As they walked together a hungry silence settled over the pair. When they started on their journey Zale talked at lengths about spirits, their signs and intentions, but said nothing about his past except that while he had a home once he was a wanderer now. If Dimah looked closely she might have noticed some little nicks on his face where the fur grew in thin, obviously from a fight, but with who or what was a matter of mystery.
Zale’s ears swiveled, nose to the air. Nothing. He sighed in frustration and licked his lips. Since his pack chased him away only a few tiny morsels had passed down his gullet. He felt empty as a hollow log but at least he still had his strength. Though he saw large prey now and then he lacked the strength to bring it down on his own. With Dimah here he hoped his chances would improve, but first they would have to find something edible. The joy of merely hearing her foot steps at his side had already dissipated. He wanted to move on to the next problem.
Dimah listened to him attentively, saying little at first and then repeating a word or two with a lilted, questioning voice to draw more depth from him. What he said was largely appealing, but it felt slightly mismatched. As if she’d always thought the sky blue like water, and he saw it blue like a flower. He spoke with too much authority for it to sound wrong though – only different, intriguing.
Eventually the flow of his words thinned and she took the opportunity to examine him as they walked. Her reflection fell inward and she noticed she couldn’t feel the lemming her gut any longer. She echoed his sigh and after a minute or so veered to the left. “Over here. I think there’s a track,” she explained pointing her nose in the direction of a long depression in the snow. There wasn’t much to smell, not with the recent snow, but there was a dull musty smell to the area. Maybe they would find something farther down the sketchy track. “What did you usually do in a hunt, in your old pack?” she asked, half quiet.
A track? Why hadn’t he seen it?
Perhaps Dimah was mistaken. He joined her and was disappointed by what he saw. Depressions in the snow, probably tracks, but it was hard for him to tell how fresh they were with his limited experience. He stared at them for a long time, his mind nothing but a patch of white snow. Sometimes it infuriated him how such simple tasks came so difficultly to him while less intelligent wolves, too stupid to even grasp the phases of the moon, performed them intuitively.
“I did most of the brute work. The chasing, the killing.” That sounded easy enough. He’d leave the tracking to Dimah for now. He only paid close attention to his surroundings when he was searching for stand-in spirits.
“Good, we’ll need it. I did more tracking when I was younger, but…” She walked with her nose hanging to the snow, swinging her head at bushes because there were patches of uncovered earth beneath them and bits of hair snagged on twigs that stuck into the narrow path. “This is for hare, maybe deer sometimes,” she observed uncertainly. The snow wasn’t helping. It was too fresh.
Zale grunted. What good is a hare split between two wolves? He could catch a hare on his own. He sniffed one of the tracks and tried to pick up a scent. Hoping to take his mind off hunger, he asked, “What was your pack like?”
She glanced at him and then away. “Small. Only Father, Mother, and I after my sister died. There were no packs nearby, but we chased rogues away from time to time.”
“I had a brother and sister. They both drowned in the river during early spring when the waters upstream thawed and came rushing down. I was asleep then.” He could barely remember them now. Their faces, like reflections in the water, distorted and faint.
No one really knew if they were dead. Maybe the waters washed them downstream to new parents and a new life. Now whenever he came to a river, part of him expected to meet them there by chance, maybe splashing in the shallows like they were on the last day anyone saw them alive, another reminder of how even intelligent people can be fooled by the expectations of their heart.
She glanced at him in sympathy. Her brothers had died too young for her to remember at all, but she knew them as a burden to Mother and Father. Her sister’s death had been another burden to them, but it was the thing that broke them.
“It is a hard thing, but can be endured.” Dimah has little patience for agonizing. There was a time for mourning and regret, but suffering ran rampant in the world and hording it was like asking to be kicked in the jaw by a bull moose. With that thought, she caught a smell and froze, her gaze snapping at a bit of brown some distance off the trail. Not a moose, but far better than a hare – deer!
Nose to the ground, Zale remained focused on the tracks. “Don’t worry about me. It was a long time ago.”
The truth was that the death of his siblings affected him more later in life than it did as a pup. As a pup he found himself suddenly the center of his parents’ universe. All that wonderful attention, all his! For a long time, he only missed them when his parents slept. When he got older he started to notice more how other pups played with their siblings and how grown brothers would still wrestle and compete, and then he realized what he’d lost. That too was a long time ago.
Dimah said nothing for a while. Zale looked up and titled his head at her. Then he saw it, too. He froze, scared to make a sound.
With forethought she might have whispered to Zale. She might have told him where to go to stay downwind of the deer, or told him to attack before or after herself, or what she was planning to do herself at least. However, she’d been raised in a very small hunting group where each member knew their role without questioning, and without saying a thing, she crouched and slunk toward a patch of scraggly bushes.
Suddenly Dimah was off and moving. Zale glanced at her and without hesitation, copied her position and followed her behind the bush. If there was one thing Zale was good at it was bullshit. If he could bullshit his way to the top of a wolf pack he could sure as hell bullshit his way through one little hunt. When he reached her side, he whispered, “Where do you want me to go, leader?”
He called her leader in the hope that she wouldn’t call him out for not knowing what to do. Every hunt has to have a leader and since no one volunteered he was nominating her as of now. Besides, with her as leader, if he didn't know what he was doing it was automatically her fault. He learned that from watching his alpha.
Was he following her? She didn’t want to break from staring at the deer – if it so much as twitched ears in their direction she’d be hurling herself towards its jugular instantly – but she felt him move up beside her and glanced at him briefly. Despite her soft tones of respect and interest earlier, now annoyance burned in her eyes. “Wait here. If it notices me close in, but strike the moment it makes to flee.” With the breath of her words still warm in his ear, she left him again, stealing towards the next bit of cover.
Zale gave the barest of nods and watched her slink off into the brush. Feeling uneasy, he turned his attention toward the deer. Their target was a young buck with one antler. He watched, bug eyed, as the buck scraped his pitchfork horn against a tree, making a horrible, grinding sound that pained him all the way down to his stomach.
Zale never hunted anything this big before. The young buck could probably deal him a mortal wound with a well placed kick. His fur bristled at the thought. Suddenly it was all very clear to him. Everything needed to be perfect. He’d have to do better than bullshit.
Her heart was thumping as she made her way slowly around the buck. She had rarely only taken down something this size, and when it had been done there were four wolves, not two, and it had been a matter of wearing the animal down. It didn’t smell sick, but maybe it was still young enough to be sluggish or stupid. Maybe – or maybe it had lost its other horn in battle and wouldn’t allow an easy conquest.
Finally close enough, she broke cover with a harsh growl that rattled her whole chest and padded swiftly for the buck, hair raised and teeth bared. Not wanting to charge into hooves and horns, she saved sprinting for when she saw if it would flee or stand ground.
Although he wasn’t yet fully grown, he was almost as strong as an adult buck and three times as daring in his youth. Suddenly he whirled around, having heard Dimah coming toward him, but instead of turning to flee he doubled back, let out what seemed to be a battle cry and swung at her with his antler. When Zale saw the attack he choked on a whimper.
Hopefully Dimah could keep the buck occupied for a few more seconds. While the teenage buck rebelled against the roles of predator and prey, Zale snuck out from behind the bush and snuck swiftly along the ground so as not to arouse the buck’s attention with loud nose.
The growl stuck in her throat as she veered to the right and fell back. It hadn’t run like she wanted, not at all, but she couldn’t abandon the idea and dash off for safety. Whenever Zale made a move she’d need to take the buck’s throat or hind as it tried to orient itself. She slavered at the deer and jerked away, absurdly being chased again by the menacing horn for a few terrifying seconds until she got a tree between them. No staying there though, and no looking for Zale though her head swam from wanting to call him. She skirted into view again, taunting the buck with a hostile bark.
His heart raced as he closed in on the young buck. When he jumped the buck jerked suddenly and for a moment he thought he would miss his mark and land in the snow. To his amazement he landed smack on the back of the buck, claws holding firm to the animal’s back like hooks. Before he could gather his wits and decide what to do about his new situation the buck shrieked – literally shrieked, a horrible noise like Zale had never heard – spun round and kicked its hind legs until Zale was battered and dizzy.
Well, this wolf knew when he had entered into a bad deal. He dropped off the buck with just enough sense left to jump back as the buck swiped at him with its antlers and kicked at Dimah. The beast was turning, trying to fend off two enemies at once and tiring itself out in the process.
She didn’t see Zale. She saw the buck suddenly stop and twist its head back with a wrenching unnatural as the sound it produced. Its breath steamed out in a long silvery plume, made luminous against the dark bark of the trees, like some distressed soul amid a dark void. Confused but driven by the beat of frantic instinct, she lunged for its bared throat, nearly to be skewered as the beast went into a frenzy. Hooves, horn, and snow went everywhere, as if in its earlier cry it had lost all composure of sentience. She wanted it dead, and snapped anxiously at its legs as it spun.
When an opening came she leapt. A hoof scraped her, plowing an unnerving numbness down her side, but the attack put meat in her teeth and she paid more attention to shoving and tearing at the buck than than the numbness. If it lost balance and fell, this could end. Fear and savagery had driven her to forgetting meat and a full stomach. It was blood she wanted now.
The buck braced itself, legs spread, hot air plowing out of its mouth in brave white gusts. It twitched, a faint jerk stopped by pain. The most it could do was remain standing with Dimah’s jaws locked around its throat. Zale looked on, taking it all in. From his position cowering behind a bush he could make out the fear shinning in the eyes of the young buck. How fascinating. What was it thinking, standing so still? What foolish protest!
Sensing victory, Zale lunged and tore at the buck’s back leg. The buck kicked, hoof grazing his chest. Startled Zale released his grip and backed away. He was bruised but thankfully no worse for the wear. Shaking it off he lunged again, taking the buck by the shoulder and pulling until it finally toppled to the ground.
She lost track of Zale again, but the rest of the world went with him. Eyes squinted, her whole body shook from snout to tail with powerful jerks until the cursed thing finally moved as Zale joined in the fray. Finally the thing heaved over with a grunt she choked with another wrenching of her head. There was some flailing about on the ground – hooves, teeth, and claws scraping at air and flesh – but Dimah held to like something possessed, and the only thing to slip from her lips besides hot breath was a victorious snarl. As the buck’s movements became more sluggish she shifted, twisting to glance over the buck’s heaving chest at Zale. Victory and approval gleamed in her eyes.
Though his heart still raced, part of him stood quietly amid the rushing tide of adrenaline, frozen and observant. So it’s all about misdirection. One wolf attracts the prey’s attention while the other launches an attack. Does the prey always fight back so viciously? Surely it tried to flee on occasion. Or had the hunter’s stories misled him all these years? No matter. They would hunt again in due time. He could satisfy his curiosity later. If he asked questions now it would look like he didn’t know what he was doing.
He smiled at her with his bloody maw, tongue lolling as he panted. Even in the cold of winter the thrill of the chase warmed him from the marrow of his bones. “Right… well done. Let’s eat?”
There was a whole buck dead in the churned up snow, blood and steam everywhere, and just Zale smirking at her over it. All together, it was a beautiful sight, but the knots in her gut were coming undone and hunger was lowering her appreciation for scenery. “To us,” she agreed, lowering her attention to the bloody tear below her.
Ow. Ow? She glanced over her shoulder where the now deceased prey had scraped a hoof down her right side. There was no red to see, and her legs bore her weight, so after a brief pause she stooped over her meal. There was enough room that there was no need to bicker or fight for position, and she went to filling her stomach without delay.
((Fin~))
.:. Shadows of Asia .:.
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