Lupus Rex (13 page)

Drac smiled. “We are the ears of the forest, young bird. If it is spoken in the quiet of the woods, consider it as given that a fox has heard.”

“I am telling you that the foxes are good to have along,” said Monroth. “And these two we can trust. As I said, they know that times are changing.”

Drac smiled at Monroth and showed his long and sharp canines. It appeared to Ysil that some sort of communication passed between them, and if he didn’t know better, he would have thought that Monroth winked one feathered eyelid.

Then the rest of the birds and the rabbit ate from the berry bush until they were full. The foxes sat near and preened their fur.

A robin chanced upon the animals and briefly perched in the tree above the bush. She gazed in wonder at the strange group below and thought to herself,
What is this forest coming to?
Then she ruffled her feathers and took wing, hoping to find tasty worms in the compost of a different berry bush.

Chapter Eight

The King of the Forest

A
SMOD THE WOLF
breathed in the forest. He owned the forest as he did his own tail, his darkly stained fur, and his claws. He knew the forest as the reading of a possum’s entrails, as the lines of mud left from melting snow. The forest was his, just as certainly as the teeth in his mouth or his single eye.

He had not always owned just the forest. When he was younger, the pack held the field and the forest both. The pack was as one. He was within the pack and he hunted with them. They were of the same order, an unstoppable force of gnashing fangs and muscle, bound together by common hunger and lust. Oh, the lust of the pack. He shuddered when the thought came. He remembered as a pup being led into the field where a group of woodchucks were surrounded. Within the pack were his mother and father, and his older brothers and sisters, eight of them. The pack fell upon the woodchucks, and so did he. And so his first kill had been an old gray woodchuck, slow and feeble. He still held the memory dear, and it comforted him like a lover through the night. He treasured the lust for the kill, which was forever his, and he cherished the memories of the pack. But the lust of the pack never would be again. The pack members were all dead.

He was the only survivor of his litter. A man had chanced upon him and his siblings while his mother was hunting with the older ones. The man had put them in a box and carried them to a pond. When he opened the box and looked in at them, he grabbed all the others and pushed them into a sack, but Asmod had bitten him, then jumped and ran. The man cursed and tied the sack shut—after filling it with rocks. Asmod remembered the cries of his brothers and sisters, how they had called out for help, how some had called his name, and he remembered how their cries had abruptly stopped when the man had thrown the bag into the water.

He hated men. He swore someday that he would kill the man who had done that; he would rip out his throat.

He remembered how the crows had sworn their allegiance to the wolves, how they had promised to work with them to herd in the mice and rabbits, how they would always respect the wolves. And when the man had come into the field and laid out poison meats and killed many of his family, the crows had merely watched as the wolves ate the meat. And though they had seen the man’s treachery during the daylight hours, they had not warned the wolves of the poison and had slept through their feast of polluted flesh. He remembered how they had laughed as his older brothers and sisters had died, how they rested safely in the branches above as his father and uncles had cursed them, while his mother had cried. He hated crows for that. He had vowed to kill every crow he could catch. He would kill them, slowly and painfully.

And he remembered how the hawk Elera had flown down on him as he was feasting on a fallen chick from her nest. He recalled a screeching descent and the feeling of her beak piercing his eyeball, making a resounding
pop
, and then the feeling of the eye being pulled from the socket, the pain, the sound of her screams mixed with his own howls of agony. He hated hawks. He would kill any hawk he ever encountered.

And he remembered how the men had come together with their dogs and had run the remainder of the pack into the woods and cornered them in the darkness of Vangly Cave. He had hidden still in the back, covered in the thick, black mud, while the pack fought the dogs. He would never forget how the men had come with great lights and the horrible booms of their sticks, the deafening echoes off the cave walls—the screams of his family dying. He had lain still, the blood of his family too strong in the dogs’ noses to catch the scent of one last survivor. The men dragged the wolf bodies out into the dark night. He stayed hidden all the next day and ventured out only when the sun descended. When he came out of the cave he smelled meat cooking. Then he had seen the fire. He approached and his stomach turned in hunger. But the meat was charred skeletons. It was his family burned on a great pyre.

He had run into the forest and kept running. He had run until he came to a great river, then swam across it. He had not stopped until he reached a cliff at the base of a white-topped mountain. He crawled into a den there, wet and cold to the middle of his body. In the dark he felt an icy slithering beneath his belly. Then he felt the teeth sink in.

The snake smiled at him and said, “Oh, but I am sorry, great wolf. I did not see it was you before I bit. I see you are weak. May I have your warmth until you die?” He let the copperhead curl up next to him, ready for the end. He had grown deathly ill, but, for some fated reason, he did not die. In his recovery the wolf heard tales from the great snake of a band of crows that had picked into his nest and killed his mate and slithery children. The wolf and snake developed a friendship; they hunted together through that spring. The wolf brought the snake mice and rabbits, while the snake would poison bigger prey, prey too big for the wolf to bring down without the help of the pack. They hunted together not unlike the pack itself. Though Tortrix could never keep up with him, the snake could get into places that Asmod could not. He would crawl silently into a badger’s den and bite the animal in its sleep. When the badger woke in agony and thirst and crept from its den, Asmod would be waiting outside. Though at first the wolf grew ill upon consuming the bodies of the poisoned prey, over time he grew immune to the snake’s venom. They grew strong and fat together, and all the other animals feared and respected them. The snake grew accustomed to wrapping itself around the wolf’s neck. And they ruled the forest together.

It was a difficult relationship at times, but it was their common goal that kept the snake and wolf together—their lust for the kill. Together, they were more successful than they ever were alone.

Asmod seldom thought of the pack anymore, but on nights when the moon was full and he felt the need rising within him like a consuming fire he would call out an anguished howl, hoping that someday, someway, he would be answered back. But the answer never came. It was a lonely echo that returned to him. And deep within he knew that he was the last of his kind, and that only the silent orb of the moon was his true kin.

O
N THIS DAY
, Asmod was awakened at dusk by first the smell of, and then the sound of, an approaching snake. The belly of a legless one moving across the forest floor was not easy to hear, and most who had the ears to hear it could not say what the sound was. But Asmod had become comfortably familiar with it. Tortrix was near, curled and sleeping, so he knew it was not him. Then the sound doubled, then tripled, and he thought to himself,
Visitors, eh?
He could hear their bellies’ scaled skins moving stealthily across the pine needles until they were at the edge of the den, just past its opening within a small stand of trees. He lay still and opened his one dark eye. His fur was black, stained with drying blood. It wasn’t until he sensed that they were at the very mouth of the den that he made a move at all. Then he slowly raised his head.

They did not see the wolf, cloaked in darkness. He heard one of them speaking in hushed tones: “Ssssso, I tell you we should leave now! He would just as soon eat us as listen to ussssss!”

“He will lissssten,” said another. “When he hearsssss what we have to tell, he will lisssten! The King of the Crows is dead and a great time is upon ussss! They are in chaos in the field! So much blood to fill our bellies delicioussssly soon. He will thank ussss.”

At this Asmod stepped into the light, into the very midst of the intruders. The snakes—a massasauga, a young copperhead, and a thick timber rattlesnake—froze at the appearance of the enormous monster. “What is that you say? The King of the Crows is dead? Do you not know, fools? As soon as the King dies, there is a choosing of a new King.” Asmod rose taller on his paws. “Certainly their order is strong. Now away with you! Before I devour your loathsome flesh as early breakfast!”

“Yesssss . . . ” came the voice from the still coil that was Tortrix. “Leave, you idiots. He will kill you, and I will laugh through my own fangs as his rip you up.”

“O wise and great Asmod, we ask you to hear ussss!” nervously called the young copperhead. “Was early this morning that I was at the lake near the man’s road. I was looking for duck chicksss and the like when a number of geese flew into the pond. They were talking of the death of the King. But that would not have caused our coming to see you. They ssssaid that the oldest of brothers grew angered when his younger brother was chosen as King. He flew before he could be subdued. He flew away and there is no new King crowned. No King Crow at all, now. The field is in disssorder and confusion!”

Asmod raised his eyebrows at this. “Hmm. And where are these geese now?” he asked.

“They are gone, O fearsssome one! They flew fast after I heard them relating this tale to one another. I waited there for a while, but when I told the massasauga and the other copperheads of what I heard, they sssssaid we must tell you. We all feared you would kill ussss, but we know of your story, as was told by Tortrix in the spring when we were in mate.” At this Asmod glared at his companion copperhead, raising his head in a huff.
So
, thought Asmod,
so he has been talking, eh? Must have been to impress the mate . . .
But he let this go. For now.

“And so, what do you think I am to do?” asked the great wolf. “What to do with this knowledge? If I am to return, do you think I would take you with me as my army? A few snakes and one wolf? We may take the field, perhaps, but the hawk will take you all. I am rich here; why would I leave?”

The snakes looked to one another. It was the young rattlesnake that spoke. “O great one, it is not only the news of the King’s death we bring. The geese spoke of something else. It has been fourteen seasons since you have been to the field, yes?”

The wolf scowled at him. “Yes, I do admit it has been that long,” he said.
Maybe I should kill them after all,
thought Asmod.

“The hawk Elera has been dead for sssix seasonssss,” said the young copperhead. “This also the geese spoke of.” At this Tortrix uncoiled and raised his head tall, looking at Asmod.

“And what of her children?” asked Asmod.

“They are also dead,” said the intruding copperhead.

Asmod stood still in shocked response. Then he turned to Tortrix. “Is your belly full, my friend?”

“Yessss,” answered the copperhead. “But I am sure I could eat.”

They turned to the snakes with dangerous smiles.

“Not an army, that is for certain,” said Asmod.

“Oh, but ssssir!” cried the copperhead. “We have you one ready.” And with that the snake made a grunting, seething noise, which was a call of sorts.

The wolf raised his nose to the air. And again Asmod smelled then heard the approach from the surrounding woods. He heard the coming of many small paws and more slithering and the waddle of lizards and the pad of a good few larger paws. He heard them from far away, but they came quickly. Then the smells became thick, the animals in droves. His jaws widened and he began to pant as the first of them entered his bay. There were foxes and coyotes, there were some large timber rattlesnakes and skinks and garter snakes. There were weasels, minks, and two bobcats. They gathered around the wolf, and all of them bowed down to him. They all kept their eyes down and paid respect to the greatest of predators, the greatest of their kind and the last of his own. Then, there at the edge of the forest, Asmod saw another shape, dark and large, hidden behind the laurel, and he smiled when he smelled this thing, for this particular creature had never contributed allegiance to him, though now its mere presence was granting such.

And Asmod rose up tall on his hind legs and laughed, and the laugh turned to a shrill howl and echoed off the trees and the cliff behind him, and the sound fell as it went, but the howl was heard far away. And all who heard it cowered in fear, for it was a howl of triumphant bloodlust.

H
IGH ABOVE THE
river in a nest of oak twigs and sycamore branches, Pitrin the hawk heard the cry and wondered at it. He knew it to be the wolf, but he, for one, was not afraid, only curious. And in the gathering heat of the day, the great bird took to wing and flew into the heavens, and there upon high he listened to the sound of the wolf’s howl echoing across the sky and heard the words hidden within. And the words clouded Pitrin’s heart. And there, the fear was finally conceived, for he understood the words.