Spirit of the Wolves (16 page)

She cocked her head and grinned. “You have friends coming.” She bent down, snatched a salmon from TaLi's basket, and bounded into the woods.

I heard humans tramping through the bush.

“Do you see that?” It was DavRian. I'd know his sweat and dream-sage scent anywhere. “That can't be an ordinary wolf. And those paw prints are as big as a bear's.”

A growl rose in my throat. “Milsindra led them here on purpose,” I said to Ázzuen. The Greatwolves usually took great pains to hide their presence from humans. “She wants them to find out about the Greatwolves.”

DavRian pushed through the long, sinewy branches of a willow and stepped onto the riverbank. A frowning HesMi followed. When she saw us sitting on the bank with TaLi, her frown deepened.

“Did you bring me all the way out here for this?” She waved her long arm at us. We sat, trying to look harmless.

DavRian shook his head. “There are giant wolves about, HesMi. I've seen them. They just hide when they see us.”

One of Milsindra's paw prints was just to the left of TaLi's foot. The girl shifted so her own foot covered it, then rubbed at the mud until Milsindra's print was indistinguishable from ours.

“I've never seen them,” TaLi lied. “Some wolves are larger than others, of course.” She shrugged.

“And some humans are more easily frightened than others.” BreLan hopped from the woods to a tall boulder, and jumped from the boulder to stand next to TaLi on the riverbank.

DavRian's face darkened and I thought he would leap at BreLan. Instead he looked down into TaLi's basket. “Five fish,” he sneered, for that was all that was left after Yildra and Milsindra had eaten theirs. He smirked. “That will feed a few families for a night.” It would do more than that. From what I knew of how humans ate, the five salmon would feed several families for several nights. But that wouldn't go far in a village as large as Kaar.

TaLi narrowed her eyes at DavRian. “We can get more, DavRian. The wolves will help us.”

DavRian smiled down at her. “I'm sure you can. And it's good to be careful. If the wolves can't help with dangerous hunts, it's best to go after things like fish.”

Anger came between one breath and the next. Milsindra's threats and DavRian's insults burned in me.

“Do you think the humans steal from longfangs?” I asked Ázzuen.

He grinned at me.

“It is not needed, wolves.” Tlitoo paced between us. “It is a risk you do not need to take.”

I leapt over him then, walked up to DavRian, and stared
into his eyes, which always made humans like him nervous. Then I walked a few steps, twisting my head around to look at him.

“I will get the others,” Tlitoo grumbled, and took flight.

“What does it want?” DavRian asked nervously, looking down at me.

“She wants us to follow her,” BreLan answered, smirking.

It took the humans twice as long to get to the longfang plain as it would have taken us, and it was past high sun when we reached it. The longfangs had killed another grass elk. Again, the mother longfang and her cubs stood far back from the kill while two others tore at the carcass. This time, though, the three of them had a large piece of elk shoulder of their own and the cubs were eating hungrily, scattering smaller bits of meat around them. I had heard that longfangs, unlike cave lions and grass lions, hunted in packs. I wondered how the mother and her cubs had fallen out of favor.

“We're leaving,” HesMi said when she saw the longfangs. I kept forgetting that the humans couldn't smell threats from a distance. I thought they'd followed us knowing what was on the plain.

“The wolves know what they're doing,” TaLi said. The fear in her voice was so well disguised that I was sure none of the humans could detect it. I leaned against her, offering her my strength. DavRian looked at her and then at HesMi. HesMi shrugged and crouched down, holding her sharpstick. DavRian had no choice but to stay or look a coward.

BreLan grinned at the Kaar leader. “You didn't listen to me
when I told you about what the wolves can do for us,” he said. “Now watch.”

For long moments, all the humans
could
do was watch. The longfangs were guarding their meal so closely we didn't dare go near.

Then the mother longfang left her cubs and began to shuffle on her belly toward the rest of the carcass. The other longfangs looked up and snarled at her, but she kept moving toward them, pawswidth by pawswidth. We wouldn't have much time.

I dipped my head to Ázzuen.

We pelted across the grass. Ázzuen wasn't as fast as Marra, but he was agile and could turn quickly. He came up behind one of the cubs and nipped it on the rump. Both cubs whirled at him, snarling and growling.

“Ours!” one said. He had dark-tipped ears and a longer muzzle than his sister.

I ran at him, butting him in the side with my head. His ribs were hard and sharp, close to the surface. They must be growing quickly to have so little flesh on them, I thought.

The cub Ázzuen had nipped whirled to me, her eyes frantic. Ázzuen and I ran two quick circles around both cubs. Then Ázzuen grabbed one of the small pieces of meat and bolted.

“Ours,” the black-eared cub said again, and both cubs took off after Ázzuen, leaving the rest of the meat unguarded. Then Marra streaked onto the plain. Tlitoo had indeed found her. She dashed to the cubs, tripping them up. She moved so quickly that they couldn't respond fast enough to right themselves before she tripped them again.

I snatched up the larger piece of meat just as Ázzuen tossed his smaller piece of elk into the grass. The cubs followed, pouncing on the bit of meat as it fell. By then, Marra and I had made it more than halfway back to the humans with the larger piece of elk.

Gasping, I plunked the meat down by the humans. The cubs were running toward us, but TaLi, BreLan, and HesMi all stepped forward and raised their sharpsticks. The cubs stopped, staring at the weapons. Ázzuen helped me pull the elk into the woods.

HesMi grinned. TaLi watched the human leader, a gleam of triumph in her eye.

“Can they do this again?” HesMi asked.

“Yes,” BreLan said. “Whenever we want them to.” Ázzuen growled softly at him, and BreLan laughed. “Or whenever they want
us
to.”

HesMi looked from BreLan to Ázzuen, confused, then laughed as well, as if just getting a joke. She picked up the meat and strode off toward the village. DavRian hissed like an angry raven and looked at me with such malice, I took a step back. Then he stalked after HesMi.

That was when I heard the desperate mewling sound. I looked at Ázzuen, wondering if he was hurt, but he was looking out toward the plain. It was the longfang cubs, crying to their mother, who had returned empty-jawed from the carcass, a freely bleeding wound across her side. They watched us, and their whimpering grew louder.

I knew that sound. I knew it from when I was not yet out
of the den. It was the sound of hunger and desperation. I looked again at the cubs, remembered the sharp ribs of the one I had tackled. Even from the edge of the woods, I could see the panic and despair in their mother's eyes. They were starving. And we had taken their food from them.

I didn't know why I cared. They were not wolf. They weren't pack. But when I followed the humans into the woods, my tail fell between my legs and my ears folded flat with shame.

A
fter the humans returned to Kaar, Ázzuen and I found a shady clearing amid elm trees and sage bushes and sank down in a soft patch of cool dirt. Marra had gone in search of MikLan, leaving the two of us to relax in the evening air. Within a few breaths, Ázzuen was snoring. I rolled onto my side and then onto my belly, but I was too restless to join him in sleep. I was pleased, both with our salmon hunt and with HesMi's reaction on the longfang plain, but Even Night was less than seventeen days away, and it would take more than a few hunts and prey thefts to win the humans. I shifted restlessly.

“You are fretting again, wolflet.” I hadn't seen Tlitoo land on the branch above me. He dropped down with an inelegant thump and stalked toward me. The glint in his eye made me very nervous. He pushed in between me and Ázzuen.

“What are you doing?”

“You need to remember that not everything is duty and strife.”

“I don't think everything's duty and strife,” I protested. “You ravens are the ones who yelled at me for not taking on the task.” They hadn't actually yelled at me. They had clouted me with their wings and threatened me with sharp beaks and called me a coward when, back in the Wide Valley, I had been hesitant to take on so daunting a task.

“And you must complete it, wolflet. It is what the Neja and the Moonwolf—the drelwolf—must do together.” He cocked his head to the left and then to the right, and the look in his eyes was as gentle as I'd ever seen it. “But you must remember why.”

Before I could stop him, he placed his back against Ázzuen and his chest against me. I felt the sensation of falling. The aromas of mud and wolf and elm faded to nothingness.

Flank by flank they ran, chasing the fear-blinded deer. Ázzuen scented the hunt-thrill rising from Kaala and heard the rapid beat of her heart. Each time her paws hit the earth, his slapped down beside them, each time she drew breath, his own breath . . .

I yanked myself from Ázzuen's thoughts.

“No,” I gasped to Tlitoo, “it isn't right.” I couldn't ask TaLi's permission to go inside her mind, because she didn't understand me, but it was wrong to invade Ázzuen's thoughts without asking. I had gone into his mind once before and still felt ashamed.

Tlitoo regarded me curiously. “I had forgotten you could do that, wolf. I did not remember that you could make us leave.”

I glared at him.

“Very well, wolf,” he quorked. “I will not take you there if you do not wish to go. I just wanted you to see that there are days to come that will be good.”

He settled next to me. Then he gave a startled croak and I was falling again, more quickly this time. Scent and sound flew from me. This time, though, they were replaced with a deep and painful chill.