The Wolf Chase

While two men are gathering supplies for their village in the forest they have a rough encounter with a vicious and hungry pack of dire wolves.

6/24/19                                                   The Wolf Chase

“What is that smell?” Rorick asked, turning around to face me. 

“Probably just this,” I say, holding up a severed bright purple mushroom that had just begun to spurt out a thick green liquid.

“What are you supposed to use that for?” 

“The liquid is good for sanitizing wounds, and it also doesn’t taste too bad.” He paused for a moment, pulling free a knot in his full brown beard.

He shrugged and said, “Well if it doesn’t taste bad I can’t blame it,” And then turned back around to continue shuffling through a bush. I opened my heavy leather pouch, filled nearly to the top with all sorts of mushrooms and mosses, and placed my addition inside, licking my fingers clean. I looked up, surveying the forest around me, checking for any mushroom shelves to be found on the trees. A heavy wind began to pick up and blow through the forest, blowing my short dark hair into my face, and I glanced up to see heavy storm clouds forming above us, incoming rain was certain. It was unfortunate for me that the area was so compacted, with tangled bushes ready to block your every step, towering trees standing every few feet from one another and steep slopes and ravines all throughout, as this only made collecting the mushrooms even harder. 

“Aha!” Rorick shouted from the other side of a tall bush boasting dozens of bright red berries. It only made his job easier, as that made for more abundant roots and berries for him to gather. 

“What have you found now?” I asked, listening to the vigorous rustling going on in the brush.

“Gunther, my friend I’ve just made quite the discovery.”  He said, pulling his head out of the bush. I decided to turn back around just as he began enthusiastically explaining how to prepare the bush’s bark for consumption, and resumed my search for mushrooms. The area was filled with all different kinds of mushrooms, but most of them were either poisonous or useless. I was eager to get some more of them, as the ingredients were desperately needed back home, and with the storm clouds overhead, I didn’t think we would have much longer. After a long while of searching however, I managed to spy a few mushrooms and mosses protruding precariously from a steep ten foot rock face below me. With a few convenient roots and thick vines there to help me along the way, it really didn’t seem like a bad idea. 

“Rorick, I’m about to jump off this cliff to get some mushrooms. Is that all right?”

“Fine by me, as long as it doesn’t end up like the last time you tried that one.” he called back. Tucking my short mushroom knife into my belt, I grabbed a firm hold onto a low hanging tree branch and lowered myself into some footholds in the stone. With the help of some sturdy roots in the dirt, I lowered myself down.

The vegetation was abundant on this cliffside, and I had just found myself a nice patch of dark red mushrooms when I heard a low and ominous hiss. Crawling from a burrow in the dirt above the root I was using as a handhold was a snake, with dark red scales, gleaming eyes, and two long curved fangs jutting from its upper lip.

I yelped, letting go of the root and looking down for another way to go. But there wasn’t anywhere to go, the slope below me caved inward into the hill. The snake slithered from its hole towards me, eyeing my other hand which was barely pinching an outcropping of rock. With little other options, I looked to the trees behind me hoping they could cushion my fall. With a full spruce tree situated behind me, I prepared to jump to it, but before I could, a sharp pain ran through my wrist as I felt razor sharp fangs sink through my skin. My grip was instantly lost, and my yells echoed all throughout the forest as I fell backward to the ground.

The call came quickly. “Gunther?” Rorick yelled from up above, oblivious as to where I had gotten. I couldn’t respond, and only pulled my bleeding hand to my chest as a burning sensation rippled through my and hand and up into my arm. “I’m coming!”  I looked down to my injury and found blood oozing from two deep punctures in either side of my wrist. All was worsening agony, and I felt a wave of firey pain crawl up my arm. My eyes were closing. I could hardly fight to keep them open. A faint rustling came from the top of the cliff face. I heard deep and heavy breaths coming from Rorick, who was already halfway down the slope. 

He jumped down and landed hard on the packed and bloodied dirt. He hurried over to me and knelt by my side. 

“What did you do?” He asked panicking, and with wide eyes, he looked me up and down. His eyes came to my arm, and he was quick to realize what had caused this. He dragged me away from the cliff and settled me down, unshouldering his satchel and shuffled through it, sifting through all the things he had found throughout the forest before pulling random items out and tossing them aside, until desperately dumping everything out of the pack. Upon impact, several glass vial shattered or cracked, and he cursed under his breath as he picked up a cracked glass that was quickly losing its liquid. I slowly began to fade off as he began to drip the fluid into my wound, and before long my eyes fell shut and my conscience slipped away.

I must have been out for a while, as a soft rain had been tumbling down through the trees onto damp dirt. My eyes adjusted to see Rorick kneeling over me, still as stone with his breath held. He let out a deep sigh of relief as I started to cough, and he grabbed his water skin from his pack and slowly poured water down my mouth. My whole body ached, my arm still throbbed with pain, and I absolutely could not catch my breath. I tried to sit up, but Rorick was quick to settle me down. “Don’t get moving just yet, it’ll just make the venom travel faster.” he said, gently pressing my back against my side. I shifted myself around to look at my wounded arm, and saw Rorick’s rag, now blood red, wrapped around my wrist and tied tightly. Rorick moved aside and began repacking his satchel from all of its scattered contents, and I got full view of a deep and dark cave leading into the cliffside. It looked to be endless, void of life of any kind. That was until the wolf emerged. 

The dark grey animal studied us with intensity, staying just barely in the shadows of the cave. I let out meaningless croak, and Rorick reached for his waterskin before I pointed into the cave. Rorick looked over his shoulder to the cave, and it watched us before slowly turning around, keeping its eyes on us, and walked further inside. 

“Time to go,” Rorick said with fear in his voice, sloppily tying his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He stood over me and hauled me up over his shoulders and trotting off further away from the cave. 

“Up the cliff,” I struggled to say through my panting, knowing that that would be our safest bet. 

“Oh, right,” He turned around and struggled to run back towards a route back upwards, but he was soon stopped motionless as he saw the wolf reemerge from the cave. He stepped back as he saw more, watching from the darkness vehemently. From atop Rorick’s shoulders I could gauge the true size of the animals, and I did not like our odds. Most of the beasts easily came up to Rorick’s waist in height, some standing a few inches taller, and I knew these were not ordinary wolves. Rorick continued backward as the last of them finally left the darkness, showing six wolves totalling the pack. My heart quickened as I saw what must have been the alpha emerge last, with fur black as pitch and fierce bright blue eyes. 

Rorick was motionless, mouth agape, and I could feel his heart beating faster than it should through his shoulder. The wolves stepped out into the rain, forming a half circle at the edge of the tree line. The alpha’s mouth curled into a snarl, and the rest quickly followed, advancing and uttering menacing growls. 

Rorick continued backward, stumbling blindly but keeping his back to the forest. I looked over his shoulder, hoping to see a cliff that would take us up to safety, but only saw found flat ground and a dark forest of pine trees. The pack was closing in fast, and they wouldn’t let us back away forever.

“Get- get us up a tree,” I said while trying to catch my breath, “a tall one,” When our direction changed the wolves turned to a trot. Rorick blindly pushed his way to the trunk of a spruce and tossed me up onto the highest branch he could, then all too slowly tried to make his way up. When he picked me up to set me higher up the tree, the creatures sped to a run, closing the distance in mere seconds, and one had already broke its way through the foliage as Rorick had me on his shoulder. The grey furred wolf lept to Rorick’s side and sent its razor sharp claws slicing through his calf. He screamed in pain and dropped me onto the branch, coming close to tumbling down before he grabbed a hold of my leg. The wolf slid down the tree and was quickly joined by two other wolves, the rest spreading out around the tree. 

Rorick pulled himself towards the branch with my leg and leaned over, out of breath and wide eyed with adrenaline. We rested in silence, watching the wolves slowly rotate around the tree in a circle, uttering low growls and bearing vicious snarls. 

I struggled to lift myself up to sit on the branch, my arms and legs feeling like dead weight and my head straining under a throbbing ache. Rorick did the same, his arm quivering under him as he lifted himself up on the branch. 

“We need to climb higher,” I said, “those things wouldn’t have a problem reaching us right now.” Rorick groaned as he lifted himself up with the branch above us, and once he got situated, I moved to lift myself higher, struggling on the wet branches as the rain continued to pickup. We climbed higher, until I felt that there wasn’t a chance for them to jump up to us. But by the time we were comfortable, or at least as comfortable as we could be, the rain was nearly at a downpour, soaking us and our clothes. 

“What are those things?” Rorick asked, trying to settle himself onto the branch and not upset his leg.

“They aren’t regular wolves, that’s for sure,” I said, “No, these must be dire wolves. Much stronger and smarter than wolves.” He nodded, and gently lifted his injured leg across the tree branch, preparing himself to inspect the damage. He closed his eyes as he slowly pulled back his leg up past his knee, and even through the rain and diminishing light I could see that the wound was serious. When he opened his eyes he groaned at the massacre that was his leg.

“Not much we can do about that,” he said, setting his head back against the tree trunk. I leaned forward to get a better look. It was certainly nasty, with four long and deep strokes cutting into his skin, with blood gushing from each stroke.

“I have something that could help,” I said, picking up my bag and setting it on my lap. The inside had been dampened by the rain, but the contents were still useful. Sorting through my gatherings, I looked for the purple mushroom I had last harvested and some other clumps of moss. I pulled up that rotten smelling mushroom and cut the top off of it with my knife and tossed it down to the wolves and held the stem over Rorick’s wound. With one squeeze, thick dark green liquid oozed from the plant and onto the wound, and Rorick winced on first contact. Emptying the tube out, I tossed it out and readied the moss, holding it out into the rain to allow it to soak. When I deemed it ready I held it over the wound and squeezed it, bringing the water and bits of moss into the wound. 

“That moss will harden to help slow the bleeding,” I said, tossing the remaining parts down the tree. “But in the meantime…” Once again with my knife, I sawed away at my sleeve with the dulling blade, and when the frayed cloth came free, I used it to wipe Rorick’s wound clean and bandage it. “That should help.”

Rorick relaxed himself, at ease with the fact that he might not bleed out. Tying down my satchel and hanging it above me, I looked to my wrapped up hand to inspect the damage. I pulled the tight rag off to see dried blood surrounding two scabbed over punctures in my skin. I ran my finger across it, and it felt fine. Whatever Rorick did to help me, it seemed to have worked. I hung the rag above me and settled into the nook of the branch, the thoughts coming back to me on what was below us. I looked down through the rain to see the wolves still circling, watching us the entire time, though it looked like some had substituted others, who must have gone to rest in the cave.

To be finished.

                                                   

Note to reviewers: 

Though I know the entire piece needs work, there are a few specific points I hope to work on, and if you are able to point them out it would be a great help. Firstly, I want to know if the characters are consistent throughout the story and if their personalities are interesting and if they are worth caring for. Secondly, I want to know if all of the details are necessary to the story, as I've have had quite the issue with that in other pieces. Lastly, I'd like to know if the tension is maintained throughout the narrative and if it is not, how I can raise it. 

If you decide to leave a review, it would be a huge help and be greatly appreciated.