Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves

by Garry Kilworth

  When they came over a rise between two shoulders of rock, a pair of wolves were waiting for them. Lean-shouldered northern wolves. They blocked a pass through which Athaba and Ulaala had to go.

  ‘Are they from your pack?’ asked Athaba of Ulaala.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘They’ve been out hunting. They must have caught my scent and wondered why it was mingled with yours. Look, there’s a third – it’s Uneega. They’re definitely waiting for us.’

  One of the three wolves in their path was a large male with a dark smudge over his left eye. A mega in his fifth year by the look of him. The other two looked like senior undermegas, and they flanked the big one. Athaba decided there was only one way to get through them, and that was to brazen it out. In his experience, most battles between wolves were won with the mind. If you had enough front, you could get away with anything. The problem was when your opponent called your bluff, or seemed even more formidable. Physical strength was important, but even if you were sure you were superior in this aspect, yet the wolf in front of you looked prepared to fight to the death, no holds barred, and appeared to have the courage of a thousand weasels, physical prowess lost its edge.

  There was no way to circumnavigate and outrun this small group, and once you began running you definitely lost the advantage and had to keep going and win, or go down.

  ‘Let’s go through,’ he said.

  Ulaala stayed by his side as they descended.

  ‘Are you scared?’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ he lied. ‘I’m not afraid.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lift her head at these words.

  ‘Neither am I,’ she replied.

  When they were about ten body lengths from the waiting trio Athaba paused.

  ‘Are you going to get out of the way,’ he snarled, ‘or do we have to come through you?’

  One of the undermegas took a step back, but the big male did not even twitch. Instead, it spoke to Ulaala.

  ‘Where are you going, mega? It’s not your day for a hunt. You leave a lot to be desired in your choice of companions. That’s the outcast from the grey ones …’

  ‘I know who he is,’ she interrupted sharply.

  ‘Then you must have an explanation? This is strange behaviour. Not a good example for these undermegas.’

  ‘The explanation is simple,’ said Ulaala, and Athaba noticed the heat in her voice, ‘I’m weary of your bullying, Agraaga. I’m leaving the pack. This … this wolf has lost his own pack to the hunters. We are going south, to begin again.’

  This conversation had revealed some of the reasons behind Ulaala’s decision to run away with Athaba and he felt that given any more space she was going to dig a pit for the both of them. If she antagonised the big male further, he might have no choice but to stop them, whether it meant losing his life or not.

  ‘Enough talk,’ interrupted Athaba. ‘The fact is, Agraaga, we have decided to leave. We – we have decided. I am a free agent. My pack …’

  ‘I’ve heard about your pack.’

  ‘Then you know they have been wiped out. I have nothing to lose. I wasn’t banished because I couldn’t fight. Don’t make that mistake. They turned me out because they thought I was crazy. Maybe I am. I repeat, I have nothing to lose. I’m coming through. If you try to stop me, I’ll tear some throats. What does it matter to me if I go down? If I can’t have Ulaala, I would be better off dead.’

  He began to walk towards them, his ears forward, his tail erect, his hackles raised. When he got a little closer he curled his lips back to reveal his teeth.

  A surprising thing happened. The two undermegas stepped aside, leaving only the mega, whom Ulaala called Agraaga, standing in Athaba’s way. Something had been prearranged, even before the two groups had met. This was not a chance meeting on the trail. This had been planned.

  When two wolves fight to the death, it is a silent, eerie battle, watched in silence by the spectators. It became obvious to Athaba as he approached Agraaga, that the wolf was going to stand its ground. The two undermegas, one male, one female, moved even further away. Ulaala said, ‘Let me …’ but Athaba was already confronting Agraaga, who had also taken up a dominant posture. A body-slam, even a decisive lone, was not going to end this conflict.

  That fact almost took Athaba by surprise. There was a last pricking in his brain, a thought that even now he could turn and run, but it only lasted for a tiny moment. He knew he was going to do battle, whatever the outcome.

  There was, after all, nothing to lose.

  No sound could be heard except the wind soughing between the rocks. The two wolves, coats the colour of granite against the snow, stood on the landscape and stared into each other’s eyes. They had decided, without a word being spoken. It would be to the death. The spectators knew it too, even though the silence had not been broken. Since the first family of wolves had split into the first two packs, wolves had settled insoluble differences by single combat.

  Athaba prepared himself mentally. He stood still, letting the wind riffle his guard hairs, gathering inner strength. He knew why this had to be – now he knew. His opponent was blocking their path to the south. If he walked away, all three would fall on him and tear him to pieces. Even if they didn’t, he would lose Ulaala.

  Agraaga, his opponent, wanted Ulaala for his mate. He had decided she was worth killing for and now the scavenger had challenged his authority over one of his own pack he had no choice but to do battle. Athaba attempted to circle his opponent, but the other wolf kept his posterior up against a large protective rock. The two of the made darts towards each other, testing reactions, then falling back quickly. Their eyes were locked. Athaba knew it was most important to concentrate on the eyes, in which movements could be seen and anticipated a split second before they were carried out.

  One or two rushes were made by both wolves, this time a little more seriously. Athaba caught a nip on his lower lip, but the grip was not strong enough to hold. He in turn took away a tiny piece of furred ear from his second rush.

  Athaba could not afford to be caught and held. His adversary was bigger, had more weight, and would use it to pin him down. Athaba himself had a wiry frame. He realised, not long after the fight had begun, that he was just a fraction quicker than his foe and he intended to keep his distance until he was sure of a throat hold.

  After a few minutes of this, his big opponent seemed to run out of patience. He was on show, before his two undermegas and he had wanted to be seen to be in command of the fight. He made a decisive run at Athaba, his jaws clashing, attempting to get a hold.

  Athaba skipped backwards, hit a rock, rolled. Agraaga leapt, but Athaba was on his feet in an instant. Athaba’s teeth snapped together, into the flap of skin beneath the throat of his combatant. The weight of the other wolf drove his body into the ground but he knew he had to hold on, or he would be lost. For a moment he despaired, because he knew he had not got enough flesh in his teeth to finish Agraaga. He twisted and thrashed, turning several times until finally he had flipped from under Agraaga’s heavy body. Athaba lay at full stretch. Agraaga seemed to want time to recover.

  No sound had been made throughout the combat. There was no growling, no snarling, not so much as a whimper. Threats remained unspoken. No quarter would be given, none expected. The time for mercy was past. They had both had the opportunity to turn dominant postures into submissive ones. The chance to surrender had gone.

  Athaba knew his opponent was surprised to find himself in a desperate position. Now that Athaba had the advantage he intended to keep it.

  Agraaga suddenly swung round and began raking Athaba’s body with his hind legs. Athaba hung on grimly, even managing at one point to gain a better grip, though still not a decisive one. Agraaga rolled and Athaba went with him. Agraaga was obviously in great pain, but that alone would not end the fight. Pain would impair the wounded wolf’s concentration.

  There came a point when Athaba knew he would have to let his op
ponent go. He was the smaller of the two wolves and Agraaga could kick and roll all day, gradually wearing him down. He must not wait until he was too weak to keep his grip. Better to go for one killing blow while he still had much of his strength.

  Athaba waited until he sensed Agraaga’s concentration was not at its fullest, and then he went for the jugular. This was no fight for supremacy: this was survival. His jaws clamped on Agraaga’s throat. He twisted, savagely. The warm blood spilled. Athaba held on to the northern wolf until the struggling ceased. Then Athaba let him go. Agraaga fell sideways as if struck by a blow and flopped on to the snow.

  Athaba stepped back, knowing it was over. The body of Agraaga lay where it had fallen and before long it was as still as stone. Athaba was glad he could not see his opponent’s eyes. He had killed one of his own kind and it felt bad. He knew he had been given little choice in the matter: even had he tried to walk away they would have fallen on him. But another wolf was dead and some of the responsibility was Athaba’s. He was glad that it was over. Athaba turned to face the two undermega’s. The battle was not yet over. This time Ulaala moved to his side, her hackles raised. She was ready to fight alongside her new mate.

  And still, not a sound had been made.

  The watching undermegas fled, disappearing over the ridge. Ulaala said, ‘Quickly, we must leave,’ and led the way to the trail ahead. Athaba took one last look at the body on the ground. A big wolf, to be sure. Yet he felt no elation in victory. Only a sense of shock and relief. This had not been of his making. If only Agraaga had stepped aside, allowed them to walk through! Such a decision, to fight or step aside, was so finely tuned that in the end it was almost a subconscious one.

  In Agraaga’s case, fatal.

  Athaba joined his mate and together they hurried across the white landscape, through gulleys, around crags, over streams, putting distance between themselves and any retribution. There would be a meeting before a pursuit, and possibly the chase would never take place at all, if the big wolf had not been popular.

  ‘Will they follow?’ asked Athaba. ‘You know your own pack better than I do.’

  ‘Doubtful. As I said, there’s not a strong wolf amongst them.’

  ‘He was pretty strong, that one!’ grumbled Athaba.

  ‘Not strong in character. I was really quite surprised when he took you on. I didn’t think he had it in him.’

  Athaba felt a bad taste of pique in his mouth.

  ‘Perhaps his late show of courage has changed your mind,’ he said. ‘Are you disappointed he lost?’

  She glanced at him swiftly as they trotted along, side by side.

  ‘That’s a silly remark to make. I would not have mated with Agraaga if he were the last wolf in the high country. He was dull and stupid – and so are you, if you think I was impressed by him.’

  Athaba stopped and now voiced the thing that was between them.

  ‘You don’t have to come with me you know. I’ve done the job you wanted done. Agraaga is dead. That is why you told me you wanted me in the first place, isn’t it?’

  The truth came to her eyes before it did to her throat. She stared at him for a long time, before she replied. ‘I admit I wanted to be rid of Agraaga. I thought up this scheme, whereby I would find the outcast wolf, the one that had freed me from the fishing twine, and use him to get rid of Agraaga. It … was not a seriously considered plan. I went looking for this outcast, and found him. As soon as I saw him again the idea of using him suddenly became what it really was, a monstrous idea, unworthy of anyone, even a female wolf who had been tormented and bullied from birth by an aggressive male.

  ‘The male, Agraaga, made this she-wolf’s life a miserable existence. To make matters ludicrously worse, he suddenly decided he wanted to mate with the one he had been bullying for so long.

  ‘Still, his brutality could not be put aside. He would mate with the female – Agraaga would have Ulaala – but on his terms. There would be no courting approach. He would tell her that she was his and he would kill any other wolf that got in his way. And she would still suffer his bites, his body-slams, his vicious unreasoned attacks.

  ‘Then she found a wolf who was gentle and kind. A male wolf who did not seem to need to impress with his physical strength. She ignored her feelings at first thinking them base. To mate with an outcast! Her pride stepped in the way and blocked her path. Finally, she tossed her pride aside, treated it for what it is, a shabby no-account thing. She knew she wanted him.’

  Ulaala looked Athaba in the eyes and he saw the honesty was still there, in hers.

  ‘I do want you, Athaba. I have behaved very badly, very foolishly. I’ll understand if you want to walk away from me.’

  He was silent for a while, then he spoke.

  ‘Whether I want to or not, I can’t. You’re the only she-wolf that has ever paid any attention to me.’

  ‘I don’t know that I like the sound of that. You mean, you can’t get anyone else, so I’ll have to do?’

  There was amusement in her tone.

  ‘No, not at all. Look, I’m not good as this sort of thing, talking about it all. Let’s just start from here. We’re off to begin a new life. The old one is behind us. Agraaga is gone, and there’s nothing more to worry about.’

  He set off at a brisk pace, she beside him.

  ‘The only thing that worries me,’ she said, after a while, ‘is that he was headwolf at the time. They may come on account of that.’

  Athaba stopped and regarded this she-wolf with some irritation. It appeared she was going to be exasperating company.

  ‘Wonderful! Headwolf. And you didn’t think to warn me?’

  She halted and shrugged. ‘Would it have made any difference?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Yes it is. You were going to fight him anyway, whatever happened.’

  Athaba did not deny this because he had the awful feeling that it was true. Had he been spoiling for a fight? Certainly the anger that had been building up inside him over the last few seasons was now gone. Well, he had had a right to be angry, hadn’t he? Rejected, exiled, treated like a parasite?

  But to have killed one of his own kind!

  Yet he could see no way he could have avoided it. He wanted Ulaala and she wanted him. That wolf, the headwolf Agraaga, had been determined to stop them. There was no way around that. Except … perhaps if Athaba had volunteered to join their pack, in order to be with Ulaala? No, impossible. They would never have accepted him. The fight just had to be, and to the death. If Agraaga were not lying on the snows at that moment, Athaba certainly would be. There was only one way it could have ended.

  The travelled during the sunless hours, which were still long, using scent and sound when the light was poor. If the northern wolf pack followed them, they failed to catch them. Athaba felt close to the earth now that he was travelling again. While he was scavenging with the ravens and amongst the waste bins of the humans, he lost his connection with the landscape. Now he was back in tune with the vibrations of the natural world. He was familiar with the plants under the snow, and could smell the rocks. He listened to the fast-flowing streams that cut their own paths through his world. They told him many things, from the kind of weather that was behind them, perhaps following them, to the contours of the land ahead. A flow that increased in volume and speed meant melting snows at the source, perhaps a warmer wind on its way. The sound of the flow ahead could indicate a rise, a fall, a curve. There were nuances of these, and other aspects, which would be lost even on the indigenous humans that hunted and fished the same world as the wolf. Neither Athaba nor Ulaala could have explained the process by which they gathered knowledge, and kept themselves informed on what was happening around them. Their sources were so many and varied – the wind direction, its strength, scent, sounds, the stirring of a leaf beneath the snow, the flight of a bird, the movement of the earth, the feel, the weight, the taste of the air – a thousand seemingly unrelated occurrences were imbibed and as
sessed subconsciously by the wolves and connected their nerve ends to the environment.

  The pair travelled swiftly, but without overstraining their physical capabilities. They rested when they felt ready, hunted on the run, and kept away from the scent of man. Athaba had not felt so fulfilled since the hunts of his youth.

  On their travels they came across a large hunt and had to deviate from the planned route. They went up into the mountains and found a cave in which to hide. The place was long and dark and smelled vaguely of human markings, but it seemed safe enough, especially at that time of year. The summer months would be different, because it would be more accessible to both humans and other creatures.

  Outside the cave, the wind played savage games amongst the rocks, but inside it was still. Athaba could sense the timeless movements of the stone around him, could hear the water creeping through the caverns, falling to unfathomable depths, rushing through narrow passageways. There were echoes trapped down there, bouncing from rock to rock, trying to find an exit to the outside world.

  The two wolves caught small rodents in the crevices, and even ate beetles and other crawling things. It was not wholesome fare, but it fended off starvation. While they rested they told each other their life stories, finding them fascinating even though there was nothing terribly extraordinary in them. The cave listened and added its own sounds, told its own story, though neither of the wolves could understand. All they could divine was a sense of history that made their minds turn in on themselves. A history of boiling rock, steam, mould and form, strange creatures that no longer existed, bears, men and dogs. One of the world’s natural shelters, the cave had been used for seasons out of time, by all manner of beasts. There were ghosts in there that resembled no living creature on the face of the earth. There were shapes and shadows that would turn the bravest heart to snow. There were secrets, blood secrets, that would turn the staunchest creature to ice.

  Yet, there was also a sense of peace. It was not the cave itself that had created a dark past, but those that used its hollow confines. The cave was neutral: it took no sides and welcomed any wayfarer to its bosom. A traveller’s rest that offered sanctuary from the storm. The cave made itself available to human hunter and quarry alike. Athaba allowed himself to be cosseted by this universal friend of those that journeyed through the long nights, the long winters of the high country.