Survivors: Alpha's Tale, Page 4

  He tried to sound more convinced than he felt, but even so, Sundance’s muzzle curled. “No. They’re not. You think they’d risk our jaws for a creature like you?”

  “Even if they don’t I’ll get away myself,” snapped Dog.

  “What incredible teeth you must have,” yawned Sundance, sitting back on his haunches. “I look forward to seeing you bite straight through that chain.”

  There was nothing Dog could say to that. All he could do was snarl in defiance. But at that moment he heard it: a distant, mournful howling that echoed in the faraway blue hills.

  Dog’s skin shivered beneath his fur, and his muscles went rigid. He stood quite still on all fours, his ears and nostrils and whiskers yearning toward the sound. If he pricked his ears hard enough, he might make out voices he knew—Graceful, perhaps, or Quick. He’d even be glad to hear Daring.

  But the Fierce Dogs had heard it, too. They turned, tensing, their hindquarters quivering as they listened to the sound. A very low, constant growl began to rumble in Sundance’s throat.

  He gave an abrupt commanding bark. “Form up! We’re going wolf hunting!”

  “No!” barked Dog, but they had already raced from the barn. Straining at his collar, he let out a frantic volley of yelps. Once again he ripped with his claws at the collar, and he turned to tear uselessly with his fangs at the wooden post. It was hopeless.

  I’m trapped in this awful place, he thought in agony, while those dogs attack the wolves who came to rescue me! Despair and fury surged in his blood, but even that rush of sensation couldn’t give him enough strength to break the post. At last, panting, his flanks heaving, he could only stand there, the collar taut around his throat, and stare through the open barn door.

  The hills were invisible now except as empty shadows against a star-speckled sky. The blackness of the night felt oppressive, and Dog could no longer hear barks or howls or yelps, even in the far distance.

  He lay down, his head on his paws, and waited.

  It seemed an achingly long and tense time before moving shadows appeared on the meadow, growing larger as they approached the barn.

  Dog’s heart sank in his rib cage. It was the Fierce Dogs, back from their hunt, all four of them in one piece.

  Sundance stalked into the barn and right up to the pen fence, head high, an expression of arrogance on his face. His eyes flashed with the excitement of a fight. “I love a good chase.”

  Chase? Not a fight? “They’ll be back,” growled Dog.

  “I doubt that,” said Zorro. “They weren’t even coming for you this time.”

  “You’re lying.” Dog curled his muzzle back from his fangs.

  “He isn’t,” mocked Sundance. “Those flea-bitten brutes you call a Pack weren’t on their way here. They were leaving. Without you. We made sure they did it a lot faster.”

  Dog’s breath was coming in fast panicked rasps now. “That isn’t true. They’ll come for me!”

  “We’ve driven them farther into the mountains.” Belle cocked her head to watch him with contempt. “They won’t be back to raid the Rancher’s sheep. We made sure of that, even though they’d have been too frightened anyway.”

  “Cowards,” spat Sundance, licking his shoulder. “And we only had to kill one of them.”

  Dog’s blood ran cold. Somehow he knew Sundance wouldn’t lie; why would he bother? “Which wolf did you kill?” Dog’s bark was so hoarse he could barely hear it himself.

  “How would I know?” Sundance’s ears flicked. “Some old she-wolf who couldn’t run fast.”

  “I don’t think she couldn’t run,” remarked Zorro, giving Dog a sly look. “She was dragging behind, that’s all. Kept staring back, like she didn’t want to leave.”

  Dog felt incapable of moving, almost incapable of breathing. Zorro was still watching him insolently.

  “So it was her own fault Sundance brought her down. Isn’t that right, Boss?”

  “I had to give a lesson to the others, anyway,” growled Sundance. “And she didn’t even bother to beg. Just kept asking what had happened to her pup. The one who got left behind at the longpaw’s ranch.” Zorro smirked.

  “Don’t worry. I told her you were fine.” Sundance bent to lick idly at his paw. “I told her you’d begged to join the Fierce Dogs. Told her you’d rolled over and pleaded to be in our Pack.” He raised his head to stare at Dog. “So I’m sure she was perfectly content when I killed her.”

  Dog flew at him. Barking, raging, howling, he flung himself again and again at the Fierce Dogs, scrabbling wildly in hopeless fury. The collar jerked so tight around his throat it dug into his flesh with every lunge, and he was gasping for breath, but still he threw himself forward. His vision was blurred and red, darkening by the instant.

  It was useless. As the fury drained from his veins, he staggered, then lurched sideways, collapsing to the timber floor. His tongue lolled as he dragged breath into his lungs, the collar almost strangling him. Before his dulling vision he saw the shapes of three Fierce Dogs turn contemptuously and pace out of the barn.

  “Wolf. Wolf!” Calamity was still there. She was lying on her forepaws, her nose stretched out through the wooden railings. “Wolf, you have to calm down.”

  “Calm down?” He lurched to his paws again, struggling. “No!”

  “Yes, Wolf. Stop fighting. Please, you’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Hurt? He killed my Mother-Wolf!” His strangled barking hoarsened as he felt the collar tighten again.

  “Don’t let him do the same to you!” Calamity stood up, pressing her face to the bars of the fence.

  Flanks heaving, Dog stared at her, still gasping for breath. He backed off a pace, and felt the collar loosen a little. His throat was a dry agony.

  “They left you.” There was anger in Calamity’s voice, but Dog had the odd feeling she wasn’t angry with him. “Don’t give Sundance the satisfaction of choking yourself, because your Pack isn’t worth it. They’ve abandoned you.”

  It’s true. They’ve gone to the mountains without me.

  “Quick will come,” he whined, but he didn’t even believe it himself now.

  “Quick, whoever he is, has turned tail and fled. He’s left you here with the Rancher and with us.” Calamity’s words were harsh, but her voice was gentle.

  Quick was never going to come for me. He truly doesn’t care and he never has.

  Dog tipped his head back and let out a ringing, grief-stricken howl. Graceful is dead. She’s dead.

  He would never speak to her again, would never curl up against her warm flanks in their den. She would never lie quietly, telling him stories of his lost sire, reassuring him that his Name was a fine one, a Name to be proud of. Graceful’s dead, and she thinks I abandoned her with a happy heart.

  He’d left her with harsh words. He’d never told Graceful he was sorry for what he’d said about his sire, sorry for the shame he felt about his blood. And now I never will. His howl rose in pitch, echoing with remorse and regret. He wished it could reach Graceful, running now with the Great Wolf, but he knew no howl, however piercing, could do that.

  I’ve lost her forever.

  As Dog lay down on his forepaws, sunk in his misery, Calamity turned and paced sadly from the barn, leaving him alone to grieve.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Through a dark fog of sleep and grim dreams, Dog heard a sharp clatter that made his head jerk up from sleep. Dizzied, he blinked at the morning sunshine that slanted into the barn, burnishing the straw with early golden light.

  Dog kicked out, raking the straw beneath him as he staggered to his paws. The Rancher was there, right in the pen with him, setting down fresh bowls of water and dusty dry meat.

  Dog hunched his shoulders low, a growl beginning at the back of his aching throat. This was the longpaw who had taken him from his Pack, had sent his Fangs to kill Dog’s mother. Dog sprang at him.

  The fur-faced longpaw turned with surprising agility. Too late Dog saw the hefty stick in his hand;
he felt it smack down across his muzzle.

  Flinching back, Dog was unable to suppress a shocked whimper of pain. The Rancher was eyeing him closely but without fear. His long-fingered paws were sheathed in thick hide and he held the stick in both of them, alert and ready to whack it down again.

  Dog’s eyes shifted to the bowl of food; the Rancher was between it and him. If he couldn’t even eat—

  He lunged again, his fangs bared. Once more the stick smacked down, catching his skull hard enough to make stars explode behind his eyes. Dog whined and shrank back.

  This is intolerable! Dog snarled and jumped, and this time the stick caught him on the nose again, even harder. He yelped and crouched, confused and angry.

  The Rancher only watched him, tapping the stick lightly against one of his sheathed paws. Dog eyed him back, wary now and afraid of that stinging stick. He took a couple of shuffling paces forward toward the food bowl, his stomach growling and his jaws slavering with hunger. When the Rancher didn’t hit him again, he crawled past his feet, almost close enough to touch the longpaw. He pulled himself up, dipped his muzzle into the bowl and began, resentfully, to eat.

  The Rancher’s front paws were so nimble, Dog’s mouth was still full of meat nuggets when he felt the pressure on his neck ease. The longpaw had loosed him from the wooden post! For a moment he was too confused even to swallow, and then he felt a new and different pressure on his throat.

  Another collar. Different!

  This one felt cold, like metal instead of hide, with a stiff leash already attached to it, tethering Dog to the Rancher’s paws. Dog turned, snapping, but the collar instantly contracted on his throat. He went rigid, his eyes rolling. Only when he let his muscles relax did the collar loosen too, and he could breathe easily again.

  “Wolf.” The voice was familiar.

  He looked around. Calamity stood outside the pen with the other Fierce Dogs, watching every move the Rancher made.

  “The Rancher is your Alpha now, Wolf,” she told him. “Just accept that, and do as he tells you. The sooner you learn it, the sooner the collar will stop squeezing you.”

  Dog tucked his tail tightly between his hind legs. He couldn’t help it—the squeeze collar frightened him. When the Rancher twitched on its stiff leash and nudged him toward the pen’s open gate, Dog wanted to resist, but the thought of the collar forced him to obey. He slunk after the longpaw, his hackles rigid with fear.

  Despite the Rancher and the squeeze collar and the Fierce Dogs around him, it was bliss for Dog to step outside the dusty barn and into the cool sunlit air. The sky was blue enough to hurt his eyes, and off in the distance the tree-edged hills were hazy. His nostrils twitched, finding the heavy warm scent of sheep that had got him into this trouble in the first place. Despite that, their meaty odor was irresistible, and Dog jerked toward the milling creatures in a corner of the meadow. Instantly the squeeze collar tightened, and he gasped a wheezing breath. Shivering, he shrank back.

  “Now.” Sundance padded around the Rancher to gaze at Dog with disdain. “We’ll begin your training.”

  Dog had no intention of being trained, but every day for a full change of the moon the Rancher would come to his pen and bring him out into the field. The squeeze collar and the snapping jaws of the Fierce Dogs were always with him, and the Rancher’s loudstick was never far from his thoughts.

  By the end of Dog’s first day of training, he had grown to hate the squeeze collar with a fierce passion. The Rancher would not let him make so much as a move without a sharp bark of command, and if Dog rebelled, the metal would tighten on his soft throat muscles. Dog didn’t want to do anything this cold-voiced longpaw told him to do. By the time the sun went down and Dog was tethered back to the wood-and-metal post, his jaws were flecked with foam and his throat stung from the collar and from thirst.

  Each time the Rancher barked an order, Sundance, at his side, would snap an instruction at Dog, letting him know what the longpaw wanted. At least he could understand the Fierce Dog’s commands, thought Dog angrily. At least then he could obey whatever pointless command the longpaw gave, and the collar would leave him alone.

  At every hesitation, at every sullen growl, the collar would tighten again. By the middle of the second day Dog had begun to obey swiftly, if only so that he wouldn’t choke to death. Some words the longpaw snapped so often, after a few days Dog began to recognize them. By the time the moon had turned from full and round to a bright sliver in the sky, he knew how to respond to them. He felt an odd sense of achievement at no longer needing the scornful Sundance to interpret his Alpha’s barks. If the Fierce Dogs were smart enough to understand the Rancher, Dog could learn to do it too. Heel was easy enough: walk beside the Rancher. Sit sent him back on his haunches. No: well, that clearly meant Stop what you’re doing or the collar will tighten.

  And if he was unsure, then the responses of the other Fierce Dogs gave him a clue. It was obvious to Dog that they really did see the Rancher as their Alpha. At the first sound of his voice, each dog would leap to obey, and when they’d done what he asked, he gave them something fine-smelling from a pouch at his side. Dog watched that behavior, licking his chops, but he wouldn’t beg. I won’t take his stinking rewards. I hate him, and I hate his Fangs.

  And yet . . . he had nowhere else to go. Every now and then the knowledge would pierce him, making his belly twist with regret and sorrow. My Pack has left me; what choice do I have? Where else can I go?

  And it was strange, but somewhere deep in his bones he began to feel a tug at the sound of the Rancher’s voice. He struggled against the urge to respond, desperately trying to resist, to remind himself that he was a wild wolf . . . but without disobeying so that the Rancher would use the squeeze collar or give him another sharp tap across the muzzle with his stick.

  There was something else, too: He was beginning to admire these Fierce Dogs’ pack behavior. They moved as if they were a single creature, a single mind. They worked as a team, with all the discipline his Pack had lacked, the strength of trusting teamwork that would have served them so well in a hunt. The realization struck him at the end of a long day of sit, heel, and fetch, as he watched the Fierce Dogs fan out across the meadow to chase the sheep into their dens for the night. Not one of them broke the perfect line that swept across the grass or tried to sneak a bite of the sheep for themselves.

  These dogs would never abandon a Packmate. Not ever.

  The thought itched at his mind as the days wore on. How many days had it been since he’d been abandoned here? Fifteen, twenty? He had lost count, though he knew the moon had vanished and returned again as it always did.

  His misery at his Pack’s desertion was warming slowly to anger. In a way he was glad of the relentless training, the hard repetitive work the Rancher was putting him through, because he had no time to gnaw endlessly at what his Pack had done to him. It was there, in the corner of his mind, that was all, niggling and distracting, but the rage couldn’t eat at his guts. There was too much to do, and it was becoming instinctive.

  By the time the moon was a shining circle in the sky once more, Dog barely remembered a time when he didn’t wake up with the scent of sawn wood, the fuzzy coats of the sheep, and the bowl of satisfying dry food. When he followed the longpaw out into the meadow for his training, it was as if they’d been working together for many moons instead of just one. The Rancher gave a command, and Dog’s body obeyed it.

  Obeyed! The realization almost brought him to a halt as he walked at the Rancher’s command; but his legs moved anyway, keeping to the longpaw’s side. The strange urge in his bones, the yearning to listen, had taken over command of his muscles. And he hadn’t even paused to cock his ear to the Rancher’s words.

  “Sit.” The word brought his haunches beneath him, his tail tucked close, and he looked up at the Rancher.

  The Rancher’s face wrinkled, an expression Dog had learned went with the patting and scratching gestures that the Fierce Dogs seemed to enjoy so much. Th
e longpaw rummaged in that sweet-smelling pouch. Dog took the small chunk of dry pig meat he offered, gulping it down. It tasted every bit as good as it had smelled when the others were rewarded.

  The longpaw leaned over him, so close Dog could have snapped at his furred throat, but the urge seemed to have abandoned him as thoroughly as his Pack had. The Rancher’s paws were at his throat, taking off the squeeze collar and fitting another.

  The longpaw straightened, and he gestured at the far side of the field. “Rope. Fetch.”

  Dog knew both words now. It didn’t even occur to him to question the Rancher’s command; he bounded across the field, loving the freedom of the new collar and the feel of the meadowgrass beneath his racing paw pads. As his jaws closed on the coil of rope by the paddock fence, he glanced up and felt a rush of pleasure to see Calamity at his side. Her jaws were parted happily and her ears were pricked forward.

  “You’re doing a brilliant job, Wolf.”

  He panted for a moment, unsure how to answer. Calamity gave him a low bark of encouragement.

  “Keep it up, and you’ll sleep in a proper dog bed tonight with us. Your new Pack! It’s warm and cozy, Wolf. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  Slowly, he found himself nodding. “I suppose it would . . .”

  I’d like that, he thought. I’d like not to be cold and alone in the barn. I’d like to have treats from the pouch, to eat well, to sleep with a Pack that’s confident and strong and disciplined.

  Anyway, he thought: Would it be so bad to be a Longpaw Fang? Would it be so bad to work for the Rancher, to do his bidding and hear his voice praise Dog for a job well done? To be appreciated by a strong Alpha?

  I’d like to please the Rancher. The thought made his tail tap with enthusiasm, even as somewhere in his gut it horrified him.

  As the sun dipped behind the ranch house, he padded with the Fierce Dogs at the Rancher’s back, tired, his legs aching, but with an odd and not unpleasant sense of work well done. He was led not back to the barn, but to a shed closer to the Rancher’s house.