The Dog Master (6 page)

“But someday,” Calli argued. “Is it not a natural progression, from spear master to hunt master?”

“Well maybe.”

“You should be hunt master,” Calli declared glowingly.

Urs allowed himself a small smile, and Calli felt her affections for him soar. A thought he had apparently entertained only in his mind was revealing itself to her in that smile.

“What would you do, as hunt master?” Calli probed.

Urs looked at her eagerly. “We need to send the stalkers back out. That is what they are for. They split from the hunt and search for prey and then return to tell the spearmen. It is how the Kindred have always hunted.”

“I do not understand what you are saying. ‘Back out'?”

Urs's expression turned grim. “We know that the stalkers who vanished two summers ago were taken by the Valley Cohort. Hardy is afraid to send anyone out, now. We stay together as a group. When we do manage to spear prey, Hardy releases the stalkers to pursue and club the animal, but only as a full body of men.”

“That makes sense to me.” Calli nodded. “If the Cohort is out there, we should not risk another encounter.”

“You are telling me how to hunt?” Urs's eyebrows were arched.

Calli regarded him, reading his defensive reaction perfectly. “I am not telling you, Urs. Of course you know better,” she placated. “I am just saying I am afraid of the Cohort.”

“Hunting is not going well. We need to send the men out to stalk.”

“Do the men of the hunt agree with you?”

“Some do. Most do. But Hardy says it is not worth the risk.”

“The women's council has its own disagreements,” Calli said after a pause. “Everyone despises Albi as council mother. We all wish we had an excuse to vote her out.”

“Really?” Urs stopped and stared at her. “Because that would solve everything.”

“I am not sure I understand,” Calli replied slowly.

“You must come up with a way to get the council to get rid of Albi as council mother. Elect someone reasonable, someone who will endorse our marriage.”

Urs's expression was so optimistic that Calli wanted to hug him. “Oh Urs, for men it is all so simple: if it is hunt business, any member of the hunt can raise an issue.”

“Well, the hunt master is the decider,” Urs corrected.

“Yes, but anyone can pronounce their opinion without fear of retribution. The women's council, though, is … hushed. Albi's job is to put to voice our consensus, but often she suppresses discussion. You think that if a majority of women want Albi out, she would be out. I understand that is how it might work for the hunt, but for us that is so, so far from the case. You just do not understand about Albi,” Calli said sadly.

“Understand what?” came a loud voice from behind them. They turned, startled, and there, of course, her hands on her hips and a suspicious scowl on her face, was Albi.

Year Nineteen

The big mother-wolf opened her eyes and suspiciously regarded the man who had been feeding her. He was approaching her at a crawl. There was fear on his breath and an earthen smell, wet and pungent, coming from his hands. The animal skin he carried, into which he often reached for food to give her, lent a delicious aroma of freshly killed meat to the mixture.

He halted near to her, so near that with a single lunge she could close her jaws on his throat. And, for a moment, her instincts told her to do this, to protect her pups from this human's encroachment. She drew her lips back from her teeth and the man inhaled audibly, frozen in place.

After a time, though, the mother-wolf's alarm receded. When he resumed his motion, she did not react, but just regarded him drowsily as he made his sounds.

“This is the mud mixture we use to prevent fester in our wounds. If we put it on the cuts from the lion, you will heal. So I must touch you to apply it. It will not hurt you. It is for your good and the good of your young.”

The mother-wolf put her head down with a sigh. The battle within her, instincts warring with her willingness to trust this human who brought her food, wearied her. She was conscious of him moving slowly behind her, approaching her tail end.

She came alert when he lifted the flap of animal skin and the scent of food flooded the air. “All is good. I am doing this now.” A piece of meat landed by her head and she greedily snatched it up.

When she felt his hands touch her, a low growl rumbled in her chest. Her pups stirred nervously. A wet and cool sensation caressed her wounds, and another piece of meat landed nearby.

She growled again, putting more warning into it, staring at the man in the gloom.

“Just a little bit more.”

She snarled, snapping at the air, twisting toward him. He scrambled back. “All is good, all is good.”

She regarded him for a moment, her pups squalling for their mother, the smell of meat dancing on the air. Her muscles tensed, she could feel her attack building, ready to be released.

When he threw another piece of meat to her, she connected the feeding to the man and his presence in the den and it altered her reaction. She turned from him and ate the offering.

Year One

The Wolfen were a nomadic people, living like the wandering wolves who led them to prey. But just as the wolves had a gathering site where they went to howl and play, the Wolfen returned from hunting to the same spot along the riverbanks, a defensible space where their young were safe.

Silex ran most of the way home, his back muscles knotted in tension, as if the Kindred spearman were still taking aim at him. Only when he smelled his tribe's fires did he manage to relax.

The mood was gloomy when he arrived in camp, people nodding solemnly in greeting—it was a somber time for the Wolfen. “Your father wishes to speak to you,” his childhood friend, Brach, informed Silex in quiet tones.

“Any better?”

Brach shook his head grimly. As was true of all the northern creeds, the eyes of the People of the Wolf were dark, their hair black and kept shiny with the tree sap they used to keep it out of their way. But the Wolfen were differentiated by their slight builds and sinewy legs—because they ran everywhere, they tended toward lithe bodies.

Silex's father lay by the fire. He was stripped of all but a single fox fur tossed across his lap. His right leg was black at the ankle where he had snapped it in the rocks, and scarlet streaks tracked up the leg toward his groin. He was panting, his face dotted with perspiration.

“Father?”

For a moment Silex saw nothing but a wildness in his father's eyes, and then the look focused. “Silex. You are back,” the older man greeted, his voice strained.

“I paid tribute. A she-wolf looked me right in the face, stared in my eyes. She was enormous, and had what appeared to be a human handprint on her forehead.”

The older man grunted. “Perhaps there is a message for me in that. I am afraid my fever will take me soon. I am cold and then hot.”

“You are sitting close to the fire. That might be why you are sweating.”

Silex had to glance away from his father's angry glare. “It does not provide me any comfort to be lied to,” his father chided. “We both know what is happening.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I am glad you are back. I have asked Duro to gather everyone by the center fire. I will speak my wishes for the Wolfen, and my wishes will be obeyed.”

Silex briefly closed his eyes. “Of course,” he murmured, but he dreaded what was coming.

“Listen to me now. When I am gone, you will be the dominant male of the Wolfen. You will marry Ovi, the dominant female, and have my grandchildren. This is how it is done among the wolves—the superior mating pair produces the best offspring, whatever the families they come from. This means one of your sons, my grandson, will go on to lead from there.”

Silex drew in a breath. “Father. About Ovi. I … I love someone else, Father. Fia. I love Fia, and would marry her instead.”

His father struggled to a sitting position. “No, you will do what I say,” he said dismissively. “You are lucky to even have a wife. Though recent births have given us daughters, the long period where only boys survived childhood means we now have far more single men than women.” He gave Silex a contemplative look. “I should have anticipated the problem, but for so long I was only thinking how good it was to have so many hunters. Now this is something
you
will have to solve. You might want to consider raiding another clan and taking some females.”

Silex was shocked. “The Wolfen are not like the Cohort. We do not steal
people.
”

“Well. You may find your ideals do not suit the demands of leadership.” He motioned to Silex to help him walk, and Silex took his father's weight on his shoulder as they limped down to where all the Wolfen adults were gathered by the fire. Silex glanced around for Fia, hoping to spot her, but he did not find her eyes. Instead, he saw Ovi, who stood gazing sadly into the flames.

“We are Wolfen,” Silex's father began when he had everyone's respectful attention. “We follow the ways of the wolf. We run when other creeds walk, so that no man can keep up with us. And we are led by a dominant male because that is what is best.” He coughed, looking dizzy, and Silex almost staggered with the change in weight. “My leg is turning to poison and I have a fever that will not pass. I will not live for many more days,” he continued. “When I am gone, my son Silex will be your leader.” He glared, waiting for an objection, but there was none. “And he will marry Ovi.”

Silex glanced over and met Ovi's eyes. She was three years older, her body rounded and her face pretty, though it was grave now as she stared back at Silex.

“They will have strong children.” This last pronouncement seemed to take everything out of the old man, and he sagged against his son. If anyone was going to challenge these pronouncements, now would be the time, when their leader was faltering and weak.

No one said anything. No one defied him. Not any of the Wolfen men who might resent being led by a sixteen-year-old boy. Not Ovi, who probably had not known of the marriage plan until this moment. Not even Silex, who loved a girl named Fia but now, instead, was fated to marry Ovi.

Ovi, his sister.

 

SIX

Most little children of the Kindred were frightened of Albi. She was big boned for a woman and had the same odd pale-eyed coloring as her son Palloc, though Albi had lived for more than three tens' worth of summers and had a weathered, blotchy face to show for it. She had stopped tying her hair back when her husband was killed by a mammoth, so it was a long, tangled mess. Once a lighter shade of brown, it was increasingly wispy with grey. It gave her a wild, nearly savage look.

Albi had recently taken to walking with a straight, stout tree branch, thumping it on the ground for emphasis when she was speaking. She had it with her now and was leaning on it, glaring at Calli and Urs with her strange eyes narrowed.

“You said ‘understand about Albi.' Understand what?” Albi demanded to know.

Calli kept her feelings hidden but when she glanced at Urs everything was revealed on his face: their secret afternoon, their forbidden vows, their heretical ideas of marriage. “Urs feels your son is too bossy as spear master,” Calli blurted. Nothing less than a shameful admission would explain Urs's guilty expression. “He wanted me to ask you to talk to Palloc about it, but I was saying you would never interfere with the hunt.”

Albi sneered. “That is right. Why do you run to me? Perhaps Palloc deals with you sternly because though you are offensively tall, inside you are a small, cowardly child.”

Urs's lips twitched with his anger. Calli turned so that she faced him full on, her back to Albi. Her eyes pleaded with Urs even as she said, “So there is your answer. You should speak to Hardy the hunt master if you have issues with Palloc.”

Calli bit her lip, watching Urs struggle with the insult. Then he locked his eyes on hers and her heart filled with affection. He understood what she was doing. “I must go now and help prepare for the hunt,” he said stiffly.

“I suppose you should,” Albi responded mockingly. Calli sighed in silent relief when Urs turned away.

“Calli Umbra. That is not what you were talking about. You cannot fool me.”

“I do not know what you mean, Council Mother,” Calli responded lightly.

“You do not want to defy me, girl of mists and shadows.”

“I'm sorry, old woman whose colors are the palest shades of white,” Calli answered gravely, mocking Albi's formal name. The two of them locked eyes, and it was Albi who looked away first.

*   *   *

Food was scarce for the Kindred that summer. In the days after Urs and Calli encountered the fleeing Wolfen, hunt master Hardy took the hunt out often, frustrating the couple's plans to be together in their special place. Every moment he was gone, Calli felt as if her arms ached with a special, empty lack.

On this day, the hunt was back at camp, but were assembled on the men's side of the settlement. Calli could see Urs's back as he crouched in the circle with other men, and she stared at him, willing him to glance up at her and give her that shiver when their eyes met. But he did not.

Cook fires smoldered around the settlement, but nothing was cooking. When there was so little to eat, the Kindred pooled their meager resources, and it was up to Calli and Coco, Calli's mother, to stretch their meals so that all might feed.

Coco had gone to dig for some tender roots to add to their meal. Into the hollow of an enormous log, Calli had poured water, added grass, and was now carefully shredding a small bird that had been roasted over the coals. Other than the bird, they had two recently skinned rabbits, and that was it—scarce protein for the entire Kindred, which at more than forty members was the largest of the northern creeds. Calli would strip the rabbit meat and then pound the bones to fragments and add them to the soup. The men of the hunt would feed first, of course, which meant the children and women would lie hungry in their sleep.