A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [226]
Then there were no more stones and he dropped the empty flap of shirt, arms pumping as he ran, a harsh panting in his ears that might have been his own breath, or the dog’s—or the sound of the beasts behind him.
How many of them? How far to go? He was beginning to stagger, streaks of black and red shooting through his vision. If the village was not nearby, he had no chance.
He lurched sideways, hit the yielding branch of a tree that bent under his weight, then pushed him upright, setting him roughly back on his feet. He had lost his impetus, though, and his sense of direction.
“Where?” he gasped to the trees. “Which way?”
If there was an answer, he didn’t hear it. There was a roar and a thud behind him, a mad scuffle punctuated with the growls and yelps of dogs fighting.
“Rollo!” He turned and flung himself through a growth of dead vines, to find dog and wolf squirming and biting in a writhing ball of fur and flashing teeth.
He dashed forward, kicking and shouting, punching wildly, glad at last to have something to hit, to be fighting back, even if it was the last fight. Something ripped across his leg, but he felt only the jar of impact as he rammed his knee hard into the wolf’s side. It squealed and rolled away, rounding on him at once.
It leaped, and its paws struck him in the chest. He fell back, struck his head glancingly on something, lost breath for an instant, and came to himself to find his hand braced beneath the slavering jaws, straining to keep them from his throat.
Rollo sprang onto the wolf’s back, and Ian lost his grip, collapsing under the weight of reeking fur and squirming flesh. He flung out a hand, seeking anything—a weapon, a tool, a grip to pull himself free—and gripped something hard.
He wrenched it from its bed in the moss and smashed it against the wolf’s head. Fragments of bloody teeth flew through the air and struck his face. He struck again, sobbing, and again.
Rollo was whining, a high keening noise—no, it was him. He bashed the rock down once more on the battered skull, but the wolf had stopped fighting; it lay across his thighs, legs twitching, eyes glazing as it died. He pushed it off in a frenzy of revulsion. Rollo’s teeth sank into the wolf’s outstretched throat, and ripped it out, in a final spray of blood and warm flesh.
Ian closed his eyes and sat still. It didn’t seem possible to move, or to think.
After a time, it seemed possible to open his eyes, and to breathe, at least. There was a large tree at his back; he had fallen against the trunk when the wolf struck him; it supported him now. Among the twisted roots was a muddy hole, from which he had wrenched the stone.
He was still holding the stone; it felt as though it had grown to his skin; he couldn’t open his hand. When he looked he saw that this was because the stone had shattered; sharp fragments had cut his hand, and the pieces of the stone were glued to his hand by drying blood. Using the fingers of his other hand, he bent back the clenched fingers, and pushed the broken pieces of the stone off his palm. He scraped moss from the tree roots, made a wad of it in his hand, then let the curled fingers close over it again.
A wolf howled, in the middle distance. Rollo, who had lain down by Ian, lifted his head with a soft wuff! The howl came again, and seemed to hold a question, a worried tone.
For the first time, he looked at the body of the wolf. For an instant, he thought it moved, and shook his head to clear his vision. Then he looked again.
It was moving. The distended belly rose gently, subsided. It was full light now, and he could see the tiny nubs of pink nipples, showing through the belly fur. Not a pack. A pair. But a pair no more. The wolf in the distance howled again, and Ian leaned to one side and vomited.
Eats Turtles came upon him a little later, sitting with his back against the red-cedar tree by the dead wolf, Rollo’s bulk pressed close against him. Turtle squatted down, a short distance away, balanced on his heels, and watched.
“Good hunting, Wolf’s Brother,”