The Dog Master (30 page)

His mother told him all the time that he was no different than the other boys, but he knew it was not true. His leg made him different.

Suddenly there was a splash in the stream—someone behind him had thrown a rock into the water. He turned, grinning delightedly, but did not see anyone. “All is good!” he shouted.

A movement in the trees caught his eye and another rock arced toward the stream. This one came so close to his head that Mal had to duck. “Ha!” he laughed. “Who threw that?”

He saw Markus, just for a moment, and another rock soared overhead. Mal followed it with his eyes, looking blankly at the splash it made when it landed in the stream. There was nothing floating to aim at.

His back was still turned when the stone hit it, right between his shoulder blades. He looked up at the sky, now full of lethal-looking missiles, and gasped with the shock of realization. They were throwing at
him.

 

THIRTY-FIVE

Mal dodged several stones and scanned the trees behind him. Now that he knew where to scrutinize he could see the boys, though they were making an effort to stay hidden. Several more rocks split the air and Mal dove to one side. He bent and snared a stone and fired back, but he was throwing uphill, and he was known for having a weak arm.

“This would be more fun if I had some men on my side!” Mal yelled. He tried to make it sound as if he were laughing but there was a strange noise in his throat, almost a sob. A stone struck his hip and the boys in the trees cheered. “All is good, you got me!” he shouted, feigning delight. He felt sick, almost ready to vomit. The rocks did not stop. Another hit him in the shoulder, and another in the arm. “You win! Someone else's turn!”

There was no place to go but into the stream. He hated wading where the current was fast and deep because his withered leg gave him so little support. He dreaded having the boys laugh at him if he fell in the water. He ducked, taking another rock. “All is good!” he cried desperately.

Then there was a different sort of cry from the trees—real pain. Mal glanced up and saw, to his amazement, Grat, who was bent over, clutching his stomach. Most of the boys turned and ran, two of them taking rocks in the back as they fled, rocks thrown so hard Mal could hear the thuds. One of the boys who had been struck went down with a cry.

Mal tracked the trajectories back to their source and saw Dog and Ligo, who were thirty paces away, picking up rocks and throwing them with stunning force. Vinco, cowering behind a tree, put his hands up to protect his head. Grat bit off a scream as a stone bounced off his shoulder.

Mal ran up to his brother just as the older boys advanced, reaching the trees. “So, Grat,” Dog hissed, fiercely angry, “should I let you start running before I throw the next rock?”

Vinco looked terrified, while Grat appeared sullen and somewhat defiant. His eyes changed, though, when Dog hefted a stone the size of a man's fist. “Do you want me to wait three breaths, or two?”

“Dog,” Mal urged, “it was only a game. All is good.”

“A game,” Dog repeated dubiously. He looked down at Mal from his great height—he was now as tall as some of the Kindred men. “You are bleeding, Brother.”

“It was a game of throwing rocks,” Mal insisted. “It was Grat's turn next.”

Dog regarded his brother for a long time. “Grat's turn,” he repeated finally. “Do you want to take your turn now, Grat?” he asked softly.

Grat shook his head. “Not if you are going to play.”

Ligo and Dog both laughed at this, and after a moment, Vinco and Mal joined in. Grat just stared at the dirt.

“Such a stupid game,” Dog said dismissively. “Mal, come with me. We will throw spears, like real men.”

*   *   *

Cragg was ten years old, Silex thought wonderingly to himself as he watched the boy focus on pulling feathers off one of the several geese they had killed. Ovi's son Tok was eight and saw Cragg as his big brother, the two of them inseparable. They were a family: Silex, his sister, and the two children. He was happy.

He heard someone approaching and turned. It was Denix, still their most capable hunter. She looked different, Silex thought as he watched her come. She had used the curved rib bones of a badger skeleton to unsnarl the natural knots in her hair and wore it tied at the end with a bow of leather thong—Silex had seen enough women combing themselves to recognize the effect, oddly feminine on such a masculine female as Denix. He also could not remember her ever putting a flower in her hair, but she sported one now, just over her right ear.

“Could I speak to you, Silex?” she asked in low tones. She seemed tense, for some reason.

“All is good,” he agreed. He motioned for her to follow him, and soon they were on a well-worn path, trotting at a steady pace.

Denix seemed relaxed, now that they were in motion, though he could tell something was bothering her. “We are having a good summer,” she observed after a time, breathing easily. She kept one hand loosely resting on her pouch, slung over her shoulder with a thin strap, so that it would not bounce too much as they ran.

This was not, he sensed, what she wanted to say, but he nodded agreeably. “After three such lean years, it is nice to find food and enjoy better weather.”

“I want to talk to you about Hena,” Denix continued, naming one of the female children in the tribe. “She is the same age I was when you took me on my first hunt, Silex.”

“Yes, but you are a rare person, Denix.”

She gave him a small smile. “I was given a rare chance.”

“You are saying we should bring the older girls out on the hunt. But they will be women soon. I do not imagine the wives will be happy about such an arrangement.”

“They accept
me,
” Denix pointed out.

Yes, but you are like a man,
Silex did not say. “Times were different,” he said instead.

“Oh no,” Denix exclaimed suddenly. She stopped, groping for her flower, which had come loose. She seemed flustered, which was so unlike her.

“It is a pretty flower,” Silex remarked.

She gave him an intense, indecipherable look. “Thank you. Silex … You are right, times are different. Our men are all married, now.”

“You are right: the Wolfen are still rebuilding, and if the girls are willing, we should let them hunt.”

“Well … we were speaking of the married men.”

“Yes, of course. The wives will not like it that the girls are out on the hunt, even though none are yet old enough to mate. It is an issue I have confronted before. I will handle that.”

“No,” Denix said, looking frustrated. “When I said all of our men are married I meant that there are no
single
men. I am the only adult woman who has never been married, Silex. I have never…” She trailed off helplessly.

“You have never been married,” Silex finished for her. “Yes, I know.”

Denix was fumbling with the flower, but it kept drooping over her ear. “I cannot make this work,” she said in disgust.

“Would you like me to help you?” Silex offered politely.

Denix nodded wordlessly. Silex took the flower from her fingers and gently threaded it into her hair, which was straight and black, so different from Fia's curls. Denix was watching his face as he concentrated.

“Silex,” she said quietly.

“Shhh,” he whispered, looking over her shoulder. “Turn slowly.”

Denix turned and saw where Silex was pointing. The large she-wolf with the handprint markings, her muzzle grey with age, stood next to a tree, staring.

“I did not think to bring tribute,” Silex muttered mournfully.

“I have some bird meat in my pouch,” Denix informed him. Silex gestured and she swung the pouch around and pulled out a goose breast and offered it to him.

“No,” he decided, “this should be your honor.”

Denix's eyes widened in surprise, but she followed Silex as he approached the massive wolf, who waited impassively.

“I have not seen you in some time and was worried you might have perished,” Silex called.

Denix caught her breath when she saw a juvenile wolf dart out from the trees. There was no mistaking the lineage—not only was this young female far larger than most, she had a white mark on her forehead, very visible and, if anything, more distinctly hand-shaped than that of the older she-wolf. The two wolves touched noses.

The Wolfen pair halted twenty paces away. “This cub is so bold! She looks us full in the face, just like her mother,” Silex remarked, awed.

“Should I throw the food?” Denix asked anxiously.

“Not just yet.”

And then, astoundingly, the young wolf left the older wolf's side and trotted up to the two humans with supreme self-confidence, stopping just a few paces away and staring at them curiously. The juvenile raised her nose and sniffed when Denix brought the tribute out and laid it reverently on the ground, and when the two Wolfen backed away respectfully, the juvenile picked up the bird meat and stood with it in her jaws, watching them. The sight gave Silex a shiver.

The wolves vanished into the woods with the goose breast and Silex and Denix stared at each other with wide eyes. “She all but received it from your hand,” Silex exulted.

“What does it mean?”

“I will have to think on it,” Silex replied. “I do not know what it means. But it can only be good.”

“Silex,” Denix said, touching his arm. “You and I have shared something together that no one else has. As is so often the case, the wolf approaches when it is just the two of us.”

Silex nodded, pondering this. “You are right, Denix,” he agreed, grinning. “We need to tell the others!”

He turned from her and ran, heading back to the Wolfen camp. Denix bit her lip and then followed, catching up to and matching his pace.

After a time, the flower dislodged from behind her ear and fell to the ground.

*   *   *

Calli put more force into her command. “Mal! Come! Now!” she yelled into the gathering gloom. When Mal finally emerged from the darkness, she was angry. “Why did you not answer when I called you?” she demanded.

“I am sorry, Mother,” Mal responded in dead tones. He made to brush past her to go lie down in his spot, but she grabbed his arm to force him to look at her, then gasped when she saw his face.

“What happened to your eye?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. His left eye was swollen and weeping, completely shut. Even in the firelight, Calli could see the multicolored bruises rising above his cheek.

“Who hit you, Mal? What happened?” Calli pressed.

“We were playing,” he told her woodenly.

“What? No. Playing. Who hit you? Was it Grat? Vinco?”

Mal pulled his arm out of her grasp. “I said we were just playing,” he insisted harshly. “Leave me alone, Mother. I can take care of myself.”

Calli blinked at the ridiculousness of the statement. Take care of himself? He was just eight summers old, he could not
take care of himself.

And yet, she realized, boys always played rough, and it was not the mother's place to control them. That would be Palloc's job—the fathers dealt with such matters.

If Palloc would
do
his job.

“All is good, then, Mal,” she murmured resignedly.

He sullenly turned away from her and found his way to his bed. His eye hurt, throbbing in concert with the bruises his mother had not seen on his ribs and shoulders. His mouth could taste the blood from where the knuckles had found his lips.

Mal lay down, wincing, trying to ignore the pain.

“We were just playing,” he said aloud, so softly his mother, five paces away in her own bed, could not hear him. He felt the sob in his throat, but he
would not cry.
“Just playing, just playing,” he repeated. “My father and I were just playing.”

*   *   *

The Kindred were migrating to their winter quarters when they heard wolves howling in the day. The Wolfen, miles away, tracking the same herd of reindeer as the wolves, heard it, too.

Neither tribe knew what the howls meant. To the Kindred, the wail of the wolf at night was the voice of the spirits who could never be spoken of directly, the evil that fought the sun to death every evening. Women Kindred clutched their husbands, and around the fire on the men's side, bachelor hunters glanced uneasily at one another, unwilling to show the fear they felt so strongly. For the Wolfen, the howls represented the mystical song of their benefactors, the wolves who modeled how they should live and who led them to game.

Only other wolves could hear the high yowls and ululations and ascertain the true meaning: a member of a pack had died. Any wolves within hearing distance stopped what they were doing and raised their own voices to the sky.

The old she-wolf had lived longer than most, helped through times of deprivation by offerings from the Wolfen. She had seen four litters of her own in that time, and her granddaughter, who had been traveling with her and had taken food directly from human hand, was the dominant bitch and had mated recently. The pack was healthy, thanks in no small part to the old she-wolf.

Her passing was that rare occurrence among the wild, a natural death. One evening she was listlessly without appetite, and the next morning she lay breathing in short pants, her eyes closed. The dominant bitch refused to leave her side, so the pack wandered away and then returned, confused and restless, touching noses. As the moon rose well before sunset, the she-wolf took her last breath. The pack knew of it instantly, the knowledge moving like a scent from wolf to wolf. As one they sat down, raised their noses to the afternoon sky, and sang the song of the great wolf's passing.

 

THIRTY-SIX

Year Eighteen

Dog patiently retrieved the three spears Mal had just thrown. The target, a large, lone tree trunk with buds just emerging on the tips of its branches, was largely unmarked, though Mal had been attacking it all day.