Secrets of the Wolves (39 page)

Ázzuen, Marra, and I emerged from the old woman’s shelter to find Jandru and Frandra already pushing their way into the small clearing. Once again, they did not smell of wolf. I was glad we hadn’t spoken more about our plans or the Greatwolf ritual; if not for Tlitoo, they could easily have snuck up and heard us.

“How do you do that?” Ázzuen demanded. “How do you disguise your scent?”

“It is a secret of the Greatwolves,” Jandru responded, his nose high in the air. “We speak to the Ancients and to the trees, and they give us this gift.”

“Ha!” Tlitoo said, hopping down from the top of NiaLi’s shelter. “You roll in the grouse-berry bush, then in the swamp mud, and the yew bark, then in whatever dung you can find. I saw you.”

Jandru stared at him for a moment, then whuffed in annoyance and turned his attention to me. If he could smell the old krianan’s uijin on us, he didn’t mention it.

“Walk with us,” he said.

We followed the Greatwolves into the denser part of the woods. I was terrified that they had overheard us talking about the ritual, or that they’d seen us on the poplar hill and would know we’d seen the cache, but when they spoke, it was only of TaLi.

“The girl must be krianan, Kaala,” Jandru said.

“I know,” I said, relieved.

“The council is waiting to see what she does,” Fran dra added. “If she does not prevail, it may tip the balance against us.”

“I know,” I said, my relief quickly replaced by annoyance. And concern. I had been worried ever since NiaLi said she might send TaLi to the Lan tribe. Even if Lan was able to protect TaLi, and even if they let her train to be a krianan, it would take us time to teach Lan about hunting with the wolves, especially with BreLan away. Which meant that even if we succeeded, it might take too long for me prove to the other packs that we could do well with the humans. And too long for me to be able to get to my mother.

“She knows, Grumpwolves,” Tlitoo said. The Greatwolves ignored him.

“You know that if the humans who wish to control everything triumph, nothing you or your pack may do will matter?”

“Yes.” Even if the Lan tribe stayed true to the old ways, there would be three tribes in the valley no longer following the true krianans, and we would have to succeed in spite of them. The Greatwolves weren’t telling me anything I didn’t know. Why were they trying to make me feel worse about it than I already did?

“Good,” Frandra said. “Then we have something to show you.”

They took us back the way we’d come, following almost exactly the path TaLi had taken to NiaLi’s. When we reached the ravine where we had tripped DavRian, I hesitated.

“What are they going to do?” Ázzuen whispered.

I didn’t know. I watched as Frandra’s tail disappeared into the bushes, then followed. She stopped by the two fallen trees where we had tripped DavRian.

“Look, Kaala,” Frandra said, pointing her nose down into the ravine.

DavRian was still there. He had not, as I’d expected, freed himself. Some of the sticks Marra had dumped on him were larger than we’d thought. He wasn’t hurt, but he was trapped. Then I saw what Frandra was pointing to. The ravine, which I had assumed continued its gentle slope to the bottom, fell off sharply into a deeper canyon, just pawswidths from where DavRian lay.

“He’s the one who convinced the leader of TaLi’s tribe that she should not be krianan. If he did not live, your girl could still win out. She could convince her leader that she is best for the tribe.”

Tlitoo flew down to stand above DavRian, then returned to us.

“He is not injured,” the raven said, “but he cannot get out on his own. Other humans come, though.”

“All you need to do, Kaala, is to push on the right side of the branch he lies upon. It will send the clump of dirt, and the human, down the hill. No one will know a wolf has done it. No one will know anything but that he fell in an accident.”

I felt sick. I had only wanted to stop him from following us. Then the meaning of Frandra’s words hit me. If DavRian was gone, he could not be a krianan. If he were dead, he could not insist on mating with TaLi, and she might have a better chance of being krianan of her own tribe. We could succeed quickly with the humans, and I could leave the valley to find my mother.

“Why don’t you do it?” I asked the Greatwolves.

“It is not our place to do so. He is your enemy. The choice is yours.”

DavRian looked up at me, and his eyes burned with hatred. I remembered him hitting TaLi. If the Lan tribe could not protect her, HuLin could force TaLi to be DavRian’s mate and renounce her duty as krianan. TaLi would die before she would do that. DavRian’s hate-filled eyes met mine, and I knew how easy it would be.

“No,” I said. “I won’t do it. It doesn’t matter if no one knows. It’s still breaking the promise of the Wide Valley.”

Ázzuen exhaled sharply next to me.

“
Drelshan
,” Jandru said softly.

“What? What do you mean?” I demanded. “What’s drelshan?” I had been called drelshik before, but never drelshan.

Jandru didn’t answer my question.

“Go to your pack, youngwolf,” he said. “Get them to join with you.”

He nodded to Frandra, and the two of them turned and bounded into the woods. By the time I had regained my breath and my wits, they were out of sight. We heard the voices of approaching humans.

“We have to go, Kaala,” Ázzuen said.

“Too bad,” Tlitoo grumbled. “I would have liked to taste this human’s greslin.”

I heard a commotion above me and looked up to see a raven shape in the trees. The ancient raven who had been following us was staring down at us. When he saw me watching, he gave a great cry and took flight.

Tlitoo stalked over to me and pecked my right forepaw. I yelped.

“
Now
, wolflet.”

“All right!” I said, licking my paw.

“We have less than two hours left before darkfall,” Marra said. “We’ll have to split up the territory.”

I was glad of it. I still wasn’t ready to tell Marra and Ázzuen about what Tlitoo and I could do together. I told Marra to take the river’s edge and Ázzuen to take the western part of the territory.

“If you find something, don’t howl,” I told them. “We’ll meet at Fallen Tree by darkfall with the rest of the pack, and decide what to do then.”

But they wouldn’t find anything. I knew where the Greatwolf ritual was. Borlla had said it was in our territory in a place that smelled of dream-sage, and Lydda had spoken of an ancient yew. There was only one place in our lands where an old yew tree stood and dream-sage grew: Wolf Killer Hill.

W
olf Killer Hill had earned its name because wolves often fell from its steep cliffs onto jagged rocks below. There were stories that it was haunted by the angry spirits of wolves who’d died there, and none of us ever went there unless necessary. If it was a secret place of the Greatwolves, I realized, they might have made up those legends themselves.

It didn’t take me long to get to Wolf Killer, but Tlitoo harried me the whole way, pecking at me if I slowed even a little, so that by the time I arrived at Wolf Killer just before dusk, I was panting. I couldn’t help but remember the last—and only—time I had been there. Ázzuen, Marra, and I had been hiding deer meat atop the hill when we’d overheard the Stone Peak wolves plotting against the humans. That was the day I had been exiled from my pack and the day I found out that the Greatwolves were not to be trusted.

I knew where the patch of dream-sage was. I had seen it the last time I was at Wolf Killer. I loped about halfway up the hill to where a path ran along a narrow ledge, then followed the path. To my left was the solid bulk of Wolf Killer Hill, to my right a grassy slope that led back down to the woods. I slowed as I reached a bend in the path, lowered myself to my belly, and began to edge forward. Tlitoo, uncharacteristically quiet, took small mincing steps beside me. I crawled around the bend and looked to my left, where the path fell away into a sudden drop that led to the sharp, lethal rocks below. It was as if some giant, starving beast had taken a huge bite out of the hill. A wolf running along the path could easily fall to her death.

Moving slowly, one pawswidth at a time, I crawled to the very brink of the cliff. I poked just my nose over the edge and smelled dream-sage. I lowered my muzzle and then the rest of my face over the ledge. The dream-sage grew in thick patches among the rocks, and, so close to the side of the hill that they would be hidden from a casual glance, the sleeping Greatwolves lay.

I took a huge, silent breath. A small part of me had hoped I was wrong, that I wouldn’t find them. That I wouldn’t have to lie down next to a sleeping Greatwolf and try to see its dreams. Now that I’d found them, I had no choice. Even if I wanted to leave now, Tlitoo wouldn’t let me.

I looked more closely at the sleeping Greatwolves. Most of them were clustered together. I saw Milsindra and Zorindru, and many wolves I didn’t recognize. Then I saw one wolf off to the side a little, in a particularly thick patch of dream-sage. It was Kivdru, Milsindra’s mate. Not my first choice, but he would do.

Tlitoo had apparently come to the same conclusion. He launched himself from the ledge and landed several wolflengths from Kivdru. Raven wings can be loud, and he probably didn’t want to risk waking the Greatwolf. He walked over to the Greatwolf and peered up at me.

I looked for a way down into the gorge. I could see large paw prints in the dirt wending a treacherous path between rocks and bushes. It must have been the way the Greatwolves had taken down. Slowly, carefully, I began to pick my way down the steep grade, following the Greatwolf trail as best I could. Their paw prints were too far apart, and I couldn’t reach most of them. I’d managed to get about halfway down the hill when I had to leap over a rock a Greatwolf had just stepped over and landed in dry slippery dirt. As I began to skid down the hill, I dug my front paws into the dirt. That was a mistake. My rear end flipped over my front, and I found myself falling tail over head down the hill. It occurred to me that this was exactly how wolves died on Wolf Killer. As soon as that thought hit me, I splayed all four of my legs out, landing hard on my face and opening a deep gouge in my left front paw as a sharp rock sliced into it, but stopping myself before I rolled any farther. I gulped down several deep breaths, then got my paws under me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. A Greatwolf lifting its head. I froze and stared down at the Greatwolf. It was Zorindru. He turned his pale eyes toward me, and I was certain he would call out to the other wolves, or at least come over to me. But he just looked at me for several awful moments. Then what I could swear was a smile pulled at his muzzle, and he laid his head back down.

I breathed again. I was about twenty wolflengths from Kivdru and Tlitoo. I limped down to them. I expected Tlitoo to make some kind of remark about my graceless descent down the hill, but he just leapt onto Kivdru’s back and blinked at me.

“Darkfall nears, wolf.”

I didn’t answer. There was no point in making more noise than necessary, and no point in waiting. I would have to trust the uijin to disguise my scent and Tlitoo to warn me if Kivdru started to wake up. I lay down next to Kivdru and carefully pressed myself against him. I was shaking so hard I was sure my trembling would wake him, but he slept on. Tlitoo walked across the Greatwolf’s broad back, then lowered his head to mine.

I closed my eyes as the now familiar falling sensation washed over me. I let the cold flow over me and allowed my nose to become accustomed to the lack of scent. Then I opened my eyes, ready to see what Kivdru dreamt of. I saw only darkness and felt an overwhelming sadness and a deep, resentful anger. I pulled away and found myself back at Wolf Killer, feeling slightly nauseated by the despair and anger I’d felt from Kivdru. My throat was dry, and I swallowed several times, trying to moisten it. I looked up at Tlitoo. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, his neck ruff sticking straight out. I closed my eyes again, trying to see Kivdru’s dream. Nothing. I prodded Tlitoo with my muzzle.

“It’s not working,” I whispered.

“I
know
, wolf,” he rasped. The return of his acerbic manner comforted me.

I looked uneasily around the rocky dream-sage patch. Zorindru had woken up already; what if another Greatwolf did?

“Maybe we should go,” I said

“Quiet, wolf. I have an idea. Try again.”

I closed my eyes once more, leaning hard against the Greatwolf. The darkness blurred, and my stomach lurched as I felt the world around me spin.

“Ha!” Tlitoo said. “I can so do it.”

I opened my eyes. We were back the Stone Circle. We were back at the Inejalun. And a wolf was there, waiting for us.

He was a large wolf, not quite as big as a Greatwolf, but as big as the Stone Peaks. He had ordinary light gray fur, but his eyes were a bright silver unlike any wolf eyes I’d ever seen, and the tips of his ears seemed to disappear into the bright light above him. A raven stood next to him. It was the ancient raven who had been following me around, but he looked young and healthy and had silvery eyes just like the wolf’s. The wolf opened his mouth in a smile, revealing large, sharp teeth.