Stories of the Welfpack

Chapter 4

As the snow cleared from the canyons, and Spring came to the plains above, the group of wolf-elves decided to head south, into the great forests. They’d scented Humans on the wind, and since there were still two pups half-grown with them, they didn’t want to encounter a possibly dangerous situation.

**But what are they?** Asked Patch, of those things which the elders wanted to avoid. They traversed the south edge of a mesa, a stiff, warm wind coming from the east.

**Humans?** Notch replied, sniffing the ground in the hopes of finding a quick mouse meal or perhaps a birds nest. He sent an image, the last group of Human wanderers that had come through the big pack’s territory. They were healthy – not like the ones before, which Black and Tarfoot recalled clearly enough. They had a weird smell, something conveyed through thought-sending that prickled Patch’s neck fur.

**They do not look so scary,** Star commented, but he knew an elder would comment. He hoped they would, in fact. He wanted to know more.

**They are dangerous if you cross them,** Black warned. His experience with the Humans was neither distant nor kind. He led up the east flank while Notch walked a little on the west side. The group was within sight of one another, but with the exception of Star walking closer to Beehive, and Patch keeping close to Tarfoot, they could easily communicate with their minds at this distance. Black continued, **their carts, those round ‘wheel’ things, can crush you. They keep things they have made inside those boxes, and if you get too close to their animals, they’ll send pain at you.**

**Arrows, spears,** Tarfoot supplied the words. She too had seen – and been attacked by – Humans in the past. **They have no fur, so they wear skin of their hunts. They have no claws, so they create them out of stone and bones.**

**I think they’re … clever,** Beehive thought, immediately clamping down on herself before anyone yelled at her about such a thing. But instead of being angry, it was Tarfoot who gave a distant yip of approval.

**They are clever. They’re very smart. They sense things wolves cannot. But we can – and that is why we are avoiding them for now, younglings,** she more directly addressed the pair. **They sense time, they know when to start collecting furs and trapping small animals. They speak to one another with words like our minds, only … I do not think they share minds.**

**They do not,** Beehive assured her. For whatever reason, they believed her, and she knew it to be true. Perhaps the Starsong told her. She spent a lot of time listening to it, letting her mind flow when the hunting and eating was done. When they curled up to rest, she drifted and imagined things that no true wolf could ever see.

Distant lands? Distance hardly meant anything to wolves, after all they traveled quite a lot in their large territories when they needed to. Endless travel merely meant different terrain to hunt in, different kinds of survival skills. But the lands that Beehive saw in her mind’s eye – they were Human lands, built with sticks and rock and fire. Far from the small encampments which left rings of stone where they’d cooked their food, or the villages that came and went seasonally around the Pack lands that were surrounded by cut tree trunks, the lines of rock and wood buildings were completely alien to Beehive and the others.

Perhaps some day they would see these things with their own eyes. Until then, she was content to share what she saw with the others, in their dreams.

But more lessons about how to deal with Humans – and in fact how to deal with anything out here in the forests – were always coming from the elders. Yet another difference from their wolfen ancestors: the young decided what they learned, and when. By simply asking a question, or accidentally coming across an object or creature they’d never seen, it involved the whole pack to teach them.

From Black, they would learn stealth and strength. He ran farther without tiring than all of them, but he also knew that neither of the younglings would ever be even half his size. There was a reason he was the Beta – and there was a reason he wasn’t the Alpha. When he was alone with the cubs, they could get him to chat more about himself and his adventures. But normally he was simply content to do what Notch suggested, and keep everyone else bolstered or in line.

From Notch himself, both Patch and Star learned communication. Too, neither of them would be bold enough to become an Alpha such as himself, but they had to know how to collect the pack with or without Starsong. Singing with his voice, he led most of their howls. He taught them the yips and barks that meant certain birds or snakes were around, he showed them how to listen for deer hoof-clicks.

Tarfoot brought them hunting in tandem, something she was quite adept with. Knowing how to read your partner, but adding your mind’s voice or eye… Always one wolf goes for a direct attack, while the others surround. Hunting without a partner was not safe, and she made sure that they knew it.

Sly entertained them, mostly, but instructed them on how best to find those mice or little lizards in the underbrush. How to listen, estimate distance. His favorite snow-time activity was pouncing on unsuspecting burrowers as they made their way below elbow-deep snow. He was adept enough at Wintertime activities that he’d mostly exhausted his knowledge on them by the time Spring arrived.

Beehive taught them to dream. Tuning in on their thoughts the same way they could listen to a distant cricket singing to his mates. She felt more in them than met the eye, and confided in Patch that she wasn’t sure quite what else there was in store for them. The closer she got to the Starsong, the more distantly uneasy she felt.

And Red… Red taught them to run, hide, defer, take pride. He was not ashamed to admit that he liked being the low wolf, even below the youngest – he loved watching them. They saw in him a fierce protector, though, one who would never allow them to come to harm, even if it meant he himself was endangered. Selflessness embodied, Red let them know if they were on a bad path or a good one.

One day he knew they were on a bad path. That path had Human-smell on it, and while it was similar to that which the elders had scented before, it was masked by expert hunter minds. Quick on his feet, the small red-furred wolf lept over a bush, snarling and snapping his teeth.

**What is he-** Patch started to say, when a very loud Human’s voice bellowed in pain and fear.

Two more of them ran out from other bushes, bewildered. Obviously they hadn’t counted on wolves coming to this trap, they were looking for deer. Their leather coverings were drenched in scent, but nothing could quite hide their unique odor from Red’s nose.

**Get the others,** Star thought to Patch, who eagerly left the scene. It made her heart pump even harder – her first encounter with Humans! Bolting over fallen logs and under low hanging branches, she made it to the location where the rest of the group had dined on a large tree-sloth the night before.

She breathed heavily, and her thoughts tumbled out of her mind. There was no way a wolf could have told another wolf any of these things: deer-smell, Humans, spears, and worse, a weird circlet of cord that dangled in the air when Red had pounced over the bush.

Quickly, Notch decided - **Come show us where,** and followed her back to the location. They could sense Red and Star, of course, but it was also good training for the young wolfess. The endurance she showed now would help her later, and her ability to remember her path would surely keep her alive.

Beehive almost wanted to beg for her to be left behind, what if they – but they wouldn’t lose anyone. Not today.

Red snarled and bit at the fingers of the Man, who grunted and shouted at his companions. The wolves didn’t understand their speech of course, but it sounded more urgent and scared, than angry or aggressive. Tarfoot growled from the shadows behind the second, and Notch arrived a moment later to stare the third in the eye.

The Humans were lean, but smart – smart enough to have covered everything in a friendly scent. The deer urine they displayed would surely have gotten them a reasonable buck for dinner, but this far into the forest they would have a long way to drag it to get back to their tribe.

**Where is their tribe?** Asked Sly, **Why are they so far?**

Notch sent a slight warning to Red, who immediately broke off his violent barking and growling, and slunk into the woods to guard the younglings. The Man he watched was frightened, but kept his head. The trio of Humans backed up into each other, holding their stone knives. One of them had a metal edged blade, it smelled odd to the wolves, they’d never encountered such a thing. Perhaps it was what drove Red’s nose crazy, Humans made things that just didn’t smell right.

The Humans muttered quietly to one another, none of them willing to take a move to slash at the wolves. They were surrounded, they knew it – and the pack knew it. This stalemate would normally end badly for one group, or at least members of either. But there were other options. These were not angry Men, these were not true Wolves.

At a thought, Tarfoot moved closer to Black, and Notch backed up by one step. No one moved any further, the Men hardly daring to breathe now. What was happening? The elf-wolves could see the Men’s eyes, wide with fear, but narrowed shortly in thought. The biggest of them made a word to the others, which brought their strange flat faces around to the trio of big wolves.

They’d made an exit for the Men. And the Men took it. Quickly. As they left the wooded area, the tallest of them glanced backward, saying nothing as he stumbled with this friends. Then, the wolves were only able to hear their hasty and heavy steps through the hill beyond, then nothing. Only their weird rope trap was left behind, and Sly looked at it long and hard before they went back to their denning place that night.