Hooman Saga: Episode 04b — Feral Dangers
Serial Fiction: A human arrives back on Earth — to discover sentient wolves she must help to gain their trust. And so rescue her family…
(This book is available almost everywhere online — if you can’t wait to see how this turns out, see https://calm.li/HoomanSagaBk2Pt1 for more information and links.
Missed the earlier episode? See https://medium.com/@robertcworstell/hooman-saga-episode-04a-d21d4335807e)
Tig sat on his haunches, resting ahead the inevitable conflict he knew would happen.
He thought it was odd for the ferals to act so organized. He’d seen them hunt in packs. And he knew how his clan would hunt, how his pack would hunt. But those hunts were always with sentients sending back and forth without letting their prey hear their thoughts.
These ferals were working in a tightly organized pattern. That was new. He kept thinking over and over what they were doing. Looking for patterns, comparing them to how he would hunt and how he would use this tactic. And he realized what they needed.
They were waiting for their whole massed pack to bottle-in this canyon before they attacked. There was no sense guarding ridges that no wolf could climb out on their own.
They also had no experience with humans except the ones that from the settlements that hunted wolves. So they wanted the strength of numbers to ensure this sentient and this hooman didn’t escape.
Generations ago, the sentient wolves had pushed the ferals back around the settlements of the remaining humans. This was the sentient’s protection: a buffer zone to keep the humans away from their cubs and their lives.
While Tig’s pack didn’t relish killing that occurred without a reason or purpose, they always chased the humans back and made them lose their weapons.
Some humans had accidents out of their own fright, but even then the wolves would respect those dead, cover them with stones or earth as they could, and howl over their death. Dirges would be sung. Not the triumphal great hunt or victory song. These were sung as the sad, unnecessary loss of someone respected.
Reversely, hoomans skinned the feral wolf for hide. His carcass left for other animals to glean. Desecrated. They didn’t even value the wolf as meat, only as trophy-pelts.
Sometimes Tig could sense thoughts of the ferals and sometimes he couldn’t. Both ferals and the sentients remained alien to each other. Just as the day the hoomans left. Today was no different.
The feral howls increased. Now it sounded like the rest of the pack had shown up and were coming in. Tig could hear them moving closer. He positioned himself forward of the brush on both sides of the canyon opening.
Some cedars, pines, and birch stood on each side. Still too wide for a good defense.
She could climb that wall and clamber out.
Tig could only take as many ferals down as he could. He’d back into a corner, then.
First action: provide her time to climb. Tig looked back over his shoulder at her. She was trying to find a grip.
Tig noticed her slip and slide back down leaving red traces on the wall. Her hands were bloody.
He sent “You can do it. I know you can.”
She turned and smiled at him. His face softened, then steeled again as he turned back. Tig was resolved. Her only choice was to get her up that cliff wall. His was to fight for an opening and escape as best he could.
Just then he saw the ferals show themselves. The largest ferals were in front, followed by the lesser-ranked. They were edging closer. Almost shoulder to shoulder, growling low growls, watching him without wavering. Three or four deep at least. This was a big pack.
Tig even saw females at the back. Huntresses were not uncommon. Females were often more efficient at hunting than males, particularly if they had to feed their young after a long winter.
Tig backed a step, then another.
Sue was not half-way there. She kept looking for hand-holds and footholds. It was slow work.
Tig sent, “I knew you could.” And all he got from Sue as reply was her vision of where she could find hand-holds he could hold if she could only get him up this wall. He sent back his confidence in her and shielded her from his worries and concerns.
Sue was having a hard time finding those hand-holds and footholds. As Tig had noticed, it was slow going. At the moon colony, she knew all the holds on the climbing walls. It was just a matter what patterns you would choose. Here, she had to select firm grips out of the rocks. Too soft and you’d slide back down, which she’d already learned several times. Sliding back down from half-way up could be fatal. Every hand hold and foothold had to be exact.
She dare not even look back behind her for fear she would lose one of those precarious holds she found. Through Tig’s eyes she saw the scene below, while he would not send the emotional content. It was like watching a monitor with the sound off.
She turned her attention back to the wall to find the next hold she needed. Her job was to escape.
At last, she climbed onto a narrow ledge. It was almost a foot deep and a couple of feet wide. Here she could stand and rest. When she did, she turned with care. As she did, the sight stopped her breath.
There was a deep, tawny pack of wolves in the narrow opening of the dead-end canyon. They filled that end for yards, four and five bodies deep. Tig was inching back as he watched them, and she was concerned. She sensed that this kind wolf who had saved her would now meet his end. And nothing she thought she could do.
One of the ferals then ran forward away from the pack and met Tig. It then slammed to a stop and laid down, still. From Sue’s view point, it appeared Tig must have given him a mighty shove, knocked him unconscious. But his neck was at an odd angle.
Tig heard her thoughts and replied, “I broke his neck. I’ll break as many as I have to today. You keep climbing.”
The rest of the feral pack stopped on seeing that outcome. But a sheer howl arose from among them that was deafening.
Sue now flattened against the wall and closed her eyes in complete fear. But then somehow, by being in touch with the wall, she got a stillness inside her. She began thinking much clearer, as if the wall itself was giving her strength, or absorbing her unwanted emotions.
She opened her eyes in time to see another of the feral breed came running towards Tig, hoping to catch him off guard. The feral came from the flank, while Tig stood there, staring straight ahead at the leaders in their center.
At the last minute Tig again jumped to catch that pack member flying at him. And again both wolves landed Tig was upright. The feral’s neck as folded at an odd angle, loosing one last breath as he died.
Two ferals then leapt from each flank for him. Tig didn’t wait this time. He met the one on his left, forcing the one on his right to chase after him. The feral to his left fell with a broken leg. Tig then spun and met the other, crippling him the same way.
Both stumped off on their three good legs, knowing that there was certain death for them waiting already. Wolves couldn’t fight, much less hunt effectively on just three. This stopped the other feral wolves. The howling quit now. Their threatening sounds proved they now knew. He was an enemy long unmet in battle. Most of them weren’t ready to face him on his terms.
Tig then sensed some of their ideas, which was a strange experience. Like listening to a language dialect. Most he still couldn’t make out.
Now he was over to one side. The two had withdrawn, and he stayed. This forced the pack’s attention on him and away from the hooman climbing the wall.
Then a solution came to him. He concentrated on the clump of trees and bushes to his left. While these were no dead pile of twigs, there was much dead growth on them. Then he spoke the mystic chants rumbling in his big chest, growling these out. He and the feral pack saw smoke rise as the dead limbs ignited, smoldering and smoking.
This stopped the growling from the ferals. They too, along with all their wolf brethren, feared fire and what it could cause. A fire that started on its own, in this canyon with no lightning, was further mystery to them.
Now the tree clump opposite began to smoke. They saw Tig nearby, again growling and rumbling something in his odd manner, as if he were talking to the trees.
Soon the smoke was rising as a haze in the canyon from both sides and the ferals became anxious. They moved backward and forward, looking at each other. One of the bigger ones then growled again and focused their attention on Tig.
Yet they hesitated. For now they had three enemies. Small canyon fires on two sides, and a killer wolf between them.
Tig moved slowly back to that central part between the walls, prepared for the onslaught he thought would come, regardless. Fire shown in Tig’s eyes as well, warning the ferals.
The lead wolf of the ferals recognized this and growled his pack to move forward. Only the pack in numbers could defeat this fighter.
It was then Tig sensed something behind him and pointing his senses in that direction.
He was surprised.
It was the hooman, come up behind him, while still at a safe distance so he couldn’t mistake her for a feral wolf.
He sent to her, “And what in hell are you doing here?”
And she sent back, “I think I can help.”
He shrugged as he kept watching the ferals.
Sue raised her arms, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Each hand pointed to one of the smoking woody clumps. She mumbled something under her breath aloud, over and over. And the two smoking, woody clumps then burst into flames. And the flames roared taller.
The feral pack jerked back as one body. But then the leader barked and moved forward himself. They again followed him.
Tig then bristled, ready for their attack of both he and the hooman.
Sue opened her eyes at this and glared at the lead wolf. She extended her arms even stronger. Her gesture towards the clumps made the flames grow even broader than they should have for that amount of wood. They were now each roaring infernos. And the feral pack narrowed to just a few bodies wide. Tig took a step forward because he knew he could handle three or four at a time in a narrow channel.
The lead feral wolf bristled in return, urging his own pack forward, when suddenly a wall of flame erupted between Tig and the pack. A wall of flame went from floor to the canyon wall-tops. It went outward towards the feral pack so they all stopped, sat on their haunches. And lost their faith, running away, back down the canyon.
The lead wolf looked back over his shoulder to see two forms encased in flames as the massed inferno kept growing, seeming to reach toward him. The ferals ran away down the trail, in absolute fright.
Silence fell in the canyon.
Sue dropped her arms, and then dropped to her knees, exhausted. Tig cocked one ear at her, both curious and relieved. He kept listening, but the running feral pack was now in the distance. Even to his keen ears, their sounds faded after seconds.
Through shared vision, Tig had glimpsed what the ferals had seen, but that’s not what he was saw. For him, the clumps of trees only smoldered. Tig went over to Sue and licked her face. She put an arm around his shaggy mane.
At that point another handful of other wolves, colored like Tig, trotted up through the Canyon opening. They skirted the two clumps of smoky wood on each side of the canyon. Then walked up toward the two forms and circled them.
While Sue had gained Tig’s support, she had not gotten his pack’s understanding. She and Tig understood each other. The rest of the pack did not.
To them the hooman was a danger worse than the feral wolves.
(This book is available almost everywhere online — if you can’t wait to see how this turns out, see https://calm.li/HoomanSagaBk2Pt1 for more information and links.
Our newest fiction releases are available at https://calm.li/FictionReleases)