The Wind-Dogs were busy here, sending a stiff breeze along the shore that ruffled Storm’s fur. Choppy waves were lashing the sand, and the white birds wheeled unsteadily against the current. It wasn’t as warm beside the water as it had been when she’d been traveling the other way, but it wasn’t as cold as the dark days and nights of her first Ice Wind either.
That may still be on its way . . . but as long as the water isn’t frozen under my paws, I’ll be fine.
At least finding her way back would be simple now. Storm turned to her left, knowing that if she kept the lake on her right she would come to the Light House, and then to the Wild Pack’s camp.
And then what?
The wind ruffled her fur and she felt her cuts sting in the salty air. Would she have scars? She felt some of the scratches might be deep enough. And she wasn’t sure her tail would ever bend quite the same way again.
It was easier to concentrate on those things—real, definite things—than to think too hard about what she had learned from Bella and Arrow, and the terrible conclusion that had settled in her heart.
How was she going to make the Pack believe her? Storm could remember the oppressive fear that had surrounded the Pack for many moons. How could any dog think straight in such a place?
Storm paused to sniff at a pool of water that had formed between a cluster of rocks. It was fresh, not salty lake water, so she lapped up as much of it as she could.
What she had learned from Bella and Arrow had made everything clear. But would the Wild Pack believe information from another Fierce Dog and his mate? She climbed up a grassy slope and found herself on a windswept cliff top with a sheer drop down to the lake. With the Wind-Dogs buffeting her ears and a clear path along the cliff, it was easy to break into a measured run. Storm glanced out at the lake, vanishing over the horizon, and the huge, empty wetness of it felt slightly calming.
She felt as if her mind and her body were running at the same speed now, the rhythmic pounding of her paws and the rasp of her breath seeming to echo the sound of her thoughts running through her head.
How can I get them to listen to me? It sounds so unlikely. Breeze seems such a gentle dog. Is it all an act? What about the pups? Breeze loves the pups . . . doesn’t she?
She spent a lot of time with them. And they seemed to like her. But now that suddenly felt quite sinister to Storm. All dogs thought being good with pups was the sign of a good dog, and yet . . .
Storm hadn’t been as close with Lucky and Sweet’s pups in their early days as she had with Nip and Scramble. Now she knew just how suggestible pups were, how easily they made friends with anything that would stand still long enough.
Just look at Tufty, she thought. They heard that they had a sister, and they invented an invisible pup who could play with them.
And what about the stories Breeze told them?
When Storm wanted Nip and Scramble to go to sleep, she told them quiet stories about birds in their nests and rabbits in their holes. When she wanted them to hurry, she told them about the Wind-Dogs hunting the Golden Deer, and the tiny pups took it all in, and now they told those stories to each other—and to Tufty—so often that Bella had had to stop them rushing off to find the Deer all by themselves, even though they were barely the size of a full-grown deer’s head.
And what had Breeze told the pups about?
The secret world in the lake, under the water, where the Sun-Dog went to play every night. Was it any wonder that the pups wanted to go there and find it for themselves? Shouldn’t some dog have made sure they didn’t think it was real?
Storm looked down at the water of the lake crashing against the cliff.
They could have drowned. Tiny nearly did drown.
But Breeze was there to save them. . . .
Storm put on a burst of speed, ignoring the pulling and stinging of her wounds now. She felt urgency running through her bones as the landscape around her blurred and her ears flapped in the wind.
Did she intend them to drown? Or did she always intend to save them? Did she care either way?
The cliff ended in a steep slope down to the beach, and Storm scrambled down it.
I have no proof of any of this. Kind, gentle, helpful Breeze? The Patrol Dog who’s never been seen to hurt a rabbit, let alone another dog? No dog would believe it.
I need a plan. The sand curved inward here, and as Storm trotted over it, she realized there was a thin stream of cool water running through it. She looked up toward its source and hesitated. It was trickling from a large opening, as round as a ripe berry, made from the same kind of hardstone as the longpaw paths and dens.
She sighed. Longpaws were always making things so much bigger than they were. Digging this hole must have taken whole journeys of the Moon-Dog, just to make a special underground river for this water to flow down.
As if Breeze wasn’t enough, she found herself worrying about the longpaws again. What would happen if they wanted to dig tunnels like this under the Wild Pack, or build dens or drive their loudcages up and down the cliff?
She sniffed carefully around the circular hole. The water didn’t smell bad—a little musty from running over hardstone, but not sick. She splashed into the middle of the shallow stream and rolled over carefully. The cool water felt wonderful on her wolf wounds.
But as she was getting up, a splash of water went up her nose and she spluttered, and then another memory struck her:
Breeze had been attacked by the bad dog, hadn’t she? She’d been dragged through the territory in the night, and almost drowned in the river.
The dogs probably thought Storm had done it in her sleep. . . .
Storm gazed down at her reflection in the little stream, splintering like broken clear-stone around her paws.
“No other dog saw her attacker. No dog caught their scent,” she muttered. A drip of water ran down her face and she shook herself, spraying water and making her fur stand on end.
There was a trail, like something had been dragged. Breeze was wet and scratched.
“She could have done it herself,” Storm whispered. “She could easily. A dog who’s willing to murder her Packmates, put clear-stone and poison in the prey pile, lie and manipulate and try to drown four innocent pups? Of course she could have left that trail herself.”
Storm scrabbled out of the stream and trotted along the sand.
Breeze and the Fear-Dog are connected. She did all of this to make us afraid, to make us turn on each other. It’s like she’s . . . she’s feeding the Fear-Dog!
Why else would any dog cover their camp in rabbit blood? No dogs had actually been hurt, and no strange scents were found, but the blood was . . . wrong. It frightened the dogs, set them all on edge. It couldn’t have been done with prey that was killed out in the fields and dragged back, it had to be . . .
“A live rabbit,” Storm howled to the sky in anger and frustration. “She was carrying a live rabbit!”
It had happened just after Bella and Arrow had left the Pack. The timing was right. Arrow had seen Breeze running back to camp with a live, suffering rabbit between her jaws. Breeze had claimed to be with the pups when it had happened, and they’d all taken her word for it. But the pups had been asleep in their den, and even if they woke up, they were too small to understand that they should tell another dog if Breeze wasn’t there.
Storm followed the sand around a rocky outcrop, and all of a sudden she could see something in the distance, right at the edge of the water, almost too small to make out.
The Light House! For once, Storm thanked the Spirit Dogs that the longpaws did like to put their huge, immovable paw prints all over the landscape—they couldn’t have known it, but their mysterious Light House would show her the way back to her Pack.
I still have no proof, she thought. They’ll say I could come up with the same kind of suspicions about any dog in the Pack.
But now when Storm imagined Breeze’s brown eyes gazing at her, she didn’t feel friendship or kindness. All she
felt was her hackles rising.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Storm climbed up onto a pile of large, wide rocks, startling a white bird she hadn’t even been trying to catch. The Sun-Dog was peeking over the trees, about to start his long run across the sky, and his pale light gleamed against the tall white Light House. She was almost there.
She had stopped and slept when the Sun-Dog had vanished under the water of the lake, curling up in a sandy hollow sheltered by thick reeds. It made no sense to push on through the darkness and arrive at the Pack exhausted.
Still, even though she had rested, her paws were aching, and all her muscles felt tense, as if she had been crouching to spring for a long time without release.
I made it this far, she thought. I didn’t run into the wolves, or the longpaws—or Pistol and Dagger.
She had been turning her theories and ideas over and over in her mind before she slept, and after she got moving again. Now she found herself thinking about the two Fierce Dogs. They really were the kind of dogs some of the Pack had expected her and Arrow to be: vicious, dangerous, untrustworthy, loyal to their crazed Alpha above all.
Once, Storm would have worried the Wild Pack dogs might be right. What if she couldn’t control her more violent urges?
She didn’t feel like that now.
Storm stepped onto the hardstone path to the Light House once more. Its mysterious light was still blazing, even though the Sun-Dog was awake. It flashed over the Endless Lake and then over the land in an endless circle. Storm remembered that after the Storm of Dogs, she’d thought it was a sign that Martha and their other friends would always be with them, watching over them. It was a comforting idea. Perhaps Martha was with her now, willing her to get back to the Pack in time.
I had to leave before I could find the bad dog. I’m glad I’ve got a new Pack now, but I still have to help the Wild Pack, if I can. The landscape became more and more familiar as she pressed on, though it had changed a little while she was away. When she had left, it had been Long Light and everything had been green and lush. Now the wind was cooler and the leaves on the trees were blazing red and brown in the first rays of the Sun-Dog.
She began to pick up the faint scents of dogs, although she wasn’t yet in their territory—they had hunted here, perhaps a few journeys of the Sun-Dog ago.
She couldn’t pick out their individual scents, but the familiarity of the Pack scent sparked feelings that Storm thought she had left behind forever.
She found herself thinking of the four pups, clambering over her and over one another. Sweet’s thoughtful face as she tried her best to make the right decisions for the Pack. Daisy and Sunshine yapping and turning overexcited circles. Mickey’s kindly face and Snap’s bark, so loud and fearless for a small dog.
And Lucky . . .
He raised me. And he did it well, too. He taught me to do what was needed to protect my Pack, and to stand up for myself. Why couldn’t he see that I was the last dog who would turn traitor against him and Sweet?
Did he really think she was like Pistol and Dagger, and the other Fierce Dogs of Blade’s Pack? And those Fierce Dogs weren’t even like the bad dog—they had never betrayed their own Pack. Even after the defeat they suffered on the frozen river, even though Blade was dead, they were so loyal to her that they’d tried to kill Storm in revenge!
Some of the dogs in the Wild Pack could learn something about loyalty from them, Storm thought, looking around warily at the familiar rolling fields, as if a nearby dog might overhear her rebellious private thoughts.
Storm’s path led her along another cliff, beside a field where she remembered hunting with the Wild Pack. Sure enough, there were the faint traces of dog-scents, overlaid with a much stronger scent of rabbit.
Storm’s mouth watered. She hadn’t eaten since she set out from Bella and Arrow’s camp, and she needed to keep her strength up—for the rest of the walk to the Wild Pack, and for whatever happened afterward.
She lowered her belly close to the ground and crept into the thinning grass of the field, sniffing for the rabbit, her ears pricked up for any sound and to make sure she kept upwind. The Wind-Dogs were rushing about, blowing across the surface of the lake and playing around on the cliffs, so it was hard to be sure that the rabbit wouldn’t smell her—she just had to hope that the confusion of scents swirling around it would conceal her if she kept moving.
After a few more pawsteps, she saw it huddling under a bush, sheltering from the wind.
I’ll have to get as close as I can, Storm thought. No wolf is going to run this rabbit down if I lose it.
But if she circled around the bush, approaching the rabbit from the other side . . .
Stepping carefully to avoid the leaves that would crunch loudly under her paws and give her away if she trod on them, Storm rounded the bush, paused, took a deep breath, and sprang.
The rabbit tried to run, but it was caught in its own hiding place. By the time it had almost wriggled its way out of the bush, Storm’s paws and then her teeth had come down on it. She dragged it out and shook it hard to kill it as cleanly as she could.
She tucked in immediately, filling her belly and relishing the warmth and satisfaction of a good hunt. When she was done, she looked down at the remains of the prey and shook herself, trying not to think of the sad, wriggling thing that Breeze must have carried all the way back to the Pack camp.
Even if all her worst suspicions were true, and Breeze was behind everything that had gone wrong in the Pack since the Storm of Dogs . . . the killings, the sabotage, and other things too, like trying to push those rocks down on Moon and even framing her for stealing prey . . .
Storm still hadn’t figured out why. What could make a dog like Breeze decide that instead of being a good Packmate, she would devote herself to spreading fear, chaos, and death?
It had to be something to do with the Fear-Dog. Breeze was one of the dogs who had come from Terror’s Pack. They had all been filled with a dread of the Spirit Dog Terror had invented. Storm remembered that Breeze had been so scared, she didn’t even want him to be named before the Great Howl. She believed in him, that was for sure.
Could all of this be about Terror after all?
Storm started to walk again, following the familiar lines of the landscape, but not running at full speed anymore.
If a dog could be loyal to a leader as cruel as Blade, after all, she supposed one could be loyal to the crazed Terror, who had believed he was possessed by the spirit of the Fear-Dog. Storm shuddered at the memory of facing the huge dog: he’d suffered from fits that left him foaming at the mouth, and he’d ruled his Pack through sheer dread, turning on his own dogs with unpredictable fits of rage, scaring them into attacking the Wild Pack because they knew that it was safer to run into battle than disobey him.
But even though they had finally turned on him and joined the Wild Pack, Terror’s dogs had found some kind of home with him. He took in broken dogs, lone dogs, dogs who had already been rejected by other Packs or lost their homes. That would inspire loyalty of a sort, even if it was twisted and terrible.
“Broken dogs . . . ,” Storm muttered. She had been thinking of Twitch, who had left the Wild Pack with a terrible limp and came back on three legs. But what if a dog was broken on the inside? What if there was a dog who had truly respected Terror and believed in his ways?
She would take his death . . . badly.
For a dog she’d counted as a friend, Storm realized it was strange that Breeze had never told her anything about her life before Terror. The other dogs had never talked about what her role was in his Pack. Terror didn’t have a real Beta, as far as she knew. . . .
But there are a lot of things I didn’t know that I do know now.
Storm hopped up onto the log of a fallen tree and looked out across the fields. There was a line of trees, and beyond the woods she knew there was the hill, the pond, and the Wild Pack camp.
“I’m back,” she barked aloud, testing out how it sounded. ??
?I think you’re in danger. I think it’s Breeze. . . .”
She didn’t need to say any more. She knew that she wouldn’t get a chance to list all the reasons she suspected the brown dog—if she wasn’t certain, and she didn’t have any proof, the dogs would never accept her theory. All she would get was an argument, and they might even chase her away.
I need to know more, and there are only a few dogs who can answer my questions.
She turned away from the Endless Lake and put her nose to the ground, sniffing at the faint dog-scent. If she searched the hunting fields and the woods, she should be able to find her way.
She needed to talk to Breeze’s old Pack. Terror’s Pack.
I just hope I haven’t misjudged them the way I misjudged Breeze.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Storm had traveled so far in the past two journeys of the Sun-Dog, her paw pads were aching. They stung even more now that she was moving more slowly. She crisscrossed the land, stopping all the time to sniff and search for any sign of Rake, Ruff, Woody, or Dart. When she’d been pounding along the cliffs beside the Endless Lake, she had felt as light as a floating leaf, and it had been obvious that she was making progress, despite the pain from her wolf wounds. Now her paws hurt, too, and every time she thought she had found the trail, it escaped her again.
Circling the Wild Pack’s territory, even keeping a wide stretch of land between her and the camp, brought back powerful memories. There was the valley where, after a long chase, the Golden Deer had led them to a herd of ordinary deer, and there was the field where she’d brought the first hunting party she ever led by herself.
There were painful memories here too. At one point the land sloped away and she could see the overhang by the river where the Wild Pack had made their stand against the Fierce Dogs, leading them into an ambush. She remembered the whispers and worries about accepting the three Fierce pups into the Pack, let alone battling Blade to protect them. And here and there she found strange half memories of places she had been in her sleep. . . .