Page 67 of Blacktail

Fatberry came down on all four paws. She seized Fang when he came close.

From the bushes behind Fatberry, Little One appeared. He saw that he was on Fatberry’s blind side and leapt at her. Gray-Ear took hold of Fatberry’s rear leg and clamped on tight, growling and sinking his teeth in deep. Quickfoot and Belly-Scar circled at a safe distance, looking for an opening.

Fatberry held Fang tight in her forepaws. Ignoring Gray-Ear and Little One for the moment, she bent and tore into the flesh of Fang’s neck. Fang yelped loud at the pain of it. Little One dug at the thick fur of her neck, scrabbling and biting.

Fatberry tore into Fang’s throat without slowing.

“Quickfoot!” Fang screamed. “Quickfoot, for fuck’s sake, get her off me!”

Three paces away Blacktail lay still and silent. Quickfoot hesitated, looking first at him, then at her lord and mate dying before her eyes.

In the furball, something crunched.

Fang screamed no more.

“Oh, leave them!” Quickfoot screamed. “Leave them and save yourselves! This is hopeless! That one’s not holy—he’s nothing but a big dog! Leave them to Fatberry and be damned!” Belly-Scar and Gray-Ear broke off at this. They darted into the woods.

Alone among the pack of Lord Fang, the Little One would not yield.

After a few breaths, Fatberry looked up from Fang’s corpse. She seemed not to notice Little One hanging from her neck. She turned slowly back to Blacktail. Now she would finish the job.

In desperation, Little One leapt from her back. Careful to stay on her blind side, he moved in and sank his teeth into the tender part of her hindquarters. Fatberry roared with pain. She spun around and around, Little One dangling from her ass like a tail. Finally she stopped and bent herself around nearly double, and swatted at him. The first two swipes missed, but on the third try Fatberry’s claws dug long furrows in Little One’s side.

Still he continued the attack. Though grievously wounded, he was quick. He danced in and around Fatberry’s legs. The wounds in his side rained his half-breed blood on the dry leaves and stones. Red droplets dissolved into the river. Again and again he nipped at her muzzle and lower parts, always quick, always dancing. No matter how she tried, Fatberry could not strike him.

Fatberry reared on her hind legs, roaring her rage. Little One sank his teeth into the skin of her genitals once more, this time from the front. It was a bold attack, and brave…but not safe. From here she could reach him easily. She swatted him with her broad brown paw and sent him sailing five paces into the rocks. Then she turned back to Blacktail, confident that the killing of this day was nearly done.

But where she had struck down a wolf, something else now rose up.

Perhaps Little One’s faith had awakened something that lay in the heart of him. Perhaps he had simply been hiding it for reasons of his own. Either way, when Blacktail stood before her with his fur high and teeth bare, Fatberry trembled at the sight of him.

“You…” she said. “You are the one the cats whisper of…the traveler…”

“Yes.”

“The one called Blacktail…”

“Oh yes.”

“Wait…” she said. In her terror her bowels went loose. Dung ran down her leg. “Wait, I couldn’t have known—”

Blacktail launched himself at her.

The sound of her shrieks echoed down the valley.

vii

Halfway up the hill, Belly-Scar risked a quick look over his shoulder. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. “God on the mountain,” he whispered softly.

Quickfoot was too far ahead to hear Belly-Scar, and in any case, she didn’t care anymore. But Gray-Ear stopped at the sound of his voice, turned to look. She stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Both saw then, saw what Blacktail truly was, what he did to Fatberry. When it was done, their faces both bore the same look of worship bordering on madness that Little One had worn when he returned from taking counsel in the dens of man.

“It’s all true,” Gray-Ear whispered.

viii

That night the pack mourned their lord. They were only three now. This was sad, but there was relief in it as well. Fatberry was dead and the mountain held prey aplenty for three wolves.

Fang, son of Swift Fang, had died in the hunt so that his pack might see the end of winter.