Spirit of the Wolves

by Dorothy Hearst

  DavRian and his group of hunters smelled of frustration and disappointment. There was no smell of dead elk. Hunts fail more often than they succeed, though we seemed to do better when wolf and human hunted together. There was nothing disgraceful about a failed hunt. Yet DavRian also smelled of shame.

  We waited for them. TaLi nudged me with her hip and walked to the front of the humans to stand next to HesMi. The girl was carrying a basket of fish that looked much too heavy for her. She wanted DavRian and the others to see how successful we’d been. She couldn’t know yet that their hunt had yielded no prey.

  DavRian was first into the gorse patch. His eyes darted from TaLi’s fish basket to HesMi and back again. Then they rested on me, and a look of defeat flitted across his face. Now the humans could see as well as we could smell that their hunt had failed.

  “Did you catch any grass elk?” TaLi asked, her tone friendly. She rested the heavy basket of fish on her hip. I whuffed at her. I knew what she was doing. The first thing the other humans had seen when they walked into the gorse patch was TaLi standing next to HesMi, holding food for the village, with me at her side. The first things our group of humans, including HesMi, saw were empty hands and dejected expressions. The message would be clear. We had succeeded where they had failed. TaLi’s eyes held a fierce, triumphant gleam. I whuffed again. If she made DavRian feel more ashamed, he would only hate us more. A strong leaderwolf would sometimes make a point of humiliating a packmate who had challenged her, but only if she was strong enough to win any resulting fight. TaLi was smaller than DavRian and not fully grown. I didn’t think it was wise to shame him that way.

  DavRian only smiled, but I noticed his trembling hands.

  “We didn’t succeed this time,” he said. “There’s always the next hunt. Congratulations on your fishing,” he said.

  TaLi inclined her head. “I’m glad we can bring the fish to add to the rhino meat. We’ll take the wolves to the elk next time. That might help.”

  DavRian kicked a small, leafy plant that grew among the spiny gorse. He kicked it so hard that some of its leaves flew up into his own face.

  “Careful,” TaLi said, her voice full of false concern. “That’s gallin leaf. It’s poisonous. You wouldn’t want to swallow any.”

  DavRian started to snarl something at her, but HesMi suddenly gave a great howl, making DavRian jump back. Several other humans howled, too. Prannan started to join in, but when the rest of us didn’t, he stopped. HesMi laughed and clapped DavRian on the back, much the way humans sometimes thumped us in friendship.

  “The girl wins this round, DavRian.”

  DavRian grimaced, then stalked away from HesMi.

  One of the younger males came to TaLi and held out his arms. “I’ll carry that for you,” he said shyly. TaLi blinked at him for a moment. I tugged at her tunic. She needed all the friends she could get.

  “Thank you,” she said. The young man blushed and took the basket, lifting it on one shoulder and trotting after the others.

  I saw the pain on DavRian’s face, and found myself wanting to lean against him to offer comfort. Then he saw me watching him. His face darkened and he pulled his lips back in a snarl as fierce as any wolf’s. IniMin stepped up beside him and placed his hand upon the younger man’s shoulder. He whispered something into DavRian’s ear. I tried to hear what he said, but his words were lost in the wind. DavRian smiled grimly at him and nodded, but he looked after TaLi with longing and despair.

  19

  The humans walked slowly from the gorse patch. The late-afternoon sun and their sluggish pace made me drowsy. I found myself thinking about the best napping spots in Kaar. I didn’t realize there was something wrong until I almost ran into TaLi.

  All the humans had stopped. We’d reached the stretch of plain just before the woods that sheltered Kaar. The humans watched a figure moving unsteadily on the field. The grass was shorter there than on the rhino’s plain, and we could see the figure clearly even though it was at least a hundred wolflengths away.

  “Crazed,” Pell whispered, his voice hoarse with concern. “It’s a crazed wolf.”

  Then I saw that it was indeed a wolf. It was moving so erratically that I hadn’t realized it at first. It was running in circles and bucking and rearing like an elk in its death throes.

  “That’s what happens with wolves when they go mad,” DavRian said. “It has poison in its mouth and if it touches you, you’ll go crazy and die. You’ll die in pain as if you’ve been stabbed by a thousand spears.” He looked down at me. “Or if you don’t die, you’ll turn into a mad wolf yourself.”

  “Can we kill it?” Prannan asked, his voice shaking only a little.

  “Don’t try,” I ordered. “DavRian’s right. If it bites you, it will poison you.” Ruuqo had told us about crazed wolves. I’d hoped to go my entire life without meeting one.

  “It’ll die eventually,” Pell said. “But if it bites anyone first . . .”

  He didn’t have to finish. If it bit another wolf, the disease would spread to that wolf. If it bit a human, it would be disastrous. The crazed wolf caught sight of us then, and charged.

  A whirring sound made me cringe. DavRian’s arm came down hard at his side and his spear flew through the air. His aim was perfect and he was strong. The spear landed in the crazed wolf’s back and it toppled over. It rolled onto its back, kicked its legs several times, and then was still. The humans around us let out great breaths of relief. I looked up to see that most of them had their sharpsticks raised. HesMi gripped DavRian’s arm.

  “Well thrown,” she said. Then she looked down at me, her face puckered in concern, and I realized that the crazed wolf gave credibility to DavRian’s stories.

  “There’s no reason it should have been here,” Ázzuen said. “Of all the places it could have been in the territories, there’s no reason it would be here right now.”

  “Milsindra,” I said, remembering her words at the river. I should have known she would do more than just watch us. She’d seen us succeeding with the humans and had driven the mad wolf to us. And, with a dread as heavy as wet fur after a winter rain, I knew she wasn’t done with us yet. When a human male gasped and pointed across the plain, my chest grew tight.

  Milsindra stood atop a rock, far enough away that she could claim she didn’t know she was visible to the humans, but close enough that it was clear that she was no ordinary wolf.

  “That thing is bigger than a rock bear,” HesMi whispered, fear creeping into her voice. She looked at DavRian. “You were right,” she said. “I didn’t believe you when you told us about the giant wolves.”

  “There are huge wolves and there are mad wolves,” DavRian said. “And you never know which ones are dangerous.”

  “I’ll get RalZun,” Ázzuen said, and darted off to find the old krianan.

  The humans were silent the rest of the way back to Kaar, anxiety rising off them like smoke from their fires.

  Word of the crazed wolf and of Milsindra reached the village even as we did. As the humans began the long process of preparing fish for their caches and cooking others for their evening meal, HesMi gathered the village elders. I saw Ázzuen at RalZun’s side. The old krianan crouched down and, as he listened to Ázzuen, his shoulders stiffened and he clenched his hands into fists. He stood and stalked toward the other elders. They all ducked into the large structure the humans used for gatherings. TaLi, BreLan, and DavRian followed.

  Unlike most of the shelters in the village, this one was made entirely of skins, held up by a complex arrangement of branches and the trunks of young birches.

  RalZun had told me that this kind of structure was called a shrin, and that the word meant both the structure itself and to be movable. When the humans used to roam from place to place like ordinary creatures, he’d told me, they carried a shrin with them so that the elders would always have a place to meet. They still used the shrin as a sign of their commitment to meeting together to make decisions for the village. I wonder
ed whether they would continue to do so if DavRian became krianan and they completely gave up their wandering.

  The shrin’s soft walls meant that we could easily hear what was being said inside. Ázzuen and I lay down up against one of the sides.

  “It’s exactly what DavRian warned us about,” IniMin was saying. “They seem friendly enough now, but they could turn on us at any moment.”

  “Other creatures go mad.” That was RalZun’s rasping voice. “I’ve seen an auroch run straight into a waiting spear and a brain-sick horse leap off a cliff to its death.”

  “All the more reason we shouldn’t let wild animals into our homes,” IniMin said. “That’s why we protect ourselves from the beasts of the forest. We’re meant to tame the wild, not invite it to sit at our fires.”

  “Humans run mad, too,” TaLi pointed out. “There was a woman back in the Wide Valley who killed three people because she said the Ancients told her to. It has nothing to do with the wolves.”

  “DavRian said that the mad wolves have poison in their teeth. And what about the giant wolf?” The voice was familiar, and I thought it might be HesMi’s, but the skins distorted the sound, and I couldn’t be sure. I whuffed in frustration.

  “If that’s true, we can’t have them around,” the female continued. I had to know who was talking. I pushed my nose under the bottom of the shrin. When no one noticed, I pushed the rest of my muzzle under. I waited a few more moments and then shoved the heavy skins up so that I could get my entire head inside.

  HesMi sat on a small pile of hides. Most of the humans were sitting around her, but TaLi, BreLan, and DavRian stood. I heard a soft clacking from the folds of the shrin to my left. I dared to push my head in a little farther and saw Tlitoo crouched down, his dark form mostly hidden by the shadows. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I imagined he was staring beadily at me.

  “It isn’t true,” RalZun said impatiently. “Those are stories to scare children and those too foolish to know better.” His voice carried enough authority to make several of the humans murmur in agreement. “The wolves TaLi has brought to us have done nothing but help us.”

  “It isn’t worth the risk,” DavRian said. “We learned that back home. What if just one of them goes mad? It could kill half the village.”

  “Has it ever happened?” RalZun countered. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “My grandmother said we’ve lived with wolves before,” TaLi said. “None ever went mad. And sometimes wolves grow large, just like people do. I’ve never known them to be dangerous.”

  IniMin coughed softly.

  “There is something else you should know,” he said. “Something DavRian told me. I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to be unfair to TaLi.” He looked at her as if they were friends. “I’m sorry, TaLi, but I must tell them.”

  TaLi looked back at him, perplexed.

  “DavRian told me that this girl, TaLi, herself has run mad. That she bit two of her tribemates and tore off the ear of one of them. That it has happened to those of the Wide Valley who call themselves krianans. And”—he lowered his eyes as if sorry to speak—“to those here in the wilds around Kaar as well. Those who call themselves the old krianans have abandoned the Ancients. They worship the trees and the bushes of the wilds. They speak to the animals of the forests as if they were human.” He whispered. “Some can even become animals.”

  Silence met his speech. TaLi broke it.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” I wanted to whuff in agreement. He may as well have said that a tree could turn into a rhino.

  “I know people who’ve seen it happen,” DavRian countered.

  “Did DavRian tell you he chewed dream-sage and pretended to talk to the Ancients?” TaLi asked.

  The humans began to speak over one another as they had our first day in Kaar. One shouted, then another. I wasn’t able to hear what they were saying.

  HesMi put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, a sound so high-pitched it felt like someone had thrust a thorn through my head. The humans in the shrin quieted.

  “I will not let this village be ruled by rumor and fear,” HesMi said. “Nor will I risk the safety of anyone here. We are not in immediate danger, so the wolves may stay. It is clear that some wolves are dangerous, so we will watch them carefully.”

  RalZun caught sight of me and frowned. I backed out of the shrin before any of the other humans saw me. Ázzuen was watching me, his eyes wide.

  “Now what?” I said, leading him a few paces away from the shrin.

  “I don’t know, Kaala,” he answered. “We have to make sure nothing we do scares them.”

  I sighed. “While not being submissive to them.” That made me wonder where Lallna was. If she’d heard what the humans were saying in the shrin, she’d tell the Sentinels. I lifted my nose to the air, searching for her scent. I found her lying next to a group of young humans, two of whom had their long arms slung over her. When she saw me watching her, she rolled to her feet, shook herself, and darted into the woods.

  I started back to the shrin, but several humans now stood outside it. I paced instead, waiting for the humans to finish their long discussion, wishing that the babble of their overlapping voices didn’t keep me from understanding what they were saying. Ázzuen watched me silently from where he sat next to a small fire pit. Finally, when the pads of my feet were sore, I settled down next to him.

  We sat there side by side as the warm sun set behind the trees and the night air began to cool the village. I kept expecting the humans to come out of the shrin and go into their shelters to sleep, but it wasn’t until dawn that they emerged, clambering in ones and twos from the preyskin folds of the shrin. Several looked concerned, but it was the look of fear on the faces of many of them that worried me. That fear was dangerous. It meant they didn’t trust us.

  I folded back my ears and softened my expression. Then I trotted to three of the fearful humans—all young males—and let my tail wag. I couldn’t offer them my belly with Lallna so near, but I could try to set them at ease. I remembered Ázzuen playing with the humans on the way to the rhino hunt and picked up a bit of wood that had fallen from a fire.

  I brought it over to the humans, lowered to a play crouch, and wagged my tail harder.

  “Look at its eyes,” one of them said. “It could go crazy any second.”

  Another one of them picked up a piece of wood—larger than the one I had—and hurled it at me. He missed.

  “Stay away from us, wolf,” he said. The three of them stalked away.

  I felt Lallna’s gaze. She was watching me from the edge of the woods. She started toward me. Then she froze and lifted her nose. A snarl pulled her lips away from her teeth. She lowered her head and pointed her muzzle to a thick sage bush. Wolf paws stuck out from beneath it, and a nose twitched, taking in the scents of the village.

  “Streckwolf,” Lallna growled. “How dare it come here.” The wolf in the bushes scuffled a little farther into the village and I saw its rounded head and short muzzle. A streckwolf was spying on us again. It might even have heard what the humans said in the shrin, and had certainly seen the human throwing wood at me. It would tell its packmates that the humans were afraid of us and they would sneak back and take Kaar from us.

  Lallna bolted for the woods. The streckwolf yelped, turned itself around, and scrambled away. I chased after Lallna.

  I caught up with her as she tried to force her way through a thick tartberry patch. I ran around it, passing her. I quickly found the streckwolf’s trail and ran after it, limping a little after a tartberry thorn pierced my forepaw. The scents of sage and gorse and moss blew past me as I ducked under and around bushes and tree roots.

  I rounded the huge trunk of an ancient yew to find the streckwolf staring at me, panting. It was a young male. I tackled him, rolled him onto his back, and stood atop him.

  “Why were you spying on us?” I demanded.

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “I wanted to
see the humans. It’s not fair that we can’t. They’re ours.”

  Standing over the little wolf, I felt the urge to lick his muzzle as if he were a pup. Something about his soft eyes and open, friendly expression made me want to take care of him rather than rebuke him for trespassing.

  “Why are they yours?” I asked.

  “Because it’s our task to be with them, to give them something to cherish other than themselves. Something they never have to fear.”

  Lallna slammed into me, knocking me off the streckwolf. Then, in the time it took to pluck a salmon from the river, she ripped his throat out.

  “Why did you do that?” I gasped. “Why did you kill him?”

  She licked the streckwolf’s blood from her muzzle. “It came to the human gathering place,” she said as if it were obvious. “You can’t be soft with them, Kaala. I know they seem like pups, but they’re not pups. They’re an abomination. They’re a threat to all of wolfkind. They give up the wildness of wolf for a few scraps of meat. It’s our duty to kill them if they come near the humans.” She stepped off the streckwolf and, with her back paws, kicked dirt over his body before trotting back toward Kaar.

  I stood over the dead streckwolf. He looked so much like a pup. I was angry with him for spying on us, but I didn’t want him dead. We killed hyenas who challenged us and even other wolves that tried to take our lands, but killing the little streckwolf seemed wrong. He reminded me of my littermates, slaughtered before they’d had a chance to taste their first meat. I shook myself. I had to remember what was at stake. If the streckwolves took our place among the humans, the Promise would fail. They would help the humans create another Barrens, like the strecks Tlitoo had shown me, and Navdru would kill everyone I loved.

  I didn’t want the little streckwolf dead, but if I had to choose between him and my pack, between him and TaLi, I would have killed him myself.