57AN: I am very sorry to anyone who was expecting a long chapter as this one isn't too long. For those of you who have read it before I would like to point out that I am changing the format slightly and in this new, revised version every chapter will be written in a different POV, alternating between Isabel and Wild Falcon with a possible interlude of other characters. Anyways thank you to everyone who reviewed, it's greatly appreciated and I'm glad that people are still interested in the story and that new people have discovered it. Don't expect an update for more than a week as I am completely overwhelmed by school at the moment and it was hard for me just to find the time to get this up here. Thanks again and reviews are greatly appreciated!
The thrill of the hunt is in the chase, in the highly practiced and flawlessly choreographed dance that is death. It always ends with death whether it is the death of our prey and our subsequent feast or the tragic death of a pack member, caught by the horns of an elk or trampled by deer. Hunting was my life, our life, the life of the pack. Without the food that I and my wolf brothers and sisters provided the elders and cubs would die. We ran, ran along the ground as the wind whistled through the trees and the rain beat down on our backs. It seems like all we ever did in the summer was run.
There we times when we were running not for our dinner, but from our enemies, the humans who blamed us for stealing their sheep and cattle and killing their children. Did they not realize that the same bulls that they worshipped to keep themselves alive were the same horned creatures who had sometimes been the ones to gut their children? I blamed myself for a long time, for being like them and looking as they did. But my wolf brothers and sisters taught me better. I must not blame myself for the mistakes of others. I was not a human. I was Wild Falcon, the Wolf Who Climbs Towards The Sky, the name my mother gave me when I first learned to stand on two legs, as the other humans did, and I towered over my pack. I could not remember anything before my life with the wolves but they told me in their own way how I came to be with them…
'A young woman with long midnight black hair and pale moonlit skin ran through the dark shadowy forest and away from her crazed husband. They were a poor couple, living in a small cottage on the outskirts of a small woodland village. In her arms she carried a small bundle containing her child. The eighteen-month-old baby boy was not her husband's. She had married him because her parents had ordered her to…not because they were in love. The day of her wedding she said goodbye to her childhood sweetheart, and prepared for a life of sadness with an older man she did not love.
Two years later, her lover Antonio returned and told her she must run away with him. They would go to Spain or Italy, and they could be happy together. While she refused to go with him, she still let him stay with her in her house for a week while her husband was away on business. During that time they had pledged their love many times…in more ways than one. Nine months later, their baby was born.
Her husband didn't seem to care much about the baby at all, until he began noticing small things about him. He had met her sweetheart once, at the wedding, and knew what he looked like. Unfortunately for her, the baby looked exactly like his father at his age - with the same dark complexion, raven-black hair and eyes the light gray of the clouds... Still, her husband had no proof of her deceit. But when he discovered from a woman in the village that she had seen Antonio around the cottage, he found out the truth. Now she was running for her own life - and her baby's.
Suddenly she tripped and went sprawling into a small clearing, her hair fanning out in front of her as dirt flew into her mouth. She sat up slowly, and heard her husband swearing as he tried to maneuver among the murky forest. Leaning back down, she checked to make sure her baby was all right and was startled and frightened when she realized he was no longer in her arms. Reaching around in the pitch-black she saw a pair of glowing eyes staring back at her from the dense bush, and as her own dark brown pupils adjusted to the darkness she discovered that what she was seeing was a large wolf standing over her child.
"No!" she screamed as the wolf lowered its head over the babe, and as she heard a snap of twigs behind her she discovered that she had betrayed her position to her angry husband.
"Hello bitch," he said, and she realized that he hadn't noticed the baby- or the wolf. She tried to get up and face him but her leg seemed to have broken in her fall and only now was she beginning to feel the pain. "Answer me when I talk to you, you stupid whore," he screamed in her face. "I'll kill you for disrespecting me. No woman crosses me!" And with that he raised the pitchfork. She closed her eyes and prayed in her last few seconds of life.
'Take care of my baby oh merciful Jesus, let him kill me but don't let him get my baby!' That was when she heard an angry snarl and opened her eyes in time to see the wolf take a running leap at her husband and knock him to the ground, grasping his throat in its mouth. Blood sprayed onto her face and hair as the wolf proceeded to kill her husband slowly. When it finished, his body lay lifeless beside hers, a sadistic, twisted smile still frozen on his lifeless face.
She could feel her own blood pouring out of her and she knew that soon she would also be dead. "My baby," she whispered to the wolf standing over her, and she watched as others came slowly into the clearing and formed a solemn circle around her and her child. Her beautiful baby boy was crying, no doubt disturbed by what was going on around him. She pulled him into her arms and sung him a last lullaby, tears running down her cheeks, making little paths between the blood and dirt that was caked on her face. The wolves watched silently and, when they realized that she too was dead, they retrieved the baby from her arms and raised it as one of their own . . .'
I pulled myself away from these bitter thoughts and concentrated on my wolf brother in front of me. Named Battle-Fang, he was the son of my wolf-mother. He received his adult name only 2 weeks ago, after a large skirmish against a group of humans in which he lost half a tooth. We were very close, both still with our wolf-mother, not having left the pack to find a mate yet. I hated these thoughts for I had been living with the wolves for more than 16 winters and I knew that I would never be able to find a mate. My brother was almost 2 winters old and he would leave soon. However, I would not. No matter how wolf-like a human may act, he still cannot mate with one and why would I ever leave the wolves to mate with a human? Those vicious creatures would probably shoot me upon sight as they had done to one of my wolf sisters. I had pulled the arrow from her body and held her to my heart as she bled to death in my arms. I never forgave my own race for her life.
Pushing aside all other thoughts I concentrated on the body language of my brothers and sisters and followed the paths unknown to humans until we reached the caves that were our summer home. They were a safe and cool haven during the long hot days of summer and kept us well hidden from the other predators of the forest such as the puma and coyotes, our smaller brothers, who would nonetheless take one of us for food if they could. Unlike the wolves the coyotes preferred to scavenge the dead carcasses left behind by others.
My wolf-mother, Winter-Frost, greeted us at the entrance to the main cave. She was getting older, having only just reached sexual maturity when she took me on and was now nearing 18 winters, one of the elders of the pack. Battle-Fang was her last cub, there would be no more for her. Her beautiful thick fur was snow-white and even when she had been young enough to join the hunt she couldn't join in during the summer when we fought by night to save ourselves from the sun as she was too conspicuous. She stayed behind with the other elders, Long-Paw and Rip-Ear, to take care of the newest litter of cubs while the rest of the pack hunted. I loved to make her happy by giving her long belly scratches after a hard day of hunting. Then she cleaned me with her tongue, before I lay down to sleep with her and Battle-Fang. My other wolf brothers and sisters had already left to make or join their own packs in other parts of our territories that humans haven't already cleared of forest for their farms and houses.
Something was troubling my wolf-mother but she would not speak to me. Her body movement spoke of raw anxiousness and I knew that she was still troubled by the events that had occurred a few weeks before although she refused to tell me. 'Let her be Falcon,' Battle told me. 'She will confide in us in her own time.' I nodded and ran my hands over his back and hind-legs, offering relief of sore muscles in exchange for a quick tongue bath on my still partially blood-covered face.
The day after that feast of two young deer, we lazed around and lay in the sun, soaking up its eternal warmth. The six young cubs wandered aimlessly, drifting towards the dark forest only to be called back by their mother, Dew-Drop. As always I sat on top of the large hill that was the foundation of our caves, soaking in my own sun, and keeping watch out for any sign of human hunters that came too close to finding our hide-out.
Suddenly three of our eighteen pack members came running out of the forest, terror reflected in their every movement. I raced down the hills, knowing that something must have happened. Our alpha male, Leer-Eye, came running into the small grass clearing in front of our caves, 'They are coming Falcon, they are coming,' he snarled up at me, ignoring the rest of our pack as I jumped down nimbly to greet him. The elders, Long-Paw and Rip-Ear were beside us in a moment.
'What have you seen?' they asked urgently. 'Who is coming?' Leer looked to them.
'Human hunters. They have knives, arrows and . . . fire.'
Fire. That was the worst fear of all forest dwellers. A human with fire could not only burn us but they could burn down our entire home, killing our families, our game and our shelter… This was not good news, not good news at all. Especially after what had happened with my last human encounter.