Pitor and the Wolf

Young Pitor Miles stood over the body of his dog. His Irish setter Eric (for Eric the Red), had bled out having fought to keep something from the chicken coop. The chickens were torn to pieces all over the snow, and Eric had been ripped right open, his ribs carved as if they were cheese strings not strong bone. At twelve Pitor stood nowhere near his future height, but he was man of the house while his father was away with the army. No coyote did this, and whatever did this might return for another meal. He had a younger sister and two more dogs; he must hunt this creature down and kill it, for he must go to school and cannot always be here to defend his families land. Though he knew it not, the blood of the Volsungs ran in his veins, the get of the Allfather himself, and a warrior-king’s heritage was his. Returning to the house, he placed back his rifle, for the .22 was no use against anything that could kill proud Eric, he would have to use his bow; slow and hard to draw, heavy to wield, but able to drive a hand wide steel broadhead lengthways through a bear. Without a word to his mother, who would only worry, he took down his father’s bow, and six of the hunting arrows. Eric had died defending Pitor Miles’ family land, he would be avenged.

Young Haeti stood in wolf form above the body of her pack mate Grimnir. She smelled the blood of her own pack, the rich blood of the deer carcass Grimnir had died defending, and the hated smell of the ever-hungry; the wolverine. Winter was a hard time for wolf packs, man’s hunting thinned out the deer, even as man’s spread thinned out the range and made prey scarce. No love for men had she, for hers was the blood of Skoll, blood of the first of wolves, the sun-hunter banished forever to the sky’s by Odin’s trickery in a hunt that had no end. While the magic of her Jotun ancestors allowed her to take their shape when moving in man’s world, she had never seen a man with the courage of a wolf, nor the loyalty of the pack. The killer scent ran from her woods towards the land of men, she would have to take their form for this hunt, lest they turn their weapons upon her too.

Deep snow made the trail easy for Pitor Miles, and his snow-shoes made decent time over the acres of his land. He moved in an easy lope, eyes always searching for signs of the bear, if bear it was, that killed Eric. While the wounds were deep and savage as a bear, and the power to tear apart the wire fence said bear, the tracks were low to the ground like a badger, and the smell was more like skunk or weasel. If Pitor was right, he was tracking a wolverine through the deep snow; chasing the most savage ambush hunter through his chosen killing ground. His eyes seeking, his ears sharp in the winter silence, and his nose trying to catch any scent in the bitter cold, for the wolverine was more prone to attack than flight if chased.

Haeti gripped her short spear, knapped flint on strong ash, a weapon made as it had always been before the coming of man and his metal. She saw a boy move into the clearing and pause, drinking the air as if his poor scent blind race could sense anything! With a start she realized his eyes had seen her, even as her fur clad form held still beneath the trees. Ice blue eyes met the same as two killers gazed across weapons at each other, a scene as ancient and dangerous as the blood each bore. Shocked to see a human catch her, she lowered her spear as he snapped his bow aside. She smiled, he seemed like something from her mother’s tales, a bow hunting warrior upon the snows, as once mingled their blood with her own before men turned away from the land and its ways.

Pitor moved into the clearing, bow at the half draw, for this was too wide a place for the wolverine to cross so far in the open, unless he knew himself hunted and wished to draw his hunters into a place from which he could be taken. He felt eyes upon him, and turning he drew the bow full to find himself gazing into eyes as blue as his own. Shocked he snapped the bow aside, something stirred within him; there she stood, like a Valkyrie from granddad’s stories, fur clad and spear wielding in the forest as if this was a thousand years ago, not modern day Canada.

While the two shocked younglings shared a gaze, a shocking roar split the air, as the Wolverine burst from the snow-cave at the clearings edge and charged them both. With the rage of his kind, he sped across the snow faster than a snowshoe hare, and Pitor Miles tried to draw and spin completely around, only to fall as his snowshoes caught him. The arrow he loosed was not full drawn, and stuck but lightly in the dread-beasts fur. The wolverine’s charge knocked the boy to the ground, and with savage jaws he bit through the boys coat and broke the bone in his forearm, causing him to cry out and drop the bow. In the way of the wolf, Haeti struck the flank as her foe faced the boy, but since the wolverine was spinning when she struck, her well-thrust spear bloodied but did not pin the fearsome beast.

Screaming its rage, the wolverine turned upon the girl, with a sweep shattered the strong wood spear. Scrambling back, Haeti swiftly resumed her native form, and a she-wolf snapped at the sweeping claws. Knowing herself doomed, she faced the wolverine trapped against the banks of snow, with nowhere to move save through the sweep of his claws. She prepared to strike, preferring to die with her teeth in Grimnir’s killer than like some helpless prey when another scream shattered the air. Screaming the name of his murdered hound, the boy struck the flank of the wolverine.

Pitor fell when the wolverine hit, and felt it bite deep in his arm, crushing the bone. He feared the wolverine would finish him while he was tangled in his snow-shoes, but the girl struck the wolverine with her stone headed spear, and drove him off. Pitor fumbled to draw his knife with his left hand, and cut himself free of the snowshoes. When he looked again, the girl was gone (fallen in the snow?) and the wolverine was tearing into a wolf, just as it had his poor Eric!

With the Volsung blood burning in his viens, Pitor screamed Eric’s name as he threw a football tackle on the wolverine, driving the knife hilt deep into its side, just beneath the ribs. Fearing the wolverine would turn with his bone-crushing fangs, he saw the beast begin his turn, only to be caught in the jaws of the wolf. The wolverine writhed and thrashed, but boy and wolf held to their killing grips, working knife in body and fangs in throat, until the wolverine bled out upon the snow; just as Grimnir and Eric had. Ice blue eyes gazing into ice blue eyes, Pitor realized the wolf had the same eyes as the fur-clad Valkyrie, and wondered if he was to die now. With wonder in his eyes, he saw her shift from wolf to woman, as they lay their panting over the body of their foe.
“He killed Grimnir of my pack; he was mine to kill” she spoke at last
“He killed Eric, a dog of my family or pack, he was mine to kill” the boy answered.
They stood their smiling at each other, covered in the blood they had shed to balance the scales. Perhaps, thought, Haeti, the tales were more than just stories. Perhaps she would watch this boy when he grew into a man. There might just be some that still held the courage and loyalty of the wolf, there might be some she could share the land with.
“I thank you” She said, thinking he would make a fine wolf.
“I thank you” he replied, thinking she made an awfully pretty woman, and beautiful wolf, which somehow didn’t bother him as it probably should.
Each walked away to their own world, he on two legs, she on four, but each pausing to watch the other in silent wonder. While each would go home to kin that would want to know all about the wolverine, for Pitor and Haeti, the story would always be about Pitor and the wolf.