Short Snout yipped agreement; Longwind stirred the dust with his tail. Frostfur sat up, watching Daine with an odd, smug look in her amber eyes.
Very well, Brokefang consented.
Russet yapped gleefully and trotted into the reeds. He returned dragging something that looked like a big stick.
Do not worry, Brokefang told Daine as Russet approached her bedroll. We did the same thing as with the sheep we ate, the tricks to hide our trail.
Reaching Daine, Russet dropped the “stick” on the ground, tail waving. His trophy was an ax—one of the big ones used by woodsmen to cut down trees. Daine touched the handle, just to confirm it was real. “How—” she croaked, her throat dry. Grabbing the water bag, she drank, then put it aside. “How many of these do you have? Just this?”
Oh, no, Battle replied. We took all the ones we could find in the tree cutters’ camp.
It was safe, Fleetfoot assured the girl. Having traveled with Daine and Numair, she knew the odd things these friends insisted be done in the name of safety. The humans don’t den where they cut trees. They den with other two-leggers, by the lake. Only the forest People saw us—they wouldn’t interfere.
Daine lurched to her feet. “Where’s the rest?”
Russet led her to the spot in the reeds. The girl counted, not believing her eyes. Since Numair and she had gone to the castle, the wolves had stolen fourteen big axes, and five two-man saws.
“Goddess bless,” she squeaked, and sat down hard. In all the years she had associated with animals, before and after she got control of her wild magic, she had never seen an animal do something like this. This was thinking about the future. This was knowing tools were separate from the men who wielded them.
We stopped the cutting, Brokefang said. Without these, humans won’t destroy more trees. They won’t make the noise that frightens deer and elk.
“You don’t understand. They’ll come after you, just as they did back home.”
Only the hunter, the one with the dog pack, can track wolves, Longwind said.
“Tait,” mumbled Daine. “His name is Tait.”
None of the others can track us, Longwind went on. And Brokefang has a plan for Tait.
Short Snout grinned. I like the plan, he said.
Suddenly the night caught up with Daine. It was dawn; she was exhausted. Getting to her feet, she dusted her bottom and went to her bedroll. “Don’t do anything until I wake,” she ordered as she crawled into it. “Not one thing, understand? We’ll talk later.”
Don’t be upset, Fleetfoot advised, curling up on the girl’s free side. Brokefang knows what to do.
“That’s what frightens me,” Daine muttered, and her eyes closed.
As she slept, she dreamed. Ma tended flowers, golden hair pinned up, out of the way. A man with antlers rooted in his curly brown hair watched. Leaning on the garden wall, he was a handsome, muscular creature dressed in a loincloth and nothing else. When he moved, hints of green showed in his tan skin. Her mother looked at him, shading her eyes against the sun as her lips moved. The man laughed silently, white teeth flashing. Except for the lack of sound, she could have been someplace real, watching from the garden gate.
A bluejay screamed, Thief, thief! The dream ended and Daine opened her eyes, feeling very confused. A year before shed had a similar vision of her mother and the stranger. What did it mean? Were the vision, and this dream, Ma’s way of saying she was at peace in the Realms of the Dead? What part did the horned man play? From all Daine had heard, the Black God’s domain was reserved for humans, and he was no human. For that matter, what she had just experienced was too vivid for a dream—her dreams were bits and pieces of tales that seldom made sense and never felt real.
I say she ought to do it, if she is Pack. The snarling voice was Frostfur’s. Why leave the pups to search and fail to bring down game four times out of five when she is here?
Daine sat up. The pack stood around the chief wolves, in the middle of the lead-the-hunt ceremony.
Call the game to us, Frostfur ordered, coming over to Daine, ears forward and tail up, to force the girl to submit to her as other females of the pack did. Bring us a nice, fat buck. Why must we take chances when you are here, getting your smell all over our camp? Either you are Pack, and that means you obey me, or you are not. Obey!
“No,” Daine said, meeting the females eyes squarely.
Frostfur’s hackles rose. She drew her upper lip back, baring strong teeth.
Daine crouched. “Do I tell you how to deal with the pack females?” she demanded. “I let you rule your way, and you do not tell me how to handle other People. If you weren’t a wicked, nasty vixen, you never would’ve mentioned it.”
Frostfur growled, a low, grating noise that started at the bottom of her deep chest and forced its way through her throat.
“Don’t make me show you what else I learned while I was away,” Daine warned. “You won’t like it.” Her eyes locked onto the wolf’s, and held them.
The moment stretched out like the tension on a bowstring. Frostfur broke the staring contest first. She wheeled and plunged into the reeds. Hidden, she called to Brokefang. She will turn on us!
The pups whined, looking from Brokefang to the plants that hid their mother. It’s all right, the pack leader said. Go on. We will bring you meat.
Leaper yipped in apology/agreement, and followed her mother. The other pups and the pack females did the same. Fleetfoot was last. She turned in front of the reeds, looked at Daine, and whined.
The girl smiled. “It’s all right,” she told the brown-and-gray female. “We’ve just never gotten along.” Fleetfoot yipped in sad agreement, and vanished into the reeds. “I’m sorry, Brokefang.”
He came over and licked her cheek. Will you hunt with us?
Daine smiled. “No, thanks. I have provisions.”
Is there cheese? Short Snout wanted to know. Russet says it tastes good.
“I’ll give you some when you return,” Daine promised. “And you’ll get round and fat, like a sheep.” Short Snout bared his teeth in a silent wolf laugh.
We hunt, Brokefang said, and trotted off, the other males behind him. Soon the adult females, with the exception of Frostfur and Battle, left the reeds and followed. They had been gone only a moment when Frostfur went after them. Daine smiled. It seemed that a new skill, like sulking, couldn’t stand up to the demands of Frostfur’s stomach.
Kitten tugged at Daine’s belt-pouch. The girl kept flint and steel there, and this was Kittens’s way to say it was breakfast time. “I s’pose you’re right,” she told the dragon. “We’d all feel better for some food.”
Working quickly, she built a mound of tinder and wood in the fire pit and set it to blazing. Looking up, she saw that the pups, Battle, Cloud, and Kitten had each brought a good-sized branch for her fire.
“You’re learning new things too quick for me,” she said. “Thank you. I think there’s a sausage in my packs that might feed us.”
You don’t have to give me any, Cloud said with a shudder. I don’t know what meat eaters see in that stuff.
Once she had fed everyone, Daine went to clean up. Not wanting to bathe in the pond, where soap would linger in water drunk by the wolves, she used a stream nearby. On her return to the clearing she found the pups, Cloud, and Kitten fast asleep. It was warm for autumn. Battle was cooling off, lying belly-down on the damp earth by the pond.
“You know the thing I’ve been trying?” she asked the tawny-pelted female. “I did it with Brokefang and Russet.”
When you ride inside them, Battle answered. Russet said it was fun. Do you want to try it with me?
“If you don’t mind,” the girl said.
Very well. Battle closed her eyes and rested her chin on her feet. All I ask is that we not run around. It is too hot.
Daine grinned. “Fair enough.” Sitting next to Battle, she first listened around her, checking for any sense that enemies were close. All she heard was the normal chatter of f
orest dwellers: squirrels, birds, and the like. Feeling safe, she focused on Battle. The joining happened faster than ever. Settling into the female’s mind, she felt as if she belonged there. Perhaps Cloud had been right, and she was practically a wolf
Battle checked the pups with one drowsy eye. They were hardly pups anymore. Soon they would hunt with the pack. She was sorry they had grown so fast. Watching over them was more fun when they were small and fuzzy.
Gazing at each of the young ones through Battle’s eyes, Daine realized that even in daylight the wolf had no color vision. On the other hand, she hardly needed it. The marks on each pup’s face and body were clearer to Battle’s eyes than Daine’s, and she could tell each pup’s scent from the others with the wolf’s vivid sense of smell. Battle inhaled and identified the scents that came into her nose for Daine. She inhaled again, enjoying Daine’s fascination with odors as if she too smelled them for the first time.
Eventually the girl returned to her own body. Heavy-eyed, she crawled on all fours to her bedroll, turned three times against her rumpled blankets, and went to sleep curled up in a tight knot. When she woke, the late sun shone through treetops as shadows collected below. She had slept through the wolves’ return. Brokefang was sprawled beside her, gorged on deer meat and fast asleep.
She touched him to ask, May I join with you?
Brokefang opened one sleepy eye. Do I have to wake up?
I don’t think so.
The eye closed. Then go ahead.
She was learning how to listen, to bring herself speedily into his mind. Now, as with Battle, she made the changeover quickly. With Battle fresh in her memory, she saw how different the pack leader’s mind was, not in terms of size, but of space. Numair had said, in an anatomy lesson, that humans used little of their brains. She knew that animals were the same, though they used more of what lay between their ears than humans did. For Brokefang the difference was that each nook and cranny in his skull was packed with information and ideas. He knew he would die, as would his packmates and children. He saw humans not as simple threats, but as creatures in their own right, living in packs, with thoughts and plans and reasons for what they did. He understood the animals he preyed on had lives and customs of their own, different from wolves’ but with meaning for the creatures involved. It was a rushing-in of knowledge that he frantically tried to keep up with in his waking hours, with only limited degrees of success.
She withdrew hastily, and found her cheeks were damp with tears. Sitting up—wincing because she had gone stiff—she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. For a moment she thought there was something longer and hairier where her nose should be, but when she touched her face, it was gone, if it had even existed.
What’s wrong? asked Cloud. Why were you crying?
Daine jumped. She hadn’t known the pony was watching. I feel terrible, she confessed to her oldest friend. I feel as if I took something from him. As if I ruined his innocence, and yours, and it looks as if I’m ruining the rest of the pack, too. Maybe they won’t be as bad as you or Brokefang, but none of you will be happy doing normal People things anymore.
So you picked up that stupid human habit of blaming yourself for things you didn’t or couldn’t control, retorted Cloud dryly. You did not force Brokefang to care for your wounds that night, any more than you forced me to bite you and get your blood on my teeth all those times. Just be careful who you bleed on in future. Now, come and get these burrs out of my tail. That will give you something useful to do.
Daine blew her nose. Cloud’s horse sense spoke to her own common sense, as it always had. You aren’t a god, she told herself sternly, rubbing the tip of her itchy nose until it was pink. Coarse, dark hairs fell off it into her lap. Where had they come from?
She looked at her pony and smiled. If you’re so smart, then you don’t need me, she told the mare.
Cloud glared and stamped. Biting back a groan, Daine lurched to her feet. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, picking her way through the slumbering wolves. Kitten, with a chortle, came to help as well.
Daine hunted in the gathering twilight, bringing down a pair of pheasants. As she cooked them, the pack, including the pups, revisited the carcass of the deer they had slain to finish it off. When they returned, they slept again. After a few games of stone, paper, knife with Kitten, Daine joined them.
It was a bad night. She tossed and turned, dreaming she heard a low, nasty hum in the sky overhead. When she woke and listened she heard nothing, and her clothes were sweat-soaked. The hum began once more when she went back to sleep.
Fireballs exploded without warning inside her eyelids, startling her awake. Once her eyes were open, she saw nothing. If hurroks or Stormwings passed overhead in the dark, she couldn’t sense them.
She wasn’t alone. Kitten woke several times, cheeping plaintively. After the third wake-up, she crawled in with Daine, something she hadn’t done for months. She slept better afterward, but the girl could feel her shiver all night long. The wolves moaned and twitched with disagreeable dreams.
Twice they woke Daine with their growling and snapping at invisible enemies.
Daine gave up at dawn and went to bathe and dress. When she came back, the wolves were assembling for another hunt. They ate often when they could, and a single deer was not enough for nine adults and five rapidly growing youngsters.
We do not need to leave one of the pack behind, Brokefang was telling his mate. Daine can look after the pups. She is not a wolf, but her weapons serve her as claws and fangs do us. And you know yourself that Cloud will fight. Let all the adults hunt today.
Frostfur’s head drooped. She was tired and didn’t want to argue with him. To Daine she said, Old White help you if any harm comes to my pups.
“Old White?” she asked, trying to remember if she’d heard the name.
Old White and Night Black are the first wolf and his mate, Brokefang said. They lead the First Pack. And it is unwise to threaten Daine with Old White, he told his mate. If he comes, he will nip you for using his name lightly.
Frostfur bared a fang in wolf disdain, and the pack left the clearing. The pups whined. They were too big to enjoy being left behind.
“You’ll get your chance,” Daine told them. “You have to build up your strength and your wind before you can keep up with the pack.”
Her listeners were not cheered. They remained edgy, constantly fighting with one another. They teased Cloud, nipping at her flanks, until she placed a gentle, but still firm, kick on Silly’s ribs. Chaser bit Kitten a little too hard, and got a scratch on the nose as his reward.
“If I have to tell you to stop it once more—” Daine warned.
Leaper yapped crossly and raced through a trail that led east, out of the clearing. The other pups followed.
“Goddess bless!” Daine went after them, tracking them down the path and planning dreadful things to do when she caught them. “I should have known any pups of Frostfur’s would be a pain,” she muttered, coming to open ground. Here the rocks that hid the wolf camp ended. Between them and the forest below was a meadow with grass so tall that any young wolves could play hide and pounce.
The stream where Daine bathed was near: she went to it and scrubbed her cheeks. As she did, she heard a sour note among the animal voices around her: someone nearby was dying.
Looking around, she found her patient in a tree on the far edge of the open grass. He sat in a knothole, shivering. Walking down the gentle slope of the meadow, she sent love and reassurance ahead until she stood below him. “Come, tree brother,” she called, holding up her hands. “Let me look at you.”
The squirrel opened runny eyes. He was too sick to talk. The source of his illness was plain: deep gashes on his back oozed fluid. He was far gone in fever, and his breathing was wet and difficult. As he ventured from his perch he missed his grip, his claws too weak to hang on. Daine caught him as he fell.
She sat, cradling the animal against her shirt. “You pups stay right here,” sh
e called. “And play quiet for a minute or two. Poor little man,” she whispered.
She leaned back, using the squirrel’s tree as support, and closed her eyes. With her magic she looked deep into the body cradled in her arms. The copper light that was the squirrels life force flickered. Goddess, don’t let me fail, she thought, and went to work.
The lungs were first. She made her power into liquid fire and poured it in to dry them. The animal’s breathing cleared. Next she tended his blood, scorching out illness as she wove through his veins. Turning to his wounds, she burned off all the infection. The flesh was laid open down to the bone, the edges as clean as if cut by a knife.
Stormwing? she asked the squirrel, picturing one for him.
Yes, he replied. One landed on my branch, without any warning at all.
She nodded, unsurprised. Why would a being that fed on human misery care if it hurt an animal? Just a little more, she told her patient, and concentrated, knitting sliced muscle together. Next came the fat layer, dangerously thin in this squirrel because fever had burned much of it off. Coaxing and pushing with her power, she built it up until it covered the newly healed muscle. Last came new skin to seal his body again.
Finished, she relaxed, enjoying the fresh air and the sun on her face. When she opened her eyes, the squirrel was searching her pockets for edibles. I’m hungry, he explained.
Sunflower seeds in my jacket pocket, she told him. The squirrel thrust his head in and began to eat. Looking for her charges, Daine found them seated nearby, watching her and the squirrel with interest.
“Where’s Kit?” she asked.
The pups looked past her, and the girl craned around the edge of the tree that supported her back. Several yards away Kitten sat on her hindquarters, staring down the slope of the ground under the trees. Her skin was changing from pale blue to a brilliant, hard-edged silver. It brightened until she actually began to glow. Opening her mouth, she shrieked.
Terrified, the squirrel raced up into the safety of his tree. Daine lurched to her feet. Never had she heard Kitten make such a sound, and she was afraid she knew why the dragon did so now. Ignored during her concentration on healing, a warning drone balanced against a high, singing note in her magical ear. The deep sound was so ugly it made her teeth ache.