Kar saw a strange den surrounded on all sides by poles made of the same substance as the metal crosses in the graveyard. The poles were buried deep in a line of even stones. On the hard ground inside was a shiny, rounded object filled with water. There were the last remnants of bone on the floor next to it, and the wolf blinked and growled as he looked at the prison.
Suddenly Kar heard a grunt and a shape emerged from the den. It was the strangest dog Kar had ever seen. It was even taller than Kar, though really most remarkably thin. So thin in fact that Kar could almost see the ribs sticking out from its sides. Its legs were as slender as twigs, and fine, long fur, which curled here and there into ringlets, hung about its body.
But strangest of all was its muzzle. It was so long and tapering that it seemed to go on for ever and to Kar’s eyes made it look a little like a giant stoat. Yet despite the almost feminine delicacy of its body and bones, there was a tremendous vigour about it too, a lean, springy energy that spoke both of strength and speed.
The dog was half asleep and did not notice Kar watching him through the bars. It yawned and, pushing its front legs forward across the floor of the kennel, its body dropped as it began to stretch. Its fine muzzle opened and its legs quivered with delight as it shook the energy through its muscles. Then it yawned again and opened its eyes.
As soon as it caught sight of the wolf the dog began to growl furiously, and the barking that came from its throat seemed so loud that it could have broken open that slender frame. Another shape sprang from the den behind it immediately.
‘What is it, Manov, have the masters returned?’
But the second dog had seen Kar too. Her body braced, but rather than barking, her eyes glittered hopefully.
‘Hush, Manov,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps it can help us.’
‘Help us?’ snorted Manov. ‘Are you forgetting what we were bred for, Mitya? To be Putnar. We were born to drive the wild wolf from the land so that the grace and ease of the true dog may be bred into future generations.’
Kar was amazed. Firstly, that he could understand the dogs at all and secondly, that this creature had used the word Putnar.
‘Oh, be quiet, you old fool,’ said Mitya irritably. ‘We can’t hunt anything, can we, stuck in this kennel? And if we don’t eat soon there won’t be any future generations. You and your breeding, Manov.’
Manov seemed rather embarrassed and he started muttering to himself.
‘But it’s only breeding that matters, Mitya. Match the finest with the strongest. Allow only the best to survive, for the purpose they were intended. That’s what our masters teach.’
Mitya shook her head and came closer to the bars.
‘Forgive us,’ she said gently to Kar, ‘but since the humans fled the village we’ve been cooped up here and it strains our nerves. By nature we are rather highly strung.’
The wolf wanted to laugh as he looked at them, so absurd did they seem, but Kar liked this female immediately.
‘What are you?’ he growled.
‘Borsoi, of course,’ answered Manov behind his mate, raising his head again, so high that he might have snagged his nose on the clouds. ‘Can’t you use your eyes? Thoroughbreds, raised on the great northern Steppes, for our speed and courage. Raised only by the greatest and most powerful of the humans. We are royal dogs and should be treated as such.’
Mitya raised her own eyes to the heavens.
‘Don’t mind Manov,’ she said as humbly as possible, although it wasn’t really in her nature to be humble. ‘We need your help. If you don’t help us, we’ll be dead before long.’
Kar padded closer and thrust his muzzle through the bars to sniff at the dogs, but as soon as he did so Manov began to growl in the kennel.
‘What did I say?’ he cried scornfully. ‘No breeding. No breeding at all.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by this breeding,’ growled Kar, ‘but if it gives you legs and a muzzle like that I’d rather be a wolf runt.’
Manov leapt forward, barking angrily, and when he opened his long snout Kar saw the sharpness of his teeth. But Kar would not allow himself to be intimidated by this absurd creature. He let the growl start deep in his stomach, rumbling up through his throat, until it exploded into an angry snarl that made Mitya shiver and back away. It was a strange and almost humorous sight – the wolf outside the cage, wild with an instinctive anger; the two Borsois within, so refined and inbred that it seemed a gust of wind might blow them over. But suddenly Kar turned and, flicking his muzzle scornfully, he sprang away.
He heard Mitya scolding Manov as he ran, but he didn’t look back. Kar was desperately hungry himself and, as he thought of what the Borsoi had said and felt the anger in his belly, he wanted to strike out at something.
It was getting dark and Kar had begun to feel guilty about the dogs in their prison, when he came close to the remains of another human den. It was edged by a sheep fold and, as Kar approached, he felt a furious hunger rising inside him. There was no one about and the sheep had begun to bleat pitifully as they sensed the Varg.
In a single bound Kar leapt the fence and almost as soon as he was among them he felt anger overcome him. He had meant to take only one, but as soon as he began to bite a feeling mastered him, as liberating as it was violent. Kar swung left and right at the sheep, snarling and snapping blindly as the bloodlust took him. His head was swamped with their scent and, as they tried to get away from him, his anger consumed him.
Kar seemed to wake from a dream as he looked around. Five sheep lay dead already, bleeding on the snow. Kar was startled by his own ferocity and he shuddered. Suddenly he looked up and growled. For a moment, Kar fancied he had seen a wolf in the distance, watching him, yet as soon as he spotted it, it vanished.
Mitya was the first to see Kar again. He was padding towards the kennel in the coming morning and he carried a haunch in his jaws. Manov tried to hide the gratitude in his eyes as Kar threw them the meat and lay down to watch them feed. That night found the wolf talking with Mitya in the shadows.
Kar told her the story of the legend and his own journey. Then he asked Mitya and Manov of their own lives, and they began to tell him of the lands to the north-east, that men call Russia, where they had been born and bred.
Kar growled excitedly as he learnt of the sweeping country called the Steppes and of the terrible winters that were even worse than in Transylvania. Mitya told him of the giant landlocked lakes that would freeze as solid as stone, and the vast mountain chains that seemed to go on for ever and ever, about humans, too, that always kept on the move and were known to the Borsoi as the tamers of horses, though the humans call them Cossacks.
Manov and Mitya had lived for a long time with the Cossacks, until they had been sold into their current slavery, and had slept in the open by their burning air. They had watched their strange, wild ways, and listened as the humans gathered together in the evenings and picked up odd wooden objects, just as Larka had described the Gypsies carrying, which gave off wonderful, haunting melodies as they danced and spun round and round with each other in the night.
Mitya avoided the matter of hunting and the purpose the Borsoi had been bred for, but the wolf listened in amazement as he learnt how the humans would choose characteristics in their animals and dogs and marry them together to produce more specialized qualities in their young.
‘Then it’s true,’ growled the Varg. ‘The only freedom runs with the wolf.’
‘I don’t know why you say that, Kar,’ Mitya whispered almost indignantly. ‘I was suckled in a human den when my mother got sick. It’s all I know. Sometimes Manov talks about living out there in the wild, but is wildness the same as freedom?’
Kar gave a low, unsettled growl.
‘Out there,’ Mitya went on, dropping her eyes a little as she stared through the bars, ‘survival is difficult and your kind are hunted.’
‘Yes, Mitya.’ Kar nodded. ‘But all things are hunted, except perhaps Man, and it makes us strong. At le
ast the wolf can roam where he will and choose his own den. At least he can howl to the mountaintops and hunt where he likes, and can never be tamed.’
Mitya and Manov felt an odd stirring in their bellies.
‘True,’ Mitya nodded, ‘but the humans hunt where they will too. And they are more successful at it than any Lera.’
‘Are you saying,’ growled Kar, ‘are you saying that you want to be like them?’
The Borsoi paused thoughtfully.
‘No, Kar. But for some dogs their greatest ambition is to leave their kennels and go and live in the humans’ dens.’
‘You mean that they live with the humans?’ gasped Kar.
‘But what happens to them?’
‘They grow tame,’ said Manov suddenly, looking at Kar with distaste again. Kar’s eyes flickered. To him it seemed that Mitya and Manov were already tame, and he could not imagine what it could be like to live in close proximity to Man.
‘But how could they do it? Live in the human dens with their burning air and all their strange smells?’
‘They have comfort too,’ answered Mitya gently, ‘and the humans are odd. I like many of their kind. Or at least I find, well, I find I am naturally drawn to them. Sometimes I think I could learn things from them.’
Mitya paused. A memory was flickering across her eyes.
‘There was one. A boy who used to look after me. He was kind and did not beat me as some of the others did. Sometimes as I lay by the fire he would put his hand on my head and it always felt strange as he stroked me. It calmed me and he would let me look into his eyes longer than normal...’
Kar cocked his head with surprise, but the strangeness of the idea passed.
‘Well, I could never do such a thing as live with Man,’ grunted Kar.
‘Don’t be so sure. You are a wolf, Kar, and we are dogs, but we are not so different, you and I. We can talk to one another for a start and there are many dogs I’ve met that still have the blood of the wolf flowing strongly in their veins.’
‘Bad breeding,’ whispered Manov scornfully.
Kar found the idea strangely discomforting, but he felt that perhaps Mitya was speaking the truth. Despite what the Borsoi had said of freedom, though, it was clear that they were desperate to get out of their cage. All night they kept whining bitterly and pushing at the gate, and though from the outside Kar tried to help them, leaping up and pressing on the gate with his long, slender legs, it was no use. Morning found them still together and in the night Kar had crept back to the sheep fold and brought them more meat. Mitya was clearly very grateful, but Manov still kept looking at Kar angrily. At last Kar could stomach it no longer.
‘Why do you hate my kind so, Manov?’ he growled.
‘Because of what you do,’ snorted Manov.
‘And what is that? Hunt free and wild.’
Manov’s eyes flickered.
‘I was caged with a wolf once,’ he whispered coldly, ‘to the north when the humans had been fighting. But she knew only the freedom of killing, and I have never seen a Lera kill with such a will.’
Kar’s ears came up immediately.
‘At first they fed us on mutton and scraps, but then,’ Manov shuddered strangely, ‘then the food they brought us . . . that I would have nothing to do with.’
There was something horrified in the Borsoi’s look.
‘Tell me,’ growled Kar.
‘The humans,’ he said, ‘in their fights they had captured many man Draggas and one night they brought one down to the kennels and thrust him into the cage with us. It was clearly terrified. But the wolf went straight for the human’s throat. After that, for suns they would bring down more of their prisoners and the wolf would gorge herself. The kennel floor was littered with human limbs and, as she grew fat, she kept watching the humans greedily, as though she were studying them. I remember her face well,’ said Manov, ‘with that torn ear and those terrible scars on her muzzle.’
Kar suddenly felt a weakness grip him.
‘She said she knew of the humans,’ Kar whispered.
‘She was a strange one,’ growled Manov. ‘She kept muttering about an energy filling everything. About a power that connected all. In the nights she would talk of death and laugh to herself. Then she would mutter things about the past. About some great injustice that had been done to her.’
‘Morgra,’ snarled Kar, ‘it was Morgra.’
‘One sun I approached her and asked her why she so delighted in killing the human Draggas. Why she hated Man so.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She laughed in my face. ‘‘Hate Man’’, she answered, ‘‘I do not hate Man. I feed on him because everything feeds on everything else. But far from hating him, I must learn from him. One sun I shall truly understand his mind. For there dwell the real secrets. The secrets of freedom and of life itself. For only Man’s mind may look beyond the slavery of instinct, the slavery of the thoughtless Lera. The Lera that shall be my slaves.’’ ’
‘How did she escape?’
‘One sun, after they had stopped feeding her, we noticed a child kept coming to the kennel to watch us, a girl. The she-wolf pretended to be ill and sickening, and lay there like a mild dog, whimpering pitifully. The girl seemed moved and one sun she opened the cage. It cost the creature her hand.’ Kar’s discovery woke something terrible in the wolf, and in that moment he knew that he must find Larka. But Kar felt guilty at leaving the dogs behind and so, once more, he went to the sheep fold and piled as much food up for the Borsoi as he could.
‘Don’t worry, Kar,’ said Mitya, as he took his farewells of them. ‘I’m sure our human masters will return, when they think it safe enough and they remember about us. But you have helped us and we thank you.’
Manov was staring at Kar haughtily, but as he looked at the fresh meat his expression softened.
‘Take a rabbit for us, Kar,’ he growled grudgingly, ‘or a deer and get strong again. So it’ll be a fair chase, eh, when we get out of here. But in the meantime I suppose... we wish you the joy of a free heart. Good luck.’
As they watched the wolf padding off through the snow, Mitya turned to her mate.
‘I wonder, Manov,’ she whispered gravely, ‘what it would be like to be truly wild.’
Kar wandered for suns and moons and at first his heart lifted again. To be free was a wonderful feeling. To stretch his legs and run through the grass, to drink at the stream and watch the birds in the wintry sky. But one sun he strayed close to the humans’ dens again and, as Kar approached a snowy field, he caught a terrible scent on his nostrils.
The wolf began to tremble and he gasped as he came to a pit. It was filled with bodies. They were wolves. There must have been twenty or thirty of them. They were all dead and the skin had been flayed from their carcasses. But amongst them, hidden beneath their bodies, there were dead humans too; Turks who had been murdered by the local people and buried here in this wolf pit, to hide the crime. The sight made Kar whimper and struggle for breath, and for suns after that he could hardly sleep. It had scarred his mind, and now a terrible wariness woke in him.
As Kar wandered in search of Larka another feeling grew in his heart. A feeling he was totally unprepared for. Loneliness. He noticed how the Lera responded to his passing.
Most seemed terrified of him and would vanish into the snow or the trees when they caught the wolf’s scent on the breeze.
On Kar wandered and, as he did so, he began to scavenge. He was forced to hunt even the smallest Lera and it taught him how hard it was to survive in the wild. The wolf felt the harsh edges of life and saw how, even in the damp, dark places in the forest untouched by the snows, a battle for survival seemed to be taking place that could never cease. Loneliness gnawed at the Varg’s heart and, as his isolation grew, he began to feel that everything was at once his enemy and the enemy of everything else. His coat grew rough and unkempt, for not spending time with his own he began to forget the habits of the wolf and would no longer si
t to groom himself. He thought of Mitya and Manov, safe in their kennel, and wondered if all he had said of freedom was just a silly lie.
In the foothills of the mountains he saw Balkar roaming through the trees, and he began to think that not only were the Lera isolated from each other, but that the Varg itself was his bitterest enemy. Then one cold sun he came upon a small pack. There was a Dragga and a Drappa and two youngsters with them. The sight reminded him of his own days as a cub and his tail lifted eagerly. But they were frightened and, fleeing from the Night Hunters, had seen much horror themselves. As soon as Kar neared them they leapt at him and drove him off, without once pausing to find out who he was or what he wanted.
It pushed Kar even further in on himself. He began to talk to himself as he walked and at night he would sit on his own and howl to the skies. Often voices would come to answer him, the voices of other lone wolves that rose with the same searching longing, but these voices were not talking to each other, they were calling to themselves and their own pain. They were sounding an elegy for their own despair.
He climbed higher into the mountains and came to a cave by a frozen pool set in a bowl of hills that he stopped to explore. It was a strange place, dry and dusty, with a high- vaulting ceiling where bats had perched to nest, hanging like living fruit from the crevices. Kar felt an odd sense of peace and calm as he entered and, at its back, he found a pile of old straw and dead leaves that some other creature had used as bedding. He scented the place, but could smell nothing of the animal’s life, so he lay down to rest.
As the suns passed Kar settled into his cave, only venturing out to snatch a rabbit or mouse, or to scavenge for winter berries. He got thinner as the air grew sharper and, having nothing and no one to raise his spirits or share his vulnerability, Kar began to grumble and curse the elements themselves. The wolf’s conversations with himself became more and more voluble, and Kar even began to fancy that there was somebody else in the cave with him.