Wolf Brother

by Michelle Paver

  A sob rose in his chest. He was exhausted, hungry and. frightened; and he desperately wanted Fa. And now he had a new enemy.

  Fever.

  Torak had to make a fire. It was a race between him and the fever. The prize was his life.

  He fumbled at his belt for his tinder pouch. His hands hook as he took out some wisps of shredded birch bark, and he kept dropping his flint and missing his strike-fire. He was snarling with frustration when he finally got a spark to take.

  By the time he had a fire going,’ he was shivering uncontrollably, and hardly felt the heat of the flames. Noises boomed unnaturally loud: the gurgle of the river, the hoo-hoo of an owl; the famished yipping of that infuriating cub. Why couldn’t it leave him alone?

  He staggered to the river for water. Just in time, he remembered what Fa said about not leaning over too far. When you’re ill, never catch sight of your name-soul in the water. Seeing it makes you dizzy. You might fall in and drown.

  With his eyes shut, he drank his fill, then stumbled back to the shelter. He longed for rest, but he knew that he had to see to his arm, or he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  He took some dried willow bark from his medicine pouch and chewed it, gagging on its gritty bitterness. He smeared the paste on his forearm, then bound up the wound again with the birch-bast bandage. The pain was so bad that he nearly passed out. It was all he could do to kick off his boots and crawl into his sleeping-sack. The cub tried to clamber in too. He pushed it away.

  Dully, teeth chattering, he watched the cub pad over to the fire and study it curiously. It extended one large grey paw and patted the flames - then leapt back with an outraged yelp.

  ‘That’ll teach you,’ muttered Torak.

  The cub shook itself and bounded off into the gloom.

  Torak curled into a ball, cradling his throbbing arm and thinking bitterly what a mess he’d made of things.

  All his life he’d lived in the Forest with Fa, pitching camp for a night or two, then moving on. He knew the rules. Never skimp on your shelter. Never use more effort than you need when gathering food. Never leave it too late to pitch camp.

  His first day on his own, and he’d broken every one. It was frightening. Like forgetting how to walk.

  With his good hand he touched his clan-tattoos, tracing the pair of fine dotted lines that followed each cheekbone.

  Fa had given them to him when he was seven, rubbing bearberry juice into the pierced skin. You don’t deserve them, Torak told himself. If you die, it’ll be your own fault.

  Again the grief twisted in his chest. Never in his life had he slept alone. Never without Fa. For the first time, there was no goodnight touch of the rough, gentle hand. No familiar smell of buckskin and sweat.

  Torak’s eyes began to sting. He screwed them shut, and slid down into evil dreams.

  He is wading knee-deep in moss, struggling to escape the bear. His father’s screams ring in his ears. The bear is coming for him.

  He tries to run, but he only sinks deeper into the moss. It sucks him down. His father is screaming.

  The bear’s eyes burn with the lethal fire of the Otherworld – the demon fire. It rears on its hind legs: a towering menace, unimaginably huge. Its great jaws gape as it roars its hatred to the moon...

  Torak woke with a cry.

  The last of the bear’s roars were echoing through the forest. They weren’t a dream. They were real.

  Torak held his breath. He saw the blue moonlight through the gaps in his shelter. He saw that the fire was already out. He felt his heart pounding.

  Again the Forest shook. The trees tensed to listen. But this time Torak realized that the roars were far away: many daywalks to the west. Slowly he breathed out.

  At the mouth of the shelter, the cub sat watching him. Its slanted eyes were a strange, dark gold. Amber, thought Torak, remembering the little seal amulet that Fa had worn on a thong around his neck.

  He found that oddly reassuring. At least he wasn’t alone.

  As his heartbeats returned to normal, the pain of his fever came surging back. It crisped his skin. His skull felt ready to burst. He struggled to get more willow bark from his medicine pouch, but dropped it, and couldn’t find it again in the half-darkness. He dragged another branch onto the fire, then lay back, gasping.

  He couldn’t get those roars out of his head. Where was the bear now? The glade of dead horses had been north of the stream where it had attacked Fa, but now the bear seemed to be in the west. Would it keep heading west? Or had it caught Torak’s scent, and turned back? How long before it got here, and found him lying helpless and sick?

  A calm, steady voice seemed to whisper in his mind: almost as if Fa were with him. If the bear does come, the cub will warn you. Remember, Torak: a wolf’s nose is so keen that he can smell the breath of a fish. His ears are so sharp that he can hear the clouds pass.

  Yes, thought Torak, the cub will warn me. That’s something. I want to die with my eyes open, facing the bear like a man. Like Fa.

  Somewhere very far off, a dog barked. Not a wolf, but a dog.

  Torak frowned. Dogs meant people, and there were no people in this part of the Forest.

  Were there?

  He sank into darkness. Back into the clutches of the bear.

  It was nearly dark when Torak woke up. He’d slept all day.

  He felt weak and ragingly thirsty, but his wound was cooler and much less sore. The fever was gone.

  So was the cub.

  Torak was surprised to find himself wondering if it was all right. Why should he care? The cub was nothing to him.

  He stumbled to the river and drank, then woke the slumbering fire with more wood. The effort left him trembling. He rested, and ate the last pignut and some sorrel leaves he’d found by the riverbank. They were tough and very sour, but strengthening.

  Still the cub didn’t come.

  He thought about trying to summon it with a howl. But if it came, it would only ask for food. Besides, howling might attract the bear. So instead he pulled on his boots and went to check the traps.

  The fish-hooks were empty except for one, which held the bones of a small fish, neatly nibbled clean. He was luckier with the snares. One held a woodgrouse, struggling feebly. Meat.

  Muttering a quick thank you to the bird’s spirit, Torak snapped its neck, slit its belly and gulped the warm liver down raw. It tasted bitter and slimy, but he was too famished to care.

  Feeling slightly steadier, he tied the bird to his belt, and went to check the deadfall.

  To his relief, it contained no dead cub: The cub was sitting by its mother, prodding her stinking carcass with one paw. At Torak’s approach, it started towards him, then looked back at the she-wolf, yipping indignantly. It wanted Torak to sort things out.

  Torak sighed. How could he explain about death when he didn’t understand it himself?

  ‘Come on,’ he said, not bothering to speak wolf.

  The cub’s large ears swiveled to catch the sound.

  There’s nothing here,’ Torak said impatiently. ‘Let’s go.’

  Back at the shelter, he plucked and spitted the woodgrouse, and set it to roast over the fire. The cub lunged for it.

  Torak grabbed the cub’s muzzle and slammed it to the ground. No! he growled. It’s mine!

  The cub lay obediently still, thumping its tail. When Torak released its muzzle, it rolled onto its back, baring its pale fluffy belly, and gave him a silent grin of apology.

  Then it scampered off to a safe distance, head politely lowered.

  Torak nodded, satisfied. The cub had to learn that he was the lead wolf, or there’d be endless trouble in the future.

  What future? he thought with a scowl. His future didn’t include the cub.

  The smell of roast meat drove al
l other thoughts away. Fat sizzled on the fire. His mouth watered. Quickly,’ he twisted one leg off the woodgrouse and tucked it into the fork of a birch tree as an offering for his clan guardian; then he settled down to eat.

  It was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He sucked every shred of meat and fat off the bones, and crunched up every morsel of crisp, salty skin. He forced himself to ignore the great amber eyes that watched every bite.

  When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. The cub followed every move.

  Torak blew out a long breath. ‘Oh, all right,’ he muttered. He tore the remaining foot off the carcass and tossed it over.

  The cub crunched it up in moments. Then it looked a Torak hopefully.

  ‘I haven’t got any more,’ he told it.

  The cub yipped impatiently and glanced at the carcass in his hands.

  He’d picked the bones clean, but they’d still make needles, fish-hooks and broth; although without a cooking-skin, he couldn’t make any broth.

  Sensing that he might be storing up trouble for himself, he tossed half the carcass to the cub.

  The cub demolished it in its powerful jaws, then curled up and went instantly to sleep: a gently heaving ball of hot grey fur.

  Torak wanted to sleep too, but he knew that he couldn’t. As night fell and the cold came on, he sat staring into the fire. Now that he’d shaken off the fever and eaten some meat, he could think clearly at last.

  He thought of the glade of dead horses, and the bear’s demon-haunted eyes. It is possessed, Fa had said. Some demon has entered it and made it evil.

  But what actually is a demon? Torak wondered. He didn’t know. He only knew that demons hate all living things, and sometimes escape from the Otherworld, rising out of the ground to cause sickness and havoc.

  As he thought about this, he realized that although he knew quite a lot about hunters and prey: about lynxes and wolverines, aurochs and horses and deer, he knew very little about the other creatures of the Forest.

  He only knew that clan guardians watch over campsites, and that ghosts moan in leafless trees on stormy nights,’ forever seeking the clans they have lost. He knew that the Hidden People live inside rocks and rivers, just as the clans live in shelters, and that they seem beautiful until they turn their backs, which are hollow as rotten trees.

  As for the World Spirit who sends the rain and snow and prey - about that, Torak knew least of all. Until now he’d, never even thought about it. It was too remote: an unimaginably powerful spirit who lived far away on its Mountain; a spirit whom no-one had ever seen, but who was said to walk by summer as a man with the antlers of a deer, and by winter as a woman with bare red willow branches for hair.

  Torak bowed his head to his knees. The weight of his oath to Fa pressed down on him like a rock.

  Suddenly, the cub sprang up with a tense grunt.

  Torak leapt to his feet.

  The cub’s eyes were fixed on the darkness: ears rigid, hackles raised. Then it hurtled out of the firelight and disappeared.

  Torak stood very still with his hand on Fa’s knife. He felt the trees watching him. He heard them whispering to each other.

  Somewhere not far off, a robin began to sing its plaintive night song. The cub reappeared: hackles down, muzzle soft and smiling slightly.

  Torak relaxed his grip on the knife. Whatever was out there had either gone, or wasn’t a threat. If the bear had been close, that robin wouldn’t be singing. He knew that much.

  He sat down again.

  You’ve got to find the Mountain of the World Spirit within the next moon, he told himself. That’s what Fa said. When the red eye is highest... that’s when demons are strongest. You know this.

  Yes I do know it, thought Torak. I know about the red eye. I’ve seen it.

  Every autumn, the great bull Auroch - the most powerful demon in the Otherworld - escapes into the night sky. At first he has his head down, pawing the earth, so that only the starry gleam of his shoulder can be seen. But as winter comes on, he rises and grows stronger. That’s when you see his glittering horns and his bloodshot red eye. The red star of winter.

  And in the Moon of Red Willow he rides highest, and evil is strongest. That’s when the demons walk. That’s when the bear will be invincible.

  Glancing up through the branches, Torak saw the cold glint of stars. On the eastern horizon, just above the distant blackness of the High Mountains, he found it: the starry shoulder of the Great Auroch.

  It was now the end of the Moon of Roaring Stags. In the next moon, the Blackthorn Moon, the red eye would appear; and the power of the bear would grow stronger. By the Moon of Red Willow, it would be invincible.

  Head north, Fa had said. Many daywalks.

  Torak didn’t want to go further north. That would take him out of the small patch of the Forest that he knew, and into the unknown. And yet - Fa must have believed that he stood a chance, or he wouldn’t have made him swear.

  He reached for a stick and poked the embers.

  He knew that the High Mountains were far in the east, beyond the Deep Forest, and that they curved from north to south, arching out of the Forest like the spine of an enormous whale. And he knew that the World Spirit was said to live in the northernmost mountain. But no-one had ever got close to it, for the Spirit always beat them back with howling blizzards and treacherous rockfalls.

  All day, Torak had been fleeing north, but he was still only level with the southernmost roots of the High Mountains. He had no idea how he was going to get so far on his own. He was still weak from the fever, and in no state to start a journey.

  So don’t, he thought. Don’t make the same mistake twice: don’t panic and nearly kill yourself out of sheer stupidity. Stay here for another day or so. Get stronger. Then start.

  Making a decision made him feel a little better.

  He put more sticks on the fire, and saw to his surprise that the cub was watching him. Its eyes were steady and quite un-cub-like: the eyes of a wolf.

  Once again, Fa’s voice echoed in his memory. The eyes of a wolf aren’t like those of any other creature - except those of a man. Wolves are our closest brothers, Torak, and it shows in their eyes. The only difference is the color. Theirs are golden, while ours are grey. But the wolf doesn’t see that, because his world doesn’t have colors. Only silvers and greys.

  Torak had asked how he knew that, but Fa had smiled and shaken his head, saying he’d explain when Torak was older. T here were lots of things he’d been going to explain when Torak was older.

  Torak scowled and rubbed his face.

  The cub was still watching him.

  Already it had something of the beauty of a full-grown wolf: the slender pale-grey muzzle; large silver ears with their edging of black; elegant, dark-rimmed eyes.

  Those eyes. As clear as sunlight in spring-water...

  Suddenly, Torak had the strangest sense that the cub knew what he was thinking.

  More than any other hunters in the Forest, Fa whispered in his mind, wolves are like us. They hunt in packs. They enjoy talking and playing. They have a fierce love for their mates and cubs. And each wolf works hard for the good of the pack.

  Torak sat upright. Was that what Fa was trying to tell him?

  Your guide will find you.

  Could it be that the cub was his guide?

  He decided to put it to the test. Clearing his throat, he got down on his hands and knees. He didn’t know how to say ‘mountain’ in wolf talk, so he guessed: gesturing with his head and asking - in the low, intense yip-and-yowl which forms part of wolf talk - if the cub knew the way.

  The cub swiveled its ears and looked at him, then glanced politely away, because in wolf talk, to stare too hard is a threat. Then it stood up, stretched, and lazily swung its tail.

  N
othing in its movements told Torak that it had understood his question. It was simply a cub again.

  Or was it?

  Could he really have imagined that look?

  It was many Lights and Darks since Tall Tailless had come.

  At first he’d slept all the time, but now he was being more of a normal wolf. When he felt sad, he went quiet. When he was angry, he snarled. He liked playing tag with a bit of hare-skin, and when the cub pounced on him he rolled on the ground, making odd yip-and-yowls which the cub guessed was his way of laughing.

  Sometimes Tall Tailless would join the cub in a howl, and they’d sing their feelings to the Forest. Tall Tailless’s howl was rough and not very tuneful, but full of feeling.

  The rest of his talk was the same: rough but expressive. Of course he didn’t have a tail, and couldn’t move his ears or fluff up his fur, or hit the high yips. But he usually made himself understood.

  So in many ways, he was just like any other wolf.

  Although not in everything. Poor Tall Tailless could hardly smell or hear at all, and during the Dark he liked to stare at the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot. Sometimes he took his hind paws right off, and one terrible time, even his pelt. Strangest of all, he slept for ages. He didn’t seem to know that a wolf should only ever sleep in snatches, and must get up often, stretching and turning, so that he’s ready for anything.

  The cub tried to teach Tall Tailless to wake up more often, by nudging him and biting his ears. Instead of being grateful, Tall Tailless just got very, very cross. In the end the cub let him sleep; and next Light, Tall Tailless got up after a stupidly long sleep, in an extremely bad mood. Well what did he expect, if he wouldn’t let his pack-brother wake him up?

  Today, though, Tall Tailless had woken up before the light, and in a very different mood. The cub sensed his nervousness.

  Curiously, the cub watched Tall Tailless set off along the pack-trail that went up-Wet. A hunt?