A large group of SharpFangs followed the Hunt. During the brightness when the hunters slept, they would attack every day. Without speech, SplitEar and the hunters couldn’t act as kin do now, helping each other and coordinating their defense. By the time the third moondance was done, SplitEar had lost a full half of the Hunt and had to return to PackHome.
SplitEar feared that he’d find there only the bones of the rest of the kin. The spirits in him knew that the end had come for the One Pack. The time had come for the Splintering.
During the nights of the long Hunt, GrayMane had done as the OldMother commanded and taught the kin left at PackHome the gift of speech. The wisdom of the OldMother was never more needed.
For SplitEar was right. The SharpFangs did rage from the forest to attack PackHome, and GrayMane led the kin against them. Armed with words, able to warn each other and arrange their defenses, the kin killed several of the beasts and sent the rest fleeing back into the forest. Though their own losses were still grievous, they survived. The kin praised GrayMane and the OldMother with their new speech.
So it was that when the stragglers of SplitEar’s Hunt returned to PackHome at last, they found not bones broken and licked clean of marrow, but the heads of dead SharpFangs hung on poles as warning. GrayMane and the others came out to meet SplitEar. When they saw how few had returned, they howled their lament to the moons.
“How could this have happened?” GrayMane asked SplitEar. SplitEar could smell the pride in GrayMane, for she had defended PackHome well and knew it. But SplitEar couldn’t understand the words GrayMane spoke and so could not reply.
Now, as all kin know, OldMother and FirstBeast have always been at odds, even in the Void. FirstBeast roused a jealousy in SplitEar so that he believed GrayMane was challenging him once more. With a terrible growling, he threatened GrayMane. She cowered back.
“There is no challenge here, SplitEar,” she told him. “I beg of you, litter-kin, let us become friends. Let me teach you the O1dMother’s speech so we can plan for the good of the pack.”
The spirit of FirstBeast made SplitEar angrier yet, and he rushed at his sister. She bared her neck immediately to him, but FirstBeast’s rage made SplitEar brutal, and he ripped the throat from her.
The earth drank GrayMane ‘s blood as the spirit of OldMother wailed
“All kin are cursed!” OldMother cried as her spirit fled from GrayMane. Her fearsome shape hung before the cowering kin, blackening the sky, and her eyes like fire burned them. A raging wind howled and shrieked around her, and dark thunderclouds were her fur.
“The One Pack will now be scattered and diminished. You have thrown away my gift like dumb animals. Now I throw away my protection. You shall howl like the stupid animals you are and not understand one another. Before any kin remembers my gift again, a thousand Great Dances will pass. I will teach others who will listen before you. I tell you, the kin will hear stones speaking before I forgive you.”
The AllSpirit heard OldMother’s curse and thus it came to be. Those of the kin who had learned to speak were afraid of SplitEar’s anger and so remained silent. SplitEar would not lead the kin away from PackHome. The Hunt returned to the forest but found little food, and the SharpFangs returned. SplitEar himself was killed in one such attack, and PackHome was overrun. The beasts cracked the bones of kin and licked them clean. Those who survived fled into the woods-like animals they ran, splitting into small packs of litter-kin.
So it was that the time of the One Pack came to an end.
Chapter 6. The Hunt
“So you think I am GrayMane returned again?” SilverSide said after LifeCrier had finished the tale.
“I do,” LifeCrier answered emphatically, still speaking in the formal HuntTongue. “You have come to lead us back to the time of the Great Pack. Can you deny it, SilverSide? Can you say with certainty that I am wrong?”
The robot searched her memory. There was nothing there that directly contradicted the possibility, improbable as it might seem. Beyond the moment of her awakening in this place and the erratic store of knowledge she’d been given, there was nothing. Yet…
“I can’t,” SilverSide answered truthfully, as she had to. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You told me that you were formless as the Void itself when you came. You said that when you saw us, you felt compelled to change your shape so that you looked like us.”
“That is true.”
“Then what I’ve said is also true,” LifeCrier answered triumphantly, and gave a joyous howl that many of the others joined with. “You’ve been sent because of the WalkingStones and the Hill of Stars. I know it, SilverSide. I know it as I know the old tales. You’re the sign that the OldMother has forgiven us.”
SilverSide was troubled. The delicate balance of the Three Laws shifted in her mind, weighing priorities. “Perhaps,” she said again. “Possibly. I don’t know, LifeCrier. I cannot answer you. I don’t know.”
SilverSide glanced back at PackHome. KeenEye sat on her haunches at the entrance to the cave, limned in the glow of the moss. The smell of woodfires smoke-preserving the meat in the cold caves was strong in the night. KeenEye stared at SilverSide and the gathering of kin around her, and there was a distinct menace in her gaze. SilverSide knew that if she tried to brush past KeenEye into PackHome, there would be a challenge. Here and now, with no way to back out of it.
First Law imperatives made her turn aside instead, though she hesitated.
With the kin watching, she padded away toward a trail that led to the top of the hill. As she moved away, KeenEye stirred and called after her.
“The Hunt will go out again tomorrow,” the leader said in commanding HuntTongue. “You will join us again instead of staying behind at PackHome.”
The robot looked back. The Second Law was clear here: KeenEye was a human and the leader. “As you wish,” she said.
KeenEye nodded. Her eyes glinted, her lips lifted above her incisors. She gave a low BeastTalk growl and settled down in front of the entrance.
SilverSide turned away from the other kin and continued on. She spent the rest of the night alone at the summit of the hill, staring at the moons and the Hill of Stars in the distance. She pondered all that LifeCrier had said and mused over the differences between herself and the kin.