Page 63 of Blacktail

After a moment, Fang laughed as well. “Perhaps.”

“It is true that I have hunted men,” Blacktail said. “But there is no special trick to it. And if I were holy or something like that, I promise you I would not be here now. I would ride the thunder for the remainder of my journey, for my paws do ache from all this walking. No, Fang,” he said. “I am a wolf on a hunt. Nothing more.”

“Ah.” Fang was silent a moment, thinking. “Did I hear you correctly? You hunt them? For meat?”

“Yes. For meat and for sport, and sometimes for the pleasure of smelling their death-piss. I can teach you the trick of it if you like.”

“Steaming poop,” Fang said softly.

“Anyway, in most lands there’s precious little else to hunt,” Blacktail pointed out, not unreasonably.

“Does this…does it not anger them?”

“Does that matter?”

Fang looked away, ashamed.

Blacktail continued speaking as if he had not noticed. “If a carcass is seen, the land around it fairly swarms with the little beasts. They ride Car and his smaller cousins here and there and call down gunshots on every little thing. They are not the hunters they think they are, though. The trick of it is to eat less than your fill and be gone swiftly, as soon as you’re done with your meal.”

“That sounds like a waste of meat.”

“True enough,” Blacktail said. His grin was sharp and yellow in the moonlight. “But I don’t let it concern me. There’s always more where that came from.”

Wow, Fang thought. “My pack would hear your stories,” he said. “Hear what it is to hunt men. Would you join us?”

Blacktail seemed surprised at this, but he did not hesitate. “Certainly,” he said. “Thank you, gracious lord.”

Fang wagged his tail. “Well met, Blacktail.”

“Well met, Lord Fang.”

Fang led him up the trail to their den.

iv

Blacktail stood tall as he walked into the cave where they made their den. The fur on his back just brushed the arch at the entryway. Fang’s pack greeted him in turn. Quickfoot, then Belly-Scar, then Gray-Ear, and finally Little One. They were wary of Blacktail at first. But after a time most of them relaxed, thinking as Fang had that there was more of the wolf and less of the god to their god-wolf. Not Little One, though. When Blacktail bent to scent him, he stared up as if entranced. He would not move to scent him when Blacktail froze in his turn. Even when Quickfoot nipped at his ear, Little One didn’t relent. He moved out of the circle of the pack, then crouched down with his stare ever on Blacktail.

“Tell us of your travels,” Quickfoot said when they had settled. “You must have seen many strange lands.”

“The lands are not so strange as the creatures in them,” Blacktail said. “I myself am a simple beast. I suppose that colored my thinking. With me, the scent of my neck is also the scent of my hindquarters—no plotting, no deception. Time was, I thought the same was true of everyone else as well.” Blacktail licked his forepaw, as if to clean it all away. “Sometimes I wonder if anything is truly as it appears to be.”

“What, for instance?”

Blacktail paused for a moment. “These cats, who traffic with demons. They have given me a good deal of help. I am grateful, but…they seem to think that I am something that I am not. It troubles me. My mother bore me, you know, just as yours bore you. I had brothers and sisters once, a mate…In my essence, my nature, I am not so different from anyone else.”

“Perhaps a creature may have more than one nature, and each of them be true,” Little One suggested in his small, soft voice. “Perhaps a creature may have only one true nature…but hide it. Even from himself.”

Blacktail said nothing at this. He looked at Little One with something like pity.

“Shut your filthy muzzle while your betters are speaking, you diseased little mongrel,” Quickfoot barked.

“Be still, Quickfoot,” Fang said mildly. “Think of our guest.”

Quickfoot gave him a look, but held her peace.

The conversation turned then. They spoke for a time of the trail. They spoke of the weather to the north. Fang told Blacktail the story of the last elk hunt, the summer before, and the feasting that had followed. Eventually it was time for sleep. The pack came together around Blacktail, that he might be comforted the most…all except Little One, who knew his place in things.

“Why does he sleep over there?” Blacktail asked when they were almost asleep.