renegade did not dare refuse to join his scabby pack
to the king wolf's powerful force.
So Boron, a wolf entirely unknown to the caribou,
was traveling far to the east of Loki at the moment of
the latter's entry into the Hemlock Wood. With
Boron coursed his outlaw pack. Only minutes after
Awklet had led the herd away from Loki and Blizzard Pass, Boron and his wolf scum poured, unseen,
from the mouth of Retreat Pass and into the forest
behind the caribou circle. While Awklet watched
only to the north for the approach of Loki, Boron
closed silently in from the south.
Loki struck first, from the north. He and his yammering followers attacked without warning, out of
the four o'clock blackness, slashing into Awklet's
side of the antler-lowered circle. But Awklet raged
at the front of his circled herd, bellowing and charging the surprised wolves with such successful fury
that the caribou took fire and fought like demons.
Coughing and grunting hoarsely, slashing and hooking with hoof and horn, the tough old does and stags
drove back the wolf pack's first howling wave.
Loki wisely called off the assault and ordered the
wolves to retreat a short way into the surrounding
forest. From this cover, an occasional wolf charged
the herd to keep it from resting, but the main pack
did not return to the attack.
Awklet sensed that something had gone wrong
with the king wolf's plans, but he could not guess
what. Neither could Loki. Loki had expected Boron
to strike the herd from the rear while he came at it
from the front, thus stampeding the caribou and finishing the killing quickly. But Boron had failed to strike, or even to appear. Now the herd, alarmed
and aroused to nerve-strung courage by Awklet's utter fearlessness, was going to be very hard to handle. Still, Loki would wait a while for Boron. He
could afford a little time, and the treacherous old
rascal would not dare to fail to show up.
The king wolf watched Awklet and narrowed his
lone eye uneasily. This great hulk of a moose bull
was giving bad signs of knowing which end of the
breeze carried the odor, and that was not a good
thing. Perhaps, after all, he had better not wait for
Boron. He looked about him for old Sukon. The old
wolf heard his summoning snarl and slunk quickly
toward him.
Boron, meanwhile, was in trouble. His way into
the Hemlock Wood was not so easy as he had expected. A small band of old stags under two tough,
experienced leaders, Horsa and Kajak, had been
bedded near Retreat Pass. This straying group had
heard Awklet's gathering bellows when the young
moose began calling in the caribou after sighting
Loki approaching by Blizzard Pass. The small band
had started to fall back toward the main herd just
before Boron entered the forest.
The renegade wolf and his pack were moving
with the wind; hence they did not scent the caribou
so close ahead of them. But the latter, being downwind of the wolves, scented them at once. Instead of
fleeing in panic, Horsa and Kajak halted their two
dozen seasoned fighters in a screening stand of
ground pine and waited for the white raiders. They
let the surprised wolves run right into them, then
charged point-blank into the pack's midst.
They trampled over and injured at least ten of
Boron's followers. Half of them were so badly hurt they were out of the fight for good. The caribou did
not slow their rush, continuing straight on into the
heavy timber toward Awklet and the main herd.
Boron and the remainder of the wolves, taken completely off guard, made no attempt at pursuit. Instead, they swung far to the south and circled
through the forest to come at the herd from the west.
Had Loki waited for them, the sun would have
been long up and shining before they could ever
have joined him. But the king wolf was not waiting.
Old Sukon had been eager for an immediate, all-out
attack on Awklet's antlered circle. So while Boron
skulked through the woods to the west, the attack
Similar Books
