'It seems he wants you to have it.' He paused a moment, thinking. 'Your friend has a short memory,' he said coldly, pretending to lose interest. 'When he was hungry I shared my meat with him.'
In the split second it took for Akar to look up at him, Kalus reached in and snatched up the carcass. The wolf started to go after him, but found the jagged point of Kalus' knife held threateningly between himself and the kill. As he backed away the two squared off, Kalus on one knee and the wolf standing. Akar began to circle, looking for an opening. But the man-child turned with him, keeping the point of the knife between himself and danger. The girl cried out in desperation.
'Stop it! Please, stop it!'
She had tried to understand the reasons for violence in the harsh world she now encountered, but to see her only two companions ready to tear each other apart over a blood-stained carcass, was more than she could bear. Bowing her head between clutching arms like a frightened child, she wept bitterly. But the tears brought no relief, only deeper anguish and despair.
Seeing her distress the two stopped circling. Akar went to try and comfort her, while Kalus moved indifferently to a protected corner to gut and skin the carcass. He would undoubtedly have been more sympathetic had he not been hurt several times already by giving in to similar emotions. He was far too angry now to think of anything but his own survival. Akar no longer tried to comfort his friend, who only kept pushing him away. Regaining her composure, she glared bitterly at both of them.
'Why do you have to BE like this? Why can't you just leave each other alone?'
Akar had not understood the words, but their meaning was clear enough. Putting away his pride, he stepped slowly and deliberately toward the man-child's unmoving form. Coming closer he drew a line in the dirt just in front of him, signaling his desire for a truce. If Kalus crossed the line with one of his own it would mean that the truce had been accepted, if only for the moment.
But Kalus did not answer with words and gestures of humbled acceptance. Moving his hands in simple patterns he knew the wolf would understand, he told him instead that he was angered to the point of violence by his ingratitude, reminding him that if it had not been for his own, selfless actions, neither he nor the girl would be alive at all. He then drew another line in the dirt, not across the mark Akar had made, but parallel to his own body instead, signifying dominance, and made it clear that the wolf could either accept the truce under these terms, or fight him to the death then and there.
Akar was curiously gratified by the man-child's response. In truth he had not forgotten his compassion, but wanted to be sure that he was worthy of trust. Goodness and compassion were one thing, courage in the face of danger quite another. To say that he had wholly staged the conflict as a test of the other's spirit would be incorrect; but once it developed into such he did not try to stop it. Akar had lived too long to give his allegiance easily or in haste. Crossing Kalus' line solemnly, he rolled over on top of his own, blurring it into obscurity.
Realizing what this meant Kalus relaxed, nodding gratefully. Though he knew the wolf had no intention of being dominated, he accepted the gesture nonetheless. His body weak from adrenalin's flow, he could not have backed up the threat if he wanted to. He did not. The truce was accepted. He reached out an open hand, letting his new-found ally learn its scent beyond the point of any doubt. The wolf then went back to the girl while Kalus returned to the task of skinning the rabbit, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he did so.