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Chapter 2 - Jak

From my forlorn, rocky perch high up the eastern flanks of the Earth Spine, the forested lands that had ever been my home stretched away from my tired eyes for dozens of miles to the hazy boundary where the earth meets the sky. An aching longing to return stirred in my soul, but the knowledge that a reunion between the land, my people, and me was forever forbidden only deepened my anguish. The Wolf I had been was fading leaving one question to plague me like the droning of an insistent mosquito in my ear.

"Who am I?" I whispered to myself.

I was born as Jak. I lived as White Paw. Now it seems that I am to die alone as Jak again. My mother named me thus when she birthed me over fifty summers ago. It's a pup's name and ill-suited to one who has been a warrior and held the rank of chief, but now it is the only name allowed me. Not that it matters. None of my people will come to greet me by any moniker, at least not in the few paws full of days that remain to me. Perhaps, after I have joined the spirit realm and if the scavengers don't scatter my remains, one of my pack will stumble across my bones, recognize them for mine from the few artifacts I leave behind, and whisper "White Paw" with fond reverence for who I was and for having had the courage and dignity to die with honor.

Here, at the end of my life, I try each day to adhere to the right path for my people and myself, but it frightens me to be alone when death is so close. Like a fetid scent in the air, a bitter taste on my tongue, and the icy touch of the mountain breeze upon my fur, death manifests itself physically upon my senses. All the color of the mortal world bleeds inexorably away leaving nothing for my eyes but dour shades of gray.

Raised once to high status by the customs of my people, the same rules have now brought me low. I accept this as fact. Life is a cycle of growth and decay, endlessly repeated. An aged Wolf like me cannot expect fate to be otherwise, but to understand why I wither here at the edge of my homeland, you have to know what it is to be a Wolf and to have been a pack chief.

Like all of the people created by the Makers, Wolves walk upon two legs. The name of my kind, Wolf, is derived from our physical features such as the shapes of our snouts, ears, and tails that we share with our spiritual kin the feral wolves. Though the color and patterns of our fur are more diverse than our wild cousins, we are alike in that males and females of our kind are of equal strength and size, typically over six feet in height. Our females have somewhat broader hips than the males for delivering pups, and have breasts to nurse them, but both sexes are excellent warriors. We can run all day if necessary to chase down prey. Our sense of smell exceeds that of all the other peoples making us excellent trackers and hunters, and all Wolves possess some measure of the Wolf Maker's gift - the ability to smell the difference between lies and truth.

Our archenemies, the Rabbits, see us as no different from Cats - another race that shares our loathing for the wretched bunnies, but there is much that separates us from the felines. It is true that we are both strong and mighty races of hunters, but the similarities end there. Cats and Wolves both have claws, but theirs retract inside their paws, while ours are always on display. Though our claws make effective weapons for hunting, they do not hinder us from making delicate objects. Cats are taller, stronger, faster, and stealthier than Wolves, but they tend towards a solitary existence whereas Wolves find our strength in cooperation for the good of the pack. So physically and emotionally compelling is this need to live and work together with our own kind that existence as a lone Wolf is no existence at all. It is the cause of the death that consumes me now.

Wolf people live in harmony with the spirits of nature. I know nothing of the beliefs of any of the other races, but Wolves believe each race had its own Maker. Once, we worshipped the Great Maker of the Wolf people, Ovia, but she abandoned us, and let the Rabbit folk drive us from our homes in the west to these new lands in the east. Many Wolves died in that exodus. Other people lived east of the Earth Spine already including some Wolves who did not welcome us, particularly the penchant for violence that we had acquired from years of war with the Rabbits. The native Wolves were conquered and absorbed into our packs as we fought with single-minded purpose to establish new packs and eliminate all Rabbits in the east. After much war, we reached equilibrium in these lands and made them our home. It is difficult to say which Wolves are descended from those who came from the west and who are descended from the original inhabitants, but we all learned to hate the Rabbits with equal intensity.

Those Rabbit folk who lived in the east prior to our arrival were nearly all destroyed, and most now exist beyond our reach or in an uneasy truce with us, such is our hatred for them. Such was our hatred for the Maker, who had forsaken us, that we ceased worshiping and believing in her. Instead, we respect the spirits of nature that provide us with prey to eat and the forest within which to hunt. It is a simple and rewarding life that begins for each pup with a name.

In my pack, and the other Wolf packs, pups are given a birth name by their mother. As I stated previously, mine is Jak. Male pups who survive twelve winters are given their warrior name. Females receive theirs when they become fertile, usually around the same number of seasons. Both sexes undergo tests of strength, endurance, cunning, or bravery to prove their worthiness of receiving their warrior name. Females fight alongside the males in battle and serve as leaders and advisors to the chief, but only males can become the pack leader. It is the one respect in which males and females are not equal.

In some packs, warrior names are given by the chief. Our pack allows the nascent warrior to choose. On my naming day, I selected White Paw because like the moon against the night sky, my left paw stands out in stark contrast to the rest of my fur, which is black as coal. At least it once was that black. Now that I am old and past my prime, streaks of silver dominate my pelt just as the stars and the hazy glow of the night lighten the heavens.

Advanced age is a blessing and a curse among my people. The wisdom that comes with years of experience is accompanied by a weakening of the body. A worthy chief must be both wise and strong, but strength is valued higher because a strong chief will sire strong pups and ensure the vitality of the pack. This is why I became a lone Wolf, an outcast with no reason to live, banished from Blackrock pack to die alone. I was no longer the strongest of the pack and thus unworthy to fulfill the duties of a chief.

A chief has great responsibility and many villages under the domain that is his pack. Our settlements are permanent, but small, usually consisting of several long wooden buildings and groups of no more than a few dozen paws of individuals including pups. Villages are dispersed throughout the forest allowing us range and space to hunt our prey and grow the few grains and vegetables we eat. A pack like Blackrock, which is typical, consists of up to twenty of these villages. Aside from the wealth of nature all around us in the forests within which we live, Blackrock pack is especially rich in trade because our territory controls the access to the rock from which our weapons and all the other people's weapons in the east are made. The stone, called obsidian, is found high in the mountains beyond the pass at the place where water boils in pools and steams from cracks in the earth. Our pack name comes from this material that can be chipped with other stones to flake and form marvelously sharp surfaces for knives, spears, and arrowheads.

The blades of our weapons come from the earth, but our clothing comes from the animals we hunt. All Wolves wear simple kilts of animal pelts. In winter, we wear robes and boots of the same material to keep warm. Otherwise, we prefer to wear little clothing. However, that does not mean that we do not ornament ourselves. Many of my people wear necklaces and bracelets using materials we take in trade for obsidian such as gold, silver, shells, ivory, and small, colored stones. Some even use these materials to pierce their ears with hoops and posts. I have never cared for wearing such things but made an exception for two items that hold special meaning for me. One is a milky quartz paw representing my warrior name. The other is of similar shape carved from bloodstone to represent my status former status as chief. They were made by my favorite mate, Moon, and hung from a braided leather thong about my neck. They are precious to me not just for their beauty and symbolism, but for the love that was in their making.

The blood red paw is a sacred symbol among my people born from the legend of the first chief of all the Wolves in the days shortly after creation when the Maker walked among us. His name was Blood Paw. Like me, he had one discolored paw, but his was crimson. None could best him in any contest of physical strength or fighting prowess. Out of admiration and with the blessing of the Maker, he was proclaimed the leader of all Wolves. Many claws of years of happiness and prosperity encompassed his reign as well as the siring of hundreds of pups from his seed. There isn't a Wolf alive who does not carry some of his blood in their veins.

Never content with being chief by divine right, at one full moon, Blood Paw gathered all of the Wolves together for a celebration and announced that any Wolf who thought he could best him in a fair fight was welcome to come forth and try. This was when the words of the first challenge were spoken, and it became tradition to allow warriors to try to unseat Blood Paw after speaking the ritual words at each subsequent full moon. Blood Paw remained undefeated at the challenge until the end of his long life even as his people grew in numbers so great that one chief could not manage them all. This frustrated his children and grandchildren who desired power and the ability to rule as chief, so they rose up in rebellion against him.

Blood Paw was mortally wounded in the ensuing battle. Anguished by what they had done, his mutinous descendants gathered around their dying sire and wept. Realizing his own mistake, Blood Paw forgave those who had fought against him. Summoning the ten mightiest male warriors from among those who had supported and those who had opposed him, he had them kneel at his side so that he could place his famous paw on the chest of each of them in turn. After all were so anointed, he proclaimed them chiefs subject to the rules of the challenge. It is said that Ovia's magic stained those warrior's chests indelibly red in the shape of a paw. All subsequent leaders have thus carried and still carry some talisman or symbol representing that blood red paw to show that they have been similarly marked and chosen by the Maker.

Every pack since Blood Paw's original pack sets aside a special place where they meet at the full moon to celebrate life, allow for exchanges of mates, let females vie to be mated by the pack leader, and provide an opportunity for any male to challenge the existing chief's right to rule. I became pack leader and earned my red paw talisman many seasons ago by winning the challenge against our previous chief, Gold Mane. He was subsequently banished, and I gave little thought to what happened to him until now. It is sobering to think that what is happening to me was done by me to him.

I recently lost a challenge, which means that I am no longer a chief or a warrior, and thus have no warrior name. I am just Jak. I also have no pack. Without that affiliation and the feelings of comfort, belonging, and comradeship that go with it, I sicken and die. With no one to protect, no hunting parties to join, no one to share my food, no one to help break the loneliness I feel, no one whom with to alleviate my pain and sorrow, my will and strength to carry on fades, replaced by a bleak hopelessness. I do not have the courage to take my own life, yet I cannot bear to go this way. How soon until I stop hunting and eating? How soon until I am weak and helpless and become prey myself? How soon until I am hunted down by my own kind for lingering too long in these familiar lands? I have no answers to these questions. I simply exist and carry on alone and lose a bit more of myself every day.

This lingering malaise is an inevitable outcome for which I foolishly never prepared. For many turns of the seasons, perhaps five paws worth of fore-claws, I was the chief of my pack. Our lore mistress, Shadow Chaser, said that I was the longest reigning pack leader in countless generations. In retrospect, I think she was forewarning me of my doom, yet I did not listen because I had always been strong and fierce. Perhaps I thought I was another Blood Paw. If I did, then I was arrogant, but I had reason to be. I was the best warrior, and none could defeat me. Many tried, but I threw them all down, cowed them to my will, or drove them from the pack if they would not submit, as was my right as the victor. How could it ever be any different?

Yet being a leader was more than strength and fighting prowess. I also learned to be fair and merciful as needed when passing judgment and settling disputes. I prided myself on my wisdom and benevolence, but I was not truly wise, or I would have readied myself for the end even though that end was known to be unpleasant. Instead, I lived each day as though the next would be the same and my days of glory would continue forever. As with everything in this world, I grew older and weaker, and change in leadership became inevitable. Only the strongest may lead a pack. This is the law. I am still strong, and a mighty hunter, even after the challenge, but I discovered too late that I was no longer the strongest.

I knew the truth deep down inside, but wouldn't admit it to myself. When Ice Eyes challenged me on my last day as pack leader, I realized for the first time that only the great respect and fondness that the other warriors had held for me had kept them from mounting a serious challenge against me sooner. The mixed joy and horrible irony of it all was that Ice Eyes was my son, and not just any of my many sons. He was not even my first son, but he was my favorite because he was the son of Moon.

Though younger than I by nearly fifteen years, Moon and I made a handsome pair. Where I was black, Moon was a light, silvery gray like the nighttime orb for which she had been named upon her flowering. Moon and I had several pups together. All the pack females want to have the chief's pups, so they were jealous whenever I gave my seed first to Moon. I did not neglect my duty to them, but neither did I deny myself my love for Moon.

When Ice Eyes, named for the beautiful crystal blue color of his eyes, stepped forward into the pack's challenge circle on my last day as leader, I knew that my reign was over, not because he was necessarily stronger or better than I was, but because he was my best possible replacement. I knew this but had ignored it. The rest of the pack knew it, too. I could see it in their expressions and the way they stood still and sullen unlike the usual excitement experienced at every other challenge. They loved me. I felt their love like a warm embrace on a cold night, but my time had come. My own son had to step forward for me to acknowledge what I had long denied.

What more could a proud father desire than to see his son rise to take his place? Yet we had to fight, and it had to be genuine. As with all challenges, we fought with no weapons, only the muscle, paws, claws, and teeth that the Maker gave us. It was an even match. I did not humiliate my son by letting him win. The fight had to be authentic, and it was. I may even have won if it had been anyone else challenging me. Perhaps I fought too well, or maybe the Maker decided this fight needed to end with drama. I am certain that Ice Eyes did not mean to maim me.

I should have yielded earlier. Several opportunities to do so were provided after he had knocked me down. Instead, I stood up each time and fought on. The blow that ended the fight was wild and born of Ice Eye's fatigue. I mentioned earlier that our claws do not retract. We can fight without using them on each other, but tiredness makes us all clumsy. The final blow not only put me snout first in the dirt and ended the fight, but it took my left eye and left me a furrowed face that is already turning to scar tissue. Certainly, no one can claim the fight was staged. To me, the sacrifice of my left eye was worth losing if it meant he was accepted as the legitimate leader.

Ice Eyes was sorry it had happened. I knew it was not his intent. The pain and horror he felt for what he had done was visible to me even through the rage of combat. He was transfixed, staring at his claws dripping with my blood. I feared for him at that moment, feared what he might do in his shame and grief. Through my own pain and defeat, I knew by his contrition that he would make the pack a great leader. My love for him at that moment was neither diminished nor compromised. Instead, it blossomed and grew stronger than ever. I broke tradition by embracing him and whispering in his ear so only he could hear my voice.

"I love you, son. I know you'll make me proud."

Then I fell to my knees with my snout to the ground in submission, formally yielding the position of pack leader to him. The rest of the pack emulated me to signify their acceptance of their new chief. It was done, and there was no turning back. Only one path lay open to me.

Whereas a defeated challenger can always humble himself before the surviving chief and remain in the pack to try again some other day, a defeated leader has only two options: death or exile. The decision is the ex-chief's. Exile became my fate, and the pack drove me out. They were not violent nor were they cruel about it, but there was no room in the pack for a defeated chief. Even Moon had to participate in my exile, though I could see it grieved her to do so even more than my son.

I urged Moon not to try to follow me. For anyone to accompany a defeated chief into exile is forbidden, but Moon snuck away from the pack after I was gone on the pretense of needing to be alone with her grief. She found me in a barren, forlorn place far from pack patrols, at the lowest flanks of the mountains in a waterlogged wasteland of bogs and marshes. She wanted to join me in my exile, but though I desired that more than anything in the world, I could not allow it. If she had abandoned the pack, our son's position as leader would have suffered. The reason for her disappearance would be obvious, and providing succor to an exiled leader is taboo. Her shame would have become my son's shame. Since a pack leader can also be deposed by his warriors if enough of them band against him, I could not let her undermine Ice Eye's new authority. Moon had to return to the pack to demonstrate to everyone that she obeyed the law and that tradition was strong in her blood, and by association, strong in Ice Eyes' blood. He was young for pack leader, too, and would need the advice of his mother to help him rule. She reluctantly agreed, and we made love one last time under the pale light of her namesake in that lonely place.

As she tended my ruined face and made an eye patch for me to hide the worst of my disfigurement, I told her how I would always remember her, especially when gazing at the night sky. Moon cried over that because we both knew I would not likely live to see another full moon. Her despair and sorrow was a worse tragedy for me than losing the challenge. Letting her go was the most wretched aspect of the ordeal. Death now seams easy in comparison.

I made sure that she carefully washed my scent from her fur and returned to the pack. For days afterward, I thought I heard her distant, mournful howls at night, but it may have been my imagination, for I moved steadily farther away from the center of Blackrock pack territory always gaining elevation, always heading west. Now, it is hard for me to hear her voice even in my imagination.

I am truly alone now. I miss the structured and comforting order of dominance and submission that the pack provided. A lone Wolf is a miserable and unhealthy creature bereft of order and comfort. Each day has been a lonely state of misery filled with waning vigor. I find myself sitting listlessly most days watching prey move about their business without experiencing the stirring thrill to hunt them. When my stomach becomes so loud and painful that I can no longer sit comfortably, I kill, but there is no joy in it, and hence my rate of success is low. I am always hungry, existing on a diet of small mammals, lizards, and insects. It is a lowly existence, but the hunting of regular prey feels like a betrayal to the nature spirits.

Why should a doomed hunter like me keep taking the lives of prey for no purpose but to keep alive another day something that must die anyway? It is a philosophical question that I cannot answer and find pointless since with only one eye, my archery prowess, never the best, is less than adequate for the task. To fill my belly, I have even begun to eat tubers and berries that we Wolves usually consume only sparingly for their nourishing value or during times of famine.

Today I vowed to eat no more. There is no dignity in feeding myself. The lives and spirits of prey belong to the living. A packless Wolf has no purpose. No one relies on me. No one needs me. I cannot help anyone anymore but myself, and what is the point in postponing my death any longer? So, here I sit with an empty stomach and an empty soul gazing east.

The waxing gibbous moon was rising, at least two sets of fore claws of days from full. Had I really lived alone for so long? For nearly a lunar cycle I had wandered at the edge of the pack's territory always moving higher into the mountains as the snow and ice retreated. When enough has melted, access will open to the high pass where the black rock is found. The pack only rarely patrols this region during the early summer, but when the paths are clear, warriors will soon follow. If I am still alive when that happens and they find me, they will kill me.

I will need to move on before then, but to where I don't know. No other pack will have me. Our Cat neighbors to the north and the Horse people to the south are no friends of the Wolves. I would find no welcome in either of those directions. Somewhere far to the east, where the mountains and hills end, a broad, flat, forested land eventually meets the sea. Never having been there, I couldn't say if there were Wolves all the way to the sea or not, but it doesn't matter, since I can't pass through Wolf territory to get there either. I am trapped.

The earth itself seemed to proclaim my doom. A violent shaking had wracked the land two days previously making the trees sway violently and causing the birds to take fight in huge flocks. Frequent, but less intense trembling had occurred during the days since. An ugly black and gray cloud blazing with lighting rose above the mountains from the west. I wondered what was happening over there. The great spirit of the mountains was angry, but about what? I personalized this at first wondering if the mountain spirit was mad at me for stubbornly clinging to life, but that was a foolish thought. I was too insignificant to be of concern to something as mighty as the mountains. What did it matter anyway? I was past caring. I wouldn't even look at it anymore. The moon held my attention and my thoughts were all about Moon as I desperately tried to remember the sound of her voice, the gentle touch of her paw, and the sweet smell of her fur.

The screaming call of a pack of kryfes broke my despondent spell of self-pity and recollection. Kryfes are a very dangerous kind of pack hunter but are animals and not people. Heavier and more muscular than an adult feral wolf, these hyena-like carnivores with powerful jaws are a significant danger to a loner like myself. They hunt near the edges of our pack's territory avoiding the more settled areas. Using their numbers to confuse, exhaust, and trap their prey, they are very effective at hunting the sheep, deer, and elk that make these mountainous regions their homes. If I had been leading a pack patrol, we would have dealt with this threat easily driving them away from the trail that leads to the pass, but there is no 'we' for me anymore. On my own, I am vulnerable to these creatures.

Instinctively I weighed my options and assets despite my resolve to die. I had a spear, two knives, and a bow and quiver with ten arrows. If I climbed a tree, I could stay out of their reach and pick them off with arrows, if necessary. There is no way I could hope to fight a pack of kryfes alone and on the ground. Several suitable trees were near enough, but whether due to curiosity or a fatalistic desire to see my life story end, I decided instead to see what animal they were hunting. The risk was not as great it might seem. By the sound they were making, the kryfes already had some hapless elk or deer cornered. They would likely ignore me in favor of their doomed prey. Why bother with another predator when there was something easier to kill?

Nevertheless, I moved as carefully and silently as I could towards the sound of the snarling and screaming pack. When I was within thirty yards, I saw motion in a clearing through the forest undergrowth. I hesitated again, debating whether to try to get closer, but a thrown spear caught my eye and I was compelled to act. Assuming it was one of my own pack in trouble, the instinct to protect swept aside all caution.

I charged forward, bursting into the clearing with a howl to disrupt and confuse the beasts. It worked long enough for me to survey the scene. The pack consisted of a dozen animals. There were ten kryfes left alive. Two were down, one dead and one dying. The others had retreated towards the edge of the clearing in confusion. I should have taken advantage of their disarray and shot as many with arrows as I could. Instead, I found myself perplexed and wasted precious seconds. I wasn't rescuing a pack mate. The kryfes' victim was an enemy. It was one of the Rabbit people.

Never in my lifetime had one of the western bunnies ventured over the high pass to this side of the Earth Spine. Stranger still was the fact that this one was a doe. Always before, it was only bucks that fought with us whenever we clashed over access to the black rock, and yet here was a female wearing armor and holding in her paw one of the marvelous, long, magic knives only her people could make. Made of a material so hard and supple, it could easily shatter my obsidian knife. The tip of her spear was of similar material and had easily penetrated deep into the dead kryfe's chest. The dying one next to it had a large gash across its belly and was missing a leg, no doubt from that incredibly long knife that dripped with the beast's blood and guts.

She had her back to a large tree so the pack couldn't surround her, but she was trapped and wounded. Blood oozed from long gashes on her thigh. She couldn't run away or hold out against the rest of them especially when they charged together, which by the look of their body language, they were preparing to do. There was still time for me to back out of the clearing. The kryfes would go for the easy prey, and would see me as more dangerous due to my size, being too stupid to account for the better weaponry of my enemy. My hatred for her kind was so intense, that I considered shooting her with an arrow to make it easier for the kryfes to finish her off while I got safely away. I could always come back for her weapons later after her bones had been picked clean.

Instead, it occurred to me that she might be worth something to me alive. Her appearance here was extraordinary and possibly presaged an invasion that threatened my pack. Though no longer a member, I couldn't break the impulse to protect my own. If this bunny was a scout, she should know the location and destination of the rest of her army.

Having resolved to capture and interrogate her, I prepared for the pack's imminent charge knowing with certainty that returning with her to the pack would mean my death. I accepted that and welcomed the quicker end. I gladly traded my life for the pack's safety. This momentary purpose for my existence felt too righteous to squander just to live a little longer.

As I had predicted, when the kryfes charged, they tried to avoid me and go directly for the bunny. Abandoning the bow, which was too awkward to use at such close range, I thrust my spear into the side of one as it raced past. The shaft snapped off in my paws as the creature's momentum carried it tumbling forward. My attack made me a new threat, and two turned towards me. I drew both of my knives in response. Fortunately, they did not charge together, but came in sequence. I thrust under the neck of the first one and left the dagger buried in its throat as it tumbled onward squealing and gurgling as it drowned in its own blood. The second one was close behind and had its head down to protect its throat. I jumped upward over its back letting its speed carry it under me. Stabbing downward as it rushed beneath, my knife ripped into its spine near its mid back and tore the length of its body to its tail as my weight dragged it to a halt.

Knowing it was too grievously injured to pose any more threat, I leapt back to my hindpaws with knife still in hand. Of the remaining seven, another was now dead. A second was dying with the surprisingly competent bunny's blade in its eye, but a third had its teeth locked on her left arm. The remainder were trying to maneuver in to deliver the killing bite but had been blocked by the dying kryfe and the one hanging from her arm.

It was obvious that if I didn't intervene, she would be dead in seconds and any information she had would be lost to me. I ran howling at them all heedless of my own safety. I must have seemed truly terrifying because the four on the edge of the fight lost their will and scurried away. The kryfe biting the bunny's arm was either too lost in its blood lust or did not realize it had been abandoned by its pack mates. Being the largest member of the pack it was probably the leader and still a formidable opponent by itself.

It began flailing its great muscular head and neck. The bunny girl was tossed about like a pup's doll. Beaten against the tree, her head struck hard against the bark as I jumped on the beast's back. With mere instants to profit from my surprise attack, I wrapped my left arm around its neck, reached under with the other and began to saw across its hide to open its throat. The creature stubbornly refused to let go of the doe until I hit its artery. Blood gushed forth across the bunny's face and chest as the creature's life force spewed outward. It was only then that the dying kryfe finally let go of her arm, and she slumped to the ground.

Barely conscious, she looked at me without comprehension as her eyes slowly closed and she slipped into oblivion. Fearing she might be dying, I released the dead kryfe and shook her, desperate for the information I thought she had.

"Why have you come here? Are there more of your kind?" She could not answer.

Dragging her away from the corpses, I inspected her to see how badly she had been injured. Other than the gashes in her thigh, which were bleeding freely, and the bump on her head, she seemed miraculously unharmed. Where the brute had bit her forearm, I expected to find a crushed and useless limb possibly in need of amputation. Instead, I marveled to find a hard sheath about her lower arm made of the same material has her blade.

"Steel," I said aloud remembering the word that Shadow Chaser had taught me long ago.

Though dented and twisted by the kryfe's powerful jaws, when I removed the covering, her arm appeared unbroken. Raked and torn, the garment she wore on her torso hid another wonder, which was a shirt made of small rings of the same marvelous steel all locked together so they made an impenetrable shell. Around her neck had been another steel sheath that had dents suspiciously spaced like kryfe teeth. A kryfe would definitely go for the neck to deliver the kill. Perhaps the big one had tried that first before trying her arm. I laughed at how the dimwitted thing had managed to hit all of her most protected spots.

The back of her head was bleeding where it hit the tree, but I could feel no soft spot in her skull. If I had, I would have left her there to die, taken her steel weapons to the pack, and warned them of this danger. There still would have been purpose in that, but saving her life now became my priority. I needed to know how many more bunnies there were, where they were, and when they planned to attack.

I knew a surprising amount about tending wounds because Moon was our pack's healer. As we used to lie together after mating, she had delighted in recounting her healing lore to me. I learned much from her because it was a joy to listen to her musical voice. To spend more time with her, I had feigned interest and watched her prepare and apply her remedies. It's hard not to learn something when you are exposed to it so often.

I quickly cleaned the bunny's wound and searched for herbs to reduce the swelling and prevent infection. Thyval leaves were an excellent curative, and they grew readily in open clearings like this one. The leaves had to be ground and mixed with saliva until they formed a paste. Grinding released the medicinal qualities, but I couldn't remember why I had to spit on them. Moon had done it so I did it too. Maybe it helped give it the paste-like consistency. Maybe there was magic in our spit. I didn't know.

The sting of the thyval paste was painful when applied, but the bunny made no sound as I rubbed the paste into her cuts. She should have at least flinched. I checked her breathing to be sure she was still alive. Content that she was, I tied her weapons into a bundle and retrieved my knives and the tip of my broken spear. Carrying her over my shoulder, I moved as quickly as I could to get far away before the death smell brought the cannibalistic kryfes back or attracted other equally dangerous things.

She was light, and I was able to bear her weight for the several miles it took to reach a high location I had used as a camp on the previous night. It was a safe place where a flat slab of rock projected out from a steep slope. Not only did it have limited access for intruders, but also there was no better view of the surrounding countryside. More rock overhung my perch providing limited cover from the weather. I had used some branches and downed wood to enclose a small space from the worst of the elements. A screen of trees that grew up from the drop off below helped keep the wind and rain out when it blew in from the southeast as it often did this time of year.

More clouds settled in after dark, rain fell all that night, and it grew cold enough that sleet accompanied the rain. I avoided building a fire at night especially since it would be visible for many miles from this high bench. I feared that pack patrols might see it. I did not know if they would understand the necessity of interrogating the bunny before killing her. They might not listen to me and would be just as inclined to kill me first. I needed to learn her secrets and then surrender myself to the pack. It was imperative that I give them this precious information before they slayed me. It would be my last act but a worthy one.

When the she bunny began to shiver, I was forced to take my sleeping skin and wrap her and me in it. Bunnies were more lightly furred than Wolves, and she was such a small thing. Clearly, she was beyond exhaustion and would not survive the night exposed and alone.

As I lay next to her, I could not help inhaling her scent. Smell was a crucial part of my people's world. We see with it nearly as much as we do with our eyes. I had been finding myself relying on smell more and more after my vision had been halved. Her scent was more akin to that of my own people than of the feral rabbits that I had often caught and eaten, though I could detect elements of prey intertwined with the dominant scent. I found my senses confused by the warring odors. My mouth began to salivate and my empty stomach growled in response to the rabbit-like smell, but another tantalizing aroma not totally unlike that of our Wolf females teased my brain.

The grumbling in my guts was offset by a slight tingling in my loins. Was I becoming aroused by a source of food? Why was I even thinking of her as food? It was forbidden in our pack to eat any of the other people. We would kill them if they invaded our territory or threatened the pack, but we do not eat them. It was rumored that some of the other packs did. The Cat people were said to eat anything. I might kill her when she is of no more use to me, but I would never eat her, and I certainly should not be aroused by her. To distract myself, I thought of my looming death and dwelt in pity for the loss of Moon as I fell asleep spooned against the tiny doe trying to drive away her convulsive shivering with the heat of my body.

[End of Chapter]