Spirit of the Wolves (23 page)

Wolf and human attacked again, and before long, the rhino lay dead, his life fleeing his body.

But his warning remained behind.

I shook myself, tossing away the rhino's words. Prey would say anything to survive, and now that he had stopped moving,
he was nothing more than good meat. And another way to prove our worth to the humans.

I don't know who was panting harder, wolves or humans, as we stood around the dead beast. Lallna was already trying to chew through its thick fur and hide while the rest of us stood staring at the animal.

HesMi watched both me and TaLi. Lallna glanced up briefly from her futile meal to stare at me. She was waiting to see if I would be submissive. I forced my tired legs into action and climbed atop the dead prey, then stood tall, claiming it. I heard a sharp whuff of breath from Ázzuen, but TaLi just smiled up at me. Tlitoo quorked approvingly and flew into the woods with Jlela.

First one and then another human started laughing. When I jumped down from the beast, a large human leaned over me. I expected him to thump me on the ribs the way male humans sometimes did, but instead he picked me up. I panicked for a moment, thinking he might throw me to the ground, but he just turned once with me in his arms and set me down before I could get over my shock.

“I like your wolves!” He grinned at TaLi. Then he picked the girl up and twirled her much the same way. When he set her down, several other humans thumped her on the back. HesMi watched them, smiling. Lallna, who'd finally managed to tear off a piece of meat, grinned at me. Pell dipped his head to me and slipped into the woods and away from the humans.

Unlike the humans in the Wide Valley, the Kaar hunters didn't seem to mind that we claimed our share of prey. They seemed to expect it. In the hours it took the humans to cut through the hide of the beast and begin to strip it of meat, we
gorged ourselves, feeling comfortable enough to eat our fill among humans. Every once in a while there would be an altercation over a piece of meat, but it was settled quickly as it would be in any pack. I caught DavRian's aggrieved expression and lifted a lip at him. He watched me for a moment and a sly grin crossed his face. He whispered to IniMin. They were waiting for something, but I didn't know what. I took another bite of rich, fresh meat.

By dusk, the humans had cut away most of the meat and loaded it onto the sleds they used to help transport large loads. Ázzuen had an endless fascination with these sleds, which the humans made by tying, bending, and weaving wood and vines together in intricate ways, and he was chewing experimentally at the place where a taut cluster of vines was tied to what looked like most of the trunk of a young aspen. I was more interested in what remained of the rhino carcass. The humans left good bones behind and some good greslin. We could tell the Sentinels and they could come back for it later.

Prannan trotted to me, his tail waving. Ázzuen, meat-heavy and tired, staggered over to where BreLan was loading meat onto one of the sleds.

DavRian and IniMin stood then, moving quickly enough to make me nervous. They jogged to where HesMi was standing. They each carried one of the lit branches the humans used to light their way at night. I was far away from them, and they didn't seem to realize that our hearing was better than theirs.

DavRian pointed at Ázzuen. “That one was attacking MikLan. Later I saw it standing over him while he was sleeping, waiting to kill him, but it saw me and ran away. The boy
left but it stayed behind to try to kill someone else. It's the one we called ‘Child Killer' in the Wide Valley. If it bites someone, he'll be as much wolf as human. And the more time they spend together, the more he'll become like a wolf.”

It had been Marra he'd accused before. He couldn't even tell one wolf from another.

“That one's a ghostwolf.” IniMin gestured to Lallna, whose silvery fur did glow when she stood in the moonlight. She was so intent on tearing meat off the remaining rhino bones that she didn't look up. “It's a spirit that can suck the life out of a man while he sleeps.”

“And then there's Bloody Moon”—DavRian looked at me—“the most dangerous one. They all follow it.”

HesMi looked skeptical, but several other humans frowned in concern. I trotted over to Ázzuen.

“I heard them,” he said. “They've been saying that about me since DavRian saw Marra and MikLan playing.” He looked at the humans around us. “A lot of the humans believe him.”

Lallna crept up behind us, laughing.

“Ghostwolf?” she gulped. “And you're Bloody Moon?”

“It isn't funny,” I said. “It could be dangerous. It's why Marra left.”

“You knew he was going to try something, Kaala,” Ázzuen said. “You knew they'd try to stop TaLi from succeeding.”

“I know,” I said. I was tired. “We'll have to keep impressing HesMi.”

“You will, Kaala,” Prannan said, blinking sleepily. “And we'll help you.”

I looked into his trusting eyes. Ázzuen was watching me, too, waiting to see if I needed him.

“We'll keep listening to what DavRian says,” I said. “And we'll keep hunting with the humans.” We still had fourteen days until Even Night.

I plodded over to TaLi and, as darkness fell and the humans lit more of their fire branches, I let her lead us back to Kaar.

D
arkness brought quiet to the village. As soon as they dragged the rhino meat to safety, the villagers of Kaar settled in, making their meals, setting up guards around their homes, and sitting around their fires repairing tools and talking.

I grew more and more anxious. DavRian was making up stories about us, and some of the humans would believe him. The rhino's warning nagged at me, and I still feared that the humans would blame us for bringing him to the village. But most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the strange little wolves Neesa had shown me. She'd said the humans preferred them to us, that they'd lost the wildness that was wolf, and thus were a threat to wolfkind.

Yet my love for TaLi didn't make me want to be submissive to the humans or give up my will, and the humans of Kaar didn't seem to mind that we weren't their curl-tails. I wanted to know what it was about the streckwolves that made
the humans prefer them to us, and to understand why they were so dangerous. And, I had to admit, they intrigued me. I felt drawn to them as I would to a packmate.

With Even Night only half a moon away, and both Milsindra and DavRian trying to thwart us, I needed to know everything I could about the little wolves.

I smelled Pell and Ázzuen in the woods just beyond the village. Prannan and Amma sat by one of the fire pits next to JaliMin, watching as two humans stretched out a piece of rhino hide and scraped at it with one of their tools. The boy was feeding them small pieces of rhino meat, a look of enchantment on his face. I didn't see or smell Lallna anywhere, but that didn't mean she wasn't skulking somewhere. I needed an excuse in case she came looking for me. I padded over to Prannan and Amma.

“We're going to look for a smallprey copse Neesa told me about,” I said loudly.

“We'll stay here,” Prannan said. “It's almost time for JaliMin to sleep.” He licked his muzzle. JaliMin gave him another piece of meat. Prannan gulped it. Amma pawed at the boy, who burbled a laugh and held out a piece of cooked rhino. Amma gobbled it from his hand, and licked his face.

I started to say something to them—that their place was with their pack, or that they shouldn't go to sleep just because the humans did. But they seemed so happy to be with the boy, and they could tell Lallna my lie if she came looking for me. I touched my nose to Prannan's face and then to Amma's and trotted out to find the others.

They were sitting by the small stream just beyond the village. Ázzuen was glaring at Lallna. Pell was trying not to laugh.

“Tell her she can't do it, Kaala,” Ázzuen said to me.

Lallna crouched down in a patch of moonlight. The moon was almost half full and her fur shone in its light.

“I'm a ghost wolf,” she said, her face stern. “I'm going to haunt the humans.” Then, unable to hold her serious expression any longer, she slapped both forepaws on the ground twice and ran into the stream and out again, laughing.

“It isn't funny,” Ázzuen said, seeing my muzzle twitch. I couldn't help it. DavRian sounded so stupid calling Ázzuen “Child Killer” and me “Bloody Moon.” And especially calling Lallna “Ghost Wolf.”

“It's important, Kaala,” Ázzuen said. “If DavRian keeps provoking their fears, the humans will hate us. Like they started to in the Wide Valley.”

A rustling of leaves interrupted him and we turned to see Lallna's tail disappearing into the bushes that bordered the village.

“Stop her, Kaala,” Ázzuen said. I hesitated.

“Oh, for the love of the Moon,” Pell said. “When's the last time we had some fun?” His tail began to wag.

Ázzuen watched me.

“I can't stop Lallna from doing anything,” I said.

“You can if you assert your role as leaderwolf.” His eyes were intent on me. “When are you going to, Kaala?”

I blinked at him. I had enough to do without trying to assert authority over Lallna and Pell. But he had made me uneasy. I followed Lallna.

It was dark in the human village, but the moonlight streamed into the clearing, and fire lit uneven patches of ground between their dwellings.

Several humans crouched around the largest fire, talking, eating, working with their tools. A few of their young slept in the arms of adults. It reminded me of the first time I'd seen the humans in their homesite in the Wide Valley. A familiar yearning tugged at my chest, the wish to be with them, to be next to them, inhaling their scent. I looked for TaLi, but couldn't see her.

Lallna had managed to slip unnoticed into a stream of moonlight and stood, eyes slitted, ears tall. The moon gave her coat a strange glow. No one noticed her at first. She looked around impatiently. Then she tipped back her head and gave a long, low howl.

The humans looked up, alarmed. Lallna opened her jaws, showing off sharp teeth.

I'd hoped the humans would think it was funny. I'd hoped they would laugh as they had when we'd chased JaliMin around, or that Lallna's game would help them bond with us like they did when Ázzuen had played with them on the way to the rhino hunt.

At first they were silent. Then a female clutched the child she held more tightly and turned away, protecting the child with her back. I heard a gasp and then another. Someone threw a piece of wood at Lallna. She howled again. Other humans stared, their faces contorted with fear.

Ázzuen had been right. And there was nothing I could do about it.

“Get back here,” I whispered urgently to Lallna. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and showed more fang. She didn't care that she was scaring them. She wouldn't mind at all if the humans hated us.

Several humans got up the courage to chase her away, and she bolted toward me.

We both ran, pelting as fast as we could into the woods. The humans didn't chase us far, but I could hear their voices rising in anxiety.

We stopped, panting, at the stream where Ázzuen and Pell waited for us. Lallna rolled onto her back, laughing so hard she couldn't speak.

“Did you see their faces?” she finally gasped. “They looked like a cluster of voles that's just realized they're about to be a meal!”

Ázzuen didn't reproach me. He just looked at Lallna in annoyance. Pell seemed as oblivious as Lallna and grinned down at her. She met his gaze and then licked his muzzle. He smiled slowly, then rested his head briefly against her neck.

I wanted to get out of there, and quickly. I knew I should tell Pell where I was going; he was pack. But I found I didn't want him with me. I licked the side of Ázzuen's face and whispered to him.

“Come with me?”

He looked startled, then like he was about to argue, but something in my gaze must have changed his mind. He dipped his head to me and followed me when I slipped away.

“We should find out what the humans are saying,” he said.

“We will,” I answered, “when we come back. I want to show you something.”

He stopped for a moment, then a pleased smile tugged at his muzzle.

“Where?” he asked.

In answer I sprinted away, glad to leave my problems in Kaar behind me, even for a little while. With a happy yip, Ázzuen followed.

We ran full pelt for several minutes, even though I knew we should conserve our energy, for it was hours to the streckwolves' gathering place. It just felt so good to be running side by side with Ázzuen like we used to in the Wide Valley, when we were responsible only for helping with the hunt and winning our places in the pack. I could hear his heart beating in time with mine and felt the warmth of his body as he ran just far enough from me to avoid tripping me up. His paws hit the earth in a solid, steady rhythm and his breath came in easy, even gusts. I could imagine him leading a hunt with me, our pups and packmates following behind. I could imagine coming home to the lush, moonlit copse Neesa had found for us, followed by a contented pack, our bellies full of prey. The thought dizzied me and I almost tripped over my own paws. I tried to focus on the night's task. Before we could even think about pups or territory of our own, we had to survive past Even Night.