A pair of Amarok wolves find someone they never expected. Who knows how far I'll go with this story.

Not weird comments please. If you like it, cool. If you don't, leave. If you see ways that I can improve my writing, constructive feedback is welcomed.


The stench of blood filled the narrow ravine and a ravens calls echoed off the walls. Two adult Amarok, giant wolves of the Northern Wilds, paused cautiously at the entrance. Two days earlier, a small flock of ravens had called to them and led them to a fresh scent trail. The trail had disturbed the two wolves deeply. It appeared to have been made by a human, highly unusual in these lands, and had reeked of blood and infection. Raising their noses, they sniffed the air, searching for what the ravens had found.

Finally satisfied that it was safe for them to continue, they entered the narrow ravine, picking their way through the brush and around boulders. The harsh caws of a raven led them on, while two other ravens kept watch for potential ambushers from the sky. This ravine was on the edge of the narrowest and most remote corner of their territory, an area they seldom patrolled to avoid conflict other wolves traveling between territories. It was a perfect place for an ambush, a place they would have otherwise avoided.

The male wolf, a huge almost black beast with eyes the color of the summer sky, spotted what the ravens had wanted them to find first. “Tala,” his voice rumbled like distant thunder.

The mist grey female, Tala, looked at her mate questioningly. Following the nod of his head she saw a form prone on the ground partially hidden by the undergrowth. Slowly the pair approached the limp form, bodies tense and senses on high alert. Tala was slightly in the lead, sniffing deeply, trying to determine if the creature was still alive. Its size and shape suggested that it was indeed a human or one of the other closely resembling humanoid races. Beneath the stench of infection was another scent that disturbed her, tickling the back of her mind as though she should know it.

Carefully she reached out with one paw and poked it. Getting no response, she poked it again, slightly harder. It groaned and shuddered slightly but gave no other reaction. Well, it was alive, and it appeared to be female. Reaching out again, Tala pushed her paw under the human’s body and rolled it over. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of the human’s face.

“Dasan!” she gasped to her mate. “It’s Yue!”

“What!?” he squeezed past her to look. He stared down at the limp form with an expression of unbearable anguish on his face. “Yue…”

There before them lay their only daughter Yue. Yue had left them years ago and the parting had been a hard, angry affair. There had been no contact between them since that day, and their efforts to find her had been unsuccessful. As the years had passed without any sign of her, they had slowly given up hope of ever repairing what had been damaged. Even the hope of seeing her alive had faded. Now, out of nowhere, here she was.

One leg was badly injured, two long gashes running knee to ankle. A bloody rag was tied around one shoulder reeked of infection. Her skin was hot with fever. These injuries were old and judging from the raw and blistered condition of her feet, she had traveled some distance before finally giving out.

“What do we do…?”

What could they do indeed? This question was profoundly difficult. The severity of both her injuries and her condition meant that she would need considerable care in a safe location. They were many days journey away from such a place. They did not have any horses to carry her and even if they had, the monsters that roamed the wilderness would make such transportation almost impossible. There was only one feasible way to transport her.

Carefully Dasan lowered his head beside Yue and scooped her up in his jaws. Her body fit completely inside his mouth, feet tickling the back of his throat, head resting between his lower canines. He could taste the blood and sickness on her. Tilting his head back caused her to slide towards his throat. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed. The first swallow drew Yue down to her hips, the second to her shoulders.

A slight stirring of the brush and a faint squeak alerted Tala that they were not alone. She flicked her ears, trying to catch the sound again and stepped by, searching for a cross eddy of the breeze. There! A child was crouched among the tangled brush. His dark hair was a wild mess, his face, arms, and bare feet scratched and covered with smudges of dirt and blood, some of it fresh. Tala immediately knew the child belonged to Yue. There was a familiar look to him, and he had her scent and her eyes. Those striking blue eyes were wide, fixed on the sight of Yue’s arms disappearing down Dasan’s throat with an expression of pure horror. Tala froze, barely allowing herself to breathe. Every line of his small body told her that he would bolt at the slightest motion or sound.

Dasan didn’t notice, too focused on his task. A final powerful swallow and Yue’s arms joined the rest of her body inside his throat. Slowly the lump her body formed slid down and finally disappeared beneath the heavy fur of his chest. He sighed deeply at the feeling of her form filling his empty stomach and licked his jaws, swiping the last traces of her blood from his lips. Sighing again, he turned to his mate to speak but the words died on his lips. Seeing the intensity of her eyes, he turned his head, following her gaze and saw the boy. The moment Dasan’s eyes focused on him, he bolted back into the undergrowth. They had to catch him!

The child ran, ducking and weaving between the boulders and undergrowth, slipping beneath and between obstacles too narrow for Dasan. Instead, he was forced to go around or scrabble over the obstacles, losing whatever distance he might have closed. The child was very much aware of his size advantage, intentionally choosing the paths that would trip the giant wolf up.

Tala had been pursuing the child, running just behind and slightly out to the side of her mate, trying to spot an opportunity to flank their prey. At first, she believed that he was running scared, like a panicked hare with no escape. The boy had a plan, she realized suddenly. He was aiming for the far end of the ravine, where it narrowed into what appeared to be little more than a dead-end crack barely large enough for a human. Familiar with the local terrain, Tala knew that the crack was not a dead end but in fact extended through the stone, opening in a small clearing on the other side. If he made it to that opening, he would escape into the woods on the others side and be hunted down by the monsters that inhabited these wilds. That was not an acceptable outcome.

Turning sharply, she bolted the opposite direction towards the entrance of the ravine, leaping to the top of its wall when she found an area low enough to clear. Running flat out, she headed for the clearing where the crack opened out. Arriving at the clearing she skid to a stop, chest heaving, gulping down air as she cast about for scent. Nothing, he hadn’t made it this far yet.

Positioning herself near the crack, she waited, ears cocked for any sound that would announce his arrival. She didn’t wait long. Sure enough, the little boy emerged from the small opening. The child scrambled out of the crack, looking over his shoulder and stumbled right into her jaws.

The child yelped in surprised terror and tried to throw himself back, but it was too late. Tala’s teeth closed on him, sealing his fate. The sound of crashing undergrowth caused her to tense but she relaxed a moment later when Dasan barreled around the corner, skidding to a stop when he saw her standing there with the boy carefully trapped in her jaws.

Tala took a long moment, savoring the taste of him. The sharp, unpleasant taste of his sweat was mixed with the richer saltiness of the blood from his scratches and torn feet. Another, sweeter flavor was slowly growing stronger, and she paused to consider it. Tears, she realized suddenly. The sweetness was from his tears, the poor thing was crying.

She silently reproached herself. She was drawing his terror out, giving time for his position to sink in and his fear to grow. He was probably wondering if she was planning on chewing. She shuddered slightly at the thought before focusing on the task at hand. Gently she shifted her tongue, trying to move him away from her teeth and closer to her throat. He resisted the best he could, trying to avoid her tongue and kicking at her teeth. Tala finally managed to flip him onto her tongue and tilted her head back, causing him to slide down towards her throat. Covered in saliva, gravity working against him, he could find nothing to hold to stop his slide. He was small so her first swallow drew him down to his shoulders, the second had him down and on his way to her belly. She closed her eyes and followed the feeling of his small form sliding down her throat and finally entering her first stomach. Fortunately for him, she had not eaten in several days, so it was empty.

Tala could feel the child struggling and wiggling inside of her and could feel her stomach reacting to the presence of a potential meal. It began to secrete more digestive fluids and she allowed it. Amarok were creatures of spiritual and magical power which helped enable them to exercise considerable control over certain functions of their bodies. Her saliva, along with the fluids of her primary stomach would act as an antiseptic, cleaning and disinfecting his cuts and scrapes before he passed into her second stomach. The liquids produced by the second stomach would act almost like an anesthetic, reducing any physical pain and cause him to lose consciousness. That way he could not injure either of them and she could devote her energies to healing him, much like Dasan would try to do with Yue.

She turned to Dasan who had been standing behind her as she swallowed the child and saw that his eyes were closed, and his face creased in concentration and worry. Her heart seemed to miss a beat when she saw his expression, what was wrong?

“Dasan…?”

Dasan opened his eyes and looked at his mate. “Tala…,” His voice trembled as he spoke. “Yue is pregnant”