Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (27 page)

Blind Seer lolled on the sand near her, chewing a burr from between his toes and chuckling at her efforts.

"Even a wolf may have her vanity," Firekeeper said, booting him in the ribs with one bare foot. "If this little tail becomes too much trouble, I can chop it short as fast as I could remove your obnoxious bush."

Blind Seer stopped laughing and beat his tail on the ground, hearing the threat in the words. The wolf-woman accepted his apology and knelt to kiss him on the black leather of his nose.

"Mother has gone to see if the others await," she said. "We should not make her call us to her like idiot pups who have been hunting crickets and so risk missing the meat."

Rising and shaking the sand from his still damp fur, Blind Seer said softly:

"And remember, I am with you, not with anyone else, not even with the One Female. If any or all press you beyond endurance, I will guard your back."

Firekeeper buried her hand in his neck ruff for a moment in thanks, but said nothing more. Only Blind Seer knew the comfort she took in his steady, fierce support and he, in turn, was oddly comforted by that knowledge.

Despite the conflicting mixture of odors she had scented since their arrival the night before, somehow Firekeeper had expected the gathering to be largely one of birds. Doubtless this was because Bee Biter had been the messenger to bring back Elation and because of Elation's own story of how she had been questioned by the Mothers. Therefore, Firekeeper had to conceal her astonishment when she saw the group that awaited her.

There was a puma lounging with lazy, golden-furred insolence on a shelf of rock that just happened to catch the best of the morning sun. An autumn-fat brown bear leaned against the lower portions of that same rock, little eyes actively denying its physical somnolence. A red fox sat conversing with a jay.

Nor was the jay the only bird present. Elation perched on a branch beside another peregrine; a kite swept out of the sky to land on the rock just above the puma. Bee Biter claimed a sweeping oak limb all for himself. A gyrfalcon hunched her shoulders next to an apparently half-asleep owl. Like large and small versions of the same bird, a raven perched next to a crow.

But it was the buck elk carefully keeping his massive rack from tangling in the tree branches and the white-tailed doe who surprised Firekeeper the most by their presence.

Once or twice a winter the young wolves might run races against the more arrogant of the elk, but to see these two food animals standing without apparent fear among the carnivores brought home the importance of this meeting. She wondered who else might be watching more privately from the concealment of the underbrush.

No names were exchanged, no introductions made. Each of these creatures was so clearly present as a representative for their kind among the Royal Beasts that such flourishes as personal designations were superfluous. The elk was clearly all Elk, even as at times King Tedric spoke as the voice of Hawk Haven.

The raven proved to be the director of this meeting, and Firekeeper was reminded of human posturing when he flared out the long feathers on his legs and neck as he landed on the dried grass in the center of the circle. He strutted a few paces and then, without the preamble a human would have given, squawked at Firekeeper:

"Human, can you confirm the tales told by one peregrine Elation that among your kind has again surfaced the shadow of magic?"

"Among the humans of the lowlands," Firekeeper replied carefully, "such has been rumored, but I have seen nothing that could be confirmed as such."

She thought of Lady Melina's necklace and the magical control it seemed she wielded over her children but chose not to volunteer that information.

I didn't see her use it
, the wolf-woman comforted herself,
and didn't Hazel Healer say that the power could have been some other thing she called trance induction rather than true magic
?

The raven strode a step or two, fanning out his head feathers so that he now appeared to have ears or little horns off the top of his head. Although, like all the Royal Beasts present, the raven tended to be larger than the average of his kind, still he remained a bird on the ground and Firekeeper was not intimidated.

"Human," the raven began, and this time Firekeeper interrupted.

"I can understand," she said dryly, "that the question of whether I am human, as is my shape, or wolf, as is my heart and upbringing, could be a matter of long and useless debate, but, since there appears to be an antagonism to humans in the thread of your questions, I would prefer you address me by my given name. I am Firekeeper and I demand that you not forget it."

There was a murmur at this speech, punctuated by a dry cough of laughter from the puma. The raven flattened his feathers, raised them, then settled.

"Firekeeper," he began again, "although you did not see anything that you could confirm as magic, is it your best estimate—taking the scent from the wind as it were—that the humans believe that the kingdom of Bright Bay was possessed of objects that they think are ensorcelled?"

"Yes," Firekeeper replied. "Elation may not have known to tell you, but those very items of which you speak are no longer in the keeping of Bright Bay, but have been taken away by the woman called Valora, who is now Queen of the Isles."

This caused a hubbub, including a few queries shrieked at Elation who denied any desire to deceive. The peregrine's indignant denials were honest as far as they went. Since she had never reached Revelation Point Castle, the peregrine had not learned of Queen Valora's theft until after her meeting with the Mothers.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer had confided in Elation later, during their journey west, and all three had agreed that it was best if Firekeeper presented that report—evidence of her good faith toward whatever the Royal Beasts intended.

After the initial astonishment had passed, Firekeeper reported on the circumstances leading up to Queen Valora's departure for the Isles with the supposedly enchanted objects, speaking with an ease and fluency that would have astonished her human friends, who were accustomed to her more halting command of a language that—to her memory at least—she had not spoken until slightly over half a year earlier.

When she had concluded, a boar with gleaming white tusks, who had arrived during the early stages of the meeting, grunted:

"This tale troubles me. Such care to steal speaks of desire to use. One does not go to the work of grubbing up roots merely to leave them rot."

"Nor," agreed the jay, "does such passivity mate with what we have observed of this Queen Valora."

"We are agreed then," the raven said, "to continue the course of action we settled upon when first the peregrine Elation brought her report?"

Assent sounded all around, no less enthusiastically in the howling of the One Female than in the bugling of the elk.

Even the white-tailed doe, wide eyes reflecting concerns that Firekeeper could only guess at, stomped a forehoof firmly thrice.

"Human Firekeeper," the raven said, sleeking his feathers then ruffling them again, "we have called you here not only to add your report to that of the peregrine Elation, but so that we might set a charge upon you."

Firekeeper frowned and would have spoken, but to her surprise the One Female nipped at her arm, warning her to silence.

"We want you," the raven continued, "to find these three objects and steal them from their current possessor. Bring them to us and we in our turn shall make certain that they are never again used."

Firekeeper spoke, heedless of the snap of her mother's fangs against her bare skin.

"Steal them?" she asked, her voice high and clear with amazement. "For you? What use do the Royal Beasts have for things made by humans, for humans?"

From seeming sleep the bear said in a voice thick with honey, "Because they were made by humans, for humans—that is why we want them. You are a naked wolf. I accept the evidence of my ears even though it violates the evidence of my nose. Surely you know that nakedness is a human's greatest strength."

Firekeeper stared at him.

"I cannot solve your riddle, wise bear."

But the bear appeared to have drifted off to sleep again and it was the fox who replied.

"Because I am smaller than a wolf, I must dig hiding places through all my territory. Humans are even weaker than I and so they make dens out of the bones of the earth and the flesh of the trees. They make fangs from metal and from stone. They wear our skins—or those of our Cousins—lest they freeze."

Firekeeper nodded slowly. "I begin to understand. And these objects—what are they? I have heard humans speak of the old magic as a thing to fear, but I lack the knowledge to sort the stories a bard sings from the truth."

"We owe the wolf cub a tale," the puma drawled from his rock. "I will begin."

Firekeeper sat, leaned back against Blind Seer, and opened both ears and heart to listen.

F
irst of all, little wolfling," the puma began in a voice like velvet, "even the humans know themselves strangers to this land. They call it the New World or the New Countries, as if they had created it by stumbling upon it, but like all lands this one has been here since the oceans suffered portions of the earth to rise above them.

"You may have also heard their tales of how these lands were uninhabited, ripe for settlement, eager for the axe and the plow. This is not true. We Royal Beasts lived here and our tales say we have always lived here, though our tales may miss some fragment of the truth.

"Suffice to say that we lived here long before the coming of the humans. Were it not for the tales the wingéd folk brought back from their migrations, we might have thought that there were no other peoples than those we already knew."

Firekeeper, who had been living and breathing politics since her departure with Earl Kestrel the previous spring, thought she detected a ripple of uneasiness on the part of some of the Beasts. The doe folded back her ears and the boar grunted to himself, but no one challenged the puma, so he continued his tale unchecked.

"When the humans first landed their boats on these shores it was at a place far from here. Some of our kind went to meet with them and indeed for a time the humans behaved as visitors in our land. They agreed to the limits we set and we even made treaties after the human fashion."

The bear shook himself and muttered sleepily, "They had not the wit to read the warnings in claw-marked trees or the noses to scent other kinds of markings."

"Nor," the puma continued, "did they seem able to share the land with others. I have my territory, but it is the territory of the wolves as well, and of birds and even of fish. Sometimes we challenge each other, but when a challenge is ended and a particular conflict solved, we go back to sharing. Humans cannot even share land with each other—and never with those they fear."

The doe spoke, taking up the thread of the tale with an enigmatic glance at the puma.

"And so, Firekeeper, the time came that the humans exceeded the amount of land the Royal Beasts had permitted them. More humans came across the oceans, wanting still more land. Some of the Beasts fought—challenging the human right to claim our territories as their own. And then we learned that they had claws sharper than the puma's, armies larger than packs of wolves. Lastly, we learned that these seemingly naked creatures had weapons more terrible than any we had been born to—the power of what humans now call Old Country magic."

"When first the humans came," the One Female said—her storytelling recalled to Firekeeper the many stories she had heard in her childhood—"they were mostly sailors and merchants and farmers. Later, as the colonies grew and were founded by many nations of the Old Country, the humans began to contest among themselves. Clearing away trees a hundred and more years old is great labor. A beaver enjoys damming streams, but digging courses to carry water to fields would defy the most optimistic mole. You have seen the dens humans build, the trails they cut… None of this happens easily. Soon the newcomers thought that it would be more efficient to take the first comers' lands from them—as a bear might steal a young wolf's kill."

The bear opened both eyes and reared in astonished protest.

The raven squawked, enjoying his role as meeting head, flapping wings that spanned nearly Firekeeper's full height when spread.

When the bear had halted—already halfway across the ground to the One Female—the raven said:

"Tell your tale, wolf, but remember that you are not speaking before your pack. Keep insults to yourself."

Firekeeper was astonished when the One Female abased herself, pressing her belly to the ground and whining.

"I did forget my manners," she said, "speaking as I was to one of my pups."

The bear collapsed back as if deciding against the effort to rise, but Firekeeper could tell that there was bad blood between this creature and her mother. At the folding of the raven's wings, the One Female continued the tale:

"When the humans first fought those Beasts who challenged their right to claim territory, they fought mostly with their false fangs and claws. Worst were the arrows, for they came from a distance and often from secret. Still, we held our own against even these. The wingéd folk especially learned to spot the archers, and how to spoil both their hiding and their aim."

Judging from how the gathered raptors shifted from foot to foot and admired their talons or honed their curved beaks against branches, the wingéd folk had spoiled more than those long-ago archers' aim.

"When the humans began to fight each other, however, a new and terrible force entered our land, and with its coming we learned to feel true terror of humanity. No longer did they seem naked creatures, but more akin to a poisonous insect that seems small and weak, but injects fire and sometimes death into its bite."

The elk—who had been digging furrows in the soft forest duff with his spreading rack—now took up the tale, his telling recalling the wind moaning through bare tree branches in the dead of winter.