Iver

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

 

THE STENCH WAS overwhelming as Iver inhaled his first conscious breath. The weight surrounding him was unbearable, the pressure immense as it compressed his body. They were all here. He could smell them. His brothers, beneath the heavy mask of death.

Isak, Erik… Iver called to them. He whined at their silent responses.

Dead.

Iver’s own brothers and his warrior brotherhood surrounded him in a death heap. A pit burial with no honor. They had all been left like this, uncovered and reeking. He listened for a single heartbeat. A weak whine or faint scratch. He inhaled again, scenting nothing but unmistakable death and the fading scents of the ones he loved.

Dead for some time now too. Weeks, Iver thought, but the rotting had been slowed tremendously from the cold, from this stone. There was no earth here to reclaim them. No feathered carrion eaters dared to fly down into this dark abyss, no four-legged ones either. Too dark, too deep, and with no way in or out. No way to see the refuse they surely smelled from above.

Slowly, in utter darkness, he pulled with his front paws, over the matted and blood-dried fur, across the cold and mangled bodies of his pack. Such blackness, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. An absolute complete absence of light deep within the bowels of the earth.

So cold and wet. Iver’s fur was heavy with his and others’ old blood. From the clinging dirt and clay Isak had smeared through his fur for the battle to the dark ash that Erik had rubbed over his face and legs to hide his unusual coat. So heavy now. The arrow wound through his chest and had stopped only a millimeter from his heart. It had been withdrawn by their enemy, had healed while Iver had been unconscious.

His left hind leg was another story. Iver sniffed at it weakly as he lay on the wet stone floor. He couldn’t see, but something was deep in the bone. Iron, Iver smelled. Old iron, a thin point of it. A sharp tooth from a trap. He recalled now how the trap had snapped closed on his leg with such force as he ran into battle. Then, the arrow had been shot from above to finish him off.

They had been slaughtered. Iver shook and whined with the agony of such great loss. Surrounded by them all, he could now almost discern each one. Tossed carelessly into this unforgiving mass tomb. Iver lifted his nose and tried to scent above the decomposition. Definitely a cave: wet and cold and dank. A cave they had thought to be the Mitchum packhouse.

A lie.

Nothing lived here but those things that slinked and slithered. Night dwellers that scurried and crawled or flapped in swarms far above. Iver laid his head down on the frigid stone, filled with anger, grief, and defeat. Eventually, the old iron would seep into his blood and try to kill him. He would wait and wish for death. Lie there, dishonored with his pack, amongst his fellow warriors.

Iver closed his eyes and tried not to smell it as he breathed. Remembering why they had come here. The Creator’s punishment for the Mitchums’ violations of Wolf law and the violations of the human scientists who had darted pack members, taking them away for weeks and returning them nearly starved and damaged. Tortured from what they called “experiments” and “scientific discovery.” The humans wanted to possess their secrets, profit from their abilities, and harness their near-immortality.

Fools, Iver seethed. They could never recreate it or make it so. It was Wolf, and it was old magic from their Makers, gifted by the Creator. A truth Iver had known since his birth.

The story had been passed down through generations, their history and his heritage. A legend of the magical child who had loved a white Wolf pup—and the pup who had loved the human child in return. It wasn’t known just how it had happened, but the girl possessed a gift of near immortality and healing. Elders suspected the young Wolf had been injured in his adolescence and that she had healed him, forever changing his line.

The story had been handed down by their historians; it told of a great love between the pair. The two were mated, and Wolf had bitten the girl, bonding them together, changing her as his mate. Now, they lived in the stars together. Their children had inherited the magic of their Great Mother and the power of their Great Father. And so, created the Wolf, forever changing the bloodline.

Iver sighed in pain, feeling his body trying to heal but unable to because of the metallic wedge inside his bone. Weak, too weak to shift to human and get it out. Teeth and claw would not help him now. Iver’s tongue was dry, and he could hear water somewhere below. It called to him. Water would only prolong a death that would never come, and he thought again of his dead brothers, his brethren. They needed burial or burning. For their passing into the stars, they could not lie like this, dishonored for eternity.

So this was what made Iver begin to crawl across the damp stone, feeling his way through the pitch black and dragging himself closer to the sound of the insistent water. No, he would not die, could not, even if he wanted it. He would not let Isak and Erik be dishonored. He crawled for them, their father and mother, their sisters and all his warrior brethren, and their families. Then, he would make his way home, thousands of miles, and formally deliver the news. They would have already felt the loss. The silent links as they each went dark and faded out. Eventually, they would know about the souls.

Fader…Moder, Iver called.

Two sparks—but too weak. It was enough for now. They would know Iver was still here, injured and vulnerable.

A wave of sadness rushed through their links. They knew. They knew it all now. The grief and anger were too great to hide. And their father whispered back to Iver the only three words that mattered now.

Honor your brothers.

Iver would. He would live to see them through to the stars. So he crawled. He dragged his stomach across the wet stone, his leg limp and useless behind him. He would chew it off if not for this promise, his fate. The water grew louder, and he wondered just how long he had lain there, unconscious and healing in the heap. The water seemed to thunder his name.

Iver, it called.

He could smell the outside air from somewhere, seeping in, and the season had turned to full spring. He was hungry and thirsty, and he had to keep going.

Iver squeezed himself through a narrow fault, the water so close and loud now. He crawled with more determination, whining to get to the water commanding him to come. His ribs protruded, scraping against the stone. He licked at the wet walls, at the water between his front paws, and crawled, his eyes closed, relying on feel and scent in the darkness.

A great yanking force ripped him, powerful and rushing as it shot Iver’s body with its movement. Tremendous water tumulted him. He closed his jaws tight even as it rushed through his nose. There was darkness and then light. A great fall and splash as it spat him out. And as he sank down in the silence, everything went dark once again.

Iver dreamed, floating with his brothers, drifting towards the stars on a current that carried them. In his dream, he wept with grief over the shame of not honoring his brothers. Even in his dream state, he was so weak. His links trembled as if they would snap in only a moment. And again, he faded, floating along in the darkness.