FIERCE GREY By Mukhtar Auezov Prepared for the Internet by Iraj Bashiri, 2003

Although the big ravine near Black Hill seemed deserted, it was well known to the shepherds of the surrounding auls. Misfortune quite often came from this ravine.

Black Hill, like with a fur hat, was covered with low-growing bushes. The ravine was densely overgrown with dog rose, and beneath its prickly thick carpeting were hidden wolves' lairs.

A chilly May breeze blew fitfully from the ravine, carrying with it the fragrance of young grass and wild onion. The bushes stirred and rustled somberly and dryly, as if they were whispering among themselves.

Late in the spring a wolf and his mate came to the ravine to their old lair. The old lairs had been washed out by floodwater, and now a man could easily crawl into them. The wolves dug up a new, more compact lair nearby and connected it with the old by narrow and dark burrows.

Wolves' paws soon trampled down the freshly-dug earth. The she-wolf's whitish coat hadn't even finished shedding when smoky-grey cubs appeared in the den.

One quiet morning the she-wolf lay torpidly in the full blaze of the sun, beneath the high panicles of sorrel. The spot was sheltered from the wind, and she drowsed, overcome by the heat, from time to time half-opening a lackluster eye. Her flanks were sunken in, her udder swollen with milk. The fur on her back twitched nervously, her nipples quivered incessantly.

A faint crackle echoed from behind the bushes. The she-wolf jumped up, sending white clumps of fur flying up from the ground. Baring her teeth, she let out a low growl. The cubs floundered at her feet.

The next moment the carcass of a lamb came flying across the thick wall of spreading branches and landed with a thud in front of the she-wolf. A large, heavily built wolf came bounding out silently, his tail drooping low to the ground. He sniffed the she-wolf, reddish froth dripping from his muzzle, and she greedily licked his bloodied chops.

The lamb was still breathing. The wolf and his mate threw themselves upon it and in a minute's time had torn it to pieces. Two white-toothed voracious jaws devoured the light, tender meat in large chunks. Green eyes glittered malevolently.

Having devoured every scrap of the lamb, the wolves lazed in the succulent, fragrant grass, stretching themselves out full length. Then they began taking turns belching up the swallowed meat.

The cubs crawled one by one towards the meat, and pushing one another and growling, began to toss it about. Only two, the last born, were still blind. The she-wolf dragged them to her and pushed them to her nipples.

The next day, when the sun was at its zenith, the she-wolf caught the heavy smell of horses in the distance. Quickly shoving the cubs into the lair, she hid herself in the bushes.

There were sounds of people's voices, the stamping of horses' hooves.

The people rode right up to the den and dismounted. Long shepherds' cudgels struck sharply against the earth.

The she-wolf stood in the dog rose on the steep slope of the ravine, her tongue dangling from her open jaw. She could see everything.

Throwing stout leather ropes over the necks of the cubs, the men dragged them one by one from the dark lair. They killed off five of them right out. They broke the hind legs of one and flung it beside the gnawed head of the lamb. The cub would crawl, and whimper, and the wolves would carry it off, not to return to these parts for a long time. The runt of the litter the people carried off with them.

The clatter of horses' hooves faded from the ravine. The mature wolf with the dark crest on its back and the white she-wolf approached the motionless cub and bared their teeth savagely at it, then at one another. The she-wolf snatched up the cub and made her way up along the ravine. The male followed with great, springing bounds.

The lair was left deserted.

In the aul there lived a young boy called Kurmash. It was he who adopted the still sightless cub as a pet. The elders said: the grey cub was brought among people before it even opened its eyes-perhaps it'll grow up tame.

Kurmash never left the cub's side; he prepared a clean saucer for him and, a soft leather collar.

In two days' time the cub opened its eyes, but did not venture out of the yurt--from outside came the sound of barking and the terrible stench of dogs. At night Kurmash would place the cub next to him under the covers. The boy now slept separately from his old grandmother, whom he loved more than anyone else on earth.

She was the only person who looked disapprovingly upon his attachment to the weak, transparent-grey little beast with sharp teeth.

"He couldn't see yet, and he had already grown fangs," Grandmother said. "As soon as he can stand on his feet, he'll flatten back his ears like all wolves do."

And the boy grew angry at her.

By mid-summer the cub had grown big and strong and was almost indistinguishable from the other aul pups the same age. If he were a little bit shaggier he could have passed for a young wolfhound. But living in the aul was like being in captivity for him. Just like old Grandmother, the shepherds' dogs would not accept him, and he was met by the growling and gnashing of teeth every time he ventured out of the yurt.

Kurmash would beat them off, and the devoted watchdogs would slink away snarling, their pride wounded. But the yurt was crowded, stuffy and boring for the cub. He longed for the steppe, the tall, many-colored grasses, and the unexplored expanses.

Once the full-grown skewbald hound from the Big Yurt seized an opportunity when the boy was not there and drove the cub from his yurt, and mauled him for quite some time. The other dogs rushed over and began sinking their teeth into the grey cub's legs and sides barking frenziedly. Children and adults came running, and barely managed to extricate the cub. Tattered, badly bitten, the cub crawled off towards the yurt, sat down with his back to it and soundlessly bared his white-toothed jaws.

"Not a whimper... He's a proud one!" the men marveled. "A pup would have rent the ground by now with its wailing."

But the women said: "He's a thief! That's why he's so quiet."

And they were right. Even Kurmash was amazed and alarmed by the cub's voracious appetite. The boy fed him much better than the dogs. But the cub never seemed to be able to get his fill.

The aul dogs were lean and undemanding. The cub's flanks and chest filled out, and the back of his neck got noticeably fatter. But he was continually hungry and kept sniffing and poking about the yurt with his moist, black nose.

When a person was around, the cub would not touch the food, turning his muzzle away. But as soon as he walked away, the cub would instantly devour everything placed before him, and would then stare longingly at the empty bowl, as if he hadn't eaten a thing. When nobody was looking, he greedily seized everything that had been left carelessly lying within his range. He would drag off boiled meat set out for the master, lap up yogurt from the copper pot, and gnaw on fresh hides, hung up to dry on the wooden frame of the yurt.

He was often caught red-handed, and thrashed unmercifully. He came to know the blows of the rolling-pin, which made his head buzz, and the sharp, burning pain from the hissing lash, Dodging agilely, he would silently bare his white fangs. But not once did he ever give voice to his pain.

Meanwhile, rumors crept through the aul that at night, undetected by the dogs, he had been making his way into the sheep-pens and sniffing the lambs, and that the sheep were afraid of him. Someone had seen him stealing away into the steppe.

Kurmash refused to listen to the aul gossip. But no matter how hard the boy tried, how he remonstrated with his pet, the cub could not understand why the food he stole was any worse than that which they offered him.

He did not fear Kurmash, and ate in his presence, When the boy offered him some meat, the cub would not take it gently, but would snatch it out of his hands. But Kurmash never once gave him the taste of the stick that he used to drive off the dogs. The boy admired the cub, his sullen, independent stare, the menacing ruff of darkening fur on his neck, and his stubborn strength that was growing with every passing day.

And Kurmash named his pet Kokserek, which means Fierce Grey.

By the end of the summer Fierce Grey bore little resemblance to the aul dogs. Long-legged like a calf, as steep-backed as a bull, he outstripped them all. He did not lift his tail up like a dog, and thereby appeared even taller, and his neck and back resembled a drawn bow.

He no longer ran from the skewbald hound and the dogs stopped provoking him. He had only to turn his high-domed, stone-grey head towards them and curl his upper lip for the dogs to run helter-skelter. Usually when they caught sight of him, they would stick together in a pack. And both he and they were always on guard.

No one had ever seen the wolf playing about in the aul. Nor did he play with Kurmash. He knew his name well and came running when Kurmash or old Grandmother would call him, but he ran unhurriedly, at a lazy lope, and did not wag his tail.

He did not touch the dogs, did not respond to their barking, nor try to pursue them as they ran away. Most often he lay in the shade of the yurt, his sharp ears pricked up, gloomily squinting his green eyes.

Kurmash took pride in his taciturn, green-eyed pet and laughed merrily when the neighbors' dogs took to their heels with squeals of fright. If the truth were to be known, the boy himself was sometimes a bit afraid of Fierce Grey, but he would never have admitted it, not even to old Grandmother.

The master of the skewbald hound bragged: "What's so great about your hang-tailed cur! My hound would make short work of him if he had half a chance! He would have finished him off long ago if we hadn't pulled him off."

Once passing by, just to see what would happen, he set his hound on Fierce Grey. Without a second's hesitation the hound had thrown himself upon the wolf with furious barking and sank his teeth into the wolf's shoulder. He had aimed for the neck, but missed his mark. At the last moment the wolf dodged aside and before the hound had a chance to jump away, silently, in a bound, seized him by the ruff of the neck and flung him onto the ground. The enormous hound rolled down a hillock like a fat, helpless sheep. The wolf also missed his mark, for he would have torn out the hound's throat.

Kurmash ran out and called back Fierce Grey, and the master drove off his skewbald hound.

Later in the evening two wolves attacked the sheep that grazed near the aul.

The shepherd raised a frantic cry, and the men and older boys came galloping on horseback from the aul. All the aul dogs came tearing along to the rescue with deafening barking, and Fierce Grey came too.

The wolves slipped back into the steppe. They chased after them, but to no avail.

The riders and dogs came to a halt at the near hills. In the distance, on the high crest of Black Hill, two grey shadows glided in the dim light.

"They're early this year," the shepherd said.

And Kurmash was the only one who noticed Fierce Grey silently setting out along the wolves' tracks, his muzzle almost down to the ground.

The boy fell behind the rest and headed fearlessly on foot into the darkness, towards Black Hill. He called coaxingly for a long time:

"Kokserek! Kok-se-rek..."

But Fierce Grey did not return.

The wolf showed up in the aul that night. Stopping in front of his yurt, he unhurriedly scratched the dry, trampled earth with his iron claws, raising up clouds of dust. He lifted his head towards the starry sky and inhaled the cold autumnal air, greedily sniffing in the faint puffs of wind coming from Black Hill.

He spent the next day in the aul, but when night came he headed once again for the steppe.

He returned three days later, emaciated, hunger-ravaged, but just as sullen as before and without his collar. When Kurmash called him, he walked over, his head lowered almost threateningly. The boy threw his arms around his short, muscular neck happily. The wolf tore itself away, its ears flattened, but even Grandmother refrained from scolding him and bustled around preparing his food.

He ate with savage fury, and Kurmash backed off and watched from a distance.

"Aha! The wolf in him is beginning to show," Kurmash's father said. "The creature's eyes are the greenest of green--they even glow in the daytime. It's time we did away with him, son."

And the boy shuddered, afraid that the adults would no longer let him have his way, that they could destroy his wolf.

But Fierce Grey seemed to understand that they were saying about him. The moment they turned their backs he was gone. No one saw him leaving the aul. For many days afterwards Kurmash searched for him in the thickets, calling in a voice now filled with anguish, now with threat. But all in vain! The wind autumn passed, and the severe winter blanketed the steppe with white felt Fierce Grey did not return.

Until late autumn he subsisted on young hares, far from his home territory and was not above catching mice. He feasted on fat gophers with the relish of a fox. But once the snow came, hunger drove him to people's winter quarters to the sheep pens.

Now he slunk around stealthily, like he had never belonged. His fur bristled whenever he caught sight of people.

Night after night he circled around, dodging along snow-covered hills, leaving the quicksilver traces of heels and claws on the snow. Steam swirled up from his slightly wrinkled grey muzzle. He would stop, and the heavy smell of the cattle shed and livestock would assail his nostrils, while the dogs' anxious barking would hit his ears. The wolf savagely gnashed his fangs. Now the dogs were just as keen-nosed as he was hungry.

In the dead of a blizzardy night he attempted to approach the sheds. But the restless dogs seemed to know where he was coming from. He was met by the whole pack, led by the skewbald hound, and driven away.

The wind died down, and the ground began to freeze. The wolf shifted around, squatting on his hind legs. The hard crust of ice over the snow burned his heels, the black corners of his mouth froze, and hunger pangs pinched his belly. The wolf loped up the hill. The snow sparkled in the bright moonlight. Fierce Grey threw his head up towards the sky and, frozen in a convulsive languor never before experienced, let out a long, protracted, melancholy howl.

Frenzied barking immediately flared up in the aul.

Fierce Grey did not lower his head. All of a sudden from distant Black Hill there came an indistinct, melancholy echo. The wolf straightened up, quivering. Someone was echoing him, luring him. He listened intently, and then thrust his nose forward and ran swiftly towards the call.

At the descent to the large ravine he stopped, wary, trembling from the bitter cold. A snow-white she-wolf descended towards him from Black Hill.

Fierce Grey did not allow her to come near him. As she came closer, he bounded aside, his teeth bared, ears pinned back. But he was unable to leave. And when she followed in his tracks, sniffing him, and then turned with a plaintive yelping and thrust her warm nose into his groin, he remained perfectly still. The she-wolf ran quietly off. He caught up with her and licked her cheek.

Shoulder to shoulder they set out upwards along the ravine, traversed it, and then made for the people's dwellings. In a half hour's time they set down a gigantic semicircle of rare double tracks along the crests of the hills, and only the ice-covering crunched resonantly beneath their paws, as they ran tirelessly on and on. Then, as if they had come to an agreement, they raced, side by side, down towards the aul.

The moon had set. The night was drawing to an end. Fierce Grey and the white she-wolf flew like a whirlwind through the aul, and both saw a shaggy, long-haired hound come tearing out towards them from the yellowish snowdrift by the sheepfold, drawing the entire pack along behind him. This, of course, was the skewbald hound.

The wolves tore at full speed out of the aul. The hound kept pace with a strained, violent barking. The pack straggled out behind him. And Fierce Grey slowed his gallop, listening maliciously to the barking--the hound was bursting with rage.

Near a hollow the pack came to a halt, and the skewbald hound also ran back towards the pack. The she-wolf went after him first.

In the deserted steppe it is difficult for a dog to evade a wolf. But the hound showed no sign of fear, even though he was alone. The purpose of his life was to fight the wolf, and he tackled the she-wolf without hesitation. Then Fierce Grey fell upon him, crushing him underneath. With a high-pitched snarl the she-wolf bit into the hound's throat.

Soon the only things left of the enormous hound were his tail, his gnawed head, and a few sparse tufts of black and white fur. The wolves even lapped up the bloodied snow.

Having eaten their fill, they trotted back towards Black Hill and lazed on the untouched snow in the ravine.

From that night on they were inseparable. And a grey misfortune began to stalk the district.

Here and there, near Black Hill and far away, the wolves killed sheep, slaughtered cows and horses, brought down camels, destroyed the best watchdogs and slipped away with impunity.

The alarming news spread from aul to aul.

"There's a whole pack of them, the grey devils, and like werewolves, none of them are afraid of people. Not the least bit! The leader stands as tall as a calf, and is terribly strong and fearsome... He doesn't run even when a person comes near him! You're afraid to approach him. The pack attacks from one direction, the shepherds rush over, the dogs take after them, and meanwhile the leader comes from the other side and carries off a ewe on his back..."

The wolves never stayed long in one place. One day they would be spotted near Black Hill, the next, ten, fifteen or twenty miles to the south or east, It is just as they say: a wolf's belly is only as full as its legs are strong and fast.

The steppe in that part of the country was hilly, abounding in ravines and overgrown with bushes. It was a wonderful sight from Black Hill: it arched with its high banks and churned with shaggy crests. Such places were well suited for the wolf, but made life quite difficult for the shepherd. It was a simple matter for the wolf to make its way undetected towards the herd in the pen, easy to lie in wait and to cut off an animal that straggled off. And it was hard to track down the grey phantom; impossible to guess from which corner his smoky shadow would spring out. And in winter you might be able to follow his tracks, but you still couldn't catch him! The snowdrifts were deep. The layer of ice over the snow would support a wolf's weight, but not a horse and rider's. A horse kept falling through and just ploughed up the snow.

At the big ravine where they had found wolves' lairs more than once, they tried setting out poisoned meat, only to regret it later. Would werewolves take poison? The young half-witted aul dogs found the meat by the ravine and there their bodies remained lying. The wolves would have no part of the stiffened dogs' carcasses either.

That winter the wolves ate their fill, Fierce Grey grew and broadened out, but as before he could never satisfy his terrible hunger for meat and blood.

Only towards spring did his hunger seem to subside somewhat, and for a short time another hunger raged in his blood.

The snow in the steppe grew soft and turned dark. Ragged thawed patches appeared on the hills, baring the reddish, clayey earth.

Fierce Grey was overcome by an unprecedented playfulness. On the run he would circle and rush around the she-wolf like a puppy. She would lie down to rest and he would dance up nearby, raising up whirlwinds of sparkling snow, and jump foolishly over her, shoving her with his chest, paws and muzzle. She would snap angrily, but he would take her by the neck and hold her for a moment before releasing her. Sometimes he would pull her about by the scruff of the neck for quite a while. She would squeal shrewishly and bite.

Then she grew gentler and began to sniff and lick him more often.

North of Black Hill laid broad, shallow, saltwater lakes. Their banks were densely overgrown with rushes and reeds. These were wild, uninhabited places--no wonder the raucous cries of birds resounded constantly above the thickets. It was to this spot that the white she-wolf led Fierce Grey in the spring, when the lake banks had turned a lush green.

Now he hunted far from his native haunts. The she-wolf did not leave the lair and fed upon birds' eggs found among the rushes.

Once he brought her a sheep's rump, but this time she was not there to greet him beside the lair as usual. He agitatedly scraped the earth with his paws, and she crawled out of the lair, weakened, barely dragging her legs.

A powerful, unfamiliar smell emanated from the lair. Fierce Grey gnashed his teeth menacingly, shoved his muzzle into the lair and pulled out a shaky, unprepossessing cub.

Yelping weakly, the she-wolf rushed towards him, but could not stop him. Fierce Grey beat the small blind cub against the earth until it was only a formless grey mass, and then flung it away with disgust.

When he turned back to the she-wolf, she was lying between him and the lair, and more cubs were crawling towards her, seeking her nipples.

Fierce Grey lay down off to the side, licking his chops morosely.

The she-wolf began to hunt with him again, but she was still sluggish and clumsy and ran continually back to her litter. Very often they would return to the lair after an unsuccessful hunt and he would look longingly at the cubs. She would nip him and drive him from the lair.

One early April morning, when the cubs had already opened their eyes, Fierce Grey and the white she-wolf were running along the lake to their lair, she-ahead, not allowing him to overtake her, he--right at her tail. Suddenly they scented humans. The birds swarmed in great clouds up above their nests, horses' hooves clattered, shepherds' clubs struck against the earth... The wolves hid among the reeds until everything had grown quiet once more. Then, stealing up to the lair, they found there only one cub with broken legs.

For several days the she-wolf roamed persistently around the aul, where the humans had taken her other cubs. Fierce Grey called to her in vain. She would not go to him--and they were noticed.

The earth had dried up and flowered. Grazing on the succulent spring grasses, the horses quickly picked up strength. And one warm, cloudless day the wolves heard a noisy pursuit behind them. Three riders on lightning-fast horses drove the wolves from the big ravine by Black Hill.

Fierce Grey flew like an arrow. Even in the ravine the she-wolf lagged behind him. Her nipples had not yet dried up, and she was heavy on the run. At first Fierce Grey turned back and ran up behind her, nipping her sides and urging her on. She began to growl at him. He looked back at the riders and silently, swiftly shot forward.

At the end of the ravine he turned sharply and with great springing leaps, like a mountain goat, bounded upwards along the steep side of the ravine overgrown with prickly dog rose.

Fierce Grey hid in the bushes, but the white she-wolf rushed straight across an open space, and the riders went galloping after her, whooping and hollering.

That night Fierce Grey, snorting, trotted warily along the tracks of the hunt. In a distant hollow on grass damp with dew he found a patch of dried blood. He sniffed, licked it. Here had lain the white she-wolf and here her scent ended.

Fierce Grey sat on his haunches and remained motionless, tensing his bulging chest, hunching his brown neck, until the moon rose in the sky. And then he howled, low and mournfully.

As if turned to stone, Fierce Grey sat in the hollow until morning. Just before dawn he rose, yawning spasmodically. Hunger had turned his belly cold.

All summer long he roamed about the steppe alone, striking fear in the herds and auls. The night brigandage never stopped, and the shepherds cursed their fate. There seemed to be only this single grey wolf with brown markings on his back, which roamed by Black Hill, near the salt lakes and all around, yet in one summer's time it had slaughtered no less than half a hundred lambs and calves! His belly was a bottomless pit.

Twice they came in pursuit on fresh horses with a pack of swift dogs, and both times he managed to escape them. With his heavy belly the brigand was light on his feet, and tireless. The wolf did not run, but fairly flew away, putting the fleet horses to shame.

During the day he hid, slept in the dark tangled thickets of rushes at the marshy lakes, but at night nothing stopped him--neither a man's shout, the dogs' barking, nor the thunder and fire of a rifle shot. In vain the shepherds wasted cartridge after cartridge, aiming at the grey shadow. The shots whistled wildly over the flocks, and the echo had barely faded in the black gloom before the wolf was back, unscathed.

Fierce Grey filled out in the course of the summer. His thick coarse fur stood erect, but his belly was drawn and knew not a moment's peace.

He took to going after herds of mares with their young. He would slip stealthily up towards a young foal, seize it by its short tail and hold it. The foal would struggle violently to break itself loose; the wolf would suddenly set it free, and it would go rolling head over heels. Then the wolf would attack, and its claws would close over the victim's throat.

The autumn flew by quickly with its bad weather and once again snowstorms would howl for days on end and blanket the steppes.

One bright, frosty night Fierce Grey unexpectedly encountered a large wolf pack on the bare crest of a hill. Sweeping up a whirlwind of prickly snow dust, the pack flew towards him and surrounded him. Fierce Grey found himself nose to nose with the leader--an enormous, experienced brute with clouds of frosted vapor coming from his bared jaws.

But the pack understood from the first that they had encountered not another victim, but the master of these parts. Dropping to his haunches, his tail tucked beneath his legs, Fierce Grey gnashed his iron fangs. He was half as young as the leader, but was his equal in both height and weight; none of the others in the pack had such high, smooth flanks.

The females were the first to approach and begin sniffing Fierce Grey. Then the younger males made their way cautiously towards him. But he did not allow himself to be sniffed by the leader, and the two held each other at a distance. The newcomers lay down on a mound of firmly packed snow and began swallowing bits of frozen ice. Fierce Grey joined them. And he left with the pack, keeping pace with the leader.

A blizzard started up towards morning. Fierce Grey led the pack to a herd of horses. They cut off a two-year-old mare, drove her into a deep snowdrift, and Fierce Grey brought her down, as he had once brought down the skewbald hound. The wolves fell upon the horse from all sides. Fierce Grey seized hold of the shoulder, as was his custom, only to jump back from a dull blow of fangs in his side. The leader stood beside him, gnashing his teeth: Fierce Grey had touched his, the most honored part of the kill.

However, there was no time for fighting at the moment--the mare's carcass was melting away. The younger wolves sank their heads up to their ears into the mare's belly. The she-wolves tore chunks of meat, shoving each other and snarling. Fierce Grey and the leader returned to the tight circle.

The last hind leg was left to them. The others drew a respectable distance away and lay watching, their heads on their paws, as the two tore up the meat, gnawing and crunching on the bones. Both walked away at the same time, breathing heavily, with bellicose sideway glances at one another, their muzzles smeared in blood up to their eyes.

They lay down separately in the center of the pack. The she-wolves circled around Fierce Grey. He did not take his green eyes off the old leader.

They led the pack together for another few nights, keeping pace neck to neck, and if one were to pull a half-step ahead, the other immediately sank its teeth into its side or leg.

The nights were clear, windless, hunger-filled. Rage seethed in Fierce Grey's mute throat.

The wolves were making their way along the slope of a ravine when a hare burst out from under their feet. It darted and bounded just ahead of the wolves' noses for no less than a mile before it was crushed. Fierce Grey and the old leader seized it simultaneously and tore it in half. The pack lagged far behind them.

Both greedily devoured their portions and threw themselves upon each other. Clumps of snow and tufts of fur flew up fanwise. The gnashing of fangs resounded in the silence.

The two mature wolves fought, standing on their hind legs, grappling with their front paws, digging up a deep hole in the snowdrift underneath them. For a second they broke apart. The old leader snarled; he was willing to end it at that. But Fierce Grey attacked and managed to seize him below the ear--the method wolfhounds are known to employ. He crushed the old wolf underneath his belly and instantly sank his teeth into the crest of his powerful neck. He tightened his claws, like pincers, and broke the old wolf's neck.

The old leader lay on his side in the snow, feebly baring his jaws. The rest of the pack arrived and instantly tore him apart to the bones. The wolf shows no mercy on anything laying in the path-not even its own kind.

Night and day the horse herders maintained their vigil, yet they were helpless to protect their herds. Such terror, such brigandage had never before been known in the Black Hill district. The wolves mowed down everything living right before the shepherds' eyes.

Fierce Grey led his pack from one winter shed to another from sunset to dawn. The wolves quickly put on weight and grew heavy, but their leader did not allow them to sleep for long. He would howl and bite even the females, and they in turn would drive the younger wolves. The pack would come tearing down from the lair like an avalanche.

And there was one instance when the grey band attacked a man. A solitary traveler was driving a sledge along a well-beaten track. Only rarely would a wolf venture to approach such a road and cross it, especially if people were traveling upon it. But Fierce Grey hesitated only briefly, pinned back his ears, and went galloping after the sledge.

The horse bolted. The pack overtook it, and forced it off the road into a snowdrift. The sledge got stuck, the horse sank down up to its chest, and the wolves straddled it in a grey heap.

The traveler, terror-stricken, jumped from the sledge and began scrambling through the deep snow. Fierce Grey leapt over the sledge and tore after the fleeing man with short light bounds. Two she-wolves immediately followed the leader.

Fierce Grey, as if playing and testing his powers, made a broad circle and stopped directly in the man's path. The she-wolves came to a halt behind the back of the doomed, defenseless, and yet inviolable two-legged creature, waiting. Would the grey leader touch the human? Bring him down on all fours?

Other people saved the man. A rumble and tramping of horses' hooves echoed from the nearby hill. Two riders came racing at a full gallop into the hollow with piercing whistles and shouting.

Fierce Grey curled his upper lip, glanced around, and then loped off with increasing speed along the untouched snow. The pack abandoned the remains of the horse and melted into the dusky, wind-churned steppe.

And still another time Fierce Grey attempted to grapple with a man--openly.

This happened during the day. The steppe was bound with a hard frost. The whitish, pale blue sky was enveloped by a scintillating haze, through which the crimson, bloody eye of the sun peered out sullenly.

The wolves had made their way right up to the aul, their frosty breath rising up like smoke. And suddenly from the farthest winter shed a two-humped camel came heading straight towards the pack. There was a person sitting between its humps, and his head was wrapped in white--this was a woman's headdress.

Fierce Grey pricked up his ears.

This was not a horse, and the rider was not a shepherd or a herdsman. The dogs barked, but did not stick their noses out of the aul. The pack froze, anticipating an easy kill. However, the camel raised its thick-lipped head and headed straight towards the pack with an even, sweeping trot. The wolves began to rush about, colliding against one another, and spurted away into the steppe.

A strange camel! Where was he running? Why wasn't he afraid? And the rider was strange too--he didn't shout, whistle, or even wave his hands.

The wolves ran without glancing back. And Fierce Grey also ran. The camel stopped, snorting loudly. The biting January wind stirred the long dingy-brown hair on its flanks. The woman sat motionless between its humps, only the scarf on her head billowed up in the wind.

The fur stood up all over Fierce Grey's body. He seemed to become rooted to the ground and sniffed the air, extending his head with its high forehead and sharp-pointed ears.

Nothing out of the ordinary... He was not afraid of two-legged creatures; rather, it was he who always frightened them, even before he was full-grown, while still living in the aul. And here in the open steppe he was the most terrifying of all.

The pack had scattered out, looming indistinctly on the distant hills in the radiant frosty haze. Fierce Grey lingered behind. And when the camel once again threw up its head and charged after him, he unhurriedly trotted towards the hills, his tail low, almost dragging through the snow, luring the rider farther from the aul, closer to the pack.

When the camel halted, the wolf sat down immediately. When the camel took off at a trot, the wolf trotted along in front of it. The distance between them gradually decreased. Fierce Grey measured the distance patiently, coldly.

At last the aul was hidden behind a snowbound hillside, and there was the pack!

Fierce Grey straightened up and began maneuvering the way he had the day before with the solitary traveler, bounding, almost playfully around the camel, cutting off its path to the aul. The camel shuffled around in one spot and let out a raspy bellow, and Fierce Grey saw how the emboldened pack tore down at once from the hill.

But then he failed to notice how a smooth black stick suddenly appeared between the camel's humps. It gleamed in the sun and had a round, unblinking eye at its end.

And then, from the cloudless winter sky, thunder struck. The booming echo bounced along the surrounding hills. An invisible lead wasp sank into the wolf's thigh and burned its way through. For the first time in his life Fierce Grey gave voice to his pain. Yelping frenziedly, he bit into his thigh and somersaulted over his head, also something he had never done before.

Leaping up, Fierce Grey made his way on three legs, half-crazed with pain, away from the bellowing camel. Frozen human hands were not able to re-load the weapon in time, and the wolf disappeared in a hollow. A long thread of bright red droplets stretched out along his three-pawed tracks.

Somehow Fierce Grey managed to reach the big ravine by Black Hill and here he threw himself down on the snow. His shot thigh burned like a smoldering firebrand. The wolf began to lick the wound from the outside and in his groin, trembling and pricking his ears in fright.

The pack had left, and now nothing would lure them back to these parts. And it was good that they were far away and that the young wolves hadn't caught the scent of his fresh blood and hadn't seen him lying in the red-stained snow--that's when they would have gotten even with him!

There was no sound of pursuit either. The strange camel had not followed his trail, but Fierce Grey feared something else. He waited for the sound of dogs' barking and the pounding of horses' hooves.

But the people tarried. It took them some time to gather together the pack. The dogs would not leave the aul--they could sense the approach of an icy, protracted blizzard.

The frost did not let up, and the wind gained intensity. The steppe moaned. And the entire vast expanse was a solid curtain of snow, extending from the earth to the heavens.

Fierce Grey slowly raised himself up. Looking around, he trotted on three paws, from time to time convulsively shaking the fourth, to the rush thickets on the salt lakes.

For three days the steppe snowstorm howled and day was undistinguishable from night. For three days Fierce Grey did not venture out of the snow-blanketed rushes. He dug himself down into a snowdrift, tucked his nose into his tail, and the blood did not freeze in his veins. It kept him warmer than the hearth of the yurt.

The grey wolf grew weak and thin, but the ragged wound in his groin closed up and began to heal.

On the fourth night he dug his way out and, limping heavily, headed towards the steppe. While running his muscles loosened up and the limping became less noticeable, but the pain did not slacken.

For an entire week he went hungry. He looked for carrion, but without success. Only towards the end of the week did his luck take a turn for the better: he stumbled upon a mare and her foal that had lagged behind the herd. He killed the foal and then lay down beside it and kept eating the whole night long, without stopping. He belched and ate, belched and ate, tucking his numb wounded leg beneath his bloated belly.

Another week passed. The wolf's thigh healed up and ached less often. He began to run faster and grew bolder. He was drawn towards Black Hill again.

Towards evening he made his way to the aul in which he had been raised and stood on the crest of the hill, his fur standing on end from ears to tail. The camel was nowhere in sight. And there was no barking--the dogs were with the herds in the steppe. Fierce Grey descended and started roaming around the familiar paths and places, his moist nose against the wind.

From far away came the faint sweet smell of the sheep. Fierce Grey curled his lip. On the horizon, in the pale yellow light of dawn, loomed the tall figure of a rider. A small flock of sheep clustered at the horse's legs. The shepherd was leading them to the pen.

The wolf rushed to cut them off, hiding behind knolls and hillocks. He darted out, as usual, swiftly and unexpectedly, but the shepherd spied him immediately and then suddenly cried out in a thin, child's voice, desperate, but commanding.

Fierce Grey stopped sharply, ploughing up the snow with his legs. On the horse sat a young boy, an adolescent, with a long, unwieldy shepherd's cudgel.

A boy! The wolf had no fear of him.

Gnashing his teeth maliciously, Fierce Grey rushed to the side in order to bypass the little shepherd, and made his way towards the piteously bleating huddle of sheep. This bleating excited the wolf. Before him was an easy, fat kill, tender bones, an abundance of blood. But the boy dug his heels into the horse's flanks with all his might, raised the heavy, disobedient cudgel above his head, and fearlessly galloped straight towards the wolf.

Fierce Grey once again involuntarily turned away from the huddled flock. The boy shouted relentlessly. And something incomprehensible in the young boy's shouting tormented and frightened the wolf. The wolf ran, and the boy chased after it, not allowing it near the sheep. Raising himself up on the stirrups, brandishing the cudgel, he cried out at the top of his lungs:

"...ok...erek! ...ok...erek!"

The wolf gnashed its fangs and quickened its pace.

The boy was an agile rider and relentlessly goaded on the obedient horse, beating it with the cudgel, but he knew that the horse was lagging behind. Fierce Grey swept off and the boy swung the cudgel and flung it at him as if it were a spear.

It struck the wolf's bad leg with its rounded end and rolled along the icy ground, clattering and bouncing. Fierce Grey seized it furiously in his fangs and broke it instantly in two. Then he turned and, pinning back his ears, curling his lip as if smiling a ferocious wolf's smile, rushed silently at the boy. He leapt up and jerked at the hem of his sheepskin coat. The horse shied back with a terrified neigh, and the boy flew out of the saddle striking the back of his head against the ice-bound ground. His hat went flying from his head and rolling along the white slope.

The last thing the boy saw was the familiar wolf's ear, torn in a fight with dogs in those days when Fierce Grey still lived in the aul.

The boy was already dead when the wolf slashed his cheek with a curved fang.

During the night they picked up the boy's body and carried it to the aul where they laid it down by the hearth in the yurt.

Old Grandmother sat down at his feet.

"My poor lamb," Grandmother said over and over, "my poor lamb..."

And her weak-sighted eyes were unable to shed a single, relieving tear.

Then came the turn of the hunter Khasen, renowned in those parts, and his red and white borzoi.

Khasen had traded a horse for the hound in Semipalatinsk. On the hound's forehead was a small white patch with four proportionate rays, for which reason his master had named him White Star--Akkaska.

The borzoi was a thoroughbred, proud and hot-tempered. At feeding time he growled as he took his meat. At halting places Khasen would chain him up, as the hound would allow only his master to come near him. The aul mongrels kept out of his way and only barked at him from a distance. Akkaska paid them, no attention, yawning lazily, and would lie for hours spread out motionless, his long muzzle resting on his paws. Only during a hunt did he come to life, easily outdistancing any horse, and his bark was resonant and terrifying. His eyes gleamed like those of a wolf, but not with a green, but a reddish fire, exactly like burning coals.

Khasen spent several days with the horse herders, studying the habits of Fierce Grey, asking questions about him. And all night long there were heated arguments by the campfires about the solitary wolf, which had killed Kurmash. But Khasen heard nothing that was new or surprising in their words.

Some said that the wolf was crazed. Some said that it wasn't a wolf at all, but a hyena. That was why it was so inconceivably voracious. Khasen did not believe the fables.

"It's a wolf," he said. "And you don't feed a wolf on hay!"

The horse herders swore and threatened: "If only we could get our hands on him!"

Khasen chuckled: "What will you do? Skin him alive?"

And only the bitter words of Kurmash's father stung Khasen to the quick. At his son's grave he had said to the hunter: "You're an experienced fellow... brave, stubborn... I know it's no easy thing to overpower a werewolf. But if you don't put an end to him, know this--you're no kin of mine and no djigit, no one will have any use for you, and your dog won't be worth a single kopeck. Don't show yourself around here again."

Khasen decided to get the herders together for a round up; that would be the only way they would be able to flush out the wolf. They needed no persuasion...

At dawn, before the hunt, Khasen did not give his hound any meat; he placed a bowl with gruel of finely crumbled dry sheep's cheese in front of him. Akkaska ate quickly and kept his eyes fixed on his master. The intelligent animal understood: there would be a big, important hunt, a dangerous chase.

"Well, Akkaska," Khasen said, rumpling the hound's ear, "it's either you or him, there's no other way. The dead Kurmash will join us as the third…"

Akkaska looked attentively into his master's eyes, wagging his reddish tail impatiently.

They left for the steppe, and Khasen let the hound off the leash so that he could stretch his legs and get the blood flowing in his veins. With enormous bounds Akkaska raced across the snow tinged blue in the pale morning light.

Khasen separated the men into several groups and sent them in different directions. He himself took Akkaska and ascended to the rocky summit of a solitary hill exposed to the four winds. The hunters divided up the aul dogs and galloped off. Khasen spread out a large piece of felt between the sharp rocks, told Akkaska to lie down on it and himself lay down beside him in the snow, holding the hound by the collar.

Akkaska lay calmly beneath his master's hand, only his ears, like weathervanes, continually turned from side to side. From all directions came the muffled sounds of clamorous voices, the disorderly barking of the dogs, tossed about by the wind.

All of a sudden Akkaska raised himself up on his forelegs, no longer submitting to Khasen's hand, pricking his ears and peering in the direction of a quiet hollow. Now the hound resembled an eagle spying out its prey from its perch on a cliff. But for a long time yet the hollow remained deserted, while the men's shouts and dogs' barking seemed to have receded into the distance. It was unlikely that the beaters had spied the wolf--it stalked like an invisible grey phantom inside their ring of many miles. Akkaska crouched down in an unaccustomed way and lowered his head. Maybe a hare had distracted him? The borzoi liked to hunt hares.

No, Akkaska had not been mistaken. All of a sudden the wolf silently appeared in the spot where the hound had been watching for him--in the quiet, deserted snow blanketed hollow. There he was--the cunning one! Here the snowdrifts were soft and unstable. A horse following fresh tracks would flounder and get stuck up to its chest.

The wolf loped at a rapid but unhurried trot, looking round circumspectly, and Khasen, gripped with momentary doubt, bit his lower lip and cast a sideways glance at the hound. The grey wolf was huge and powerful and from a distance resembled a roan yearling colt with a wolf's snout. Indeed--a werewolf!

The wolf was upwind and didn't scent the hunter and borzoi. But Khasen knew that the wolf would never come close enough for a well-aimed shot and so he set loose his hound, saying: "Get time, boy!" while he himself ran for his horse which was tethered behind a cliff.

Fierce Grey sized up the build and power of the red and white borzoi at first glance. There would be no escaping it. The dog flew down the hill towards him with resonant, thundering baying; it was lean and twice as big as the skewbald hound. Behind it, between the rocks, as if between a camel's humps, he glimpsed a rider with a smooth black stick. The hunting party was all round. He must be quick!

The hound and the wolf collided on the snowy hillside, and the hound knocked the wolf off its feet and then lost its own balance and tumbled over. Both leapt up, locking their fangs, and parted with bloodied jaws, panting hoarsely. The wolf had met his match...

Several times Fierce Grey lunged at the hound and was met by heavy, well-aimed blows of its fangs. Still the wolf managed to position himself above the hound on the hillside and seized him just below the ear, as he had the pack leader early that winter. But Akkaska held his ground and tore himself free with a powerful shake of his head, leaving a piece of his skin and reddish fur in the wolf's mouth. Fierce Grey realized that this fight would not soon be over. And the rider was already galloping down the hill, shouting fervently:

"Hold on, hold on, boy! Akkaska-a!"

Fierce Grey gave a short yelp and lunged headlong at the hound.

Once again the wolf and hound locked their fangs so that sparks would have flown had it been dark. And here Akkaska, throwing caution aside, remembering only what his master had shouted, thrust his nose directly into the wolf's mouth and seized the beast in a death grip by the lower jaw.

Now they could not be parted: the hound gnawed at the wolf's jaw, and the wolf at the hound's, and neither could shake off the other.

Khasen galloped up. The horse danced beneath him, rearing. And Khasen's hands danced also. He tossed aside his rifle, jumped from the saddle, and also throwing caution to the wind, threw the whole weight of his body onto the stone-hard back of the wolf. He thrust a broad knife beneath his shoulder blade. Akkaska freed his torn muzzle from the wolf's convulsively gnashing jaws and walked off. He remained standing for a brief while and then fell down. Opposite him on his side lay Fierce Grey.

The other hunters began to ride up, and one of them poked his whip-handle between the wolf's teeth, opening its bloodied black mouth, and all were astonished at how large it was.

"Devil..." said one, stepping back.

"Kokserek!" Khasen said, tenderly examining Akkaska's wounds.

They carried the wolf's carcass into the aul and threw it beside Kurmash's yurt, and old Grandmother, just as Kurmash had done, recognized Fierce Grey by his tattered ear.

"Kokserek!" the old Grandmother cried, wringing her hands. "Thrice accursed!... How could you kill Kurmash, bloodsucker!"

And with her weak leg she kicked the wolf in its gaping jaw.