Secrets of the Wolves (33 page)

I believed him. I had never seen an auroch up close before. They were nearly as tall as the elkryn and broader bodied with thick, shaggy fur that kept them warm even in the coldest days of winter. Their shoulders were huge, and hard muscles bunched up underneath their dark fur. Their eyes moved restlessly in their faces. Torell had not exaggerated the length and sharpness of their horns, which curved out from their heads and gleamed in the sunlight. The aurochs looked formidable even as they grazed. I had hunted elkryn, snow deer, and horses, but I shivered at the thought of being gored by those sharp auroch horns. Torell had insisted that I sleep for several hours before we began the long run to the auroch feeding grounds, even though that meant we would have to hunt them in the daylight. So I was rested. But I was still nervous about my ability to hunt the great beasts.

“So how do you make them angry without getting killed?” Ázzuen asked. He was trying to sound nonchalant, but his ribs were heaving and his breath came in quick pants.

“You’re about to find out,” Torell answered. “You don’t learn to hunt aurochs by watching.”

I jerked my head up to stare at him. Ruuqo and Rissa always made us watch them hunt new prey before allowing us to take part in the hunt. Torell ignored my surprise.

“You’re the fastest,” he said to Marra. “You go with Pell. The two of you will be the ones to anger the auroch.” Marra blinked at him a few times, then dipped her head.

“You two will be with me,” Torell said to me and to Ázzuen. “Ceela and Arrun will wait and come to our aid if needed.”

He trotted out onto the plain as calmly as if he were hunting rabbits and voles. Ázzuen, Marra, and Pell followed. I looked at Tlitoo, who was busily stripping bark from a twig.

“Are you coming?” I asked him.

“I am not stupid, wolflet,” he said. He flipped his wings at me and flew to the low branch of a pine. I saw Jlela there waiting for him. Jlela ran her beak through Tlitoo’s back feathers, and then both ravens flew to the higher branches of the tree. I peered up into the branches, trying to see them but could not. I followed Torell and the others onto the plain. They were all waiting for me, standing in a small group and watching the aurochs.

“In auroch hunting,” Torell said when I reached him, “you don’t necessarily find the weakest beast, as you do with other prey. You seek the ones that react most strongly to your presence.”

They all seemed to react to us. Their eyes followed us suspiciously as we moved among them. A beast standing right next to me shook its head sharply. I leapt nearly a full wolflength off the ground and scrambled away from it. All four wolves just looked at me.

“It’s just getting rid of flies,” Pell said kindly. I felt like an idiot.

“What do we do once we select one?” I asked Torell, trying to make up for my cowardice.

He didn’t answer. His head was lowered, and he was staring an auroch full in the face, his jaws open to reveal all of his sharp teeth. The beast met his gaze and scraped its hoof in the dirt. I hadn’t noticed before, but even their hooves were sharp and dangerous. I wondered if it would speak to us as the elkryn did, but it just blew a great gust of air from its nose.

“This one,” Torell said, his voice a whispered growl. His eyes flicked quickly over to Pell, who butted Marra’s shoulder and trotted to the other side of the beast’s head.

“When it gets angry, it forgets to look from side to side,” Torell whispered to me. “Remember that.” His bared teeth opened in a wide grin, and the scent of excitement rose from him. He was enjoying himself.

“Now!” he barked.

Pell and Marra darted in at the auroch, stopping just short of its face and snapping at it. Then they dodged out of its way. They ran back in, snapping their teeth together even closer to its face, causing the beast to shake its head back and forth. Then it whipped its head to stare at Torell, Ázzuen, and me. I noticed that it turned its whole body to look behind itself. As soon as it turned away from them, Pell and Marra darted in, biting at its flank.

My fear did not abate, but the thrill of the hunt began to rise in me. The scent of the beast filled me, and suddenly it was no longer just an auroch: it was prey. A moment before it had seemed invulnerable. Now, as it whipped its head back and forth and turned its bulk from Marra and Pell to us and back again, I knew it was ours.

The next time they darted in at the auroch, Marra nipped at its ear and Pell actually took its jowls in his mouth. Pell certainly didn’t need anyone’s help hunting. His gait was uneven as he dodged in and out of the way of the auroch’s horns, but he was as quick and agile as Marra. The auroch shook them off, then stood perfectly still staring at them, his breath shallow. Then his head began to swing back and forth. Pell barked softly to Marra, and the two of them leapt at the same time, slamming into the auroch’s head, then leaping away and running. The auroch bellowed in rage and took off after them, its deadly horns aimed at their soft bodies.

The instant it began to run, the three of us were upon it. My fear became irrelevant as the beast tried to kill my packmates. For in the hunt, Pell had become my packmate every bit as much as Marra and Ázzuen were. I didn’t need to watch for Torell’s signal. He, Ázzuen, and I leapt almost simultaneously upon the auroch’s rump. I bit down hard through its thick hide. The taste of its flesh flooded the back of my throat, and a growl of hunger and greed rose up in me.

Infuriated, the auroch turned on us, kicking up its back legs and throwing all three of us off its back. We sprinted away in three different directions. Confused, it stood and scraped its hoof over and over again in the dirt. Pell growled, and it turned to look at him. I darted forward, diving under its belly, just as I had when Torell was teaching us how to fight. The Stone Peak leader woofed encouragement to me as the auroch tried to turn its large body around quickly enough to catch me. As it did so, Ázzuen followed me under its belly as Pell and Marra leapt upon its rump. They bit into the beast. Hard.

I had never seen a creature so enraged. It kicked and bucked and screamed and tried to attack. But it didn’t do so intelligently. It was so angry it just swung its head side to side and jumped full in the air, trying to gore whichever wolf was closest.

“Together!” Torell shouted. It was the agreed-upon command for all of us to jump at once at the beast. I was near its neck and balanced on my hind legs to lean upon it and sink my teeth into the soft underpart of its throat. I was overconfident. Pell woofed a warning as the auroch swung its head around. It seemed as if it barely turned its head, but when the side of one of its horns caught me, the force of the blow slammed me to the ground. Stunned, gasping for breath, I found myself lying on the ground, looking up at its head and the sharp horn bearing down on me. There was nowhere to run. Just as the furious beast lowered its head to gore me, two wolves slammed into its head, Ázzuen and Pell leaping at the same time, slamming into each other as they collided with the auroch. I heard a scream of agony. Terrified, I leapt up, wondering which wolf had been gored. But it was the auroch screaming, screaming as Torell and Marra bit into its belly. Arrun and Ceela, unable to sit on the side any longer, pelted across the field, jumping on the auroch’s hindquarters and tearing into it. I leapt at the upper part of one of its legs, which was still kicking and threatening to hurt a packmate. Then the hunt frenzy overtook me. Blood, warm flesh, a thrashing prey giving up its life to us. We tore at it until its legs stopped kicking and it gave a deep groan. Pell yowled in triumph and tackled me, rolling me in the dirt in celebration. Then he licked the top of my head and let me up. Gasping, my heart pounding, I got to my paws and looked at the auroch, dead now, its horns no longer a threat, transformed in an instant from a dangerous beast into good meat. We had done that. We had killed an auroch.

Ázzuen figured out how to make the auroch hunt work with the humans.

“They use their two kinds of sharpsticks differently,” he explained as we made our way to NiaLi’s shelter. Now that we had accepted Torell’s offer and knew how to hunt aurochs, we had to tell NiaLi so she could tell TaLi. It would be up to the girl to get the humans to come to the auroch grazing grounds.

“The humans use the thicker sharpsticks, the spears, when they are closer to prey. The lighter sharpsticks are used with the throwers. They have different kinds of blades, too.”

The blades were sharpened rocks, antlers or bones that the humans attached to the ends of the sticks to make them sharp and deadly.

“And different humans are better with different ones,” Marra added. “MikLan told me that he’s still not quite strong enough to use the spears, but he can use the throwing sticks. The Lan tribe doesn’t let their young use the spears against large prey until they are full grown.” Marra had obviously been spending a lot more time with the Lan tribe than she admitted. I had noticed the difference between the two kinds of sharpsticks but hadn’t paid much attention. Now that Ázzuen and Marra mentioned it, though, I remembered that TaLi had used the throwing stick against the elkryn she had helped kill at the Tall Grass battle and one of the spears to kill a rabbit.

“So some of the humans can throw sharpsticks at it from a distance and others can help us up close to the prey,” Ázzuen concluded. “We just have to watch which humans are best with each kind of sharpstick and drive the prey to them based on that.”

I was glad Ázzuen had figured it out. Now we just had to get the humans to follow us to the aurochs. We reached NiaLi’s shelter, and Trevegg came out to greet us. “She’s waiting for you,” he said, and led us inside.

“I
told
you the prey was gone,” TaLi said, her arms folded over her chest. It was almost a full day since I’d awoken from my journey to the Inejalun and three days since we’d seen the Greatwolves chasing the prey. Half of HuLin’s runners had returned from their search to tell of missing horses, elk, and deer.

“You’d better not take that tone with HuLin,” RinaLi said. She and TaLi were standing next to the herb structure, glaring at each other. Ázzuen and I sat beside TaLi while Marra hid in the bushes surrounding the village. RinaLi had her hands on her hips as she glowered at the girl.

“I’m not stupid,” TaLi said to her aunt. “But the sooner he accepts me as krianan, the less time we’ll waste.”

“Don’t even think of telling him that,” RinaLi snapped. She stopped speaking abruptly as HuLin, two other males, and KiLi strode over to them.

“How did you know about the prey, TaLi?” HuLin demanded. “How could you possibly know?”

“It’s my task to know,” she responded, her voice respectful. I was impressed that she could change her manner so quickly. One instant she was angry and forceful, and the next she was diffident and respectful. She would have made a good wolf. “It’s the krianan’s role to listen to the messages the world around us shares.”

HuLin grunted rudely at that. “We found some giant elk east of the Dry Hills,” he said. “Giant elk” was the humans’ name for the elkryn. “Aln tribe is hunting them. We may have to fight for them. The aurochs are feeding in the Western Plains, but we’re less likely to be able to hunt them. It’s too close to their mating time, and they’ll be aggressive.”

It was the opening TaLi had been waiting for.

“We can hunt the aurochs with the wolves.” She placed her hand on my head, and I stood.

“Have you done so before?” KiLi asked, concerned. I walked over and licked her hand; she was a friend to TaLi and I wanted her to know that meant she was my friend as well. Startled, she hesitantly stroked my neck. I licked her hand again and returned to TaLi.

“I know that we can hunt them,” TaLi said, deliberately not answering KiLi’s question. We hadn’t hunted aurochs together yet, a fact that concerned me more than I would admit even to Ázzuen. “And I can take you to the ones that will most easily fall to our spears.”

The other humans were silent, considering her words.

“She was right about the prey being gone, HuLin,” KiLi said.

“It’s almost a half-day’s journey to the Western Plains,” one of the males complained, “and it’s almost dark. The giant elk are closer. And less dangerous.”