‘We can’t ignore our dead forever,’ he blazed. ‘We have to honour them with retaliation. Show them we care. Put your paws in my prints, follow me, and I will show you the blood of our enemies, staining the earth …’
When he had five good wolves he took them to a place where two men were testing rocks with strange devices. It was a remote area, without even a road, and the wolves waited until the men were busy hunched over their work, then attacked them from all sides. The humans had not been expecting such an ambush, and one of them went down under three wolves, in a flurry of arms and legs. The other managed to get hold of a digging implement and fought back bravely, until the wolves had to let him go. They had savaged his right leg and the man had to limp his way over the landscape. So far as they knew, he survived, because they themselves were directed north-west by Skassi, who saw the need to vacate the vicinity before the place was swarming with human hunters.
With his own sense of purpose came a fervour, an intenseness, that he found was persuasive. There were many who resisted his call to the fight, but those that did come were fanatically pro-Skassi. His word amongst them was absolute law. He chose the most dedicated amongst them to be his personal bodyguard, his ever-present shoulderwolves. Over the seasons he built his pack into a powerful fighting force, which somehow managed to stay one jump ahead of any pursuit. They went for soft targets: people out on the trail armed only with small black boxes; single dwellings far from settlements; sleeping campers protected only by canvas tents.
The more humans the pack ambushed, the more wolves were hunted and killed, sometimes members of his own gang of rogues. Relatives of the dead were easy to recruit in the wake of counterattacks by the humans. The pack grew to immense proportions at times – fifty, sixty – though there were desertions in the beginning. He stopped these by tracking down wolves who had had second thoughts, slaughtering them, and feeding them to the ravens.
As the pack grew, so Skassi withdrew from his creation more and more, until he would only venture down amongst them on such occasions as a long march or big battle. His bodyguards fiercely protected his isolation and became silent powerful figures themselves.
One of the reasons Skassi withdrew into himself was because when he was down among his wolves, he began to have doubts about whether he was doing the right thing. Not doubts about killing humans, but concerning whether he should have taken these hunters from their various homes and turned them into warriors. The term ‘hunter-warrior’ had always been used, but until Skassi had formed his pack it was more a reverent title than an accurate description. Now there were wolves who really were ‘warriors’ in the old sense of the word. Skassi was responsible for this and hated the immense guilt that went with the uniqueness of his creation. Had he still been a headwolf of a conventional pack, he would have had an accepted traditional framework of laws within which he could govern. As it was, he had to make his own rules, and he spent much of his time brooding over decisions – whether they were right or wrong – his thoughts evolving into circular obsessive arguments which never went outside his own head. He had no other wolf he trusted enough to discuss such issues with and scorned advice from those close to him. His shoulderwolves, the guardians, he regarded as loyal but lacking in the sort of higher consciousness that was necessary to consider such lofty matters. He knew that any attempt at discussing motives, and rights or wrongs, with other wolves would only put doubts into their minds about their leader’s sacred mission. ‘ If Skassi isn’t sure,’ he could imagine them thinking, ‘why are we doing this thing?’
No, it was essential that he gave an outward show of being utterly dedicated to the overthrow of man; absolutely convinced of the purity and rightness of their cause; completely self-assured and confident. To display less than these was dangerous to the whole enterprise. So the irresolution had to remain hidden. The brooding had to appear to be something else: the great leader considering weighty matters, affairs beyond the ken of normal wolves. He had to detach himself from them so that his uncertainties did not sow seeds of doubt amongst his warriors.
Unfortunately, his solitude fed those very things which had forced him apart from his pack and he knew that his reason would be eroded by them if he was not strong. So, he spent nights in vigil, convoking his self-esteem and instilling within himself a sense of his own importance, his own uniqueness. He often dreamed about his old pack. It was as if those wolves of his younger days were the last of a pure breed. Once they had left the world there remained behind only rogues and ruffians. He had a very strong feeling that Athaba was still alive. That his enemy of yesterseason was still roaming the land, scavenging, fighting, hunting, surviving in the way that Athaba knew best. When they had both been members of the same pack and Skassi had been respectable, he would have had as little as possible to do with the utlah, Athaba. Now he was a mankiller, however, the situation had changed. He needed terrible rogues like his old pack enemy. Give him a dozen Athabas and he would have no need for all these motley wolves that came to him these days. Athaba may have been a mystic and a deviant, but he was also a ferocious and fearless warrior. Such wolves were hard to find. Not only that, he was blood kin. Skassi missed his old pack so very much. To be able to talk to a blood cousin again, one who remembered the old names, why that would be worth the moon.
So Skassi dreamed, and grew more disdainful of his followers, grew more distant from them as the nights passed. By the time he had recruited Ulaala he was beyond the reach of any criticism or advice. When spring was not far off, Skassi called his pack together and told them they were going south.
‘The humans in this region will gather in strength and come looking for us once the passes are open to them. We have to keep on the move, stay ahead of them. They will expect us to go north, to use the protection of the weather, but we will go down amongst them and wreak havoc. Tomorrow we set forth across the raw country for the forests of black spruce where the beautiful saxifrage and lousewort grow, where the pine needles spike the soft light of morning. I shall lead you, my hunter-warriors, to great victories in the south and your names will be whispered amongst the living with awe and amongst the dead with reverence. You are the chosen ones who will liberate the world.’
A great howling of approval followed this announcement which, typical of Skassi’s recent speeches, was delivered in a high lofty tone. Since the last summer such communications had become grand and eloquent, touched with sentiment and studded with colourful phrases.
Once the howling was over, Skassi returned to his resting place on the tower of rock to brood on his decision.
The next morning they set off through the mountains, heading south. The pups, almost yearlings, were encouraged to keep up with gentle nips. Swiftly and silently, they travelled across frozen landscape pausing only to form brief hunts and provide themselves with food.
Skassi travelled at the head of his numbers, his shoulderwolves around him like the four points of the compass, preventing any contact with the rest of the pack. Orders were sent back through them, since Skassi would not speak directly to ordinary wolves once they were on the trail.
Just before they left the mountains, while they were still in a deep pass, they had a Howling. Five wolves formed a chorus and there were to be solos by several others, including Skassi. Although the headwolf remained aloof from the pack the majority of the time, he still regarded his own voice as superior to most others, and like all artists wished to share his gift with the less fortunate. During a pause between songs, there was an ominous rumbling from above.
‘What’s that, thunder?’ said one of the listeners.
‘Quiet!’ commanded a shoulderwolf. ‘The chorus is about to begin the second howling.’
The ground began shaking at that point and the noise from above became louder. Small lumps of snow fell, exploding into powder on impact with the ground. Suddenly, the wolf that had been told to remain silent, shouted.
‘AVALANCHE!’
The slopes above responded t
o his yell with a roar of their own and then wolves were running in all directions. Mostly, they headed for the exit to the valley, running at right angles to the descending tons of snow. Some, however, tried to outrun the flow. They ran further down the slopes in their panic and were engulfed in the monstrous flood of white. It took their racing feet from under them, flowed over them, buried them, and then proceeded to pile itself on top to a crushing thickness.
Those that ran counter to the avalanche managed to reach safety. Among these were Skassi Ulaala and the pups. They turned, to see nothing behind them but a vast overspill of white snowpowder, which filled the air with sparkling clouds. Finally, when it had all settled, the face of the land had changed shape. It was smooth and flat and hid several more secrets beneath it.
‘Shall we try digging them out?’ cried Nidra.
Skassi asked, ‘How many?’
A flankwolf did a count.
‘Six of us missing,’ he said.
Skassi said, ‘They can’t have survived such a fall. It might take us days to dig them out and they’ll be dead by that time anyway. We have to leave them.’
‘But,’cried Ulaala, ‘what if one of them is near to the surface? Shouldn’t we at least try?’
‘A waste of time,’ said Skassi.
Again, Ulaala tried to protest, but received a body-slam from one of the shoulderwolves. She was hustled into line, and the pups with her, and the march south continued. She heard Skassi remark to one of his guardians, ‘Six is not too bad. We were lucky. Not a disaster, anyway.’
‘Unless you happen to be one of them,’ she called, unable to help herself, and received another slam. Skassi ignored her. She had noticed that he had the ability to pretend deafness when he did not wish to comment on something.
There were no more incidents until they reached the tree line.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Yanthra and Athaba set out on the trail towards Skassi’s stronghold just as the snow was beginning to slip from the slopes. The pair of them moved cautiously, careful not to go too close to the edge of the track in case a fall of snow took them by surprise and carried them into the drop. They travelled quickly, without pausing to hunt, having eaten a day previously.
When they reached the site of the den they found it had been vacated, probably a few days previously.
‘We’re too late,’ said Yanthra in despair.
Athaba replied, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll follow them wherever they’ve gone. The trail will still be fresh enough to leave a scent, especially by such a large pack of wolves.’
So, they sniffed out the direction and found it to be south. Then they set off in pursuit, hoping to catch the pack before it got too far. However, just when they were getting close Athaba had one of his fits. This was such a bad experience for Yanthra that the young wolf ran off and hid in the rocks. It took Athaba a day to find the pup.
Yanthra began trembling the moment Athaba discovered where he was crouched.
‘Don’t come near me,’ he said.
Athaba was both upset and shaken. The fit had been a bad one and had left him weak. He knew he must have looked quite devilish, as he lay on the ground twitching and convulsing. It had obviously scared his son quite a lot. He himself could remember nothing, of course, except the dreams he always had during these bouts which were vivid and not always unpleasant. Ulaala had once described to him what he looked like when he went through a series of these paroxysms.
‘You shouldn’t be afraid of your own father,’ said Athaba. ‘I could never harm you.’
‘Well, what is it then? What were you doing? I thought you’d been poisoned, or shot, or something. Your eyes went all white. They rolled upwards. And you were shaking so bad your teeth rattled. What was it?’
‘When I was not much older than you, Yanthra, I fought with a bear. Skassi was there too. He was the one that got us into trouble in the first place, just as he’s getting a lot of wolves into deep problems now. We had to attack the bear to get him to let Skassi go, because he was being squeezed to death. Unfortunately, I got swiped. Have you ever seen a bear’s paw, son? Not close up. Well, I can tell you it’s as big as a wolf’s head, and a lot harder. I felt as if I had been clouted with a tree trunk. My head buzzed. I lost track of time and what I thought had been a few days, turned out to be nearly a month.
‘Anyway, as a result of that bear hitting me, I began to get fits. That’s what you saw me having – a fit. It doesn’t mean anything except that I lose control of my muscles for a while. That’s all. Once it’s over, everything’s back to normal.’
‘But your tongue was hanging out. It was horrible. All slavery.’
‘Just as I said, I lose control of myself for a while. It doesn’t hurt me, except that sometimes I bite my tongue. Luckily I haven’t bitten it off yet, so I can still tell you about this …’ The attempt at humour failed because Yanthra still crouched at the bottom of the hole in which he had hidden himself, and seemed determined to stay there.
‘Are you coming out?’ asked Athaba.
‘I don’t know. I’m still scared.’
‘Well, that’s honest enough. The wolves of my pack at the time it happened were so scared they banished me. We wolves don’t like the unusual.’
Yanthra said, ‘Will I catch what you’ve got?’
‘Certainly not. It’s not that kind of an illness. It’s physical, like a broken leg. You think your mother would have stayed with me if she thought her pups would be exposed to a nasty condition like this?’
‘Maybe she hasn’t seen you do that?’
‘I can assure you she has.’
After a long while the pup was persuaded to leave the hole and then the pair of them went back to the trail. Yanthra still kept glancing at his father from time to time, as if he expected Athaba to have another of his fits while they walked. Athaba noticed these sidelooks and guessed that his son was still wary, so he chatted about trivial matters, trying to distract the yearling. He was not successful. In the end, he turned and said in exasperation, ‘Look, I’m not going to perform for you again today. These little acts only come when they want to, and they’re always months apart, so if you want further entertainment you’ll have to wait a long while. Is that understood? I’ll let you know when the clowning is about to start again, and you can prepare yourself in plenty of time. I promise you next time I’ll put on a really good show, just for you, all right?’
Yanthra got the message and hung his head.
They were both extremely thirsty by this time and not a little hungry. They found a thin stream that dropped from a ledge like a twisted vine, and satisfied their thirst. Then they each went off in search of voles and lemmings, to put their hunger to rest. When they rejoined each other, the younger wolf seemed to have calmed down.
‘I’m sorry, father,’ he apologised.
‘Not your fault. I should have told you. Your mother used to keep you away from me when I had a fit, so you had no reason to know.’
‘Did Skassi really banish you.’
‘He and the rest of the pack. I was terribly distressed and angry at the time, but now … well, it was a long time ago. I suppose you could say I’m still an utlah. Once an outcast, always an outcast. The ravens used to call me “Outcast” and it became my name for a while.’
‘Ravens? You knew some of the ravens?’
‘Knew them? Why, we ate regularly together. We discussed life and its ways over the carcass of a musk ox or caribou. We picked through the bones of moose and put the world to rights.’
‘You ate carrion father?’
‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘Oh. I thought there was.’
‘You mean you had been told there was, which is quite a different thing from thinking it out yourself. Never take anything you’re told as being fact, son, unless you’ve considered it carefully yourself and come to your own conclusions. It doesn’t matter if you’re eventually wrong, so long as you made the decision and didn’t rely on r
eceived opinion. Take note of advice, but decide for yourself. Now, we have to get back on the trail. If we wait around here, midnight’s sun will catch up with us.’
‘Midnight’s son? Is that Skassi?’
Athaba looked at his pup and saw the innocence in his eyes.
‘No, but it could be,’ he said.
They found the place where the avalanche had occurred and there was a wolf there which had dug herself out. She was staggering around, still in a daze, after having spent some time under a weight of snow. As they approached her, they could see her knocking into firs and dislodging the snow held by the branches. When this fell on her in great wads of white, she jumped in the air, probably under the impression that another avalanche was in progress. They managed to calm her down and she told them her story.
‘I was bringing up the rear. The tailwolf – horrible position but I’m under punishment for stealing meat – and then I heard this thunder. I looked up and saw the whole mountain moving, down on us. I ran forward, then backwards, panicking a little. By that time the snow was rolling over me like water. I struggled, then it went black. I think I must have been right on the edge because there wasn’t a lot of snow above me, I don’t think. The only thing was, I couldn’t breathe, and it seemed to take ages to dig out sideways.’
Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves Page 33
