The Dragon of Despair (30 page)

Firekeeper remembered her recent dream and wished that she were indeed riding on the comet’s shoulders. They would be rounded, she thought, deliberately building up a picture in her mind, and very warm, for anything that gave so much light must give heat as well. They might even be furry.

The comet was becoming a wolf again when she drifted off to sleep.

Again, she dreamed.

Small. Looking up at everything, even into the faces of the Royal Wolves. Sometimes the One Male crouches and lets her ride on his back. She grips hard onto his neck ruff and crouches low to keep her balance.

They are running, running hard and fast. Their goal is not a hunting ground, not a broad river meadow where the elk graze or a grove where the deer browse on the young foliage. They are running through the night, leaping from bright star to bright star, sometimes wading through the blackness as they might through a stream or a summer shallow river.

Firekeeper feels the blackness snowmelt frosty against her toes. She pulls them up, tucks them under the One Male’s belly. His heartbeat is rapid and strong, counterpoint to a faint singing that seems to come from all around.

Do stars sing?

Firekeeper wants to ask, but her throat is full of smoke. She can’t speak for the choking, she can’t see for the burning in her eyes. The fire roars. Its sound drowns out the singing that might have been the voices of the stars. Sometimes the wind adds its howling voice to the fire’s roar and the two together are terrible.

Distantly, she seems to hear warning cries. Without understanding a single syllable, she understands that there is fear that the fire will leap onto the wind’s shoulders, that the wind will carry the fire into the trees, that the trees will be reduced to ash and ash to earth.

Something must be done to still the wind. The girl—not yet Firekeeper, someone else whose name she almost knows—huddles near the ground, listening. The stars are singing again. The wind’s howling is growing quieter, though it mutters unhappily as it stills. The fire continues to roar defiantly. It will burn the earth if that is the only way it can reach the trees.

The girl has never heard anything so angry, so hungry. It frightens her and she feels her own tears wet against her cheeks. They are warm, warm as the fire, warm as wolf-breath. Suddenly, they become like ice and the girl is frightened. How can her tears be cold? Life is warm, not cold. If her tears are cold, is she then dead?

She is trying to move her hand to find her heartbeat, when she hears the fire’s angry hissing. In its profanities, the girl knows the truth. Her tears have not transformed to ice, rain is falling, rain that will swallow the fire as the fire swallowed…

Everything…The scream rising in her throat is clamped off by teeth at her throat. A growl vibrates against her skin and warns, “Make no noise or it will be your last noise.”

Heart pounding, Firekeeper forced herself out of her nightmare, emerging to find waking life as horrible.

She was no longer trapped in that faintly remembered girl child. The air no longer stank of burning and of smoke. She was lying on her back in the soft summer grass of the castle grounds.

But there were fangs at her throat and a furred head hovering over her own, its shape blocking out all the stars as the comet glow haloed it from behind.

Firekeeper’s sense of smell, doubly precious after its loss in her dream, knew this wolf was not Blind Seer. Memory identified her enemy a moment later. Northwest, the outlier wolf, called Sharp Fang by his own pack. Even in her fear, Firekeeper felt a flash of humor when she realized that the name was apt indeed.

Blood warm against her skin trickled from where Northwest’s fangs had pierced her throat. Firekeeper was very afraid, and in fear, rather than in thought, she acted.

Two arms came up, one on either side of the looming wolf’s head. Two hands clapped down upon its ears, thudding hard against the skull. Fingers slid and pinched, twisting the soft-furred, outward-flaring ears, biting them harder than would any summer fly.

Yelping in astonishment and pain, Northwest released her throat. Firekeeper rolled from his reach, bounding to her feet and pulling her Fang from its sheath. She snarled, glowering down at the wolf, her dark, dark eyes grabbing his amber gaze and holding it fast.

Her own blood was flowing down her front now, trickling between her small round breasts and pooling in her navel. Northwest’s bite had not been deep, would not have done more than dent a wolf’s hide, but Firekeeper’s skin was human: soft and easily broken.

Northwest crouched, vulnerable belly and throat low to the ground, but Firekeeper held the Fang in front of her, lightly circling the point. It was not for nothing that she had learned to fight from wolves, with wolves.

She knew that Northwest could not leap at her without exposing himself to her blade. He might bring her down, might even kill her, but he himself would find her Fang slashing deep into his belly and mixing up the soft parts there. From such a wound none ever recovered.

Yes, Firekeeper knew this. The question was, did Northwest? He had not grown from pup to wolf in her company as had Blind Seer. He might not realize just how deadly that slim metal blade could be. He might yet risk the leap.

So the wolf-woman stood, poised on the balls of her feet, feeling the warm blood cool as it trickled down her front, unable, unwilling to go off her guard to check the severity of her wound, trusting that it was slight.

Northwest held his crouch, but he did not spring. Instead he accused her:

“You have betrayed us! How can you hold your head so proud and defy me? If I were such as you, I would welcome the killing bite.”

“Betrayed you?” asked Firekeeper, though in truth she thought she knew what Northwest meant.

“Aye! Betrayed us to your human kin, run fast on two legs to tell them of our presence and so rob us of the night-swift secrecy that is one of our powers.”

Firekeeper could not deny Northwest’s accusation, for she
had
told King Tedric of the Royal Beasts’ anger, but she could rob it of its bitter bite.

“I spoke, yes,” she said, never lowering the knife tip nor flagging in her watchfulness, “but I no more betrayed my people than does a mother who knocks a pup from its feet lest it walk off a ledge and tumble to its death.”

“So you, pup,” Northwest sneered, “still so weak you lick your parents’ jaws for food, so you are suddenly wise mother to us all?”

Firekeeper felt very tired and her throat was beginning to ache as if terribly bruised. Every sound she made caused the wound to throb and she knew she could not howl, even if she were sure Blind Seer would hear. Worse, yet, if her cries brought humans, for she did not think Northwest would show them any mercy.

“I know that the course you would have the Beasts follow would be bloody disaster for many,” she replied, concealing her pain as best she could, “and who made you judge of my actions?”

“You have fooled those who fostered you,” Northwest snapped, “but you have not fooled me. I see you for what you are. You are the thorn that remains buried under the skin, festering, breeding heat and infection until you kill your host. You are the sickness that spreads and carries off the pack. You are no friend to us. You must be destroyed lest you bring us harm. I would have killed you as you slept, but I would first know what you told your kin.”

“You heard what I told my kin,” Firekeeper replied, “for you were there. As for what I told the humans, that is my business and maybe my family’s business, but certainly no matter for a sneaking coward who can only bring himself to kill when his prey is asleep.”

Firekeeper lashed out with her words as she longed to do with her blade, but secretly she was harboring a new fear. Where was Blind Seer? Had Northwest found him and harmed him? She could not let herself believe that Northwest had killed Blind Seer, for if she did she would lose all her strength.

Even as her worry threatened to weaken her arm, the wolf-woman strengthened herself with the thought that Northwest’s fur was without bite mark or blood splatter. Surely he could not have slain Blind Seer and come away unmarred. And if Blind Seer lived, eventually he would return. She would have help dealing with this mad creature.

Wolf-like, Firekeeper took strength in the knowledge of her pack mate. She needed that strength, for her knife arm was growing tired as the slow drain of blood from the untamped wound in her throat weakened her. Northwest must know she could not stand strong forever. He crouched, resting and waiting for the first sign of weakness.

Then shadows and moonlight shifted and from a scrubby cluster of oak, Wind Whisper stepped forth. The she-wolf was all silent scorn, her hackles raised, and her lips curling back from clean, white fangs. Firekeeper stiffened, for though she could hold off one wolf—more by threat of the wolf’s own death should it kill her—she could not hope to hold off two.

More than ever, she wished for Blind Seer, wished that her throat were not so bruised. Should she risk a howl, even if the sound was a poor choked-off thing? No. She would not bring Blind Seer here to face these two alone and surely if she did howl, she would not live long thereafter.

But even in her aching weariness, Firekeeper became aware of a strange thing. Northwest was not welcoming Wind Whisper. His tail was not wagging a slow arc of greeting, nor were his ears perking. If anything, they were flattening further, slicking themselves to his skull. He had been belly-close to the ground, now he was belly-flat to the ground.

Hope came fresh to the wolf-woman. Hope that Wind Whisper might be here on some business of her own, rather than as Northwest’s ally. Firekeeper did not lower her blade, did not relax her guard, but she did dare dream she might live to see the sunrise.

Wind Whisper yawned, her teeth strong and healthy for one who had been grown when Firekeeper first had been taken in by the wolves. They looked well for any wolf, come to that. The elder wolf stretched out her scornful gesture until Northwest nearly peed himself.

“I was,” said Wind Whisper, speaking to no one in particular, “one of the council who met and discussed what was to be done about the humans. So was this one here—this Sharp Fang, brave hunter of sleeping furless beasts. There was much arguing and even a little blood spilled, but in the end it was thought that there had been wisdom in the warnings of one naked wolfling, one Firekeeper.

“Drive the humans away, the council decided. Try to keep them away. Even let Little Two-legs speak for us, if she speaks wisely. All there agreed to bide by this, for a time, unless the humans gave us cause to do more than drive them away. Even this Northwest Sharp Fang, hunter of stupid chickens and stupider ducks, even he agreed, though his breath was sour upon his promise.

“Some days after, this Northwest took his leave, saying he had no wish to spoil crops and frighten cattle. We saw him depart with no great sorrow for he had been poor company indeed. But I remembered the sourness of his breath as he swore to abide by the council’s wisdom, and when he struck out for his home pack, I decided to follow. After all, such sour breath might mean an ill stomach and it would not do to have him fall sick on the trail.

“He jogged north and west for a night, but the next night his trail turned. Soon even an old wolf like myself could tell the trail he cast about for was that of the little Firekeeper and her human companion. I said to myself, ‘Surely Northwest is ill. He is so ill he cannot even hunt rabbits but must take the stupid horses for his meat. I must go with him and hunt for him in his illness.’

“But this Northwest surprised me. He hunted well, taking rabbits and fish and even, once, a deer. Still, though, he tracked those horses. I, unwilling to show myself unless he needed my aid, for I did not wish to embarrass him with my knowledge of his sour belly, I trailed him.

“And this Northwest took his time following the horses. In truth, I think he was a bit in terror of the human lands, for he traveled slowly and then only in the darkest night. Then came the night when the scent trails of the Firekeeper and her human companion parted. The human continued on the slow road east while Firekeeper took off with her pack mate north, across fields and through forests.

“Here came the strange part. Sour Belly Northwest didn’t follow the horses, that easy game, he followed Firekeeper. I said to myself, ‘Poor wolf! He must be very ill. He follows them so as to eat at their leavings.’ I followed, too, to succor Northwest when his illness took him. Always I hid myself and made sure that the wind did not carry my scent to him, for I did not wish this Northwest, or Young Sour Belly as I thought him in my affection for him, to know I pitied him his illness.

“When the trail of Firekeeper and Blind Seer vanished at the edge of a ravine, Northwest prowled until he found a place where he could scrabble across on a heap of deadfall and winter tangle. I followed, grateful for this bridge, for indeed the humans had protected themselves quite well from unwanted visitors.

“And so I was here when Northwest would have eased his sour belly on the soft meat of Firekeeper’s throat and I would have leapt in sooner, but…”

Northwest snarled interruption.

“Stop your idiot tale-telling, old one! So you followed me! So you caught me! So you will preserve this human. Tell me why if you can.”

Wind Whisper looked at him and her disdain was cruel to see, but her reply was mockingly gentle.

“I saw Little Two-legs brought into the world of the Beasts. Maybe I wish to see what she will do now that two worlds beckon her.”

“Destroy one or both,” Northwest sneered. “That is the human way. They cannot live without reshaping the world into their image.”

Firekeeper actually agreed—at least somewhat—with Northwest’s assessment of humanity, but she deeply resented having the same criteria applied to her. She also didn’t much care for being ignored while these two argued.

During Wind Whisper’s narration the wolf-woman had checked her wounded throat. A shallow slash proved to be the source of most of the blood. She was more concerned about the bruising, which made it difficult for her to raise her voice above soft tones.