Chapter Twenty
“Two ships have approached and are asking for communication,” Margot said.
“Right, are we ready?” Brogan said.
“Yes.”
Brogan and Camber stood in front of the viewscreen. It was an important moment.
Wolves tended to handle pairs better than single people. It was just the make-up of wolf society—pairs gave them comfort.
A woman and a man in grey uniforms with fur capes appeared on the screen. Brogan stood slightly in front of Camber, in a protective pose.
“I am Brogan of the pack Filtiaran. I come from a planet very far away. We wondered if we could meet with your Alpha?”
The two wolves smiled, which surprised her.
“Of course. Follow us down, Brogan of the pack Filtiaran.”
The screen went black.
“That was it?” Camber said.
“I don’t trust them,” Thane added.
Brogan turned her head and said, “Wolves are honest and straightforward.”
“Let’s see which one of us is proved right.”
“Simmer down, Thane,” Jhosa said. “Shall I follow?”
Margot looked at Brogan and Camber. Brogan said, “Yes.”
Brogan walked forwards to the screen, which now showed the big, mostly green and blue planet. She gazed at it with wonder. “Look at that forest. It’s so big. Some lakes and seas and lands, but mostly forest.”
Behind her Camber said sadly, “Perfect for a wolf.”
They had landed a few minutes ago, and Brogan had shifted to pelt. That was her plan and what everyone agreed to. New wolves were best met as their wolf selves, as there was a strict cultural practice for meeting new wolves or wolf packs.
Everyone on the ship was lined up behind Brogan and Camber on the docking platform that would open out to this new world.
Brogan looked back and growled to Jhosa. It was agreed they would wait for her signal before Jhosa opened the ship’s doors.
The door began to slowly open, and she felt Camber’s fingers go into her fur and hold on. She was feeling anxious—Brogan could sense it.
When the doors were open halfway, they all got their first view of their welcoming party, a party of ten big wolves shifted to pelt and four in their human forms. Two wore the same uniform as the wolves they’d met with earlier via the ship’s comms, and the other two who were not shifted were a lot smaller, and submissive, and they had big smiles on their faces.
Camber felt relief but was still on edge.
This was really not the welcome they were expecting. All that was known about the GallowGlas wolves was that they kept to themselves. This wasn’t that.
They’d landed in a clearing of beautiful grass surrounded by huge pine trees, higher than Camber had ever seen before. She could understand Brogan’s wow moment, when she saw the world on the ship’s screen.
It was a beautiful place. A wolf’s paradise.
Brogan walked down the platform, and as Brogan explained would happen, she kept eyes dead on the Alpha, to show she was dominant.
The Alpha’s wolf fur was black and tan. The one standing behind the Alpha was dark grey, white, and brown—she was the Alpha’s second, going by how Brogan had described pack structure.
Brogan continued forwards until she was snout to snout with the Alpha. Then the Alpha growled and bared her teeth. Brogan shifted her eyes to the side and put her snout down, to show the Alpha was the boss around here.
Camber gasped when the Alpha pushed Brogan onto the ground, in a play fighting kind of way, and then Brogan exposed her neck and allowed the Alpha to open their mouth and close its jaws around Brogan’s open neck.
Then the Alpha jumped back and howled, it seemed, happily. The rest of their wolves howled along too. Brogan jumped up and looked back at her and howled. Camber thought it had gone well.
Then all of a sudden the wolves, including Brogan, ran off into the trees.
Camber and the others walked down onto the grass with the two submissives, one who on first sight looked to be female, and the second a man. The two in uniform kept a short distance from their sides but were clearly their bodyguards.
“Welcome. I’m Mater of the pack, Enor, and this is the mate of our pack second, Kanni.”
Enor had long, soft, blond hair, and Kanni had long, tight black braids.
Camber took the lead. “Hi, Enor and Kanni, the wolf with us is called Brogan. I’m Camber, and these are our crew and friends, Morrigan, who I’m sure needs no introduction…”
“No,” Enor said. “We have traded with your mother. How is she?”
“Very well, I believe,” Morrigan said.
“Then there’s Thane, Margot and her husband Jhosa, and finally…can you keep a confidence?”
“Of course,” Enor said, “we have no business in selling secrets to the Abnobians.”
Kanni jumped into the conversation. “We know it’s Ziggy from Ziggy’s World anyway.”
Ziggy gave her a deep bow. “At your service.”
They sniggered at her, and Kanni said, “You’re sweet, Ziggy. We do good business with your establishments, don’t we, Ziggy?”
“Yes, we sell Unalla resin, but we’ll tell you about it when we get to my den for some tea.”
They followed the wolves to the side gate of a palatial log cabin. It surprised Camber just how much these wolves were like Brogan. Even if there was a connection in the past, she would have expected some differences, but so far, there were none.
They walked past a beautiful swimming pool. “We’ve normally got a bunch of cubs playing in the pool, but they are at school,” said Kanni.
Camber and the rest were taken into a sunroom that looked onto the pool.
“Welcome to my den,” Enor said. “Take a seat and we’ll bring out some drinks.”
“Thank you. You’re being very kind,” Margot said.
“We knew you were coming, so we baked some sweets and savoury breads,” Kanni said.
“You knew we were coming?” Camber said.
“Yes,” said Kanni. “We’ll tell you all about it when we get the drinks.”
Camber turned to Thane, Margot, Jhosa, Morrigan, and Ziggy. “They knew we were coming?”
Morrigan added, “I had no idea the GallowGlas wolves were like this. It’s very much like this in Earth wolf packs, except the scenery here is even more stunning.”
Thane bent closer. “It’s a bit too perfect.”
“Maybe you’re a bit too distrustful,” Margot said.
“Here we are.” Enor and Kanni brought through two trays of drinks, hot and cold, and the two bodyguards carried sandwiches and cakes.
“This looks beautiful, thank you,” Camber said.
Enor sat down next to Camber and handed out the drinks. “You wanted to know how we knew you were coming.”
“Yes, we’re quite surprised. We thought you didn’t like visitors,” Camber said.
“Just the ones that want to take over our planet,” Kanni said.
“The Great Mother let us know you were coming,” Enor said. She leaned back and asked one of the bodyguards, “Can you bring in the book?”
“Excuse me, the Great Mother? My—” How could Camber describe their relationship? “Our friend, the wolf, comes from a pack in a world far away, and they worship the Great Mother.”
Both Enor and Kanni smiled.
Brogan always loved running, but as soon as she entered this forest, it lifted her soul. There was something so primordial about it. The trees went up to the sky, and lilac flowers covered a lot of the space between the trees.
Every so often she saw white or silver wisps floating between the trees. They gave her goosebumps.
When they came to a natural stop at a stream, all the wolves took a drink, and the Alpha took the opportunity to talk to Brogan telepathically. “I’m glad you came to us, Brogan. I knew you would. My name is Koda, my second is called Leo.”
“I’m glad to meet you, I’m Brogan. How did you know we were coming?”
“Our book of the ancestors told us. It was told to us by the Great Mother.”
“The Great Mother? That is our Goddess too.”
“And this is the Great Forest,” Koda said.
Brogan was shocked. “That’s where we believe our dead go.”
Koda and Leo sat down in a sun puddle where the sun came through the trees. Brogan’s vision kept catching wisps of white passing through the trees.
“Wisps,” Leo said.
“Excuse me?” Brogan said.
“The white wisps you see,” Leo said.
Koda took over. “They are the spirits of our dead who come to be with the Great Mother.”
“The spiritual afterlife. Do you think it’s ours too?” Brogan was quite emotional.
“Tell me your pack’s story,” Koda said while the other wolves sat around to hear.
“Long ago there was a princess called—”
“Scota, who was a great warrior,” Koda finished for her, “not a choice that women had in that society. She took the Great Mother as her Goddess, and she gave her, and her followers, the ability to transform into wolves. She asked them to spread over the world and make communities that weren’t built along gender lines. ”
“How do you know this?”
“It is written in our story,” Koda said. Koda nudged Brogan and said, “Let’s go back to your mate.”