Unicorn Point (9 page)

They were coming! Down the trail from the northwest: wolves!

This was his next critical step. He could lose it all here. If anything went wrong—

The first wolf pup came into view. Flach let go of the branch, dropped, spread his wings, and looped back up. He hovered before the nose of the pup, who abruptly halted, surprised.

Two other pups came up, and then the bitch who was guiding and guarding them. They stared at the erratically behaving bat. The bitch snapped at it, but Flach hovered just out of reach. He looped about, remaining ahead of them, preventing them from proceeding. Every time the bitch tried to drive him off, he came back again.

Finally she had had enough. She changed to human form, garbed in furs, ready to take a stick to him if she had to.
 
That was what he wanted. Simultaneously he changed to pup form.

Instantly she was back in bitch form, growling. Flach whimpered, his little tail between his legs. She advanced on him, teeth bared. He rolled over on the trail, exposing his belly. She hesitated, then sniffed him. He lay there, not having to feign terror.

Finally she resumed woman form. She was of advancing age, garbed in furs, and she carried a knife. This she pointed at Flach. “Assume this form, strange creature!” she snapped.
 
“I be Duzyfilan, and I would talk with thee.”

Now Flach reverted to his natural form, lying on his back on the ground. “Please, good bitch, hurt me not,” he pleaded. “I come to beg thy protection.”

“Who and what be thou?” she asked sharply.
 

“I must be nameless, lest I be doomed,” he said, sitting up.

She studied him, noting his blue outfit. Any werewolf understood the significance of that. “Methinks thou dost be doomed anyway,” she said. “Knowest thou not that we tolerate the likes o’ thee only for the sake o’ the truce?”

“I have changed sides,” he said. “I must hide, lest those thou knowest catch me.”

Duzyfilan considered. “Willst make oath on that?”

“Aye.” And from him came a faint splash, that rippled the blades of grass and colored the air momentarily.
 

“Then must we help thee,” she decided. “No other must know thine origin. A secret spread about be no secret long.”

“I seek only to join thy company,” he said. “And to join the Pack, and be as weres be.”

“Thou hast no pup name?”

 
“Nay.”

“A pup be named first by the bitch who bears him,” she said. “Canst thou accept me in lieu, since I be first to receive thee in this guise?”

“Aye,” he said gratefully.

“Then I name thee Ba, after what I saw o’ thee that thou must ne’er again be, an thou be called one o’ our kind.”

“Ba,” he repeated. She had seen him as a bat, so she took from that, as was the werewolf way.

“And these three pups must ne’er tell o’ what they saw o’ this,” Duzyfilan continued briskly. “Must each exchange oath-friendship with thee, to keep the secret.”

“Aye, an thou sayest so,” Flach agreed.

“Turn wolf,” she said.

Flach resumed wolf-pup form.

Duzyfilan beckoned to the male pup. The wolfling padded dutifully forward to sniff noses.

“Do these two o’ ye, Ba and Fo, make Oath o’ Friendship, each ne’er to betray the welfare o’ the other, in the wolven way?”

Both growled aye, and the splash manifested. Among adults the magic splash of absolute truth was seldom seen, but among the young, who were less jaded by experience, it was common enough.

The bitch beckoned a female pup. “Do these two o’ ye, Ba and Si, make Oath o’ Friendship, each ne’er to betray the welfare o’ the other, in the wolven way?” Again both growled affirmation, and again there was the splash and ripple.

She summoned the second female. “Do these two o’ ye, Ba and Te, make Oath o’ Friendship, each ne’er to betray the welfare o’ the other, in the wolven way?” A third time they growled agreement, and the splash manifested.

“Now may ye exchange what confidences ye choose, and ne’er fear betrayal, an ye be mindful who else might over hear,” Duzyfilan said. “But concern me not with it, for it be not my business. We camp ahead; we shall travel not this night.” She resumed bitch form.

So it was that Flach joined the formation of pups, falling in line between the two females. They padded on along the trail, first Fo, then Si, then Flach as Ba, then Te, with the bitch following watchfully. This was because trouble was far more likely to come from behind than ahead, and she could meet it there. But if trouble did appear ahead, the pups could pause, and she would quickly advance on it, as she had when Flach appeared.

They came to a place the bitch deemed suitable for camping. She sniffed it thoroughly, then had them crawl under a thick thorny bush and nestle together out of sight of the trail.
 
“Needs must I hunt,” she announced. “An danger come, hide; an it sniff ye out, bay for me. An I came not in time, scatter.” Then she was gone.

They were packed in nose-to-tail, but in a moment Fo and Te made room on either side, and Si assumed human form beside Flach. “Change, oath-friend,” she told him in a low tone. “We would learn o’ thee.”

Flach changed, finding himself jammed against her, be cause their human forms were larger than their pup forms.
 
She was a girl of about his size, which meant also his age, because the werewolves matured at the rate of their slow component, the human one. It was now too dark for him to see her, but he felt her human mane, soft and fluffy as her fur, and the snug clothing she wore in human form.
 
“What wouldst thou learn o’ me?” he asked, speaking no louder than she. He realized that she had been chosen, or had chosen herself, to interrogate him; the other two were listen ing with their superior ears.

“We saw thee shift from bat to wolf. Ne’er have we known o’ a were also a bat. Be thou a crossbreed?”

“We be oath-friends now,” he reminded them. “An I tell ye three, you must tell not other.”

“Aye,” Si agreed, and the two others growled assent. “I be descended o’ the bitch Serrilryan, who gave her life that the Adept Clef might come to Phaze. An I tell thee aye, I honor aye.”

He had heard of the Adept Clef, the one who played the famed Platinum Flute. Si had impressive ancestry, and surely could be trusted. “I be grandchild o’ Adept Stile, and o’ Neysa Unicorn. I be thus ‘corn with more forms, and little Adept.”

There was a concerted reaction. “No true wolf?” the little bitch asked.

“I be wolf now,” he said. “But also other.”

 
“Thou willst fight for us, an we do for thee?”

“Aye.”

“And do magic for we three alone?”

“Nay. An I do magic other than were form changing, they will know, and seek me out. I may not be other than were wolf, till it be safe.”

Si made a little sigh of disappointment. “This be less fun than we hoped.”

Flach felt the need to repay them for the fun they had anticipated, because their Oaths of Friendship bound them to far greater risk than they would otherwise have known. “I can tell you o’ the other frame,” he offered.

“Thou dost know o’ it?” Si asked, excited. “How so?”

“I commune with my self-sister Nepe in Proton,” he ex plained. “She tells me o’ her frame, and I tell her o’ mine.
 
But we can commune only when our sires commune, so the trace o’ our magic be covered by theirs.”

“Then how canst thou know when?” Si asked, intrigued.
 
“We feel it. Our sires must align in place to commune, but we need that not. We talk when they do, and only then.
 
Last time, did I tell her to hide.”

“She has to hide too?” Si asked, awed.

“Aye. ‘Cause an they catch one of us, they will make that one tell where the other be, and catch both. So we both must hide, and ne’er get caught.” He found that it eased his void somewhat to tell of this.

“But why didst thou not stay with thy Pack?”

“ ‘Cause the Adverse Adepts be wrong. Grandpa Stile and Granddam Neysa told me that, and showed me how it be so, and I believe it. So needs must I change sides—but we knew the Adepts would let me not. It be the same for Nepe in ‘Proton. So we had to plan, and practice, and hide before the Adepts and Citizens started using us. An they knew that Nepe and I can think to each other, and do it better than our sires can, they would ne’er let us go.”

“So you join the Pack with us?” Si asked.
 
“Aye. Only it must be known not, ‘cause the Pack can stand not against the Adepts. There would be awful trouble, Grandpa says, an they found any Pack or Herd or Flock shel tering me.”

Si pondered. “I wish we had known this before we swore oath-friendship with thee.”

“Why?” he asked. “Would ye three have made not the oath?”

She concentrated for a time before answering. “Mark thee, we be but young pups, and ill grasp adult concepts. But we feel the truth o’ them, howe’er poorly we say them. So I say to thee we made the oath thinking thou wast only an odd were-creature. We would have made it knowing we be truly helping the cause o’ all the good creatures o’ Phaze. Does that make sense to thee?”

“You would have made it anyway?” he asked, surprised.
 

“Aye,” Si said, and the others growled assent. “All wolves be ready to fight and die for their Pack and their friends and their way of life, but it means more an they know when they be doing it.”

Flach was abruptly overwhelmed. “Do wolves cry?” he asked.

“Aye, when they be in human form.”

“Good. ‘Cause I be going to cry.”

“Why?” she asked, dismayed. “Did I say it wrong?”

“Nay, thou didst say it perfectly.”

“Have we treated thee not kindly?”

“It be ‘cause ye three have treated me more kindly than I feared,” he said, the tears starting. “I bring great danger to you, yet you support me.”

“It be the way o’ the Pack,” she said. “We three be trav eling to join a new Pack, and we know the way o’ it, but we know also how hard it be to do. We welcome thee as we would have our new Pack welcome us.”

“I will try to make you glad o’ that,” Flach said, as the tears flowed more copiously.

Si did not speak again. She put her hands to his face, and turned it toward her, and kissed him passionately. He realized that her face was wet too, with her own tears. She was kissing him for the three of them, for they had accepted him as they knew him to be. He was profoundly grateful, and somewhat in love, as of that moment.

After a suitable interval, they returned to wolf form and slept, the four of them comfortably nestled together against the chill of the night. Their noses pointed outward in four directions, so that any warning carried by the wind would receive prompt attention.

In the period before dawn, Duzyfilan returned with her kill: a giant rabbit. They woke at her summoning growl, and scrambled out to join her. The light of two moons shone down, showing the delicious carcass. In a moment each was hauling and chewing at a leg, while the bitch maintained guard.

Flach had never had a meal of this type before, and was at first alarmed. But he emulated his companions, and discov ered that cooling raw flesh was delicious as well as being a challenge. As long as he was in wolf form! By the time dawn came, he was stuffed on rabbit, and felt wonderful.
 
They slept again, for it was not good to run on a full belly.
 
It was almost noon before they resumed travel. But the bitch knew what she was doing, for she had, it turned out, spied an Adept in the vicinity, and elected to lay low until the Adept was gone.

At dusk they reached Kurrelgyre’s Pack. Duzyfilan sniffed noses with the leader, and brought up the four pups, saying nothing. Kurrelgyre sniffed each in turn, growled his ap proval, and summoned his own chief bitch. She took the four to her den. They were cowed and quiet, but knew the worst was over: they had been accepted. They never saw Duzyfilan go; she had been no more than a courier, and for reasons of her own she did not stay to socialize.

They were given two days to acclimatize to the new Pack.
 
Then Kurrelgyre brought them up before the assembled wolves and gave them each their second syllable, in the man ner of the wolven kind. This was their formal mark of accep tance; henceforth they would be members of the Pack in all the ways of pups of their generation, except that they would be free to make permanent liaisons with other Pack members when they matured. They and the other pups from other Packs represented this year’s New Blood: a place of custom rather than honor. Honor they would have to achieve for themselves, in due course.

So it was that they became Forel, Sirel, Terel and Barel: because they had been lucky enough to be adopted by the leader’s den. They would strive henceforth to do that den honor. It was even possible that one of them might have the supreme honor, when grown, of killing Kurrelgyre. With peace, but threatened war, the Packs were increasing in size, anticipating future losses, so that it was no longer required that a young wolf kill his sire in order to assume adult status.
 
But when a sire became infirm, it remained the duty of one of his offspring to dispatch him cleanly. However, that was a long time distant, and it was quite possible that Kurrelgyre would die in battle before then.