by R Magnusholm
He wondered if they had chosen the best place to settle. Before the ursines appeared on the scene, the bramble patch seemed like an ideal location. They had fresh clean water, plenty of timber cut down by beavers, a rich hazel patch, and most importantly, a safe haven protected by a thorny reef.
They had felt so safe there until the damn ursines showed up.
He gazed at the dark-green shapes of conifers ringing the clearing. Gray clouds raced overhead, and the wind whooshed, shaking frozen branches. Was there a better place? Perhaps an island in midstream that was free of bears. He recalled his first acquaintance with the tidal river and shuddered. Blinded by thirst, they had blundered in at low tide like overconfident tourists. They should have prepared better, observed the river, and recorded the time between tides. He imagined building a raft or a reed boat.
From inside the palisade came vicious hissing as Liz dropped another stone into the cooking skin, and a rich herb-infused aroma wafted across. John exchanged a glance with Spot, and a secret understanding passed between them. Both were now excluded from the kitchen.
“If you want your stew, you better come and get it,” Liz called.
He cut off another slice of meat for Spot and climbed up the ladder and over the wall. “Sorry Mr. Spot, I’m not carrying hot liquids over ladders. Elf and Safety at Work Regulations
7 , savvee buddy?”
Spot didn’t understand. He yawned and went to sleep in the old reed shelter.
John climbed down the inner ladder and took a steaming mug of stew from Liz. It was ridiculous eating from a mug with a teaspoon, but what other options did they have? Carve a wooden bowl or make one from leather? The problem was they spent so much time on building defenses and making arrows that they had not an hour to spare.
“Liz, we’ve barely explored a slice of woods two miles wide and ten miles deep.”
“So?”
“I’m curious what’s beyond the horizon.”
Liz reached into the cooking skin, speared a steaming piece of meat on a fork, and blew on it gently. “Do you expect a glittering city populated by enlightened aliens or perhaps robots beyond the next river bend?”
“Well, I haven’t thought of that, but why not?”
She smiled. “You don’t really expect to find civilization.”
“No.”
“Beyond the river bend, you’ll find more woods,” she said, her eyes gleaming in the diffused winter light.
“Why don’t we send Spot on a scouting mission? He could probably lope a hundred miles in a day.”
“But we need him here to sniff the air for ursines.”
“Well,” he said, “the fort’s completed. The last time the ursines nearly got us because we didn’t know they even existed. We relied too much on the fire and smoke to keep dangerous beasts away.”
“Still . . .”
“Hell Liz, we could pull up the ladder and hole up in our fort for a couple of days while Spot explores.”
She frowned. “He might get hurt.”
“Spot can sniff other animals from far away, and he’s a good runner.”
Liz shook her head, unconvinced.
“Why don’t we just send him ten miles up the river to see what’s there? It’s only a couple hours round trip for him.”
“Pity, you can’t send a raven instead,” she said. “Survey the land from the air.”
“Yeah,” he said, wondering what it would be like to fly. He focused on one of the ravens that always loitered around the camp. This one was preening its feathers in the birch tree above the old reed hut. The bird jolted, stopped preening, and turned to peer at him, seemingly annoyed. He supposed it was a result of sorts; except he couldn’t read its tiny brain.
“I suggest you send Spot downstream,” Liz said. “We’ve been upstream to Pimlico already.”
He gazed about himself at the towering walls of the palisade. It felt as if they were at the bottom of a well. It would be nice to get out.
Chapter 39
Run Spot Run
10 miles east of Camp Bramble
Spot ran with an easy lope over the compacted snow along the riverbank. A snowbound fir grove lay to his left, while to his right bulrushes and reeds whispered in the stiff northern wind. A pale, anemic sun peeked from between scudding clouds. In sheltered places, a thin coating of soft snow covered the harder layers underneath, and bird tracks crisscrossed the cold surface every which way. As was his habit, he paused to sniff the ground.
Pigeons, pheasants, magpies. How fascinating.
But the Fire Wolf grew impatient and urged him on. Spot sensed his pack brother running alongside him. Sometimes he was on one side, sometimes on another, sometimes behind—a huge wolf with burning eyes and smoke and sparks shooting out of his maw. But wherever Spot turned to look directly, the Fire Wolf would be somewhere else, always at the edge of vision.
Through Spot’s eyes, John looked at the impenetrable wall of rushes sliding by as he trotted alongside it. He relished this exhilarating feeling of the effortless run, but from this low-to-the-ground point of view, he couldn’t see as far as he would have liked. Ahead of him, a willow tree had been wrenched to the ground by a yesteryear hurricane. Propped on its thick boughs like a man doing push-ups, it slanted at a forty-degree angle—a perfect observation point. On surefooted paws, the wolf scrambled up the gnarled, roughly barked trunk and gazed about.
From this elevated position, he could look far above the fields of rushes and cracked ice of tidal meadows. Dark water flowed beyond, with the far bank lost in the blue-tinged distance. Blue-tinged? It seemed that Spot’s vision wasn’t as monochrome as John had first imagined. Either that, or his brain was coloring the world he saw through Spot’s eyes.
8
Alas, the wolf’s eyesight wasn’t nearly as sharp as a human’s. Was the river channel splitting? No way to tell. River estuaries often had islands, and while the original Thames had none, that didn’t preclude this version of the river from splitting into a delta to rival the Nile. John strained Spot’s eyes, peering into the distance, but all he saw was dully glinting water and the hazy opposite bank that seemed to be miles away.
Spot sniffed the wind blowing from the north. In the woods, there were all kinds of animals and birds, but no bears.
John directed Spot down the trunk and into the field of susurrating rushes. He could smell a fox hiding from him, terrified. A wolverine had passed through a few hours ago. He came out of the reed bed to where the tidal channel paralleled the main course of the river. The ice had been broken and re-broken repeatedly here, and his sensitive ears detected water flowing sluggishly beneath the ice. After prolonged cold spells, the cracked ice grew thick and sturdy and perfectly safe to walk across. Beyond the channel, the ground rose slightly, and Spot trotted into another stand of rushes.
At his approach, waterfowl exploded in a flutter of wings and panicked honks and quacks. He reached the far edge of the reed bed and gazed over the gunmetal-gray water. Wisps of mist rose into the frosty air, and chunks of ice floated by on their way to the sea. There seemed to be an island in midstream, miles away, but Spot’s eyes were too shortsighted to make sure, while his sensitive nose and ears were of no help. Perhaps it wasn’t an island, but a jutting headland on the far shore or even a fogbank.
As Spot turned to leave, he sensed a familiar scent of another wolf. More than one.
Fortunately, as he was downwind from them, he detected them before they became aware of his presence. But if they were already following his trail, all bets were off. Spot should have backtracked and looped back as he traveled to guard against this possibility, and he would have done so if his pack brother hadn’t been driving him relentlessly onward.
John caught anxious thought-shapes from Spot. Other wolf packs did not take kindly to strangers entering their hunting grounds and would chase off or kill any trespassers.
It was time to beat a hasty retreat. Without a command from John, Spot turned west and trotted
upstream along the water’s edge. After half a mile, the reed bed on the right thinned, and then disappeared altogether. Soon, Spot was running over slabs of broken ice. Unfortunately, the scent of the pack followed him, which meant they were paralleling his course, stalking him. Not good.
“You better step on it,” John transmitted. “Run.”
Spot needed no urging. He broke into a fast lope, leaping over the cracked ice sheets. Out of the field of reeds between the water’s edge and mainland burst out a dozen thin-flanked wolves, mean and hungry. The chase was on. Most of the pack trailed behind Spot, but four stronger animals shadowed him on a parallel course, cutting him off from the woods.
Well-fed and rested, Spot was in good form, even if he’d grown rather fat since the war with the ursines, and the gap between him and his pursuers began to grow. Unfortunately, the riverbank curved northward, forcing him to turn right, which inexorably brought him closer to the four wolves paralleling his course.
Fleeing with Spot, John watched the flanking chasers closing in, and caught the pack leader’s thoughts emitted with each exhalation of hot breath: “I’ll kill you. Kill you. Kill you!”
The other wolf drew nearer and nearer, running so close on the right that John felt he could reach out and grab it by the scruff of its neck.
The shore turned even more to the right. Spot was now fleeing along the very water’s edge. Ice shifted and creaked underfoot.
As the pack leader leaped at Spot, John reached out to it, and his awareness briefly transferred to another animal, spooking it. The leap missed; the leader lost his footing and rolled.
Spot broke clear of his pursuers. The pack still chased after him, but up ahead the riverbank now turned left, which worked in Spot’s favor. The distance between him and the chasers increased again. Two yards, three, four. Soon he’d be safe.
And then the ice shifted under his paws as the tide began ebbing. The ice plate cracked, and a gash of water burst out, turning the previously rough surface slippery. Spot skidded, fell and rolled once, twice, thrice, and finally splashed into the icy river. The pack gathered on the shore, panting, and watched him snorting and doggy-paddling against the current.
Spot wasn’t a great swimmer, and the current was getting faster, so there was nothing to it but to turn and swim downstream.
Their red tongues lolling, the pack trotted alongside, waiting for him to come ashore. Could he reach the opposite bank? His head low in the water, Spot could see nothing but the endless expanse of the glistening, blue-tinged gray in that direction. He was strong and well-fed, but the icy river sapped his strength and vitality. Fifteen minutes later, he weakened so much that he had trouble simply staying afloat.
And still, the wolves followed him downstream, watching him with merciless yellow eyes.
John kept focusing on the pack leader and connecting to its mind. It was harder to read the mind and influence this unfamiliar host, but eventually John managed to plant a false memory of an auroch’s carcass, still warm and waiting to be eaten. The leader trotted off, and the pack followed, reluctantly at first.
Spot was so weak now that he had no strength to climb out onto the shifting shore ice. He hooked his front paws over the edge and just floated there, getting colder and weaker by the second.
“Get up,” John transmitted a command. “Out of the water. Out!”
But Spot wouldn’t move. He whined pitifully in John’s mind.
“Get out!” John thundered with all his mental might. The voice of a petulant woodland god. “Out!”
Spot gathered his dwindling strength for one last heave and scrambled onto the ice, water cascading down his sides. He swayed on unsteady paws, then shook out his coat feebly. But the life that was in him would not be easily defeated, and soon he was trotting through the whispering reeds, up the riverbank and into a sheltering grove of bushy pines.
He shook his coat out again, more efficiently this time, and headed home, running with an easy lope, warming up with each stride.
John’s eyes flickered open, and he gazed about the smoky wigwam. Liz was sitting by the entrance, working on something with a paperclip needle. He turned on his side and pulled the tiger pelt up to cover his ear. He was shivering all over despite his limbs being warm, even hot. Part of his awareness remained connected to Spot, and he recognized the familiar grove of gray-trunked aspens and heard the trickling of water in the stream.
Nearly home now.
Spot arrived at the compound without further incident, and Liz brought out the smaller cooking skin in which they normally brewed tea. Filled with warm stew, it steamed in the cold air, and a savory aroma of meat and herbs wafted above it. She set it on the ground before the wolf.
Icicles that had formed in Spot’s thick long coat tinkled as he moved. He grinned nonchalantly, as if nothing remarkable had happened, as if he hadn’t just fought for his life and won.
“Now, that’s what I call robust constitution,” John said.
He hesitated, then plunged his hand into the fur of Spot’s scruff. The animal usually resented being handled, growling and showing teeth, but this time he made no protest. The outer layer of his fur was rimed with frost and matted with icicles, but closer to the skin the pelt was warm and dry.
Liz chuckled. “I hope that’s the last time we’re sharing eating utensils with a dog.”
“He’s a wolf,” John said indignantly.
“Same principle.”
They watched Spot lick the cooking skin dry in silence. Liz said, “Are you sure he won’t catch pneumonia?”
“He feels dry and warm. And not a hint of worry.”
“Remarkable.” She picked up the cooking skin and made a moue of distaste. “But then again, simple minds are harder to break.”
John glanced at the towering stockade wall and then at a pile of long poles. Suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration. He leaned three poles side by side against the palisade next to the external ladder to form a ramp. Inside the enclosure, he made a similar ramp. With John standing half-way-up the ladder, he coaxed Spot to climb up the ramp, which Spot did, quite fearlessly.
Inside their wigwam, John spread pine fronds on the ground and Liz added more wood to the fire. After persuading Spot to lie by the fireside, they covered him with a bearskin and spent the rest of the day fitting points to arrow shafts and fletching them with crow feathers.
“So, what have you learned today?” Liz asked.
“There might be an island in the delta.”
“Might be?”
“Looking through Spot’s eyes is like looking through the wrong spectacles. All blurry in the distance.”
“Ah.” She examined a new arrow and put it aside. They had thirty-two now. “So, effectively we learned nothing useful and nearly drowned Spot.”
“We learned there are no bears along the river for ten miles downstream and that local wolves don’t like strangers. I also learned I can connect my mind to any wolf,” John said.
He closed his eyes to cast his mind to the far-off woods and sensed a tenuous link. The hungry wolf pack was trailing behind a deer herd without much hope of catching any. The leader was still musing on what had happened to that auroch carcass he’d been hoping to eat. “In fact, I’m connected to that other wolf right now.”
Liz made a sound indicating amazement.
“Oh yes,” he said smugly. The connection wavered and broke. But before it had, he caught a sour odor of wet dog. Faint and far away. Ursines.
Chapter 40
Gnorrk the Merciful
Seaside 30 miles northeast of Camp Bramble
Gnorrk’s war party crossed a frozen salt marsh, stiff stalks crunching underfoot. The leading scout raised a paw, and everyone hunkered down among the swaying rushes. The Sunrise Clan’s village stood on a wooded knoll just ahead.
The Woodlander army had approached from the north, taking advantage of the cover of bushes and reeds. Cold wind whistled in from the sea, driving skeins of stinging rain, and waves
boomed and echoed along the dismal shore. Perfect weather for a surprise attack. The Sunrisers would button up in their shelters, waiting for the storm to pass. Chances were they hadn’t posted sentries.
Why would they expect an attack?
The scout rose and gave the all-clear signal. The warriors started forward again. In a short while, they reached a fence made of bits of rotten driftwood. Something crackled underfoot, and Gnorrk realized he was treading on seashells. Bushes overhung the desultory barrier, and he parted the branches and peered through. Slovenly shelters built of turf and driftwood clustered around the larger communal lodge. No one was about.
The rival village was ripe for the taking.
Still unnoticed, the raiders came out of the trees, squeezed through gaps in the fencing, and approached the huts of the evidently still-sleeping Sunrisers. Gnorrk pumped his fist three times in the air, and without further ado, the 120 warriors under his command stormed the huts.
A sealskin flap covering the entrance to the nearest shelter flew open, and a Sunriser poked his head out, blinking stupidly in the morning light. Gnorrk brought his club down, striking the enemy between the eyes.
Crunch.
The Sunriser’s eyes rolled back in surprise, and he collapsed face down in the entrance, blood trickling from his snout and ears. With a roar, Gnorrk leaped over the body and into the shelter. He was followed by two of his grandsons. Within, they found two adolescent males whom they promptly clubbed to death. In a dark corner, a female was covering her young with her body, probably hoping she wouldn’t be noticed.
How wrong she was.
Gnorrk and his grandsons dragged her out of her corner and took turns to have their wicked ways with her. Well-fed on sea-clams and mussels, she was nice and plump and squealed most delightfully. As she was submissive enough, they didn’t club her to death afterward. Gnorrk decided to add her to his harem instead. Who said that the Woodland Clan weren’t merciful?