Wolf Totem

5

Dense dark clouds raced over from the northern horizon, tumbling and roiling their way through the blue sky, ferocious as dense smoke or a black fire. In a matter of seconds, clouds swallowed up many miles of mountain ranges, like a colossal black hand pressing down on the pastureland. Off to the west, the orange-colored sun was not yet consumed, as a northern wind carrying powdery snow swept quickly across the vast Olonbulag. Swirling flakes sparkled in the slanting rays of sunlight like hungry locusts.

A Mongol proverb: Wolves follow the wind. For decades, the Olonbulag pack, which had fought guerrilla wars on both sides of the border, took advantage of the rare early spring to come south, leap across fire breaks, and force its way past guarded public roads to return to the grassland. The wolves had suffered the bitter cold and, since there was little grass, scant prey, which had left them desperately hungry. But the cache of frozen gazelles in their home territory had been pillaged, while beyond their territory famine raged, making it impossible to catch the light-footed gazelles. Great numbers of starving wolves had formed a pack on the frontier, eyes burning red as they entered the territory; their appetites were gargantuan, their killing methods ruthless, their behavior unmindful of consequences. Alpha males, filled with murderous thoughts of revenge, and ready to die for food, led the pack ever nearer, at a time when the people were so caught up in raids on wolf dens that they were oblivious to the scourge bearing down on them.

During the latter half of the 1960s, if rain was predicted, a drought occurred; if a clear, bright day was on tap, the sun never made an appearance. “Those weather reports are a joke,” Director Uljii commented. Except for Bilgee and some of the other old-timers, who worried that the pasture leadership had taken too many people away from their jobs to raid wolf dens, no one had anticipated the early spring or the wolf scourge. The men at the frontier station, who had always shown concern for the herders and the livestock production, failed to warn of what was on its way. In the past, when they discovered tracks of a wolf pack during their rounds, they notified headquarters and the herdsmen. Low hills occupied the frontier grazing land, offering neither cover nor barriers, and arctic currents produced blizzards known locally as white-hair winds. Wolves, unmatched at climatological warfare, often launched lightning strikes during blizzard conditions.

A new herd of horses had recently been guided to a patch of fine grazing land on the Olonbulag, seventy or eighty of the finest horses among the dozens of herds belonging to a certain regiment of the Mongolian mounted militia. They had been sent there to await the results of a medical examination. If none of the horses was found to be suffering from glanders, they could be on the road. Given the tensions of war preparedness, the herdsmen were saddled with great responsibility. The military representative and revolutionary committee had specifically selected four dependable, vigilant, and courageous herdsmen, who were also excellent horsemen, divided them into two teams, and assigned them the task of watching over the horses twenty-four hours a day. The two teams were led by Batu, who was a company commander in the Second Militia Group. In order to keep the horses from running back to their own herds, he ordered all the other herds moved to a distance of several miles. The breezes were light, the spring air warm, the water clear, the grass lush; the year’s first buds had appeared, setting the scene for a contented herd of warhorses that happily stayed together. The four herdsmen took their task seriously, and all was well for several days.

Suddenly the gentle breezes were replaced by sweeping gale-force winds. Lake water poured onto the grassland, and livestock began breaking out of their pens. Yurts set up along wind tunnels were blown upside down, turned into huge bowls that tumbled briefly before falling to pieces. Carts heading into the wind lost their felt canopies, which flew off into the sky. The blowing snow was so dense that anyone riding a horse could see neither the head nor the tail of his mount. The snow stung like buckshot, whistling through the air as it tore millions of white scars across the sky. Old Man Bilgee said that in ancient times there had been a shaman who exclaimed, “Blizzard, blizzard, the madness of a white goblin with unkempt hair!” The shaman’s words had survived into modern times. Everywhere between heaven and earth on the grassland, the mere mention of a blizzard struck fear into man and beast. People screamed, horses neighed, dogs barked, and sheep bleated-a cacophony that came together in a single sound: the crazed howls of the monstrous white-hair blizzard.

People preparing to continue their nightly foraging for wolf dens were stranded in the mountains, with no way in or out. Hunters heading home lost their way. Laborers, the old and the sick, women, and children who stayed behind to tend livestock were kept busy chasing down and penning up stray animals. On the grassland, the ability to hold on to savings accumulated over years of labor was often tested in the space of a single day or night.

The primary target of an organized attack by the wolf pack that had crossed the border was the thriving herd of warhorses. Bilgee, who assumed that the horses had already been sent off as ordered, secretly rejoiced when the blizzard rose up. He later learned that the herd’s departure had been delayed by one day, pending the medical report, and that the person who was to deliver the report had chosen instead to follow the military representative up the mountain to look for wolf cubs. A larger number had been found that year than usual, more than a hundred from at least a dozen dens, and grieving mothers whose cubs had been taken joined the pack, turning it especially frenzied and cruel.

Bilgee said, “Tengger has presented the wolf leader with this opportunity. There’s no doubt that the white wolf king, so familiar with the Olonbulag, has chosen this path to vengeance.”

At the first sound of wind, Batu had burst out of the small yurt for the temporary herders. After several night watches in a row, this was supposed to be his day of rest. He was exhausted, as was his horse, but he could not sleep and hadn’t closed his eyes all day. Having grown up around horses, he had suffered through many blizzards and had often been victimized by wolves. But now a number of uneventful days had put him on edge, and his nerves were as taut as the string of a Mongolian lute. The slightest breeze, the mere swaying of grass made his ears buzz. All the seasoned herders had committed to memory a grassland maxim, written in blood: On the Mongolian grassland, peace does not follow peace, but danger always follows danger.

The moment he stepped out of the yurt, he could smell the coming blizzard, and when he saw the direction of the wind, his broad ruddy face turned a grayish purple and his amber eyes glowed with fear. He rushed back into the yurt and nudged his sleeping comrade, Laasurung. Then, in rapid order, he picked up his flashlight, loaded his rifle, looped his herding club over his wrist, put on his fur deel, doused the fire in the stove, and picked up fur jackets for the two men watching the horses. He and his comrade, rifles slung over their backs and carrying long flashlights, mounted up and galloped north to where the herd was grazing.

As soon as the sun set behind the mountains, the grassland was cloaked in darkness. The two riders had no sooner reached the bottom of a slope than they were met head-on by the blizzard, like a tidal wave or an avalanche. It swallowed them up. The men choked on the wind until their faces turned purple; the pounding snow pellets forced them to shut their eyes. The horses too succumbed to fear, throwing their heads up in a desperate attempt to turn and flee from the wind. The men had started out shoulder to shoulder, but Batu, who could not see his hand in front of his face, shouted frantically; there was no response from Laasurung. Wind and snow consumed everything in a raging howl. Batu reined in his horse, wiped the frost from his forehead, and tried to calm himself. Then he tucked the flashlight under his arm and turned it on. Usually, it would light up the area like a searchlight, sending out a beam that could illuminate a horse at a hundred yards or more. Now he could see no more than a few yards ahead; dense horizontal strands of white hair filled his sight. Suddenly, a snowman and snow-horse entered the beam and, at the same time, sent a weak light his way. The two men made circles in the air with their flashlights as they strained to control their panic-stricken mounts. Finally, they were side-by-side again.

Batu grabbed Laasurung, raised one of his earflaps, and shouted into his ear. “Stay here, don’t move. This is where we need to stop the herd. Then we’ll drive it east. We have to avoid the small lake at Jiazi Mountain at all costs. All is lost if we don’t.”

Laasurung shouted back, “My horse is spooked, the way it gets when there are wolves around. If there are, how will the four of us manage?”

“As if our lives depended on it,” Batu shouted.

They aimed their flashlights to the north and waved them back and forth as a signal to their two comrades.

A gray horse appeared in the two beams of light; it slowed and stopped next to Batu, as if it had found its savior. The gray was snorting anxiously. It had been bitten below the neck, and blood leaking from the steaming wound formed lines of red ice. The sight of blood spooked Laasurung’s mount, who trampled the ground in a frenzy, then lowered its head, thrust out its neck, and single-mindedly galloped off with the wind. Batu spun around and raced after his comrade; the gray ran into the blinding snow.

By the time Batu managed to catch up to Laasurung and grab the reins of his horse, the herd was right next to them. All the horses he could see with the aid of his flashlight were as spooked as the big gray. They whinnied into the wind, their shuddering hooves madly kicking up waves of snow that obscured the ferocious, turbulent whirlwind down below their flanks. When Batu and Laasurung fearfully shone their lights down there, the sight so unnerved Laasurung that he fell forward and wrapped his arms around his horse’s neck, all that kept him from falling off. The beams of light were not so dim that the two sharp-eyed herders could not make out the outlines of wolves, one or more of whom was sinking its fangs into every horse the men could see. The fur of the pack leader was inlaid with snow driven there by the wind, turning it a spectral white. The wolves’ bodies appeared larger than usual, terrifyingly large, and so white it made the men’s skin crawl. A white wolf pack, a ghostly wolf pack, an evil wolf pack that frightened the herders half to death. Wolves that normally turned and ran in fear from flashlights were so set on revenge that they were uncommonly ferocious and fearless, led by the alpha male and the mother wolves.

When Batu and Laasurung realized that the other two herdsmen were nowhere to be seen, they assumed they were half frozen by the blizzard, or had been taken away by their terrified mounts. Since they had been on a day watch, they were unarmed and had no flashlights; nor were they protected by fur jackets. Batu was forced to make a painful decision. “Forget about them,” he said. “Saving the horses is more important!”

The herd was still running in the beam from Batu’s flashlight, seventy or eighty Ujimchin warhorses, the treasure of a dozen herds and dozens of horse herders; of noble bloodlines, famous as warhorses throughout Mongol history, they were known historically as Turks. Fine-looking steeds, they were able to endure hard, taxing work; they feared neither hunger nor thirst; and they held up well in boiling heat and bitter cold. Able to run long distances at great speeds, they were normally ridden only by their herders and headquarters leaders. If they wound up as food for the wolves or drowned in the lake while fleeing, the other herders would, just like the wolves, tear Batu and his comrades to shreds.

Seeing that Laasurung was holding back, Batu dug his knees into his horse, rode over, and smacked his comrade on the head, then nudged Laasurung’s horse toward the herd. He aimed his flashlight at the other man’s face and shouted, “If you run away, I’ll kill you myself!”

“I’m not afraid,” Laasurung shouted back, “but this horse is.” He jerked the reins to bring the horse under control, then flicked on his flashlight and, waving the herding club over his head, charged toward the herd. He and Batu led the horses with their lights, beat the recalcitrant animals with their clubs, and got them to follow the rest of the herd to the east instead of running with the wind. Batu reckoned that they were nearing the small lake, no more than three or four miles away. The big, broad-chested geldings had none of the burdens of ordinary horses-pregnant mares, young horses, or old ones. They were so fleet-footed that in less than half an hour the entire herd could be stuck in the muddy lake. The biggest problem the men faced was that the lake was narrow from north to south and wide from east to west, which meant that it spread horizontally directly ahead of them, difficult to skirt unless the direction of the wind changed. In Batu’s mind, it was the gaping mouth of a gargantuan demon, waiting for a feast of fat horses, delivered by the wind devil and wolf god.

The direction of the blizzard-due south-did not vary, and the wind raised a steady howl. Even in the dark, Batu could get a feel for the topography by changes in the way his horse trampled the grass. He could tell where he was and where he was going by the alignment of the earth’s veins and the spongy quality of the ground. He was beyond restless, feeling that the female wolves whose dens had been plundered were more frenzied even than the alpha male. He disregarded the fact that he was surrounded by wolves, ignored the possibility that they could bring down his mount at any moment, and ignored the prospect of his horse losing its footing and sending him down into the midst of a starving, vengeful, enraged pack of wolves. He ignored it all as he screamed and shouted and struck out madly with his herding club. He had but one thought on his mind, and that was to stabilize the horses and keep the herd together as he drove them eastward, around the lake, and from there to the yurts, where men and dogs could fight off the wolves.

Led by flashlights and beaten by two herders who refused to leave them, the horses gradually regained their poise. A white horse took the lead, raising its head and whinnying loudly as a sign that it was assuming leadership of the herd. Batu and Laasurung immediately shone their lights on this new leader, whose presence provided a stimulus for the others to quickly reestablish the disciplined unity of Mongolian warhorses, as they organized themselves in the traditional battle array necessary to fight this enemy. The lead horse sounded the battle cry, drawing the herd around it and forming a seemingly impregnable rampart of horses. Hundreds of hooves struck with great force, stomping, crushing, kicking. Caught by surprise, the savage wolves suddenly lost their tactical advantage. The few that had been caught in the circle could not get out from under the horses’ bellies; their legs were broken, their spines smashed, their heads crushed. The shrill, demonic, agonizing wails were more hideous than the sound of the blizzard. Batu began to breathe a little easier, knowing that no fewer than three of the wolves had been killed or injured by the horse hooves. He committed the spot to memory, for when the wind died out and the sky was clear again, he’d return to skin the fallen predators. With these kills behind them, the horses closed ranks, with more timid members of the herd protected by an outer rank of stronger horses. Using explosive force, they formed a line of defense against a pack of wolves that resembled a chain of iron fists.

The lake was drawing nearer, and Batu was satisfied with the formation of the herd, which made giving commands easy; so long as he could control the lead horse, safely reaching the eastern edge of the lake was certainly possible. But remnants of fear remained stuck in his heart, for this was no ordinary pack. Striking out at a crazed wolf only increased its savagery and led to even more frenzied killing. Everyone who lived on the grassland feared the vindictiveness of a crazed wolf. The entire pack surely heard the agonizing wails of its injured brethren, and danger lurked on all sides. Batu saw that many of the horses had sustained injuries. But these were fine warhorses, steeled in battles with wolves, and so, wounded or not, they still ran in formation, refusing to give an opening for further attacks.

That said, the herd had a fatal flaw. Made up exclusively of geldings, it lacked a “son horse,” a powerful uncastrated animal that could be counted on to carry the fight to the wolves. On the Mongolian grassland, herds of horses were made up of a dozen or more families, large and small, and each family was led by what was known as a “son horse.” These horses, whose flowing manes reached their knees, sometimes even touching the ground, were a head taller than the other horses in the family, valiant males that were true leaders and fearless killers. Whenever they encountered wolves, the son horses formed the herd into a circle, with females and young horses on the inside, males on the outside, while they remained on the margins to fight the enemy head-on, manes flying, flared nostrils snorting, rearing up on their hind legs, a flesh-and-blood mountain suspended above the wolves. When such a horse came thundering down, it crushed the wolves’ heads and torsos with its enormous hooves. And if a wolf turned tail and ran, the horse lowered its head and gave chase, fiercely kicking out and nipping at its flanks. The largest and most ferocious of these horses had been known to pick up wolves with their teeth and fling them into the air, waiting for them to hit the ground before stomping them to death. Even the most savage wolves were no match for son horses, which kept vigil over their herds, day and night. They protected their families not only against wolf packs but also against lightning strikes and wildfires, minimizing injuries to mates, offspring, and the very old and always leading them to safety.

Batu wished he had a son horse at that moment, but the white horse that took the lead was a gelding, like all the others; while it was clearly powerful, it lacked aggressiveness, which meant a less potent tendency to attack. Batu grumbled inwardly. It had been years since the military had come to the grassland to recruit horses, and people had neglected the consequences of not having a son horse in a herd of warhorses. Even if they’d pondered the matter, they’d figured that the horses would be taken away within days anyway, at which time the pastureland would play no further role. There’d been only a slim chance of something going wrong, and yet the wolves had found an opening. Batu was forced to admire the vision of the leader, which had likely known that this was a herd without a son horse.

Batu rushed to the front and whipped the lead horse as hard as he could to get it moving to the east, at the same time switching hands to grip his semiautomatic rifle and release the safety; he’d fire only when it was absolutely necessary, for these were novice warhorses and gunfire would likely scatter them. Like Batu, Laasurung prepared for what was coming. The blizzard had increased in intensity, and the two horsemen were so exhausted they could barely wave their herding clubs. But the lake drew nearer. Under normal conditions, by this time they could have smelled the alkali.

Batu, his eyes red from the tension, decided to fight fire with fire. He sat up in the saddle, thumped the lead horse on the head, and let loose with a shrill watering whistle. All the horses appeared to understand their herder’s warning: the lake where they were taken to drink once every two days was due south. The spring season had been characterized by drought, and the lake had nearly dried up. It was surrounded by muddy land, and only in two spots, where watered animals had tamped down the dirt, was there a measure of safety; everywhere else was a death trap. Since the beginning of spring, a number of domestic animals had suffocated in the mud or starved when they could not free themselves from it. Each time the horses went to drink, they were led nervously down safe paths to the water by whistles from their herders. They would never have rushed toward the lake at this speed on their own, even during the daytime.

But Batu’s whistling did the trick. The horses, so familiar with the grassland, understood that danger awaited them to the south. They whinnied forlornly, shaking all over; they stopped, changed direction, and, with the intense wind now coming at them from the side, galloped to the southeast for all they were worth. Due south lay a trap of sticky mud; due north was where the wind and vicious wolves waited, leaving only the southeast as a possible road to safety. Panic filled their wide eyes as they ran madly, heads lowered. Sounds of labored breathing replaced the whinnies as the herd raced against death under a cloud of tension and terror.

The shift in direction changed the face of battle. As the formation headed to the southeast, the poorest fighters, those with the weakest defenses, were suddenly exposed to the wind and the wolves, while those whose rear hooves were most capable of dispensing death and injury were out of position. The gale-force winds slowed the pace of the herd and weakened its ability to ward off the wolf-enemy’s weapons. The wind lent the wolves wings. Under normal circumstances, wolves can outrun horses, with the wind or against it. But with the wind, even though they are faster, they would not dare to try to bring horses down from the rear, afraid of meeting up with a clever horse that might suddenly dart ahead, causing the wolf, aiming for the back of its prey, to land on its hooves; injury or death would be inevitable. To be successful, they would have to attack obliquely. But that would affect the speed of attack. Even if they somehow managed to leap onto the horse’s back, sinking claws or fangs into the animal would be all but impossible; at most they would leave a few gouges as the attack failed. But this change in direction gave the pack an ideal chance to make a kill. With the wind behind them, and a slowing herd of horses, there was no need to attack obliquely. They needed only to leap from the side, the wind propelling them onto the horses’ backs or necks, where they could dig in their claws and clamp down on the horses’ vital spots with their razor-sharp fangs, then jump to the ground. If a horse tried to dislodge the wolf by rolling on the ground, one wolf would be taken care of, but the rest of the pack would make the kill in short order.

Desperate cries rose from the herd as the wolves tore into one horse after another-sides and chests spurted blood, the stench of which drove the crazed predators to commit acts of frenzied cruelty. The raw meat in their mouths meant nothing to the wolves; only the murderous tearing of horseflesh mattered. More and more horses suffered grievous injuries as wave after wave of wolves attacked. The wolves that led each charge and those that followed were absolutely wild; they leaped onto the backs of horses, gathered their strength, clamped down with their feet, and bounced around like taut springs as they tore off chunks of hide, hair, and flesh with their razor-sharp teeth. After spitting out what they held in their mouths, they leaped to the ground, did a somersault, regained their feet, ran a few steps, and pounced on another horse. The entire pack followed the example of its lead males. Every wolf was giving full and vivid play to the killing instincts passed down by its ancestors.

The herd was being decimated; blood stained the snow on the ground. The merciless grassland was once again a backdrop to ruthlessness, as it had been for thousands of years. Wolf packs had gobbled up countless fresh souls and, generation after generation, left their bloody imprint on the thin grassy slopes.

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.

The horses attacked in this way, as well as the suicidal attackers, all shuddered as if in tragic despair.

Most of the wolves who brought down horses at the cost of their own lives were female. They were lighter than the males, making it more difficult for them to rip open the horses’ abdomens simply by hanging on, so they had to rely on the might of the horse itself. They offered up their lives, obsessed with vengeance, staring death calmly in the face, devoted to the cause, merging blood and milk. They faced the danger of fatal wounds to belly, chest, organs, and teats with a willingness to die alongside the horses they killed.

Horses whose bellies had been ripped open by wolves had just filled their stomachs with the first grass shoots of the year, mixed with some that remained from the previous autumn, and their abdomens were taut and low-slung; when the thin hide covers were torn away by wolf fangs, the stomachs and supple intestines spilled out onto the snow.

The final maniacal assault by the wolves crushed the herd’s resistance. The grassland was transformed into an abattoir. Horse after horse, gutted by its own hooves, lay writhing in the snow, wracked by spasms. In seconds, chests in which hot blood had flowed only moments before were now filled with ice. Surging horse blood stained the swirling snow.

The wolves’ suicidal war of vengeance paralyzed Batu with fear; cold sweat froze on his body. He knew that all was lost. His only wish now was to salvage a few of the horses. After pulling back hard on the bit to slow his horse momentarily, he abruptly dug his heels into its sides, released his hold on the bit, and flew past the line of wolves between him and the remnants of the herd, heading for the horse leader. The herd had already been scattered by the wolf attack, an army in full flight, running with the wind, so panic-stricken the horses had forgotten that the lake lay straight ahead to the south.

A downhill slope that led to the lake increased their speed, and the blizzard, with its mounting force, pushed them even faster, until their hooves barely touched the ground, their momentum like an avalanche crashing down a mountainside and into a morass. The thin layer of ice shattered under their hooves, and the viscous mud flew; the bog was about to claim the remaining horses, whinnying forlornly and struggling to keep moving, their fear and loathing of the wolf pack at its peak. Now hopelessly mired in the bog, they hesitated briefly before mustering the strength to plow into the deepest part, choosing self-inflicted death and burial in the bog over letting the wolves feed on their flesh and prevail in their quest for vengeance. These horses, castrated by humans, their virility lost to a knife, would end their lives with one final act of resistance: they would respond to the wolves’ attack by committing suicide en masse. At this moment they represented the most intrepid life force on the ancient grassland.

But the cruel grassland scorns the weak, refusing to bestow on them even the slightest measure of pity. As night fell, the plummeting temperature turned the muddy surface into a thin layer of brown ice. The edges of the lake were frozen solid, but the ice over the boggy center was not thick enough to withstand the weight of the horses; their hooves cracked the ice as they moved into deeper water and into thicker mud, made stickier than usual by the swirling snow and bitter cold air. They were trapped, though they kept struggling, each torturous step bringing more snow and cold air into the spaces that opened up between hoof and mud. Their struggles turned the bog into a frozen morass. Finally, inevitably, their strength ran out and they could no longer move. Denied the quick death they had sought, the herd voiced their desperate agony; their breaths created a mist of steam, and their hides were coated in hoarfrost. Every member knew that salvation was impossible, that nothing and no one could prevent the coming butchery.

Batu carefully reined in his horse at the edge of the lake, yet the moment the big black’s hooves touched the water, it snorted fearfully, lowered its head, and nervously eyed the muddy scene ahead, not daring to approach any closer. Batu shone his light on the surface of the lake and saw the hazy outlines of trapped horses where the flying snow of the blizzard weakened here and there. The heads of a few swayed weakly, a plea for help to the man responsible for their survival. He dug the heels of his boots into the sides of his horse to get it to move closer. But before it had gone more than five or six steps, its hooves broke through the ice and sank into mud, an alarm that sent it back to solid ground. This time Batu hit his mount on the flank with his herding club, but it refused to move. He thought of getting down, crawling out onto the ice, and standing guard over his horses with his rifle. But he knew that once he was off his horse and in the midst of the wolf pack, he would lose the commanding position from which he could use his club and the iron shoes of his horse as weapons; as soon as the wolves no longer feared him, man and horse would be torn apart. Besides, he only had ten bullets, and even with perfect marksmanship, killing a wolf with each shot would leave many standing. Icy tears covered his cheeks as he looked to the east, turning his head to the sky. Tengger, Tengger, eternal Tengger, give me the wisdom and power to save this herd! To which Tengger responded by puffing out its cheeks and blowing harder, dissolving the sound of Batu’s voice in the roar of the white-hair blizzard.

Batu wiped the tears from his cheeks with the sleeve of his deel, looped the herding club around his wrist again, armed his rifle, and cradled it and his flashlight in his left hand to await the arrival of the wolves. A single thought ran through his mind: Kill as many as possible.

Time passed, and Batu sat nearly frozen in his saddle. Without warning, the wolves slipped by him, low and quiet as a spectral wind, and moved out onto the ice. They stopped at the eastern edge, where they were hidden by a snowy fog bank. A moment later, a thin wolf emerged from the fog and approached his horse, one cautious step after another, testing the ice. Batu held his fire. The wolf was too small. After a dozen or more steps, it raised its head and ran toward the trapped horses. But it had barely started when a white whirlwind rose on the edge of the lake and sped in the direction of the herd; when it reached the horses, it swirled around them, raising clouds of snow and mist, blotting out heaven and earth.

Batu, blinded by the snow, shivered from the immobilizing cold. His horse, with its keen sense of smell, was wrapped in swirling snow, shuddering from the cold; lowering its head, it voiced its torment. In the heavy darkness of night, the boundless white-hair blizzard once more covered a slaughterhouse, where flowing blood froze on the ice.

Batu, nearly frozen stiff, listlessly turned off his flashlight so that he could vanish in the darkness. He lowered his head, aimed his rifle in the direction of the lake, but then abruptly raised the barrel skyward and fired slowly-once, twice, three times…