Piers Torday - The Last Wild

I’ve no idea how many hours I sleep under the overhang, but when I wake up it’s still dark. Water dribbles down my chin and into my mouth and something sour and furry is nuzzling my chin.

I push it roughly away.

*Calm,* says the stag. *I brought you water from a fresh spring. Drink.*

He’s giving me water from his mouth. Water from an actual deer.

*You must drink,* he says firmly.

*I don’t want something that’s been in your mouth!*

*You must drink,* he repeats. *This water is straight from the ground. The purest there is.*

My mouth is so dry, and his eyes aren’t red in the least — so I do. I expect the water to be utterly rank, but it’s actually clean. And nice.

As I wipe my chin two of the grey pigeons leap on to my lap.

*And we found you some food, Kester.*

Then they drop branches of berries and beak-loads of nuts into my hands. But before I can even look at them properly, the white pigeon snatches the juiciest bunch of berries back between his beak.

*Kester! You found us some food!* he says, dragging them behind him into a corner, before being attacked by the others and disappearing in a puff of feathers and berry.

They’re welcome to it. I sniff the berries I have left. They smell strange and acidic, even though they are the ones the General described as food. The nuts are in a hard shell, and I’ve nothing to open them with. The memory of prawn-cocktail flavoured Chicken’n’Chips comes painfully back to me, to my empty stomach.

*I’m not like you! I can’t eat this stuff.*

*Very well,* says the stag, sniffing the air, never not watching out for a moment. *As you please. But we must continue with our journey. Dawn will come soon and we need all the hours of light we can get.*

He raises himself to his full height and stands there waiting. They are all watching and waiting for me.

Shaking my head because I can’t believe I’m actually eating something they just found in the outdoors, I slowly put one of the berries first against the tip of my tongue, then in my mouth. It’s sweeter than I was expecting. Almost juicy. Slowly, berry by berry, I eat as much of the bunch left by the white pigeon as possible. Then I take the nut shells, and, smashing them against the underside of the rock, manage to get some of the sweet green-white mush out from inside. They taste better than they look.

I leave the rest for the General, who polishes it all off in about minus eight seconds.

The stag watches us both stuff our gobs with his usual intense stare, barely waiting for us to finish before barking, *We should not delay any further. Climb on.*

Half asleep, I haul myself on to his back, and then we are off, zigzagging down the boulder-strewn sides of the valley towards the forest. It’s slowly getting lighter too, so it should be easier to see, but white clouds are rolling down from the mountains and making the air thicker and thicker.

I’m starting not to feel so great. A blinding pain flashes behind my eyes, and my stomach keeps clenching. Each time it’s more painful, but I just have to keep going, clinging on to his soaking fur. It’s cold all around, but there is a strange heat flushing through my body, which I try not to think about.

For the first time on our journey, the stag nearly trips and I lurch to the side, my stomach heaving. I see why — suddenly there is fog behind us, fog ahead of us, fog everywhere I look, like boiling clouds steaming up from a kettle. Through the white, I notice the walls of our valley have closed in on us, and the grass has turned to rock. The stag clatters over piles of loose stones.

Our every move echoes around the steep walls. The General peers out of my pocket and tests the air.

*I do not like this valley of rock,* he says. *It is too easy for us to get crushed in such country.*

A valley of rock has been smashed and carved out of the earth. Through the curls of mist I can see the shadows of crane arms drooped with dripping chains, and digging machines seized up with rust. On the far side a steel cabin stands abandoned, the door hanging wide open, creaking gently in the wind. And everywhere, piles and piles of glistening wet purple slate. Slate that begins to swim before my eyes, until from behind the foggy clouds I hear a crack.

The crack of one slate hitting another.

*Did you hear that?* I whisper to the stag.

He doesn’t answer my question, but picks his way even more slowly and carefully between heaps of slippery slate and toffee-coloured puddles. The pigeons have disappeared above us, hidden behind layers of mist that are as white and thin as tissues.

Then there’s another crack from the rocky sides of the valley stretching away over our heads. The stag stops dead, not moving apart from his nose, sniffing the air. It’s incredible how still he can make himself, as if he was made of the slate we stand on, rather than flesh and blood.

I am not made of slate though, and I can’t help but sneeze. A sneeze that echoes off the rocks around us.

The stag doesn’t move or say a word.

There is another crack. A crack made by something no further than two metres away. I think of the metal beast-hunter van with the tinted windscreen, and shiver. Then there’s another crack — louder, nearer, definitely not accidental. Something is making the stones move.

The stag just stands stock still, sniffing.

There’s a scrabbling noise behind us, the noise of something or someone sliding down the rocks.

A pause, then another tiny landslide of pebbles. I freeze as much as I can, my breath caught in my throat –

*Come on! Why don’t you run away?*

*A great stag never runs away from his fate.*

Then, to my amazement, he slowly clip-clops over the floor of smashed slate till we are facing the direction of the sound. I want to jump off and get out of the way, but I can’t. I feel rooted to where I sit, paralysed by fear — fear of what lurks in the grey mist.

*All is well,* the stag says suddenly, but he’s not speaking to us; he’s speaking to the thing, the thing in the fog. *All is well,* he repeats. *You may show yourself now.*

The swirls and puffs of fog begin to slowly lift into the air like a paper curtain, and stepping out from underneath is not a human beast-hunter. More like a beast human-hunter. Pale flecks of mud dotting his coal-black head, his ears pinned back and his tail trailing down behind him with exhaustion — it’s the wolf-cub from the Ring of Trees.

I shrink back, expecting the cub to jump up and lash out at the stag. But he doesn’t do anything wolf-like at all, the total opposite in fact — he shrinks into himself, like he’s frightened of us .

*Well tracked, young cub,* says the stag.

The wolf-cub’s green eyes dart nervously between the stag and me. *I come in peace, noble Wildness …*

*I know you do,* the stag replies, his deep voice bouncing off the rocks.

*I left in darkness after you — I left by the same hole in the Ring of Trees, I picked up your scent along the Great Open and by the First Fold—*

*Yes, yes, all this I know,* says the stag. *I smelt your scent from afar, when I woke the boy under the rock.* He chuckles. *I think perhaps you still have some way to go as a hunter?*

The wolf-cub snaps and bares his teeth. *I am a fine hunter! My father said I would grow to be the greatest hunter of them all! I am not frightened of you! I am a Guardian from the Ring of Trees! My father —* He stops for a moment, and gulps.