Chapter 7

Lala kept a close eye on Kazu’s condition over the next few days. She’d seen infections go bad before, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. The healer goat had left Boro in charge of collecting the sun root and cone flower, and Tomo in charge of crushing the flower into a paste and applying it. She’d insisted that neither of them try to collect spike leaf by themselves, in case they picked one of the more toxic varieties by mistake. Kazu’s fever subsided after a couple of days, and the red spot on her back faded away not long after.

It was a clear, starlit night. A gibbous moon illuminated the west side of the sky. Most of the pack was out hunting, but Lala presided over the night from her high pinnacle on Baku Baku Valley. She had excellent night vision, and she enjoyed watching avian predators patrol the skies, almost invisible against the blackness of night. There had been a time when Lala had envied them the freedom of flight. That had ended when she learned that most of them preyed primarily on insects. Lala had tried eating insects once, and it wasn’t an experience she wanted to relive, even in exchange for wings.

Occasionally, a howl would echo up from the forest, and it would be answered by another, and then another, each howl full of information that only another wolf could ever fully understand. Lala smiled to herself whenever this happened. Her wolves were making good use of the tricks and strategies she’d spent years thinking up. Prey would flee from one part of the forest into another, only to find itself exactly where the wolves wanted it. If every wolf played their part correctly, then the result was a successful hunt, and the pack would eat well that night.

That was how it should have gone.

An unexpected howl rose up from the east side of the forest. It was an alarm howl, used when something had gone so badly wrong that it needed the entire pack’s attention. From all over the forest there came howls of acknowledgement. Lala lifted her head to the sky, folded her ears back and let her own howl ring out into the night. She leapt down from her pinnacle and headed towards the source of the disturbance.

The forest felt as tense as a sapling in a storm, bent almost to the point of snapping in half. Whatever had happened to raise the alarm was somewhere nearby. She could feel the attention of every wolf in the forest focused on this one location in the east, all heading towards it and alert for the slightest sign of danger.

It wasn’t long before Lala heard the growling, the sound of a dozen or more lupine throats on the verge of sinking their fangs into somebody else’s. The tension called out to her, drawing her in. As she came closer, out of the darkness resolved the forms of a cluster of wolves. The closest wolves Lala recognised as her own. The wolves they were growling at, huddled at the centre of the gathering, were not from around here. Lala’s wolves had them surrounded, but the intruders were growling defiantly back. No one wolf on either side was in charge; the moment had taken on a life of its own and was outside anyone’s control. She could feel the moment of shredded skin and ripped out throats just seconds away.

Lala sauntered into the middle of the throng, to where the interloper wolves were straining in anticipation of what was to come. “Who do we have here?” she said. “It looks like you boys might be lost. This is our forest, not yours.”

“They’re from Gara Gara Mountain,” Zack growled. “I recognise some of them.”

“Gara Gara Mountain?” Lala said. “You really are far from home, aren’t you? Why don’t you just—”

The nearest wolf lunged at her, his fangs flashing in the moonlight. She swung a paw, which hit him hard in the skull and left gashes in the flesh. The tension of the moment snapped in half as every wolf reacted to the attack. Her wolves lunged at the Gara Gara wolves. Furious barking filled the air, as did blood and fur and yelps of pain. Lala found herself with her fangs buried deep in one wolf’s shoulder. Chunks of flesh came away as she tore her jaws free.

The Gara Gara wolves were outnumbered and soon had to retreat. Lala and her wolves chased them all the way to the edge of their territory, where the trespassers disappeared into the night. Neither side had suffered casualties, but many of her wolves were injured. She herself had received nothing more than minor grazes.

The night after that, Lala assigned guards to patrol the eastern border of their territory. She herself stalked through the forest, letting her paws guide her to any place an intruder might slip through into her domain. Again, there was a howl of alarm, but this time it was cut short. Lala arrived in time to find one of her wolves badly injured, but no sign of the Gara Gara wolves. The scents told her—as did the wolf when she regained consciousness—that they had killed a deer and dragged its corpse away with them.

Lala could not allow this to continue. If the word got out that the Baku Baku wolf pack couldn’t defend its territory, then they would be forced to do so against incursions from all sides. Even the best organised pack couldn’t fight off multiple competing packs while also bringing in enough food to keep everyone fed.

When Mii arrived for her healing duties, she found about a dozen patients waiting for her, all with physical injuries ranging from scrapes to deep open wounds. “What happened here?” Mii said.

“Another wolf pack invaded our territory the past couple of nights,” Boro said with a yawn while Mii examined his torn ear. “They must be running out of food over by Gara Gara Mountain.”

Another wolf pack hunting in the forest? Mii didn’t like the sound of that. If there were wolves in the forest that Lala couldn’t control, then all of Grandma’s hard work would be for nothing. The name of that mountain sounded familiar, though. Mii looked around to make sure no one was nearby and lowered her voice. “Gara Gara Mountain? That’s where Jess and Gon are from, right?”

Before Boro could answer, a male wolf with slightly reddish fur strutted into her healing cave. He looked to be about the same age as Gabu and Lala, almost a generation older than Boro. There was a deep gash on his side that was oozing blood slightly. A moment later, two female wolves appeared at the mouth of the cave and peered in after him.

“Can you wait outside, please?” Mii said sternly to the wolf who had entered.

“It’s okay, I’ll come back later,” Boro said. He left the cave and went to stand behind the two female wolves, who ignored him.

The male wolf didn’t even glance at Mii. He walked up to her and stood so that his injury was facing her, but his head remained focused on the two female wolves. “It was no big deal,” he said, sounding slightly bored. “Three of them attacked me at once. I got one of them in my jaws and clawed at the second one, but the third got me here.” He flicked his head briefly in the general direction of his injury. “I finished with the other two and dealt with him before he could get me again.”

Mii listened to him droning on about himself while his girlfriends encouraged him with questions and inane comments. Eventually, he noticed that nothing was happening to his wound. “Hold on.” For the first time, he looked at Mii. “You’re the healer goat, aren’t you?”

“My name is Mii,” Mii said. “How can I help you?”

The two female wolves snickered. Mii had no doubt whatsoever whom they were laughing at.

The male wolf smirked at her. “Isn’t it obvious?” He went back to talking to his girlfriends. “Yeah, like I was saying—”

“What’s the magic word?” Mii said.

“Sorry, could one of you get Lala?” he said to the female wolves, otherwise ignoring Mii and continuing to chat with the wolf who stayed behind.

Lala arrived a couple of minutes later. “Oh, it’s you, Gururi,” she said. “I should have guessed. I hear you’ve been insolent, Mii.”

“Not more than some people,” Mii said.

“It’s refusing to treat the injury I got defending the pack the other night,” Gururi said.

“Really?” Lala said. “What exactly did she say to you?”

“It said…” Gururi hesitated, trying to remember. “Something about a magic word.”

Lala smiled. “Gururi, be more polite, just in general. Excellent work so far, Mii.” Gururi’s face became stony. Lala left before he could say anything more.

Mii smiled to herself as she began working on Gururi’s injury while the wolf pointedly continued to ignore her. To his credit, he didn’t even wince when Mii put the antiseptic herbs on, with possibly just a little extra than she’d usually use, just to make sure the wound didn’t get infected.

When she got back to the Emerald Forest, Mii told Grandma about the Gara Gara wolves invading the pack’s territory.

“I see,” Grandma said. She spent a few minutes deep in thought. “You know, I think I’ll pay the leader a visit tomorrow.”

Lala was not having a good day. The Gara Gara wolves had attacked for the third night in a row, and this time they had killed one of her wolves. Docchi had fought bravely, but with one of the Gara Gara wolves on either side of him, he hadn’t stood a chance. Lala suspected that the wolf hadn’t intended to bite down quite so hard on Docchi’s throat, but she had made sure he certainly regretted it afterwards, if only briefly.

A naïve leader might have thought that with one dead on each side, the feud would be at an end. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. Now both sides felt that the other had wronged them and would want retribution, even though it was the Gara Gara pack’s own stupid decision that had caused this mess in the first place. It was as much as Lala could do to keep her own wolves from attacking the Gara Gara pack’s territory themselves, which would only make matters worse. When tonight’s attack came, as it certainly would, they would be lucky if food was the only thing the Gara Gara wolves were after.

Lala’s thoughts were interrupted when Boro came to her saying, “Grandma—I mean, the Elder Goat is here to see you.” Sure enough, Grandma was waiting at the entrance to her lair.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” Lala said. “What brings you to our humble abode?”

“May we talk in private?” the Elder Goat said.

“Of course.” Lala took her to the sloped area of Baku Baku Valley that Gabu had used for sending messages, which had become one of Lala’s favourite spots to think as of late.

“I heard you’re having some trouble with the wolf pack over by Gara Gara Mountain,” Grandma said.

“‘Trouble’ is putting it lightly,” Lala said. “What concern is it of yours?”

“Any change to the power dynamics of wolves should concern everyone in the forest,” Grandma said. “It certainly worries me.”

“We’ve got the attacks under control,” Lala said. “They only happen at night, and they’re always far, far away from your pretty little mountain. I certainly won’t let any goats be eaten without my say-so.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear,” Grandma said with a genuine-seeming smile. “I take it that means you won’t need my help to stop the attacks.”

Lala barked out a laugh, but stopped when she saw that Grandma was still smiling. “You’re not joking, are you?” she said, already knowing the answer.

“It may take up to a week, and it depends on one or two factors beyond my control, but I think I can convince the Gara Gara Mountain wolf pack to leave this forest alone. I’ll want something in return, of course.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lala said. “Although, now that you mention it, stopping the attacks would make all of us, your herd included, a lot safer if you can really pull it off. Perhaps I can persuade you to do it for nothing?”

“Forgive me if I misunderstood, but it sounded like you were confident in your pack’s ability to protect your territory without my intervention. If you’d rather solve the problem yourself, I can leave you to it.”

“Perhaps I could tell you that unless you help us, we’ll stop protecting you from the Gara Gara wolves?” Lala said, starting to enjoy herself.

“And perhaps once you allow the Gara Gara wolf pack to take over your territory just to spite me,” Grandma said, still smiling, “they will be more willing to negotiate than you were.”

“Okay, you win. What do you want in return?”

Grandma’s smile got wider. “When the Baku Baku wolf pack hunts goats, I would like you to promise that they will only hunt groups of goats containing at least four times as many goats as there are attacking wolves.”

Lala went over her strategies in her head. That restriction would render almost all of them useless. Perhaps if it were only three times? No, that wouldn’t work either.

“Twice the number of attacking wolves,” Lala said. “And once the attack starts, all bets are off. If a lone goat leaves the group, we’re allowed to chase it. If by some miracle you really can stop the Gara Gara wolf pack from attacking, that’s what I’ll give you in return.”

“Then we have a deal,” Grandma said. “Protect your territory for one more week. After that, if I’m successful, you will have no more need to.”

There was no way that a goat could stop an entire wolf pack from attacking. If Grandma could do that, surely she wouldn’t need to keep offering Lala her services and asking for things in return. Lala knew that. And yet for some reason, part of her really believed that Grandma could do it. Perhaps her plan was to offer healing services to the Gara Gara wolf pack if they left the Baku Baku wolves’ territory alone?

There was no point in speculating, not when she had a pack to protect. That evening, she directed her wolves to drive every last deer to the southwest side of the forest, on the goats’ side of the river. “Kill one or two deer if you want, especially those that won’t be driven,” she told them. “If you see any goats, they’re not to be harmed. Tell them to stay home tonight.” After that, she stationed every able-bodied wolf in a partial ring, protecting Sawa Sawa Mountain and the surrounding hills from the rest of the forest.

Lala herself stalked around the outside of the ring, looking for holes through which an intruder might slip, shouting at any wolf who let her pass by them undetected until every wolf was on high alert. If the Gara Gara wolves wanted to hunt anything larger than rabbits tonight, they would need to get past the entire Baku Baku wolf pack first.

The first Gara Gara wolf arrived just after midnight, alone. Most likely, the Gara Gara wolves had split up to search the forest once they found it apparently empty of both deer and local wolves. Unluckily for the wolf, it was Gururi who saw him first. Gururi gave a very quiet howl, just loud enough to alert his neighbours in the ring, who then relayed the message to the wolves next to them, and so on. Then Gururi charged at the interloper. By the time anyone else arrived, the fight was already over and the Gara Gara wolf was unconscious.

It was another couple of hours before the next wolf stumbled across them. This one managed to escape, and after that, no further attacks came that night. They dragged the unconscious wolf across the forest and left him at the border between the Baku Baku wolves’ and the Gara Gara wolves’ territories, just as dawn was starting to break.

“Nice plan, Lala,” Zack said as they made their way back to Baku Baku Valley. “Are we doing the same thing tomorrow night?”

“Of course not,” Lala said. “Tomorrow night, they’ll be expecting it.”