Chapter 5 Fatberry #2
The pack murmured among themselves at this. Fang himself was silent, “chewing his bone,” as they say. “Very well, then,” he said finally. Quickfoot, who was his mate—and, some said, the true head of the pack—cut her eyes at him. But she held her peace. This time.
“Very well, then,” the cat repeated. She stood and turned to go. Fang did not stand in her way. “Oh, and Fang?”
“Yes?”
“I believe I saw a yearling deer with a hurt leg down in the hollow of the creek. A pack might sleep with full bellies, if they were swift.”
Fang wagged his tail in gratitude. One by one his pack slipped into the woods.
ii
They caught the deer limping, sure enough.
Over and above the pleasure of eating well, they were much amused by the expression on its face when it first saw them.
It renewed its efforts and sped up the hill faster on only three legs than one might think.
Quickfoot, who had a cruel sense of humor, made a show of favoring her forepaw and limping up the hill in kind, toying with it a minute before the kill.
Later, when the sun was coming up, the five of them lay in their den near the top of the mountain. The nights were growing colder, so they lay close, though not yet in a pile. All except Little One, who was the last of the half-dog pups of the Red Mountain pack.
Pure wolves have little time or patience for half-breeds, and life was hard for the small wolf with the impure scent.
Little One slept alone on all but the coldest nights, when the pack needed him for his warmth.
It is the way of the pack that only the lord and lady may mate.
Little One never questioned that, but Lady Quickfoot was particularly cruel about it.
When the heat was on her, she made a point of presenting herself to him, even though they both knew it would mean his death were he to try anything.
Belly-Scar, who was strongish if somewhat lazy, made sport of subjugating Little One.
He celebrated each new morning by nipping at Little One’s ears for the pleasure of hearing him yelp.
Little One never complained. He would not even be of the pack were it not for Swift Fang, who was Fang’s father and had been lord before him.
Swift Fang had taken a fancy to Little One’s mother when he saw the two of them hunting at the stream.
Fang never met Little One’s father. The story was he’d gone out hunting one day and never came back.
After that, Little One and his mother lived for a time as penitents on the far side of the river.
She flung coy glances at Swift Fang when he came to drink.
She also sang of her loneliness, probably more than was strictly necessary.
It wasn’t long before Swift Fang convinced himself the pack could use another she-wolf.
Only then did Little One’s mother make it clear that she would not abandon her pup.
Fang reflected that his father, though strong, had never been especially bright. Very likely he died without realizing he had been played. Little One’s mother was dead two winters now, and Swift Fang dead three. But a wolf pack honors the will of its lords, even the dead ones.
Also, half dog or no, Little One would not be driven out.
From time to time Belly-Scar made a show of nipping his behind and driving him from the den.
But Little One was ferocious for his size, and Belly-Scar lacked the will to truly challenge him.
Besides, he had a knack for catching squirrel.
Many nights a bite or two of squirrel was all that lay between the pack and sleeping with empty bellies.
“What do you think?” Quickfoot asked.
“It may be true,” Fang said at length. “The cat certainly seemed to think so.”
“Perhaps she was only spinning a story to save herself,” said Belly-Scar.
“Perhaps,” said Quickfoot. “But she’d not likely bargain with the name of the Old Kitty Mother if there were no truth to it. No one’s that crazy.”
Fang wagged agreement. “Fair point. We’ll need to find this traveler a meal. Another deer, perhaps? I thought I smelled one when last I stood by the little waterfall.”
“Which, the north or the south?”
“The north.”
“No, Fatberry ate that one,” Gray-Ear said glumly. “I saw the carcass yesterday afternoon. Oh—wait. It was the day before. Anyway, it’s dead.”
“Bleeding farts! Is there no end to her appetite? Next she’ll be eating the trees!”
There was a murmur of nervous laughter, but it was mostly reflex.
Wolves sometimes joke that winter is the greatest hunter of all, with its teeth of hunger and claws of ice.
Even if the first snows saw a pack plump and their forest brimming with squirrel and rabbit, it was still anyone’s guess who among them might live to see the spring.
None of Fang’s pack were plump, and the woods were nearly barren.
They might catch a few mice and rabbit, but Fatberry got all the large game.
These were desperate times.
“My mum used to say that the morning is the most dangerous time to be alive,” Little One said quietly. “We might find Fatberry’s den and…” He trailed off as the others swung their heads around to stare at him.
“And what, then?” Quickfoot asked. “Get your leg clawed off like Blue-Eye? Get your guts spilled across the snow like the Great-Mother? Which is your choice, little dog-child? Hmm? Which would you prefer?”
“Wolves are slow for a time when they wake,” Little One said quietly. “Perhaps the same is true of Fatberry.”
“Farts! Is there no end to your—”
Fang, who had been dozing, cocked one eye open. “Be still, Quickfoot. Little One’s idea is strong. I will chew on it.”
“What of the traveler?” Quickfoot asked.
“What of him?”
“The cat believed he was something special, that much is certain. She said that none might stand against him.” Quickfoot eyed him slyly. “We might set him against Fatberry.”
“The cat also said he would chew us up and spit out the bones if we trifled with him. I don’t know about you, Quickfoot, but I have enough fleas in my fur without adding a death god to the mix.”
“You’re so eager to face Fatberry again, is that it?” she asked, nuzzling the long parallel scars in his flank.
Fang clenched his jaw, fighting back the urge to nip at her.
Before he took her as mate, her manipulation was not so brazen.
Truth be told, these days she had come to irritate him mightily.
But on this point she was entirely correct.
Fang remembered the burning swipe of Fatberry’s claw, how the pain of it had dazed him for a breath.
He looked up from the rock where he had fallen and saw Blue-Eye wobbling on three legs, the blood gushing from the stump of the fourth as if he were prey… .
Quickfoot looked at him with wide, puppylike eyes. “He might end all our troubles, lord,” she said.
He might end us along with our troubles, Fang thought.
He turned away from his charges for a moment, looking up to the moon.
The sight of it soothed him. Ever since he was a pup, looking to the sky helped him think.
As he watched, a flurry of autumn leaves was blown down by a cold north wind.
Even here, the breeze carried a hint of Fatberry’s scat.
Set the traveler against Fatberry? He was mindful of the cat’s warning.
Quickfoot’s idea felt…brash. But brash choices may be all that I have time for.
Fang turned back to his pack. “Little One, I need a service.”
“Yes, lord?”
“Sleep all day. When the moon rises, I want you to journey into the dens of men. Take what time you need, but don’t dawdle. Ask among the slave beasts what word they hear of this traveler. Sometimes the word of a thing grows larger than the thing itself, if many are involved in the telling.”
“What shall I ask?”
“Is he truly all that they say? Find if anyone has smelled him with their own nose—not rumor, not tales. Ask among the cats especially—they seem to be well-informed—but don’t bargain with the name of the Old Kitty Mother.
Just be charming. Sing them songs of the wild forest and tell them how pretty their coats look. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Good enough. Now sleep.”
iii
Three days later Quickfoot wakened Fang just after dusk, licking at his ear. He thought at first that she wanted to play. He growled, but did not stir.
“Wake up,” Quickfoot said. Her tone was strange. “You need to see this.”
Fang lifted one eyelid. The moon was up. Tonight was cold enough that Quickfoot’s breath made a mist in the night air. “What is it?”
“He is come. He is nearly upon us.”
“What? The traveler? Blacktail?”
“Aye. Looking on him, I could almost believe the things they say.”
Fang started at this. The cat had told them some things, and Little One had told them more. When he returned from the dens of men, Little One was a changed creature. Fang had thought him half mad. No one, it seemed, had scented the traveler with their own nose, but the news of him was everywhere….
—
“All along the road, I saw small piles of the food-rocks,” Little One said.
“It seemed strange that they just lay there, with so many squirrel and the like about, but no one would eat them. The slave dogs brought the food in their mouth from the dens of man. They laid it as an offering. In case the traveler passed in the night, you see. One old yellow dog had made a pile fit for a feast. When I asked, she said she had lain next to it all day and all night, every night since the full moon. She would not be moved. She said if she could catch a glimpse of the traveler she would die happy.”
Little One paused to snatch a breath. Fang was mildly alarmed to realize that the half-breed had taken these wild tales into him, had embraced them as his own.
Quickfoot saw the traveler as a tool of her schemes.
Fang himself still wasn’t sure he was any more than a myth. But Little One…he was a true believer.