Page 62 of Blacktail

Your hospitality is uncommon,

Fang, son of Swift Fang.

I am grateful.

Might we meet on the trail

to exchange scents?

Fang hesitated. He was sorely tempted—it is a rare thing to meet a traveler from such distant lands, holy or otherwise. But Miss Prissy Pants had said that Blacktail was dangerous to wolves as well as the two-legs…and Fang had his pack to think of. So he remained silent. That might have been the end of it. Wolves are territorial and clannish creatures. Ignoring an invitation to meet is not the discourtesy it might seem to others.

“Why don’t you answer? Do you think it’s a trap?” Quickfoot asked.

“No…” Fang said at length. “No.” He was thinking of the cat’s warning. You would not be safe.

“What, then, exactly?” Quickfoot asked in an exasperated what-a-fool-I’ve-mated tone of voice that made his blood boil. “Our guest has called your name, Fang. It would be rude not to answer, don’t you think?”

“Getting myself killed before I’ve brought you through the winter would be an equal folly, don’t you think?” He took two steps forward, his fur high on his neck. “I would consider it a great mercy if you would cease your yapping for even a single breath.”

Quickfoot’s eyes flashed. Fang wondered for a moment if she might fight him now—they were of almost equal size. He knew she had considered the prospect of usurping him on more than one occasion. That sort of thing did happen from time to time. But he also thought that she would wait until he had either solved the problems of winter or died trying. In that, he was completely correct. After a moment, Quickfoot lowered her eyes and answered him in a tight, controlled voice. “As you will, lord.”

Fang glared at her a moment longer, then turned his attention to the trail. The traveler sat there patiently. He was absolutely enormous. And, Fang thought, more than usually fearsome. Those jaws…he could bite through a tree trunk. But in the long silence that followed their invitation, the traveler’s head had slumped. It was just a small slump. But Fang’s eyes were sharp, and he was sure of it.

The lone wolf with slumping shoulders unearthed a memory Fang would have preferred to remain buried. Fang had grown quickly, but he was strong long before he was wise. The first time he challenged his father for the lordship, the old wolf defeated him easily. By tradition, Father drove him from the pack. Fang wandered alone and penitent for two winters. In a different age he might have thrown in with a nearby pack, or joined with a female and started one of his own. But the pack of his birth was the last wolves of these lands. All through his penitence he hunted alone.

Fang remembered well what it was to hear the howls of a pack on the other side of a hill and know that you were not welcome, and to feel your head slump, just a bit. He lifted his head and howled again, surprising everyone, even himself:

Great traveler,

it would be an honor to taste your scent.

I will meet with you

as soon as I can find my way.

Fang trotted down the steep hill and onto the trail. At first he ran swiftly, as he had promised. But as he drew closer he thought of the last time he had met a large hunter. The ambush of Fatberry had been a disaster that nearly ruined them all. Fang rounded the final curve cautiously: nostrils flaring, ears high, eyes sharp.

The traveler sat on his haunches, visible only in silhouette against the moon. He smelled of blood.

“I am Fang,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “Welcome.” Fang was not small, even as gray wolves go, but the stranger towered over him as if he were a puppy. Enormous. By the time Fang was close enough to exchange scents, he was entirely in the stranger’s shadow.

“I am called Blacktail,” the traveler said. His voice rumbled like distant thunder.

When two wolves meet it is the burden of the smaller to remain still as the greater takes in the scent. So Fang, who was the lord of these lands, remained frozen and still. Blacktail sniffed first at his neck. I probably smell like I’ve pissed myself, Fang thought with a twinge of embarrassment. If he did, Blacktail said nothing.

With such a great discrepancy in their sizes, Fang thought it possible that Blacktail would disregard etiquette. He might have moved down to scent his hindquarters without first offering Fang a chance to take his own sniff. This was sometimes done with puppies, or in situations where no challenge of dominance was possible…or as a deliberate insult. But when he had taken the scent of Fang, Blacktail froze in his turn. Fang craned his neck up and breathed in the rich, dark aroma of the traveler.

This exchange of small courtesies diminished Fang’s sense of awe. Blacktail was a huge beast, true enough, but standing this close it was difficult to see him as, well…magic. His feet smelled of the northern mud, for one thing. Also there were a couple of briars stuck in the fur of his hindquarters.

“Is it true what they say about you?”

“Probably not,” Blacktail rumbled. “What do they say?”

“I have heard that you are a prophet of the old age, consecrated to…well, something. I have heard that you are a fury. They say you can break the magic of the two-legs.”

Blacktail was silent for a long time, and Fang feared that he had given offense. He was about to apologize when the wolf barked out a laugh.

“Ahh. Now I see,” the traveler said. “You’ve been talking to one of those idiot cats, haven’t you?”