Chapter 21

Time inched along for an eternity, staring down the depths of those striking blue eyes one could've easily mistaken for being friendly. The wolf sat in one spot, occasionally pacing its way around Bruce. Once, it stopped long enough to take a good sniff at him, close enough to toss the strands of hair that hung loose from the fur lined hood of Bruce's winter coat. The scent of rotting prey on its breath was strong in his nostrils, and he braced himself for death to come swiftly. But the wolf turned away instead, and paced back to take its original place. He had to wonder what was really going through its mind. It seemed to be waiting, biding its time. Bruce recalled a few journals he'd studied concerning the hunting patterns of the wolf pack. They mostly agreed on one main strategy:

The wolves would often work congruently as a team, one cutting the prey off from escape, another two flanking the sides, and a fourth making the vital attack from the back. And once the prey was down, all wolves in the pack would take a part of the slain.

Yet he saw none of this strategy employed by this particular wolf. It looked to be alone, and seemed content to remain that way. Bruce was helpless, bleeding into the snow, and the wolf had sniffed him more than once. It had to know that he could be a potential meal, and yet it had refrained. "Are you going to eat me?" Bruce finally asked the wolf.

It continued to gaze at Bruce, its mouth widening just enough for its tongue to roll out - panting puffs of icy cold mist in a somewhat friendly manner. For the first time, that intimidating creature looked a little less frightening. Bruce allowed himself to study the animal a little more closely. He'd been so tense around the beast, he hadn't noticed how its magnificent coat of fur presented a cascading gradient of silver to white points, then back to black at the tip of its tail. Around its eyes of brilliant blue, contrasting black lines converged into the dark of its wet nose. Standing there in the cold just a few feet away from him, glowing bright against the dark wood of the alpine trees behind it, Bruce considered what an elegant painting it'd make, hanging proudly in someone's hallway.

Breathing out just a little sigh of relief, Bruce's attention drifted away from the wolf, and focused instead on his surroundings. He hadn't gotten much of a chance to evaluate his position since he'd fallen. And the rushing sound of the river was louder than it was before. If the wolf wasn't going to kill him yet, he figured he might still have a shot at making his way back to civilization.

Determined to work through the pain, he levered himself up on his bleeding arm, then clung to the dislocated shoulder to prevent further injury. The world got blurry for a moment but Bruce was resolute not to pass out. He gave himself a second to catch his breath, then cautiously checked if the wolf was still there. It was; standing behind him on all fours, watching harmlessly with its tongue still lolled out. Puzzled by the wolf's apparent passivity, Bruce decided to just be grateful for whatever length of time he was granted till the wolf would deem him edible and sample a nibble.

Step by step, he made slow but steady progress in the direction of the sound of moving water as the sun set in the corner of his viewing range.  The cold was really sinking into his bones then, and at times he found himself shaking so hard it made it difficult to keep balance. His instinct told him to take a break, lean on a tree, rest his eyes - but at the same time he knew that stopping then would lose him what precious daylight he had left. Going to sleep in the open under such temperatures probably wasn't going to be the smartest idea. There were a dozen stories told to him in Switzerland of tourists  choosing to spend the night on the alpine slopes, only to be found frozen solid the next morning. Those stories always perturbed him.

Thankfully, with the final rays of a dying afternoon, he finally chanced upon a number of huts on the banks of a slow moving river. The locals stood in clusters near the huts were decked out in colorful head-dresses, and rows of beads around their necks. They began prodding each other and pointing wildly the moment that he was spotted. Their eyes spread wide, commenting nervously among each other in a language he didn't understand.

He stopped in his tracks, wondering if it was his presence as a foreigner that was causing the ruckus. But then he remembered the massive animal who had trailed him all the way to the village, and that presently sat comfortably behind him. The villagers stared on apprehensively at the both of them, afraid to approach. As awesome and absurd the entire deal with the wolf was, Bruce realised that it was becoming a hindrance to him getting the aid that he so needed. "Please, I need help," he requested in English, hoping desperately that someone in that village might understand him. "I just had a bad fall..."

"That wolf." A deep voice came from the middle of the crowd. The villagers turned towards the sound, and shuffled aside to reveal a dwarf-ish Caucasian man with a ruddy red beard standing among the locals. "His name is Matschie. Also known as the sacred wolf who guards this village. How did you get him to follow you?"

Bruce recognized a significant Australian accent. The man was a foreigner, just as he was. "I didn't do anything. For a while, I thought he was going to eat me," replied Bruce with a tired laugh, in spite of the world beginning to spin around him. He knew he wasn't going to last much longer if he didn't sit down soon. "If.. if there's somewhere I can rest - I promise to compensate you when I'm able."

The man with the beard looked at him in surprise. "Compensate?" he said with a chuckle, then said something to the villagers in their native language.

Several of them took a few steps forward and bowed respectfully to the wolf. It stood in response, huffed under its breath, then turned around and ran back into the woods as though there'd been some silent pact exchanged between the villagers and the creature. Once it was gone, they offered to support him into one of the huts. Most glad to oblige, he leaned onto the man closest to him, just as he was just about to collapse.

"Oooph, take care of yourself 'ya hear?" responded the bearded man.

Bruce nodded vaguely as the villagers began to move him carefully to somewhere more comfortable.

"One last thing," the man called out from somewhere behind Bruce. "What is your name?"

"B... Bruce, Wh... Wayne..." he replied weakly, unsure of whether the bearded man had heard him. But the truth was that he couldn't think about that then. In fact, he found he was unable think about anything else.

He shut his eyes and let himself drift off.