He was still exhausted and weak. He walked because he had no choice, but the forest swayed and dipped around him, and the pain of his crushed wrist went up his arm in one hot pulse after another, in time with his heartbeat.
The world went away from him for a while, becoming something glassy and moving that made little sense, but presently he almost stumbled over a stationary, crouching wolf. The snarl was a reflex, and the bite slid down his side and was no more than a warning. He blinked, and realised that the pack had stopped and were drinking from a pool. The water was clear, fed by a stream that slid into it silently between mossy, fern-fringed banks.
Water. He mouthed the word, his mouth too dry to utter it. Surely they wouldn't refuse to let him drink?
Dropping to his knees, and from thence to all fours – though still holding his right arm cradled against him, because he didn't dare let it even touch the ground – he crept slowly and fearfully in among the huge bodies. Even crouched, they were now taller than he was. Ears flattened at the touch of his shoulders against theirs, but the wolves shifted grudgingly to let him through.
Water...!
Supporting himself only with his by-now burning back muscles, he stopped at the water's edge and dipped his left hand into the water to cup some up: firstly and most importantly to quench his thirst, and secondly to lave his broken wrist and clean the wounds in it.
A torrent of snarling broke out, unmistakably aimed at him. Alpha was directly opposite him, and the big animal's face was a mask of fury.
He froze, his hand within centimetres of the precious fluid. Slowly he withdrew it, and the snarls diminished.
He put his hand back on to the grass and relieved some of the pressure on his spine, but the sparkle of the last of the sunlight on the water was torment. They weren't going to let him drink. They were going to make him suffer.
The black one was beside her mate. She lapped peaceably, her gaze on him steady, as Alpha subsided and also began to drink.
Malcolm's paternal grandmother had Irish relations. A somewhat lengthy visit to some of these when he was very young had left him with a smattering of Gaelic, and a name came to him now – one that had stuck in his memory because one of his cousins had applied it to him. Dorcha, meaning 'Dark'.
Water... he had to have some water. Even just enough to wet his mouth. He didn't know when he might get another chance.
The blue eyes watched him as he allowed his locked left arm to bend. The pain as he found some way to tolerate his right arm resting on the grass almost made him whimper, but he locked his teeth and persevered. He was beginning to get the shreds of a picture; it didn't make sense, but it was the only one that seemed to account for their behaviour.
There was no reaction as he lowered his head cautiously to the water. It came naturally to him to put his mouth into it and suck up great gulps, but that was poorly received at once. He'd thought it might be, and the reaction was further confirmation of his new theory. He pulled his face clear of the water and began lapping instead. Because his tongue was not designed to lap efficiently it was very bad at getting much into his mouth, but by dint of cautious experimentation he worked out that as long as he was seen to be lapping for most of the time he could get away with dipping for the occasional quick suck. Not that he thought that the wolves were fooled by this technique, but honour seemed to be satisfied by his overall conformance to the rules.
When his thirst was quenched at last, he carefully and warily dipped his injured hand into the water – an action that was tolerated, raising his assessment of their intelligence several notches. The wonderful coolness seemed to help the pain, and hopefully it might help to wash away at least some of the germs that would undoubtedly be preparing to party in the wounds. Now that his wrist was clean of blood, he was able to see that the teeth-marks in it were relatively neat; it was the inward force of the bite that had done the real damage. He tried not to notice how bruised it was, and how badly it was swelling.
When he looked up again, the pack was once more on the move. Getting up again and resuming his crouching posture was exhausting, but the alternative was to refuse – and he had a shrewd idea what would follow if he did.
The water had definitely helped. For a time the world didn't dip and sway so much as he shambled after the steadily padding animals, but presently it wasn't just the gathering evening that was darkening his vision. He kept moving because that was what he had to do, but he tripped a lot and each time regaining his footing was harder.
Finally he found himself stumbling into somewhere dark. There seemed to be lots of bodies settling down on the floor, so he let himself pitch forward among them, remembering only to shield his right arm from hitting anything as he landed. He was too tired to think who or what he might land on; he wanted only to stop moving, and sleep.
And finally, blessedly, there was oblivion.
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