Child of Man: Chapter 2, Part 2

True to his name, Watcher stood calmly, surveying the damage to Shadowdance’s Protectorate as one might watch a gunfight on the news, aware of the tragedy and yet somehow unfazed, studying the carnage with numb detachment. The heavy scent of smoke clung to the land, tainted around its edges with something acrid, nauseating and cloyingly sweet like mold. It worked its way into his fur, into his nose, his eyes and lungs, coating him like a layer of oil inside and out. His body felt sick, and yet he stood unmoved.

A buzzing overhead, faint and distant, caught his ears and he tilted his muzzle back, scanning the skies, or what bits of it he could see through the smoke. A mechanical clank and silence, then the spattering hiss of water poured into a fire: water planes, working to put out the blaze. They’d been active since the first reports of the fire, dumping water around the clock onto the blaze, trying to still it. Deer Run National Park was old growth, though, carefully maintained by its rangers. Small fires that would have cleared the underbrush had been stamped out before they could do any good, setting up the current conflagration and all but lighting the match. It had happened at Yellowstone. It would happen again.

The call for help had been unfocused, little more than a cub’s cry for succor. Watcher’s attempts to learn anything useful had revealed only the presence of flames; Shadowdance had been in too much pain to convey anything more than that before lapsing out of consciousness. After several failed attempts to glean any more information from the delirious wolf, Watcher sent a general hope of survival and a promise to assist, then gathered the materials he knew he would need, along with several things he hoped he wouldn’t. His preparations complete, he’d started on the journey at a steady jog, hoping he could arrive before the damage to the land hurt its guardian beyond repair.

They’d both been fortunate, for some limited definition thereof. Shadowdance’s condition had obviously worsened while Watcher had been in transit. When Watcher had left, the grey-furred wolf had been incoherent with pain and shock, but Watcher had attributed that to the fire itself. By the time he’d arrived at the other’s Protectorate, though, it was clear something more sinister was involved. Shadowdance had had a fever when the tan wolf had touched him, stinking of cold sweat and pain. His eyes were unfocused, staring into nothingness. He’d been in and out of strange dreams, at times crying out in his sleep, running, chasing or being chased. However, most of his pelt was intact, only a few patches of pink showing through where the fire had caught him, or perhaps where his body had burned itself in sympathy. That, at least, was some consolation.

Watcher had joined him in the spiritscape to try to learn in person what he couldn’t at a distance, but the grey wolf had been of as little help there as before. His mind was still thick with whatever had made the fire burn so sickly sweet, his visions little more than sheets of flame hunting them both across the cracked and broken earth. The tan wolf had pulled himself from Shadowdance’s fever-dream with a scowl. There was more here than just the fire. Whatever scent that was, curling about the edges of the smoke and making him sick to his stomach, it wasn’t healthy.

It took him less than an hour to unroll several lengths of well-worn leather and wrap them around a few heavy branches balanced against each other to form a makeshift medicine lodge. Shadowdance he then left inside it, half dozing, half dreaming, body numbed by a combination of herbs that the tan wolf had brought in a bandolier of leather bundles left in the tent. It was clear that Watcher’s first priority needed to be the purging of Shadowdance’s mind of whatever sickness had been induced by poisoning his Protectorate. Children of Nature were intimately intertwined with the land, and they took on the states of their homes over time. A healthy Protector meant a healthy wilderness; the two fed on each other. If one grew sick, though, so did the other. Watcher had once known someone Pledged to a river that had become a dumping ground for “industrial byproducts.” He’d had to shoot her himself; he dared not risk touching her skin, purple, mottled and hairless, pus leaking from the corners of her eyes. She’d begged to be put down, when she was lucid enough to speak.

A cry broke his musings, shrill and pain-ridden, Shadowdance’s howl. Watcher turned and loped in the direction of the shelter, a web of hides wrapped loosely around half a dozen man-sized branches, thrown together on the far bank of the river from the grey wolf’s sanctuary. Dragging Shadowdance across hadn’t been easy in his crazed state, but Watcher had had little choice; it was cross or burn. Smoke rose from the opening at the top where the hide didn’t cover, but it was clean, smelling only of twigs, sap and a few choice leaves and roots to help the werewolf purge its own infection. Watcher had no idea if they would help, but for his patient’s sake they were worth trying.

Inside, Shadowdance was struggling to sit up. His eyes were glassy, his fur knotted and plastered to his skin. Watcher dropped the flap of hide back over the entrance, bathing the tent in near darkness, a few embers in the fire providing light and warmth. Immediately, he leaned over and licked the other wolf’s nose; it was hot and dry, and Shadowdance’s tongue lolled from his muzzle, struggling to breathe. “I am here, Shadowdance.” Watcher took one of the grey’s paws in both of his, holding it tightly. “Speak.”

“H—hot… so hot… water…” Shadowdance’s words came haltingly, stumbling from his muzzle in so many sputters. Watcher lifted a leather canteen filled with water to the injured wolf’s muzzle and let him drink. Shadowdance swallowed passionately, spilling half of it down his front, choking on it and coughing.
“Easy, easy,” Watcher soothed as he set the bladder down again, licking at Shadowdance’s fur to help calm him. “You’re hurt; your home’s in pain, and you’re hurting.”
“No!” The cry was instinctive, involuntary. Shadowdance’s eyes bulged, his ears swiveling madly. “Pain… hurts… so hot…” He panted, gasping, struggling not to drown in his own phlegm. He coughed, shaking. “Trucks…”

The tan wolf’s ears perked. “Trucks? There were trucks? What did you see, Shadowdance?” He held the paw in his own, squeezing it lightly in one paw, the other resting on the grey wolf’s chest, feeling the raspy rise and fall as he breathed.

Shadowdance swallowed heavily. “T—two trucks. Coll—lision…” His voice rose, broke, came out as a whimper. “Sm—smell… fire… wrong….” His free paw swung madly, waving towards the walls. “Spilled gr—reen, thick….” He coughed again, fell back against the cleared ground, shaking, fighting to breathe, muzzle contorted in pain. When his fit subsided, he jerked back upright, eyes clear. “Coming! B—Briar! Saw her…” The filmy haze coated his vision again. “Coming…” And then the wolf was down, shaking and exhausted.

Watcher nodded, more to himself than to anyone else, and felt around with his free paw to take up the worn, brown leather sash he wore, pouches dotting the thing at irregular intervals. He rummaged by feel and scent, selected two and undid the lacings, throwing a few pinches of each into the coals in the rocks. A few more twigs and soon the fire was dancing again, sweet smoke filling the inside of the shelter.

“Sleep, cub,” Watcher said quietly, cupping his paw over the wolf’s eyes. “Sleep and recover. You have a long fight ahead of you.” He rose, dropping the leather sash back to the ground and stepping from the cabin. The hare, Briar, would be arriving soon, and he needed to be ready for her and whatever news she might bring.