Lupus Rex (23 page)

Unrightful Heirs

W
HEN YSIL HAD
been a tiny chick, he had seen three ducks descend into the field to feed. Ducks seldom stopped here, as there was only a small stream nearby and no sufficient shelter. But they did sometimes visit when there was plentiful food. The crows were not fond of ducks but tolerated them on the seldom occasion they would visit. The two bird kinds were of near the same size, and their diets varied enough that the crows did not feel threatened. When his grandfather had seen them, he had gone to them and talked, making friendly acquaintance.

Likewise, General Fragit had come into the field and, with respect, asked the ducks to leave. Cotur Ada had a brief argument with the General. Ysil had watched from the brush, the same spot, in fact, from which he now watched the war before him. That had been the first time he had ever seen Fragit. Now he witnessed the General’s death. From the first moment he had seen the General, he had disliked him intensely. Now Ysil felt a great sadness to see him dead on the ground, even though just two days prior he had watched Fragit kill his grandfather. With the General’s death, Ysil knew hope was fading.

It was then that he heard a thunderous rumbling. It began as a low-pitched pounding and then became a rampant drumming. It was the beating of many heavy hooves on the forest floor. Suddenly, the sound was all around him. Then, on either side of the brush, out burst bucks, one after another. They came in a far greater number than he remembered from the grove. Some were larger with thickly branched antlers; others were smaller with short spikes jutting from their heads.

The deer raced into the field and upon the fray of battle. Instinctively, some of the foxes ran. But Ysil saw that they did not run far. The lead deer was Illanis, and he plowed headlong into a group of coyotes. With his tremendous antlered head, he hoisted the lot of them into the air with ease, impaling one of their number. Most of them flew to the ground and ran. The impaled coyote he shook off and began to maul with his hooves.

Now there were the scurrying forms of squirrels racing into the field. They were into the battle immediately, biting the weasels and minks with their formidable teeth. The weasels were vicious, however, and fought back with wrath. Harlequin pressed tightly to Ysil as one of the weasels ripped a squirrel’s neck open with its tiny, ferocious fangs.

There was a beating of wings overhead, and Ysil saw the shape of a giant black bird settle in the tree above. Ysil looked around the field and saw that when the crows had flown into battle, the vultures had taken their places in the surrounding trees. They were gathered in anticipation for a feast, one that was quickly being laid out below them.

A
SMOD MADE HIS
killings count. Those he attacked were the largest and most challenging of their kind. He had used this tact, when on the hunt, to keep a herd of deer always without a strong, aged leader. Now was the same. This had never been the way of the pack, which would take the weakest, the young or the old. But when hunting alone, it had to be this way. Take out the leader and send the rest into chaos.

He saw the two princes fighting viciously, and noted Sintus tearing the eye from the other’s head. Prone on the ground was the crow he took to be the General of the army. Tortrix slithered off the poisoned corpse.
This is going exceptionally well
, he thought.

Then he heard the pounding of the hooves. He noted the alpha deer immediately, and as the antlered males tore through the coyotes, sending them sprawling and running, he moved to the great buck’s rear. Close at his side were the two foxes he had just allowed to join his army. Up to this point in the battle, the two had stayed near him, forcing off attacks from his rear. Now they joined him without command as he approached the deer.

The deer jumped quickly, seeing the movement approaching from behind, and swung his huge head toward Asmod.

“Curse you, wolf!” cried the deer. “I will send you to hunt with the packs in hell!” And with that he lowered his antlers and charged Asmod.

The wolf jumped quickly but was not fast enough. The deer bore down on him with great speed and plowed into him broadside. The wolf was too large to hoist above the deer’s head, but Illanis pushed him hard and fast. Asmod was impaled through the shoulder by one lengthy tine and wrestled furiously to free himself. With great pain he howled in rage. Then the foxes were on Illanis’s head, tearing and thrashing at his eyes, ears, and neck. The deer snorted and huffed, struggling to get free. The tine within Asmod’s shoulder pulled out, and the wolf took his chance. He rushed with open mouth to the deer’s neck, clasping his sharp teeth in deep. The deer snorted and bellowed in hysterical frenzy. Another deer charged in to his aid, this one a large doe. She pounded her feet down in a maul of sharp hooves upon the wolf’s head. The wolf turned and set his teeth free from the buck and jumped at the doe, biting her and tasting fresh blood, dragging her to the ground.

And then the buck was at his side again, goring him with his antlers. Asmod turned back to the deer and fought. Then with a rush of dark brown and a great roar, a fell creature pounced upon the buck. The thing bellowed in fury and ripped out one of the deer’s eyes with its long and horrible claws while at the same time sinking its fangs into the buck’s neck. From the bush, Ysil saw the creature attack, and though he had never seen one, he knew what it must be. It was a monster of nightmare to him: the wolverine. The deer bellowed in agony. Now he was bleeding profusely and weakening fast. Asmod looked around and saw a good many deer still fighting or standing their ground, but many turned and ran when they heard the lead buck’s dying screams. There were many dead crows, squirrels, and a few young deer all about the field. The sky began to fill with fleeing crows, already admitting defeat.

As the buck grew still, Asmod smiled into the eyes of the wolverine, but the creature only glared blindly back, seeming to look past the wolf to some undetermined point beyond. When the wolverine sensed the buck was dead, it did not stay. The thing took off in a scurrying run from the continuing battle and disappeared into the forest.

A crimson river flowed freely from Asmod’s shoulder and brow. Still he lusted on the rage of battle, and he fed off the pain. The blood he drank replaced that which he shed.

T
HROUGH THE FOGGY
vision of his single eye, Nascus looked up at his brother and knew he was going to die. Sintus raised his head and readied to strike. Then there came a whoosh, and in a great rush of gray and white wings, Sintus was gone, hoisted away in a flush.

Nascus looked up to see his brother being dragged away by a great horned owl. Two crows were immediately at the owl’s neck and face, pecking and scratching. The owl let loose his catch, and Sintus came tumbling down to the ground. Then the great owl was gone as fast as he had come, his gray and white form disappearing into the clouded sky.

Then Nascus made his choice. He looked one more time to his General and saw that he lay in a lifeless heap, the copperhead slithering away from his body.

When the deer came, he had felt a brief rise of hope, but now Illanis, the leader of the deer, lay dead with the wolf still tearing at his neck. He saw the doe Oda running for the forest now, the flash of a tiny yellow bird at her side. All the deer were fleeing, as were the squirrels that were still alive. Some of the crows who were there to protect the field were milling about, now taking the side of the victor with no other choice but to fly.

And with that Nascus took wing, struggling to rise, fast. He flew in the direction of the rising sun and the cold wind with one last hope rising around his heart like thorns binding a locust tree.

Y
SIL SAW A
black bird take wing from the Murder’s Tree. It flew with force and purpose straight to Sintus. It was Ophrei the rook, the sage.

The bird landed screaming.

“You are not the chosen King!” he bellowed. “You will never receive the true crown! Never from me nor the wind!”

“And who are you to say who is worthy of the true crown?” It was the copperhead that asked this. From his hiding place Ysil struggled to hear its small and bilious voice. “I am no friend to the wind, and I would say that the new King Crow will receive his crown under the authority of my lord, the earth.”

“A crow of the earth?” said Ophrei. “This is unheard of!”

“And who are you, may I ask?” This came from the wolf, still covered in the gore of battle, his side bleeding. He moved in on the rook, closer now.

“I am the rook, Ophrei, adviser to the King and interpreter of the wind.”

“We pay the wind no heed. We care not what it may say.”

The rook opened his great beak to protest, but the wolf did not give him the time to do so. Though Asmod was injured, this made him only more furious. He pounced on the rook, and with one bite, took off his head. Ophrei’s dead form fell with an audible thud and after one convulsion was still.

It was then that a great gust of wind took over the field. It blew with force over the body of the sage listener. It was as if the body were only a pile of black feathers, and they all lifted up onto the wind, leaving no bones, flesh, or beak behind. And from where Ysil, Cormo, and Harlequin hid, they could see the feathers drifting high and into the sky.

The wind died and the wolf sat staunchly upon his haunches. He reared back his blood-drenched head and howled, and the coyotes and the foxes joined him. The victor crows cawed along with the beasts, gathering around Sintus and bowing low before him. And so it was the one not chosen who claimed the kingship.

And within the brush, the quail huddled in fear. All around the field mice, moles, voles, and rabbits trembled in terror, for they were too slow to flee and too small to fight.

And even as the howl of the wolf echoed through the fall wind, the vultures fell upon the field and moved among bird and predator alike. And neither beast nor crow spoke to them nor looked them in the eye as they set to their grisly task.

Chapter Eighteen

Lupus Rex

A
ND SO
S
INTUS
, the King Crow, and his General, Darus, set to collecting willow boughs and branches of the slippery elm tree to build upon the nest. They gathered within the nest the skulls of the past Kings in one place. When the nest was made, Sintus took to it and sat upon high, overlooking the field.

To him came all the crows, and all confessed their allegiance, though some did not look him in the eye. Sintus was proud and knew that in time they would accept his reign. High in his nest he felt strong. He looked below and saw a young coyote nip at the tail of a crow. The bird jumped to the tree above and called down to the coyote, cursing. Hot anger welled up within his belly and moved with a rush to the crown of his head. It was clear that the field was not his at all. Though the nest was unchallenged, safe in the heights of the tree, it came on him in a rush of realization that the field now belonged only to the wolf. He had thought of the two ruling side by side, both with control of the field. Now he feared this would not be so. He shuffled in his new nest and counted the skulls of his grandfathers beneath him. His father’s was still covered with black feathers, the dull eyes glazed and ivory within the sockets.

H
ARLEQUIN SAW HER
first. The mother vulture was moving through the ranks of her kind as they tore at the bodies of the animals lying dead.

“Look, Ysil!” whispered Harlequin, fidgeting excitedly. “That’s the mother vulture, the one they call Ekbeth.”

Immediately the vulture glared directly at their hiding place, as if she had heard them speaking. But she was too far away to hear them. How could she know they were there? Her eyes darted briefly to the Murder’s Tree and to the wolf that was licking his wounds in its shadow. Then she moved slowly in their direction.

“She’s coming this way!” whispered Ysil. “Should we run? Could she mean us harm?”

“Surely no harm,” said Cormo, who had been quite close to the vulture just days before. “She is somewhat kind, actually.” With that, Ysil eyed him with mild shock. “Well—in her own way, that is . . .”

Ekbeth wobbled and plodded uneasily through the field, mindfully picking at the bloody grass for scraps. Before long she was at the field’s edge, her wing within reach of their hiding spot.

She extended her long neck into the thicket, her yellow eyes opening wide. “Hello, little ones,” she said to the quail. “And so, alas, it is up to you to make the next move, for neither crows nor deer are capable of fighting a battle at this time. They may come soon, but they may not. Of course, we vultures are not really on any side at all, as we are most certainly grateful for this feast.” She stank with the oily smell of fresh blood, but beneath that was a rich, darker stench, one of old things and forgotten places.