again. “I’ll always love you,” he thought…before being seized by paws and teeth from behind. He uttered a startled shout as half a dozen wolves hauled him out of bed and dragged him toward the door. Jenna awoke, looking around in a sort of bewildered shock until she realized what was happening to Balto. “BALTO!” she cried, leaping out of bed and diving into one of the wolves, biting hard into its hind leg. It cried out, and Jenna released her grip, but not out of sympathy; the flesh on the leg had felt gooey, and she had reflexively spit it out. “Jenna, help me!” Balto cried, thrashing and struggling, unable to resist so many foes pulling him in one direction. Jenna attacked again quickly, determined not to let the dark assailants take Balto away. She jumped and bit again, and this time, she got the ear of another wolf. It yelped with pain, trying to shake Jenna off, but she bit harder, tasting blood leaking out between her teeth. Suddenly, Rodama grabbed Jenna from behind, wrestling her off the wolf. As soon as he was facing her, he slammed his paw into her nose. Jenna saw stars, and she fell back on her haunches, her eyes watering, but she soon stood again, charging at Rodama. She yelled and sank her teeth into his shoulder, but he turned to the side and flung her to the floor, putting both his paws on her throat, pressing until her breath was cut off. “Jenna!” Balto shouted, now not out of fear for his own safety, but hers. He tried to reach her, but a wolf kicked him in the stomach, and he bent his body as the breath left his lungs. Jenna struggled in Rodama’s grip, clawing at his face, opening several cuts and drawing shouts of pain from his lips. Finally, he yielded, backing away, and Jenna tried to run to Balto. He reached out his paws, and Jenna reached out hers. They touched for only a moment, and Jenna made a desperate attempt to take hold of Balto’s paws, but Rodama grabbed her again, this time dragging her backwards. He turned around, swinging her body, and her head cracked against the bricks of the fireplace. Rodama released her, and she fell unconscious to the floor. “JENNA!” Balto screamed, struggling furiously, but at long last tiring as the wolves overcame him, dragging him out the door. When they were on the street, Rodama shouted a command. “Ugaal! Put him on your back!” Balto could now see better because of the moonlight, and saw the snarling face of the huge, bulky wolf that hauled him up onto his back. “You struggle, I kill you,” Ugaal growled. “You make me drop you, I kill you. You try to run away, I kill you.” Realizing that he was in no position to argue, Balto decided to be complacent, at least until he found out why this was happening to him. He cared more about Jenna than that anyway. He watched the house as the wolves ran away into the snowy hills, hoping that Jenna would be alright. “She’ll come for me,” he thought. “I know she will.”

Jenna’s eyes opened slowly, though there wasn’t much change from them being closed; all she could see was a dark, blurry mass encompassing everything in the room. She struggled to her feet, crying out as a heavy pain hit her with the blood rushing to her head. Not wanting to imagine the size of the bump she must have gotten when Rodama ended her struggle, she walked forward unsteadily, making her way toward the place she thought the door should be, being careful not to hit anything. By the time she made her way into the living room, she could finally see clearly, although her head hadn’t stopped hurting yet. She looked at the large grandfather clock, which stood tall, methodically sounding deep ticks, and saw in the ambient moonlight that it had been about an hour since she had been knocked out. “Oh, that’s just perfect!” Jenna groaned, racing to the dog door. The last thing she needed to do to find Balto was fall behind in time. She was lucky in that the breeze outside was now dead, and unable to sweep away the tracks she found. For a moment, she considered finding someone to help her, but she realized it would take too long. “If only one of the kids were still living with us…they would come along in a heartbeat.” She shook her head and ran along, following the tracks by sight and smell. “If I have to go it alone…then so be it.”

Jenna ran for miles, traveling as quickly as possible, hoping that the scent trail wouldn’t die off; it was very difficult to see the tracks in places. As she ran, she considered what she might do if she did manage to catch up to Balto’s kidnappers. No solution came to mind; no matter what she tried to plan, she knew that she would end up dead. Still, she couldn’t merely stay in Nome and think while they were putting more and more distance behind them. It would have been nice to known anything about the wolves, but as it were, all she had to go on was that Balto was gone, and she was on the trail of those who had taken him. At least, she was on their trail until her worst fear came true; in an area where scattered trees began appearing, the snow vanished, leaving only scent. She was able to continue on that, but not for long; smells of other animals soon overcame it, especially when the wind picked up. Desperate for a clue, Jenna looked on ahead in the direction the trail seemed to have been heading, but saw nothing except for a gradually thickening forest, and a mountain in the distance. “Where?” she said to herself quietly, looking around the area where she had stopped. Fatigue struck her, and she sat down, tired from running so long; she wasn’t sure how far from Nome she had come already. Not only that, she hadn’t slept at all except for when she was knocked out, and now it was almost midday. “I can’t afford to stop,” she told herself. “No one else except me can help Balto right now.” She forced herself to stand up again and began trotting in the direction the trail was going when it vanished, knowing this was the best she could do at the moment. Eventually, when it was getting on to evening, she stopped again, exhausted and nearly faint with hunger. She curled up at the base of a tree, breathing hard and shivering, and quickly fell asleep.

“I can’t…no, stop…leave…don’t…Balto…let go…”

Jenna’s eyes opened, and she sat up, breathing hard from the night before last’s events replaying themselves in a dream. By now, it was late morning. The first thing that hit her was hunger, overwhelming hunger. Jenna could never remember wanting food so badly in her life. Unfortunately, she had no idea of what kind of food she could expect from her current location. Suddenly, an odor came to her nose. She sniffed it, and her head slowly turned in its direction. It was meat, fresh meat, and she was drawn to the smell; she couldn’t help getting up and following it at a quick pace. When she was able to see what produced the smell, however, she began to wonder if it might be wiser to look elsewhere. The scent was coming from a dead caribou, recently killed by a pack of wolves, which Jenna could hear speaking in the area beyond. Jenna was in a quandary. Stealing food from a pack of wolves might well be a death wish, but she was nearly going out of her mind with hunger. Finally, she decided it would be best to take some of the meat and slip away, knowing it was probably unlikely that the wolves would notice her if she was careful. She crept up to the carcass, keeping her ears wide open for the sounds of any wolves approaching. It seemed none were nearby, so she advanced the last few yards to the carcass with little further hesitation. At first, she was somewhat repelled by the prospect of eating off of the caribou; it was still rather fresh, and blood still dripped from some of the wounds the wolves had torn with their jaws, not to mention the fact that there were organs lying among much of the meat. It wasn’t long, though, before the tantalizing smell of the meat drove Jenna to start eating, ignoring the less appealing features of her meal. At home, she didn’t often get meat, and when she did, it was usually fish, and any meat she ate was cooked. Still, she soon decided that this meat wasn’t bad, especially now that her appetite could finally be sated. Before long, she was totally engrossed in eating, forgetting the idea of dragging a piece away and instead lying there, eating as much as she could get in her mouth as quickly as possible. It felt so good to be able to fill her horribly empty stomach, knowing that she could walk away afterwards and feel full for much of the day, and have energy to keep searching for…

“Vaqis?!?”

Jenna looked up quickly with a frightened shout at the guard’s startled cry. He had been speaking to others in the pack, not expecting that in the moments before he took his position, someone would sneak out of the woods and begin feeding on the caribou. Jenna could make no excuses; shreds of meat still hung from her teeth as she and the guard stared at one another. The wolf shook of his surprise and called out to some of the other wolves. Jenna considered trying to run away, but she knew that the chance of her being able to outrun several wolf hunters was remote. She stood up, looking around as the wolves surrounded her. One of them, a glossy black hunter who seemed to have a dark countenance, approached her, and she sat up, hoping he was more merciful than he appeared. He stopped in front of her, staring with an icy glare. “Are you going to kill me?” Jenna asked, trembling slightly with fear. The wolf raised his head a little, startled. “You do not speak Itera?” he asked. Jenna shook her head. “Only a little.” The wolves began looking at each other, confused. The black one stared at her a little longer, and then finally realized what was going on. “Oh, you are a dog.” “Yes,” Jenna said, still cautious, but believing that her situation may have improved. The wolves were no longer angry, but astonished. “I do not believe our pack has ever seen a dog before,” said the black hunter. “What is your name?” “My name’s Jenna,” she replied. “I