Then from ahead they heard the unquestionable sound of voices.
“Wake up!” came a familiar voice from the wooded brushy area just beyond the bend. Gomor! Ysil wanted to call out but was nervous in the dark. Instinct kept them quiet.
Then, “What is it, Gomor?” Ysil’s heart leaped. It was Cormo!
They moved on silently for a few paces then heard the swoop of wings. There was not even a thought of what it might be. It was the owl.
Ysil saw it beat its wings and dive to the ground. Close, dreadfully close. Then he heard the voice of the owl, sounding dark and hungry. “Who? Who, my little morsels, are you?”
A stark terror settled in Ysil’s belly like an eagle’s talon. But it was not a terror that froze him in place. Ysil was suddenly thinking of nothing but the fact his dearest friends were certainly beneath the talons of the owl. He thrashed his wings and flew at the sound of the voice with all he had.
“Scatter!” Ysil screamed with all his might, flushing feverously toward the sound of the voices.
Two birds flew at his command. The second was Harlequin. The rabbit jumped also. They instinctively went in three different directions. Ysil felt relief in the fact that his friends had fled, but the owl was still sitting there. It had hardly moved a feather when Ysil screamed. Then he saw two great orbs that were the eyes of the owl staring directly at him, watching the fast-approaching form of a small quail dive-bombing him in crazed suicidal flight. Looking up to an easy meal. It was only then that Ysil realized the folly in his flight of rescue. He had not thought; he had just reacted.
Ysil swerved drastically in his approach, to alter his perceived attack to an escape. Below, the owl raised its great wings and made preparations, opening its pointed beak, the red tongue extending to taste the air. When the owl perceived that Ysil was off course from his original approach, it took to wing in pursuit. Ysil heard a flurry to his tail and realized that Monroth was behind. The other bird must have reacted quickly when Ysil flew. Perhaps he saw Harlequin, thought Ysil. He had barely enough time to feel a slight surprise before they both crashed noisily into the brush. Then the great form of the owl was at the brush right behind them. Ysil and Monroth froze still on the ground. The owl poked its beak in and glared into the dark of the brush, staring directly at the quail. But it did not try to push its huge body within the thorny brambles. Ysil and Monroth were motionless.
There was a flutter of great wings and then the owl was gone. As it flew, it let out a great laugh. Ysil would have thought the laugh to say, I will get you soon, but there was something different in it. There was something that said, What a joy! Or even, That was fantastically funny! This tone of the owl’s laughter confused and bewildered Ysil, who realized this was entertaining to the owl.
Beside him, Monroth huddled in fear. They were as still as possible. In a few minutes the excitement abated and the night took over, both around them and within their bodies. And within the hovel of the bush the quail closed their eyes, exhaustion overtaking them. Before long the two were asleep. Mere feet away, Cormo and Harlequin slept also.
Only Gomor was awake, afraid and shivering.
Quail, he thought. No matter what the day holds, the quail sleep. How can a quail sleep when the owl was just so close? But when dark fell, quail slept.
YSIL AWOKE TO the sound of laughter. He knew the voice. He would not normally say that a voice like that would make him feel better, but it was a playful sound, a fun-loving laugh. His mind cleared a bit, and then he knew who it was: Drac.
“So, my little quail!” sneered the fox. “You were under attack last night, eh? We were close and heard the bird fly. What a show you put on! I would have thought he would have eaten at least one of your tender bodies! He could have, you know. He must not have been very hungry. What luck! The next time you will not find such luck, eh? You need someone to watch over you. Little quailsies and a tiny rabbit have no place in these big woods alone, no place at all.”
Ysil was lying still. Early morning light was sifting through the leaves and an easy wind blew the willow above. From their brambly bed it was Monroth who spoke first: “We don’t need taken care of! If you were close and you wanted to help, why didn’t you jump to our aid when the owl attacked? And besides, we can fend for ourselves!” Monroth moved out of the brush and walked up to the foxes, face-to-face.
“I do not believe you, little bird!” said Drac. “We would have come to your aid if that owl had gotten hold of you. But when we saw that you made it to the copse, we said to each other, ‘Let them sleep.’ And we could hardly keep our laughter.”
Ysil moved out of the thicket and joined Monroth. “Monroth, we shouldn’t even be talking to them. Remember what Cotur Ada said? Please, let’s go on.”
Monroth opened his beak to speak, but before he could, a voice came from behind: “And how can we trust that you will not eat us yourselves when we sleep?” It was Harlequin.
“Well, well,” said Puk. “What a pretty thing you are!”
“Now, Puk, be polite,” said Drac. “Let’s make them feel more comfortable. Now, are you not hungry? We have, um, already eaten this morning.”
“What exactly did you eat?” asked Ysil. “Our cousin’s eggs, maybe?”
“Ysil!” hushed Monroth.
Drac gave a toothy smile in response.
Harlequin demanded to be heard. “As I said, how can we be sure you will not eat us, if we allow you to come with us and protect us?”
Come with us? thought Ysil. Then he realized she was thinking of the short journey back to the Vulture Field. She did not know that he and Monroth must be off for a much longer journey.
“You have my word as a fox!” said Drac.
Harlequin smiled. “What kind of word is that? I would prefer the word of a weasel!”
“Surely you must jest, chick. A fox’s word is as good as the earth, eh, Drac?” said Puk.
“The best I can do for now, my lovely one, is to point the way to a patch of berries we just chanced upon where you can feed.” Drac pulled up tall. “’Twas the berries we ate, yes it was. I can promise you this: Stay close to us when you travel the woods, and you need not fear. We will always lead you to food. Now, go down that small path there”— he pointed an outstretched claw to a break in the tree line—“and once you reach a dead hickory, walk just ten paces into the forest behind it. There you will find the berry bush. You go there and talk, make your decision, and we will be on in just a bit.”
The foxes romped off into the woods, leaving the others no time to respond.
“Well,” said Gomor, “I for one am hungry enough to steal honey from a bear this morning.” And with that he jumped off down the trail.
The others stared at one another for a moment, and when none of them spoke, they took off in pursuit of the rabbit.
AND SO, AS they walked, Ysil and Monroth told Harlequin, Gomor, and Cormo what had happened to Cotur Ada. Harlequin cried, for she loved the old quail especially.
“He was extraordinarily brave,” said Ysil.
Monroth flushed. “We should have gone to his aid, Ysil. You should have listened to me.”
“Oh? And what could we have done?” Ysil asked. “And I don’t remember you saying a word about going to his aid. You know very well if we had, we would be dead now also.”
Harlequin looked up at Monroth in tears. “I could not stand to lose you both also! Don’t mention it.”
Monroth looked down at the forest floor.
They continued on a bit until they saw the dead hickory, just as the foxes had promised. They padded silently behind it, not knowing what to expect (except for Monroth, who insisted the foxes were not lying. “Why would they?” he asked. Ysil shivered at the thought), but there it was—a gigantic blackberry bush, laden with late season berries, some dried up, but mostly sweet and tasty—and not many turned sour.
Monroth hopped over to the bush and began eating. “What did I tell you? They will be fine guardians. I do not intend on
telling them this, but I will feel quite a bit safer at night with them close.”
“Why would we need them to guard us back to the vultures’ field, Monroth?” asked Harlequin.
Gomor and Cormo only listened thus far. They watched Monroth intently. The bird gave up nothing, just kept eating.
“Well, Cotur Ada gave us a command,” said Ysil. “We aren’t going to meet up with the others. Not just yet.”
“What do you mean?” questioned Gomor. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Well,” began Ysil, though he did not know just how to finish.
“Ysil’s grandfather commanded that we should go and find his son.” It was Monroth who said this, his beak dark purple and thick with the gore of berries.
Cormo responded: “You are speaking nonsense. Cotur Ada has no surviving sons that I know of, only grandchicks.”
“Apparently, there is one . . . ” said Ysil, trailing off.
“And the one is a hawk, it seems,” said Monroth.
Harlequin, Gomor, and Cormo looked at the two birds as if they had lost their minds.
And so Ysil related Cotur Ada’s song to the others, or at least the tale within it, and when he finished, Monroth was sitting against a small hackberry, his belly full. “So now you can see why we should take on the guardianship of the foxes. Surely they already know of our destination,” said Monroth. “They must know of whom we seek and that if he returns to the field, they should be in his favor. As our friends, they would find this.”
“What in earth are you talking about?” said Cormo. “The damned foxes don’t think we will befriend the hawk. More than likely they think we will be eaten by it, and that maybe they can gather our bones for spoils.”
“If that is true, then why don’t they eat us now?” said Ysil.
The others stared at Ysil. This was the first sign he had made of accepting the foxes’ guardianship.
“Are you suggesting that we allow them to protect us?” asked Harlequin.
“Perhaps there is some wisdom in it,” said Ysil. “I must allow, if they wanted to kill us, they likely would have done so by now.”
“Wait a moment. You are not going with us, Harlequin,” said Monroth.
“Why, yes, I am,” she answered.
“This journey is not for you,” said Ysil.
“And why not, Ysil?” answered Harlequin. “Did I not love him also? Was he not my grandfather’s best friend? I will let you and Monroth be the ones to speak with the hawk, that is certain, but I will go with you on your journey.”
“Well, I for one have been hoping for a true adventure since we left for Olffey!” It was Gomor. “It seems this will be just that!”
Ysil paid no mind to the rabbit but kept his attentions upon Harlequin. “But you cannot go!” he said. “You would not be safe.”
“Let her come if she pleases,” said Monroth. “I will care for her.”
“Well, we can all care for her,” said Ysil, stammering.
“Wait a moment,” said Harlequin. “I don’t need anyone caring for me. I’ll take care of myself!”
“Oh, we will care for you all,” came the voice from the other side of the berry bush. “We will care for you as if you were our own cubs.” And with that, Drac and Puk came out from the brambles with an easy and silent gait, almost as if they had been listening there all along. And when Ysil thought on it for a moment, he decided that they had.
AND SO IT was decided that the two foxes would accompany the group as far as the Great River.
“What will we owe you in return?” asked Ysil.
“We will ask of you nothing, young one,” said Drac. “Only that you allow us your favor in days to come.”
“Exactly what does that mean?” asked Gomor. He had noticed that Puk would on occasion look down at his muscled legs with an awkward and strange look in his eye. He didn’t like it.
“It means, my rabbit friend, that you will not be a party to the crows’ way of keeping us from the field once the new order is established, see?” Drac kept his teeth exposed as he talked. “That if things should change and the crows lose power, we be allowed to rid the area of wasps and hornets, that we be allowed to keep the population of mice at bay. That you four, at least, will hold closer allegiance to our kind, and not hinder our hunting. Of course, we will leave your eggs alone.”
Ysil was having trouble believing the fox, but he did not voice this. “So you know of our journey,” said Ysil. “You know of our plans to ask Pitrin to return to the field?”
Drac smiled. “We are the ears of the forest, young bird. If it is spoken in the quiet of the woods, consider it as given that a fox has heard.”
“I am telling you that the foxes are good to have along,” said Monroth. “And these two we can trust. As I said, they know that times are changing.”
Drac smiled at Monroth and showed his long and sharp canines. It appeared to Ysil that some sort of communication passed between them, and if he didn’t know better, he would have thought that Monroth winked one feathered eyelid.
Then the rest of the birds and the rabbit ate from the berry bush until they were full. The foxes sat near and preened their fur.
A robin chanced upon the animals and briefly perched in the tree above the bush. She gazed in wonder at the strange group below and thought to herself, What is this forest coming to? Then she ruffled her feathers and took wing, hoping to find tasty worms in the compost of a different berry bush.
Chapter Eight
The King of the Forest
ASMOD THE WOLF breathed in the forest. He owned the forest as he did his own tail, his darkly stained fur, and his claws. He knew the forest as the reading of a possum’s entrails, as the lines of mud left from melting snow. The forest was his, just as certainly as the teeth in his mouth or his single eye.
He had not always owned just the forest. When he was younger, the pack held the field and the forest both. The pack was as one. He was within the pack and he hunted with them. They were of the same order, an unstoppable force of gnashing fangs and muscle, bound together by common hunger and lust. Oh, the lust of the pack. He shuddered when the thought came. He remembered as a pup being led into the field where a group of woodchucks were surrounded. Within the pack were his mother and father, and his older brothers and sisters, eight of them. The pack fell upon the woodchucks, and so did he. And so his first kill had been an old gray woodchuck, slow and feeble. He still held the memory dear, and it comforted him like a lover through the night. He treasured the lust for the kill, which was forever his, and he cherished the memories of the pack. But the lust of the pack never would be again. The pack members were all dead.
He was the only survivor of his litter. A man had chanced upon him and his siblings while his mother was hunting with the older ones. The man had put them in a box and carried them to a pond. When he opened the box and looked in at them, he grabbed all the others and pushed them into a sack, but Asmod had bitten him, then jumped and ran. The man cursed and tied the sack shut—after filling it with rocks. Asmod remembered the cries of his brothers and sisters, how they had called out for help, how some had called his name, and he remembered how their cries had abruptly stopped when the man had thrown the bag into the water.
He hated men. He swore someday that he would kill the man who had done that; he would rip out his throat.
He remembered how the crows had sworn their allegiance to the wolves, how they had promised to work with them to herd in the mice and rabbits, how they would always respect the wolves. And when the man had come into the field and laid out poison meats and killed many of his family, the crows had merely watched as the wolves ate the meat. And though they had seen the man’s treachery during the daylight hours, they had not warned the wolves of the poison and had slept through their feast of polluted flesh. He remembered how they had laughed as his older brothers and sisters had died, how they rested safely in the branches above as his father and uncles had cursed them, while his mother had cried. He
hated crows for that. He had vowed to kill every crow he could catch. He would kill them, slowly and painfully.
And he remembered how the hawk Elera had flown down on him as he was feasting on a fallen chick from her nest. He recalled a screeching descent and the feeling of her beak piercing his eyeball, making a resounding pop, and then the feeling of the eye being pulled from the socket, the pain, the sound of her screams mixed with his own howls of agony. He hated hawks. He would kill any hawk he ever encountered.
And he remembered how the men had come together with their dogs and had run the remainder of the pack into the woods and cornered them in the darkness of Vangly Cave. He had hidden still in the back, covered in the thick, black mud, while the pack fought the dogs. He would never forget how the men had come with great lights and the horrible booms of their sticks, the deafening echoes off the cave walls—the screams of his family dying. He had lain still, the blood of his family too strong in the dogs’ noses to catch the scent of one last survivor. The men dragged the wolf bodies out into the dark night. He stayed hidden all the next day and ventured out only when the sun descended. When he came out of the cave he smelled meat cooking. Then he had seen the fire. He approached and his stomach turned in hunger. But the meat was charred skeletons. It was his family burned on a great pyre.
He had run into the forest and kept running. He had run until he came to a great river, then swam across it. He had not stopped until he reached a cliff at the base of a white-topped mountain. He crawled into a den there, wet and cold to the middle of his body. In the dark he felt an icy slithering beneath his belly. Then he felt the teeth sink in.
The snake smiled at him and said, “Oh, but I am sorry, great wolf. I did not see it was you before I bit. I see you are weak. May I have your warmth until you die?” He let the copperhead curl up next to him, ready for the end. He had grown deathly ill, but, for some fated reason, he did not die. In his recovery the wolf heard tales from the great snake of a band of crows that had picked into his nest and killed his mate and slithery children. The wolf and snake developed a friendship; they hunted together through that spring. The wolf brought the snake mice and rabbits, while the snake would poison bigger prey, prey too big for the wolf to bring down without the help of the pack. They hunted together not unlike the pack itself. Though Tortrix could never keep up with him, the snake could get into places that Asmod could not. He would crawl silently into a badger’s den and bite the animal in its sleep. When the badger woke in agony and thirst and crept from its den, Asmod would be waiting outside. Though at first the wolf grew ill upon consuming the bodies of the poisoned prey, over time he grew immune to the snake’s venom. They grew strong and fat together, and all the other animals feared and respected them. The snake grew accustomed to wrapping itself around the wolf’s neck. And they ruled the forest together.
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