The savage wild

2. Saved by a cat

I don’t know for how long I stumbled along the trail I had set for myself. Only that I was dead tired and mentally blown. I still couldn’t comprehend the death of my mother and expected to find both my parents alive and well any moment now. But the moment was stretched out and never came, and I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry endlessly. Maybe untill the stars would fall around me and showered me in magic I so desperately needed. 

However, my own willpower and the voice of my father ordered me to go east and the order of an alpha was not easily ignored. Besides, my wolf was urging me to go forward because it wasn’t save to stay too long and the enemies back home could be searching for me. My wolf was mentally older than I was and I was already mentally older than most my age. Wolves always matured faster than human children. But I was still young, very young, and though my wolf was slightly older, she was just as lost as I was. She only knew to trust her instinct and the instinct told her to move on. To get as far away as possible. I couldn't help but agree. 

I wondered if the attack of our home had been random or planned. I had sensed a certain kind of tension in the air the last few weeks, but was oblivious to the seriousness of the case. My family must have known, because they all gathered together for a meeting. Or protection. In the end they all got slain though. I shivered. Remembering the bodies and the blood, the smell of death in the air and the agonizing screams. I accepted death as my wolf did, it being nature and the way of life. But it gnawed at me, remembering the pleasure in the glowing eyes of the one who’d slain my mother. It had been mindless death. Death with pleasure, not for need. It was wrong. But, the wolf reasoned, man were not like other animals. They defied the Law of the Wild and had their own. The cruel smile on the lips of my mother's murderer shot through my mind and I clenched my teeth together. Madness.

I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts and ran straight into a tree. My nose collided with it painfully and with a grunt I fell on my ass. I whimpered softly and gave up. I didn’t want to run anymore. I just wanted to sleep. The images of what I saw back home kept infiltrating my mind and the ache in my heart wouldn’t stop. Drip Drip Drip. Screams. Blood soaking the ground. My family was gone. Don't forget I love you. My father whispered. Then his head was cut from his body. The monster with the red glowing eyes slowly licking the blood from my father's neck. Keeping his eyes on me. I saw my mother lying beside my father. Her hand trembling as she stroked my father. Then she looked at me. Run. I opened my eyes and bit in my paw. Hoping the physical pain would help with the mental one.  

Deciding it was the best course of action, I curled myself into a ball underneath the base of the tree, ignored my wolf snarling in my head, and fell asleep while the eyes of my mother burning into my own while she was cut down and told me to run.

 With a start I woke up. The night was dead silent. No matter how much I strained my ears, I could not hear a sound. It scared me more than the shot of a gun would’ve. I slowly raised my body on my four legs and turned around, keeping the tree at my back. I surveyed my immediate area and scented for danger. I couldn’t detect anything, but still my senses told me that something was wrong. Very wrong. Red eyes glowing in the dark. My father's blood on his snout..

A menacing growl started in my throat, but I stayed silent.

Then I heard movement. My heart sank. It was some kind of large animal moving in the underbrush. Something I surely couldn’t fight. Nonetheless, I bared my teeth at the sound, standing my ground.

One large paw stepped out from the bush, then the other. The head came next. It was a werewolf. The one my father had faced the last time I saw him. It's red eyes were focused on me. The scent of blood ringed the air. I swallowed the whine in my throat and growled at the beast. Its head was the same length as my whole body. I remembered my father, how he had stood his ground when faced with this beast. I would not taint that image. 

Not surprisingly, the monster was badly injured; my father hadn’t gone down without a proper fight. It filled me with so much pride. I knew that it was futile for me to think I could win against him. I could only outsmart him. Maybe outrun him, because he was injured. That hope was very slim, seeing that he had already gained on me in one night anyway. But one would never succeed before he tried. 

So, deciding on the evasion, I turned tail and ran as quickly as I could. Behind me I heard the wolf growl and leap after me. Gaining at me in mere minutes. He slashed me across my back and I whimpered loudly. Burning pain traveled down my spine and I stumbled and fell. He was only playing with me. I snarled at him and crawled away from him. He silently stalked me and stood on my leg, breaking the tender bone. I whimpered uncontrollably, and tried to bite him. I succeeded and bit hard in his nose. He yelped and sprang back and I felt a short pang of satisfaction.

But I only managed to make him very angry. He bit down hard in my neck and threw me meters away, I banged against the base of a tree and slid down.

He snarled and came at me again, but suddenly something yellow flashed and a huge lynx was upon him. The lynx snarled savagely and clawed at the wolf. Making deep gashes in his back and neck. He bellowed, and tried to shake the lynx off, but didn’t succeed. He had come close to her young and she was savage in her protective rage.

The werewolf would have won normally if he hadn’t been so badly injured by my father, and I looked on with great satisfaction as the cat clawed his back open and bit down his neck, finding the vein that held his life. He yelped and sprang like a wild horse, but the lynx was brutal, and he soon bled to death. His huge body sagged and the flash of light turned him into human once again. This scared the lynx and she leapt away, no doubt going back to her young.

A werewolf who dies in wolf form always returns to human again. Otherwise people would come across wolfs larger than they had ever known, with blood cells different from the kind they had ever seen.

I looked upon the man who had killed my father, saw his grayish hair and thick eyebrows. He was ugly in the face of death and his own evilness and he smelled like madness. He was a rogue, no doubt. One of the rogue packs that had been moving around their territory the last few weeks. I resented him. Resented the Law of the Wild that he was not alive so I could claim vengeance on him when I was old enough. But I respected it anyway, otherwise I would be the one lying with my face planted in the ground. 

I gathered myself up and tried to stand on my right paw, which the dead rogue had broken. I yelped when I touched it to the ground and I didn’t try again. I limped to the right side, where I heard a small river flowing. There, I took a small sip of water, then lay myself down again. I tucked my head in and tried to ignore the pain, but I knew it was no use. I would die sooner or later. Most likely sooner. With this leg I could never arrive at the east pack, nor could I hunt or find food. I also couldn’t defend myself. Not that I was able to do that with both good legs anyway.

I could only wait. So waited I did. Even now, I still don’t know for what I exactly waited at that small river, with my back slashed open and my paw broken. Only that I had hope of some kind, and that hope was rewarded.