Prologue Hate #4
Over time Hate came to believe that Car was an abomination.
It served not the Forest God, but men. It had no agency, no will of its own.
Car—Cars? whatever—were slaves, just like horses, or those dogs on a rope you sometimes saw romping through the woods during the fall.
Worse than slaves, really. Once Hate’s mother had told him a story about a slave dog who ran away to find salvation in the forest. Bullshit or not, it made him feel nice.
Ah, Father.
His father had been a fine hunter. But even before men came, new things in general seemed to make him grumpy. Mother once confided that thinking hurt the old lynx if he kept at it for too long.
That, Hate thought, ended up being the death of him. It was no real surprise. The real horror was that he managed to drag Mother down with him.
After a few days they’d taken to moving after sunset—Cars and such were less active then.
One night they came upon a road. It was too misty to see well, but the foggy air carried sound farther than it might have on a dry night.
Hate remembered hearing a low rumble echo through the canyons.
It was hard to tell exactly where it was coming from.
He hesitated at the edge of the road.
Sensing Hate’s unease, Father paused in the middle of the road. He looked back over his shoulder at Hate. “What now? Just…come on,” Father said. “I’ll show you. It’s probably on the other side of the valley.”
“Father,” Hate said softly, “I don’t think—”
Father hiked his leg and pointed a squirt of piss in Hate’s direction, then turned to Mother. “Coming, dear?”
She looked at Hate.
“Don’t,” Hate whispered. Car was closer now, he was sure of it, but the echoes made it impossible to tell how close, or even the direction of approach. “Please. Please don’t.”
“Your son,” his father said, his voice thick with contempt. He stepped out into the road, Hate’s mother following after him. Father’s timing was impeccable. Car roared around the curve, white eyes blazing.
Hate could only watch, helpless.
Mother’s final act was an attack. She yowled, sprang, lunged through the air. Car swatted her, sent her flying into the dark. Father’s courage failed him under the headlights. He turned back, tried to flee. His eyes met Hate’s as Car crushed his hindquarters.
Car roared away, wallowed by darkness. Mother was silent, still in tall grass on the far side of the road. Only Hate and his father remained. A terrible silence settled upon them.
Father made a few faint attempts to drag himself to safety—what there was of it—on Hate’s side of the road. Hate assumed that Car would come back. Father was old, yes, but he still had a good bit of meat on his bones. Mother was still on the plump side, even after their days of travel.
But Car did not turn back. It didn’t even slow. Hate’s family was left to rot. Why? In the years to come, Hate wondered about that often. Even today, he could think of no answer.
Mother died outright. Hate had no clear memory of seeing to her body, of making sure…but he must have done. When Mother visited his dreams, she was gentle.
Father’s death was worse. After a shamefully long time—when it became clear that Hate himself was safe—he crept out into the road.
He remembered how, cowardly and despairing, he had lifted his father by the scruff of his neck.
Father moaned, then screamed, but after a few steps the pain knocked him unconscious
Four years later, safe in the crook of his elm tree, Hate squeezed his eyes shut. The memory of his shame was like drowning.
All that day and into the next night he and Father lingered by the side of the road.
A few Cars zipped by—not many. There was never any question that Father might live.
His hips were a crumpled ruin under the dirt-stained fur of his haunch.
Sometimes Father was unconscious. Sometimes he screamed.
Sometimes the two of them screamed together.
Hate brought him a mouse, licked Father’s wounds when he slept. They might have spoken, or not. Hate couldn’t really remember. He didn’t want to remember.
But at the very end, when his last breath was upon him, the old lynx prayed under the sight of the pale moon.
As my prey have fulfilled their duty,
so let me fulfill mine.
I would be the tooth and claw of Your will.
Use me as You see fit.
And that was really the end of it. When he was dead, Hate continued north. What else was there to do?
Eventually he came to a new forest, the hill where White-Eye held her dominion. Hate lived in her shadow for some years. Sometimes, when the moon was right, he saw the white eyes of Car and remembered them.
Now, nestled in the elm tree next to the body of the insolent rabbit, he repeated Father’s words—but softly, to himself.
Use me as You see fit.
While he ate, Hate considered what he had learned of the wolf pup. The prospect of a more equal combat frightened him. Fear was nothing new, though. It affected his judgment no more than his hunger did.
The wolf is not wounded. He ripped a chunk from one stringy haunch, shredded it to bite size, swallowed. Every day I wait is another day for him to learn and grow. He buried his muzzle in the carcass, pinched out the liver.
Tonight. He tilted his head back. Warm liver slipped down his throat. Yes. It must be tonight.
With the decision made, his mind eased. He would kill the wolf.
Or, well…not. Why worry? Sleep first, though.
He climbed down from the tree, wiggled under a snow-covered bush.
There he slept, content. He woke in late afternoon, well rested, with the rabbit’s soul coursing in his veins.
He did not rise immediately. Instead he watched the sun sink, gathering himself, thinking of Guile and his kittens.
Just before dark he rose and shook the snowflakes from his back.
Their den wasn’t hard to find. The two-legs had not eaten what it killed, and no other animal would touch the bodies while the pup yet lived. Even in the cold, the stink was everywhere. They had begun to rot.
Hate padded into the clearing. There he found White-Eye’s last pup standing over the body of his mother.
The young wolf stood in silhouette, the setting sun behind him.
Hate could not see his face, but his ears and feet were comically large.
He won’t grow into those until next spring.
At least. Seeing him, Hate relaxed completely.
That’s what I was so worried about? he thought.
That one is no hunter. Hell, he was probably still nursing when she died.
Hate stifled the urge to purr. This will be fun.
He cracked a twig under his forepaws. The pup jerked around, eyes wide.
“Don’t be alarmed, little fellow.” Hate’s tone was gentle. He arranged his tail high and straight, to show friendship.
“Who are you?” the wolf barked, or tried to, anyway. His voice still had a puppyish squeak. The was a note of fear in it as well.
“Your mother and I knew each other,” Hate said. “Old acquaintances, you might say.”
The young wolf sniffed. “You. I know you. She spoke of you. You are the lynx. You are Hate.”
“Some call me that.”
“My mother said I was not to cross the boundaries of your domain.”
“And you have not,” Hate said. “I thank you for your courtesy.” He dipped his head, low and respectful.
“And what of your courtesy?” the wolf said. “Did you not find my mother’s mark?”
Hate’s brow furrowed. Is his voice deeper?
“Of course you did. You could hardly have missed it. ‘This is wolf land,’ ” the pup quoted. He looked piously at the night sky. “ ‘None other may hunt here.’ ” Then, turning back to Hate, he said, “And yet here you are.”
“Oh…yes. That. Well. I would have asked your permission, Lord Hunter. I waited many nights. But you have not stirred from your mourning. No one has seen you.” Hate swished his tail. “We were concerned, you see.”
The wolf did not answer.
“I come only to pay my respects. Your mother was a savage fighter. The forest is poorer for her passing.”
“She did not pass,” the pup said. “She was murdered.”
“Hmm. As you say.” Hate hazarded a step closer. “Tell me, young hunter—”
“It didn’t eat her,” the wolf said, looking into the middle distance—contemplating, perhaps, the same spot as the dying rabbit. He seemed to have forgotten that Hate was there.
Hate didn’t mind.
“I can understand the killing,” the wolf said, “but why didn’t it eat her? You know more about them than I do. Can you tell me that?”
“I’ve wondered about that myself,” Hate allowed. His own voice was flat now—no friendly warmth, no mocking. It sounded strange to his own ears. It took him a moment to realize why: He was rarely honest when he spoke.
The wolf looked at him. From where Hate stood, the rising moon hung just over the little wolf’s shoulder. It looked close enough for him to bite it out of the sky.
Hate hesitated. Another lie rose to his mouth…but then he thought better of it. The honesty went over well enough. “They killed my father as well.” Sure enough, when he took another step, the wolf didn’t react. “Left him to rot, they did.”
“And no one knows why?”
Hate considered. “Perhaps it is to shame us?” he said, taking another step. “To keep us in our place? Perhaps they simply don’t care.” He was within pouncing range now.
The wolf rumbled, perhaps in agreement. Or perhaps not. Either way, it wasn’t a very puppyish sound.
“Do any other wolves yet live?” Hate asked. “Your father?”
“No,” the pup said. “Only me. I’ve called and called, but no one answered. I think…I think I am the last.”
“What a pity.”
With that, Hate sprang. The wolf reacted immediately, spinning to face him. In the split second between leap and touch—after it was too late to make a difference—Hate understood that he had been played. Badly.
He wasn’t ignoring me at all.