Some of the young wolves had laughed when she had contrived her first hide, but she had disregarded their taunts. The wolves had fur to protect themselves from brambles and sticks. She must borrow from the more fortunate or be constantly bleeding from some scrape. An extra skin was welcome, too, against the chill.
In the winter, she tied rabbit skins along her legs and arms with the fur next to her flesh. The skins were awkward, often slipping or falling off, but were still far better than frostbite.
Later in the year, when the days grew hotter and the hide stifling, Firekeeper would wear only a shorter bit of leather around her waist, relinquishing some protection for comfort.
Lastly, Firekeeper hung around her neck a small bag containing the special stones with which she could strike fire. She valued these less than the Fang, but without their power she could not have survived this winter or others before it.
Faintly, Firekeeper remembered when she did not live this way, when she wore something softer and more yielding than hides, when winters were warmer. Almost, she thought, those memories were a dream, but it was a dream that seemed strangely close as she ran to where the One Male awaited her.
THE ONE MALE was a big silver-grey wolf with a dark streak running along his spine to the tip of his tail and a broad white ruff. He was the third of that title Firekeeper could remember and had held the post for only two years. His predecessor would have dominated the pack longer except for a chance stumble in front of an elk during a hunt in midwinter along an icy lakeshore.
The current One Male had been accepted by the One Female, who had led the pack alone through the remainder of that winter until the mating season early the following spring. Competition for her had been fierce and one contender had been killed. A second chose exile rather than live beneath his pack mate's rule.
Yet the diminished pack had fared well, perhaps because of, rather than despite, the losses. Fewer wolves meant fewer ways to split the food. New pups had since grown to fill the gaps and the Ones reigned over a fine pack eight adults strong—with a single strange, two-legged, not-quite-wolf to round out the group.
Although she remembered when both had been fat, blue-eyed, round-bellied puppies, Firekeeper thought of both the One Male and the One Female as older than herself. However, though the human had more years than the wolves, the reality was that they were adults while she, when judged by her abilities rather than her years, was a pup. Indeed, she might always be a pup—a thing she regarded with some dissatisfaction during rare, idle moments.
When she loped into the flat, bone-strewn area outside of the den, the One Male was waiting for her. None of the rest of the pack was visible.
The One Female was within the cave nearby, occupied with her newborn pups. The day for them to be introduced to the rest of their family was close and Firekeeper warmed in pleasant anticipation. Already she knew that there were six pups, all apparently healthy, but everything else about them was kept a guarded secret until the great event of Emergence.
Seeing Firekeeper—though doubtless he had heard her arrive—the One Male rose to his feet. She ran to within a few paces, then dropped onto all fours. When he permitted her to approach, she stroked herfingersalong his jaw, mimicking a puppy's begging.
Tail wagging gently, the One Male drew his lips back from his teeth as if regurgitating—though he did not actually do so. All spare food these days went to the One Female and the pups. Firekeeper, who had been made hungry by her swim followed by a swift run, was rather sorry. Many times during the past winter meat had been carried to her from a kill too distant for her to reach before the scavengers would have stripped it.
“You summoned me, Father?” she asked, sitting back on her haunches now that the greeting ritual had been completed.
The One Male wagged his tail, then sat beside her, tacitly inviting her to throw an arm around him and scratch between his ears.
“Yes, Little Two-legs, I did. Did you hear the message howl some while ago?”
“Stranger! Stranger! Stranger! Strange!” she repeated softly by way of answer. “From the east, I thought.”
“Yes, all the way from the gap in the mountains, not far from where you came to us.”
Firekeeper nodded. She knew the place. There was good hunting in those meadows come late summer when the young deer grew foolish and their mothers careless. There was also a burned place, overgrown now, but hiding black ash and hard-burnt wood beneath the vines and grasses. Every year when the pack hunted in that region the Ones told her how she had come from the burned place and reminded her of her heritage.
“I remember the place,” Firekeeper answered, mostly because she knew the One would want to hear confirmation, not because she thought he needed it.
“The Strangers Strange are two-legs, like yourself,” the One continued. “A falcon has been following them by day and she relays through our scouts that the two-legs go to the Burnt Place, seeking those who were there before I was born.”
“Oh!” Firekeeper gasped softly. Then a question drew a line between her dark, dark eyes. “How does the falcon know where they are going?”
“When this falcon was young she was taken from the air while on migration,” the One explained. “I don't know how it was done, but the Mothers of her people say it was so and I believe them.”
“Like knows like best,” Firekeeper said, repeating a wolf proverb.
“Remember that,” the One Male said, then returned to his explanation. “This falcon lived for a time with the two-legs and hunted for them. During that time, she learned something of their speech—far more than the few words they used to address her. From their speech and from the direction they are heading, she believes that these two-legs are not hunters come for a short time to take furs.”
“The wrong time for that game, certainly,” Firekeeper said. “Your coats are shedding now and make me sneeze.”
“That is why those fingers of yours feel so good,” the One Male admitted. “Pull out the mats as you find them.”
“Only if you remember,” she teased with mock hauteur, “not to bite off my hand!”
“I promise,” he said with sudden solemnity. “As all of us have promised not to harm our strange little sister.”
Made uneasy by this change of mood, Firekeeper occupied herself tugging out a mat, worrying the undercoat loose with dexterous ease.
“Why did you summon me to tell me of the two-legs?” she asked at last. “I know less of them than the falcons do. They are strangers to me. The wolves are my people.”
“Always,” the One Male promised her, “but since before I was born each One has told those who may follow that there is a trust held by our pack for you. When your people return, we have sworn to bring you back to them. It is an ancient trust, given, so our tales say, to your own mother.”
Firekeeper was silenced by astonishment. Then she blurted out indignantly:
“I was never told of this!”
“You,” the One Male said gently, “have never been considered old enough to know. Only those who may one day lead the pack are told of this trust, so that they may vow to keep it in their turn.”
The human admitted the justice of this, but hot tears of frustration and anticipated grief burned in her eyes.
“What if I want nothing of this trust, given to a mother I cannot remember?”
“You will always be a wolf, Firekeeper,” the One Male said. “Meet the two-legs. Learn of them. If you do not care for their ways, come back to the pack. A wise wolf,” he continued, quoting another proverb, “scouts the prey, knows when to hunt, when to stay away.”
“If I did less,” Firekeeper admitted, wiping the tears away with the back of one hand, “I would be less than a wolf. Let me begin by scouting the two-legs. When I have learned who leads, who follows, then I will make myself known to them.”
“Wise,” the One Male said. “The thoughts of a wolf and the courage as well.”
“Tell me where to find them,” Fireke
eper said, rising. “Call my coming to our kin along the trail that they may guide and protect me.”
“I will…”
The One Male's words were interrupted by a husky voice from the den's opening. An elegant head, pure silver, unmanned with white or black, showed against the shadows.
“Go after tonight, Little Two-legs,” said the One Female. ‘Tonight I will bring out your new brothers and sisters so that you may know them and they you. Then, fully of the pack, you may be heartened for your task.”
Overcome with joy, Firekeeper leapt straight into the air.
“Father, Mother, may I cry the pack together?”
“Do, Little Two-legs,” said the One Female. “Loud and long, so that even the scouts come home. Call our family together.”
“WE PASS THROUGH the gap tomorrow,” announced Race Forester as they gathered round the fire after dinner that night. “Then, we will need to slow our progress. Earl Kestrel…” he dipped his head in respectful acknowledgment, “has collected reports from the trappers and peddlers who had contact with Prince Barden. They all agree that he did not intend to go much further than the first good site beyond the mountains. He wanted to be well away from settled lands, but I suspect not so far that trade could not be established later.”
Derian, full, warm, and pleasantly weary, asked, “But no one has heard from him since he crossed the Iron Mountains?”
“No one who is admitting it,” said Earl Kestrel.
From where Derian sat, the earl was just a solid, hook-nosed shadow. He was not a big man. Indeed, he was quite small, but as with the kestrel of his house name, small did not mean weak or tame. The furious lash of his tongue when he was roused was to be as feared as another man's fist—more so, to Derian's way of thinking. You could outrun a bully, but never escape the wrath of a man of consequence.
He wondered, then, if that had not been precisely what Prince Barden of the House of the Eagle had been trying to do when he left Hawk Haven for the unsettled lands beyond the barrier of the Iron Mountains.
Prince Barden had been a third child and, by all accounts, roundly unhappy about being so. Although King Tedric had his heir and his spare, he resisted having his youngest son attempt any independent venture. Enough for the king that Barden learn to sit a horse, fight well enough for his class, and perhaps dabble in some court tasks.
Perhaps when Crown Prince Chalmer had married and fathered a child or even when Princess Lovella was similarly settled, then Barden might finally have been superfluous enough to be permitted his freedom. Or maybe not even then. King Tedric was said to be a very domineering father.
Ironically, because Prince Barden had been the least noticed and least dominated by his father, he was the most like the king in temperament. Prince Barden decided he would not see his life frittered away while waiting for his siblings to marry (a task, to be fair to them, made more difficult in that King Tedric wanted a hand in that choosing as well), to breed heirs, for his father to die. Thus, Prince Barden began quietly laying plans for a venture of which his father was certain to disapprove.
Sometimes Derian wondered at the younger prince's ambitions. Himself an eldest son, Derian was all too aware of the pressure of his parents’ hopes and expectations. How much easier life would be if they would just leave him alone! Oh, they were loving and kind—nothing like King Tedric—but sometimes Derian thought he would rebel if he heard one more “Derian, have you practiced your… handwriting, riding, fencing…” The list was endless.
Even when he wasn't being set to his books, there were quizzes. “Quick, son, tell me whose crest that is!” Or “Don't hold your knife in that hand, Derian Carter. A gentleman holds it like so.” Lately even his dancing, which had made him the delight of the womenfolk since he was old enough to leave the children's circles, had come into question. “Don't skip so! More stately, more graceful!”
No doubt his parents had dreams of him rising into the lower ranks of the nobility, perhaps by marriage to some impoverished noble's plain daughter! Derian groaned inwardly at the thought. He fancied the baker's pretty second daughter, the one with the round cheeks and the saucy smile.
Maybe, now that he considered it, he was more like Prince Barden than he had thought. Both of them had found their parents’ expectations a bit more than they could take, but the difference was that Prince Barden had defied his father. Quietly and carefully he had gathered a cadre of men and women who, like himself, longed for more than what Hawk Haven and her endless sparring with Bright Bay could offer.
Only after the expedition was planned, supplied (largely from King Tedric's own pocket—he didn't believe it good policy to stint too greatly on his children's allowances), and on its way did the king learn that Prince Barden, his wife, and his little daughter had not stayed at their keep in the foothills of the Iron Mountains, but had gone beyond the gap to the other side.
The steward of West Keep delivered the news himself, bringing with him a letter from the prince. Barden's plan had been well laid. Almost every lesser guard, groom, gardener, cook, or maidservant at the keep had been of his party. The steward, left with only his core group, had not dared pursue them and leave his trust untended.
By the time King Tedric learned of Prince Barden's departure, attempting to drag him back would have been futile. Instead, the king disowned his younger son, blotting his name from the books and refusing to let it be spoken by any in court or country. However, Derian knew, as did all the members of Earl Kestrel's expedition, that even in his fury the king had left himself a loophole.
Lady Blysse, Barden's daughter, had not been blotted from the records. She, if the need arose, could be named to the succession. Prince Barden could even be named her regent if her grandfather so wished. In those long-ago days, it had not seemed likely that King Tedric would ever so wish.
But things change, and those changes were why Derian Carter found himself one of six select men seated around a fire, preparing to go through a mountain pass where, to their best knowledge, no human had gone for twelve long years.
He shuddered deliciously at the thought of the adventure before them and turned his attention again to the informal conference around the fire. Earl Kestrel was finishing his diatribe against those who might have defied King Tedric's wrath and made profitable and secret trade with Prince Barden's group.
“It would be to their best interests,” he said, “to never speak of their doings. Why risk royal censure?”
“Why,” added his cousin Jared, “risk having to share a closed market?”
“Indeed,” the earl agreed approvingly. “Forester, as we move deeper into unknown territory, Barden's people may not take such care to hide traces of their comings and goings. Keep a sharp eye out for them.”
“Ever, my lord,” answered Race promptly and humbly. Then, “My lord, when we find them,” (he didn't say what he had said frequently to Derian and Ox, that he thought Barden and his party all dead or fled to some foreign country), “how shall we approach them?”
“We shall scout them,” Earl Kestrel said, “from hiding if possible. When we have ascertained their numbers and whether Prince Barden is among them I will choose the manner of my approach. If we find an abandoned settlement, then we shall remain long enough to discover whether Prince Barden and his people are dead or if they have merely moved elsewhere.
“Any information,” he continued sanctimoniously, “will be of help and comfort to the king in his bereavement.”
And you'll find a way to turn it to your advantage, Derian thought sardonically.
That there was an advantage to be gained Derian did not doubt—neither had his father and mother. This was why they had insisted on Derian's accompanying Earl Kestrel as one of their conditions for setting a good rate for pack mules, a couple of riding horses, and a coach for the early stages of the journey.
As all Hawk Haven knew, King Tedric's paranoia regarding heirs had proven well founded. Crown Prince Chalmer had died as a result of a question
able hunting accident. His sister, Lovella, the new crown princess, had died some years later in a battle against pirates. Neither had left legitimate issue. Prince Chalmer had been unmarried. Princess Lovella had been careful not to make that mistake, but she had delayed bearing a child until she felt she wouldn't be needed as a general.
Now, as King Tedric, still a fierce old eagle of a man, aged, potential heirs buzzed about the throne. The genealogical picture was so complex that Derian was still working out who had the best claim. There was even a member of the royal family of Bright Bay with factions agitating for King Tedric to name him heir.
All Derian was certain of was that Prince Barden, if reinstated to his father's favor, would have the best claim. Lady Blysse, who would be about fifteen now, would have as good a claim as any and better than many.
And certainly lost prince or his loster daughter would need a counselor. And who better than the kind and wise Earl Kestrel, who had risked life and limb to bring father and daughter forth from exile?
THAT NIGHT, A few hours before dawn, Firekeeper curled up among the pups so that they would soak in her scent and know her even after an absence. Perhaps it was the hot, round bodies clustered around her own, perhaps the memories awakened by her talk with the One Male, but she dreamed of fire.
Kindled in a shallow pit ringed around with river rock and bordered with cleared dirt. Her fingers ache a little from striking together the special stones from the little bag the Ones have just given her. Deep inside, she feels a shiver of fear as she tentatively nurses the fire to life with gentle breath and offerings of food.
“That's right,” says the One Female, her tones level though her neck ruff is stiff with tension at remaining so close to the flames. “Feed it little things first: a dry leaf, a bit of grass, a twig. Only when it is stronger can it eat bigger things.”
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