Wolf Winter

Chapter 15

Finally, the winter came. I was made one of the hunters; Lupin was made a guard and a hunter and Shadow was made a guard and hunter too. Lara wasn't made any of these - she became the youngest medic wolf that the Pack had ever had. In fact, we were all the youngest at our middle rank job, but I was the smallest. Holly hadn't been made any rank yet - she boasted to me, when she took the mick, that she was going to be the next beta of the Pack. However, she didn't go as far as attacking me; not after what happened between her and Lara; she carried a scar on her shoulder from where Lara had bitten her and now Lara was a medic wolf because of her lame paw. I was still angry but I thought better of fighting than I had first done. Holly had been hurt; that was good enough revenge for me. I still wanted to get Adeline herself though.

By the time of early winter frosts, it was bitter cold and the ground was often rock hard. The hunters, including me, were having a hard time finding any prey - even the little hares were missing. This was a huge problem; most of the pups in the nursery were becoming ill from lack of milk and the cold was getting into the nursery; leaving them at the mercy of the icy wind that blew in from the north. Most of the wolves were becoming more aggravated and fighting often broke out among the middle ranks over food. The kill pile was dwindling and we couldn't find any elk or small mammals to put on the pile. Me and Lupin were often perplexed - apparently, the Pack had never had a hard time finding food the last several winters of the past. I often asked Lupin to come hunting with me whenever we got the chance; we had to and not just for the other Pack members. Lara was becoming ill. The winter had only just begun for the entire Pack and we were already having problems.

Where the normal elk herds were, I didn't know. To save the rest of the hunter team's energy, I would go off on extra hunting patrols; using my abilities to use the environment to my advantage. I had discovered by then that I could climb trees and when I ran, I could bend my spine - making me run at high speed for a short distance. I also grew not very visible whiskers, helping me to pick up heartbeats of any small prey, my hearing grew better and my eyesight grew increasingly better and sharper. I could even see during the night clearly, if the moon was shining brightly out. But, no matter how much I strained all these abilities to find any prey, there never was any to hunt - not even the tiny snow mice underneath the snow were there. Lupin and Shadow would go out their way to help me find prey; in case something happened to me while I was out. I would try to tell them that they should go back to the team and rest; let me do what I could to help - but they never listened. It was a good thing that they came too. I was walking in the hunting grounds when Shadow shoved me out of the way of something - which stunned me but Lupin and Shadow were not at all stunned.

"Shadow! Why did you do that?!" I exclaimed getting up from the snow and shaking the wetness from the snow out of my fur. "Do you want me to become ill?!" He wasn't looking at me, smiling as if it were a joke - he was looking at the spot where I had gone to place my paw and his face was expressionless. Finally, he spoke when Lupin came back after she had gone the way we came to get a stick for some reason. She dropped the stick in the spot I had gone to tread and the snow erupted like a mini volcano. There was a loud snap and my ears perked as I saw half the stick drop to the snow, while the other half was stuck in this grey object. I looked up at Shadow and tilted my head.

"I just saved you from getting caught in a human trap and possibly getting shot." he murmured, nuzzling my neck, stepping carefully around the human trap. "If you had taken that step then you would've been caught in that trap and we wouldn't be able to get you out." Lupin nodded her head in grave agreement. I gave a soft gasp of shock - I had just been moved out the way of danger. I licked Shadow on the nose in a way of thanking him and I rubbed my head underneath Lupin's chin in a friend way as a way of thanking her too.

We continued on our search for food; anything would do by that time - mouse, rabbit even scraps from a grizzly bear would do. But, alas, there was nothing; not even the smell of an old carcass in the air. My whiskers didn't pick up any heartbeats, my ears didn't hear the sound of distant elk crys and I didn't see any elk in the distance. I was sure that we were in the elk hunting ground. Lupin didn't find anything except a dead weasel that had been frozen for a week by the look of it.

"That's all we can find here, Demi!" said Lupin, looking at the little weasel morsel. "If this is all we have to rely on, then the Pack is going to starve to death. Lara is becoming sick and we have already lost one pup from the nursery. If this keeps up, then we might have to move the entire Pack somewhere else."

"There's nowhere to  go, Lupin!" snapped Shadow in reply. "Most of the old wilds have been taken by humans and their strange shapes that they call home! The other Packs around here have taken every other available space for a territory. We need to get fresh kill and now!"

I watched them argue, silently. I had never seen them get so deep in an argument and I didn't know what to do. I was thinking - ever since I had ever arrived at the Pack, things had gone from peaceful to chaos in just a matter of months. Lupin looked at me as I began to walk away; sniffing the ground for even the faintest scent of elk. There was an elk scent and I barked in excitement. They soon put their noses to the ground and we all tracked the elk, following several elk scents. Suddenly, I picked up a different scent - not the scent of elk, or coyote or grizzly bear, not even a cougar scent - was that...wolf scent??

I lifted my head - the wolf scent was heading to another Pack's territory. Had another Pack been so low on food that they had stolen our Pack's elk herd for their own benefit? If that was the case, I needed to tell the Alphas about it and let them take the problem. However, what if it was just a trick - or a ploy? I must've had a confused look on my face because Lupin came over and poked me with her nose. It sent chills down my spine and I had to shake out my fur to get rid of them.

"What's got you all confused?" she asked, looking in the direction that I was. "You aren't thinking about going on another Pack's territory just to get some prey, are you? We aren't supposed to steal prey from any Pack - even though we may be forced to." Shadow came over to us and looked in the same way that we were. I wasn't thinking about the fact that we weren't not to steal prey from each other - I was thinking about the other Pack that had broken that rule. I sniffed the wolf scent again and I thought I recognized it; but I shrugged it off. Even though I hadn't seen her since her fight with Layla and the fact that she couldn't touch me since the deal she had agreed to, that didn't mean that she couldn't kill me without actually touching me. But the theory that another Pack had stolen our prey seemed more likely - you couldn't betray your own Pack just to kill one yearling...could you?

"We need to tell the Alphas," I concluded, turning back the way we had come. "I think another Pack has stolen our elk herd." Lupin and Shadow perked their ears- clearly they hadn't heard of something like this before. It did seem impossible. A pack couldn't take an entire  elk herd, surely?

We all ran back to the Pack; but the sight that met our eyes was horrifying - a fight had broken out among the apprentices. The wolf who had gotten in the wrong place at the wrong time; wasn't an apprentice either...