Spirit of the Wolves

by Dorothy Hearst

  “Thank you for leading us to them,” Navdru said. He looked down at my horrified expression and whuffed kindly. “I know it’s hard to see even such wolves as these die, and you’re a youngwolf yet, but we have no choice, Kaala. It’s us or them.” He gave me an approving look and licked the top of my head. Then he and Lallna loped back toward Sentinel lands.

  Shaking, I looked out on the plain. Some of the streckwolves had escaped, but most had not, and I counted at least ten bodies lying unmoving in the grass. Prey died so we could live. Weak wolves died so that the strong lived. This should have been no different. But it was. I remembered my brother and sisters, killed by Ruuqo when we were four weeks old. The streckwolves on the plain didn’t seem so different from them, and they were dead because of me. Tlitoo bobbed up and down in front of me, waiting for me to say something.

  I shook myself. Navdru had said it was us or them. And it couldn’t be us.

  The sun was more than halfway down the sky when I returned to the lake. I wanted to tell Ázzuen what had happened, but when TaLi called me, I went to her.

  “HesMi says that you wolves are the best thing that’s ever happened to the village,” she whispered. “She said if I can bring more of you, I’m an asset to the village, and she can’t imagine why we shouldn’t keep to the old ways.” She hugged me close and ran back to help the humans gather their packs and sacks together.

  I saw RalZun watching me. I knew I should tell him about the streckwolves, but I didn’t want him to know what I’d done. I didn’t want him to know that I was no better than a Greatwolf, letting wolves die so I could get what I wanted. I looked away from him and ran after TaLi instead.

  It was full dark when we returned to the village. The humans clustered around their fires. I’d learned that if I wanted to see well at such times, I had to avoid looking directly into painfully bright flames. HesMi was sitting comfortably, eating cooked rhino meat. RalZun sat next to her, gnawing on a bone. DavRian and IniMin crouched to one side.

  “The decision isn’t made yet, DavRian,” HesMi said, “but the girl is proving herself well. I don’t see any cause to change the way we’re doing things. We can always change our minds next year.”

  RalZun smiled at DavRian but kept silent.

  “There is cause!” DavRian said. “TaLi’s entranced you just like her grandmother entranced some in the Wide Valley before the wolves started killing people. Next year will be too late.”

  It would be too late for him, at least. Once TaLi was krianan, we would have time to win the humans completely over to our side.

  “So you say,” HesMi grumbled, “but you haven’t shown us any proof.”

  “What proof do you need?” IniMin asked. “Everyone in the village dead from their treachery?”

  “We have six days until the festival,” DavRian said, his voice suddenly reasonable. “We can show you why they’re dangerous.”

  My ears twitched. DavRian was usually the one who lost his temper. His self-control worried me. I wondered what he was plotting.

  “Do so, then,” HesMi said, losing patience. “But stop prattling at me and leave me to my meal.”

  IniMin frowned and opened his mouth, but DavRian whispered to him and pulled him away, guiding him into the woods. I followed the two males as they stomped into the forest. They stopped at a moss-covered rock and sat on it. I hid behind the nearby yew tree, close enough to hear them but hidden from view.

  “They’re going to keep the old ways.” IniMin’s voice shook. “I can tell. Once the girl is krianan, it will be too hard to change things.”

  “We’ve been too timid,” DavRian said.

  He rose to a crouch on his rock and looked over his shoulder. As if his weak human eyes could see anything in the dark. He whispered to IniMin, “First we have to get rid of some of the wolves. I’ll tell you how. Then we need to convince HesMi how dangerous they really are. But we’ll need help if we’re to do so in time.”

  He grinned at IniMin. “Who do you trust?”

  22

  Dense clouds hid the half-moon, darkening the night. I had watched DavRian carefully over the two days since I’d seen him plotting with IniMin. Several times I came upon one or the other talking to a cluster of humans, telling them that TaLi and RalZun were under our spell and that they would run mad because of us, that our teeth were poisoned like the crazed wolf’s, or that we could drive a person mad with our nighttime gaze. Some humans listened to them, but many laughed at them. If that was DavRian’s plan, I thought, I had very little to worry about. Two nights after we had retrieved the sack, I’d relaxed enough to stop watching him so closely.

  So had RalZun. The old krianan came to me, a smile on his wrinkled face.

  “I had no idea you would do so well so quickly,” he said. He cocked his head. “I expected you would need more help.”

  Pleased at what passed for praise from the old man, I licked his hand.

  “I am going to the krianan village,” he said. “It is time for us to come out of hiding. We will prepare to come to Kaar after the festival.” His smile broadened. “It will please me to be the one to tell IniMin he has lost.”

  He bent his head in one of his jerky bows, and loped from the village.

  We’d both underestimated the power of the humans’ fear. The dark night made them wary. I’d noticed that they were more watchful at such times, when their night-weak eyes made them more vulnerable. DavRian and IniMin knew it, too.

  All Ázzuen did was to walk into the village looking for me. He caught sight of me lying next to a fire, and ambled over.

  DavRian shouted a warning, then stood and hurled his spear at Ázzuen, who just managed to dodge out of the way. DavRian and three other humans ran straight at the two of us, spears raised. We didn’t wait to find out what was going on. We pelted into the thickest part of the woods around Kaar. Once we realized that no one was following us, we doubled back and hid in the bushes to watch the village.

  DavRian stood with his arms crossed over his chest. IniMin, poised next to him, held out his spear as if guarding him.

  HesMi stalked over to them, dragging TaLi by the arm. “What was that about?” she demanded, releasing TaLi.

  DavRian’s voice was low and frightened, but he smelled of excitement and spite.

  “It was a yil-wolf,” he said in a whisper.

  “A what?” HesMi was mystified.

  “A yil-wolf. It can change from wolf to human and back again. Like I told you when we saw the mad wolf. BreLan and his wolf have become one creature. Soon they’ll become like the mad wolf that almost attacked us.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” TaLi said, lifting her lip in derision. A ripple of laughter ran through the village.

  “If it’s so ridiculous,” IniMin said, “where’s BreLan? If he isn’t the same as the wolf, where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” TaLi said. “Probably hunting.”

  “At night?” IniMin challenged.

  “It happened once before in the Wide Valley,” DavRian added. “If a yil-wolf bites you, one of three things happens: you’ll go mad, turn into a yil-wolf, or die.”

  HesMi shook her head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.” But her voice was uncertain.

  I couldn’t believe she’d even consider it true. RalZun had said that the dark was fearsome to the humans who could not see well in it. Perhaps that was all it took to imagine monsters. I looked for the old man, but then remembered that he’d gone to the krianan village. I realized that many of the humans who favored us were also gone. DavRian had picked his time well.

  Prannan and Amma chose that moment to dart into the clearing. I tensed my haunches, ready to run to their aid. But JaliMin gave a squeal of pleasure and ran to them. Prannan was carrying some cooked meat in his jaws, and JaliMin took it from him. Several humans had raised their spears when Prannan and Amma ran into the village, but now most of them were smiling.

  “The wolves brought me more food,” JaliMin said in perfectly
clear speech. He smiled and rested his head against Prannan.

  HesMi’s expression softened. “They have done so much more than improve our hunt,” she said. “It’s almost as if they are family. I can hardly believe they are truly a threat.”

  “Our stories tell us the wolves are good for us,” TaLi said. “We’re better people when they’re with us.”

  “Until they kill us in our sleep,” DavRian muttered.

  “We will keep it in mind,” HesMi said, nodding to DavRian, but she had turned her attention to her grandson. It was clear she had dismissed DavRian.

  I thought DavRian would be frustrated or angry, but he just smiled at HesMi and turned away.

  I began to crawl out from the bushes.

  “Wait, Kaala,” Ázzuen said. “Look how uneasy some of the humans are.”

  I stopped. Small groups of them clustered together. They were whispering to one another, their shoulders tense. I recognized the male who had thrown the chunk of wood at me after we’d seen the crazed wolf. The smell of fear wafted through the village.

  “He’s going to keep trying to get them to fear us until he succeeds,” Ázzuen said grimly.

  “He doesn’t have enough time,” I said. “It’s almost Even Night and HesMi doesn’t believe his lies.”

  We waited until the humans had calmed down before walking as quietly as we could into the village. DavRian’s friends whispered and pointed at us, but the other humans ignored them. I found TaLi curled up by one of the fires and lay next to her. Ázzuen settled on my other side. DavRian watched me, staring at me in challenge. When no one else was looking, I lifted my lip at him. He turned his eyes away, ceding dominance to me. Satisfied, I curled against TaLi and basked in the warmth of the humans’ fire.

  My nose twitched, awaking me from a fitful sleep to the morning bustle of humans preparing for their day. There was meat nearby and the scent of it had set my stomach rumbling. I prodded Ázzuen awake, and we followed the scent to the warmest, smallest clearing that lay at the edge of the village. The humans were wasteful, and they often threw away bones that had good meat on them. Still, I didn’t expect to see the good-size pile of cooked elk meat at the clearing’s edge. This meat smelled old. I remembered then that when prey had been dead for several days, the humans didn’t like to eat it unless they had preserved it. They didn’t appreciate the strong taste of older meat, which was probably why they’d left it for us.

  I ran to the pile of elk, then stopped. Something about it smelled wrong.

  “Don’t eat it, Kaala,” Ázzuen warned.

  “I know.” I sniffed. The meat reeked of the gallin leaf, a plant so toxic that one bite would make a wolf violently ill. More would be deadly. And there was a lot of it in the elk meat. Another smell was just as strong. DavRian’s scent. I remembered what he had told IniMin about trying to get rid of us, and I remembered him kicking the gallin plant at the gorse patch after the salmon hunt.

  Ázzuen was growling softly. I thought about leaving dung atop the meat, to let DavRian know exactly what I thought of him and his attempt to kill us, but Trevegg had once told me that gloating over an enemy’s failure only strengthened his resolve. Instead, I kicked dirt onto the pile of meat. Any wolf who found it would know from its smell that it was poisoned and would avoid it.

  If I’d had any doubts before, I had none now. DavRian had stopped trying to become krianan by fair means. He intended to defeat us. And he would kill us to do so. I snarled in contempt. If he wanted us dead, he was going to have to do better than that.

  TaLi and BreLan were waiting for us by the herb den. TaLi had a huge grin on her face. I wondered how she could be so cheerful when DavRian was so intent on making her fail. I sat next to her, watching her carefully.

  “Come on, wolves,” BreLan said. “We’re going to teach TaLi how to swim!”

  I stood and knocked my shoulder into Ázzuen’s. I’d been trying to find some way to convince TaLi to learn to swim for as long as I’d known her. Somehow, BreLan had gotten her to agree, and I wasn’t going to wait for her to change her mind. Prannan, Amma, and Lallna were all sleeping in the morning sun. We left them to their naps.

  BreLan led us to a shallow, slow-moving part of the river. TaLi had a small pouch at her waist, and I could smell firemeat in it, as well as the leaves of the fat-stem plant, which grew profusely along the streambed near Kaar. Its flowers were temptingly fragrant at night, but its leaves were too bitter to eat. TaLi kept giggling and then stopping herself. She’d been so reluctant to learn how to swim, I couldn’t figure out why she was enjoying the prospect so much now.

  BreLan stood on the shore while TaLi waded into the river until the water was up to her waist. Tlitoo winged down to stand on a rock in the middle of the river. He looked at me and chortled, then flew to the far side of the river.

  “Come out here with me, Kaala,” TaLi called.

  I waded to her. BreLan walked at my side while Ázzuen watched from the riverbank.

  As soon as I was chest deep in the river, TaLi lost her footing and fell. I bolted to her, but when I reached her, the water was only up to my neck, which meant TaLi could stand easily. Confused, I looked from her to BreLan. TaLi surged to her feet, and she and BreLan tackled me so that everything but my head was submerged. Then, as BreLan held me, TaLi rubbed the fat-stem leaves all over me, covering me in their scent. She and BreLan dunked me under the water again and again until the foam from the fragrant leaves was washed away.

  “Now you smell better,” TaLi said with a huge grin. BreLan thumped me on the side. Tlitoo flew above us, cackling.

  I slogged out of the water, glowering at all of them. I shook as hard as I could, trying to shake off the indignity as much as the water. Ázzuen was laughing at me and trying to hide it. I ignored him and found a sunny spot where I could dry off.

  BreLan did try to teach TaLi how to swim, towing her back and forth in the deeper part of the river while Ázzuen and I lay in the sun. But every time BreLan let her go, TaLi sank. She got angrier and angrier. Forgiving her for dunking me, I went back out, Ázzuen beside me. Even with all of us encouraging her, she kept sinking. Frustrated, she tramped to shore. She and BreLan lay down together and fell asleep in the sun. Ázzuen and I settled beside them. Soon his even breathing told me he slept. I closed my eyes, but before I could fall asleep, I smelled sweat and dream-sage. I snapped my eyes open. A shadow crossed over me, and I twisted my neck to see DavRian watching us from the trees. I didn’t know how long he’d been there, or how much of TaLi’s failed lesson he’d seen. I was uneasy for a moment, but didn’t see how TaLi’s swimming ability would affect the way HesMi saw her, and DavRian couldn’t hurt the girl with both BreLan and me at her side. He slipped back into the woods and I placed my head protectively on TaLi’s belly.

  “You’re wet, Kaala,” she complained. Then she smiled. “But at least you don’t smell like rancid meat anymore.” We lay in the sun, enjoying the warmth of the day. I thought of days to come, when we could relax with our humans without worrying about DavRian or Even Night, or the Sentinel wolves.

  At late-sun, TaLi and BreLan rose and started back. When we ran, they followed us, racing us back to the village.

  The wail of grief reached us when we were twenty wolflengths from the village, and it stopped us short. The last time I’d heard a sound like that was when one of Rissa and Ruuqo’s pups had been trampled to death and the pack had sung his death song.

  We walked forward slowly. Humans were lined up along a path that led to the warm side of the village, where the smallest clearing lay. One by one, humans looked up at us, their faces bleak. Tears dampened the face of a woman, and I put my nose to the back of her hand. She stroked my head.

  A smaller group of humans clustered around something. TaLi gasped and my throat constricted with dread. The cry of grief rose again. It was HesMi’s voice. I pushed between the legs of two humans.

  JaliMin lay perfectly still, his chest not moving, his eyes wide open, his face
stiff in death. There were no wounds on his body, and even from where I stood I could smell the elk meat on him and the scent of the poisonous gallin leaf. He lay not five wolflengths from where the poisoned meat had been. I crept toward him, forcing myself to look at his face. He stared at me in reproach.

  Ázzuen slunk up next to me, his tail so low it dragged in the dirt.

  “We should have buried it, Kaala. We should have marked it better.”

  We should have. I could imagine what had happened. JaliMin had grown accustomed to our feeding him. He had found food by our paw prints, so he ate it.

  None of the humans seemed angry with us. None of them seemed to understand our part in JaliMin’s death. But none of them knew that DavRian had poisoned the meat, either. I staggered back to where the tainted meat had lain. It was gone. I paced around the spot several times. There was just damp ground, the scent of gallin, the scent of wolf, and the scent of JaliMin.

  The humans would never be able to figure out what had happened. They wouldn’t know DavRian had set out tainted meat. I watched them as they grieved. Some were bent over JaliMin. Some were weeping and some were still and silent. All were mourning.

  Except for DavRian.

  I thought he might look remorseful. I expected, perhaps, that he would be horrified by how, in his attempt to poison us, he had killed a beloved child instead. But though his expression was sorrowful, his body and his scent belied his show of sadness. He smelled of anticipation and his muscles were taut as if he were ready to run after prey.

  The murmuring started with IniMin. “DavRian warned us that all of the wolves have poison in their teeth.” His whisper carried on the wind. “JaliMin played with them all the time. It was only a matter of time before their poison killed him.”

  I slunk to Ázzuen. “He can’t have planned it,” I said. “There’s no way he could’ve known it would kill JaliMin. He’ll have to be more careful now.”