Piers Torday - The Last Wild

*Stop — listen to me. You have to stop this.*

He mutters under his breath. *Do not interfere in our affairs. This is our custom.*

Suddenly the wolf launches himself at the stag with a roar they must have heard all the way to Spectrum Hall. The deer tosses his horns and deflects him, but an outstretched paw catches his rear flank, scoring a long and glistening red gash down the side. He cries out in pain.

The grizzled wolf, knocked but not down, snarls and prepares for his next blow.

I have to do something. The last animals in the whole world. I have to take them to Dad.

I take a few dizzy steps forward. From the grass the pigeons coo with worry.

*Please don’t do anything you might regret, Kester!*

*Kester! I don’t regret anything!* shouts the white pigeon proudly.

The stag runs for a second time at the wolf, who lunges right back, drawing blood from his neck. The clang of stag horns against the thick muscle of the wolf sounds like a sword hitting a wooden block.

The other members of the wolf’s pack start to draw in. I notice the young cub hang back, as if he is uncertain what to do, his green eyes flicking anxiously from me to the stag and to his father and back.

Maybe the pigeons are right, but it’s either ‘Do something you might regret’ time or ‘Get torn apart limb from limb’ time.

I stand up and walk between them. There are gasps from the animal audience.

The grizzled wolf roars, *Get out of the way, human, or face your fate now!*

The stag, even though he’s wounded, nods slowly. *Have faith in me, boy. Let us settle this our way.*

*No! Look at yourselves. Look at what you’re doing. Look at all these sick animals.*

I point to the group of moulting creatures watching us from a distance. The gaggle of cowering badgers, shivering deer and eagles with drooping necks.

*Look at them! They need your help. What good does it do if you tear each other apart?*

The wolf stalks towards me. I find myself staring him right in the mouth. A mouth curled up with hate.

*You brought about this disease, human.* He doesn’t know that; no one knows how the disease started. *That is all humans bring with them: disease and death. So first I will destroy the traitor that brought you here. It is the duty of a Wildness only to lead his wild to safety, not invite intruders in.* He licks his lips with a purple tongue. *And then we will destroy you.*

The other six wolves crowd behind him in a semicircle, growling and flashing their teeth.

*But what if the human magic could help?* asks the stag.

*Lies! Lies and trickery! Like this human child talking in our common tongue!* The wolf spits. *You were not appointed Guardians of the wild! We were, by common consent of all.*

Murmurs ripple through the crowd.

*Then why have you not protected us from the berry-eye?* calls out a snake, his tongue flicking.

*Yes!* comes a cry from an owl in the treetops. *You cannot save us from that. Only the human magic can!*

The grizzled wolf turns on them all. *Silence! Where is your faith? We have protected you all till now, have we not? The natural order must be maintained, whatever the cost.*

The animals shuffle edgily. Then one voice rings out from the crowd, a high, weak voice — it’s the young she-deer, the first one I saw come down to the lake.

*You only want to keep us for your prey. You do not understand. This plague will kill all of us — and then where will your natural order be?*

There is uproar. An oversized, scruffy cat shouts her down. *Have faith! Our Guardians will protect us!* Some of the birds begin to wail. One of the wolf pack yells at them to be quiet, but they can’t be calmed.

*We are doomed! … What will become of our wild?*

A boar trots up on to the white boulder behind me, his tusks bristling.

*I have taken to the white rock. So hear me.*

The animals slowly shut up.

The boar looks out at them, and continues. *The Guardians are right! This human child cannot and should not help us. I for one do not believe the old dreams about the voice. The humans have been killing us and driving us from their land since they learnt to live apart. Why should they try to find a cure?*

The grizzled wolf gives a condescending smile to the boar.

*But he has the voice!* calls out another creature from the crowd. *The old dreams must be right.*

In among the cries and arguments, I barely hear the stag whispering in my head.

*Jump on my back — now!*

I don’t take in what he says at first. I can’t take my eyes off the wolf, who’s turned his back to us, his hackles raised as far as they will go, trying to calm the animals down. The stag is insistent. His dark eyes flash and he kneels down in front of me.

*Now, Kester!* he says. *Now or never.*

Everything I’ve ever been taught about not touching animals is forgotten in an instant and I haul myself on to his back, grabbing a tuft of fur between my hands. It’s tangled with seeds and dried mud. I can smell the hot sweet tang of blood from his injured leg.

*Hold on!* he warns.

The stag takes a breath and then, with a giant leap, jumps clean over the head of the grizzled wolf, landing with a leafy thump in the ferns on the other side. I half slide off his furred back, only just clinging on. The pigeons flock up from the ground into the sky.

*Cowards!* pipes up a voice from my jacket pocket. I look down, to see two orange antennae curling out of it.

*Stop them!* roars the grizzled wolf from the shore. *Hunt them down!*

And the wolves, all seven of them, begin to run after us, their howls rising up into the air.

I barely have time to pull myself back up before the stag is galloping away through the trees. He runs in big strides, and every time he leaps I rise in the air before coming down hard on his spine. The trees are narrow and close together, and the deer’s horns are so wide I flinch as we scrape through. He weaves and turns, like he’s following an invisible path through the undergrowth, sniffing the way — but all I can see are ferns, and all I can smell is fear.

*Bravo!* yells the General as we narrowly escape being whacked in the chest by a fallen trunk. *The chase is on! Full march ahead!*

*Stay down!* urges the stag. *Get as low as you can.*

There’s a crashing behind us, the sound of breaking wood. I turn around and see the wolves spread out in a line, piling through the trees. The ground rises and falls beneath us. There’s a snarl to my left — the grizzled wolf is running just behind us, not even out of breath — but laughing.

*You know that if you desert your precious animals now, we will never allow you to return.*

The stag ignores him and suddenly veers off to the right, jumping clean down into a huge ditch. Tricked, the wolf tries to do a sharp turn but slips in a pile of leaves and tumbles over before righting himself and pounding hard on our tail.

*Fastest is not always best!* jeers the General after him as we shoot away down the gully.

But with a triumphant snarl, the grizzled wolf skids to a halt, and calls after us –

*It does not matter. You cannot escape now.*

We soon see why. The gully ahead is blocked by a wall of boulders covered in twisting creepers, looking like they’ve just been thrown there on top of one another. Six very hungry wolves are bearing down on us from behind. I can see the young cub yapping at their tails, his lips pulled back in rage. If I could just talk to him, perhaps I could …

But before I can say anything the stag has begun to clamber up over the boulders, scraping his hoofs against the stones. He slips, he slides, his horns bash the side of the rocks, but with an extra kick we stumble to the top. He immediately trips over a knotted root crossing the rocks, hung with dead leaves, and I bang into his horns with a jolt.