Wolf's Eyes

by Jane Lindskold

  PRAISE FOR THROUGH WOLF'S EYES

  “What do you get when you mix lost magic and feral children with dynastic politics, wolf social dynamics, treason, and over-ambitious, social-climbing parents? You get Jane Lindskold's new novel Through Wolfs Eyes and another stay-up-to-finish-the-last-page read.”

  —David Weber

  “Through Wolfs Eyes combines the mythic resonances of a feral child raised by wolves with a fascinating fantasy of a freshness and originality that makes all the legion of mock-medieval clones look pale and faded. Her characters live—they're real, but they are different. And the world they live in lingers in the mind; heroic, squalid, exotic, everyday. I was convinced that it went on by itself when I turned the last page. Bravo!”

  —S. M. Stirling

  “I adore Jane Lindskold's writing and Through Wolfs Eyes is her best book yet. Courtly intrigues that would make Dorothy Dunnett proud shouldn't mix so well with the story of a feral child, but they do, they do. Lindskold's novels are a rarity for me—fat, engrossing novels that still don't seem long enough.”

  —Charles de Lint

  “This engrossing tale of feral myth and royal intrigue offers plenty of action as well as fascinating anthropological detail… A beautiful and complex book.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  PRAISE FOR JANE LINDSKOLD

  “From the very start of the book I got the same buzz as when I first read Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, or Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber, that delicious sense of embarking on a grand adventure… From start to finish it is, and remains, a smart, funny, well-detailed romp of an adventure story that still finds room to address serious concerns—a fabulous Romance in the best, and old, sense of the word.”

  —Charles de Lint on Changer

  TOR BOOKS BY JANE LINDSKOLD

  Through Wolf's Eyes

  Wolfs Head, Wolfs Heart

  The Dragon of Despair

  The Buried Pyramid

  Wolf Captured

  Child of a Rainless Year

  Wolf Hunting

  Wolfs Blood

  THROUGH

  WOLF'S

  EYES

  JANE LINDSKOLD

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THROUGH WOLF'S EYES

  Copyright © 2001 by Jane Lindskold

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

  Map by Mark Stein Studios, based on original drawings by James Moore

  Family tree art by Tim Hall

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC..

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8125-7548-4

  ISBN-10: 0-8125-7548-2

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001027197

  First Edition: August 2001

  First Mass Market Edition: June 2002

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6

  For Jim,

  with Love

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I'd like to thank several people for their help during the development of this book. Christie Golden's eloquent discussion of some aspects of characterization remained with me as I developed certain characters. Phyllis White of Flying Coyote Books supplied numerous valuable references on wolves. Jim Moore was once again my priceless first reader and constant sounding board. Kay McCauley, Jan and Steve Stirling, David Weber and Sharon Rice-Weber never let me give up. Sally Gwylan helped me to conquer time and error. Last, but not at all least, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden provided thoughtful encouragement and cogent editorial comments.

  Special thanks go to Dr. Mark Anthony for fixing my shoulder and to Candy Kitchen Wolf Ranch for giving me a chance to meet several wolves up close and personal.

  Feel free to contact me through my website, janelindskold.com.

  BOOK

  ONE

  I

  AAA-ROOO! AAA-ROOO!

  Distant, yet carrying, the wolf's howl broke the Jll late-afternoon stillness.

  In the depths of the forest, a young woman, as “f strong and supple as the sound, rose noiselessly to her feet. With bloodstained fingers, she pushed her short, dark brown hair away from her ears to better hear the call.

  Aaa-rooo! Aaa-rooo!

  It was a sentry howl, relayed from a great distance to the east. The young woman understood its message more easily than she would have understood any form of human speech.

  “Strangers! Strangers! Strangers! Strange!”

  The last lilt of inflection clarified the previous howls. Whatever was coming from the east was not merely a trespasser—perhaps a young wolf dispersing from his birth pack—but an unknown quantity. But from the relay signal that preceded the call, the strangers were far away.

  The young woman felt a momentary flicker of curiosity. Hunger, however, was more pressing. The cold times were not long past and her memories of dark, freezing days, when even the stupid fish were unreachable beneath the ice, were sharp.

  She squatted again and continued skinning a still warm rabbit, musing, not for the first time, how much more convenient it would be if she could eat it as her kinfolk did: fur, bone, flesh, and guts all in one luxurious mouthful.

  AAA-ROOO! AAA-ROOO!

  Derian Carter, the youngest member of Earl Kestrel's expedition, felt his shoulder jerked nearly out of its socket when the wolf howl pierced the late-afternoon peace. The haunting sound startled the sensitive chestnut mare he was unbridling nearly out of her highly bred stockings.

  “Easy, easy, Roanne,” he murmured mechanically, all too aware that his own heart was racing. That wolf sounded close!

  As Derian eased the mare's headstall over ears that couldn't seem to decide whether to prick in alarm or flatten in annoyance, he said in a voice he was pleased to discover remained calm, almost nonchalant:

  “That sounds like a big wolf out there, Race.”

  Race Forester, the guide for Earl Kestrel's expedition, looked down his long nose at the younger man and chuckled. He was a lean fellow with a strong, steady tread that spoke of long distances traveled afoot and blond hair bleached so white by constant exposure to the sun that he would look much the same at sixty as he did at thirty.

  “That it does, Derian.” Race stroked his short but full beard as he glanced around their sheltered forest camp, systematically noting the areas that would need to be secured now that big predators were about. “Wolves always sound bigger when you're on their turf, rather than safe behind a city wall.”

  Derian swallowed a retort. In the weeks since Earl Kestrel's expedition had departed the capital of Hawk Haven, Race had rarely missed an opportunity to remind the members (other than the earl himself) that Race himself was the woodsman, while they were mere city folk. Only the fact that Race's contempt was so generally administered had kept Derian from calling him out and showing him that a city-bred man could know a thing or two.

  Only that, Derian admitted honestly (though only to him-self), and the fact that Race would probably turn Derian into a smear on the turf. Though Derian Carter was tall enough to need to duck his head going through low doorways, muscular enough to handle the most spirited horse or work from dawn to du
sk loading and unloading wagons at his father's warehouses, there was something about Race Forester's sinewy form, about the way he carried his slighter build, that made Derian doubt who would be the winner in a hand-to-hand fight.

  And, with another surge of honesty, Derian admitted that the woodsman had earned the right to express his contempt. Race was good at what he did—many said the best in both Hawk Haven and their rival kingdom of Bright Bay. What was Derian Carter in comparison? Well trained, but untried.

  Derian would never have admitted that before they set out—knowing himself good with a horse or an account book or even with his fists—but a few things had been hammered into his red head since they left the capital, things that hadn't been all that much fun to learn, and Derian didn't plan on forgetting them now.

  So Derian swallowed his retort and continued removing the tack from the six riding horses. To his right, burly Ox, his road-grown beard incongruously black against pink, round cheeks, was heaving the packs from the four mules. When another long, eerie wolf's howl caused the nearest mule to kick back at the imagined danger, Ox blocked the kick rather than dodging.

  That block neatly summed up why Ox was a member of the expedition. Even-tempered, like most big men who have never been forced to fight, Ox had made his recent living in the Hawk Haven military. During the current lull in hostilities, however, he had left the military to serve as Earl Kestrel's bodyguard.

  Ox's birth name, Derian had learned to his surprise, was Malvin Hogge.

  “But no one's called me that since long before my hair started receding,” he'd told Derian, rubbing ruefully where his curly hairline was making an undignified and premature retreat. “But I prefer the name that my buddies in Kestrel Company gave me long ago and, strangely enough, no one ever calls me ‘Malvin’ twice.”

  Unlike Derian, Ox felt no inordinate awe toward Race Forester, aware that in his own way he was as valuable as the guide. How many men could shift a battering ram by them-selves or do the work of three packers?

  “Think that wolf wants us for dinner?” Ox asked Race in his deep-voiced, ponderous way.

  “Hardly,” the guide retorted scornfully. “We're too big a group and wolves, savage as they are, are not stupid.”

  “Well,” Ox replied, laughing at his own joke, “you'd better tell the mules that. I don't think they understand.”

  Sir Jared Surcliffe, a lesser member of Earl Kestrel's own family, but prouder of his recently acquired nickname “Doc” than of any trace of noble blood, crossed to claim the general provisions bundle. Like the earl he had black hair and clear, grey eyes, but his height and build lacked the earl's seeming delicacy. There was strength in his long-fingered hands—as Derian had learned when Jared stitched a cut in his forearm a couple of weeks back. Derian recalled that Doc had won honors in battle, so he must have other strengths as well.

  “Valet has the fire started,” Jared said, an upper-class accent giving his simple statement unwonted authority. “I'll start dinner. Race, shouldn't you see if there might be a fish or two in yonder brook? Earl Kestrel would enjoy fresh trout with his dinner.”

  Had anyone but Jared or the earl himself even hinted at giving the guide orders, he might have found himself standing a late-night watch on an anthill. Race Forester, though, for all his pride in his skills, knew when he could—and could not—push his social betters.

  “Right,” he grunted, and departed, whistling for Queenie, his bird dog. The red-spotted hound reluctantly abandoned the station near the fire from which she'd been watching Earl Kestrel's man unpack the delicacies kept for the earl's own consumption.

  When the wolf howled again, Derian wondered how much of Queenie's reluctance was due to leaving the food and how much to the proximity of the big predator.

  “They say that the wolves in the mountains are bigger than anything found in settled lands,” Derian said, talking to distract himself and feeling freer to speculate now that Race was gone.

  “They do,” Doc agreed, “but I've always wondered, just who has seen these giant wolves? Few people have gone beyond the foothills of the Iron Mountains—those mostly miners and trappers. As far as I know, the only ones to have crossed the range are Prince Barden and those who went with him.”

  Derian finished currying Roanne and moved to the earl's Coal before answering.

  “Maybe in the early days,” he hazarded, “when the colonies were new. Maybe people saw the wolves then.”

  “Possibly,” Jared said agreeably, shaping a journey cake on its board. “And possibly it's all grandmother's fire stories. Race is right. Wolves and other night creatures do sound bigger when you're camping.”

  Conversation lagged as the members of the expedition hurried to complete their chores before the last of the late-spring light faded. Part of the reason Earl Kestrel had planned his journey for this time of year was that the days would be growing longer, but after hours spent riding on muddy trails, the evenings seemed brief enough.

  Cool, too, Derian thought, blowing on his fingers as he measured grain for the mules and horses. Winter may be gone, but she's not letting us forget her just yet

  Ox, who had finished putting up the tents and was now effortlessly chopping wood, paused, his axe in the air.

  “If you're cold, Derian, you can help me chop this wood. You know what they say, ‘Wood warms you twice: once in the cutting, once in the burning.’ “

  Derian grinned at him. “No thanks. I've enough else to finish. Do you think we'll get snow tonight? The air almost has the scent of it.”

  Ox shrugged, measuring his answer out between the blows of his axe. “The mountains do get snow, even this late in the season, but I hope we're not in for any. A blackberry winter's all we need.”

  Derian frowned thoughtfully. “At home I'd say snow would be a good thing for business. It's easier to move goods by sled and people by sleigh, but out here, on horseback… I could do without the snow.”

  “We won't have snow,” announced Race, reentering the camp from the forest fringe. Three long, shining river trout dangled from one hand. “The smoke's rising straight off the fires. Clear but cold tonight. Derian, you might want to break out your spare blankets.”

  Derian nodded. He'd slept cold one night out of a stubborn desire to show himself as tough as the woodsman and had been stiff and nearly useless the next morning. Earl Kestrel himself had chided him for foolish pride.

  “Our mission is too important to be trifled with,” Kestrel had continued in his mincing way. “Mind that you listen to Race Forester's advice from here on.”

  And Derian had nodded and apologized, but in his heart he wondered. Just how important was this mission? King Tedric had seemed content enough these dozen years not knowing his son's fate. And Prince Barden had shown no desire to contact the king.

  Earl Kestrel had been the one to decide that knowing what had happened to the disinherited prince was important—Kestrel said for the realm, but Derian suspected that the information was important mostly for how it would affect the earl's private ambitions.

  THE YOUNG WOMAN was bathing when a thin, tail-chewed female informed her that the One Male wanted her at the den. The messenger, a yearling who had barely made it through her first winter, cringed and groveled as she delivered her message.

  “When shall I say you will come before him, Firekeeper?” the she-wolf concluded, using the name most of the wolves called the woman—a name indicating a measure of respect, for even the Royal Wolves feared fire.

  Firekeeper tossed a fat chub to the Whiner. She certainly wasn't going to have time to eat it, not if she must run all the way to the den. Ah, well! She could catch more fish later.

  “Tell him,” she said, considering, “I will be there as fast as two feet can carry me.”

  “Slow enough,” sneered the Whiner, emboldened as she remembered how all but the fattest pups could outrun the two-legged wolf.

  Firekeeper snatched a stone from the bank and, swifter than even the Winner's parano
ia, threw it at the wolf's snout.

  “Ai-eee!”

  “That might have been your skull,” the woman reminded her. “Go, bone-chewer. My feet may be slow, but my belly is full with the meat of my own hunting!”

  A lip-curling snarl before the Whiner vanished into the brush showed that the insult had gone home. Faintly, Fire-keeper could hear the retreat of her running paws.

  Her own departure would be less swift. Bending at the waist, she shook the water from her close-cropped hair, then smoothed the locks down, pressing out more water as she did so.

  Even before her hair had stopped dripping down her back, Firekeeper had retrieved her most valuable possession from where she had set it on a flat rock near the water. It was a fang made of some hard, bright stone. With it, she could kill almost as neatly as a young wolf, skin her prey, sharpen the ends of sticks, and perform many other useful tasks. The One Male of her youngest memories had given it to her when he knew he was going into his last winter.

  “These are used by those such as yourself, Little Two-legs,” he had said fondly, “since they lack teeth or claws useful for hunting. I remember how they are used and can tutor you some, but you will need to discover much for yourself.”

  She had accepted the Fang and the leather Mouth in which it slept. At first she had hung them from a thong about her neck, but later, when she had learned more about their uses, she had contrived a way to hang them from a belt around her waist. Only when she was bathing, for the Fang hated water, did she take it off.

  Now she held the tool in her teeth while she reached for the cured hide she had hung in a tree lest those like the Whiner chew it to shreds. Most hides she couldn't care less about but this one, taken from an elk killed for the purpose, was special.

  Out of the center she had cut a hole for her head, wide enough not to chafe her neck. The rest of the skin hung front and back, protecting her most vulnerable parts. A belt made from strips of hide kept the garment in place and she had trimmed away the parts that interfered with free movement of her arms.