Spirit of the Wolves (33 page)

“You didn't wake another wolf?” The sharp voice was Neesa's.

Lallna growled in agreement. “Traitorwolf,” she whispered. No one reprimanded her.

Milsindra snarled down at her, then lifted a lip to Navdru. “You allow smallwolves to speak to you this way?”

Navdru swung his head from Milsindra to Lallna and Neesa, but said nothing. I walked past them and into the center of the clearing, stepping over wolf bodies. All bore the marks of human spears. A few had their throats cut.

It was my fault. I hadn't thought to warn the Sentinels when DavRian said he was planning to kill wolves. Somehow, I'd never thought of them as so vulnerable.

Tlitoo strode over to me. “Do not falter now, wolflet. It is not the time.”

I realized I was standing with one forepaw raised. I placed my paw down carefully, as if the ground were full of thorns. I looked at the wolves around me, trying to find something to say.

“No pack leaves itself unguarded.” That was Neesa again.

Navdru ignored her to address me. “This is what happens when we get close to the humans, Kaala. This is what we warned you about. This is what we hoped you would be able to keep from happening.”

“Now will you kill this drelshik?” Milsindra growled. “Before more wolves die?”

My mother shifted back and forth on her paws, as if readying to fight Milsindra, Yildra, and Navdru all on her own. I gathered my courage.

“You let the humans into the gathering place on purpose,” I said to Milsindra. “And you drove a rhino to Kaar and the crazed wolf toward the village, and you let humans see you.”

“Drelshik!” Milsindra snarled at me. “No youngwolf behaves in such a way!” She began to stalk toward me, her head lowered between her shoulders and her lips drawn back.

Navdru stopped her with a growl.

“This is my pack, not yours,” he reminded her. “And I am not unaware of your attempts to frighten the humans.” He looked down at me. “I allowed it, youngwolf, because I wanted the humans afraid. I wanted to see if their fear would make them dangerous, and it has. Did you have any idea they would react in such a way?”

“I didn't,” I answered.

“She's lying,” Milsindra said. “Just today the human from the Wide Valley killed five other humans and blamed the wolves. She should have come to us then. Her father's blood influences her too much.”

My mother slipped past her guards and walked calmly to stand by my side. I should have lowered my tail and ears and asked for forgiveness, but I was too angry.

“Hiiln was a better wolf than you are,” I said to Milsindra.

Milsindra laughed and Neesa looked embarrassed.

“Hiiln wasn't your father, Kaala,” she said, avoiding my gaze.

I looked at her, confused. Hiiln had to be my father.

“I will tell her if you will not,” Milsindra purred. “I would have done so before, Kaala, but I only just found out myself. But it makes perfect sense. Will you tell her, Neesa?”

I watched Milsindra warily. Anything that gave her that much pleasure couldn't be good. She smiled. “I know that you met the streckwolves.”

“Yes,” I said, wondering at the change of subject.

“Did you meet one named Gaanin?”

I hesitated, not knowing if I should admit that I'd spoken to the streckwolf. I looked at Neesa.

“Gaanin is your father, Kaala,” Neesa said. “That's why everyone is so concerned about you. When I dreamed of having pups that would save wolfkind, I went in search of Hiiln. We were mates for only a short time.” She whimpered softly, then lifted her chin. “When he was killed, I vowed to honor his memory and to fight for the cause he had died for, even if it killed me, too. I found Gaanin, and thought that if I had pups with him and raised them in the Wide Valley, they might be the ones to succeed where we had failed. You have the wildness of the wolf mixed with the strangeness of the streckwolf and their love of the humans. All of the Wide Valley wolves have some streckwolf in them—which is why we have always been watched so carefully—but you have the most. It is why Ruuqo killed your littermates when he learned I had mated outside the valley, and why the Greatwolves of the Wide Valley saved you. We thought that you might be able to retain your wildness where streckwolves could not.”

“It's a mistake we won't repeat,” Milsindra growled.

“It wasn't a mistake,” my mother growled back. “It was the best way, the only way.” She lifted her chin to the Greatwolves.
“She found her way to the humans when she was only four moons old. She won their love without submitting to them. All on her own, she almost made it work.”

“But blood will tell,” Milsindra growled. “She saved streckwolves when we tried to kill them four days ago. She sheltered them. And, in the end, her wildness made the humans hate her. In the end, her wildness made them kill.”

The wind had grown stronger and roared so loudly in my ears that I had trouble hearing what the Greatwolves were saying. I was part streckwolf. That's why I was so different. That's why I was aberrant. I lay down and placed my face in my paws. Neesa had said that their very existence was considered a threat to all wolves. If I was half streckwolf, then maybe I really was the destroyer of wolfkind. It was beginning to look that way.

Tlitoo pecked me hard between my ears. “Enough whining, wolflet.”

I got to my paws and shook myself.

“DavRian is just one human,” was the first thing I thought of to say. “There are good ones, and we will help the good ones overcome the bad.” I lifted my chin, mimicking my mother's boldness. “I have to get back to our humans now.” I turned my back on the Sentinels and walked away.

Large paws pushed me to the earth and I rolled over to look up into Navdru's gaze. I heard a yelp and then a scuffle. Two Sentinels hustled Ázzuen into the gathering place.

“This one was hiding in the bushes, watching us,” one of them said with a smirk. “Maybe he was planning an attack.” Ázzuen glared up at them and trotted over to me. Navdru let me get to my paws.

“Next time, don't challenge them directly,” Ázzuen said,
licking the top of my head. “You aren't as big as you think you are.”

“You followed me.”

“Of course I did,” he said as if I were as simple-minded as a grubfinder bird, “when the Greatwolf howled that they'd found you. I heard what Neesa said, Kaala, about Gaanin being your father. It doesn't matter. You've done more than any other wolf to bring wolves and humans together.” Then he lowered his head to mine. “It's bad, Kaala. HesMi believes DavRian. She says we're vicious and should all be killed.”

My stomach clenched so tightly that I retched, and my tongue was so thick in my mouth that I could hardly breathe. HesMi wanted us dead. We had failed. Because I was the daughter of a streckwolf. An aberrant wolf. The destroyer of wolfkind.

The Greatwolves around us began a low, rhythmic growling like none I'd ever heard. They formed a half circle around us, heads lowered and swaying. My mother rushed back to my side. Tlitoo hovered above the Greatwolves, his beak opening and closing.

Navdru looked at me, compassion in his gaze. “I'm sorry, youngwolf.”

My haunches tensed as I prepared to run or to fight. Neesa barked a challenge. Ázzuen rumbled a deep, threatening growl. His face was contorted in a snarl so fierce that I would have been afraid to be on the other side of it. The Greatwolves advanced.

Then Navdru's head snapped up. I heard the heavy footsteps of humans in the forest around us a moment after he did.

We all bolted out of the clearing and hid among the thick junipers.

DavRian's voice flew on the rising wind, as he led a large group of humans into the clearing. They all carried their fire branches and their spears.

“I told you there were giant wolves,” he said, pointing to the Greatwolves' bodies. “Just like I told you the wolves would poison us.”

Navdru growled beside me. “That's the one who did this,” he said. “I can smell his scent all over my pack.” He stood then, and strode into the clearing to confront DavRian as he would confront any wolf who had injured a packmate under his protection. He still didn't understand how different the humans were from us, how much more dangerous. Yildra walked at his side. Milsindra, grinning at me, gave a loud bark and followed them.

The humans whirled to see three huge wolves stalking them. One of them screamed, terrified. Another threw his fire branch at Navdru, who knocked it away with a swing of his huge head. The wind took the flame, and the thick juniper bushes surrounding the clearing caught fire.

Then all of the humans were running toward us, their fire branches waving. DavRian raised his high, lighting the pine tree next to him. The flame jumped from one bough to another, carried on the howling wind.

“Burn them,” he screeched. He lit another juniper, and the dry bark of the pine next to it caught fire. Then, in a frenzy of fear, the humans began to set fire to everything around them. It made no sense, but their fear-fevered eyes were not the eyes of sane creatures. They were like the crazed wolf, running in circles that would take it nowhere. But they were more dangerous than a hundred maddened wolves.

“They'll burn everything,” I gasped. Ázzuen stared, unmoving, at the flames as if he were merely watching the humans make use of one more of their clever tools.

“They couldn't have picked a worse place,” he whispered, his eyes wide. “Pine and juniper burn better than anything.”

“Run, stupid little wolves,” Tlitoo rasped, poking me and then Ázzuen hard on our rumps.

Ázzuen shook himself, still staring, mesmerized by the flames. Neesa slammed into us.

“The wind is blowing the fire toward the village,” she said. “The Sentinels will run toward Hidden Grove to escape it. Get away from them while they run. Head back to the Wide Valley. There's no way they'll let you live now.” She slammed into me again. “I'll try to lead them away. Go!”

She turned from us and ran toward the Sentinels. There was no need to lead them away. They scattered before the fire like mice fleeing a hawk.

If the flames were moving toward the village, they were moving toward our humans.

Ázzuen still stared at the flames. I bit his shoulder.

“We have to get TaLi and BreLan.”

He snapped out of his daze and shook his head, making his ears flap.

“Follow me, wolves,” Tlitoo croaked.

We sprinted toward the stream, the flames biting at our tails. Dark smoke blinded me and clogged my nose, and I kept losing sight of Ázzuen. Tlitoo flew just above our heads, which must have been painful in the choking smoke, and he called out to us whenever the thick smoke blocked him from our view.

Just when I thought I couldn't take another breath, I felt cool water on the singed pads of my paws. I stopped as I saw two humans in the stream, running away from us. I recognized TaLi's gangly shape.

They were smart, running in the water where the flames should not have been able to reach them, but they were running the wrong way—right into the fire's path.

I couldn't gather the breath to bark a warning, and I didn't think they'd hear it through the howls of the flames even if I could. Ázzuen and I chased after them, and for the first time, I was glad that the humans moved more slowly than we did. We were nearly upon them when they left the stream and scrambled into the woods that led to Kaar.

“There is more fire that way, wolves,” Tlitoo shrilled.

We bolted after the humans.

The wind had carried the flames more quickly than we could run. Bushes surged with fire as if they had been lit from below. We found TaLi and BreLan, clinging together, trapped by a circle of flame.

The heat shoved against me. I forced myself to push back.

“This way, Kaala!” Ázzuen had found a spot where the flames were no higher than our chests. He leapt over it and I followed, feeling the fur of my belly singe.

“Kaala!” TaLi choked, falling to her knees and throwing her arms around me. BreLan hauled her to her feet.

“Can you get us out?” he asked Ázzuen.

Ázzuen found enough air to yip to him. He watched the fire.

“What are you doing?” I gasped. “We have to run.”

“We have to wait,” he said. “The flames surge and ebb. Follow
me when I run.” He hadn't been stunned when he watched the flames back at the Greatwolves' killing ground. He'd been figuring them out, as he did with everything he saw.

“Now!” he woofed.

He shoved BreLan's hip and ran. The humans and I followed him, crossing through a break in the flames.

The humans were even slower than usual. “We have to get them somewhere safe,” I wheezed to Ázzuen.

“Come with me,” Tlitoo rasped.

I didn't see how the raven could lead us to safety. Flames licked the trees all around us. The humans gagged as they stumbled at our sides. We ran until my paws hurt and my tongue hung down so far I tasted dirt. I could barely breathe. I was sure we would be burned like firemeat by the flames that pursued us.

Then, when I thought I could run no longer, the Hill Rock rose in front of me. Tlitoo had known where he was going after all. I scrabbled up it, making sure that the humans were with us. They moved almost as quickly as we did, using their agile hands to pull themselves up above the flames.

Tlitoo disappeared into a hole in the rock. I peered in after him. There was a deep cave I'd never noticed from the ground. The humans crawled into it and we followed.

The damp air soothed my lungs. Ázzuen explored the back of the cave, sniffing in the corners.

“No one's here,” he said. “It's safe.”

The humans were too tired to check the cave for danger. They sank down on the cool ground. TaLi held her ankle. I dragged myself over to her.

“I sprained it, Kaala,” she said.

BreLan bent over her, examining her ankle. I licked it, over and over again, grateful that she wasn't more seriously injured. Ázzuen paced the cave as if he could guard against the smoke and flames. When Tlitoo strode to the mouth of the cave, I went with him.