within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity.”
So because he is weak of marrow and I am weak of body, we find ourselves together at the bottom of the 14th.
When the Pack Alpha eventually turns our way, I nudge Ronan, who doesn’t stand until I bite him. Finally, he hobbles up, looking at me mournfully with his greasy eyes. Nobody much pays attention as we approach the Alpha. They’re all too busy debriding each other’s wounds and sniffing new companions’ bodies.
John’s paw hangs lazily over the edge of a granite outcropping shot through with mica that shimmers slightly in the moonlight. It seems like a nervous eternity, waiting for John’s pro forma nod of approval.
It doesn’t come. Instead, he pulls himself up, one leg at a time, until he reaches his full height. The paler fur of his belly shimmers as he shakes himself and jumps down to the damp sod.
His nose flares as he approaches us. Anxiously, I push myself closer to Ronan’s flank. John presses his muzzle between us, shoving me away. He sniffs the air around Ronan and starts to slap at Ronan, each hit of his head getting harder until Ronan stumbles backward.
John bares his teeth, snarling.
Ronan blinks a few times as though he is just waking. He wavers unsteadily, trying to comprehend the simple gesture that was all it took to exile him from the protection of our law, our land, our Pack. The sentence that forces him into a life wandering from Pack to Pack searching for a place until he dies in a puddle of blood and/or vomit, like most exiles do.
I scuttle to John, my head and stomach scraping the grass, my tail tucked between my legs, submitting into the earth not because I care about Ronan, but because if he leaves, then I am a lone wolf. There’s an old saying that lone wolves are the only ones who always breed, their children being Frustration and Dissent. That’s why they are given over to their echelon’s Alphas to be their servants, their nidlings. A nidling has nothing, is nothing. Even at the bottom rank, you’re paired with someone who is just as shit a wolf as you are, so at least at home, you don’t have to submit. But the nidling’s life is one of endless submission.
John snaps at me, then at Ronan. I roll on my back, my eyes averted, whimpering. But since he’s made up his mind, no amount of groveling is going to make any difference. John wants Ronan gone. He stands erect, leaning over Ronan’s now-shivering body, and a low growl emerges from deep in his chest. Any second now, he will attack.
Ronan backs away, shell-shocked. He stops for a moment, still looking hopefully at John, until the Alpha lunges forward. The exile trips over his own feet as he turns to go.
He doesn’t even bother to look at me.
John stays alert, watching until Ronan lurches into the dark forest. He listens a moment more to be sure the exile is truly gone before he howls and signals an end to the Dæling. The newly reordered 14th finds their pairs and their places behind John. I’m all the way at the end, where I’m used to being, until our Alpha, Solveig, runs back and, with a growl, reminds me that I am to follow her and her companion, Eudemos, the pairing who now control my life. I take up my place behind them, my tail dragging between my legs.
Stopping suddenly with one paw raised, John focuses on a sharp bark in the night. It is a warning from a perimeter wolf. Probably signaling that a hunter has trespassed on our land. Wolves will be gathering around the interloper now, following the hunter at a silent distance. As there’s nothing like an honor guard of seething wolves to scare off prey, hunters usually give up pretty quickly.
John lifts his head, his nose working hard as he looks toward the north woods. I can smell it too. Over the fragrance of fecund grass and swollen water and bog and sphagnum come the subtle scent of a half-dozen Pack and the overwhelming stench of salt and steel and blood and decay.
With a quick snap of his jaws, our Alpha sends our echelon’s fastest wolf back to Home Pond for older reinforcements. John runs around to the north flank, closely followed by Solveig and Eudemos and the other newly minted leaders of the 14th. His forefeet are light on the damp grass, his