Before Death

Chapter 13: Pack Leader

The years seemed to fly by once again.

I eventually gave the Alpha a hero's burial, laying him to rest just in the valley that lay below our den. It was with great sadness and remorse that I mourned him, but I simultaneously realised that that was the risk of being an Alpha - that there would always be challengers who wished to dethrone you. I remember the Alpha's grey muzzle and the way he started becoming stiff after a long night of sleeping on the cold, hard stone. He was clearly way past his prime and this small weakness opened him up to attack.

As pack leader, my place within the pack, and subsequently, my interaction with its members, changed drastically. No longer would young wolves seek out to be held in my arms or to playfully nip at my fingers. A chasm opened up between my pack and I for the first time. Ironically, the biggest divide was not one of species, but of rank. Being the Alpha was no simple task - it was a lonely position that led me to empathise deeply with the withdrawn nature of the Alpha before me.

Even though the organisation of hunts depended on a wolf who assigned herself as my deputy (Artemis was my name for her), I was now responsible for the overall pack dicipline of the pack when they were at the den. I began to dish out physical reprimandments regularly to wolves that stepped out of line. However, each time I struck them and they cowered before me, I reflected on the fact that any one of them could choose to kill me easily in retaliation. I kept serious punishments few and far between and relied mostly on verbal cues to instruct my pack.

As a result, our pack flourished and by the spring about 5 or 6 years after I took over the role of leader, we were comprised of around 40 wolves. This was rather large for a wolf pack, but our territory teemed with both large and small game with few other predatory animals to compete with us. A young wolf had recently welped and the hunting pack had gone out to provide for the litter of 8 that was now only about a month old.

I was following in the pawprints of the hunting party, leaving two she-wolves in charge of babysitting. I found immense peace from roaming our territory during dusk when all the small animals emerged from their dens. I liked to marvel at the speed with which the pack moved once they had picked up on a trail, even though I had to remain content with watching from afar. I had just reached the crest of a hill and could see the pack meandering about it the valley on the other side, searching for the scent of an elk herd, when it came.

The giant bird-like creature appeared on the horison. However, the pack knew, just as I did, that this was no bird. It moved far too quickly, and with juttering movements instead of gracefully soaring through the air. I could see no wings on this monstrosity, and it seemed to me as though this thing kept itself in the air with some sort of witchcraft.

But most telling of all that this was not something of nature, was the horrific sound. It seemed to drown out my thouhts as if by pouring oil into my skull. The last time that I had heard something so terrible was when I was but a young girl, still living in the village. My father took me to see the logging machine that had been brought from a far away city to help during harvesting season. I vividly remember clasping my hands around my ears and fleeing in terror as the garguantuan machine started roaring. My mother berated me greatly for this, insisting that it was nothing but a piece of metal. But for a child who had never seen a machine of that scale before, it seemed too alive.

To my horror, the creature, black as the night sky and with glowing eyes that shone brightly and forced me to avoid looking directly at them, headed straight over my head. Right towards the den.

For only a moment, though it felt like eternity, I stood frozen with my eyes left gazing at the empty dark sky where the monstrosity had been only seconds before. When I looked down into the valley again, I was not overly surprised to see that my pack had fled in the opposite direction. I do not blame them. The instinct for self-preservation is, after all, at the root of everything a wolf did.

My first rational thought, however, once I had surpressed the primal urge of my own brain convinving me to avoid the creature, was for the safety of the puppies. I made the difficult decision and ran in the direction that the machine had dissapeared in.

When I reached the den, I was shocked to see the metal bird had landed right on the flat stone area, oblivious to the two she-wolves and the whimpering puppies that cowered in the dark cave behind it. I was even more astonished when I saw the belly of the monster open up to reveal three men. My blood ran ice cold in my veins and I ducked behind a nearby bramble.

I watched the men step out of their machine and examine the wolf tracks on a patch of soil nearby. One of the men muttered something and I saw them all turn towards the cave, although I knew they must not be able to see the wolves hidden in its shadow since they did not react. Still, this almost-discovery of my pack enfuriated me. I feared that, should my wolves be found, they would be senselessly slaughtered just like my previous pack. I could stand it no more. I had to keepmy pack safe.

With a primitive howl, I flung myself forward into the bright beams of light that was emitted by the eyes of the brute.

My cry was reciprocated by one of surprise from the men. They were clearly not expecting to encounter another human being out here in the middle of nowhere. One of the men, a burly middle-aged man, was the only one to react as the other two froze in surprise as a filthy teenage girl charged at them out of the bushes.

He caught me by the wrists, and though I struggled to free myself, by the time I had wrest one arm loose from the man's iron grip, the other two were also restraining my body.

The last thing I saw as I was effortlessly lifted off of my feet and hoisted into the beast myself, was the wolves and the pups watching me anxiously from the shadows.