A Cry for Vengeance: Rainsplash's Fanfic

Phantom lay mute and motionless in the snow, his gray nose between his forepaws, his eyes half-closed. Every nerve and fiber of his muscles, however, was as tense as steel-wire, as he gazed out his master. Quarter-strain dog, and three-quarters wolf, he had lived the first three years of his life in the wild. His throat and sides were scarred by battle, and his eyes were red with the blister of snow. Phantom was a large one, even among his kind, and as fearless as the men who drove him through the frozen world.
He had never known fear until now. He had never felt the desire to run, not even when he fought the Battle to the Death with a giant lynx. Phantom didn’t know what frightened him, but it was in the air, as his old wolf instincts told him.
His master coughed, his body shuddering, and he often clutched at his throat. Flecks of crimson often came to his lips when he coughed, yet Phantom’s master still gathered the firewood, until his breath came in shuddering gasps, and the man finally sat down hard on a frost-encrusted log.
The rest of the dogs that his master owned were grouped closer to the fire, secluding Phantom, as they shunned him since they could smell wolf on him, even though he had worked in the traces, pulling the sled as a sled-dog with them for many a-month.
He snarled, his lip curling back as he bared his white fangs menacingly when a dog wandered too close for his comfort. He did not mind the solitary seclusion he was thrown into—he was used to it, and shunned company of the dogs himself. He snarled when they got too close, even deigned to tear their shoulder to the bone if they aggravated him too much.
His master waved the dogs away from Phantom, in fear that the half-wild wolf dog would kill another one of his sled-dogs. He had already lost his strongest dog the last time they had stopped in Dawson to Phantom’s fury. Another cough racked his body and his master retreated into the tent, as the dogs settled down for the night.
Phantom could not sleep. As tired as he was from the day’s run, the sickness in the air polluted his mind, drove him to uneasy restlessness as he waited. He lay with, his head erect, and his body rigid, save for a low whine building in his throat. Out on the plain, a wailing note of a wolf howl rose above the trees, and at the sound, Phantom rose from out of his silence and his fear, and with his head turned straight up to the sky, he howled as the wild dogs of the North howl before the tepees of masters who are newly dead.
Pierre du Lac was dead.

Phantom leaped away from the circle of dying flame and vanished into the shadows long before the dogs leaped up. They howled, yapping and yelping as they scuffled among each other. He curled his lip in disgust and turned northward, heading into the thick spruce. He lifted his head again, and once more howled the death-cry. It was Phantom’s farewell to his old master.
After that cry, Phantom sat a long time on his haunches, sniffing the air, and watching his surroundings. Then, as dawn broke, he got up, growled at the new sense of freedom in the air, and trotted deeper into the forest. He spent a night close to the camp of his old master, hunting and getting used to the new wilderness, and when it was still dark, he picked up the pace and travelled northward, swinging away from the Mackenzie River.
He came to the edge of a swamp as the sun rose over the mountains. Phantom sniffed the air; he could smell companionship, somewhere, over between the ridges of two mountains. A low wolf howl soared over the trees, echoing, calling to him, as wild brother to wild brother. He circled twice, head pointed toward the ridges, and as before his throat trembled, and involuntarily, in his own voice raised an answering cry.
He came upon many trails in the snow that day, and sniffed the scents left by the hoofs of moose and caribou, and the fur-padded paws of a lynx. Food came easily, as he hunted the rabbits. The warm flesh and blood was better than the frozen fish he was usually given, and he hunted many rabbits that day.
Toward evening he came upon tracks in the snow that were very much like his own. They were quite fresh, and made by a multitude of paws. Phantom raised his head and howled, and traveled in the face of the wind, as a bull moose crashed through the timber ahead of him, putting some distance before him and that cry.
Far off in the plain there came a cry. It was the wolf-howl. His jaws snapped, fangs gleaming, and he growled deep in his throat. The pack was hunting a doe caribou south of the big frozen lake.
The night was almost as clear as day, and from the edge of the forest Phantom first saw the caribou run out beside the lake. The pack was about a dozen strong, and had already split into the fatal horseshoe formation, with the two leaders running beside the doe.
With a yelp, Phantom streaked out into the open. He was directly in the path of the fleeing caribou, and bore down upon her with lightning speed. A hundred yards away, the doe saw him and swerved to the left, but the wolf on that side met her with snapping jaws. Phantom was in with the second leader, and leaped at the caribou’s white throat. In a snarling mass the pack closed in from behind, and the doe collapsed, with Phantom half-under her body, his sunk deep in her jugular.
Not into the last twitch was gone from the doe’s body did he pull himself out from under the kill. Phantom had eaten a rabbit that day, so he was not hungry. So he sat back and waited, while the ravenous pack tore into the caribou. After a while, he came nearer, nosed in between two of them, and was nipped for his intrusion.
As Phantom jerked back, still hesitating to mix with his wild brothers, a big gray from leaped out of the group and lunged straight for his throat. Phantom only had enough time to throw his shoulder to the leap and for a moment, they rolled over and over in the snow. They were up on their paws before the excitement of the sudden battle had drawn the attention of the pack from their feast. Slowly, they circled about each other, fangs bared, their thick fur bristling. The fatal ring of wolves drew around the fighters.
This was not new to Phantom. It was sledge-dog way of fighting. More than once he had fought for his life within the circle, and a dozen times he had waited in rings like this for the final moment. Unless a man interrupted the fight with a club or a whip, it always ended with death. Only one fighter could come out alive, although sometimes both died. But there were no men here to disrupt the battle; only the fatal cordon of white-fanged demons ready to leap and tear to pieces the first of the fighters who was thrown upon his side or back.
He kept his eyes riveted on the big gray leader who had challenged him. Shoulder to shoulder, they continued to circle. It was silence. Soft-throated Southern mongrel dogs would have snarled and growled, but Phantom and the wolf were silent, their ears laid forward instead of back, their tails free and bushy.
Suddenly, the wolf struck and his fangs came together with the sharpness of steel striking steel. They missed by an inch, and at the same time, Phantom swerved to one side and like knives, his teeth gnashed on the wolf’s flank.
The circled again, their eyes growing redder. And Phantom leaped for the death-grip at the throat… and missed. It was only by an inch again, and as the he done before, the wolf laid open Phantom’s flank with a clip of his jaws.
Phantom crouched low, his head straight out and his throat close to the snow. He must shield his throat—and wait.
Twice the wolf circled him, and Phantom pivoted slowly, his eyes never leaving the gray leader. Again, the wolf leaped, and Phantom threw up his jaws, certain he could get hold of the fatal grip of his forelegs. His teeth clipped together on empty air. The wolf had gone over his back with nimbleness of the lynx.
Growling at the failure of the trick, Phantom charged the wolf in a single bound, struck for the throat-hold. It was another miss, and before he could recover, the wolf’s teeth were buried in the back of his neck.
Panic-stricken, Phantom twisted and his powerful jaws closed on the wolf’s foreleg. There was a crunching of bone and flesh, and the circle of wolves tensed. Only the thickness of hair and skin on Phantom’s neck had saved from the death-hold. The wolf’s fangs had sunk deep, but not enough to reach the vital spot.
Phantom twisted and tore himself free, forcing the wolf to relax his hold on his neck. As swift as lightning, he whirled on the broken-legged leader and with the full rush and weight of his shoulders, struck him fairly in the side. The big gray wolf lost his feet, rolled up on his back for an instant, and the pack rushed in, eager to rend the life from the leader whose power had ceased to exist.
Phantom had won.