In the Shadow of the Oak

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Once, there had been the quiet, pulsing energy of plentiful grass and warm summer evenings. But now, the dragons had come. And that pulse had stuttered into nothing. An inescapable stillness.

Beneath clouds of gray, the wind swelled and contracted as it moved along a current of its own creation. Then, it struck a clump of rock high above the forest canopy and started to spiral downward. Red and orange leaves scattered as it passed, a shower of autumn for all to see.

Down the gently sloping mountain the wind moved. The pines ceded ground to the oaks as the current reached the foothills, and then it dipped again, moving through a valley hemmed in on all sides by thick copses of birch trees.

Everywhere the wind went, it felt the shudders of creatures moving in its wake and heard the skitters and squawks. But in the Valley, it felt nothing. Only the winding creek offered any reaction at all as it flowed faster over stones and roots. No birds fluffing their down against the chill, no mice scurrying toward their burrows, no deer shaking their heads in the breeze.

The wind did, however, pick up something as it rose out of the valley. The foul scent of rotting flesh between teeth and the rustling of unkempt fur resisting its smoothing touch. As the wind withered into a breeze and drifted away back toward the clouds, it carried this report for any wise enough to listen.

Back in the foothills, a lone buck lowered his head into the wind, shaking leaves from his antlers as another shower cascaded around him. He was half aware of his hooves moving one after the other, but to where, he could not say. All he knew was that focusing on the ahead removed any need to focus on the behind, and a rippling in his gut told him that safety lay in the same direction. Safety lies above, he thought, looking through the thinning tree canopies to where the land truly started to rise.

The sky had changed from dull gray to purple and orange as he paused to rest. Darkness would come soon, but Koru could not sleep yet. He knew only too well the fate that awaited any foolish enough to expose themselves to complacency and lethargy. The lowering sun brought the cold with it, too, but that was not the reason the whitetail buck shivered.

Instead, it was the sound the lowering sun brought with it that sent prickles down his hide. It started as a low moan, barely distinguishable from the leaves rustling in the breeze. Then it rose, gaining throats and volume, until it convulsed into a howl that carried across the land. How many made up the dirge, Koru could not say. The call of death, dozens of times repeated.

“They haven’t moved on…” Koru’s voice trailed off.

He had started speaking to himself these last few days, though he had spent many moons alone before now. Perhaps because he desperately wanted to hear something, but he had been raised not to voice lies.

It’s not your fault. The phrase pounded around his skull, seeking any exit point it could find. Yet Koru would not say it to himself. He didn’t deserve absolution. Besides, a different phrase emerged, strangling the other to whispers. She deserved it.

These two dueling notions followed him as he trekked up the slope, a word sounding in his mind with each hoof stamp. The oaks and the elms closed in around Koru, and gradually the wind slackened. At last, when the final spurts of energy drained from his heart and the voices quieted, he found a hollow formed by a fallen tree.

He nodded with a thin smile. It will do for the night.

***

Inside the Valley, two black nostrils flared, letting the wind carry its secrets through them. The familiar smells of decaying brush and drying leaves played their tune, but something lay among them.

A faint scent.

A warm scent.

Green eyes narrowed, but the breeze was weakening and the elder bush parted behind him.

“Jucco, the scouts have found another stash at the southern end of the Valley.”

Jucco snarled as his concentration dissolved, but he quickly lowered his lips as the words took hold. “Just as I told them.”

Tawn lowered his square muzzle. “Yes, but…”

“Out with it, Tawn.” Jucco could see the muscles tensing in the brown wolf’s shoulders. Preparing his escape.

“It’s rotten. Maggots cover the kill.”

Jucco growled. “That damn fool Lisha. I told her we should have waited to bury the kill until the ground turned colder.”

Tawn had already remained unusually long. “I shall go inform the scouts to seek out the next—”

“No, Tawn.” Jucco paced to the brown wolf’s right flank. “There are no more.”

“Then… what shall I tell them?”

Jucco turned toward the mountain. The rising moon had silhouetted the eastern slopes through the jagged branches of the bare trees. “Tell them it’s time we resumed our hunt. I was catching a scent just a moment ago, something familiar to our recent captures. It may be that we were not as thorough as I believed.”

After a moment, Jucco realized he hadn’t heard Tawn’s paws scampering off. He turned back around and found the messenger had sat. “There is something else?”

Tawn opened his mouth, then paused. “Something? No, someone…” Yellow eyes met Jucco’s, also unusual. “Some of the hunters are starting to whisper among themselves.”

Chuckling, Jucco flexed his paws. “Time for another challenge to my rule, is it?”

“No, Jucco.” The chief felt his smile dropping as Tawn’s eyes turned darker. “Some of them are saying that these rotted stashes are a sign. That we have brought plague down on ourselves for what we did here.”

“That it was against the way?”

Tawn nodded.

“Do you believe that as well, Tawn?” Jucco sat down himself. “You have no need to fear honesty.”

After a moment, the brown wolf spoke. “I have never much believed in the stories, but ever since we came to this place, the bounty we found at first seems to have vanished.”

“This is a natural occurrence. Winter is on its way.”

“Yes, but…” Tawn trailed off again. “I look around, and the Valley is not as it should be. The stream is drying out. The birds have left. The vermin have left. Only we remain. What if, after the thaw, life still does not return? What if we have upset the balance?”

Jucco shook his head. “If we were not meant to hunt, why would we have been given legs capable of great speed and teeth to reward that endurance?”

“We are meant to hunt, yes.” Tawn stood. “But are we meant to take more than that?”

Jucco felt his hackles raising, and Tawn lowered his neck. “You ask questions that are impossible to answer. We are not scholars, Tawn. You are a messenger. I am the leader. Go deliver the message I, the leader, have given you.”

But as Tawn’s matted pelt disappeared into the undergrowth, Jucco felt a new ripple in his stomach, something beyond the heat the scent of deer stoked. At first, his pack had taken what they needed, as was “the way.” All the while, Jucco’s ambition had realized something the rest of his kind seemed to fail to grasp: the pack tactics they used could be applied on a larger scale. Instead of a single kill, an entire herd.

This time, Jucco had set his green eyes on a valley teeming with deer, and it had worked better than any of them could have fathomed.

Yet Tawn’s words now stuck in his mind like ticks burrowed into his fur. After the hunt had concluded, they had been left with more meat than could be consumed. So they had buried it, a practice passed down from their ancestors. Yet their attempts to shield their catch from the insects and vermin seemed to have only given it away. Experienced buriers were confounded. The same dry, barren hillsides they had learned to seek out were crawling with worms when they returned. Worms, in places of no moisture and little decay.

Jucco growled at the thought. Sometimes, he swore the world itself challenged him. But he had learned to never back down. His father’s words returned to him. Doubt leads to hesitation. When you pause too long, you open yourself to attack.

A new wind funneled down the Valley, and Jucco felt his stomach calming. Yes, the pack had sat too long in this place. If his pack were cursed, then why were they presented with the opportunity of a new catch the moment their hearts needed it most? He sniffed the air again, and now he knew for certain. A howl lifted through the Valley.

***

For more woodland tales, check out Lurking Shadows