Tlitoo pecked me hard between my ears. “Enough whining, wolflet.”
I got to my paws and shook myself.
“DavRian is just one human,” was the first thing I thought of to say. “There are good ones, and we will help the good ones overcome the bad.” I lifted my chin, mimicking my mother’s boldness. “I have to get back to our humans now.” I turned my back on the Sentinels and walked away.
Large paws pushed me to the earth and I rolled over to look up into Navdru’s gaze. I heard a yelp and then a scuffle. Two Sentinels hustled Ázzuen into the gathering place.
“This one was hiding in the bushes, watching us,” one of them said with a smirk. “Maybe he was planning an attack.” Ázzuen glared up at them and trotted over to me. Navdru let me get to my paws.
“Next time, don’t challenge them directly,” Ázzuen said, licking the top of my head. “You aren’t as big as you think you are.”
“You followed me.”
“Of course I did,” he said as if I were as simple-minded as a grubfinder bird, “when the Greatwolf howled that they’d found you. I heard what Neesa said, Kaala, about Gaanin being your father. It doesn’t matter. You’ve done more than any other wolf to bring wolves and humans together.” Then he lowered his head to mine. “It’s bad, Kaala. HesMi believes DavRian. She says we’re vicious and should all be killed.”
My stomach clenched so tightly that I retched, and my tongue was so thick in my mouth that I could hardly breathe. HesMi wanted us dead. We had failed. Because I was the daughter of a streckwolf. An aberrant wolf. The destroyer of wolfkind.
The Greatwolves around us began a low, rhythmic growling like none I’d ever heard. They formed a half circle around us, heads lowered and swaying. My mother rushed back to my side. Tlitoo hovered above the Greatwolves, his beak opening and closing.
Navdru looked at me, compassion in his gaze. “I’m sorry, youngwolf.”
My haunches tensed as I prepared to run or to fight. Neesa barked a challenge. Ázzuen rumbled a deep, threatening growl. His face was contorted in a snarl so fierce that I would have been afraid to be on the other side of it. The Greatwolves advanced.
Then Navdru’s head snapped up. I heard the heavy footsteps of humans in the forest around us a moment after he did.
We all bolted out of the clearing and hid among the thick junipers.
DavRian’s voice flew on the rising wind, as he led a large group of humans into the clearing. They all carried their fire branches and their spears.
“I told you there were giant wolves,” he said, pointing to the Greatwolves’ bodies. “Just like I told you the wolves would poison us.”
Navdru growled beside me. “That’s the one who did this,” he said. “I can smell his scent all over my pack.” He stood then, and strode into the clearing to confront DavRian as he would confront any wolf who had injured a packmate under his protection. He still didn’t understand how different the humans were from us, how much more dangerous. Yildra walked at his side. Milsindra, grinning at me, gave a loud bark and followed them.
The humans whirled to see three huge wolves stalking them. One of them screamed, terrified. Another threw his fire branch at Navdru, who knocked it away with a swing of his huge head. The wind took the flame, and the thick juniper bushes surrounding the clearing caught fire.
Then all of the humans were running toward us, their fire branches waving. DavRian raised his high, lighting the pine tree next to him. The flame jumped from one bough to another, carried on the howling wind.
“Burn them,” he screeched. He lit another juniper, and the dry bark of the pine next to it caught fire. Then, in a frenzy of fear, the humans began to set fire to everything around them. It made no sense, but their fear-fevered eyes were not the eyes of sane creatures. They were like the crazed wolf, running in circles that would take it nowhere. But they were more dangerous than a hundred maddened wolves.
“They’ll burn everything,” I gasped. Ázzuen stared, unmoving, at the flames as if he were merely watching the humans make use of one more of their clever tools.
“They couldn’t have picked a worse place,” he whispered, his eyes wide. “Pine and juniper burn better than anything.”
“Run, stupid little wolves,” Tlitoo rasped, poking me and then Ázzuen hard on our rumps.
Ázzuen shook himself, still staring, mesmerized by the flames. Neesa slammed into us.
“The wind is blowing the fire toward the village,” she said. “The Sentinels will run toward Hidden Grove to escape it. Get away from them while they run. Head back to the Wide Valley. There’s no way they’ll let you live now.” She slammed into me again. “I’ll try to lead them away. Go!”
She turned from us and ran toward the Sentinels. There was no need to lead them away. They scattered before the fire like mice fleeing a hawk.
If the flames were moving toward the village, they were moving toward our humans.
Ázzuen still stared at the flames. I bit his shoulder.
“We have to get TaLi and BreLan.”
He snapped out of his daze and shook his head, making his ears flap.
“Follow me, wolves,” Tlitoo croaked.
We sprinted toward the stream, the flames biting at our tails. Dark smoke blinded me and clogged my nose, and I kept losing sight of Ázzuen. Tlitoo flew just above our heads, which must have been painful in the choking smoke, and he called out to us whenever the thick smoke blocked him from our view.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take another breath, I felt cool water on the singed pads of my paws. I stopped as I saw two humans in the stream, running away from us. I recognized TaLi’s gangly shape.
They were smart, running in the water where the flames should not have been able to reach them, but they were running the wrong way—right into the fire’s path.
I couldn’t gather the breath to bark a warning, and I didn’t think they’d hear it through the howls of the flames even if I could. Ázzuen and I chased after them, and for the first time, I was glad that the humans moved more slowly than we did. We were nearly upon them when they left the stream and scrambled into the woods that led to Kaar.
“There is more fire that way, wolves,” Tlitoo shrilled.
We bolted after the humans.
The wind had carried the flames more quickly than we could run. Bushes surged with fire as if they had been lit from below. We found TaLi and BreLan, clinging together, trapped by a circle of flame.
The heat shoved against me. I forced myself to push back.
“This way, Kaala!” Ázzuen had found a spot where the flames were no higher than our chests. He leapt over it and I followed, feeling the fur of my belly singe.
“Kaala!” TaLi choked, falling to her knees and throwing her arms around me. BreLan hauled her to her feet.
“Can you get us out?” he asked Ázzuen.
Ázzuen found enough air to yip to him. He watched the fire.
“What are you doing?” I gasped. “We have to run.”
“We have to wait,” he said. “The flames surge and ebb. Follow me when I run.” He hadn’t been stunned when he watched the flames back at the Greatwolves’ killing ground. He’d been figuring them out, as he did with everything he saw.
“Now!” he woofed.
He shoved BreLan’s hip and ran. The humans and I followed him, crossing through a break in the flames.
The humans were even slower than usual. “We have to get them somewhere safe,” I wheezed to Ázzuen.
“Come with me,” Tlitoo rasped.
I didn’t see how the raven could lead us to safety. Flames licked the trees all around us. The humans gagged as they stumbled at our sides. We ran until my paws hurt and my tongue hung down so far I tasted dirt. I could barely breathe. I was sure we would be burned like firemeat by the flames that pursued us.
Then, when I thought I could run no longer, the Hill Rock rose in front of me. Tlitoo had known where he was going after all. I scrabbled up it, making sure that
the humans were with us. They moved almost as quickly as we did, using their agile hands to pull themselves up above the flames.
Tlitoo disappeared into a hole in the rock. I peered in after him. There was a deep cave I’d never noticed from the ground. The humans crawled into it and we followed.
The damp air soothed my lungs. Ázzuen explored the back of the cave, sniffing in the corners.
“No one’s here,” he said. “It’s safe.”
The humans were too tired to check the cave for danger. They sank down on the cool ground. TaLi held her ankle. I dragged myself over to her.
“I sprained it, Kaala,” she said.
BreLan bent over her, examining her ankle. I licked it, over and over again, grateful that she wasn’t more seriously injured. Ázzuen paced the cave as if he could guard against the smoke and flames. When Tlitoo strode to the mouth of the cave, I went with him.
I stood on a ledge outside the cave and looked down at the woods below us. The flames couldn’t reach us, though the smoke still clawed at my throat. For as far as I could see, the woods were burning. Hidden Grove Gathering Place was ablaze. I heard the screams of prey and hunter alike as every creature in the woods sought safety.
I tried to howl for my mother, but my throat was too raw. I shouldn’t have lost sight of her. She could be anywhere, burning or choking down below. Prannan and Amma could be dying in the flames, too. Ázzuen was safe, and TaLi, but the rest of my family could be burning to death below me. I was supposed to be a pack leader, but I was as helpless as a newborn pup. For the fire burned so far and fast that it seemed nothing could escape it.
DavRian and his friends must have lit a thousand fires. I couldn’t see Kaar from where I stood, but I couldn’t believe it would survive the flames. DavRian had been willing to poison humans to get to us. Now it seemed he didn’t care if everything in the land died. In trying to destroy us, the humans were destroying everything around them. They were uncontrollable, and my attempts to influence them had led once again to horror. I was no more than a drelshik, causing pain wherever I went.
I could do nothing but stand gasping above the flames, watching as my hopes for fulfilling the Promise burned.
24
Hot stones burned my paws, and sharp bits of wood poked painfully between the pads of my feet as I picked my way down the Hill Rock the next morning. The fire had burned itself out, but the late-morning air was still bitter with recent smoke. Tlitoo hovered above me, scanning the desolate land below us. Ázzuen watched from the mouth of the cave, guarding BreLan and the wounded TaLi as the humans slept, exhausted from escaping the fire. I was tired, too, but I needed to know what had happened in the human village and the Sentinel lands, and if I really had failed as completely as it seemed.
From the time we were smallpups, barely able to scent the difference between the tracks of a rabbit and those of a hare, we were told that if humans and wolves came together, disaster would follow. I hadn’t believed it. I had thought it an exaggeration, a way for the Greatwolves to keep things the way they were. I didn’t believe that the love I felt for TaLi and the bond my packmates felt for their humans could be so dangerous. I believed that DavRian was a malicious human and that his killing of NiaLi and JaliMin were acts of isolated madness. I could not have been more wrong. I’d thought that if I loved the humans enough, that if they loved us enough, it would stop the vicious humans from destroying us. It had not.
I reached what had been the forest floor. Oak trees, willows, and birches remained standing; their moist trunks and high branches had protected them somewhat from the flames. The pines and spruce were gone, or so charred as to be unrecognizable. I made my way carefully through the burned land.
A dead fox stared up at me, its eyes fixed, its mouth frozen in a snarl. I kept walking. A family of rabbits lay dead next to what must have been their den, and I understood that I had brought death to more than just wolves. The burned place seemed to go on and on. I came upon the gorse patch and realized I was headed the wrong way. I closed my eyes to better smell the land around me and picked up the faint scent of running water. I followed it to the stretch of river where BreLan had tried to teach TaLi to swim. I lapped at it thirstily. Tlitoo drank beside me.
“Wolflet,” he said. “Someone was just here.”
He was peering down at a paw print in the mud. I lowered my nose to it. My mother’s scent rose from it, and it was fresh, left after the fire had passed through. My legs weakened under me with relief. My mother was alive, or had been right after the fire. The knowledge that she lived gave me as much strength as had the fresh water in my parched throat. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again.
“Do you want to follow her, wolf?”
The scent led into the river and then disappeared, which meant she had run in the water, whether to avoid detection or cool her paws I didn’t know, but it would take time to track her. I took a deep breath. She was alive. Ázzuen and TaLi were alive. I could handle whatever else came.
“Later,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”
Neither of us spoke as we left the river to make our way to the krianan village.
The fire had burned so hot there that nothing had survived except the oldest, strongest trees. I hoped some of the krianans might still live. They knew the woods as well as any wolf, and they might have sensed the fire coming. They might have had time to get away.
The flames had been too fierce. One by one I found the krianans, their bodies charred almost beyond scent recognition. I didn’t understand why the krianan village had burned so terribly. There were rocky fields between the start of the fire and the krianans’ home that should have offered them some protection. I remembered that RalZun had returned to their village to talk to them. I prayed that the crafty old man had escaped before the fire came.
“Kaala,” Tlitoo said. He had never called me by name before, in all the time I’d known him. His voice was loud in the silence around us. There was no sound of prey or other creatures, just the warm wind lifting and spreading the ash around us. “We must go to the big village.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to find out how badly I had failed. I didn’t want to see more humans and wolves dead because of me, or hear living ones say that we’d destroyed their home. But that was a coward’s way out. I allowed Tlitoo to lead me toward the village.
I knew we’d reached the edge of Kaar by the stack of rhino bones piled high near the charred remains of the spruce grove. The village was almost completely destroyed, but bits of the larger structures still stood smoldering in the center of the largest clearing. It was abandoned, at least by the living. There were bodies everywhere. There were so many dead that I wondered if any of the people of Kaar had survived. I made my way through the village, sniffing as I went. Jlela winged down from the branches of a singed elm to land beside Tlitoo. It was an old tree, and it had stood alone without bushes or smaller trees around it.
“They wished to burn you from their territory,” Jlela croaked. “They said wolves poisoned the land and the land must be cleansed. I hid in the tree and heard them say so. The one called DavRian burned the krianan village on purpose, too. He said the old krianans are as much a threat as the wolves. That was how the fire got away from them. They burned their own home.” She warbled and flew back up to an elm branch. “Everything burned. Most of the village died. The ones left are going to Laan village. They have agreed that the old krianans are a danger to them and that they will no longer follow their ways.”
I growled to myself. I’d known as soon as HesMi chased us away from the village that we’d lost the humans of Kaar. Now DavRian would turn other humans against us, too. The ravens croaked to each other. I watched as they walked a few paces, took flight to land on a pile of bones or fallen shelter, and then hopped to perch on another pile of death or destruction.
I lifted my muzzle to the air, trying to sniff out who was alive and who was dead, but my nose was clogged with the scent of smoke. I sat and sne
ezed several times, then picked up the faint scent of wolf and followed it.
That was when I found Prannan and Amma lying dead next to two humans.
“They were sleeping in one of the humans’ shelters,” Jlela quorked. “They stayed at their slow humans’ side and did not escape in time. I tried to lead them away but they had eyes only for their humans.”
I felt such a powerful wave of shame that I could hardly stand. The first responsibility of a leaderwolf is to protect the wolves who follow her. Amma and Prannan had trusted me and I had led them to their deaths. I’d done everything I could think of to win the humans over in order to save wolfkind. Instead I had killed the wolves most deserving of my protection. When I was born, of mixed blood and with the mark of the crescent moon on my chest, Ruuqo had said I was unlucky. Milsindra said I was the destroyer of wolfkind. They were both right.
“Wolf, come here,” Tlitoo said. He was standing over something that moved ever so slightly.
I trudged over to him. He bent over a raven, its chest moving up and down with great effort, its beady eyes half open.
“He says that some humans ran away. HesMi did not. She stayed to save the others and died with them,” Tlitoo said. “He says we must not give up. He says we are close to what we need. He says not to forget what you have learned as Nejakilakin.”
The dying bird lifted his head and glared at me, opening and closing his beak. “You do not have time for regret,” he croaked. “You do not have time to be foolhardy. You must not make the mistakes those before you have made.” There was something so familiar about him.
“She must find a way to talk to the girl,” he ordered Tlitoo. “There is a way. Find it.”
I realized then what was so familiar about the old raven. His raspy voice and piercing gaze were the same as RalZun’s. RalZun, who leapt down from the trees as if he had wings.
Spirit of the Wolves Page 24
