Spirit of the Wolves (5 page)

I licked TaLi's face until she awoke. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“That's disgusting, Silvermoon,” she said. “Grandmother said your name is Kaala.”

I licked her again, from chin to forehead. Then I stood and went to the opening of the shelter to let TaLi know it was time to go. When she blinked sleepily at me, I leaned toward her, tongue out.

“All right!” She held up her hands in front of her face. “I'm awake.”

She got to her feet and pushed her way out of the preyskin shelter. MikLan had fallen asleep, but my packmates were still on guard. I followed TaLi as she disappeared behind a rock. The scent of slightly bitter spruce made my nose twitch.

“You don't have to watch me, Kaala,” she said as she squatted behind the rock. Yes, I did. I couldn't lose track of her again.

Leaves crackled behind me and I turned, expecting to see Ázzuen or Marra. Instead I saw a flash of gray fur disappearing through the bush.

“Did you see that?” Ázzuen asked, his eyes wide as he leapt down from his watch spot above me.

I lowered my nose to the ground, following the scent of spruce, dry and sharp with a bitter undertone.

Ázzuen was the one who found the paw print, clearly defined in the mud. Just one, but so distinct I couldn't believe it hadn't been left deliberately. I placed my own paw next to it. It was half the size.

“Greatwolf,” Ázzuen said.

Not just any Greatwolf, I realized, burying my nose in the print. It was Milsindra. She hadn't even tried to hide her scent
as the Greatwolves could. She was following us and she wanted me to know it.

The fur on my back prickled. I didn't know what Milsindra was up to, but I knew her well enough to know that it wouldn't be good. She'd been forced to let me leave the valley, but I knew she thought that doing so was a mistake. And I knew, as certainly as I knew the moon would rise, that she would do anything she could to make me fail.

I
stood atop the mountain pass that would lead us from the Wide Valley and looked back at what had been my home. I could see the long, snaking path of the Swift River and the outline of Wolf Killer Hill, but everything else looked small and unfamiliar in the afternoon light, as if the Wide Valley were already a strange place to me. Ázzuen looked back, too, but Marra and Pell gazed only forward. Tlitoo spiraled overhead, dipping and soaring on the updrafts. Another raven flew beside him. I recognized Jlela, a female raven who often flew with him.

Next to us, TaLi and MikLan gasped for breath. Humans, even young ones, moved more slowly than we did. Though I had not caught Milsindra's scent again, I kept imagining that I could feel her hot breath on my back, and Even Night was not much more than three-quarters of a moon away. We'd kept the humans moving quickly, tugging on their preyskin clothing when they slowed and nudging them with cold noses when they rested too long. Still, it had taken us a full
day and half of another to reach the high pass that would lead us to the lands beyond the valley.

I'd thought the Wide Valley was vast. Now I could see how small it really was. The land before us, grasslands mixed with forest, stretched so far that I couldn't see the end of it. Large hills covered with dry, scrubby grass rose to our right, and to our left stood a forest of pines, cypress, and spruce. My stomach rumbled. That much land would hold enough prey for ten packs. It had been a long time since I'd eaten my fill.

Just beyond a copse of cypress stood a rock the size of a hill. It had to be the place where I was to meet my mother, but the vastness of the land disoriented me, and I couldn't judge how far away the rock was. I didn't even know if she'd be there yet. It was still over a moon until I was supposed to meet her and she was hiding from Greatwolves. Yet my breath caught. For the first time since I was a smallpup, it seemed possible that I might really see my mother again. I remembered the scent of her milk, and the warmth of her belly, and most of all the sense of feeling safe and protected.

When you are grown and accepted into the pack, you must come find me,
she had told me before Ruuqo chased her away, and I had never forgotten it. I couldn't believe that in as little as a day I could be with her.

TaLi's hoarse voice shook me from my thoughts. “We have to find a place where two fallen pines cross over one another at a stream,” she said to MikLan. Both she and the boy were swaying on their feet as they gazed across the grasslands. Dark clouds drifted over the plains, promising more rain.

TaLi clutched a piece of deerskin. She looked at it and
then toward the lake. “We go as far as that rock, then follow the map to the Crossed Pines.”

Humans were limited to using their eyes to find places they'd never been. Their
map
, I guessed, was another clever way they'd found to compensate for their weak senses.

We made our way down the mountain and to a small hill below. The rain found us then. It had taken the humans hours to walk down the mountain, and it was nearing dark. It was time for them to rest.

They set up their shelter beside a large boulder. I had hunted many times in the rain and run across Swift River lands in a thunderstorm, but I preferred being dry. Ázzuen, Marra, and I crowded into the shelter. Pell, still suspicious of the humans, waited outside in the rain. TaLi and MikLan took firemeat out of one of their sacks. I knew I should let them save their food, but I was so hungry that I couldn't help whining a little. Firemeat was even better than ordinary food. It was rich and chewy, tasting of the smoke of the humans' fires, and a mouthful of it was as satisfying as twice as much ordinary meat. Ázzuen and Marra were no better than I was. They watched the humans and their food unblinkingly. TaLi smiled and gave me a chunk of her firemeat and handed some to Ázzuen. MikLan did the same for Marra. Guiltily, I gulped down my share.

“We'll have to get more food soon,” TaLi said, as she watched their supplies go down our throats.

That, at least, was something we could help with. The two young humans talked for a while, then lay down to sleep, curled up on a preyskin they had spread upon the ground.

We waited until they were deep within their dreams, then
Ázzuen, Marra, and I crawled from the shelter. The rain had stopped, leaving behind a night lit by a sliver of moon.

When Pell saw us, he bent his forelegs and lifted his rump high.

“I'm hungry,” he said.

We had been running—eating what bits of food we could find and bolting what scraps the humans could spare for us—ever since we'd left Fallen Tree three nights before. A hunt was just what we all needed. I looked back to where the humans were sleeping.

“We can't leave them alone,” I said.

“We will watch your humans.” Tlitoo bobbed in front of the shelter. Jlela perched atop it. “And we have found their Crossed Pines. They are just beyond the place where the spruce trees give way to pine.”

“You can't watch the humans. You have to sleep,” I said. Ravens, like humans, slept during the night.

“We will wake if anything comes near,” Jlela said, settling her wings and hunching her head down between them.

“It is very hard to sneak up on a raven,” Tlitoo added, “and neither the Grumpwolf nor the human male are near.” Grumpwolf was one of his many names for the Greatwolves. When I still hesitated, he spat a berry at my head.

“The fur-brained wolflet

Thinks it knows more than ravens.

That will not end well.”

I couldn't help laughing. I dipped my head to the ravens.

“Let's find some prey,” I said to my packmates.

Marra yipped in excitement and took the lead. She had an excellent nose, which was especially important in unknown lands. We would have to not only find prey but also stay alert in case we crossed into any wolf territories. In the Wide Valley, we knew where every pack's domain began and ended. Here we would need to be careful.

Marra snuffled her nose low to the ground, then lifted it in the air.

“Prey!” she woofed, her tail wagging. “Nothing I recognize, but definitely prey.”

She stepped aside, and without thinking about it, I took the lead. I realized I was acting like a leaderwolf, and looked back at the others, embarrassed. Ázzuen crouched low just to my left, his nose twitching, while Pell and Marra stood a little behind me, waiting for me to decide what to do next. My heart filled with the exhilaration of leading a hunt. I gave a deep, low bark like Ruuqo did at the beginning of a chase.

I took a step down the hill and managed to get my paws tangled in tree roots and slip in the mud. I splayed my legs to catch myself before I tumbled down the hill but landed hard on my chest. I got to my feet, mud sticky on my chest and face.

Marra raced past me.

“Wait!” I said. I wanted to make sure there were no other wolves around to claim the prey. But Marra didn't worry about things like that. By the time Ázzuen and I reached her, she was atop a small hill, looking down at a meadow where a herd of what looked like some kind of elk grazed in the cool, clear night. Pell followed more slowly, checking behind us for threats. It was something I should have thought to do.

I looked more closely at the prey. They looked something like elk and a bit like snow deer. Their legs were long and gangly and their bodies lighter than most of the prey in the valley.

My mouth moistened.

Several of them looked up at us before we had even begun to move toward them; they were wary prey, used to confronting hunters. We had just begun to sneak down the hill on our bellies when Pell whoofed a warning.

Five wolves ran across the plain, scattering the prey and heading straight toward us. We must have been easy to see, even in the faint moonlight. I had been stupid, standing there so exposed. Even from a distance, I could see the wolves' teeth bared in snarls.

We stood to meet them, and I found myself once again slightly ahead of the others. I tried desperately to remember how Ruuqo and Rissa would greet a pack of wolves in hostile territory, but nothing came to me. I tried to decide if I should be threatening or welcoming. Then I realized that the best thing to do
would
have been to run. I was still deciding how to react to them when they reached us, tails stiff, ears laid back in anger.

“Are you stealing our prey?” the female in the lead asked. Her proud gait and the way the other wolves deferred to her made it clear that she was the pack's leaderwolf. I would have expected a wolf in her prime, someone Ruuqo's age. This wolf was younger than Pell. The rest of her packmates were either wolves in their second year, like her, or our age.

“We didn't realize it was your territory,” I found myself saying. My tongue was dry, but my voice came out confident and calm. “We won't take what isn't ours, and we'll leave your lands if you give us permission to pass through.” I'd heard
Ruuqo and Rissa speak this way, but it had never occurred to me that I could.

The five wolves stood growling at us, teeth bared, fur raised along their spines. The leaderwolf didn't reply. I waited for them to attack. We'd trespassed into their territory and were standing within hunting distance of their prey. It would be within their rights to try to kill us. They were all young and strong, and they outnumbered us. Ázzuen, Marra, and Pell stepped closer to me.

“Why do you smell like humans?” one of the wolves asked, still growling. He had dark fur and a bare patch behind his left ear where a jagged wound was healing. I prepared to fight. If they tried to follow our scent to TaLi and MikLan, I would stop them.

“They came from the Wide Valley,” the wolf in the lead said. “They all smell like humans there.” Her pale gray pelt seemed to shimmer in the faint moonlight. Her tail jutted out behind her and she held herself ready to fight.

“What happened to your leg?” she asked me.

I hesitated, not wanting to admit weakness.

“A human cut her,” Pell said, his voice deep and arrogant. It was the tone he used when he was trying to intimidate. He took two steps forward, limping a little. The rain always made his leg hurt. He'd injured it fighting maddened elkryn four moons before. “She fought with him and he sliced her with his sharpstick.”

“Did you kill it?” the dark-furred male asked.

“No,” I said, “but I bit him.” It was DavRian who had wounded me, when he tried to kill me, but I didn't want to tell them any more than I had to.

The five wolves confronting us seemed to relax a little, and the light-coated leaderwolf lowered her tail.

“I'm Lallna, of the Sentinel pack,” she said, her mouth softening into a smile, “and this is Sallin,” she said, poking the dark-furred male with her nose. Behind me, Marra snorted. It did seem like a stupid name for a wolf pack. What did the five of them think they were sentinels of?

“You're a wandering pack, then?” the young leaderwolf asked. She either didn't notice Marra's ridicule or was ignoring it.

“A what?”

“A wandering pack. You don't have your own territory.”

I thought about that. Swift River was no longer our home.

“No,” I said. “I mean yes. We don't have a territory.”

“Are you trying to find one here, or do you plan to keep journeying?”

“Who's your secondwolf?” the male standing next to her—the one she'd called Sallin—asked abruptly.

My secondwolf?
I thought. The Sentinel wolves all looked at me. They thought I was a leaderwolf and that the others followed me. Sallin's eyes flicked from Marra to Pell and back to me again. If they knew we weren't a real pack, that I wasn't a leaderwolf, they might challenge us to a fight. They weren't as large as Stone Peaks and didn't look any stronger than we were, but we couldn't risk any injuries. And we couldn't let them past us to find our humans.