Chapter 5

Agrona sat on a hill looking down at the valley floor before him. Across the river there was a gravel bar, that had washed up their over the years, where their stood a large stand of spruce trees. From where Agrona sat the hill dropped steeply for nearly two hundred vertical feet, the last fifty feet to the river being an undercut to make a large dirt cliff. Behind the wolf stood a stand of spruce in the mouth of a hanging valley, a valley carved out from a glacier hundreds of years ago. But none of this was visible, due to the storm.

This small valley, which wasn't small at all, was nearly ten miles long and a half mile wide. It had all the features of the large valley below, it had a small river running through it which curved and twisted from the large glacier up above. This valley was the wolves' secret hiding place. It provided them with shelter, water, but had hardly any food.

There main food supply was caribou. No caribou resided in this valley, so they had to go up the valley, over a trail carved into the glacier, a trail that had been used by their ancestors for hundreds of years. But for the past several years hunters from the mining camps across the ridge have been taking more then there fair share. Every wolf in Agrona's clan had grown skinny from hunger

Agrona knew why the food was scarce. It wasn't the humans over hunting. Agrona knew that the caribou moved in a ten year cycle, his father had taught this to him in his early days. Agrona's father had told him "when you lead this pack, you will lead them through trying times, but you must remain strong, because meat will return."

The words had stuck with Agrona. His father was old, and therefore had much knowledge. Before his father had died Agrona's father left the pack in his care, like he had planed. Agrona tried to lead to the best of his abilities, but feared that he wasn't.

He feared that he was being to mean. He feared that the wolves would leave him if he were to easy going. But he also feared that they would leave if he were to mean, like when he ripped the eye out of the young wolf. But he felt that it was necessary, he had spoke out of command, and out of turn to him, it was necessary he finally figured.

So he sat on the hill, looking out over the valley below him, the wind blowing across the hill to his left. It ripped the cold into him, but none of it seemed to bother him. His ears were unbearably cold because of the many fight scars. He hadn't received any of these in actual battle, they had been received when he was a puppy, and one of his older brothers decided to teach him a lesson.

He thought about the battle he was pursuing. It hadn't been his idea to make this war. It was the idea of his pack. He tried to explain to them that the meat would return, but they wouldn't listen. They all had there mind on the idea that the humans had done this. It was the humans who had taken their food from them. So Agrona went with it.

"Agrona?" came a small and insignificant voice from behind him. Agrona turned his head slowly to the wolf. It was the young wolf whose eye he had ripped out. A long scratch went from the top of his head down over where his eye had been and an inch down under his eye socket. The place where the eye had been was now a bloody and pussy infected spot. A long black, almost snot looking thing, hung down under his eye. It was what was left of his eye.

"What do you want? Cant you see what I'm thinking?" Agrona said turning back to look out over his valley.

"Well, sir, I was just thinking that if one dog survived, then couldn't others?"

Agrona thought deep for several seconds thinking about what the young wolf had said. "You and the older one will go back to the sled, and you will rip the throat on all those dogs. Do you hear?"

"Yes" the young wolf turned and looked at the older one sitting back behind him. The older one hadn't herd what Agrona said, but understood when the young wolf shook his head with agreement. They both turned, and ran down along the tree line to find the sled.

Agrona returned to his thought. There was much thought about the war to come.