The Chronicles of the Pale Books 1-3

Chapter 9

Tinashe lifted her mindvoice, calling the scattered packs in close. All would be invited to consider the plans the elders had to propose, for each pack now must choose its own way forward. On a sole rocky outcrop that thrust through the flat bowl of the plain, the elders waited. Tinashe would state their position, and Orfeo would explain the options the elders considered suitable. The other seniors preferred not to speak. They were exhausted with decisions. No plan could save everyone. Tinashe opened the convening, making each statement ring like a line of tragic poetry.

‘Autumn is over, and winter comes on. We must decide what is to be done. The plain we sit on is bereft of game and shelter. We have heard the ferals shrieking in the night; they close on us. We cannot stay.’

She looked over the assembled canini. They heard her in silence. ‘Our dens are destroyed. All are gone. There is no returning.’

At this, there was some muttering among them. A few pups whimpered and were quietened. Tinashe continued.

‘The scouts report new formations that may suit us—some of us. There are but a few. We hope for more, enough for every pack, but these places may be far from our known plains. The scouts have learned the new watercourses. There is water enough, but we must travel to find it.’

‘And hunting grounds?’ asked one of the matriarchs, crouched near the foot of the outcrop.

‘It is too early to say, Zerda. The signs are not sure. Game may still be returning. As yet, the hunting grounds are almost bare.’ Tinashe lifted her snout towards the back of the gathering, where the scouts lay facing outwards, watching for any threat. ‘What little fare has been discovered, our scouts have brought here to sustain us during this time. New hunting must be found. It may be far. Another uncertainty.’

More muttering, but no one was very surprised. Their recent diet of dug tubers and skinks was persuasive evidence of poor hunting.

‘Today, we are many. In recent years we have prospered. I am sorry to say the time may have come when we cannot feed ourselves. Not in this part of the land. We are a dozen packs; some have up to twenty members. It is clear we cannot all live on this plain, and perhaps not even near it. Orfeo will outline the thoughts of us seniors for all of us to consider.’

With that Tinashe lay down, her head upon her outstretched hands. She was exhausted and despondent. The rustling of the gathered canini, as they stirred to look at each other or to offer some comfort, echoed in her heart, a mournful undertone. She heard Orfeo as from a distance.

‘First, we thank the scouts for their unceasing work. But now we must look to the future,’ said Orfeo, sitting up at his most erect, his massive profile silhouetted against the afternoon sky. ‘We have cast our minds back to the darkest days, those following the Great Conflagration. Our priority must be to secure food and shelter for our breeding pairs.’

An uncomfortable stirring went through the assembled canini. Those had been dark days indeed, all knew. A single moan broke out, somewhere in the midst of the gathering, quickly stifled.

‘I feel every reluctance you do,’ Orfeo went on, ‘but our situation is most dire. We are left with nothing on this plain, vulnerable to feral attack, likely to starve if we make no move.’ Orfeo paused. It was clear he was debating the best words to use.

Zerda sat up and said gruffly, ‘Say it, Orfeo, old friend. In the days after the Conflagration, the old and the young perished. We only exist today because we saved our breeding pairs. We sacrificed two generations for the future.’

Now pitiful wailing broke from the crowd, and this time it did not quite subside, remaining an undercurrent of distress through the rest of the meeting. Canini, despite their inclination to make the best of every circumstance, could not deny the truth before them. Fennec, who had but lately moved away from his home pack to set up a fresh pack with his brother and partner, shook himself to a stand as an indication that he wished to speak. Every ear pivoted towards him, though he mindspoke to them.

‘My pack is new and small enough. We are three hunting adults and two half-weaned cubs. We will not leave any one of our pack to starve on this plain. We will find our way.’

It might have been expected that this statement would cause uproar, but there was only the deep sigh of Orfeo as he nodded in response.

‘We believe this may be possible, Fennec. Mashtuk has identified a likely den site, many leagues to the east, where a small pack might set up. There is water nearby and signs that game have not all fled. There are also signs that mastodons use the water there, posing another danger. Yet this is one of the possibilities we wished to lay before you.’

‘We will go,’ said Fennec.

Orfeo inclined his fine head. ‘You must travel for days, protecting those cubs and feeding them. When you arrive at the site, you must make it defensible. Then—well, then you must strive as we all have for generations, to make your life.’

‘We will do it!’ said Fennec. ‘Where is the place?’

‘I will guide you,’ offered Mashtuk. ‘Then I will return to my own pack.’

With this decided, the assembled canini looked once more to the outcrop. Orfeo gazed over their heads.

‘My friends, I am sorry this small site is the most promising place we have found. There are very few refuges here. However, we now know the landscape has changed much to our north.’

‘Near the Pale?’ asked Zerda.

‘Yes,’ said Orfeo. ‘Generations ago, we moved far from the Pale. It is dangerous; we do not understand it. But it is close to where the land is most disturbed. By the scouts’ report, the disturbance produced a number of possible den sites. There is water, too. Whatever game there is will be had in contest with the humachines of the Pale. But there is living for two or three of the mid-sized packs. We suggest Dalshan and Thestia, along with the pack of Tinashe, travel north to try their chances near the Pale.’

While murmuring arose among the assembly, Mashtuk stood and growled, ‘What do you mean, the pack of Tinashe?’

Tinashe herself stood, snarling back, ‘He means I am no longer travelling with you, cubling.’ As Mashtuk’s anger receded, she went on. ‘Some have decided to stay. We can deflect danger from you. None of us is good for the hunt. We will not burden our packs.’

Now was the time for uproar. Among the assembly, a score of elders creaked to their feet, moving forward to gather at Tinashe’s back.

‘We thank you,’ said Zerda on their behalf. ‘We have all worried about how to spare our packs. Staying together on this barren plain will be a worthy sacrifice. A comforting one. None of us wishes to die alone, or to take food from the mouths of the cubs and breeders. Together we can still do something to ensure the survival of the canini.’

There were outcries of grief, but the elders snapped and barked out their decisions. They soon silenced their youngers. Orfeo again called for attention.

‘Thank you, my friends. Your grief and anger becomes you. We are stronger for it, but we must do as we must do. Now, there are yet others to consider. Brynt, your pack is largest, even with two elders staying behind. Your choice is to break into smaller parties that strive to find their own way, or travel even further to find a denning place to hold you all. The scouts found nothing suitable within seven days’ trot, but there may be something further. Tinashe has reminded me that in former times we had many dens in the south, beyond the Settlement. But we all know that ursini have moved into that area.’

‘Ursini had moved in,’ offered Tinashe. ‘They have maybe moved on. They may have been dislodged by the aftershock. This is unknown.’

‘We will stay together,’ declared Brynt. ‘We will travel south, to live or die as one. We will remember the sacrifice of our elders.’

‘That is well,’ said Orfeo. ‘But even these hazardous plans do not offer chances to all. Callan, Shinto, Petryk, Waleen: your packs have the lowest numbers of elders and of weanlings. We say to you, with many regrets, that for these reasons, we have named the few known possible refuges for the other packs. We have nothing to offer you but the information that the scouts have found no other denning sites in seven days’ trot. There are few choices left to you.’

‘I had already reckoned this,’ said Waleen, a rangy grey b***h with a broad black streak along her back. ‘Our choice is limited to further and further travel, in search of refuge. This we will do, for we will not lie down and die. Do you have aught else to suggest?’

‘Waleen,’ said Tinashe. ‘You may reject the other choices. It is for each pack to decide.’

‘I do not see any other choices,’ growled Shinto.

‘I do! We rejected them long ago, didn’t we?’ asked Petryk. ‘Our ancestors rejected them. You are saying that their choices are not necessarily ours. After all, they saved fewer from the Conflagration than sit here today.’ She looked about her at the gathered crowd; her mindvoice grew vicious. ‘We have prospered, indeed, for all the good it does us. Now we must decide how to preserve that prosperity. Do we consign it to the earth, or do we sell it to the humans?’

‘Sell it?’ echoed from a score of throats, high-pitched with indignation. ‘Sell? What talk is this of selling ourselves?’

Orfeo yapped a command. All fell silent. ‘Petryk expresses herself perhaps with more venom than the rest of us would feel,’ he explained. ‘We have no thought of selling. We merely say, there may be sanctuary with the humans.’

Again the protests of indignation arose. Again Orfeo silenced them.

‘Think! Think, we beg you. It is a grave decision you face. Travel into the unknown, for some unknown time, and hope to find shelter and a living. You may be attacked by ferals or mastodons or ursini, humachines or settlers. More likely, you will go hungry for long days and nights. Your weanlings may perish; you may not be well enough fed yourselves to feed them.’

‘I would starve myself first!’ snarled Shinto.

‘That would not help your cubs,’ snapped Tinashe. ‘Just listen!’

Orfeo made himself heard again. ‘Your other chances are merely that: chances. It is possible the settlers will take in more canini, if you are able to offer service—’

‘Serve the Settlement!’ cried Petryk. ‘No, I say. And no again. The settlers spurned us long ago. They hate our modifications—they despise our thumbs! The only canines they befriend are those tag-eared rat terriers with no minds of their own, willing to clean out the filthy Settlement hovels in exchange for safety. The rat terriers are nothing but slaves to them!’

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Tinashe. ‘But they feed their slaves.’

A confused murmur ran through the crowded canini. There was anger and grief, mixed with resentment.

‘It is not fair, indeed,’ sighed Orfeo. ‘It is not the life our ancestors wished when they struck out afresh after the Great Conflagration, to find their own ways and live their own lives. Still, not one of us would condemn this choice, if any should make it. It is after all one way to save the whelps.’

The canini grew quieter.

‘You spoke of another way?’ asked Callan, his pack pressing close about him.

‘Perhaps, but this also is uncertain. We consider that our allies, the tribal humans, may be willing to let a pack or two run with them. Not just for an odd hunt here or there, but in a more enduring partnership. We do not know,’ said Orfeo, ‘how this would suit us or them. They respect our freedom more than the settlers, but—’

‘But they are human,’ said Callan.

‘There is one more difficulty,’ said Tinashe. ‘Since the shock, we cannot find them. The tribes have disappeared from Broad Plain. Their camps are destroyed, as are our dens. But we guess they have moved to safety. Our scouts are willing to track them if such a partnership is to be requested. It seems they moved west.’

‘We will track them ourselves,’ said Callan. ‘Every pack needs its own scouts.’

‘Live with humans?’ asked Petryk with scorn. ‘I would rather die a free canine.’

‘I would not,’ said Callan. ‘I would have us live, in any case, and hope for a better future for our cubs-to-be. To seek a partnership with the tribes, this is the way forward for us.’ Callan stood and his pack stood too.

Beside them, Waleen and her pack also rose. She and Callan touched noses. ‘We will join your search for the tribes,’ she said. ‘If you will allow.’

‘We welcome you.’ Callan turned back to the rocky outcrop. ‘Elders, we will rest this night, and farewell you in the morning.’

Huge Orfeo lay down on the outcrop, his fatigue clear to all. ‘We must do what we can to live through this time. Only my pack—now the pack of Eugenie—is not provided for by any of these plans.’

‘It is understood,’ said Eugenie, her mindvoice quiet and somehow distant. ‘But we will not split our pack this side of death. True, we are merely a mid-sized pack, but with two litters of new-whelped pups. Already they lose heart, already we mourn them. They will not live long. Their dams begin to starve, as we all do.’

‘We are so sorry,’ gasped Tinashe, and the assembled canini echoed her words. Sorry sorry sorry ran across the plain, echoed on the wind. Sorry.

‘We too are sorry,’ said Eugenie. ‘But we are also sorry for the loss of the elders. My pack and I propose this: we will stay with you, as long as may be. You can help us to comfort our failing cubs; you can ease their passing with your stories and songs, with your loving hands. We adults will bring what food we may, and we will mourn each loss, of elder or cub, with all the reverence it deserves.’

Both Tinashe and Orfeo bowed their heads. This was unlooked for grace. After a moment Tinashe looked up. ‘And when these rites of sorrow have passed, you, Eugenie, will take the remainder of your pack. And you will live!’