Run with the Pack: Chapter 9

In the nights and days that came to pass, the growing thaw brought more and more life to the forest. The two wolves sought food with a growing appetite and an ever-pressing hunger. Acting together, but without any conscious planning, Bahr and Elha were able to feed that hunger by acting in concert, whether to hunt live food or to sniff down carrion.

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Moving into a territory where there had previously been no wolves, they found that prey animals was unaccustomed to evading capture and so proved easier to snatch up for a quick kill. With the continuing thaw and the continuing bounty that the warmer weather brought, so Elha and Bahr were frequently able to eat their fill, keeping their stomachs ever supplied with the food they needed.

As a new moon came and went, Elha’s awareness of being more than one wolf grew. Soon her maternal feelings began to preoccupy her dreams and her waking visions more and more. To replace the images in her mind of the forest, its prey animals, hunting, chasing, and killing, came other images. She saw vivid pictures, not of game animals or running brooks, but dark, warm places, places to hide and places of shelter. She was obsessed with looking at, sniffing, and tasting every nook and corner in the forest, every hollow they passed.

As Bahr sniffed out the ever-changing patterns of game animals on the move, so Elha would often take herself off to this place and to that, testing a tree stump with her paw, scraping away at some soft earth and poking her snout into every nook and cranny. Bahr was not sure what to make of it, constantly having to cease his progress through the undergrowth, to await Elha’s return from some unknown errand into the darker reaches of the bush and scrub. This search for the unknown went on for many days.

All the while, Elha was growing, not just in physical stature, but in her presence. Bahr again felt that when he looked at his companion he was looking at, not one wolf, but many. He could not understand it, but he did understand that he was bound to this wolf in a way that he had not known before in his life. Elha was not his elfa but, somehow, he saw her as his elfa and ulfa combined, and yet not his elfa or ulfa. She was somehow more than his elfa and ulfa, more than his whole family, more than alfas and siblings and pups. In his mind, he pictured her as his whole family in one body, his whole world in a single wolf. Satisfied with his conclusion, he continued to search out the scentscape for food.

It came to a time when Elha was able to move onwards no more. Though strong, she seemed much weakened from the growing weight that she carried within her, almost cowering into the hollow she had dug among the leaves and dirt at the base of a tall tree. At the same time, she was fiercer and more defiant. Quarrelsome at times.

“Not here,” she said when Bahr indicated what seemed a perfect place to rest. Sniffing and pawing at the ground, Elha was unsure. “No,” was all she said before striding off in the other direction until she found a space and started digging and digging with her forepaws.

Bahr had seen this burrowing before. He recalled how, this winter past, one of his brothers had fallen weak and dug himself into a hollow in the dirt, refusing to continue. The wolf had grown thin, last in the order of feeding, last even after the pups. When food was in such short supply, as it had been during that bleak winter, the family had none to spare for so sickly a son.

Feeling a great stirring deep within him, Bahr recalled how his brother had been injured by a deer that had kicked him in the shoulder, breaking bones, making it hard for the wolf to keep up. With this impediment, Bahr’s brother had declined in status and so had been able to claim less and less to eat. He had become little more than a frame of bones, covered in a loose and ragged coat of mottled grey.

As the pack moved on, each of them embraced their beloved, one last time. Nuzzling, lapping, laying heads on backs, and touching face to face.

He was the last of Bahr’s siblings. They had been a litter of many pups together but each save he and Bahr had been taken by the forest. Now they were one. No longer many. Only Bahr remained, the last of the brothers and sisters. The others lost to the forest forever.

As the family trouped off, leaving their own flesh and blood to die with final, unseen dignity, the pack hung their heads. Then raising them, howled a last song to their kin. A requiem, stirring in full lupine voice, beginning at a low sorrowful timbre, rising to a crescendo, a momentous wall of sound, alerting the whole forest, the whole world to their grief. Even the unmovable trees were stirred into sadness at the passing of this once magnificent beast.

From the distant forest other voices joined them in sorrow.

“We hear you brothers, we grieve with you sisters, we mourn with you the passing of a great hunter.”

The songs continued throughout the night. A thousand voices raised, an orchestra striking up its nocturne. As it finished, Bahr sang his own last lament.

“Farewell, my brother. Sleep in the arms of the forest.”

“Go in peace, brother,” was the muted reply. “No longer shall we run and hunt and play together. Think of me no more. I see a hunting path, and it stretches off into the far beyond. Farewell dear brother. Run free! Run with the pack!”

By the time the moon set over the distant horizon, the wolf had sung his last song and all was silent in that darkest time of the night.

Bahr knew that this was not what was happening to Elha. He knew that this need to burrow was a sign, not of an impending death, but of new life.

At length, Elha decided upon a hollow at the base of a withering tree. Scratching into the earth and the partly rotted wood, she moved and shoved and, fidgeting, got up and lay down and moved around and around, trying to find some comfortable position to rest. Bahr was unsure what to do next.

As Elha curled around on herself so Bahr approached her with the intention of curling up with her to keep her warm, but Elha growled her disapproval.

“Stay back, oaf, I’m resting.”

Bahr stole right away without a sound, only to be summoned back with a whined “I need you now.”

So it continued, throughout the long afternoon until Elha, still unsatisfied, again decided that the place was not right and trouped off, Bahr in tow, until she discovered some soft Earth beneath an outcrop of rocks. Beginning to dig and dig, Elha was soon exhausted and with a growl, lay down close by. A significant look was all it needed to spur Bahr into his own digging frenzy which, at length, produced a wide hollow underneath the rocks and a mound of loose dirt growing all around.

Elha inspected Bahr’s work as Bahr stood panting from the effort.

“More!” was all she said, as she again lay down to rest, leaving Bahr to continue his excavations.

Eventually the work was completed, Elha was satisfied and with a grunt and a sniff, took up residence in the burrow, invisible to the outside world, and started to try to make herself comfortable. An effort in vain as, try as she might, turning this way and that, she could not settle. When Bahr gingerly approached, poking his snout into the hollow, he was rewarded with an “Out, fool. I need food.”

Before he left in search of carrion, or perhaps a lucky kill (he thought to himself), Bahr did his best to conceal the entrance to the cave. Kicking soil and dried leaves about, he avoided brushing against the rocks, wanting to leave no scent close to where Elha hid. He was conscious that she was weak and vulnerable, and needed to avoid attracting attention.

Instead, he pissed copiously on a tree nearby, and others further away, to show he was not far away, should any rival wolves come near. He then bounded off into the forest in search of food, anxious to return as quickly as possible. When he did return, having scavenged sufficient carrion to half-fill his belly, he was not sure how welcome he would be. He gave a low yip as he approached the den, which was answered with a half-welcoming whine.

Half in and half out of the burrow, Bahr extended his snout towards Elha enquiringly, to be greeted by a licking of first his muzzle and then his neck, until he reacted by barfing up the food he had just eaten, leaving himself nothing. He stood back a little as Elha began to lap at the slimy soup from the floor of the burrow. Half in and half out of the burrow, he wasn’t sure what to do next, but Elha was in no doubt.

“Out, dolt,” was all that was needed to confirm Bahr’s suspicion that his further presence was unwanted. So off he went, to commence the long night’s patrol around the burrow. Not so far that he was out of touch but not so near that he risked revealing the location of the hideaway. Passing close by the burrow’s entrance, Bahr could hear nothing and Elha made no attempt to confirm that all was well, also conscious of the need not to attract unwanted attention at this delicate and vulnerable time.

Bahr kept up the constant vigil and perpetual search for food. Mostly scavenging scraps, as few opportunities for a kill presented themselves. Most of the food that he was able to locate was provided to Elha, who remained in the burrow. Occasionally, she might emerge. Bahr, if he was close by, resting, would raise himself up, concerned, pace up towards his mate, head raised enquiringly. Elha might accept an embrace, or she would more likely bare her teeth, emitting a low growl: “Not now fool.” She would pad about and stretch her aching limbs and take a few lungfuls of clean, forest air, before re-entering the dark domain that had claimed her existence these past days and nights.

Not tonight. Not this night when the moon was high above the trees, its ghostly brilliance causing the droplets on leaf and grass to twinkly like the stars in the heavens. This night there was a difference. Not a difference that Bahr could see but one that he could feel, one that he could tell from the very different scent picture that came to him from Elha and from the burrow.

This night Elha, without warning, let out a great howl. Not a song, but a cry of pain, torn from her guts and exploding from her mouth. Concerned, Bahr pushed himself into the entrance to the den, taking in a very different scent picture and hearing the gasping breaths that Elha snatched between howls. Feeling Bahr enter the gloom of the den, Elha immediately issued a loud growl.

“Out, dog. Out! Out!” Bahr retreated, posting himself directly outside the entrance to the den, guarding Elha from the unfriendly forest. The howls continued and then ceased as abruptly as they had started. Bahr thought of nosing into the burrow again but thought better of it. Instead, he resumed his near-silent pacing, widening the perimeter of his guard patrol, pissing here and there to extend the immediate boundary and to be sure that any passer-by would be acutely aware of the ferocity of his name.

He kept his ears raised and his snout ever moving, giving him a growing picture of the scentscape around him. He could, as night progressed, pinpoint a herd in the distance, not that it would do him any good. There would be no chase tonight and what was the point chasing a herd alone from such distance? Instead, he kept his ears alert to any scratching and fidgeting from any one of the forest’s small creatures. Any that lacked care would find themselves snapped up by a hungry wolf, patrol or no patrol. One such small mammal, careless of where it was going on so dark a night, found itself grabbed and crushed by unseen jaws as Bahr, having sensed its scurrying, snapped it up without a thought.

Bahr felt no disquiet at the endless pacing. A wolf was used to walking the night through from hunting ground to hunting ground, or striding between marking places, ever on the scent-out for food. On and on he loped, taking his directions from the scent trail he had previously left, checking every position for the tell-tale sign of any stranger wolf that might be passing by. There were no other wolves making incursions into his territory, he was sure of that.

As he circled around the patrol route again, he realized he had approached near to the den and decided to take a closer listen and to check that all was well. He had to look carefully to see the entrance but could detect the scent easy enough. As he padded up to the burrow, he thought he could hear a strange kind of squealing and, moving up to the burrow, he could tell that Elha had again changed, looking worn and bedraggled. Seeing Bahr’s snout appear out of the gloom, she growled an emphatic “stay out.” Then, as Bahr retreated, she nipped him below the jaw.

“Food!” was all she said and, as Bahr’s shaggy head reappeared, uncertain, she licked at his lower jaw to make her meaning clear. For the second time, Bahr gave up the benefit of what would have been a meal to sustain him for a day or two. No pups appeared to share the sticky regurgitated mess, but Bahr knew they were there, given the profound change he could detect in Elha’s multiplicity of scents. They were no doubt buried deep and safe in their elfa’s fur and rooting for her milk.

The thought of pups feeding at the teat conjured forth in Bahr’s mind the enormity of what had happened. Before his eyes, images of his own elfa feeding pups, many pups, and then pups growing, weaning and being fed, in turn, by their ulfa and older siblings. Many pups, many wolves, a family, a pack. Elfa, the sounds and scents and images of the mother-leader. He had not seen his own elfa for many moons now and so the pictures before his mind of Elha as elfa moved him deeply. The pictures were comforting as they were inspiring, making him think of his own identity. No more a lone wolf, no more one wolf, not even ‘not-one’ wolf but one of many wolves. His mind’s eye pictured pups growing and joining the chase, ranging out across the forest and the plains. The pictures included Bahr the ulfa, Elha the elfa, ulfa and elfa leading their pack to the kill.

If Bahr expected any thanks from Elha for feeding her, he received none. Warned with a blood-curdling snarl not to come any closer and then dismissed with an insistent “more food,” Bahr returned to the patrol, this time with the added incentive of Elha’s unequivocal order, that she must have more food. With no real thought to his own painful hunger, Bahr became ever more alert to the sounds and scents of prey.

It was with this heightened sensitivity that he immediately picked up on a canine waft. No, not wolf but a no-wolf, one of the lesser canids, probably a fox, those bothersome creatures that stole food if they could but sometimes provided a kill to be claimed. He headed off along the scent trail, not bothering to silence his movements. The sooner these low-life creatures heard him, the sooner they would scamper off, tails between their legs, rather than risk facing his wrath. Or so he thought. As he arrived at the scene, he could see the mangy creatures still pulling at the recently killed carcass of some goat or other smallish victim. No doubt a lucky kill as foxes were no hunters.

“Impudence,” he snarled, as he sprinted towards the scene. “Sons of no-wolf, leave my food. I will tear out your throats and spit on you.” These ragged creatures could not, of course, understand any of what he was saying but the meaning of the howling, guttural snarl was clear enough. With a start, they all backed away except one which, attempting to tear off a portion of the meat, only just managed to escape the snap of Bahr’s jaw.

Chasing this one and that he was incensed at their reluctance to disperse. A quick bite out of one of their hindquarters left the others in no doubt what would happen if they remained, and so they all slunk off to a safe distance, hoping to return to finish off whatever the mighty wolf left behind. They would be disappointed as Bahr was not about to share his food with so lowly a bunch of scavengers.

As Bahr returned to the carcass, having seen off the interlopers, he saw that there were in fact two broken bodies before him. Both animals had been chewed about, with some meat already consumed, but there was plenty left. Now ravenous, Bahr paid no attention to his audience but set about to consume the whole of one carcass before grappling with the other. It was too much, and he did not want to chance staying longer, when there could be many bears about that might interfere with his current position as top dog.

With a resentful snarl he left what tattered fragments of meat remained on the first carcass and gripped the second in his jaw, lifting it bodily and carrying it off in the direction of the burrow, hardly noticing the waiting scavengers return to pick what they could from the remaining dismembered bones.

Returning to the den, Bahr did not wait to be invited this time but immediately barfed up the entire contents of his stomach, leaving the second carcass outside, having dragged and carried it all the way back, no doubt leaving ample scent trail for any who cared to follow. He would worry about that later. Having fed Elha, he was in dire need to feed himself and stay fed.

By now the Sun was high over the horizon. So that, when Bahr parked himself in front of the entrance to the Burrow, he could squint and close his eye to the warmth given off by the blessed bringer of daylight. It did not impede his feeding, as he took his time to pull apart and consume the remains of his prize. By the time he had finished, he doubted that he could have swallowed another morsel. Though if one presented itself, he would be duty bound to try.

As he rested himself in the late morning sunshine, a casual observer might be tempted to think that he was asleep, not attending of his watch. They would be wrong. Though Bahr’s eyes appeared to be closed, there were in fact open a tiny fraction, allowing enough of a sliver of light through, such that the slightest movement would not have gone undetected. Close attention to his ears would have shown that they were pointing straight up, alert for the tiniest sound. The snout, too, was extended, nostrils flared, breathing gently but sufficiently to pick up any trace of passing food or approaching danger.

Cerberus at the gates of Hades could not have been more watchful.

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Run with the Pack was published by Park Langley Editions in 2022. I will continue to post each chapter in turn here, as long as there is interest from readers. Please comment and/or like if you wish to read the next chapter.

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• Prologue: Farewell Dear Brother

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