The House of the Wolf

3

The howling started not long after he set out. These were not the usual deep and melodious vocalizations with which wolves communicate amongst themselves, remaining in touch with others of their pack. They were discordant, piercing cries of distress, and even from a long distance Hunter could feel the anguish throbbing through them. He knew at once what had happened. The big head-wolf must have died of his gun wound. A jolt of pure terror ran through him.

"No! They couldn't possibly know I warned the men," he tried to reassure himself as he ran. "The fore-wolves didn't see me enter the men's tent. They only know that their Father was shot by a man and died." But he increased his speed all the same, from a lope to a full-out sprint, until his tongue lolled out of his gasping mouth. All he could think of was the cold savagery in the big fore-wolf's eyes, and the disdain in his younger brother's. If they caught Hunter a second time, lingering on their land even after their warning, they would need no other reason to kill him. But their fresh grief would make them all the fiercer. Killing him might even help to ease their pain.

Spurred by this fear, he continued his headlong flight northward, attempting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the mourning wolves. He could no longer hear any howls. Had they faded with distance, or had the wolves ceased their lamentations? Were they even now tracking his scent through the tundra? If it came to a fight he had little chance of surviving. Even with their numbers reduced they still held the advantage.

Suddenly he stumbled as a shock of pain jolted through him. He gave a shrill yelp of terror. Something had seized his right foreleg – something hidden in the tundra, with great jaws that snapped shut upon his limb and held it. For a mad moment he thought the fore-wolves had ambushed him and that one had bitten his leg. But the sparse ground-cover gave no hiding place to anything as large as a wolf. He smelled nothing, no odour of wolf or bear or any other animal. Yet he could not move: the strange unseen jaws held him with a grip stronger than stone. It was as if the earth itself had taken hold of him.

Whimpering, he scrabbled with his free paw in the soil and touched something cold. Not stone, but something smooth and hard that gleamed dully. It had the shape of an animal's jaws, with two halves that came together to grip their prey. But it was lifeless as a rock, half-buried in the soil. He sniffed and gnawed at it, and it did not react.

A man-thing of some sort – another of their inventions? He had heard of such things. Devices that trapped animals, keeping them pinned in place until the men could come and kill them. It was part of the terrifying cleverness that made them the most feared of all creatures. He forgot all the elation of his earlier encounter. A human had caught him – a human whose intentions might not be as benevolent as those of the men in the crater. He would die as the head-wolf had, at a man's hands, in a strange form of unintended justice.

Provided the two fore-wolves did not find him first.

As he lay there in a state somewhere between sleep and a swoon, memories came back to him. Of his sister and brothers, whose voices he could almost hear. He relived his last days with them: saw again the polar bear, enraged at their thievery of its food, strike the life from one brother with one swipe of its paw, and tear a great gash in his sister's side. He saw her collapse as they fled together, and sat whining at her side as the life faded from her eyes. He heard her say, between whimpers of pain, "You must find more of our kind, brother. You remember what Mamma told us: The world is harsh for wolves that walk alone."

The remembered words rang in his ears as if newly spoken. Half asleep, not quite understanding that she was not really there, he whispered back, "I know it, sister. But it is harsh among wolves, too."