Chapter 5 Fatberry #4
Blacktail stood tall as he walked into the cave where they made their den.
The fur on his back just brushed the arch at the entryway.
Fang’s pack greeted him in turn. Quickfoot, then Belly-Scar, then Gray-Ear, and finally Little One.
They were wary of Blacktail at first. But after a time most of them relaxed, thinking as Fang had that there was more of the wolf and less of the god to their god-wolf.
Not Little One, though. When Blacktail bent to scent him, he stared up as if entranced.
He would not move to scent him when Blacktail froze in his turn.
Even when Quickfoot nipped at his ear, Little One didn’t relent.
He moved out of the circle of the pack, then crouched down with his stare ever on Blacktail.
“Tell us of your travels,” Quickfoot said when they had settled. “You must have seen many strange lands.”
“The lands are not so strange as the creatures in them,” Blacktail said.
“I myself am a simple beast. I suppose that colored my thinking. With me, the scent of my neck is also the scent of my hindquarters—no plotting, no deception. Time was, I thought the same was true of everyone else as well.” Blacktail licked his forepaw, as if to clean it all away.
“Sometimes I wonder if anything is truly as it appears to be.”
“What, for instance?”
Blacktail paused for a moment. “These cats, who traffic with demons. They have given me a good deal of help. I am grateful, but…they seem to think that I am something that I am not. It troubles me. My mother bore me, you know, just as yours bore you. I had brothers and sisters once, a mate…In my essence, my nature, I am not so different from anyone else.”
“Perhaps a creature may have more than one nature, and each of them be true,” Little One suggested in his small, soft voice. “Perhaps a creature may have only one true nature…but hide it. Even from himself.”
Blacktail said nothing at this. He looked at Little One with something like pity.
“Shut your filthy muzzle while your betters are speaking, you diseased little mongrel,” Quickfoot barked.
“Be still, Quickfoot,” Fang said mildly. “Think of our guest.”
Quickfoot gave him a look, but held her peace.
The conversation turned then. They spoke for a time of the trail.
They spoke of the weather to the north. Fang told Blacktail the story of the last elk hunt, the summer before, and the feasting that had followed.
Eventually it was time for sleep. The pack came together around Blacktail, that he might be comforted the most…
all except Little One, who knew his place in things.
“Why does he sleep over there?” Blacktail asked when they were almost asleep.
“It is only a half-breed,” Quickfoot said. “This pile is for the true wolves. It…it…” She trailed off, looking at Blacktail’s expression.
“Oh?” he growled. “That is the pile for half-breeds? Then I suppose that is where I belong. I am a wolf on my mother’s side only. I would not wish to pollute your clean pile with my half-breed stink.”
Blacktail walked over to where Little One lay, the fur on the back of his neck high. All eyes were upon him. No one said anything. Blacktail sniffed the earth, then settled in and wrapped himself around Little One so that the two of them might share each other’s warmth.
Fang saw that though the rest of them had come to see Blacktail as a creature more prosaic than the one they were expecting, quite the opposite was true of Little One. In his eyes Fang saw something that went beyond love, adoration, or even worship. In Little One’s eyes there was a kind of madness.
v
The next morning the pack woke just after sunup.
Belly-Scar stretched his long body out and groaned. They had taken no large game since the night of the deer. Stomachs were beginning to rumble. “A fat elk for breakfast, hmm?” he said.
“Great idea. See if you can roust out a moose as well,” Gray-Ear agreed.
“Yes, do,” Fang chimed in. He wasn’t kidding.
“The four of you split up and cast about for prey. We’ll gather back here when the shadows are at their shortest and tell what we have seen.
If you find something you can bring down alone, carry what you can back with you.
Blacktail, would you care to walk with me? ”
Blacktail stood and shook himself off. “I don’t know your lands. Are you sure I won’t be a burden?”
“Quite sure,” Fang said. “Please.”
“As you will.”
The rest of the pack slipped off into the forest. Little One cast a longing glance over his shoulder as Blacktail left. He made no protest.
Fang led Blacktail down to the good stream. “Here, drink your fill. There’ll be a bit of climbing, and it’s thirsty work.”
“Climbing? Are we hunting birds?”
“Goats, actually. It’s a sort of mountain sheep. They’re not bad eating, if you can catch them.”
“It seems a strange thing to hunt,” Blacktail said.
“It is,” Fang said grimly. “But the prey have become thin around here of late.”
When they had drunk their fill, they started up the rocky slope. The grade was steep and left both of them a bit out of breath. About halfway up they paused at a rocky outcropping. The view that opened up before them stretched for miles. Below them, the tallest trees poked through the morning mist.
“This is good country,” Blacktail said.
Far below them came a distant clatter of falling rock.
“It is,” Fang said. “My father hunted here, and his father before him. Belly-Scar is my pup. Likely he’ll lead the hunt here when I am gone.”
“Likely, yes. I imagine that is a comfort, knowing your place in the world.”
Fang thought that a strange thing to say. After a moment’s thought he asked, “Was it true, what you said about being a half-breed?”
“It was,” Blacktail swung his massive head around to look at Fang. “What of it?”
“Nothing,” Fang said quickly. “Nothing whatsoever. That sort of thing is only a tick in Quickfoot’s fur.
I myself am pretty fond of Little One. He’s very clever.
He’s also got the sense to mind his business when Quickfoot comes waving her tail in his face.
” Fang looked up at Blacktail with rueful eyes.
Blacktail wagged in understanding.
“As far as that goes, I’ve nothing against dogs in general.
Half-breeds, either. If I found a penitent dog who seemed fitting, I might take him into the pack.
The way things stand now, we might have trouble taking down larger game, in the happy event we ever found any.
I was just curious who your father was.”
Blacktail seemed mollified by this. “I never knew for sure,” he said.
“I have heard things…hints, I suppose, but nothing definite, not from anyone I fully trust. My mother died before I thought to ask. But I’ve always thought he must’ve been a dog—wolves are scarce where I come from. Interbreeding is fairly common.”
“Ah, wait a moment. Your northern accent is a bit strange to us, and I think also that some of the words in your land may mean different things. Around here, a dog is a four-legged animal, distant kin to the wolf, but smaller and dumber. Ofttimes they are found living in the den of the two-legs. The word you want, I think, is horse.”
Fang paused for a long beat.
“It was a joke, you see,” he said. “You are rather large, and—”
“I took the meaning,” Blacktail said. “It is only that you are not funny.” Fang thought he smiled a bit, just the same.
“Well, no matter. As I said, the only one concerned with bloodlines is Quickfoot.”
At that, there came another clatter of falling rock. “There is something stalking us,” Fang said, rising up to scent the wind.
“It’s fine. It’s just Little One. He’s been with us since we left the den.”
Fang groaned. “He’s quite taken with you.”
“It seems so.”
“Oh yes. When we heard you were coming, I sent him down to the forest of men to ask around. He listened to the stories for a day or two. When he came back he was…aglow? Something like that. There’s a great deal of talk of you, you know.”
“Do tell.”
“They say you can walk through mountains.”
Blacktail turned to look at Fang. “Seriously?”
“Yes. I’ve also heard that you can become unscentable, unseeable, and unhearable. According to Little One, when men come to hunt you, all of them are killed, together with their slave creatures. They say you cannot die.”
Yes,” Blacktail said dryly, “I’ve heard that one. I’ve also heard it told that I piss lightning and fart thunder. You shouldn’t believe that, either.” Blacktail paused. “What is it that you want, Fang?”
Lord Fang lifted his front lip and lay his ears back for a moment to show his submission. Blacktail accepted this, saying nothing.
Fang sighed and said it. “There is a great grizzly bear, Fatberry she’s called.
She used to live on the red hill, but the two-legs broke the trees and ripped up the land there.
Now their dens are over it like weeds. Fatberry was always grumpy, but she’s worse since then.
She moved her hunting here. Since then, we’ve been dying a little bit at a time.
There’s not enough prey on this mountain for her and us. ”
“Why not kill her?” Blacktail asked, reasonably enough.
“We tried that,” Fang said, sighing, setting out again up the cliff.
“We had a scheme. Little One occupied her with, you know, shenanigans. Smart mouth, jumping around, all of that. The rest of us tried to circle around behind. It might have worked, but the wind shifted. She caught scent of us. We lost the surprise. There were seven of us then. We hung on her like ticks. But…it all went to dung. Blue-Eye was killed outright. Quickfoot’s mother was badly mauled.
She died three days later. No one escaped unwounded.
” He stopped to show Blacktail the claw scar in his flank.
“Since then,” he said, “the pack is wary of her. Afraid, actually. I myself would still have another try, but even a lord can only command so much.”
“Why not move somewhere else?”