Fox, the heroine of the North Country, and the Shadowolves, her neighbors,
are inextricably linked. Nor is their relationship a simple one;
neither pure affection nor pure enmity defines it adequately. It
is a moiling mix of the many gradations of respect and resentment.
About two hundred years ago, the Shadow Woods were the haunts of commonplace
wolves. As it happened, there came a day when a fair young huntswoman,
apparently lost and wandering weaponless, chanced to encounter a pack of
hungry gray wolves. They slew her in bestial need and began to worry
her carcass when the woods shook with anger. The wolves, uncomprehending,
cowed with fright, as beasts do when confronted by sorcery.
This particular pack had the misfortune of falling upon the maid called
Ashera, the beloved of the sorcerer Black Hand. Even though his had
been an unwelcome suit and she had fled from the loathly revenant at first
sight, the sorcerer would not be denied and had pursued his fleet-footed
beloved for many a mile. Tragically, he had not overtaking her in
time to save her life from the denizens of Shadow Wood.
The necromancer's sepulchral lament filled the benighted woods: "Would
that I were a brute beast like you prowling beasts, able to look down on
my own dear mate's slaughtered corpse and feel no twinge of grief.
You ignorant brutes cannot even be blamed for your offense against my happiness,
for you are innocent in the abyss of your ignorance and know not what you
have done!"
Then, as often happens, grief changed rapidly into anger. "You are
killers born, true," declared the black magician, "but you shall kill no
more with an innocent heart. You shall know your sins for crimes
they are, and the weight of a guilty conscience shall crush your savage
hearts. Each wrong you do from this day forth you shall recognize
as a new step down into the torments of Everlasting Hell!"
Thus he spoke a mighty spell and the offending pack was suddenly possessed
by a manlike intelligence and self-awareness. The transformed brutes
looked at one another in confusion.
Satisfied that he had taken cruel vengeance, the Black Hand withdrew from
Shadow Wood, exhausted by the wonder he had wrought and tortured to the
quick by his aching bereavement.
Alas, the necromancer had acted in anger, not calculation, and for all
his wisdom he did not anticipate the events which would flow from his curse
in the fertile soil of Shadow Wood.
The next century in the north country wilds are obscure ones. Only
the wolves know the whole story. Alas, as Corbie of Menehould has
said, "It is hard to know when to believe a talking wolf."
Aye, the wolves had soon learned to speak, and the wonder did not pass
away with the damned generation. The cunning pack produced cubs which
were likewise born intelligent. In no time at all this knew tribe
of hunters had used their wits to drive all the common wolves from the
forest glades, making it a hunting preserve for themselves alone.
Not even the ferocious snow tigers could prevail over beasts like them,
armed with cunning akin to Man's. Suddenly human hunters, trappers,
and travelers began to disappear in and around the Shadow Woods and the
forest came to be avoided as an evil place.
But at long last one living man did emerge alive, a bedraggled wretch at
the edge of death from exhaustion and exposure. The story he told
to the boatmen who found him was soon carried far and wide, bringing others
to question the stranger. All who heard his tale went away amazed,
until, finally Emperor Besor of Muetar had the man brought to Pennol to
tell his story before a council of learned examiners. The report
that these sages took down from the testimony of the unlettered man is
still preserved in a book called A Narrative of a Man Imprisoned Among
the Wolves of the Disputed Lands.
According to the wayfarer, whose name was Ivo, he had ventured into the
forest supposing that the shunned woods would be rich with game.
He was laying his traps for marten when, of a sudden, he found himself
surrounded by a pack of slavering wolves. Seeing no way to fight
or flee, thought his hour had come. But these wolves did not strike
to kill, but instead herded Ivo along, making him the center of a U-shaped
formation, constantly nudging and nipping to make him move the faster.
"Shake a leg, you sluggard hand!" one of the wolves finally growled at
him. Hearing those words spoken in crude Muetaran, Ivo thought at
first that he had gone mad.
But the trapper then recalled strange stories of the talking wolves who
roamed the Shadow Wood, though he had never believed a word of them before.
They drove the thunderstruck Ivo along, roughly but without injury, all
the way to their den in the deep forest. This place was sheltered
by steep embankments on three sides and guarded by a cordon of the half-grown
young and the female wolves ?- who were so placed as to prevent the escape
of captives, as Ivo was to learn.
To his surprise, the trapper found other men and a few women living among
the wolves and performing work in the service of inhuman masters.
Ivo was informed by his fellow captives that although the wolves were canny
individuals, their society was crippled by their lack of hands for crafting
the implements of civilization. This hurt their furious pride and
so, at last, they had hit upon the idea of taking captives, sometimes human,
sometimes Goblin, occasionally a Troll, to do the work that they could
not. These slaves they called "hands," for the obvious reason.
Tired of living in humble caves, the wolves had forced their prisoners
to build huts -- simple things which poor farmers and hunters were used
to erecting -- cylinders made of sod blocks and covered over with a cone
of thatch. But the wolves who possessed this new-type of home seemed
inordinately proud of them and looked down on others of their kind still
living in ordinary dens like wild animals.
Ivo naturally wondered if he had not become the prisoner of werewolves,
but his fellow captives assured him that the beasts never took the shape
of men. This set Ivo somewhat more at ease and, of necessity, he
thereafter fell in with the order of the camp.
One captive, Ivo reports, had been appointed by the wolves to act as a
kind of overseer, due to his domineering nature and his knack for understanding
the rough dialect of the wolves. This bully directed all the "hands"
in their work and received for his efforts certain privileges, which included
better meat and the pick of the pelts for clothing. Also he might
have any of the women captives he that he fancied. He usually chose
the prettiest, to set her aside as soon as a new captive caught his eye.
The wolves, apparently, scorned any work except hunting and tending to
cubs; all other necessary labor was left to the hands. The beasts
impressed Ivo as bad-natured and cruel, gleefully hunting down any prisoner
who attempted escape. When caught the unfortunate was devoured in
plain sight of the others, as a warning not to try to attempt flight themselves.
Even so, Ivo remained alert for any reasonable chance to escape, but the
wolves seemed ever-watchful and he dreaded pursuit by such natural trackers
as them. But while he bided his time, Ivo learned more about his
the talking beasts.
The wolves, judged Ivo, envied everything about their more advanced neighbors,
humans and Goblins alike. The females even desired to adorn themselves
with homespun cloth ?- not from shame of their hairy nakedness, but from
mere fashion-conscious vanity. The beasts had come to prefer having
their meat laid out on low tables rather than bend to eat it from the litter
of the forest floor. Some vainglorious wolves even insisted on gobbling
cooked meat on special occasion and favored those hands who could best
prepare it to their liking. Further, the beasts fancied carvings
and handicrafts as decorations for their homes. One important family
of Shadowolves took on lofty airs when their clever hand mounted the camp's
first door in the entryway of their den (as the wolves persisted in calling
their houses). Immediately all the other important wolves wanted
doors also, and woe to the hand who couldn't hang a good one!
Most incredible of all, the wolves seemed bent on breeding a large population
of docile hands to serve them. They saw to the mating of their women
captives to healthy male hands, even going far afield to capture peasant
girls for the purpose.
Over passing months, Ivo gained some measure liberty from his harsh master
through his skill at trapping small game that the wolves rarely could catch
themselves, and which had come to be considered rare delicacies.
When out his trapping forays, Ivo, little by little built a raft, having
decided that it was only by means of the swift forest current that he could
hope to elude such peerless trackers.
At last Ivo cast his vessel into the white-watered stream, barely escaping
the stubborn pack who raced after him along the shore, sometimes even leaping
into the water to fight their way to him. Only by luck and many a
hard stroke of the paddle did he save his life. At last the raft
was washed into a deep gorge which the man had not known about, and Ivo
lost his craft and nearly his life. Seeing him fall into the boil,
the weary wolves gave him up for dead and abandoned the weary chase.
Yet Ivo still lived, was washed into a still pool, floated to the bank,
and made his way out of the forest on sore and bruised feet.
Not many civilized men believed Ivo's strange narrative at first, but events
unfolding during the following decades proved the veracity of his most
outlandish allegations. New reports came in, reporting that the society
of the wolves was advancing rapidly and rumor of wolf-magicians, wolf-princes,
and even a high wolf-chieftain was talked of. The denizens of Shadow
Wood ceased to be called merely wolves by the frontier people, but were
especially known as Shadowolves, thus setting them apart from the common
lupus.
Some men reacted with superstitious dread, some with a merely circumspect
avoidance, but others brimmed with bravura and folly. Two decades
ago, shortly before the wolves formed their first mercenary band and commenced
to roamed rather widely in the wold of Men, Lord Hymer of Basimar came
to crave a Shadowolf for his menagerie. He posted a great reward
for the capture of one of the remarkable beasts and this call inspired
many a young warrior of the region with excitement that rivaled a summons
to war. Some saw in it a chance to take part in a unique adventure
rivaling the famed Puluchan Boar Hunt, or the equally-noteworthy Pursuit
of the Gowan Stag. Many of Muetar's highborn sons came forward caparisoned
in hunting gear, as did a few adventurous women.
One of the latter was Ellys of Sholles, a maid who seemed as much at ease
with the hunting bow as with the triple harp that ladies are happy to play
in their scented bowers. Along with the other eager hunters she set
out for the north. But the whole band must have been too complaisant,
for one night their deep-woods camp was beset by a large pack that burst
in on them unawares and many a young hunter raced away into the darkness,
wolves howling on his heels. Ellys was one of these, and also Nylin,
the youth who had given his heart to the huntsmaid at firs sight of her.
They fled together, but by dawn the two had been cut off by their pursuers,
trapped in an unclimbable gully, unable to do aught but surrender.
Allotted to a different bestial master, Nylin struggled fiercely to remain
beside the Lady Ellys. The wolf-captain who had claimed the huntsmaid
was amused by this display of fealty and traded another man to Nylin's
master and added the youth to his herd.
This was no act of kindness. The sly wolf had the idea that two hands
so mutually devoted would make a good breeding pair and, better still,
each would provide a hostage for the good behavior of the other.
Tasks worthy of their talents were imposed on the young couple by day and
they were confined together in a breeding hut by night. At first
the two refused to give in to the wolves' scheme, but soon their need for
solace overcame all scruples. In due course Ellys was delivered of
child, a baby girl with rust-red hair like her father's. The sorrowful
parents named her Damiana.
The wolves had relaxed their watch upon the couple during the pregnancy
of Ellys and did not much shore it up after the birth of the child.
Experience had shown the Shadowolves that parents seldom fled along the
unblazed forest says with a tiny infant in arm. But Nylin and Ellys
were determined that their girl would not grow up a handmaiden to man-eating
beasts. For months they secretly went among the other hands, persuading
them to take a mass break when the wolf-warriors were away on raid, and
at last chose a rainy night, which would spoil the scent of the escapees,
to make the desperate attempt.
It was a good, under the circumstance, and some of the hands escaped both
the wolves and the forest. But the Muetaran couple and their tiny
daughter were not among the lucky ones. By morning they could hear
the baying of the wolves on their track. They fought to the death;
so many predators could not be fended off by two people armed with sticks.
The infant the beasts spared momentarily. She could not walk back
at her age, nor could she be carried by warriors without hands. Doubtless,
the pack would have chosen to devour Damiana in the manner of her parents,
but then one sharp voice spoke up:
"Stand off, Warrior."
The trackers turned to address one they knew by sight, the shamaness Owl,
the shamaness whom the wisest princes of the packs often sought out for
her sorcery and augury skill. It was said she could command all the
low creatures of the forest.
"What would you wish, Lady?" the pack leader replied with gruff courtesy.
"To eat this morsel yourself? It shall hardly be a mouthful."
"I would do what I would do," the wolf-witch replied. "I claim the
cub as my fair portion of the forest take."
"That is for the prince to decide," protested the male.
"Your prince is far away. Can you carry the human cub the distance?"
"No," the wolf admitted.
"Then I will save you the trouble. My den is near and I have a hand
to care for her infant needs," said Owl. "Tell your master that I
accept the cub as the gift due me and will auger well for him in the future,
as in the past."
The wolf thought better of challenging a magic-user needlessly and so withdrew
with his pack. As they bounded away home the trackers believed that
the cub would quickly die without its parents anyway. If Owl might
be pacified by so poor a prize, well and good.
But as the shamaness had suggested, she owned an old-woman hand and this
lady took the baby back to their shared hut and between the two of them
Damiana not only lived but thrived.
Owl had not acted out of pity, though even the Shadowolves are not entirely
devoid of higher qualities, but out of respect for the warnings of Providence.
The witch was very old and had already outlived all her own cubs.
Fortunately, the forest gods had promised her an heir which ?- strange
to say ?- was to be not be a wolf, but a fox. When Owl had espied
the red haired babe beset by the frothing pack, instinct had told her that
here was the heir that the gods had promised.
Owl reared the infant as her own, naming her "Fox," and the auguress came
to love her well. Fox was barely ten before Owl commenced imparting
to her the secrets of Nature-magic. She taught the human child the
casting of the bones, the reading of the stars, the healing properties
of the plants. But like most parents, adoptive and otherwise, Owl
had to deal with the willful personality of the girl, a girl more in hunting
and exploring than in sitting quietly to receive dry and obtuse lessons
of soothsaying and sorcery.
But the old wolf's disciple eagerly accepted her greatest secret ?- the
knowledge of the common language of the animals, and also the mystic invocation
which she named the "Call of the Wild," the summons that would command
the children of Nature. It made the tire old she wolf proud to see
the timid hind playing fearlessly about her daughter's feet and the wild
swans pecking at her toes, while the snow tigers themselves licked her
fingers.
But word belatedly came to the great wolves of the forest that the human
girl living with the shamaness was not merely some young hand foolishly
pampered by an old female in dotage, but was the intended heir to the great
secrets of her craft. The wolf leaders thought it an outrage that
such knowledge would be given to a potential enemy who might someday use
it against the packs. They resolved to murder Fox out of hand and
force the ancient she-wolf to tell her secrets to one of their own kind.
Owl warned Fox through her auguries and the girl fled the hunters, just
as her parents had fled before. But Fox was armed with great knowledge
and many a pursuing wolf got his nose filled with powder of the sneezing
herb which she sprinkled upon her spoor, or was left smelling nothing for
days except the nauseating stench of the white-fin fish which the minx
had mopped over her tracks. Yet the hunters persisted and Fox was
brought to bay in a great battle, the wolves against those whom Fox had
summoned to her defense: the hosts of reindeer, forest oxen, leopards,
tigers, and cave bears. Finally the bloodied pack had had enough
and was sent flying home.
Unable to return home, Fox lived with humans at the forest's edge for some
months, until her forest friends brought her news that her protectress,
old Owl, had finally died of advancing years. For some while Fox
nursed her grief, then she resolvedly chose the course of the rest of her
life.
Fox had no real home among men. The forest was her natural domain
and if she could call any clan her own, it was the clan of the Shadowolves.
So the forest maid returned to the wild and for the next few years was
oftentimes seen along the frontier, delivering warnings of the threatening
movements of the Shadowolves or of other marauders, or reporting auguries
of disasters soon to come. Many a villagers blessed maid in fox pelts
for the healing balm or herb which saved the life of a loved one, or the
finding of a lost child or hunter when searchers had given them up for
lost. Sometimes Fox helped soldier bands cross swiftly over tangled
grounds that daunted even the bravest scout, but only if she believed that
the cause they fought for was a just one.
The main purpose of Fox's life remained, nonetheless, the freeing of captive
hands from the Shadowolves This she did many times, leading the grateful
fugitives along barely-known forest trails and evading the vengeful packs
which pursued them. Her many stratagems for thwarting these deadly
hunters are too many to tell in a single night.
But though the forest maid's relationship to the wolves has ever been a
stormy one, one must not suppose that Fox has acts in hatred against the
wolves of Shadow Wood. The only parent she ever knew was one of them,
and she understands their faults and virtues better than any other human
alive and frequently Fox has held cordial parley with her foster people
over matters that concern them both.
Also, the death of Owl has rendered it unwise for the Shadowolves to slay
Fox, as the priceless knowledge she holds can be conveyed to no other unless
she deigns to impart it willingly. Many a time Fox has been summoned
under truce to give good counsel to perplexed wolf lords, and even to the
Leader-of-All-the-Packs himself. And, of course, she is the last
hope for healing treatments that ailing wolves may turn to. Nor does
Fox lack personal friends among the talking lupines of the wild woods.
Fox, a woman in aspect and a wild creature in spirit, belongs to two different
worlds ?- and who is so foolish as to believe that she is unworthy of either?