The Wolf In The Wilderness

A bounty hunter finds an unlikely ally whilst trying to survive in the treacherous Wilderness....

The blizzard whipped tiny, dagger-like shards of ice into Liana's face. She pulled her cloak around herself tightly and gritted her teeth.

Her boots crunched through the deepening snow. The footprints she was leaving were all but vanishing after a few seconds, thick flakes filling them in, leaving no trace of her presence. Helpful, in a way. Murder in literally every other aspect.

The Wilderness was too inhospitable for a horse, and even mounts that were used to the freezing weather and fatal blizzards were still vulnerable to the predators that lurked between the conifers and snowdrifts. She had to go on foot, trudge in boots, camp in tighter, less noticeable spaces. The only food she needed was her own, the only hunting needed to supplement her own sustenance.

It was the perfect place for brigands to hide, if they were skilled or mad enough.

All indications were that the ones she was pursuing now were the former, rather than the latter. Mad men rarely bothered with hostages, and Liana had all but lost their trail.

She trudged onwards, hood cinched around her head. It almost felt as if she wasn't wearing it at all. The icy winds tore into her even as she moved through the thicker copses of winter trees. The mercenaries would have used the shelter to move around, as she was, especially to protect their valuable cargo.

She kept her eyes out for signs of a campfire, or a latrine trench, or bootprints, any small mistake that would give her something to go on. Even beneath the thick canopies the snow had wormed its way in, covering everything.

A mournful howl was carried on the wind around her, and Liana jumped to the cover of a tree trunk. She drew back an arrow in her sling bow, listening out for any footsteps or crunching of snow in the wind.

The howl had come from a mile away, perhaps further. It was difficult to tell with the weather. After a few minutes of silence, she continued on, sprinting to the next cluster of trees.

She drew her boot along the snowdrifts between them, looking for a ring of stones that would have reflected the heat of a campfire. Scattering them would have taken time, and logically, they would have needed the fire. A hostage has no value when frozen to death, and princelings in particular weren't used to the cold.

After an hour of shivering patience, her foot scraped against something lumpy underfoot. She brushed away the snow, finding a ring of stones, and a small cluster of burned animal bones. Small mammals, high in fat.

Liana stroked her chin. The remnants were close enough to the surface to have been made very recently. She was no more than a day behind them.

She looked up at the Wilderness looming around her. Direction was another matter.

Liana chose the thickest and tallest conifer around her, and began climbing. Her climbing spikes dug into the bark easily, and the canopy offered plenty of shelter. Once she had cleared the height of the rest of the trees, she squinted out at her surroundings.

The blizzard and twilight had her sight completely scrambled for a moment. She was seemingly surrounded by an endless expanse of ice covered jungle, every side and angle looking the same as every other. However, soon she began to differentiate between landmarks: the vast clearings and frozen rivers that sliced through the trees, the rises of sheer rock, and the skeletons of settlements long since slaughtered by the relentless snowfall.

There were very few maps of the Wilderness, and most of them were completely wrong. Most attempts at exploration ended in death or madness, driven by the desolation.

Liana could see the likeliest path the mercenaries had taken with their charge: through and between the thickest bands of foliage, little islands in the ice. She marked the map she was making, scoring the path she had taken onto a roll of leather with a scalpel blade while keeping herself braced to the trunk with her thighs. Once she was satisfied, she began carefully moving back down.

When she was still about 15 feet up, a low rumbling sound came from the trees around her. Liana stopped, eyes darting up to the treeline.

It was impossible to tell where it had come from. She stopped and braced her legs, craning her neck around.

A pair of glinting, silver eyes were fixed on her from a snowdrift, directly behind her. As she peered at it, the drift took shape into a mass of fur and coiled muscle, a long snout and a black nose, above a mouth lined with sharp teeth. Clouds of breath panted from the maw, two pointed ears were flattened back against the top of its head.

The tundra wolf was easily large enough to reach Liana's perch. She wouldn't be able to get to her sling bow in time, she would have to rely on her daggers ... and daggers against a tundra wolf was a fight she couldn't win.

She couldn't wait it out. While her physical condition was better than most, she couldn't hang on to a tree forever, especially in these temperatures, nor could she flee upwards or downwards. it would leap the moment she moved.

Her ears tried to pick out the rest of the pack, but this wolf seemed to be alone. That meant it was desperate, more likely than not, and that reduced the odds of her getting away.

Fighting was a poor option, it seemed.

"Hello there. I would guess you're looking for a meal."

She kept her voice as even as she could, even though there was a tremor behind it from both fear and the cold. Her hand snaked into her cloak, and untied one of the fat puffins she had hunted from her belt. A bribe might satisfy the predator scrutinising her, and would hopefully give her a chance to live for at least one more day.

"Here ... a nice ... fat ... juicy puffin. I bet it's a tasty one." She braced her legs and threw the bird towards the tundra wolf. It plopped and rolled across the compacted snow.

The wolf sniffed it, and snatched it up in its jaws. The sleek beast turned away and bounded off into the blizzard.

She sighed, and dropped, taking off into the snow in the opposite direction, hoping that it would lose her scent behind the curtain of snow and ice.

***

She didn't.

The next day, the tundra wolf ambushed her at her camp with another rumbling snarl, and claimed the second of her quartet haul of hunted puffins.

After that, she took to camping higher up in the trees, and sneaking off when she was sure the wolf wasn't present.

She seemed to be gaining no ground on the bandits. She had found no other buried campfires, but watching for the wolf had been taking up too much of her attention. The time she had to sleep, eat and rest had become limited. All the while, the cold was finding its way beneath her clothes, beneath her skin, freezing her bones.

On the third day of her trudge between the trees, the tundra wolf found Liana again, this time taking another puffin from her cloak while she slept in a cave, delicately snipping through the string tying it there with its front teeth. The tug had awoken her, dagger in hand, but the beast had dodged back with its prize before she could swipe at it. After that she cooked the last one, rationing the meat for the next few days.

Why it hadn't simply torn out her throat, Liana didn't know and couldn't guess. The creature had no pack, it would certainly be desperate. Tracking her meant it needed food.

She nocked an arrow in her sling bow and kept it there for the rest of the day, and the day after, until the puffin was consumed. Soon after, the dried meat she had brought for emergencies began to dwindle.

The cold intensified in response to her hunger. It froze her joints and wound around her neck like a noose. It anchored her limbs to an invisible object behind her, and she felt like she was dragging that weight with her across the snow. She could barely open her eyes, in fear that the moisture would freeze.

Liana had crossed the point of no return. Onward was the only practical way, and yet she was no longer certain that she was even moving in the correct direction. She wondered, blearily, if she had just been wandering between the same two copses of conifers in an endless, maddening loop.

Her body stopped working suddenly as she was crossing a desolate plain of ice that had once been a lake. Her feet seemed glued to the frozen ground, and her muscles refused to engage.

Not here ... not out here ...

But her defiance was powerless. No sooner had she tried to stand up to the elements, she found herself face down in the snow ... snow that quickly darkened from white to black.

***

When Liana opened her eyes again, the world was still white, but entirely different. It was warmer, and sheltered from the chilling winds, and it smelled of game and wet fur.

She was on her side, squeezed into a tight, bony and muscular space between a leg and a wall of flesh. A heartbeat steadily thudded next to her ear. She looked behind her, turning slowly to ensure that her custodian wouldn't do anything rash. Sure enough, the tundra wolf's huge eyes were open, one of them fixed on her.

Liana stared at it for a moment, the pain in her body slowly joining her in the wolf's grasp. She slowly ran a hand over her body, searching for a bite mark or cut. She drew back her hood to check her neck. The wolf raised its head at the shock of white hair that spilled from her head, and snorted. It craned its neck around and sniffed her fringe for a moment, before grunting and settling back down.

No cuts, no bites. She frowned.

"Why didn't you eat me?" she croaked.

The wolf huffed.

"If you weren't hungry enough, you probably shouldn't have stolen all my puffins."

The wolf yawned and stood up, stretching with a grunt. Behind him, as she could now tell from the angle she was laying at, she could see a bulky, grey form laying on the ground. Her custodian clamped his jaws around it and dragged it closer.

It was an elk, throat ripped out.

"You're taking the piss," Liana grunted.

The wolf dropped it, looked at her again, and huffed. He sat down on his haunches.

"What? Are you going to eat it in front of me?"

The wolf huffed and whined. He pushed the elk closer to her with his nose.

Liana frowned. She struggled onto her knees, then into a crouch. Her entire body loudly protested every move she made. Her stomach snarled as the tundra wold should have been.

She edged towards the elk, and the wolf's tail swooshed from side to side.

"You want me to eat this?"

The wolf's tail continued to swish. Liana slowly drew her dagger, and began butchering some of the meat on the thigh.

Once she had a few chunks and strips cut off, she speared them on a stick from the trees, and built a fire with all the driest wood she could find. The wolf watched her, and tore a few strips of its own from the elk's rump.

As the meat cooked over the fire, Liana observed the wolf as it ate. She could see that there were a few scars across his legs and flank, even some at the neck.

Liana knew that tundra wolves were pack hunters. Perhaps this one had been chased away. He was young, a year old perhaps. Maybe a runt, chased away from the pack. Runt though he may have been, he was easily the size of a large horse.

She ate a few chunks of elk, and felt almost immediate relief. Once she was satisfied, she started cutting off more pieces of the carcass and cooking them, preparing to wrap them in leather. It took around two hours, and all the while, the wolf ate his fill of the other half of it.

He watched her as she finished wrapping her new supply of food, head on his front paws. His cool silver eyes were soft, but the ears were twitching at every sound of the wind around them. She got up with a grunt and leaned against the tree closest to the wolf. As she sat down he whined a little. She reached out a hand, and he flinched away, a growl vibrating his throat.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Liana said softly. "Shh."

She gently stroked a hand along the rough fur of the wolf's flank. Gradually, the growl quietened.

"I suppose I should thank you, hmm? You may well have saved my life."

The wolf sighed. Liana moved her hand up to his head, and behind his ears.

Liana frowned to herself. She had no idea where the wolf had taken her. It can't have been that far, but she still needed to get her bearings. She stood up and stretched. The wolf got up with her, and leaned down to lick her hand.

She raised an eyebrow, and patted his head. "Eat your elk, I need to have a look around. I'll be right back."

From the top of the nearest conifer, she found that she wasn't too far off track. The wolf had brought her slightly further along in the direction she had been going anyway. When she descended again, the wolf was pawing up at the tree, standing on his hind legs.

"I'm coming down, don't worry."

He huffed at her as she cinched up her hood. She covered the fire with snow, and set off across the Wilderness again. The soft, padding footfalls of the wolf were just within earshot, right behind her. She glanced at him. His movements were fluid, unimpeded by the thick white fall, tail wagging as his eyes stayed on her. After a few minutes, he let out a low, huffing bark and bound past her. He disappeared quickly into the blizzard, then reappeared trotting back towards her.

He ran in a loop, using Liana as one of the edges. After a few more minutes, he stopped directly in her path.

"What?" she shouted over the howling winds.

The wolf let out a bark, that merged with a growl and a huff. Hurry up.

She strode up to him slowly. She was beginning to shiver once more.

"You're faster than me. I can't keep up with you."

He huffed and whined at her. He looked around at the distant trees, and paced back towards her.

Carefully, he leaned over and closed his mouth around her waist.

"What...? No, no!"

The wolf let Liana go and barked at her. She could have sworn he was annoyed.

"Not in your mouth!"

He whined again. She studied him for a moment. He was muscular enough to potentially carry her.

She moved over to his flank, and he danced away. "Hey!"

He snorted, and let her come closer. She patted him on the back. He turned to look at her, his silver eyes quizzical.

"I ... go up there." She pointed to herself, then up to the wolf's back.

He snorted, and hesitantly sat down. She moved up towards his shoulders, where he seemed the most muscular. "Smarter than you look. Ready?"

He grunted a woof.

She took a couple of steps back, and jogged up to the wolf. She jumped up and planted her hands on his shoulders, and swung herself up nimbly. He stood up as she planted her weight, letting out a howl. He spun around in a circle, and Liana cried out, clenching her thighs together and trying to hold her balance.

"Hey! Hey! Stop!"

The wolf stopped, twisting his head around to glower at her.

"Am I too heavy?"

The wolf growled. Liana raised an eyebrow, and almost laughed to herself.

"I'll have you know, I'm as light as a feather."

The wolf snorted, and began walking towards the trees. Liana held him by the scruff of his neck, managing to keep herself upright. Just as she was getting comfortable, he moved from a walk to a trot.

Liana gritted her teeth, and leaned over as he went from a trot to a run. She could feel herself slipping from his fur, but before she fell, he slowed down himself. He growled back at her.

"Sorry," she muttered. She stroked his neck behind his ears. "We'll work it out."