The Last Wild

by Piers Torday

  I dig my knees in tight, and he sets off across the fields without another word. Just like that. The pigeons seemed to know automatically which way south is, and the stag only sniffed the air before following fast behind.

  I’ve never seen the world from the back of a deer before. The country is so smooth and wide, nothing but open land for miles. As the stag pounds across the ground, the pigeons fly high above our heads, occasionally disappearing over the top of a hill in the distance.

  Riding along, the animals tell me things I never knew before. The grey pigeons tell me how they never forget a tree or a face, and the white pigeon tells me what a forgettable face I have. How they always know which way is north, south, east or west. They don’t even need to see the sun or the moon. The stag tells me about all the different scents he can smell: here was a fox a long time ago, these are old sheep walk-upons, and there is good grass for grazing over there. He uses his nose more than his eyes.

  *And what about me?* I ask.

  *I don’t follow,* says the stag, sweeping down a grassy slope.

  *I mean, you can do all these things – that’s what you do, you’re animals. But how can I talk to you? I still don’t understand.*

  *Your voice is a gift,* he says simply.

  *You keep saying that. It’s not normal though. How did it happen? How come I can talk to you and no one else can? I can’t even talk to other people.*

  He suddenly stops on a hillock of reeds the colour of rusty metal, looking down at the valley below and sniffing the air. He doesn’t answer my question.

  *Was it something I said?* I ask the General.

  But he doesn’t reply either. He’s following the gaze of the stag, his antennae bristling. I can’t see what they’re looking at that’s so special.

  Stretching over the dip in between the hills there are four crumbling walls, connected together to form a square. Each wall is made of huge jagged rocks, each one at least half the size of me. To try and lift even just one would be impossible.

  As the stag slowly approaches the first wall of heavy rocks, only loosely still held together, I can see dry and crusty layers of moss spread across the top, which the pigeons immediately settle on and start pecking at. The white pigeon joins them but loses his balance and tumbles over the other side in a cloud of feathers.

  *Look carefully, Kester,* say the grey birds, gesturing with their wings at the walls. *This is the First Fold. It has been here since man first kept beasts as his own,* they sing together, strands of moss dangling from their beaks.

  There is one small gap between the walls, marked by two slabs of stones jammed upright in the ground. Going closer, I can see that these stones are inscribed. Dotted lines, circles within circles, arrows and pointed letters, none of which makes any sense to me. And blowing in the wind, caught in a crack between two rocks, one fraying strand, damp and sour to smell – wool.

  *What have some old sheep walls got to do with my gift?*

  A storm cloud passes overhead, and for a moment we are in shadow. The grey birds have turned black and their eyes sparkle as they tell me.

  *Everything. The dream of your gift begins here.*

  *Yes,* says the white pigeon, clambering back on to the wall as the cloud moves on. *Here is your gift – some old sheep.*

  The other birds peck at him crossly, knocking him off again. They’re very solemn and serious when they turn back to me though.

  *This is the very spot where man first surrounded sheep with walls of stone, so he could wear their wool and eat their young.*

  *So?* I shrug. *What’s that got to do with anything?*

  *Do you not know the old dreams?* they ask, sounding amazed.

  *Of course I don’t.*

  They jump down off the top of the wall and beckon me to sit down. I find the driest patch of ground I can, leaning against the old stones to be out of the wind, and they gather around my feet in a circle.

  *Animals only believe in two things,* they explain, *in calls and in dreams. Calls, which are –* they pause, as if trying to think of the right words – *well, you might think of them as songs. They are how beasts summon one another in a time of need, and how we let each other know our deepest feelings. The stag called the last wild together, and the cockroach’s call first led us to Spectrum Hall – to you.*

  I try to imagine the General singing. *And dreams?*

  *Dreams are our stories – how we learn about animals before us, dreams which have been passed down from beast to beast, since the very first to walk upon this land. And there is one dream we tell each other the most.*

  *What dream is that?*

  They hesitate, glancing at each other nervously, as if they shouldn’t be discussing this.

  *Well, come on,* I say. *You’ve got to tell me now.*

  The grey pigeons burst out, in a fluster –

  *It’s yours.*

  I stare at them in confusion as the stag steps back from where he has been looking sharply up and down at the field beyond the Fold.

  *And you are not permitted to hear it,* he snaps. *That is sacred animal knowledge, for animals alone. Perhaps one day—*

  I’ve had about enough of their secrets and strange ways. *You have to tell me something! I’m the one trying to help you. Like – why do you keep looking at the sky, for example?*

  He sighs and looks back up at the gathering clouds.

  *Whenever an animal dies, wherever we are, we shall know, because the sky weeps tears,* he says. *And when the last animal on the earth dies, the dream tells us that there will be the storm of storms, and—* The stag stops suddenly, his nose twitching. *Humans,* he says. *There have been beast-hunters here.*

  *How long ago?* I ask.

  *Half a sun at most – but I can still smell them.* I can’t smell anything except his fur and the dampness of the air. *And they’re coming back.*

  With that, a large van comes over the brow of the hill opposite on six massive off-road tyres. Long, with a rocket-shaped front, it looks like a giant blind varmint that has crawled out of the earth, splattered with mud, a tinted windscreen hiding the people inside. The machine gives a growl as it tips up over the top of the hill before coming down with a crash, the tyres gouging muddy ditches out of the earth.

  I clamber back on the stag and without another word he leaps over the Fold and we are bounding off down the grassy slope, towards the nearest trees.

  We head swiftly through the cluster of trees and rocks, going downhill all the time. My heart is in my mouth, and I keep looking back, but there is no crashing or roaring of wheels coming after us, only line after line of trees which seem to close up behind as we charge through. I want to ask the stag if he thinks we were spotted, but he seems so silent and lost in his head that I don’t.

  If the stag is in no mood to talk, the General is only too keen to show off. He peers out of my jacket as we bump along, teaching me more about animal ways as I fire questions at him.

  *What do you call those grey trees over there?*

  *What you call a tree, we call a tall-home.*

  *OK. So what is the name of those red berries on that bush?*

  He pauses, as if not sure what to answer at first. *You might not understand with our name.*

  *Try me.*

  *We call those berries – food.*

  The long antennae disappear back into my pocket.

  As the sun begins to set, the pigeons call down from above.

  *Come on, come on – we must travel as far as we can before night falls.*

  Yet again I feel like the animals can see things I can’t, know things that I don’t. A shiver of fear runs down my spine. *Why? Is the human machine catching up with us?*

  *No – we just can’t see as well in the dark.*

  We ride out of the trees and find ourselves surrounded by the edges of mountain tops, dark blue against the evening light. It feels much colder, and I pull my scarf tight around me, the darkness getting deeper and blacker around us. Each clash of the stag’s h
oofs against the rock-hard ground vibrates right through him. My neck, shoulders and thighs are in agony from clinging on for so long, and I think my stomach is beginning to eat itself.

  *I am very tired and hungry, Stag.*

  He seems to ignore me, skipping down to some rocks and up again.

  I feel my eyelids begin to droop, and my head sinks lower and lower on to my chest till I am nothing more than a nodding sack.

  It’s hard to tell whether it’s five minutes or an hour later, but with a jerk I am sliding down his sleek side on to the damp ground. We’re standing right on the edge of a valley, looking down. It’s just possible to make out, in the moonlight, thousands of black treetops marching on for miles like an army in formation, and right in the distance, the silver flash of a river.

  Here and there, the light catches a pale roof or a darkened window. There are houses and barns scattered like dice across the floor of the valley, but no electric lights and no people to be seen. I make out collapsed walls, and in places the gleam of an abandoned vehicle. There is not a noise to be heard anywhere, apart from our breathing and the wind running over the grass. I’m hoping the stag will suggest that we go down and explore – there might be old tins of food, beds … anything. But all he says is, *You may rest here for a while.*

  I look around. I don’t see a bed, or anything looking like one.

  *You don’t look properly. Look with your hands and feet.*

  I’ve got no other option. So half crouching, half sliding, I feel my way over the edge. The short damp grass gives way to a large overhang of earth, and patting the ground beneath, it feels drier and warmer. Crawling under it, I draw my knees tight against my chest and rest my head against my shoulder, like the pigeons did by the water.

  *

  I’ve no idea how many hours I sleep under the overhang, but when I wake up it’s still dark. Water dribbles down my chin and into my mouth and something sour and furry is nuzzling my chin.

  I push it roughly away.

  *Calm,* says the stag. *I brought you water from a fresh spring. Drink.*

  He’s giving me water from his mouth. Water from an actual deer.

  *You must drink,* he says firmly.

  *I don’t want something that’s been in your mouth!*

  *You must drink,* he repeats. *This water is straight from the ground. The purest there is.*

  My mouth is so dry, and his eyes aren’t red in the least – so I do. I expect the water to be utterly rank, but it’s actually clean. And nice.

  As I wipe my chin two of the grey pigeons leap on to my lap.

  *And we found you some food, Kester.*

  Then they drop branches of berries and beak-loads of nuts into my hands. But before I can even look at them properly, the white pigeon snatches the juiciest bunch of berries back between his beak.

  *Kester! You found us some food!* he says, dragging them behind him into a corner, before being attacked by the others and disappearing in a puff of feathers and berry.

  They’re welcome to it. I sniff the berries I have left. They smell strange and acidic, even though they are the ones the General described as food. The nuts are in a hard shell, and I’ve nothing to open them with. The memory of prawn-cocktail flavoured Chicken’n’Chips comes painfully back to me, to my empty stomach.

  *I’m not like you! I can’t eat this stuff.*

  *Very well,* says the stag, sniffing the air, never not watching out for a moment. *As you please. But we must continue with our journey. Dawn will come soon and we need all the hours of light we can get.*

  He raises himself to his full height and stands there waiting. They are all watching and waiting for me.

  Shaking my head because I can’t believe I’m actually eating something they just found in the outdoors, I slowly put one of the berries first against the tip of my tongue, then in my mouth. It’s sweeter than I was expecting. Almost juicy. Slowly, berry by berry, I eat as much of the bunch left by the white pigeon as possible. Then I take the nut shells, and, smashing them against the underside of the rock, manage to get some of the sweet green-white mush out from inside. They taste better than they look.

  I leave the rest for the General, who polishes it all off in about minus eight seconds.

  The stag watches us both stuff our gobs with his usual intense stare, barely waiting for us to finish before barking, *We should not delay any further. Climb on.*

  Half asleep, I haul myself on to his back, and then we are off, zigzagging down the boulder-strewn sides of the valley towards the forest. It’s slowly getting lighter too, so it should be easier to see, but white clouds are rolling down from the mountains and making the air thicker and thicker.

  I’m starting not to feel so great. A blinding pain flashes behind my eyes, and my stomach keeps clenching. Each time it’s more painful, but I just have to keep going, clinging on to his soaking fur. It’s cold all around, but there is a strange heat flushing through my body, which I try not to think about.

  For the first time on our journey, the stag nearly trips and I lurch to the side, my stomach heaving. I see why – suddenly there is fog behind us, fog ahead of us, fog everywhere I look, like boiling clouds steaming up from a kettle. Through the white, I notice the walls of our valley have closed in on us, and the grass has turned to rock. The stag clatters over piles of loose stones.

  Our every move echoes around the steep walls. The General peers out of my pocket and tests the air.

  *I do not like this valley of rock,* he says. *It is too easy for us to get crushed in such country.*

  A valley of rock has been smashed and carved out of the earth. Through the curls of mist I can see the shadows of crane arms drooped with dripping chains, and digging machines seized up with rust. On the far side a steel cabin stands abandoned, the door hanging wide open, creaking gently in the wind. And everywhere, piles and piles of glistening wet purple slate. Slate that begins to swim before my eyes, until from behind the foggy clouds I hear a crack.

  The crack of one slate hitting another.

  *Did you hear that?* I whisper to the stag.

  He doesn’t answer my question, but picks his way even more slowly and carefully between heaps of slippery slate and toffee-coloured puddles. The pigeons have disappeared above us, hidden behind layers of mist that are as white and thin as tissues.

  Then there’s another crack from the rocky sides of the valley stretching away over our heads. The stag stops dead, not moving apart from his nose, sniffing the air. It’s incredible how still he can make himself, as if he was made of the slate we stand on, rather than flesh and blood.

  I am not made of slate though, and I can’t help but sneeze. A sneeze that echoes off the rocks around us.

  The stag doesn’t move or say a word.

  There is another crack. A crack made by something no further than two metres away. I think of the metal beast-hunter van with the tinted windscreen, and shiver. Then there’s another crack – louder, nearer, definitely not accidental. Something is making the stones move.

  The stag just stands stock still, sniffing.

  There’s a scrabbling noise behind us, the noise of something or someone sliding down the rocks.

  A pause, then another tiny landslide of pebbles. I freeze as much as I can, my breath caught in my throat –

  *Come on! Why don’t you run away?*

  *A great stag never runs away from his fate.*

  Then, to my amazement, he slowly clip-clops over the floor of smashed slate till we are facing the direction of the sound. I want to jump off and get out of the way, but I can’t. I feel rooted to where I sit, paralysed by fear – fear of what lurks in the grey mist.

  *All is well,* the stag says suddenly, but he’s not speaking to us; he’s speaking to the thing, the thing in the fog. *All is well,* he repeats. *You may show yourself now.*

  The swirls and puffs of fog begin to slowly lift into the air like a paper curtain, and stepping out from underneath is not a human beast-hunter. More like a be
ast human-hunter. Pale flecks of mud dotting his coal-black head, his ears pinned back and his tail trailing down behind him with exhaustion – it’s the wolf-cub from the Ring of Trees.

  PART 3: THE MAN WITH CRUTCHES

  I shrink back, expecting the cub to jump up and lash out at the stag. But he doesn’t do anything wolf-like at all, the total opposite in fact – he shrinks into himself, like he’s frightened of us.

  *Well tracked, young cub,* says the stag.

  The wolf-cub’s green eyes dart nervously between the stag and me. *I come in peace, noble Wildness …*

  *I know you do,* the stag replies, his deep voice bouncing off the rocks.

  *I left in darkness after you – I left by the same hole in the Ring of Trees, I picked up your scent along the Great Open and by the First Fold—*

  *Yes, yes, all this I know,* says the stag. *I smelt your scent from afar, when I woke the boy under the rock.* He chuckles. *I think perhaps you still have some way to go as a hunter?*

  The wolf-cub snaps and bares his teeth. *I am a fine hunter! My father said I would grow to be the greatest hunter of them all! I am not frightened of you! I am a Guardian from the Ring of Trees! My father –* He stops for a moment, and gulps.

  *How is your father?* asks the stag gently.

  *We do not know. He tumbled into the valley, and was lost from view.* Anger flares suddenly in the cub’s eyes. *They have sworn to avenge him – do you know that?*

  The stag is not laughing now. He is listening.

  *Yes, I can imagine. And you, what about you, Cub – do you wish to kill me now, to avenge your father?*

  *My father will be avenged,* says the cub quietly. He looks down at the wet slate beneath his paws. *But he was wrong. We were all wrong. Even before the sunset after you fled, more of the wild had been lost to the berry-eye. Now all the eagles are afflicted, and more of the badgers too – everyone is so fearful. Some say that the end of all things is approaching, as in the dreams –* He glances anxiously at the swirling sky above.

  The stag shakes his head. *Not yet, Cub, while blood still runs through these veins. So why have you come, if not to avenge your father?*