The Absurdium

As they moved up the valley, all were happy to leave that glade behind. Rumours passed through the pack about giant bears from the mountains and Buddy heard occasional whispers of the name “Ahrrou”, the spirit wolf who watches over packs during the night. Whatever the creature was, the way it had looked at him left Buddy certain that it was no spirit. Furthermore, it had left tracks; and Buddy was no expert on the ethereal but he had a nagging suspicion that spirits did not make tracks. He kept his head down and tried to focus on the trail before him, but those glowing eyes haunted his mind and flitted in his vision, like flashbulbs burned into your retinas.

The pack ran farther than normal that day and it was a couple of nights before all the wolves were sleeping soundly again. All that is, except Buddy. He had lain awake for all of the next night, seeing shapes in the darkness and hearing things that were not there. Whenever sleep closed his eyelids those glowing orbs would reappear and he would jerk back to full alert. For several nights he managed to sleep, but only fitfully at best. He was becoming exhausted and knew that he was beginning to appear weak and scared. This made him angry, for no one else had seen what he had that night, and his anger drove him to boldness. As well, the woods were quieter than any of the pack had ever seen and prey was scarce. It was as though something had driven the other animals from their range. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at the bellies and minds of the pack and tempers flared.

By the end of that week Buddy caught a break. Running further east than any of the others he picked up the trail of a lone moose. Quickly he called the pack to join him and led them onto the hunt. Seamus immediately assumed the lead but Buddy stayed alongside him, ignoring the snaps and barks Seamus threw at him. Even he didn’t have the stomach for a fight right now and Buddy knew it. Within a day they closed in on the moose along the bank of a frozen creek. They circled it for a while, but it would not run and showed little fear. Although it was large, none wanted to wait long enough to wear it down. It may well have driven off a wolf pack before, but not one as large nor as hungry as theirs. All ears stood on end, and white clouds of breath hung in the air as the tension mounted. No animals moved.

Abruptly, Buddy led the attack. He was acting bold and daring, but really he was desperate; desperate for food, desperate to show strength before the pack, and desperate for a chance to undermine Seamus. However, no one called his bluff and though the battle was long and violent they eventually brought the moose down. Buddy had found the trail, led the hunt and started the attack, and he made sure that it was clear he was feeding in the first round. He was feeding above rank and, as he expected, this was met with a challenge – though not from Seamus. A younger, one-eared male stepped in to drive Buddy from the kill but was met with such aggression that he backed down to wait with his tail between his legs. Buddy did not want to fight him and was not sure at all that he could win a contest with the younger wolf, but he knew that if he did not hold his ground now he would never get another chance to move up. He ate quickly, tearing at the hide and warm muscles, but Seamus never raised his head. He had done it, he had cracked the First Tier!

That night, full and happy, Buddy slept soundly and awoke the next morning with a new sense of strength and renewed drive. From that day on, his lot improved steadily. Feeding consistently with the First Tier he also prowled with the front runners and he was proving more and more effective and reliable in the hunts. Weeks passed and the moon waned to darkness. Buddy strengthened his alliance with Samuel Whiskers, who was also in the First Tier, and began gaining support with the others as well. He still tried to make time for Old Constance when he could, as he missed their mealtime conversations, but staying at the top took work and he had little time for idleness.

March began and the sun was climbing higher every day. Their hunting forays were being met with more success now that the days were longer and the nights were not so bitter. The pack moved into a neighbouring valley and began working its way up the river as the moon slowly filled out once more in the sky above them.

The smell started as soon as the pack crossed over to the north side of the river. That sinuous stretch of wind-swept ice snaked along the valley floor and provided an efficient transportation route between the hedged in pine forests, but the pack had moved into the trees to escape a bitter wind coming down off the peaks.

It was subtle at first, almost nothing more than a vague sense of unease, but gradually the scent intensified and became a coherent presence. All the wolves became aware of it and quiet rumblings passed through the pack. Before long, Buddy and the other lead wolves broke into a small clearing in the woods that bordered on the river. Mangled tree stumps poked through the snow cover in the open area like broken teeth and there were signs of recent activity. Trails were beaten through the snow from the cover of the woods to the river’s edge and then back across the clearing to a small, dark, squat structure that Buddy did not recognize. The scent was strong here and set them all to growling as the pack assembled behind them. Buddy could not yet place the odour but it somehow seemed dangerous and made him uneasy.

They slipped back into the woods and circled silently around the clearing. As the pack passed near the small log cabin, for that was indeed what the alien structure was, Buddy stopped abruptly. Suddenly he recognized the scent; he had first smelled it on the night he had seen those terrible eyes, and then again the following morning around the tracks they had found in the snow. He ran to be back at the front of the pack and to get away from the haunting smell.

That night he urged the pack as much as he could to keep travelling and to move further away from the clearing. Everyone else had been silent and on edge when they had passed it by, but now they seemed to have forgotten their concern and scoffed at his worry. He slept restlessly that night and above the mountains the gibbous moon rose slowly, waxing towards full.

In the post-feeding stupor the pack lay about, their muzzles and brows painted with the blood of their meal. Fat snow flakes fell in the darkness like little ghosts drifting lazily among the silhouettes of the pine forest. Buddy lay curled in a small pit he had dug in the snow, his tail wrapped around to keep his nose warm. It was quiet in the forest and little stirred in the February night.

A full moon rose steadily above the ridgeline of the mountains to the west and bathed the great valley below it in silver light. The pack slumbered amongst the snow shrouded pines and there was no sound save the popping of the trees as the temperature continued to sink. Nestled as deep as they could in their burrows and packed as tightly as possible into their hidden multitudes of holes, every animal that could sought refuge that night. The cold was oppressive but something more sinister was moving through the woods; a fear that spread steadily like mist along a forest floor, filling every burrow and hollow with its chill. The young twitched in their slumbers while watchful mothers drew bated breath, wide-eyed in the dark. Even the owls, silent hunters and seers of all, sat stiffly on their hidden perches, their great eyes scanning the woods below. They would not fly this night.

At some unknown hour in the deepest watches of the night, Buddy woke. His body unmoving, Buddy’s keen wolf eyes pierced the forest, seeing far by the glow of the moon. Something stirred on the edge of his vision, darkness moving amongst shadowy trees. An unknown smell on the still, cold air made him uneasy. Involuntarily his ears stood up, the only motion to betray his alertness. Only silence greeted them though and he scanned the woods before him for some time but found no further sign of anything. Many strange creatures moved through the woods at night but none dared approach a resting pack of wolves, especially not one as large as theirs. Still, Buddy liked to know things were safe before drifting to sleep.

His eyes grew heavy and his ears settled slowly back against his head as he tucked his muzzle deeper into his furry tail. Suddenly a shiver ripped down Buddy’s spine, driving the sleep from his body in an instant, and like a wave the hair on his back bristled right to the tip of his tail. He froze in place, his ears erect like sentries and his eyes riveted on a spot in the woods not thirty feet away to his right. There two enormous eyes, with nearly a foot of darkness between them, were glowing in the moonlight, suspended at least six feet above the snow. Unblinking they bore straight into some primal corner of his brain and Buddy lay curled, paralysed in a catatonic state of fear, his own eyes held as if by force. He dared not cry out an alarm lest the keeper of the lamp-like eyes be drawn to him. Whether they beheld him or not he could not tell, but Buddy dared not move a muscle. The eyes held his gaze for what felt like minutes before suddenly turning away and vanishing into the night. Buddy whimpered quietly in the darkness but no other wolves had woken.

He did not sleep for the rest of the night, and it was a long time before the sun broke above the mountain peaks to the east. At some point in the misery of that night a scream echoed through the forest to his still straining ears, and Buddy knew that some poor creature had met its end. Empathy was a most unwolf-like emotion, but he knew now what terror must grip an elk’s heart when it is first met in the night by the countless glowing eyes of their pack.

That morning confusion and fear gripped the pack. Shortly after the other wolves had stirred someone had found tracks that circled where they had slept. The prints in the snow were enormous, larger than any animal tracks anyone had ever seen, and their smell was strange and unfamiliar. The pack was restless and agitated as a result and several small fights and growling contests broke out that morning. Despite the appeal of the obvious attention he would receive if he recounted seeing the creature that had made the tracks, Buddy kept quiet. Telling the story would raise more questions and provide no answers, and Seamus would likely lay into him for not rousing the pack or attempting to drive the beast off.

As wolves go, Buddy was fairly ordinary. He ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack and usually got what he needed although not necessarily what he wanted. He did not get first pass at a fresh kill, but he ate enough to stay healthy. He was fairly quick, but not the swiftest. Buddy was strong but far from equalling the most powerful alpha males and he was smart enough to know that there were smarter wolves than him in the woods.

Buddy kept to himself for the most part, although he was fairly good friends with a couple of the wolves closest to him in rank. Old Constance the Lopsided, was probably his closest friend. They often discussed things like the weather or who was smelling the most interesting that day while tearing into a moose or deer or whatever hapless woodland creature the pack had managed to kill. Constance often ate on Buddy’s left so that he had someone to lean on when he lost his equilibrium and tipped over, as he was in the habit of doing.

Samuel Whiskers was a grey wolf with blue eyes whom Buddy considered as something of a mysterious ally. He had stepped in on Buddy’s behalf once or twice before when tensions had escalated in the pack, much to Buddy’s own surprise, and Buddy likely owed him his life or at least some of his fur and maybe an eye. He showed respect to Samuel above what was due, and he knew the older wolf appreciated it.

Finally there was Dave, a rather odd greyish wolf of small stature and brain who often held lengthy one-way conversations with Buddy. It sometimes occurred to Buddy that Dave only talked to him to try and hide the fact that he was cutting far above his place in line. In fact Buddy did not really consider Dave a friend at all, but simply could not be bothered with chasing him off all the time.

Some day Buddy dreamed of leading a pack of his own and raising a litter of strong hunter pups. In all of his myriad dreams of various perfect futures, only one wolf played the female lead. Her name was Desemah. Her true name was one of beauty and power: a deep guttural roll rising to a piercing, mournful howl and ending in a husky bark. He dared not attempt to utter her true name with Seamus around, and he wasn’t even sure if he could master the vocalisations at all.

If he could call her properly, getting each sound and waiver perfect, it would impress her greatly. But if he failed at it she would be insulted beyond reproach, or, at least for a few months anyway. Either way though Seamus would take it as a direct challenge and fight him on the spot for even trying. Still, he longed to abscond with Desemah and lead a pack of his own. He was sure they could hunt well enough together and he could bring a few of the lower wolves along with him, they knew well enough that they had no shot at ever leading this pack. He’d bring Old Constance along too just for the company and for general support purposes.

(In case you are wondering Buddy’s own true name sounds a bit like the noise a pup might make if you bit it on the rump a few times while it had food in its mouth.)

When Buddy’s turn to feed came and he was busy tearing into a kill, Desemah would occasionally stand behind him as though waiting for an opening at the carcass. He would always offer his spot to her, but then she would angrily refuse it and trot away. Such a display of canine pride, it made him crazy about her. Of course she had already eaten her fill during the First Tier’s feeding and did not actually intend to eat any more. It was a wolf’s game they played and she did it only with him. If she really did want to feed she would merely fix her steely eyes on a lower male and drive him from the kill without so much as a growl. Oh, what a girl!

But for now it was only a dream…