave go of Ramusan’s fur. She knew that wolves had formidable jaw strength with a biting pressure double that of most of the domestic dogs the pack was ever likely to encounter. Even the German shepherd dog that looks similar to a wolf has only half the strength that a wolf has in its jaw. But Lexa was different. Her jaw was short and from three weeks old, she, like her siblings, had baby canine and pre- molar teeth. But her bite always matched that of Ramusan and over a period of time, as the two play fought and strived for dominance, the rivalry between the pair left the other three cubs in a separate and less dominant group.

  As the season progressed and the cubs started to develop into young adults, Yeltsa enjoyed taking them on hunting trips with Rhamin. They moved their camp outside into the open, where, along with Bamar, who was still unable to travel far, and Rasci, Silvah and Zelda, they could start the long training period of the newest generation. The cubs had always used any wolf available to pounce upon in their play fighting, but now, as the serious training began, Rhamin taught them the rules of collaboration when attacking a large animal. At first they used Zelda as their “prey”. Being a relatively inactive member of the pack, she was only too pleased to be a useful part of their training. For their first hunting lesson with the old wolf he showed them how to split up and create a pincer movement to drive prey into the path of those wolves that had circled around ready to trap the fleeing creature. ‘Run!’ he shouted to Zelda as he and the pups set out on their attack. Zelda picked herself up and began to trot steadily away.

  ‘Is this fast enough?’ she shouted behind her, but got no reply. Suddenly, without warning, Lexa landed on Zelda’s head from the left as Ramusan came up on the opposite side and tugged at the thick coat on her shoulder. ‘Umph! Obviously not!’ she grunted as they floored her.

  ‘Well done guys,’ Rhamin shouted as he monitored the hunt and the remainder of the pack of yapping cubs as they joined in and jumped on Zelda. They all had a tug at the tufts of old under coat that stuck out through her guard hairs, and finally they alighted from her, shaking their heads, spitting and blowing to get the fluff out of their mouths.

  Eventually, of course, as the teaching progressed and the cubs got stronger and faster, it was a relief to Zelda that the other wolves took over the her role as prey, and in turn, she reverted to her permanent task of teaching the young wolves all about those other creatures in the world that would inevitably become part of their lives.

  And Corvak was one. He often visited the pack, and late one afternoon, after a rather longer period away than normal, the old raven flew in. This time, however, as well as bringing his mate Corvus, the pair was accompanied by two young ravens.

  ‘My young ones,’ Corvak proudly stated as he stood next to Zelda. The two young ravens landed beside him and after an explanation to the cubs from Rasci that not just Corvak but all his family were considered to be members of the pack, Lexa immediately went about chasing them, panting and grinning with her mouth wide and tongue flapping wildly, skidding and turning, and eventually sliding to a halt at Zelda’s feet only inches away from Corvak. The old raven was totally unfazed by her behaviour. It was just Lexa’s playful way, always full of energy, always attacking the other cubs, and in turn being attacked by them.

  ‘It is good that she and her brothers and sisters know we are friends,’ remarked Corvak, as he looked on proudly, and that friends need not be afraid of those whose closeness is essential in times of hardship.’

  ‘Yes, it’s good to have friends,’ Lexa panted, her tongue hanging out and showering streams of saliva onto Crufus and Betrix, the two young ravens who had hopped up to her nose. Crufus pecked at one of her short whiskers making her tongue retract suddenly as she nudged him out of the way. ‘Ouch!’ she called and then bounced up on all fours and did another circuit of the camp site closely pursued by her two young feathered friends.

  ‘Settle down,’ Yeltsa ordered as Lexa disturbed the other resting cubs. ‘It’s time for you all to get some rest.’

  ‘Then can we have a story?’ asked Lexa, her brown eyes pleading.

  ‘Tomorrow perhaps. I think Zelda has a story to tell you, about three bears.’

  ‘Huh! Don’t remind me,’ Zelda said with a shiver. ‘I still have bad dreams about that.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  To contact the rest of the pack, each night the young wolves joined their parents and howled, sometimes for a little while, sometimes for much longer. Rhamin liked to know where all his wolves were, even if they were not returning to the camp regularly. But after several weeks of hearing nothing from a number of the older wolves, Rhamin began to get a little concerned. Silvah, in particular, was not a wolf to take her leave lightly, yet she had been away for weeks. Nor had Rhamin heard recently from Powla and Charka who had travelled to the opposite side of the territory. However, he was used to the fact that they were not so bothered about calling back to base so regularly. That left Solin and Rowan. Rhamin hadn’t heard from them for at least two moons.

  It wasn’t just Rhamin that was becoming unsettled. Zelda, too, had been restless. For some reason, she had not been her usual happy self. Instead, she had spent much of her time some distance away from the rest of the pack, sleeping restlessly, dreaming as she did when things were on her mind.

  Rhamin didn’t like a fragmented pack; it was not easily controlled and it left each faction vulnerable, so he decided to make sure every member of the pack was safe and well by calling them all back to camp. There would be a night of happiness and celebration, and then when the merriment abated, he would lay down the law. No longer was he going to allow this sloppy do-as-you-like behaviour. It was worrying to him and it was disconcerting for those other non alpha pack members that needed to have the assurance that, with total co-operation and proper co-ordination, they were never to become vulnerable in any way. It was time now, anyway, to re-unite the pack ready for the winter months.

  Climbing onto his rock and lifting his muzzle to the star studded sky, he called out. The call was the loudest and longest Lexa had ever heard. It was meant to reach as far as sound could travel, to reach as many of the pack as possible. After several minutes, his voice tailed off and he stood there on the rock like a statue, silhouetted by the moon, motionless all but for his ears which rotated and adjusted their angle of reception in order to detect any faint response from far away.

  ‘Still no word from Silvah,’ he said to the young pup as he turned and listened.

  ‘Maybe she’s too far away,’ Lexa suggested.

  ‘Probably. But it’s not like her,’ Rhamin explained, and then, ‘No, it’s not like her at all.’ A couple of minutes later he heard faint sounds from Powla and Charka, and with that, Rhamin seemed to relax a little. But, Lexa could see in his eyes that he was still unsettled as he climbed down from his podium. ‘Come young Lexa, it’s time you rejoined the others.’

  He remained silent the whole of the time that they were walking back to the camp. Lexa followed in his footsteps silently, waiting for her leader to speak again, but he uttered no sound. It wasn’t until he reached the camp that his depression lifted.

  ‘Are they all com
ing then?’ Yeltsa asked him as he appeared from the darkness.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he answered. He went up to her and muzzled her beneath her ear. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he went on eventually. ‘I’m getting worried.’ He turned towards Zelda. ‘What do you think old girl?’ he asked as Zelda lifted her head towards him.

  Zelda thought for a moment and then she stood up, a little unsteadily, Rhamin thought, and shook herself awake. She almost lost her balance as the shake rippled though her whole body to the end of her shaggy tail. Bits of old fluffy hair floated off her into the distance, carried by a cool westerly breeze. ‘I am a bit concerned, too,’ she said eventually.

  ‘About what?’ asked Rhamin.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She thought for quite some time and then said, ‘You are going to have to follow your instincts.’

  ‘Meaning what exactly?’

  ‘You’re the leader,’ she stated bluntly.

  Rhamin looked at her curiously. ‘What is it, Zelda? What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘You’re the leader,’ Zelda said once again, her eyes staring blankly past Rhamin, and into the darkness. Suddenly she jerked as if awakened from a trance. She turned her head to him and faced him sightlessly. ‘You are a good leader,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’m flattered, but it isn’t helping, Zelda. Haven’t you anything you can tell me?’

  ‘I… I mean,’ she paused and thought again. Rhamin just waited patiently. He knew Zelda was struggling to either see something or say something. She wasn’t given to stating the obvious, especially when she was concentrating on her sight into the other dimensions. When she spoke under those circumstances, everything had a clear meaning. The trouble is, it was never clear what she meant immediately. Eventually, just as Rhamin was about to give up and quietly walk away from the transcending old wolf, she woofed.