The Wolf's Boy Read online

  My way was blocked by a gullet of blackness. With the tip of my stick, I felt for the opposite rim. I could just reach it. Sen might have jumped across. How deep? I held out my torch, but could not see the bottom. On the far side, I made out a ledge. That was all. I could go no farther.

  Then there was a low growl. My heart crashed against my ribs—just Uff rumbling deep in her throat. I moved the torch slowly. Shadows lurched on the stone walls and rock over our heads. She was sniffing something at my feet. More tracks. I bent to see. Cave bear again, but different. These did not shine in the light. I touched one. It was not coated in stone ice. The floor of the cave was soft clay here, the track pressed into it.

  Fresh tracks from a bear that was hot and alive. My mouth went dry. I was afraid to move. But surely it was too late in the season for a bear to be here in the cave?

  I tried to still my breathing, to listen….I opened my mouth, sniffed, trying to scent anything, tried even with my skin to feel movement in the air. Nothing.

  I began backtracking. It was not hard to follow my own trail: the clear print of my right foot, the muddled shape left by the bad one, the pockmarks of stick and keerta shaft, the occasional smudge of my torch on the wall. Uff’s tracks wandered some, but they were there, too. Through the gut, the great painted belly with the horses and lions. Ahead was the narrow shaft where we had entered. I could see a slant of sunlight now, smell fresh air.

  We had just passed back through the great stone teeth when the cave exploded into roaring—all around, echoing, battering us with sound.

  Rocks and gravel grinding, spewing, hitting my skin. Claws scrambling. A huge body plunging toward us in the dark. Uff roared too, in fury and terror. Frantically, I swept the torch before me, behind, left, right.

  There! The glitter of eyes, flash of teeth, gaping mouth making that sound—the bear stood on its hind legs, twice the height of a man. The sliver of daylight behind it winked out. It blocked the cave entrance.

  I turned and stumbled back into the mouth of the stone beast, the bear roaring after me. The pit lay ahead. I wavered. Trapped.

  I had two choices: death or death.

  The pit.

  The bear.

  My mind wandered sideways. There had to be something.

  The pit was not wide, but I could not leap across it. There had to be another way. My keerta? Lay it across? No—not strong enough. My stick? Would it reach?

  Behind me, the bear reared to its full height again. Uff snaked at it—furious, crazed. “NAH!” I screamed at her. She would not listen. But she gave me time. Again and again, she lunged at the bear, writhing away as it slapped at her with its great paws. The roaring filled my ears, my body. My teeth clenched. Light and shadow leaping, plunging. A crevice in the wall. I jammed the butt of my torch into it. The fire might keep the bear back a few heartbeats longer.

  If there was any way to save Uff, I would need my keerta. Carefully, I tossed it over onto the ledge. It slid back toward the pit, then came to rest against a rock. I crouched and reached for the opposite rim with the tip of my stick. Tal, make it reach! It slipped and banged down against stone in the darkness below. I tried again. And again, finally hitting a notch between two rocks.

  I lowered my body into the blackness. I hung for a moment, felt pain where my arm had been broken. I gritted my teeth. Breathed. Not far, just one hand over the other, and one more…I pulled myself across to the opposite ledge.

  Grabbing my keerta, I stood. There was barely room on the ledge to brace my feet and draw my arm back. Uff was between me and the bear. There was no way to save her. But then, she moved sideways. I saw where the keerta would hit the bear’s heart.

  I threw.

  The bear staggered, raged. My keerta had pierced its chest.

  It slammed a paw into my wolf’s side and flung her away, back into the dark. Then the beast fell forward. Crashed against the torch, sending the knot of juniper end over end into the pit. The light flared down. A pause. Faint splash and hiss. Then blackness.

  Silence.

  Blackness and silence.

  It was as if my eyes and ears were gone. Something whimpered. Not my wolf—it was me. I took a shaky breath.

  “Uff!”

  Nothing.

  She couldn’t be alive. She could not be battered like that and live.

  I was frozen.

  But all things try to live.

  I knelt, feeling for the edge. There. The tip of my stick jammed between the two rocks. If it came loose, I might as well leap into the pit after it. My hands were slippery with sweat. I dried them on the front of my anooka. Very carefully, I grasped the stick and lowered myself off the ledge.

  My muscles shook. Pain stabbed my arm. One hand. The next. Hanging in blackness. Suddenly, my weak hand slipped. I clung for a moment by the other. A vision came into my mind of the beasts on the walls of the cave. Their life. Their power.

  I made the weak hand grasp the stick again. Pain seared my bones. I reached out once more and grabbed with the strong hand. I scrabbled with my good foot, found a jutting rock, and dragged myself out.

  I did not move for a very long time, huddled on the cave floor, shaking.

  Then I heard something coming toward me in the dark. I fumbled for my blade. Pulled it from its sheath. The scrambling of claws on stone.

  Something cold and wet against my hand. I flinched back, ready to strike blindly. Then I heard her whimper. “Oh, Uff!”

  Cradling her against my chest, I buried my face in her thick fur. I felt her all over. She was bleeding from her shoulder, but she was alive.

  I crawled a safer distance from the pit and pulled myself upright. I heard Uff sniffing, moved a few steps, and nearly fell over the great bulk of the bear. Already the body under the dense fur was cooling and stiffening. I had killed it. I felt my keerta sticking out from the bear’s chest and wrenched it free.

  In the blackness, I found Uff again. She trembled. How badly was she hurt? We needed to get out. Now.

  “You can see with your nose,” I said, taking hold of her tail. My voice cracked like an old man’s. I took a deep breath. “You must lead us out now.”

  The light was blinding.

  I pulled myself out through the opening behind Uff and stood up. I raised my keerta to the sky. “Tal, see me!” I cried. My voice echoed from the cliffs. “I am a blood-hunter of the People. I am a man!” Tears streamed down my face. I was not ashamed. I let them flow.

  Crouching now, I tended Uff’s wound as best I could. She had lain down as soon as she came out of the cave. She whimpered as I gently pulled aside the thick fur, matted with blood, to see where the bear had struck her. I sucked in my breath. I could see white bone under the torn muscle and seeping blood.

  I had to stop the bleeding. Removing my anooka, I peeled off my desu and bound it over my wolf’s shoulder.

  I shrugged my pack on again. Then I hoisted her across my shoulders and, with keerta and stick in my left hand, gripping her legs with my right, I got to my feet. She cried out once, but did not—could not—struggle. She let me carry her like killed game. But she was not dead.

  It was too long a walk back to Oooni’s cave. She could bleed to death before I got her there. Tal had brought me this far. “Tal,” I shouted now. “Show me!”

  There had to be a sheltered place nearby. I stumbled down the path under the cliff face, back to the river, and turned upstream once more. Hurry. I passed a place where the land sloped down from the high country. I could see a path worn by hooves. A skull with antlers gnawed away by the small things that chew antler. A reindeer crossing.

  I could build a brush takka beside the river, but the wind was whistling down from the cliffs. The night would be cold, and there could be other bears. On each side of me now, the cliffs rose again. Tal, please! If you have ever been with me at all, hear me now! She will die if I don’t find a place soon!

  I saw several hollows high up in the sheer walls, but I could not get to them. Not car
rying a wolf on my shoulders. The strip of sand at my feet grew narrower. I would have to go back.

  But then—I came around a pile of boulders and saw ahead a wide ledge overlooking the river. The sun shone onto it. It was higher than a man’s head far back under the cliff. Below the great shelf of rock was a rough slope.

  There was a path.

  I was panting hard when at last I reached the wide ledge. I laid Uff gently on her side. Stroked her ears. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. Don’t go away from me—please, no. Warily I sniffed the air, searching for beasts, any sign of people. A scattering of flint chips. Several fire pits. But gazing carefully into the shadows, I saw no sign of anything living there now.

  Water. I scrambled back down to the river, filled my cooking das, and let Uff drink. Her tongue pulled at the water desperately. Then she laid her head back down. Closed her eyes.

  You cannot die. Please. No.

  I used the rest of the water to wash the blood from Uff’s wound. The bleeding had slowed. I threaded a needle with the finest length of sinew I could find. Then, taking the skin between my fingers, I sewed it closed, one stitch at a time, as I had seen Moc-Atu do for my brother. She seemed not to feel it. See and know. I caught my breath. Was that what the shaman had meant? Not to see and know my wrongdoing, but simply to learn his healing magic?

  I ran my fingers over Uff’s long muzzle. She was panting. “Little Bah, please live,” I whispered to her. Then I gathered wood for a fire. I made broth and tried to make her drink, but her jaws were clenched. Do not die.

  There had to be something else I could do. What?

  The heart of her enemy. But that was still in the beast—in the cave. The heart of her enemy. The words came again, hissing like a cold wind on my neck. I cannot, I thought wildly. Tal, do not make me. I cannot go back in there!

  But the voice sighed. You will have to. It is strong magic. You need strong magic now. There is no other way if you want to save her. I wrapped my head in my arms. I could not think anymore.

  The sun would set soon. I gazed around. This place, this huge open cave in the cliff, was big enough for an entire immet of people to live. People had lived here once before. Oooni’s people? Why had they left? There was water and wood. One could have a fire without choking on the smoke. Not far away was the crossing where the reindeer passed. The great ledge would be shelter from wind, storm, and beasts.

  Tal had heard me, had brought me to this place when I needed it most. Thank you. I stroked Uff’s head gently. She moaned. “You saved me, Little Bah,” I said softly. “I will not let you die.”

  I knew now what I had to do. Alone this time, I must go back into the cave. I must bring Uff the flesh of her enemy’s heart. It is strong magic. In the dark of that cold, windy night, my father had done this for Sen. My brother had lived. I must do the same for my wolf.

  What if there was another bear? A mate? My gut quivered. But something had happened to me inside the cave. I was still myself, Kai—yet I was someone new.

  I hobbled down to the river, stripped off my clothing, and plunged into the icy water. I let it wash away the blood and sweat of the battle with the bear, the salt of the tears from my face. I came out again and dried myself with my anooka. In the last rays of the sun, I saw my reflection in a pool of water.

  There were the same glinting eyes, the same dark hair—cut short in the front now, the same nose, mouth, cheekbones, but all somehow leaner. Harder. Then I saw something strange—a flicker of my brother’s face in my own. How could that be? We were not alike—but there it was.

  Sen. Suddenly I yearned to see him, to tell him each thing that had happened to Uff and me. I wanted to laugh with him. I wanted to show my brother how Uff could track game, chase an animal back to me, help me kill it. I wanted to show him the keerta I had made, that I could hunt with it. To play my osa for him. He would not mock me now, but would hear the strength and trueness of the notes. The hate and the misery were gone.

  And my father—suddenly I knew that he missed me, cared for me as much as for the others. I wanted to ask him to teach me how to make better keerta points. Had Suli talked him into making a keerta for her? How big was Bu now? And Ama. Was she grieving? It would be so good to see the joy in her eyes when she knew that I lived.

  Vida…

  I knew then that I would go back to the immet. I would show my family and my people who I was—that I was not tabat. I saw all this, in that moment, in my face in the river. I was the same, but so very different.

  And in the morning, I would bring Uff the heart of her enemy.

  Through the night, I lay beside my wolf. I kept one hand on her chest, feeling the faint thudding of her heart and the rise and fall of her breath. I fingered the sacred pouch at my throat, wondering if I would need the powdered bloodstone to help her to the spirit world when morning came. The night grew cold. At last, I slept. I dreamed of lions and leopards, hyenas, rhinos, bears, horses—all the painted beasts of the cave. In my dreaming they were alive. But they were not fearful. They trumpeted and snarled. They sang of the lush green and the red blood of their feasting, the hot stink of their spoor. Life. Death. Tal.

  At daybreak, I saw that a late snow had fallen.

  Uff was alive. She licked my hand but could not raise her head. I dribbled water into the side of her mouth as if she were a pup again. Then I built up the fire so that it would blaze for some time. “There is a thing I must do,” I told her. “You’re safe here by the fire.”

  With four new torches stuffed into my pack, I went back to the great cave. My heart hammered like stone on wood as I lit the first. “Tal, keep me,” I whispered aloud. Then I crawled back inside the black hole.

  I missed Uff’s eyes and nose. With every step, I was ready to run or use my keerta. But all was silent. When I could barely make out the light from the cave opening, I found a crevice in the floor, jammed the butt of my first torch into it, and lit another. Lighting new torches as I went, I made my way to where the bear lay.

  I found the creature, cold and stiff. The hide was too precious a thing to leave. Wedging my last torch into a gap, I took out my work blade. I used my stick to lever the huge bulk of the animal as I worked. It took all my strength to strip and slash away the skin. When, at last, it was done, I rolled it into a bundle and tied it with twine.

  With blade and hammerstone, I took two of the incisor teeth. I put them into my carrying pouch. Then I hacked the giant head from the body. This was the hardest. I placed it reverently on a great flat rock. It had been a fearsome enemy. Taking a bit of dried sweet herb from my sacred pouch, I burned it for the bear’s honor. “You have made me a blood-hunter of the People,” I whispered. “I thank you for that.”

  While the smoke curled into the shadows overhead, I brought out my osa and played for the spirit of the bear. The notes were true and sure. The cave hummed—as Oooni had hummed. I closed my eyes, feeling it. Feeling my grandfather beside me. At last, my heart song.

  Then I opened them again. Searched the cave wall. Suddenly I saw an eye and the shape of a bear’s brow in the stone. A strange magic happened where the rock curved inward. The shadow became the bulge of the bear’s shoulders. Did the spirit of the bear want to come out of the rock? Was this how Tal had made the beasts? Could they pass through stone from that place of creation? I thought again of the pictures I had seen when I was dying under the snow.

  I must make my own image here of the bear. For Uff.

  But I was no shaman.

  Or was I? Wolfboy. Wolf’s Boy. Wolfman. Manwolf.

  There was a hollowed stone nearby. It held traces of color. Someone had used it before. Quickly I took some of the charcoal from the old fire pits, crushed it, and mixed it with the water and grease I had brought. I looked carefully at the bear’s head in the flickering torchlight, closed my eyes, and let the spirit of it come into my mind. Fierce. Bellowing. Strong. I asked the spirit of the old shamans who had been here before me to come into my heart. I had scratche
d a few pictures in the dirt for Suli. I had finished the aurochs bull for Moc-Atu, and drawn the horses for Oooni, but I had never done anything like this before. The old painters must work through me.

  “For Uff,” I whispered fiercely. Then, with one long line, I made the shape of the bear on the cave wall. The brow, the hulking shoulders—so. I added the eye. The small ears—here and here…

  When the outline was finished, I rubbed my paint onto the rock to make the shaggy fur. The torchlight danced. The image of the bear breathed with life. I shivered.

  Now I shook the bloodstone powder from my pouch and mixed it with water. I had no other hollow bone, so, covering up the finger holes, I used my osa. I drew in a mouthful of paint. Then I placed my right hand on the wall of the cave, beside the bear, and sprayed the mixture around it.

  When I took my hand from the wall, it left a white shadow. The hand that killed the bear. I must get back to Uff, but for just a moment, I studied what I had done. My heart swelled. My bear was a fitting companion to the other beasts who lived on the walls of this cave.

  This is what Tal had given me to do. This, and the healing work of a shaman. I had found the strength that was in me through the friendship of a yellow wolf. She was my power. All of this Moc-Atu had seen.

  Rhar was not here, so I would do it myself. Quickly I sang the prayer to Tal, the prayer of life and death. The walls of the cave echoed my voice. You are the killer of the bear that would have killed you and your wolf-friend….Then, dipping my fingers in the bear’s blood, I lifted them to my brow and made the mark of a blood-hunter. “You, who have been named Kai, are now a blood-hunter of the People. Henceforth, you are no longer Kai.”

  But Kai is part of who made me what I am now. I am stronger for having been so weak. Kai is in me.

  “I am Kai-Atu, the wolf pup who is changed.”

  The last thing. I hacked through the great rib cage of the dead bear, cut out the heart, and put it into my carrying-pouch. It was a pity there was no one else here to share the bounty of meat. I slashed off enough for a few days. Shaking with the effort, I lifted the huge hide onto my shoulders. I looked back the way I had come, where my torches still sputtered. They were suns of light in the blackness. They showed the way out. Then, grunting with each step, I went back to the great ledge in the cliff.