Through Wolf's Eyes (15 page)

"Move!"
she snarled.
"Or I'll eat you for supper!"

Any doubts she had held that the mule would
understand her vanished as he threw back his head and brayed in naked
terror. It took all her strength, heels dug into the ground, to stop
the animal from bolting. With the loose end of the rope, she hit it
across the soft part of its nose.

"Walk quietly now!"
she ordered.
"Follow!"

To attempt any command more detailed would be folly,
for the stupid animal had suddenly remembered that she was a wolf, not
a two-legs. It rolled its near eye at her, uncertain whether to obey or
to bolt.

"Follow the others!"
she commanded and, after the fashion of its kind it fell into line, comforted in doing what the others were already doing.

Firekeeper whistled comment to Elation, who had been watching the exchange from the trees nearby.

The falcon shrieked laughter. "Mistress of mice and mules! To what lows the proud wolves have come!"

Firekeeper snorted, not deigning to comment further.
She was pleased enough to have made the mule obey her. See if the
falcon could do as well!

That night and for the nights that followed, she and
Blind Seer ranged the far slope of the mountains. This side was not,
she discovered with some disappointment, greatly different from the
side she had known since her puppyhood.

In one way, however, this region was greatly
different. Except for one goshawk, kin to Elation's peregrines, they
met none of the Royal kind. The only wolves she and Blind Seer
encountered were Cousins. These knew of the Royal Wolves, having ranged
west when the hunting was poor in their own territories, and groveled
before Blind Seer as a pup before an adult.

Firekeeper found their deference right and natural.
What troubled her, having had little contact with Cousins in the past,
was how restricted the Cousins' interests were.

They could report in great detail about sources of
fresh water, about rival packs, about good hunting, about the danger
offered by awakening bears. Beyond that, they seemed to see nothing, to
know less. She was shocked to realize that they reminded her more of
Queenie, Race's spotted dog, than they did of wolves.

"Are they stupid?" she asked Blind Seer.

"No," he said, lifting his head from the haunch of
elk he had been shredding. "They are Cousins. Didn't the Ones teach you
about them?"

"Not much," she admitted. "Mostly, they told me to
avoid them, that the Cousins would not protect me as did my own pack. I
thought nothing of this. Packs often have rivalries."

"That is so," Blind Seer agreed. "However, there is
more to our parents' warning than that. Cousins are lesser than
Royal-kind in more ways than size. We are wiser, more clever, and
possess gifts that the Cousins never have."

He sat up, forgetting his meat in his pride.
Firekeeper snatched it from between his paws, winning an appreciative
snarl from him.

"Tell me more," she said, tossing him back his food. Her own meal was long finished.

Blind Seer chewed at the knob end for a moment,
considering before he continued, "Well, Royal-kind is forbidden to
breed with Cousins, even if the urge is great."

"You are?" she asked, surprised. "But they are so like you. They even smell like you."

"Maybe to a human's nose," he replied haughtily. "I
tell you, the scent is different, even as the scent of pale roses and
dark roses is different."

"If you say so," she said resignedly. "My nose is dead."

"I know," he laughed. "Forget the Cousins, Sister. We
can intimidate them if need arises. Moreover, it is spring. Like our
own pack, they have pups to hunt for. They will be too busy to bother
us."

Firekeeper nodded and for a time all was silent but for the cracking of the elk haunch between Blind Seer's jaws.

"These mules and horses the humans have," she said at last, thinking aloud. "They are certainly Cousin-kind, not Royal-kind."

"I certainly hope so." Blind Seer grinned. "If their Royal-kind are this stupid and docile, there is no hope for the creatures."

"What if the only non-humans the two-legs know," she
mused, "are the Cousin-kind? How stupid they would believe all others
who walk the earth to be!"

"Does that matter?" the great wolf asked lazily.

"It might," Firekeeper replied thoughtfully. "It might matter very much."

F
OGGY AND GHOSTLIKE
in the drizzle that fell from the purpling heavens, West Keep loomed
before them at twilight, eight days after they had crossed the gap from
the west side of the Iron Mountains. Had they been in the lowlands,
they
would have covered the distance more quickly, but here they were on rough roads, their travel complicated by spring rains.

Derian, who was tired of living in the saddle and
sleeping in a tent, welcomed the sight of the keep as if he were
already out of the wind, enjoying fresh bread and butter in front of a
roaring fire for which someone else had fetched the wood.

Blysse, sitting perched atop a once stubborn mule,
gasped aloud when she saw the towering heap of dressed stone. For the
first time since Derian had met her she looked completely astonished.

"Hold up for a moment," he called to the others. "Blysse needs a minute to adjust. I think the keep scares her.

"I guess it would be something of a surprise," Derian
continued, turning to the young woman. He had learned that she
appreciated being talked to, even if she couldn't understand the words.
"The bend in the road hid it from view until it was right on top of us."

"Deliberately, I would guess," Earl Kestrel added,
twisting slightly in Coal's saddle to face them. "A good strategic
move. West Keep has a clear view of the road from its upper towers, but
from the road those same towers blend into the surrounding terrain
until this last mile."

"Even in daylight?" Ox asked.

"Even in daylight," Earl Kestrel said, as smugly as if he had built the place himself.

Blysse turned to Derian. He hadn't been able to teach
her the word "what" and he bet that was exactly the word she wanted
now. Instead she raised her hands and gestured wildly.

"Rock?" she asked. Then paused, frowning, "Rock-tent?"

Derian nodded, considering what word to give her. He
had tried hard to avoid homonyms, wanting to reserve the confusion of
words that sounded alike but meant different things until they shared a
larger vocabulary. For that reason, he avoided the word "keep" and
chose another.

"Castle," he said, pointing, using the slow, careful cadence he had begun to reserve for new words. "Castle."

Blysse pointed. "Castle. Rock tent. Castle."

She shook her head in amazement. Then, to Derian's surprise,
she
pursed her lips and gave a low whistle, identical to the one Race used
whenever he encountered something he hadn't been ready for: a fallen
tree or swollen stream blocking the trail; his fish trap plundered by a
raccoon; ants in his boots.

Hearing her, Race laughed, a friendly laugh this time.

"I guess I've taught her something, too," he chuckled.

Derian nodded, an inkling of how he might manage Race
brightening the prospect of being left at the keep with Race without
the earl's mitigating presence.

Beside him, Blysse was still gaping at the keep. Her
brow wrinkled in consideration as she tried to make her limited
vocabulary express her awe.

"Castle," she said, gesturing up to indicate its height, then out to sketch the extent of the girdling wall. "Castle ox."

Derian was puzzled for a moment. Then he grinned.

"Castle
big
," he said, stressing the second word. "Ox big."

Blysse nodded vigorously.

"Big," she repeated. Then, after a moment, she added, "Ox big. Valet no big."

Derian's grin broadened as he wondered if it was tact
that had led Blysse to pick Valet as her example of small, rather than
Earl Kestrel, who was at least an inch shorter and somewhat slighter of
build. One thing Blysse seemed to have had no difficulty interpreting
were the relative degrees of importance within the little company.

"Ox big," he said, urging Roanne into a walk once more and hearing the rest of the company follow suit, "Valet no big. Valet
small
."

He decided to leave the minor refinement of "not"
versus "no" for another time. Abstract concepts were a hurdle he hadn't
been certain how to cross. Now that Blysse had provided him with a
starting point, he wasn't going to waste it.

They continued their language lesson as the pack
train crossed the last mile. At Earl Kestrel's signal, Race rode ahead,
blowing his horn to alert the residents of West Keep that their master
came unexpected. Derian spared a moment of pity for the garrison if
they hadn't kept the place in perfect order. Earl Kestrel was not the
most forgiving of masters.

That thought made him redouble his efforts with
Blysse, suddenly aware of the earl's grey eyes watching him and the
cool, calculating mind assessing his student's progress.

Earl Kestrel had uses for this woman who might or
might not be his niece and the best claimant to the throne of Hawk
Haven. He would not be forgiving if a mere horse carter impeded his
advance. Certainly there would be rewards for success, but Derian was
sure that the penalties for failure would be far greater in both degree
and kind.

S
TONE
. S
TONE
on the floor. Stone surrounding. Caves made by human hands.

Firekeeper felt some relief when the chamber into
which Fox Hair brought her had a ceiling made of wood and two great
arched openings in the sides. She rushed to one of these and leaned
out, reassuring herself by the sensation of the fresh, wet air on her
face that the wide world outside had not vanished.

When her first panic had abated, she noticed that she
could see for a great distance from this height. Directly below,
several stranger two-legs were leading the horses and mules into a
shelter. Beyond the narrow heap-of-stones-piled-on-top-of-stones that
Derian had called a wall, there was a cleared area, but then the forest
began again.

Even in the gathering darkness she could locate Blind
Seer sitting on his haunches in the shadow of a tall tree near the
road. The blue-eyed wolf was looking up at the castle, studying its
shape. From the tilt of his head, she knew he was quizzical, but not
afraid, and his lack of fear for himself or for her gave the young
woman courage.

Drawing inside, Firekeeper shook the water droplets
from her hair and turned to Derian. He was standing with his back to a
fire built in the side of the chamber, watching her with
an expression that, had she known it, was twin to Blind Seer's.

"Castle big," she commented with what coolness she could muster.

Derian nodded. A knocking from the side of the
chamber where they had entered interrupted whatever he had been about
to say. Derian said something Firekeeper didn't understand. Then,
apparently in response, a frightening thing happened.

A piece of the wall moved, revealing an opening behind it.

Firekeeper sprang to the opening she had been looking
out of a moment before and perched on the broad ledge beside it, ready
to dive out and take her chances falling.

Fox Hair seemed amused, not nervous, so she held her
pose, watching guardedly. The scent of food drifted in from the
opening. That of meat cooked with herbs was immediately familiar. There
were other scents that were almost familiar. These teased an awakening
part of her, bringing with them a mingled sense of comfort and of
longing that made Firekeeper strangely indecisive.

The food was carried by a two-legs nearly as stout as
Ox but barely half his height, a person built from rounding shapes that
included astonishing, swelling protrusions in the vicinity of her
chest. When this person saw Firekeeper she spoke, her voice twittering
like birdsong, high but sweet.