The Riddle - Alison Croggon [188]
Maerad listened in silence, a heaviness on her heart lifting at Ardina’s words.
Farewell, she said, and the two wolves touched noses. Then Ardina turned and loped out swiftly, and as she left, the light in the cavern dimmed and went out.
Maerad slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, barely stirring for a long time. She was woken by Ka.
You must eat, he said. Now we run.
With the rest of the pack, Maerad ate what was left of the carcasses in the cave, even crunching up and swallowing the bones. Then Ka led the pack out of the cavern along a narrow cave that ran south. Maerad knew the direction by some new sense, as if her brain now contained a compass. They filed through the cave, walking at their leisure, some of the wolves playing together as they went, nipping each other or rolling over in mock fights. There were other animals in these caves, no doubt having fled there from the storm, but the wolves took no notice of them, even of the hares, which cowered by the cave walls as they passed; their bellies were full and they had no need to hunt. Every now and then, they would pass under sleeping colonies of bats, which hung overhead in bunches like strange leathery grapes. The smell of their dung made Maerad’s lips curl over her teeth in distaste.
They emerged at the bottom of a rock face that stood out of the trees. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was about noon.
They were still in the forest, Maerad saw, but it bore the marks of terrible devastation. It seemed that almost every tree trunk was snapped, and everywhere was a jumble of torn branches and leaves and, sometimes, the corpse of some luckless animal. There had also been fire: Maerad saw trees that must have burned like huge torches, now sad blackened skeletons, although the fires had not spread far because of the cold. It looked like the aftermath of a war, and was tense with an eerie silence. She stood behind the rest of the pack, her ears pricked, trying to sense the presence of the Winterking; she could feel him faintly, very far off, brooding, preoccupied.
The wolves picked their way through the ruined forest, always heading south. They went in no particular order; it seemed that Ka was the wolf with the most authority, but he was not an absolute leader. They were mostly led by a she-wolf called Neka, who was, it seemed, most skilled at finding a way through this tumbled and chaotic terrain. Despite the debris, they moved swiftly.
Toward evening, they reached the outer edges of the forest and entered a landscape like the Arkiadera Plains — flat, treeless tundra. Now the wolves stretched out their lean, muscled bodies and began to run over the snow. The pack settled into a graceful, loping rhythm, which it could maintain for hours. They ran far into the night, as the half-moon rose into a clear sky and spilled its silver light on the snow.
As Ka had predicted, it was six days’ journey to the Osidh Elanor. Maerad was staggered by the wolves’ endurance, their relentless pace. Bad weather made no difference; if it snowed, the pack ran closer together, so they would not lose each other, but were no less swift. The wolves were in a hurry, and only hunted twice, on the third day and the sixth, although at various times during their run they chased down a hare or a mouse that had been unlucky or unwary enough to cross their path.
Despite their pace, being with the wolf pack was, Maerad found, unexpectedly fun. The wolves seemed addicted to play. There was one young she-wolf called Skira who especially liked bouncing upon the others when the pack halted; she would stalk up behind an unwary wolf and suddenly spring onto his rump, giving it a sharp nip before she tore off. Sometimes this would result in a wild chase, with the offended wolf finally catching her, the two rolling over and over in a rambunctious bundle of teeth and claws and fur while the rest of the pack barked at their antics, a noise Maerad soon recognized as wolf laughter. One evening