The Dog Master (7 page)

Renne came to the cooking fire, trailing four children who were all just a little over three years old. Calli noted that recently Renne had taken to wearing her hair braided like Calli's, which was uncharacteristically bold for her. Renne was a nineteen-year-old orphan and therefore answered to the women's council, and many of the older members disapproved of the fancy braids. “What is Calli doing for the Kindred?” Renne asked.

“Cooking!” the children shouted in unison.

Renne and Calli exchanged a smile. Teaching the children was a task most of the women enjoyed, something they all shared. Renne, who was shorter than Calli despite being three years older, seemed especially to enjoy it.

“Now, who can show me their man's side hand?” Renne asked the children.

There was some confusion, but Calli, standing behind Renne, raised her right hand and eventually all of the children were waving their right hands in the air. “All is good, that is correct,” Renne beamed. She pointed off to her right, where the single men slept beneath their tents of skin, and the hunters gathered around their fire to discuss important matters. “And that is the men's side. Do children go to the men's side?”

“No!” the children chorused without guile. They all knew they were not supposed to visit their fathers over there, but they would all do so until they were old enough to understand.

“Now show me the woman's hand,” Renne instructed. Kidding, Calli held up her man's hand and the children laughed at her as they wildly thrust their left hands into the air. “That is correct.” The women's side was far more open—children ran in and out of the area. Only men were forbidden access.

Then Renne spread her arms to indicate the rest of the settlement. Behind her, a hill of rocks revealed some small caves, and in front of her, families had leaned skin-covered poles on boulders or had fashioned tents out of mammoth bones and animal hides. Unlike the relatively small men's and women's sides, the section in the middle, the communal area, spread from the hills to the stream. Anyone might wander in the communal area, though it was only polite to give family tents a buffer zone of privacy. “And this is for all the Kindred,” Renne pronounced. “From here to the stream. But should children ever try to cross the stream, take the stream path up water, from where the stream flows, or down water, to where it goes?”

“No,” the children ventured as one, but without the joyous enthusiasm. They knew why they should never enter those places: the Cohort was out there and would steal them away from their parents.

Renne and the children left just as Bellu joined Calli at the fire. “Is this it? Only two rabbits?” Bellu looked dubiously at the two small carcasses.

As fire maker for the Kindred, Bellu had probably the least arduous job of anyone—the communal fire burned perpetually, so that only when the tribe was on the move was there any actual “making.” She even had children assigned to fetch her kindling.

But, at age sixteen, Bellu was beautiful. Her legend told of a face so charming that grown men sang to her, and her formal name, “Her Face Brings Happiness to All with Its Beauty” was an apt appellation for a woman who had straight teeth, a face free of scars, flashing dark eyes, and symmetrical features. Her hair was thick and black and long, and she wore it free and flowing like a child. Like Calli, Bellu was eligible for marriage now—it was a topic they discussed frequently.

“I hope the hunt is successful,” Calli remarked. “Who is going?”

Bellu was an authority on the hunt because she had five brothers, but Calli already knew who was going; she just wanted Bellu to bring up Urs's name.

Bellu was frowning, her pink tongue in the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on scooping up a hot rock from the center of the fire using two sticks. She looked up at the question and the rock rolled back. “Here comes Albi,” she hissed.

Calli bent over, concentrating on stirring dinner.

“So,” Albi pronounced, her bulky shadow falling over the younger women as she dipped a dirty finger into the soup. She tasted it and made a face. “You cannot feed the hunt with this! You need more grass. Go fetch some.”

Calli and Bellu looked at each other. “My mother went to get…”

“I do not care what your mother said, I am telling you this needs more grass.” Albi thumped her thick stick on the ground. “Are you arguing? No. Then go.”

They went. When Calli glanced back, Albi was standing with her arms folded, glaring at them.

“I am so sick of grass,” Bellu muttered. “Where are the reindeer? Why is hunting so bad this year?”

“Why does Albi want us to leave the fire?” Calli wondered out loud.

*   *   *

The day after being fed by the man, the large she-wolf and her two lanky male companions followed their noses back to the pack and were instantly beset upon by the four pups who had been born that past spring. Clumsy and playful, the young pups tripped over themselves as they rushed to greet the returning hunters. When the pups sat and licked at the large she-wolf's mouth, she quietly regurgitated a meal for them, the taste reminding her of the human who had given her the meat. The males who had hunted and fed with her also obliged the wolf cubs. She watched approvingly as the little ones ate. She nosed the largest of the cubs, a male, and he responded with an uncoordinated lunge at her ears, pulling at her fur with his tiny teeth.

What she felt toward these pups, who were not hers, was not so much love, but a sense of prideful responsibility. The pack was strong, now. These new members added to that strength. They were healthy and were eating well. That was good.

She thought again of the source of the meat, the human. She had smelled the fear coming from him, but there had been something else underlying it, something oddly compelling. And his face: when it came to other species, wolves had no experience outside of prey and predator. Prey was always implacable—even a charging bull elk had cold, expressionless eyes behind his lowered antlers. Predators were more revealing, but wolves knew little from bear or lion other than aggression or fear. The human's face, however, throbbed with his strong emotions and the she-wolf actually
felt
them, even though she didn't understand them. When suddenly the meat came flying at them it carried, for the wolf, the same sense she had as when she just now brought up a meal for the pups. The human had been
providing.

The mother of the pups, the pack's dominant bitch, her teats now dry but still slightly distended, was approaching. The big she-wolf watched her, sensing an odd tension rippling through the wolves of the pack.

This was this particular wolf's first litter. The large she-wolf thought of the dominant female as Smoke, an association not built of words but of smell and taste. When the she-wolf and her siblings, as puppies, had been fed a regurgitated meal a year ago by this dominant wolf, it carried with it a tinge of the smoke that sometimes floated on the air near where humans gathered. Smoke had obviously eaten something burned, because the smell lingered on her breath and oozed from the pads of her feet for many days.

Smoke's approach alerted the rest of the pack because it was direct, her unwavering eyes focused on the large she-wolf, who knew she should grovel before the dominant bitch, but something stopped her. She held herself rigidly, tail slightly aloft, as Smoke sniffed her. She was risking punishment, but something compelled her not to yield. The rest of the pack grew even more agitated when Smoke put her head on the large she-wolf's shoulder, an aggressive move just shy of an attack.

As if her youth and unreadiness suddenly occurred to her, the she-wolf cringed instead of continuing her insolence. She dropped her tail until the tip of it brushed her own stomach, she whimpered and blinked her eyes rapidly, she licked Smoke's mouth.

Smoke's low growl and unwinking stare was all the punishment the dominant bitch chose to administer, this time. But the she-wolf's insulting lack of submission had been observed by all the wolves in the pack. Yes, she was young and inexperienced, but she was also huge, bigger than even the dominant male. She was healthy and strong.

A fight was coming, and the pack knew it.

 

SEVEN

Coco was waiting with her arms crossed for Calli and Bellu as the two young women returned with their arms full of new grass. “Where have you been?” she hissed furiously.

Coco was, in many ways, an older version of her daughter Calli. Both were slightly tall for women. Both had stocky legs and muscular buttocks, drawing men's eyes when they wore their shorter summer garments. Neither had Bellu's perfection, but they were still considered beautiful among the Kindred. Their eyes carried laughter more than fury, but not now: Bellu actually held back a few paces, cowed by the inexplicable rage on Coco's face.

“We…” Calli looked to Bellu for support, then down at the grass in her arms.

“Look!” Coco commanded. She thrust a finger at the flat rock by the fire on which the skinned rabbits lay. Calli stared, then exchanged horrified glances with Bellu. Only one carcass remained.

Bellu scanned the sky for the bird that might have done this, but Calli knew no bird would come in so close to a smoking fire. This had been a human, who had done this. One of the Kindred.

“You can never leave food unguarded during times of great hunger!” Coco scolded.

Bellu made a small whimpering noise. She was unaccustomed to anyone being angry at her. Coco ignored her—she remained focused on Calli, waiting for an explanation.

But Calli was looking over her mother's shoulder. Albi was approaching, leaning on her heavy stick.

“What is happening here?” Albi demanded.

Coco reluctantly explained that they were short a rabbit. Albi raised a furious finger and stabbed it at Calli. “You should have piled stones on the carcasses,” she raged. “Now we have even less to eat!”

Bellu looked close to tears, but Calli said nothing. She was staring at Albi, whose chin was shiny with a new, slick coat of grease.

*   *   *

Silex was at the front of a party of five other Wolfen hunters. They ran easily, keeping the wolves to their left, far enough away on the rolling plains that only their fur-covered backs were visible above the grasses, rippling like water flowing over rocks. The Wolfen hunters did not know where the pack was going, but the wolves ran in the single-file lope they usually employed when they were tracking game.

The Wolfen, mimicking their canine benefactors in all ways possible, also ran in a single-file line, but now Duro—a large, muscular hunter several years older than Silex—increased his speed until the two men were side by side.

“So you are to marry Ovi,” Duro grunted.

Silex glanced sideways at him. Duro's face seemed drawn into a permanent scowl, his dark eyes furrowed under a heavy brow. The ridge of bone at the base of his forehead was almost as thick and prominent as the facial features of Frightened Ones, the massively built but shy near-humans who always fled when they saw the Wolfen. Now, when Duro met his gaze, Silex felt that the other man seemed even more dour than usual.

“It was my father's final wish,” Silex reminded the other man neutrally. Several days had passed since they had buried the Wolfen leader, placing spearheads and some bear teeth in the hole with him. Since that time, Duro had been behaving petulantly, so Silex thought he knew where this conversation might be headed.

“Your father is dead.”

Silex increased the pace slightly, and the larger man followed suit. Silex prided himself on the light touch of his feet on the ground, so similar to the running wolf. Duro's footfalls fell more heavily.

“Ovi is a rounded woman. She has good breasts. She will be a fertile mother,” Duro panted.

Silex abruptly signaled a halt. The rest of the Wolfen reacted instantly, but Duro had been caught off guard and overran their position, returning sheepishly to rejoin the group.

“We have lost sight of the wolves,” Silex told his fellow hunters, who circled around him. He directed his men to travel in two groups of two and locate where the wolves had gone. Duro he would keep with him.

“So,” Silex said, looking up at Duro.

“Ovi is large boned. Like me. She is tall for a woman.” Duro put his hands on his hips, straining to speak without sounding breathless.

“This is true.”

“She has good breasts.”

“That does seem important to you,” Silex observed mildly. “You have said it before.”

Duro's scowl deepened. “You are not large and are not as strong as me.”

“Yet, my father chose me to lead the Wolfen, and it is I who have given tribute to the wolves.”

“Your father is dead.”

“You have said that before, too.”

“You are a boy. That is what matters,” Duro insisted. “In the wolf pack, the males will challenge to see which one mates with the largest female.”

Silex sighed. “You are forgetting that my father taught us that there are times when we cannot be exactly the same as our wolf benefactors. Would you vomit up your food to feed our young?”

“Your father,” Duro sneered.

“Is dead,” Silex interrupted. “Yes, I know.”

Simultaneously, both hunting parties returned. Silex could tell by their expressions that neither group had found the wolves, but the two young men on his right had found something else.

“Kindred,” they reported, pointing over some low hills. “Hunters.”

Silex considered this. The Kindred usually traveled in large parties, often with many times more men as the Wolfen.

“Well?” Duro taunted. “Do we run away? Or do we show the Kindred that the Wolfen fight when they trespass on our side of the river?”

The abrupt dare was so startling that, without context, the rest of the hunters could only gape at Duro. Silex, though, pretended the challenge was not at all obnoxious, giving his face a contemplative expression. “Of course we do neither,” he finally said carefully. “We do as the wolf would do. We observe them unseen while continuing the hunt.”