Secrets of the Wolves (24 page)

“There are more,” he said, looking over his shoulder and paying no attention to the steep drop to his right. “We brought four more to the battle at Tall Grass. Don’t you remember?” I didn’t. There had been so many wolves on the plain I couldn’t keep track of them. “It’s supposed to be a secret,” Pell said. “No one outside Stone Peak is supposed to know about them.”

“Where are they?”

“In hiding,” he said. “In case something happens to us.”

That seemed excessively cautious to me. The Stone Peaks were strange wolves. “Why did you tell me?” I asked him.

“I didn’t want to keep any secrets from you.” He stopped and touched his cool, moist nose to my muzzle.

My breath, already short from our run, caught in my chest. Ázzuen stopped just behind us and growled. Pell looked down at him, pulled his lips back just a little, and trotted off.

“We were just talking,” I said to Ázzuen.

“I heard,” he said, looking at me as if I had just given good prey to a rival pack. “Are you going to just stand there?”

Pell had run ahead of us and had nearly caught up with Torell and Ceela. I didn’t answer Ázzuen but took off at a run after the Stone Peaks. I had gone about twenty paces when I realized Ázzuen was not behind me. I turned back to see him peering over the edge of the path.

“Kaala, come look at this,” he said.

Exasperated, I ran back to him. The Stone Peaks were getting ahead of us and he was staring at something that was probably completely unimportant.

“What is it?” I said. He was leaning precariously over the ledge. I stood next to him and looked down. All I saw was a gentle slope covered with dry bushes, rocks, and stunted trees.

“What?” I demanded. “I don’t see anything.”

I heard the shifting of paws on soft dirt, and then Ázzuen shoved me hard from behind. I tumbled down the hill with a great crashing of bushes. The slope was gentle and I landed unhurt in a clump of half-dead berry bushes.

Ázzuen yelped a cry for help, even though he could see perfectly well I was fine.

“Kaala?” Pell, running ahead with his leaderwolves, could still hear Ázzuen’s call. I couldn’t miss the panic in the Stone Peak wolf’s voice. I was still trapped in the prickly branches of the berry bush but could see Pell race around a bend in the path. He leapt over a large boulder, and ran fast, almost as fast as Marra did, then pelted down the hill to me. By the time he had reached me, I had managed to disentangle myself.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.
Except for the fact that Ázzuen just pushed me down a hill . . .

I allowed Pell to lead me back up to the path.

Ázzuen was waiting for us, a smug expression on his face. “Your leg doesn’t seem to bother you much,” he said to Pell. “I guess you won’t need help hunting after all.”

Pell narrowed his eyes at Ázzuen. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose I will.” He looked like he was going to say more but just whuffed in annoyance and ran after his leaderwolves. Astounded, I stared at Ázzuen. He had pushed me down a hill just to show that Pell wasn’t as injured as he pretended to be.

“Are you coming?” he said to me. He clambered over a low boulder and ran after the Stone Peak wolves.

There was nothing for me to do but follow. And to think about the fact that Pell had been using his injury to gain our sympathy.
My
sympathy.

We ran far to the east, toward the tall mountains that sheltered our valley. I had never been so close to them, and when we reached the top of a small hill, I stopped to look at them. Yllin would be outside the valley by now with Demmen. My mother was out there somewhere, too, waiting for me.
I could just run. I could run until I reached the mountains and beyond.

“We’re almost there,” Torell said. “It would be best not to stop.”

I shook off my thoughts and realized I had been standing still for several moments. Torell was watching me, impatience clear on his face and Ceela’s. Ázzuen was looking at me with concern. I couldn’t read the expression on Pell’s face.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Let’s go,” Ceela said, annoyed. She took the lead, loping down the hill.

We ran for another five minutes until we reached the border of Stone Peak lands, where their realm gave way to Tree Line territory. We crested a cypress-covered hill and hid ourselves among the trees. Our hill was taller than the ones around it, and we could see all the way to the mountains.

“There,” Torell said, pointing with his muzzle.

In the distance, wolves chased a herd of horses. Something about the hunt looked wrong. The horses seemed much smaller than they should. Then I realized that it wasn’t the horses who were small, but rather the wolves who were large. It was a Greatwolf hunt. I held my breath, waiting for the Greatwolves to notice us, but they were several hundreds of wolflengths away and upwind. I saw that none of the Stone Peaks seemed concerned, and made myself relax.

I pressed forward to the very edge of the trees. I’d never seen the Greatwolves hunt, for they always did so in secret. There were stories that they sat in the grass and waited until prey came by, then killed at once, with one leap, but it wasn’t true. They were hunting like ordinary wolves. They had killed five horses already, and these were being guarded by a lone Greatwolf. One horse for each wolf, I thought in amazement. The Greatwolves did not stop to eat but continued to run the prey. Four Greatwolves chased a large herd made up of close to a hundred horses. I expected them to separate out some of the horses the way we would, but they didn’t. They kept chasing the entire herd.

“They can’t kill them all,” Ázzuen whispered. “What are they doing?”

I was watching the hunt, but I knew that Ázzuen’s ears would be twitching in curiosity. The Greatwolves continued to pursue the herd. When some horses broke off, the wolves did not try to separate out the weakest of them and bring it down, as any sensible wolf would. Instead, they herded the stray horses back to the others. When the entire herd tried to bolt toward a downslope that led to a marsh, the Greatwolves wouldn’t let them, even though if the horses had entered the mire they would have been easier prey. Every time the horses deviated from the path they were on, the Greatwolves brought them back, chasing them toward a cleft in the low hills that led to the mountains.

“They’re driving them away,” I said, turning to Torell. “They’re chasing them out of the valley!”

Torell bared his teeth in what could have been either a snarl or a grim smile. His face was so ravaged by scars that part of his mouth was permanently pulled back, giving him the look of a grimace even when he had none.

“The horses, the small elk, the snow deer, the forest deer, the swamp pigs,” he said. “All of the smaller of the large prey. Yet the aurochs and the elkryn remain in the valley. What do you think those prey that remain have in common?”

“They’re all big,” I said. “So what?”

“The Greatwolves hunt them,” Ázzuen answered, looking at Torell.

“Yes,” the Stone Peak leader said. “They are the preferred prey of Greatwolves, and difficult and dangerous for ordinary wolves, for long-fangs and rock lions, and even for your humans, to catch.”

“They’re making our prey leave on purpose?” I asked, stunned by the implications of what Torell was saying.

“So we’ll fail,” Ázzuen said with certainty. “So that humans and wolves will fight.”

“I know of the task the Greatwolves have set you,” Torell said. “They do not, it appears, have any intention of letting you succeed.”

Without another word, he and Ceela turned around and trotted down the hill back toward their own territory. Pell, Ázzuen, and I stayed for a moment on the hillside.

“Milsindra and Kivdru,” I said. “It has to be them.”

“We have seen up to ten Greatwolves chasing away prey,” Pell said.

I blinked at that. It was half the council.

“Torell has more to tell you, if you’ll come,” Pell said.

It occurred to me then that we could run away, now that Torell and Ceela were gone. I needed to talk to Frandra and Jandru, and to tell the pack what was happening, and just because Torell had shown us the prey drive didn’t mean we could trust him. The hatred between Swift River and Stone Peak went too far back to be so lightly dismissed.

“You can rely on Torell’s word, Kaala,” Pell said, reading my expression. “He takes his honor seriously. He wouldn’t hurt you after promising not to. It would be worse to him than killing a packmate.”

Ázzuen was trying to catch my eye. Pell noticed.

“The two of you can discuss it,” he said. “We have a small gathering place behind the alder grove to your left. We’ll be there for another ten minutes.” He bent his head to touch my cheek lightly with his muzzle, then limped down the hill after his packmates. Halfway to the alder grove he seemed to remember that Ázzuen had just shown how little his leg hindered him, and he sprinted the rest of the way to the trees.

“We need all the information we can get,” I said to Ázzuen.

“I know,” he said. “Just don’t be so quick to trust Pell. He pretended to be more injured than he is so you’d feel sorry for him. Because he likes you.”

I had no answer for
that
. And I did find myself wanting to like the Stone Peak youngwolf. But Ázzuen didn’t need to know that. “We need Marra,” I said. “She would know what Torell was really up to.”

“We can’t howl for her,” Ázzuen said. “It’ll tell every wolf in the valley where we are.”

I looked up, hoping to find Tlitoo nearby. Of course, when I wanted him, he was nowhere to be found. “We’ll find out what Torell has to say,” I said.

“All right,” Ázzuen said, agreeing much more quickly than I had expected. I should have known, though. Anytime there was something new to learn or a mystery to solve he would want to be there. With the feeling I was diving once again into a river I could not swim, I ran down the hillside, following the paw prints made by Pell’s uneven gait.

If someone had told me that I would walk willingly into a Stone Peak gathering place, I would have thought they had been sitting too long near a burning dream-sage bush. I don’t know what I expected—that it would be guarded by twenty wolves, or that it would be barren and thus more suitable for fighting—but it was just an ordinary, fairly small gathering place smelling of alder, sage, and mint. The Stone Peaks couldn’t have been there more than a few minutes, but already they were relaxed, lying on the moist earth as if readying themselves for a midday sleep. Ázzuen and I stopped at the edge of the gathering place, waiting for Torell or Ceela to invite us in. Torell and Pell both rose, though Ceela did not, and Torell dipped his head to us, granting us permission to enter.

“You are welcome here,” Torell said formally as Ceela inclined her head the slightest bit. “I am glad you decided to join us.”

“As am I,” Pell said.

Ázzuen and I quickly greeted all three wolves, then stepped back to the edge of the gathering place. Before Pell or Torell could say anything else, I spoke.

“Why are you helping us?” I asked. “You hate the humans. I would think you want us to fail.”

Torell regarded me. “Ordinarily, youngwolf, I would, and I would do everything in my power to ensure that you did fail, even if it meant my own death at the Greatwolves’ teeth. I have no love of the humans, nor of any wolf who consorts with them. I do not really think you are drelshik; that is nonsense. I do think that the way you treat the humans as if they are packmates is repulsive. But I am not inflexible, and I will do what I must to protect my pack. And I would like your help.” He laughed at the startled expression on my face, then sobered. “I have been watching you since you were a smallpup, as has every wolf in the valley.”

I shifted uncomfortably. It did seem that every wolf in the valley knew things about me.

Torell ignored my unease. “Ruuqo has not allowed you to see the power that you have, Kaala. You and your friends.”

I couldn’t help but snort at that.

Torell twitched an ear.

“Why do you think the Greatwolves fight over you, of all the wolves in the valley?” he asked.

“Because of my mixed blood and the mark on my chest,” I said. “The Greatwolves think I’m the wolf of legend, and that what I do can either save wolfkind or anger the Ancients so much that they’ll destroy us.”

“The Ancients.” Ceela sneered. “The Ancients are no more than tales made up to fool gullible wolves who can’t think for themselves. You may as well say an alder tree will get angry and push you into the river.”

Shocked, I stared at Ceela, wondering if she could be serious.

“Never mind,” Torell said. “It doesn’t matter what you or I think of the Ancients. What does matter is that the Greatwolves are hiding something, and we need your help to find out what it is. They watch me too closely, and they trust you. They talk to you. They might let you near enough to find their secret cache and find what they hide there.”

I was still too bewildered to answer.

“And why should we help you?” Ázzuen said when I remained silent. “We would have found out about the Greatwolves and the prey eventually; the ravens would have told us. What good does it do us to help you?”