A Hero's Tale (8 page)

What if it was so? Only our weapons made us a match for them. No, we still had fire. That thought made me feel a little better. We had fire, and there were enough of us to keep a good watch. With fire we could hold our own against many wolves.

None of my fears came true. At last we wounded a young doe, who bounded away while we floundered after her through drifted snow. By the time we reached her, the wolves had brought her down and begun their feast. This time, when we approached, the wolves refused to yield, although there were only three of them and we were half a dozen. Fierce with hunger, they stood their ground, warning us away with flattened ears and snarling lips and growls that would haunt my nightmares.

"Let them take the edge off their appetite," said Worr, and we settled down to wait.

Beneath their heavy fur, the wolves were gaunt. All the same, hunger gnawed at my own belly, and I worried that when the wolves had fed there would be nothing left for us. Hunger made the other men impatient too.

Once I had been foolish enough to ask why we never brought food with us. "To show the forest we are confident," was Worr's reply.

For a while we watched the wolves as the wolves had once watched us. Then we began to glance at Worr, looking for a sign that it was time to take our share. Suddenly he gave a shout that rang through the cold air. Startled, the wolves leaped up and turned to face us. Worr ran directly at them. Brandishing his bow, he made them scatter and knelt by the kill just long enough to cut himself a piece of meat. The black wolf quickly recovered from his fright and started to give chase, nipping at Worr's heels as he fled. I thought for a moment that the wolf would catch him, but even on his clumsy feet, Worr stayed a step or two ahead.

When he reached us, Worr was laughing. Safe now among his friends, he turned and waved the chunk of meat in triumph at the wolf, who had stopped a mere ten paces from us. The wolf laughed back. His bloody jaws gaped open, pulling the edges of his mouth up into a grin. I never thought that wolves could laugh, but there was something in his eyes that made me think he had enjoyed the game. That didn't make me fear him less. I feared him more, because I saw how intelligent he was, and how well he understood the ways of humankind.

The wolf turned and trotted back to join his fellows, and Worr squatted down in the snow and took a bite of the raw meat. I thought that now we would all rush the wolves at once, to drive them from the kill, but only one man started toward them, while the others leaned on their bows to watch.

Surprise was lost. The wolves still fed, but with one eye on the hunter who approached them, slow and deliberate, his bow unstrung, the better to strike with. The wolves stayed just out of reach. They retreated toward the head of the carcass while the hunter took his share of meat from a hind leg. Just as he was turning to come back to us, the black wolf stood up and challenged him. The hunter backed away. With the wolf so close he dared not turn and run.

Urtik, younger than the rest of us and still as playful as a boy, bent and scooped up a handful of snow. He formed it into a tight ball and threw it hard. It shattered against the big wolf's ear. With a yelp that deepened to a growl, the wolf snarled his anger at us. In reply, the men began to chant. It was the same sound they had made for the wolf dance, but louder and more menacing. Two men ran at the wolves together, and in confusion the wolves gave way. One at a time, each man drove them from the kill just long enough to take his share.

The black wolf paid no attention to them. Now he bore a grudge. He kept his eyes on Urtik, waiting for his chance to take revenge. Only Urtik and I had not yet taken our share of meat. We went together. I tried to distract the wolf while Urtik approached the kill, but he refused to be distracted until I scooped up a handful of snow. I held it ready while Urtik cut a piece of meat. Then it was my turn.

By now the other wolves, too full to fight, had abandoned the carcass. One moved off a little distance, dragging a foreleg with him. Soon I heard him crunch the bones. The other was rolling in the snow, to clean the gore from his winter coat.

The black wolf stood motionless a few paces from the kill. He watched me, but he made no move as I approached. Without taking my eyes from his, I cut a piece of meat and began to back away. I had not practiced walking backwards. My feet in their webbed hoops tangled with each other. My arms flailed at the air, my bow went flying. Before I hit the ground, the wolf had leapt. We landed at the same moment, he on his feet, I helpless on my back. He was so close I could have touched him.

I had never been more frightened in my life. The wolf was savoring the moment. His shining amber eyes held mine, as he wrinkled his lip at me in a half-snarl, half-smile.

I had forgotten my companions. Face to face with my own death, I was alone. If I was going to die, it didn't matter what I did, so there was nothing left to fear. As helpless as I was, I prepared myself to make the wolf's victory as difficult as possible. Then I thought of Maara.

Something new came into those amber eyes, a hint of doubt, a question. They saw that something new had come into my heart. After fear had come a burning anger, not that my life would be cut short, but that Maara's fears were coming true, as if this wolf were the embodiment of the doom that haunted Maara's life. My own death was bad enough, but Maara's grief outweighed it. Even knowing death was unavoidable, I would have fought it. For Maara's sake, I would refuse it. I would refuse to die.

Against his will, the wolf looked away. Twice he tried and failed to meet my eyes. Ears flattened in submission, he dropped his head and slunk away.

Urtik came and helped me to my feet. I had dropped the piece of meat that I had almost paid for with my life. I went to the carcass and cut another. The wolves were gone.

The hunters came to butcher what was left of the doe. I would have helped them, but Worr saw my hand tremble that held the knife and told me first to eat my share. The raw meat filled my mouth with sweetness. It was as sweet as life itself.

We kept our fire small. The six of us huddled close around it. While we cooked some of the venison, we talked together in soft voices, as if we feared to be overheard. Perhaps the wolves were listening. The forest certainly was. Its dark spirit, awakened from its winter sleep by our brawling with the wolves, hovered just beyond the reach of firelight.

No one spoke of my encounter with my death, just as no one spoke of his own encounter. Each of us had faced his death that day. I saw in their eyes what they must have seen in mine, a thoughtfulness, a turning inward, to guard and tend the little flame of life that might have flickered out. No one boasted of his courage or gloried in our victory. When death comes so close, there is no making light of it.

That day I had watched each man approach the wolves alone. At the time I didn't understand why we wouldn't use our strength in numbers. At first it had seemed like a game, one of those reckless, foolish games men play that make their women frown and shake their heads, murmuring their disapproval. Now I saw that it was more than just a game. It was a dance.

When I first envisioned the hunters of the forest people standing on the edge of the abyss, I wondered what they saw when they gazed down into it. Each man seemed so alone and so defiant. They would not fall, as I had, into the arms of love. I could have no idea what they saw there until I had danced with them along the precipice, until I had peered over the edge. Not love, but power dwelt there, and these men drew power from it. I had drawn power from it. Daani too had once drawn power from it, and that was why she had given up the wolfskin. She who carried life within her could no longer dance with death.

In the stillness of the forest, at the darkest time of year, a band of hunters sat around their fire, while all around them in the dark the wolf clan gathered.

I woke with a start and saw, across the circle, a wolf sitting among us. I was about to cry out a warning when I realized that it was a man asleep, his chin resting on his chest, so that the shining eyes of his wolf's head cap seemed to gaze directly at me. I peered out into the darkness. I saw no wolves, but I felt their presence, more than the three we had hunted with.

Two of the men were dozing, as I had been. The others kept the watch. One of them saw that I was awake and caught my eye. He nodded, to pass his watch to me, then tucked his chin against his chest and closed his eyes.

When I was a child, I used to lie awake at night in my familiar room, where even in the dark I could picture everything around me, the image in my mind's eye as faithful as that of ordinary sight. As I kept the watch that night, I beheld a picture in my mind of the forest all around me. It was not a picture left in memory or conjured by imagination, but a knowledge that came less through the senses than through the heart. I saw squirrels asleep in hollow trees, rabbits in their burrows and hunting cats in their dens, weasels and badgers curled up tight against the cold. A tawny owl drifted in the sparkling air, listening for the scurrying feet of mice and voles in their runways beneath the snow. While furred and feathered creatures stirred with life, the slumbering trees reached deep into the earth in search of dreams, their roots descending, deep into the dark.

At the time I didn't think it strange that I should be aware of all these things. Even as it slept, the forest was aware of me, as it was aware of all the animals that sheltered there. It was the forest that had dreamed us into life, and I shared the forest's dream.

In the morning the wolves were gone. Their pawprints in the snow showed us how close they had come. The day before, this evidence of danger all around us would have terrified me. Now, while I still had great respect for the power of the wolves, I no longer feared them.

The journey home seemed endless. I think I must have slept through part of it. I fell into that strange waking sleep in which the body does what it must do while the mind steps through a veil into the land of dreams. I lost awareness of my body, as my dreaming self rose into the air and looked down on a band of hunters trudging homeward through the snow. Then I lost sight of them, as my dreaming self rose above the treetops into a dark winter sky. Below me I heard the forest sighing, as a woman sighs in sleep, while above me grumbling clouds blew by. This was the time for sleep, while darkness gathered.

Through the dark of early evening, our feet guided us along the familiar path. It drew us on, as more and more we felt the pull of home, where we would be warm and welcome.

Maara took me to bed right after supper, while the men were still telling the story of the hunt. I listened, half-asleep, to a tale so full of whimsy that if I had not lived it myself, I would have considered it no more than a dreamer's wild imaginings. The telling of the story mingled in my mind with my own dreams.

I heard Worr say, "We had a good laugh over it," and knew he was speaking of the big wolf who had chased him, but he told the story in such a way that I saw him and the wolf sitting side by side at our hearth fire, as fond as brothers, sharing a joint of meat and an amusing tale.

When I heard someone speak my name, my curiosity struggled against sleep.

"And Tamara the Fast -- "

"No, Tamara Clumsy Feet."

"Yes, he fell."

Someone made a whirring sound that brought into my mind an image of myself, arms waving wildly as I tried to keep my balance.

"And the wolf -- " A whooshing sound and the shadow on the cave wall of a hunter's upraised arms. "Such a leap!"

Maara's arms tightened around me. I tried to tell her that the story ended happily, but I found I couldn't speak.

It was dark when I awoke. I was too warm. I tried to throw off the elk robe, but it had grown too heavy. At last I freed one arm, and I was enjoying the touch of cold air on my fevered body when someone wrapped me up again.

"Too hot," I said.

My voice sounded strange to me, as if it came from far away.

Someone brought me water. It stung my lips. Although I was thirsty, my throat was so sore and swollen that I found it difficult to swallow. A part of my mind knew that I was ill, while another part seemed not to care. It let my painful body drift away and lost itself in pictures like those we see in dreams. Green hills and blue skies reminded me of home, where in my memory it was always summertime. I drifted there, dreaming of a life I might once have lived, but when the sky began to darken, I looked for the way home in vain. There was no path to guide me. This place was strange to me that had put on for a little while the guise of home. Soon the light was gone.

I floated weightless in the dark. I drifted, light as thistledown, carrying a tiny seed of life that might fall either on good earth or barren ground. I neither hoped for one nor feared the other. I lay upon the air and let it carry me, until a breath of wind wafted me over the abyss, where in the depths there stirred some nameless thing, an ancient power that knew me not at all.

As I drifted over the abyss, too light to fall, I felt it reach for me. I was not afraid, just curious, and my mind filled up with wordless questions. The nameless thing that dwelt there in the dark had questions it would ask of me, and promised, if I answered them, to whisper me its secrets.

Above me a bird of prey glided through the sky and cast the shadow of its outstretched wings over the abyss. The power, like a hunted thing, withdrew. The hawk's soft-feathered wings embraced me. Sharp pains pierced my shoulders where its talons gripped me, as it flew with me, up into the light.

I woke to the touch of feathers on my naked skin. Smoke tickled my nose and made me sneeze. With a fan made from a raven's wing, Sett wafted more of the sweet-smelling smoke over me, until I had sneezed twice more. Then he leaned close to me and looked into my eyes, looked past my eyes, and his were cold, as sharp as flint. Hawk's eyes.

As I grew strong again, my journey over the abyss seemed more and more unreal, but as we dream of places that we recognize, I knew I had dreamed of someplace so familiar that for days my waking mind wandered in the dark, searching for a landmark that would help me find my way through this forgotten landscape.