In the pale, murky light of their flashlights, the two herdsmen were witness to the slaughter. Although it seemed like an annual ritual, it was harder to accept this time, because these celebrated horses, representing the glory of the Olonbulag, were to be handed over to the military, and had, until now, managed to escape all the wolf massacres; they were the pride of the herdsmen who had desperately and anxiously brought them to maturity. Seeing the horses being butchered had Batu and Laasurung beyond tears. They were choked with anger and anxiety, but they knew they had to brave it out, suppress their emotions, remain calm, and do everything in their power to protect the horses that were still alive. Batu’s worries mounted. Years of experience told him that this was no ordinary wolf pack. It was led by astute animals who knew the Olonbulag well, and included male wolves crazed by hatred over having their food plundered, and even more by crazed females who had lost their litters. But the alpha wolf was anything but crazed. His scheme became clear by the way the pack had driven the horses south. The alpha wolf was intent on driving the herd to the lake at all costs. That was a common wolf strategy. Batu’s sense of dread grew. He’d seen wolves trap gazelles in mud, and he’d occasionally seen them drive cows and horses into muddy ground. From old-timers he’d heard of wolves trapping horses in pools, and he wondered if this was the night he was fated to have encountered one of those packs. Could they possibly swallow up an entire herd of horses? He forced himself to stop thinking those thoughts.
After signaling Laasurung with his flashlight to follow, Batu raced desperately from behind the herd all the way around to the east to block its passage; both men waved madly, struck madly, and harassed the wolves with their herding clubs and flashlights. Wolves are afraid of bright light; it hurts their eyes. By racing up and back, flashing the beams of their flashlights, the riders managed to hold the line east of the horses, whose terror seemed to lessen a bit. They quickly straightened out their stride and raced toward the east edge of the lake; this would be their last chance. The herd knew it had only to skirt the lake, then it could race with the wind all the way to the birthing basin, where there were many yurts and many people who could shout and shine blinding lights, and where their good friends-mean, snarling dogs who would fight the wolves until stopped by their masters-waited.
But wolves are demonic fighters with incredible patience in locating and waiting for opportunities. And when those opportunities arrive, they squeeze them until there is nothing left but pulp. Now that they had set the stage and found the opportunity, they had to make it theirs, do whatever it took to not let a single horse slip through the net.
Man, horse, and wolf ran in tandem. The wolf pack briefly called off the attack. Batu’s hands were sweating from clutching the stock of his rifle. Ten years of tending horses told him that the wolves were massing for a final surge; the opportunity to mount a successful attack would be lost otherwise, and this pack was in no mood to abandon its chance for revenge.
But before he could control his shaking enough to fire, terrified whinnies erupted from the herd and his own mount seemed to stumble. He rubbed his burning, teary eyes and shone his light in front, illuminating several large wolves loping ahead of his horse. Turning to look behind him, Batu saw that Laasurung was in the same predicament. Struggling to ease his horse’s fears at the very moment the wolves began to attack, he flashed a signal for Laasurung to catch up, but Laasurung’s mount was too terrified to do anything but kick and buck. The wolves were taking turns pouncing on it, tearing flesh from its body. Eventually, the hem of Laasurung’s deel was ripped off, causing such panic he barely knew where he was. He threw away his herding club, which was too long to be of any use, and employed the thick handle of his flashlight as a weapon, battering the heads of the leaping wolves. The light went out, the handle was crushed, the heads of wolves were split open, but the alternating attack continued. Finally, one of the largest wolves took a bite out of the horse’s shoulder, driving the animal crazy with pain. Abandoning its rider’s flirtation with danger, the horse chomped down on the bit, lowered its head, and took off toward the southwest, fleeing for its life. Laasurung was powerless to hold it back, no matter how hard he pulled on the reins. Seeing they’d driven a troublesome combatant from the field of battle, the wolves broke off the chase, turned, and headed back to the herd.
Batu, now alone, was surrounded. Acting out of desperation, he transformed himself from a herdsman into a Mongol warrior. He and the wolves were in a fight to the death, and for the first time in a long time, he prepared to use the wolf-fighting skills and devious tactics that had come down to him through the centuries. His club was as long as a cavalry sword, a weapon given to him by Bilgee, the kind that his ancestors had used to fight and kill wolves. The tip of the sturdy club, which was as thick as a shovel handle, had rows of iron coils, the spaces between stained with the dried blood of generations of wolves. Several of the large wolves took turns pouncing on his horse from both sides, which gave him the necessary angle to use his club, his best chance that night to kill wolves. Everything depended on his nerve and his aim.
He was ready. Taking a deep breath, he turned his light to the right and raised the club over his head. Seeing an opening, he twirled his arm and brought the club down as hard as he could on the hardest yet most vulnerable spot on a wolf’s head-its fangs. The airborne wolf, claws bared, had all four of its fangs smashed by the force, a mortal blow.
The wolf fell to the snowy ground, where it licked mouthfuls of blood and raised its head to the skies to howl, the sound of grief more chilling than a death cry. On the grassland a wolf’s fangs have always sustained its life. Without them, the wolf is lost. No longer can it hunt its favorite prey, large domestic animals; no longer can it defend itself against hunting dogs or rival wolves; no longer can it rip and tear, feast on chunks of meat and mouthfuls of blood; no longer can it adequately replenish its energy on the unforgiving grassland.
Caught up in the stink of death, as one horse after another was killed, Batu was bent on killing wolves and giving the pack a taste of a grasslander’s ferocity. Before the other wolves could regroup, he saw another opening and swung hard. But though his aim was off, he managed to strike the animal on its snout, ripping the flesh from the bone. The animal fell to the snowy ground, where it curled up into a writhing ball of fur. With two large members of the pack howling in pain, the other wolves seemed temporarily cowed into submission by Batu’s skills and might. Abruptly shaken from their fury, they stopped leaping and pouncing; yet they remained in the space between Batu and his herd.
Now that he had beaten off the attack, Batu looked over at the herd, sensing that time was running out for them but at the same time aware that the wolves behind them had suffered a setback. They set up a quivering buzz like wind whistling past electric wires, a sound filled with deathly terror and agitation.
Under the command of its leader, the pack launched yet another offensive, employing the cruelest, bloodiest, most inconceivably suicidal methods in the arsenal of Mongolian wolves. One after the other, especially females that had lost their cubs, they leaped onto horses, sinking their fangs into the tender spot below the shoulder, then hung there heavily, willing to sacrifice their own bodies. This tactic was dangerous to both horse and wolf. As the horse ran, the lower half of the wolf’s body became wedged between its rear legs, where, as the panicky victim tried to throw its tormenter off, its powerful hooves could shatter the attacker’s bones and tear her hide, even disembowel her. Only the largest and strongest wolves could hang on with no leverage, eventually ripping the horse’s abdomen with their fangs and then dropping to the ground in safety. If the horse failed to kick the wolf from its body, the predator’s weight would slow it down, until it was set upon by the pack and killed. If it managed to kick the wolf, the added force could well accelerate the mortal injury to its abdomen.