The First Wolves

30. FRIEND OR FOE

Motivated by the whispers of rumours, and being camouflaged by the foliage of the forest, Madla had been running until exhaustion had tripped him up. The journey was difficult and disappointing. The only glimmer of hope were the wolf faces carved into the sites that the pack had passed through. They were the map he needed to confirm he was getting closer. The swamp was abysmal, and given that there were no wolves there, he once again cursed himself for being so careful that there was at least two days' distance between him and the pack now. He had wanted to ensure that the humans would be unable to track him, but recognised that his caution had put him at a significant disadvantage.

“Silly i***t, you should have used your nose more, and relied less upon gossip. You have been disguising yourself as a human so long that you are forgetting to act like a wolf!” His wolf, Majesty, chided him.

Aoife had never criticised or doubted him, even when he made his worst mistakes. Recalling early on in their escape, Aoife’s wounds had reopened because of the jostling she endured while he carried her on his back. Desperate to help her, he smuggled them into a nearby town, pretending to be a vagabond. He sat on the cobbles outside a physician’s premises. Blood dripped over his back and arms, but it wasn’t his, and to remain unnoticed he used the little water he had to drain it down the gutter. The day got warmer, but Aoife’s skin became colder as he waited for nighttime to fall. The moon was shining brightly by the time the doctor blew out the candles and retired to bed. Aoife had passed out, and carrying her was difficult now that she was unable to hold on to him. Carefully, he used his claw to unlatch the doctor’s door, and lay her on the bed checking if she was still breathing. Her chest was barely rising. Medically he knew very little, other than what he had seen from his own injuries being treated. In his homeland, salt was often used in water to make sure a wound was clean, so this was what he searched for first. Quietly, he bathed the lashes and claw marks that had burst through her previous stitches. He was thankful she was asleep and she couldn’t feel the pain. Concerned that no thread would weather the journey ahead, he looked at the metal near the fire, cauterising them could be the better solution. Sometime later, with as much consideration as he could cram into the minutes, he had made his decision. The metal glowed a vibrant, dangerous orange and he hovered it over her back.

“You’ll kill her if you do that?” A voice from behind him said, in a matter of fact manner.

The doctor was standing in the doorway, the candle he held lit up his face, and it was clear to see he had been disturbed from his sleep. Madla jumped, nearly dropping the hot iron on to his foot. The doctor immediately went to examine Aoife, ignoring Madla’s growl. He was a doctor, but that didn’t make him a friend.

“You did right to use the salt, but these injuries are extreme. It is a wonder she is alive at all. It would be kinder to let her go into the life beyond here at this point. If she had been treated sooner there might have been a chance, but you decided to wait outside all day instead.” He summarised, judgementally.

“She is no dog, and putting her down wouldn't be the kinder option. She has someone to live for, so do what you can, and she will do the rest!” Madla scolded him with reproach.

Nodding, the doctor went to the cupboard, and began to stitch her wounds for the second time. Once this was complete, he fetched two splints of wood and some linen and broke her wrist again, setting it in place. Aoife’s grunt at this action was the only acknowledgement of the pain she had ensured.

“You must find a place to rest for at least three weeks. Moving her caused irreversible damage. She needed attention far sooner than that. The wrist will never regain full movement, and she will always feel pain from that, plus the claw mark on her collar bone.” The doctor blamed him, and Madla blamed himself too.

Reaching into his bag, the doctor pulled out a bottle decorated with a red and black flower, and pushed it into Madla’s hand.

“This will ease her pain, and she will need it close by for the remainder of her life, be it long or short. It is called milk of the poppy. A little of it will be her friend, and too much will make the medicine her foe. You must leave now.”

Madla left that night, carrying her on his back once more, but being mindful to take a slower pace. He found a cave in the forest, and that was where they remained for a month. When Aoife regained consciousness he told her how he had contributed to halting her recovery. She had only hugged him, refusing to see his part in her troubles.

Over time, he had become his own harshest critic, closely followed by his wolf, determined to learn from his errors, and this time was no different. He promised Aoife he would find her son, and once again he was failing her. Chewing at the dried rabbit he had brought with him, his eyes searched every tree for sign of the tell-tale wolf carving. Scanning the trees to locate the pack’s marker, his nose caught a distinctive scent in the vicinity. Blood pervaded the already sour air, the sharp metallic odour prompting his wolf into a defensive position. He had been followed, and whoever it was that had caught up with him had been purposefully light of foot. The scent was human. Squelching steps became louder, while heavy breathing and laboured movement indicated that Madla’s perceived enemy was in no position to fight. Ignoring his instinct to pounce, he sent out a menacing growl instead.

The footsteps paused.

Incongruously, the panting continued, accompanied by a muffled yawp, disturbing the peace of the quagmire. Continuing with his deep snarl, he approached the tree where the scent of blood was more concentrated. Crumpled on the ground, with his back against the bark, and his hand clutched to his side, that did very little to stop the pumping blood from oozing through his fingers, was the man that Aoife had put her faith in: Caius.

“Madla, is that you?” He strained. “Have I found Conri’s pack? Have I found my son?” He rushed his words out like a man counting out his last syllables.

Worryingly, his eyes rolled in their sockets as his eyelids got heavier. Numbed to Caius’ plight, but needing answers, Madla lifted him over his shoulder, and placed him next to the twigs he had been planning to make into a fire. If Caius was asking about Ewan, logically he would be able to answer many of the questions that he and Aoife were longing to know.

After stripping him down to his loin cloth, washing his inanimate body from the excess dirt, blood and sweat, he took out the needle and thread that over the years had become an essential part of his necessary belongings. Diligently, he began to stitch up the claw marks, taking his time to make his sutures equal in length. Madla’s questions were increasing as he did his best to repair the damaged flesh. The validity of Caius’ distress about whether he had found the pack was now tarnished by the deep wounds on his stomach. They were clearly caused by a wolf, who must have perceived him as an enemy. Furthermore, there was a legionnaire tattoo on his bicep. Despite the faith Aoife had in Caius, Madla had seen enough to make him doubtful. Making his final decision, he felt no guilt as he tied Caius’ legs and wrists together.

The sky had turned a lighter shade of purple before Caius re-joined the conscious world, only to find his discomfort was caused by the rope restricting his movement. Although his abdomen was stinging, he could feel that some intervention had happened while he slept from the tightness in his cuts when he twisted. Roughly, he was lifted by his shoulders, and his back was pushed against a tree.

“Madla, it was you! I thought your face was an odd one to appear moments before death. Not exactly the one I was hoping to see, you understand. Why have you tied me up?” Caius joked with him.

“You were supposed to care for Ewan. Without him to vouch for you, I’ll treat you as my enemy. Thirty years is a long time, you could have been indoctrinated by your military brothers, and now turned spy.” Madla took the stick he had been using to stir the food and poked at Caius’ offensive tattoo, his top lip raised to his nose in disgust.

“The only possible traitor here is you. Have you turned into one of those slavers who hunt their own kind? I see no other reason why a wolf given his freedom would still be in this Godless country, tracking down a pack.” Caius accused him.

“That is an insult. I would never be a slaver. I have been running from humans all this time. Living and hiding in nature.” He scoffed, trying to hide his hurt at such a claim.

“Tell me then, how do you know the name Ewan? The only people who were ever told were Aoife, Pepin and I,” Caius retorted.

“Aoife told me. She survived. We have been running together all this time,” Madla answered.

Caius’ visage blanched as he repeated the news in his head. He had kept Ewan and his mother apart unknowingly for thirty years, moving from camp to camp in the hope it would stop anyone finding Ewan, and how right he had been. He had never thought of checking that she had died, he simply assumed that nobody would have been able to survive such brutality. Not even Aoife, the greatest person he had ever known. Guilt ruined his features, his chin wobbled, and he attempted to hide his shame by biting the inside of his cheek. It was at that exact moment that Madla realised that a response of such magnitude couldn’t be an imitation, he was loyal to Aoife, and her son still. Reaching over, he cut the bonds, and concentrated on the milky oats he had made, allowing Caius time to compose himself.

“Tell me why Ewan isn’t with you?” Madla urged him to tell his story.

“Ewan had been asking me for a long time to tell him about where he came from, and what happened to his parents. I refused. To me, Ewan is my son, but I knew him well enough to know he would seek vengeance if I told him the truth. We had a huge argument, and I had been drinking. It was the anniversary of the day I joined Cohort VIII, the same day that Aoife died. It has always sat uneasy with me that I used her death to save her son, it still feels wrong that I had let that happen to her, that I twisted her execution to our advantage. He demanded that I tell him where he was from and when I didn’t tell him, he became insistent that he needed to let Brodie out for a run. Times were dangerous, and I forbade him. He told me that his real father wouldn’t keep secrets from him, and that I was treating him like a slave. That word made all my rational thoughts disappear. In my drunken stupor, I turned around and slapped him. Shouting at him, I said ‘thanks to Heaton House, we will never know what your father would do’. The next day he told me he was leaving. He only took his mother’s letter, and the scent suppressant that the pack we had been protecting had created. A month after Ewan left, that pack was found by slavers. I failed them as well.” Caius shared his story, but judged himself with disgust.

It seemed that Caius and Madla shared the habit of thinking the worst of themselves.

Needing no further convincing, Madla accepted his account and patted his shoulder. He then proceeded to tell him his own story from the arena to the waterfall.

“So, you see, there was no hope of us being able to care for Ewan. You must not feel bad for not ascertaining that she had died, she left a lot of her soul on those sands, and parts of her have been dead since she gave Ewan to Winnie. Pain has become her shadow, only quietened when she sleeps, sometimes not even then. I’ll tell you what she would tell you if her last fight enabled you to get Ewan out of the city safely, she would have done it a thousand times over in exactly the same way. That is a mother’s love.” Madla affirmed what he knew about Aoife. “The way Aoife and I had to live wasn’t fit for rats at times. You raising Ewan has given him the life he deserved, the life his parents wanted for him.”

They sat in silence for a while, each reflecting on their own regrets. Madla shared the oats with Caius, and Caius contemplated the next part of the journey, hoping that Madla would agree to travel with him.

“We need to get to the mountains quickly. Tarquin will stay on the roads, he has too much equipment to move, and too many men to try and go through the marshes. He will be pushing them at a double pace to try to intercept the pack before they reach the peaks. We also must get to the pack before the General’s forces cut us off.” Caius stressed, and Madla agreed.

As the daylight dappled through the gaps in the leaves, they continued on their journey together. Noticing a type of tree house, they looked around perplexed, but Madla could smell the earlier activities that had taken place there, and explained it to his companion. They passed under the floating bed and both laughed. Beneath the wooden frame, a huge carving of a wolf's face looked down at them. It was the first happy expression either one of them had seen on one of these provocative artworks. The joy gave them both hope.