Wolf Brother

by Michelle Paver

  Fa said that the best thing about this part of the Forest was that so few people came here. Maybe the odd party of Willow Clan from the west by the Sea, or Viper Clan up from the south, but they never stayed long. They simply passed through, hunting freely as everyone did in the Forest, and unaware that Torak and Fa hunted here too.

  Torak had never questioned that before. It was how he’d always lived: alone with Fa, away from the clans. Now, though, he longed for people. He wanted to shout; to yell for help.

  But Fa had warned him to stay away from them.

  Besides, shouting might draw the bear.

  The bear.

  Panic rose in his throat. He pushed it down. He took a deep breath and started to run again, more steadily this time, heading north.

  As he ran, he picked up signs of prey. Elk tracks. Auroch droppings. The sound of a forest horse moving through the bracken. The bear hadn’t frightened them away. At least, not yet.

  So had his father been wrong? Had his wits been wandering at the end?

  ‘Your Fa’s mad!’ the children had taunted Torak five summers before, when he and Fa had journeyed to the sea-shore for the clan meet. It was Torak’s first ever clan meet, and it had been a disaster. Fa had never taken him again.

  ‘They say he swallowed the breath of a ghost,’ the children had sneered. That’s why he left his clan and lives on his own.’

  Torak had been furious. He would’ve fought them all if his father hadn’t come along and hauled him off. ‘Torak, ignore them,’ Fa had laughed. They don’t know what they’re saying.

  He’d been right, of course.

  But was he right about the bear?

  Up ahead, the trees opened into a clearing. Torak stumbled into the sun - and into a stench of rottenness.

  He lurched to a halt.

  The forest horses lay where the bear had tossed them like broken playthings. No scavenger had dared feed on them. Not even the flies would touch them.

  They looked like no bear kill Torak had ever seen. When a normal bear feeds, it peels back the hide of its prey and takes the innards and hind parts, then caches the rest for later. Like any other hunter, it wastes nothing. But this bear had ripped no more than a single bite from each carcass. It hadn’t killed from hunger. It had killed for fun.

  At Torak’s feet lay a dead foal, its small hooves still crusted with river clay from its final drink. His gorge rose. What kind of creature slaughters an entire herd? What kind of creature kills for pleasure?

  He remembered the bear’s eyes, glimpsed for one appalling heartbeat. He’d never seen such eyes. Behind them lay nothing but endless rage and a hatred of all living things. The hot, churning chaos of the Otherworld.

  Of course his father was right. This wasn’t a bear. It was a demon. It would kill and kill until the Forest was dead. No-one can fight this bear, his father had said. Did that mean the Forest was doomed? And why did he, Torak, have to find the Mountain of the World Spirit? The Mountain that no-one had ever seen?

  His father’s voice echoed in his mind. Your guide will find you.

  How? When?

  Torak left the glade and plunged back into the shadows beneath the trees. Once again he began to run.

  He ran for ever. He ran till he could no longer feel his legs. But at last he reached a long, wooded slope and had to stop: doubled up, chest heaving.

  Suddenly he was ravenous. He fumbled for his food pouch - and groaned in disgust. It was empty. Too late, he remembered the neat bundles of dried deer meat, forgotten at the shelter.

  Torak, you fool! Messing things up on your first day alone! Alone.

  It wasn’t possible. How could Fa be gone? Gone forever?

  Gradually he became aware of a faint mewing sound coming from the other side of the hill.

  There it was again. Some young animal crying for its mother.

  His heart leapt. Oh, thank the Spirit! An easy kill. His belly tightened at the thought of fresh meat. He didn’t care what it was. He was so hungry he could eat a bat.

  Torak dropped to the ground and crept through the birch trees to the top of the hill.

  He looked down into a narrow gully through which ran a small, swift river. He recognized it: the Fastwater. Further west, he and Fa often camped in summer to gather lime hark for rope-making; but this part looked unfamiliar. Then he realized why.

  Some time before, a flash flood had come roaring down from the mountains. The waters had since subsided, leaving a mess of wet undergrowth and grass-strewn saplings. They’d also destroyed a wolf den on the other side of the gully. There, below a big red boulder shaped like a sleeping auroch, lay two drowned wolves like sodden fur cloaks. Three dead cubs floated in a puddle.

  The fourth sat beside them, shivering.

  The wolf cub looked about three moons old. It was thin and wet, and was complaining softly to itself in a low, continuous whimper.

  Torak flinched. Without warning, the sound had brought startling vision to his mind. Black fur. Warm darkness. Rich, fatty milk. The Mother licking him clean. The scratch of tiny claws and nudge of small, cold noses. Fluffy cubs clambering over him: the newest cub in the litter.

  The vision was as vivid as a lightning flash. What did it mean?

  His hand tightened on his father’s knife. It doesn’t matter what it means, he told himself. Visions won’t keep you alive. If you don’t eat that cub, you’ll be too weak to hunt. And you’re allowed to kill your clan-creature to keep from starving. You know that.

  The cub raised its head and gave a bewildered yowl.

  Torak listened to it - and understood.

  In some strange way that he couldn’t begin to fathom, he recognized the high, wavering sounds. His mind knew their shapes. He remembered them.

  This isn’t possible, he thought.

  He listened to the cub’s yowls. He felt them drop into his mind.

  Why won’t you play with me? the cub was asking its dead pack. What have I done now?

  On and on it went. As Torak listened, something awakened in him. His neck muscles tensed. Deep in his throat he felt a response beginning. He fought the urge to put back his head and howl.

  What was happening? He didn’t feel like Torak anymore. Not boy, not son, not member of the Wolf Clan – or not only those things. Some part of him was wolf.

  A breeze sprang up, chilling his skin.

  At the same moment, the wolf cub stopped yowling and jerked round to face him. Its eyes were unfocused, but its large ears were pricked, and it was snuffing the air. It had smelt him.

  Torak looked down at the small anxious cub, and hardened his heart.

  He drew the knife from his belt and started down the slope.

  The wolf cub did not at all understand what was going on. He d been exploring the rise above the Den when the Fast Wet had come roaring through, and now his mother and father and pack-brothers were lying in the mud -and they were ignoring him.

  Since long before the Light he’d been nosing them and biting their tails - but they still didn’t move. They didn’t make a sound, and they smelt strange: like prey. Not the prey that runs away, but the Not-Breath kind: the kind that gets eaten.

  The cub was cold, wet, and very hungry. Many times he’d licked his mother’s muzzle to ask her please to sick up some food for him to eat, but she didn’t stir. What had he done wrong this time?

  He knew that he was the naughtiest cub in the litter. He was always being scolded, but he couldn’t help it. He just loved trying new things. So it seemed a bit unfair that now, when he was staying by the Den like a good cub, nobody even noticed.

  He padded to the edge of the puddle where his packbrothers lay, and lapped up some of the Still Wet. It tasted bad.

  He ate some grass and a couple of spiders.

  He wonde
red what to do next.

  He began to feel scared. He put back his head and howled. Howling cheered him up a bit, because it reminded him of all the good howls he’d had with the pack.

  Mid-howl, he stopped. He smelt wolf.

  He spun round, wobbling a little from hunger. He swiveled his ears and sniffed. Yes. Wolf. He could hear it coming noisily down the slope on the other side of the Fast Wet. He smelt that it was male, half-grown, and not one of the pack.

  But there was something odd about it. It smelt of wolf, but also of not-wolf. It smelt of reindeer and red deer and beaver, and fresh blood - and something else: a new smell that he hadn’t yet learnt.

  This was very odd. Unless - unless - it meant that the not-wolf wolf was actually a wolf who’d eaten lots of different prey, and was now bringing the cub some food!

  Shivering with eagerness, the cub wagged his tail and yipped a noisy welcome.

  For a moment the strange wolf stopped. Then it moved forwards again. The cub couldn’t see it very clearly because his eyes weren’t nearly as sharp as his nose and ears, but as it splashed across the Fast Wet, he made out that this was a very strange wolf indeed.

  It walked on its hind legs. The fur on its head was black, and so long that it reached right down to its shoulders. And strangest of all - it had no tail!

  Yet it sounded wolf. It was making a low, friendly yip-and-yowl which sounded a bit like it’s all right, I’m a friend. This was reassuring, even if it did keep missing out the highest yips.

  But something was wrong. Beneath the friendliness there was a tense note. And although the strange wolf was smiling, the cub could tell it didn’t really mean it.

  The cub’s welcome changed to a whimper. Are you hunting me? Why?

  No, no, came the friendly but not-friendly yip-and-yowl.

  Then the strange wolf stopped yip-and-yowling and advanced in frightening silence.

  Too weak to run, the cub backed away.

  The strange wolf lunged, grabbed the cub by the scruff, and lifted him high.

  Weakly, the cub wagged his tail to fend off an attack.

  The strange wolf lifted its other forepaw and pressed a huge claw against the cub’s belly.

  The cub yelped. Grinning in terror, he whipped his tail between his legs.

  But the strange wolf was frightened too. Its forepaws were shaking, and it was gulping and baring its teeth. The cub sensed loneliness and uncertainty and pain.

  Suddenly, the strange wolf took another gulp, and jerked its great claw away from the cub’s belly. Then it sat down heavily in the mud, and clutched the cub to its chest.

  The cub’s terror vanished. Through the strange furless hide that smelt more of not-wolf than wolf, he could hear a comforting thump-thump, like the sound he heard when he clambered on top of his father for a nap.

  The cub wriggled out of the strange wolf’s grip, put his forepaws on its chest, and stood on his hind legs. He began to lick the strange wolf’s muzzle.

  Angrily, the strange wolf pushed him away, and he fell backwards. Undeterred, he righted himself and sat gazing up at the strange wolf.

  Such an odd, flat, furless face! The lips weren’t black, like a proper wolf’s, but pale; and the ears were pale too – and they didn’t move at all. But the eyes were silver-grey and full of light: the eyes of a wolf.

  The cub felt better than he had since the Fast Wet had come. He’d found a new pack-brother.

  Torak was furious with himself. Why hadn’t he killed the cub? Now what was he going to eat?

  The cub jabbed its nose into his bruised ribs, making him yelp. ‘Get off!’ he shouted, kicking it away. ‘I don’t want you! Understand? You’re no use! Go away!’

  He didn’t even attempt that in wolf talk, because he’d realized that he didn’t actually speak it very well. He only knew the simpler gestures and some of the sound-shapes. But the cub picked up his meaning well enough. It trotted off a few paces, then sat down and looked at him hopefully, sweeping the ground with its tail.

  Torak got to his feet - and the world tilted sickeningly.

  He had to eat soon.

  He cast around the riverbank for food, but saw only the dead wolves, and they smelt too bad even to think about. Hopelessness washed over him. The sun was getting low. What should he do? Camp here? But what about the bear? Had it finished with Fa, and come after him?

  Something twisted painfully in his chest. Don’t think about Fa. Think what to do. If the bear had followed you, it would’ve got you by now. So maybe you’ll be safe here – at least for tonight.

  The wolf carcasses were too heavy to drag away, so he decided to camp further upstream. First, though, he would use one of the carcasses to bait a deadfall, in the hope of trapping something to eat overnight.

  It was a struggle to set the trap: to prop up a flat rock on a stick, then slot in another stick crossways to act as a trigger. If he was lucky, a fox might come along in the night and bring down the rock. It wouldn’t make good eating, but it’d be better than nothing.

  He’d just finished when the cub trotted over and gave the deadfall an inquisitive sniff. Torak grabbed its muzzle and slammed it to the ground. ‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘You stay away!’

  The cub shook itself and retired with an offended air.

  Better offended than dead, thought Torak.

  He knew he’d been unfair: he should’ve growled first to warn the cub to stay away, and only muzzle-grabbed if it hadn’t listened. But he was too tired to worry about that.

  Besides, why had he bothered to warn it at all? What did he care if it wobbled along in the night and got squashed? What did he care if he could understand it, or why? What use was that?

  He stood up, and his knees nearly gave way. Forget about the cub. Find something to eat.

  He forced himself to climb the slope behind the big red rock to look for cloudberries. Only when he got there did he remember that cloudberries grow on moors and marshes, not in birchwoods, and that it was too late in the year for them anyway.

  He noticed that in certain spots the ground was littered with woodgrouse droppings, so he set some snares of twisted grass: two near the ground and two on the sort of low branch that woodgrouse sometimes run along – taking care to hide the snares with leaves so that the woodgrouse wouldn’t spot them. Then he went back to the river.

  He knew he was too unsteady to try spearing a fish, so instead he set up a line of bramble-thorn fishing-hooks baited with water-snails. Then he started up river to look for berries and roots.

  For a while the cub followed him; then it sat down and mewed at him to come back. It didn’t want to leave its pack.

  Good, thought Torak. You stay there. I don’t want you pestering me.

  As he searched, the sun sank lower. The air grew sharp. His jerkin glistened with the misty breath of the Forest. He had a hazy thought that he should be building a shelter instead of looking for food, but he pushed it away.

  At last he found a handful of crowberries, and gulped them down. Then some late lingonberries; a couple of snails; a clutch of yellow bog-mushrooms - a bit maggoty, but not too bad.

  It was nearly dusk when he got lucky and found a clump of pignuts. With a sharp stick he dug down carefully, following the winding stems to the small, knobbly root. He chewed the first one: it tasted sweet and nutty, but was barely a mouthful. After much exhausting digging, he grubbed up four more, ate two, and stuffed two in his jerkin for later.

  With food inside him, a little strength returned to his limbs, but his mind was still strangely unclear. What do I do next? he wondered. Why is it so hard to think?

  Shelter. That’s it. Then fire. Then sleep.

  The cub was waiting for him in the clearing. Shivering and yipping with delight, it threw itself at him with a big wolf smile. It didn’t ju
st wrinkle its muzzle and draw back its lips; it smiled with its whole body. It slicked back its ears and tilted its head to one side; it waved its tail and waggled its forepaws, and made great twisting leaps in the air.

  Watching it made Torak giddy, so he ignored it. Besides, he needed to build a shelter.

  He looked around for deadwood, but the flood had washed most of it away. He’d have to cut down some saplings; if he still had the strength.

  Pulling his axe from his belt, he went over to a clump of birch and put his hand on the smallest. He muttered a quick warning to the tree’s spirit to find another home fast, then started to chop.

  The effort made his head swim. The cut on his forearm throbbed savagely. He forced himself to keep chopping.

  He was in an endless dark tunnel of chopping and stripping branches and more chopping. But when his arms had turned to water and he could chop no more, he saw with alarm that he’d only managed to cut down two spindly birch saplings and a puny little spruce.

  They’d have to do.

  He lashed the saplings together with a split spruce root to make a low, rickety lean-to; then he covered it on three sides with spruce boughs, and dragged in a few more to lie on.

  It was pretty hopeless, but it’d have to do. He didn’t have the strength to rain-proof it with leaf mould. If it rained, he’d have to trust his sleeping-sack to keep him dry, and pray that the river spirit didn’t send another flood, because he’d built too close to the water.

  Munching another pignut, he scanned the clearing for firewood. But he’d only just swallowed the pignut when his belly heaved, and he spewed it up again.

  The cub yipped with delight and gulped down the sick.

  Why did I do that? thought Torak. Did I eat a bad mushroom?

  But it didn’t feel like a bad mushroom. It felt like· something else. He was sweating and shivering, and although there was nothing left in his belly to throw up, he· still felt sick.

  A horrible suspicion gripped him. He unwound the bandage on his forearm - and fear settled on him like an icy fog. The wound was a swollen, angry red. It smelt bad. He could feel the heat coming off it. When he touched it, pain flared.