Children of the Wolves (16 page)

She had just reached a shallow pool that curved along the far end of the reed bed when another glint caught her eye. Guessing it was another fish, she bent down for a closer look, then bit back a horrified cry. Beneath the water, Isolde lay on her side, eyes open and unseeing, the current rocking her body gently, her long dark hair waving in the water like a breeze caught and lifted it. The rocks — or something — had cut her face and her clothing but the water had washed the blood away.

Viktor must have heard her cry out, for he immediately abandoned his search and made his way toward her.

“Jelena?” he said as he reached her side. She pointed wordlessly at the — thing — that had caught her attention. “By all that's good,” he said, the color draining from his face. He grabbed Jelena's hand and pulled her to shore, then wrapped his arms around her fiercely. Jelena clutched him, unwilling to believe what she'd seen, but knowing that she'd expected something like this from the moment she first saw the Sithan warriors on the river. She didn't move when she heard Michael's dry uninflected voice addressing Viktor.

“What is it?”

“Isolde.”

“Wolves?”

“No,” Jelena brought her head up and tore herself away from Viktor's arms. “Michael, you know it's not wolves.”

Michael didn't respond, merely walked downstream to the spot where Jelena had found Isolde. Wading into the water, he crouched down to look. A moment later, he lifted Isolde's body and brought her to shore, placing the mauled remains in the shadow of an oak.

“It could have been wolves,” he remarked, gesturing at the wounds. “She was badly hurt before she died.” He glanced up at Viktor. “Will you alert the physician and perhaps one of the elders? We'll need a litter to get her up the path and back home.”

Viktor nodded and darted off to find help. Jelena crouched next to Michael and placing a hand on his arm said, “It wasn't wolves, Michael. You can't say it was.” Not when Jelena had seen Sithan warriors, not when she knew the trader hadn't been killed by wolves. But Michael didn't say anything at all.

Michael looked at Jelena, taking in her angry eyes, her tight jaw.

“It was the Sithans,” she said flatly. “You know that.”

He couldn't think what to say. The horrific death of Isolde should have occupied every thought, every feeling, but all he could think, all that played over and over in his mind, was Jelena with Viktor, smiling up at him, holding his hand. To have seen Viktor lightly embrace her was bad enough; to find that she turned to him in crisis instead of Michael, who had been standing right there, was more than he could take.

He tried to push his unproductive feelings aside. How could he be worried about Jelena and whatever mad thing she was going to do next? He had the entire tribe to care for, the council to keep informed, the delicate task of shaping their opinion without seeming to do so. Now the brutal death of another tribe member … and the Wudu-faesten still entirely unprepared for war against the Sithans.

He rocked back on his heels and looked up at Jelena, her warm brown eyes on his face, her long dark hair blowing in the breeze. He should have sent her instead of Viktor for help. To have her standing this close to him, looking bereft and afraid and there was no comfort he could offer her —

“Michael,” Jelena said, and then he heard an echoing shout from behind her.

“Michael,” Viktor yelled. “The elders have convened a council meeting and want you to attend right away. Sebastian has brought a litter.” He indicated the physician, who was steps behind him. “He and I will see to Isolde.”

Michael nodded and got to his feet. At another time he would have offered a hand to Jelena and walked back to the village with her, then made sure another protector was available to watch after her before hurrying off to attend the council meeting. But she was no longer his responsibility. She was on her own. She had made it clear that she had no use for him. He didn't let himself dwell on the hurt look in her eyes as he walked away without another word.

Glancing back once, he saw the strong lithe body of a wolf standing on the bluff overlooking the river. It seemed to stare at him for a long moment before turning and padding back into the woods.

• • •

“I cannot tell the people it was wolves,” Michael said. He sat at his accustomed place at the table though he was not an elder.

“Do you know it was the Sithan warriors?” Archibald demanded. “Have you evidence?”

“Evidence? No. But it wasn't wolves, and it seems likely — ”

“But why?” Cara interjected. She folded her hands on the scarred tabletop and leaned forward, her blue eyes, usually pale, now fierce and piercing. “Why would the Sithans harm Isolde?”

Michael shrugged. “Perhaps she came upon them in a suspicious activity and they didn't want her to tell what she saw.”

“What suspicious activity?” Maurice wanted to know, his brows beetling together.

“I don't know,” Michael said. They were missing the important point. How could he get them to understand?

“Do you know what will happen if we accuse a member of the Sithan tribe of a violent crime?” Cara asked.

“The people will expect a formal acceptance of guilt and an apology from the Sithan leaders,” Maurice said before Michael could answer. “And if they don't get that, they will demand the Sithans pay blood price.”

“If the Sithans refuse, the Wudu-faesten must exact retribution,” Cara added.

“I have said this before, but perhaps you will be more willing to listen now,” Michael said. “We must prepare for war.”

But Archibald was already shaking his head. “We can do nothing to provoke war. If we appear to be building our military might, war will be what we get. We must concentrate on following the Way and sending peaceable intentions throughout the world. We can't defeat or destroy the Sithans: we must learn to live with them.”

“But they don't want to live peaceably with us,” Michael said.

Cara shot Archibald a measuring look, then turned to Michael. “What Archibald means is that we can't do anything now.”

Michael's heart sank. The elders believed that they would awaken a warrior chief and that he would protect them. Rodrigo was their only hope, but it was unlikely he would awaken soon. In the meantime, the elders insisted on taken an appeasement line, and if calling themselves peaceable made it easier to swallow, then that was what they would do.

So he must put off telling the truth to the people a little longer, in the interests of keeping the tribe alive for another year. He sighed. He didn't know what other arguments to make or how to persuade them to listen to him. He was not their warrior chief.

He got to his feet as a knock came at the door and Teresa slid into the room. He gave her a startled look but the elders didn't object to her presence. She took the seat Michael had just left. Cara turned a friendly look on her.

“And how is Rodrigo?”

Michael left the council room before she answered.

• • •

“Wolves,” Michael announced to the assembled villagers that evening. He didn't meet Jelena's gaze. She would never know what it cost him to say what he said. She hadn't been privy to the council meeting he had so recently endured.

“Our healer Isolde was taken from us by wolves,” Michael said, and the words burned like acid in his throat. He felt almost relieved when Jelena pushed her way out of the crowd gathered in the courtyard and strode into the main hall, slamming the door shut behind her. He didn't know how he would have responded to a spoken challenge from her.

A few of the villagers watched her go and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. They liked Jelena for all that she was unawakened. She obviously disagreed with the pastor, and whereas they acknowledged the pastor might have his reasons for speaking something less than the truth, what reason would Jelena have for dissenting? Unless she knew something she wasn't saying?

But as usual their natural distaste for conflict overcame their reservations, as Michael knew would happen, and they came to the consensus that wolves had indeed been the direct cause of Isolde's death.

“Of course it was the wolves,” Cara said at the evening meal that night, dismissing and stilling the gossip with one sentence. “We had a mild winter last year. They are always out in force following a mild winter.”

That was true, the villagers said to one another … or was it?

So later on, after the dishes had been cleared, the storyteller gathered them together and called for his lute. The helpers lit the gathering fire and the people listened to the tale with rapt attention.

“The first born suffered many trials to show us the Way,” he began. This was a story he told only rarely, so the tribe members leaned close to hear it. “I have sometimes wondered if the makers set these challenges so that the first born would have to prove themselves worthy. For if they had not proven themselves worthy, none of us would be here.”

He stilled the lute and his dark piercing eyes met the reluctant gazes of different tribe members. First Alaric, then Emma, then Samuel. After a long moment he picked another chord on his lute and continued.

“First they had to find food and water, though they were newlyborn, alone and afraid, hardly capable of walking, barely remembering how to speak. They sheltered in the caves at first, huddled together with no protection. They had to find the river with no one to guide them, and forage for food in the forest, with no one to show them how. But these things they did despite their fear.”

Again he stopped and gazed at the assembled villagers, as if to challenge them to dispute his tale.

“But they survived. They found food and water. They remembered how to make clothes and shelter. They emerged from the caves, to live in the light, as the makers intended.” Again the challenging stare, as if someone might contend that the makers had really meant them to stay in the caves. But of course no one believed that, not even Jelena.

“But this world is a hard one. And the first born suffered. They died of yellow fever, shivering to death and vomiting up their guts. They fell ill with malaria and there was nothing they could do to stop the delirium. They died of breakbone fever, their bones and muscles and joints ripped apart. They starved in the bad years when there was not enough food to be found. But some survived. And the world around them battled them as if it questioned their right to exist. The winds came, destroying all. The rains came, flooding the river from its banks. But the first born survived and persevered. And then the animals challenged them. The cougars in the forest, slashing down at them, the snakes ambushing them from the trees. The buffalo destroying crops, and the wild mustangs trampling everything in their way.”

The tribe listened, spellbound, to the trials and tribulations of the first born. The storyteller strummed another chord.

“But that was not the worst. The worst were the wolves, sneaking into the shelters at night, stealing trueborn children from their beds. Hunting anyone foolish enough to go beyond the fence. The wolves are cunning and dangerous,” he said. “And they travel in packs, just waiting for the Wudu-faesten to let down their guard.”

Michael turned away, glad Jelena had already retreated to the kitchen. He knew the storyteller's tale would have provoked a rash defense of wolves from her. Though he disagreed with the elders and thought the tribe must prepare for war, he didn't think there was anything wrong with the storyteller telling his story and reassuring the Wudu-faesten that they were not under attack by a human enemy.

He was wrong.

That night, the tribe began killing the wolves.

• • •

Jelena stormed into his quarters at sunrise, her arms full. His first muddled thought was that she was holding a fur cloak and he wondered why she was carrying it around this time of year. Then he saw the blood. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows. She dropped the bundle at the foot of his pallet.

“This must stop,” she said, her voice pitched low but he could hear the steel in it. “This is the fifth wolf in three nights.”

He sought to collect his wits, closing his eyes briefly, willing himself to alertness. “The tribe is frightened,” he said.

“The people are afraid of the wrong thing,” Jelena said through her teeth. “Wolves don't attack humans unprovoked. This must stop. You must tell them the truth.”

“Jelena, we don't know the truth. We don't know who — or what — is attacking our tribe. We don't know what they want or why they're doing it. What can we tell the tribe? They'll be frightened and there's no way to stop it. What would you have me do?”

“I don't know,” Jelena said. “I'm only the cook's helper. But you can't keep lying.”

“Jelena,” he said and then hesitated. He shouldn't share the privileged conversation with her, but the rumors had been circulating since Rodrigo was newlyborn, so of course she would have heard. Finally, he plunged ahead. “You know we hope that Rodrigo will awaken and become our warrior chief. When he does so, he will be able to lead us against our enemies. But before then — we're not prepared for war.”

Jelena studied him for a long moment, her face calm and detached. He hated how detached she seemed.

“If you want him to awaken and lead you then you need to take better care of his protection,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Teresa and Rodrigo have been lovers for at least a month.”

“Teresa?” Michael echoed. “Rodrigo?” He swore softly and fell back among the pillows on his pallet.

“If the legends are true, when a protector and a newlyborn become partners, the newlyborn may never awaken.”

Michael knew the stories. He had often wondered if his romantic love for Jelena, although never consummated, had somehow even so poisoned her, dooming her to remain unawakened. The fear and dread of that result had always prevented him from speaking, even as the long years passed.