by Bryce THOMAS
Leaving only Yeltsa and Zelda behind, and led by the two young scouts, Rhamin and his pack headed towards the point where the lone wolves had last been seen. But it wasn’t long before Silvah picked up the scent. She stood and listened for a moment or two and then, taking the lead with Rhamin, and instructing all the wolves to travel quietly, she headed down a steep bank towards a fast flowing river. There, lying on the shingle bank, and oblivious to any approaching danger because of the noise of the tumbling rapids, three wolves rested next to the carcass of a young deer. The fourth was lapping at the water on the river’s edge. There was no doubt that these were the wolves that had been pursued by the men. One of the resting wolves sported a wound on the top of its shoulder where it was likely that one of the men’s firing sticks had hurled its deadly load. But none looked too ill to travel, and were well fed and clearly not distressed by their circumstances.
Rhamin whispered to his followers. ‘Stay here. You know what to do if they decide to fight. But only come down if that is the only option.’
With that he worked his way through the branches and the briars towards the unsuspecting group. When he was about fifteen yards away, he stood and waited, watching the single wolf that had just finished drinking. It shook itself vigorously and then, picking up a short stick between its teeth, threw it in the air and began to prance around catching it and tossing it about until the game grew stale and, as the stick landed for the last time, walked past its toy and joined the others. It acted as if it didn’t have a care in the world, but Rhamin knew better. Carefully moderating his voice, he gave out a low bark. The playful wolf stiffened and swivelled its head. Still, the other three wolves rested, unaware of any danger. The nearer they were to the rapid flowing water, the louder was the noise to mask all other noises. The standing wolf looked around and then, spotting Rhamin standing alone in the cover of the undergrowth like a black shadow, it responded with hackles up and letting out a sharp warning yap.
Instantly the other three wolves were on their feet, the coats on their backs bristled; their lips curled back to show their teeth as they searched for the danger. They spread out in a semicircle, a deliberate manoeuvre to place them in the best position to defend themselves if Rhamin attacked. They knew instantly who he was, the giant black wolf that had confronted Solin before the winter, but Rhamin didn’t recognise any of them. He hadn’t taken any particular notice of the pack that Solin had gathered to support him, apart from that fact that their number were remarkably consistent in their grey colour. Wolves often vary in colour and markings. But these four wolves, in particular, were surprisingly alike. They were young, only in their second year, Rhamin suspected; they were fit and obviously they were well fed. But they were only average sized wolves. Two slightly larger males, two smaller females.
Rhamin moved forward slowly, making no outward sign of aggression. It made them relax a little, though they remained alert and on their toes. Their hackles slowly smoothed, but their teeth remained barred. When he reached a point four or five yards from the centre of the semicircle, and in line with the two outer wolves, Rhamin barred his teeth. The reaction was instant. Three of the four wolves lowered their bodies and laid their ears back against their heads. They tucked their tails between their back legs and tilted their heads slightly to one side. The fourth didn’t move. He remained bristle coated, on tip toe, eyes wide, teeth barred and still ready to defend himself.
‘You were the ones that helped Solin.’ Rhamin stated. ‘Why are you in my territory?’
The four wolves glanced at each other. They were looking to see who was going to answer Rhamin’s question. Time seemed to slow as they waited for each other to respond. Rhamin had seen the submissive reaction of three of the wolves, so turned his head to the one wolf that remained aggressive. ‘You!’ he barked. ‘Answer me!’
Somehow the aggressive wolf seemed less threatening. He raised his head, relaxed onto his feet and replied in a confident voice. ‘We’re passing through,’ he stated as if Rhamin would condone his presence.
‘You never left,’ Rhamin scolded. ‘You have been sucking up to that rogue Solin.’
‘We’re on the way out,’ one of the females came in, ‘but we didn’t know you were around here. We didn’t hear any of your pack.’ She looked around curious at what she had just stated. ‘Are you on your own?’
‘Fancy your chances, then do you?’
The female remained submissive. ‘No, it’s just that…’
‘You seem a long way from where we thought you were,’ the aggressive male butted in.
‘So you don’t intend to fight me for my territory then?’ There was a short silence. ‘We would prefer to leave you in peace,’ the aggressive one stated. ‘But we are not afraid to defend ourselves.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Rhamin said lightly. ‘I can’t stand cowards.’
‘Neither can we.’
‘In that case, what were you doing with that slug Solin? He hardly sticks in my mind as being the bravest of the brave, letting you do all his dirty work.’
‘A regrettable decision, that.’ The young grey wolf was becoming more relaxed now. The aggression was abating.
Rhamin smiled. ‘So you know what happened then?’
‘I went back alone. I saw what had been done.’
‘But there were more of you before the winter,’ Rhamin observed.
‘Oh, the others went back north.’ He shook his head. ‘We should have gone with them. The trouble was there was no clear leader. The oldest was not the strongest and the strongest was no leader.’
‘Aren’t you strong enough?’ Rhamin asked.
‘I wasn’t then,’ the wolf replied candidly. ‘And now, who knows who has taken over? It’s not all that easy to start a good pack. Any wolf can lead a rabble.’
‘What are you going to do?’ the submissive female asked.
‘Me? I have a mind to teach you what a good pack is like.’
‘Is that a threat?’ the young male said, once again rising on his toes.
‘No, it’s an offer.’
‘An offer?’
‘Well, you have three choices,’ Rhamin said, glancing at each wolf in turn. ‘First you can fight, but you may not like that option.’
‘Or?’ asked the female.
‘Or you can leave my territory in peace, so long as you never set foot in it again.’
‘Or?’
‘Or you can join my pack. You are young, you are new blood, and no doubt you will have some knowledge that will benefit the rest of us. And more than likely, you can throw some light on the extent of the damage that that dog Solin has done.’
The wolves looked one to the other. Each seemed to be confirming what the other was thinking. After a long wait, the now not so aggressive male nodded his head. ‘We can live with that,’ he said politely. He thought for a moment and then spoke again. ‘We all know who you are. Your reputation is famous throughout not just your own territory, but wherever wolves might travel. But allow me to tell you our names.’
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Vela, Goma, Jual and Tula joined the pack without any comment from the rest of Rhamin’s followers. They all had history and it was Rhamin that welded them together as a single active unit. Even when they were not together, the objectives of the pack were the same, all for one and one for all. And to give the newcomers their due, they were happy to be members. The next day, three of them went hunting with Charka and Bamar. Tula remained at the rendezvous point with Zelda. Her shoulder had an open wound on it and Rhamin had decided that it was better that she stayed out of action until it had healed. An open wound can fester, and in doing so, can kill the creature concerned. And even when not fatal, the smell can draw in other predators, or at least alert the prey it is hunting. Wolves’ saliva contains antibodies and enzymes that prevent bleeding and promote healing so with rest and help from Zelda who licked the wound regularly, Tula’s shoulder would heal cleanly within a week.
As spri
ng forged forward, because food was not as plentiful as in springs gone by, the pack split up to hunt in groups. The devastatingly dry early summer followed by the harsh winter had left none of the usual wild berries on the bushes that were the early springtime food for many smaller species in the mountain forests. Wildlife was depleted and, without help from Corvak, inevitably, Rhamin’s hunter groups had to split up and go out in different directions to find food. Had they not done so then Rasci may never have discovered what the farmer was doing.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rasci raced towards the camp, calling to the other members of the pack. His tongue hung out like a dead snake, flapping about wildly as he ran and panted. He stopped and tried to get his breath.
Rhamin greeted his young comedian with a smile. ‘What wasp has got inside your fur,’ he laughed as Rasci’s chest heaved uncontrollably. Although he tried to gasp out some unintelligible words, it took a good long minute before Rasci could speak. Eventually, after replenishing the muscles in his legs with oxygen, he took a good deep breath and then spoke. ‘The man is in the foothills beyond the Great Forest,’ he panted, licking his face with his long tongue.
‘The man? What man?’
‘The man with the sheep!’
‘With his sheep!’
‘No, not with his sheep!’
‘You mean the man whose sheep we stole is in the foothills?’ Rasci nodded. ‘Right.’
‘The man whose family Solin put in great danger?’ Rasci nodded again.
Rhamin thought for a moment. ‘So what is he doing here?’
Rasci looked perplexed. ‘What is he doing here?’ he parroted.
‘Rasci! For goodness sake be sensible can’t you?’
‘No, I am being sensible. Honest Rhamin.’
‘So what is the man whose sheep we stole, doing in the foothills?’
‘I didn’t think to ask him!’ Rasci said with a broad grin, his rows of white teeth gleaming against his pink gums.
Rhamin shook his head. ‘I really don’t know why I bother sometimes, do you know that?’
‘No, seriously Rhamin, I really don’t know what he’s doing. He’s with another man and heading up through the forest. That’s all I can say.’
Rhamin nodded. ‘He’s heading up to the mountains then,’ he stated as if he had got a full answer to his question. This was, indeed, an intriguing piece of information. Now, why would a flatland domesticated livestock farmer be heading to a wilderness? There seemed only one answer.
Later that day, more wolves returned to the rendezvous camp. Rhamin instructed them to stay close. He couldn’t call out to any of his pack. To do so would surely give their positions away. Like Rasci, some had travelled many miles away and by the evening he only managed to gather the youngsters, Ramusan, Depni, Floss and Fatz, along with Natan who had been on a hunting trip with them, teaching and training them. Silvah was at the new camp, for she looked after Zelda, returning there every day; and Lexa had been accompanying Rhamin and Yeltsa on their own expedition locally, because Yeltsa was, by now, heavily pregnant. The four newcomers from the north were out with Charka and Bamar. So, without the use of wolf calls, which were still banned by Rhamin, there was no way of gathering the whole pack together at short notice.
The meeting was preceded by the usual greetings that underlay the bonding between wolves, and then Rhamin got down to the business of the day. Simply, he wanted to know whether the pack agreed with him. The territory was crossed by hard tracks, roads laid down by man, and there was always some awareness of the presence of the cars and trucks that travelled along them as well as the people in them. Wolves adapted to those changes over the generations just as the other animals of the hills, forests and plains had done. But he was curious as to what the farmer was up to. This was the man his pack had crossed. This was a man from whom he had stolen Lexa, albeit as a diversion to stop the man’s dog attacking more of the pack within reach of the man’s weapon. The wolves seemed open minded about the man’s intention, except for Rasci, who seemed particularly agitated. But he still couldn’t explain why. He had simply observed the man travelling first in a wheeled vehicle and then, on reaching the point where the road changed into a track, he had stopped the vehicle and, with one other man and his dog, set out on foot up through the trees into the rugged mountains. Once again, without a positive decision, Rhamin consulted Zelda.
Zelda shook her head. ‘I don’t see any danger,’ she said, closing her eyes and concentrating. Then, she turned to Rasci. ‘You, young wolf, what do you feel?’
‘Me? I… well I just felt it was important,’ he stated, not sure what else to say. ‘I was coming down from the mountains and was curious at first. So when I saw who was in the vehicle, I followed it. It wasn’t long before he stopped in a clearing, got out, and with another man and that big dog that looks like…’
‘Like Lexa,’ Rhamin put in.
‘Er, well yes,’ Rasci said, glancing at Lexa whose ears were forward and whose face showed that she was more than curious as to what they were talking about. ‘Well, they set off on foot up towards the mountain.’
‘Men folk do that,’ Yeltsa stated. ‘They go hunting just like we do.’
‘But this was the sheep man,’ Rasci replied, his eyes questioning what Yeltsa had just said. ‘It just seemed…’
‘Strange?’ asked Silvah.
Rasci thought for a moment. ‘Well no, not really. I just thought we should be there, you know.’ He looked at Zelda but she just watched him, her head slightly tilted to one side as if to ask him to elaborate on his thinking process. He sighed. ‘I can’t really explain it,’ he said finally, with a shrug. ‘I just felt I should tell you, and that you would all want to find out what he was doing, that’s all.’
‘And rightly so,’ Rhamin said reassuringly. He could see there was something bothering Rasci, something not unlike the feelings that Zelda often got when she was uneasy about something, something that had happened or was about to happen. ‘But you don’t think he was looking for us then?’
‘I didn’t want to show myself and find out,’ replied Rasci. Rhamin decided to take the able bodied members of his pack, or at least the ones that were available, in search of the man. It was important to find out what he was doing in the mountain forests and no amount of debate would give them an answer.
Gradually, over a period of about three hours, Rasci led the pack back to where he had seen the man. Sure enough, the vehicle was still parked where the track became too narrow to permit its passage. From there, the wolves had no difficulty tracking the men and their dog by scent, as they took the same path through clearings, along narrow animal trails and deeper into the thickly wooded mountains. It wasn’t long before they were able to hear the men brushing past branches and softly treading on the thick bed of leaf mould and fern. It occurred to Rhamin that perhaps the men were tracking another creature in the same way. He discussed it with his companions. It was unlikely that the men were hunting wolves. They all agreed, therefore, that if they were not looking for wolves, then they must be hunting deer, and only a few minutes later, their assumption was confirmed. First they heard the loud crack made by the fire spitting weapon the men were carrying. There was a commotion as birds set to flight, amidst much squawking and flapping of wings against branches and leaves, in a desperate effort to flee. Then, the soft sound of life passing from a creature as it breathed out its last breath, followed by a crumpling of leaves and branches as it fell, told the wolves that it was, indeed, a deer that the men were hunting.
They had come to the edge of a bare rocky clearing. Around it, the tree cover was thick, and as they looked on from beneath a canopy of broad leaves, they could see, at the other end of the clearing, beneath a long overhanging branch of a tall redwood tree, two men examining the body of their prize. There was some chatter as the men discussed it and then a little laughter. The farmer was explaining something to the other man. As he talked, he drew out a knife and began to demonstrate how to
clean the animal of all its innards ready for carrying back down the mountain side. That was a good thing for Rhamin, because wolves find the insides of animals just as nutritious as the meat and the bone. They would have a good feast later.
The man who was watching the farmer, eventually stood upright, leaving the farmer to get on with his task. He had taken out a leather thong and attached it to the dog by a collar around its neck. He was keeping the dog away from the carcass. Rhamin recognised the dog immediately. It was the same animal that had attacked Seth and Fayli the day they had been killed by the man’s fire stick, the one that had chased him when he had stolen two of its pups. That dog was Lexa’s mother.
It was the dog that saw Rhamin first. She suddenly stood up, and with her flopped ears pushed forward at either side of a creased forehead, she barred her teeth and barked. The suddenness of it made both the men swivel around, the farmer reaching instinctively for his gun. The accomplice struggled to hold the dog firm. The farmer shouted a command and she lay down as suddenly as she had done all those months ago when she was caught up in the battle with Rhamin’s wolves. They both glanced around, searching for the object of the dog’s warning. Then, the accomplice spotted Rhamin who was ahead of and slightly above the other wolves. The hard, uneven, rocky floor of the clearing gave adequate cover to all. Rhamin had inched forward to see what the men were doing, and in doing so had exposed himself in the open. The dog had seen him. He knew she had recognised him also. Her teeth remained barred in a face that was, despite Rhamin being used to seeing Lexa play fighting and hunting, in every way as ugly as he remembered it the night they rustled the farmer’s sheep. But somehow, it was the dog itself that made the face so fearsome. It crossed his mind that he never saw Lexa in the same light, although now, if the two dogs had been standing together, he would have had difficulty telling them apart. Lexa was younger of course, and had still got some growing to do. But the similarity was hypnotic. Rhamin just stood and stared.