She had tried again by having pups. By having me. If she had taken on the Promise like the Shadow Wolf had told her to, I would not have had to leave my home and my pack. I wouldn’t trade my time with TaLi for an easier life, and if my mother had accepted the Shadow Wolf’s challenge, I might never have been born, yet I couldn’t help but feel resentful. She had left me on my own to deal with the consequences of her choices.
An angry howl resounded in the trees. I realized that the Greatwolf Yildra had been howling over and over again.
“Will you be in trouble with the Greatwolves?” It was past dawn.
“I will”—Neesa smiled—“but it was worth it.” She lowered her muzzle to mine. “You saw the wolf made of shadows?”
“Yes,” I said. The Shadow Wolf had to be the same one I’d met in the Inejalun. He had said he would find a way to communicate with me.
Yildra’s howl echoed again off the distant hills, calling to my mother.
“You have to go,” I said, wishing I could have more time with her.
Approaching pawsteps made us both look toward the woods. Lallna trotted toward us, her muzzle in the air. The youngwolf looked as arrogant as she had when she’d first challenged our entry into Sentinel lands. She reached us and gave Neesa a barely civil greeting, then grinned at me.
“I’m to watch over you”—she smirked—“to make sure you and your packmates aren’t submissive to the humans again. If you are, Yildra and Navdru will let us kill you.” She seemed pleased at the prospect.
“I wouldn’t be so happy about that,” Neesa said to the younger wolf. “If Kaala doesn’t succeed, we all die.”
I heard the rumble of distant thunder, though the night was clear.
“So you say.” Lallna twitched a lip. It wasn’t enough to be a snarl and thus a challenge, nor was it a proper response to an older, more dominant wolf. “Navdru and Yildra made all the smallwolves except for us and Kaala’s pack leave so they wouldn’t be tainted by her. I think we should leave the humans to the mercy of the wild. But it’s not my choice.”
“No, it isn’t,” Neesa said. “Remember that.”
She licked my muzzle, then ducked her head under Lallna’s belly, lifting her up and tossing her to the side. She whuffed a laugh and trotted toward Sentinel lands.
Lallna got to her paws, scowling. “Let’s go,” she said, stalking away from me and then breaking into a run. The thunder grew closer, and I ran faster, hoping to make it back to the village shelters before the rain began. But I had already spent the night loping through the territories and trailed behind Lallna. I wasn’t too worried about her watching us. Ázzuen, Pell, and I could keep her out of our way as much as we needed to.
Then the rumble of thunder made the ground beneath our paws tremble. I froze as I realized it was not thunder I’d heard. Lallna stopped and shifted from side to side, ears lifted, looking more like hunted than hunter. I caught up to her and stood still, listening. The ground beneath our paws shook harder. Lallna whipped her head toward the sound and her eyes widened in fear.
“Killer prey!” she barked, and took off running.
I followed her gaze and saw a huge beast bearing down on us. Chasing it was the Greatwolf Milsindra. And, for just a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Most prey has some way to protect itself. Some are just fast, making any hunt an exhausting chase. Others, like the thorn rat, have spiny bodies difficult to chew, making it challenging to get to the good, soft meat within. Some, like horses, have hard hooves and vile dispositions. The elkryn and their smaller elk cousins have both sharp hooves and large antlers that can knock a wolf to the ground with broken ribs and no way to escape trampling. Then there are beasts like the auroch, which have hard hooves, large powerful bodies, and sharp horns capable of goring a wolf to death in an instant.
The beast running at us was such a creature. It was as tall as the auroch but much, much broader, and I guessed it to be twice as heavy. The first time I saw an auroch, I was certain that I’d die trying to hunt it. We’d killed it, though, and barely escaped unharmed. This beast was even more terrifying.
It had two sharp horns. The one on its forehead was almost as long as a wolf’s head and muzzle, and the one on its snout was even longer. Its lower lip protruded sullenly and its body was covered in thick, coarse fur, longer than I had ever seen on prey.
And it was fast. It had lowered its head and was running blindly from Milsindra, straight at me.
I bolted after Lallna. I should have known better than to think Milsindra would just go away. If she couldn’t get the Sentinels to kill me, she would do it herself. No one could blame her if I were to be trampled by prey. I looked over my shoulder. I was outrunning the beast. A smirk stretched my muzzle. Milsindra had underestimated me again. I put my head down and ran faster.
When I neared Kaar, I altered my path so the beast would not find its way to the humans. Lallna, still at least ten wolflengths ahead of me, did not. She headed straight to the village. I would have growled at her if I’d had the breath to do so. I slowed so that she could get farther ahead of me, then turned sharply and ran back toward the beast so it would come for me, not Lallna. I was sure Milsindra would drive the creature after me—I was the one she wanted dead—but instead, she sent it after Lallna and toward Kaar.
That’s when I realized what the beast was. TaLi had told me what the rhino that had killed JaliMin’s brother looked like. She’d said the creature hunted humans. I caught Milsindra’s satisfied expression as she drove it after Lallna and toward the human village. She saw me watching her, snarled, and left off chasing the beast. Then she bolted into the woods.
The rhino kept running toward the village. Now I chased after it. I saw Lallna crash into the section of woods near Kaar, and the rhino followed. I knew I couldn’t get there before it did, but I ran anyway. By the time I reached the woods, I couldn’t see either Lallna or the rhino. I heard terrified screams, angry shouts, and a fierce unearthly bellowing from the edge of the Kaar.
The village was in chaos when I reached it. Bits of wood and stone were strewn on the ground and smoking specks from the fire pits drifted down onto the humans’ shelters, sparking small fires that the humans beat out with preyskins. Lallna cowered next to the herb den as a pack of humans chased the rhino from the village. I couldn’t see Ázzuen or Pell. I found TaLi in the crowd, and ran to her. BreLan stood next to her, holding her arm.
I buried my head in TaLi’s preyskin tunic. Ázzuen’s familiar juniper scent told me he had come to stand beside me.
DavRian staggered over to us.
“The wolves brought it!” he gasped, pointing a shaking finger at us. He was limping, though I could smell he was not injured. “They led a rhino into the village.”
HesMi was standing over the still form of a female. I panted hard, trying to catch my breath. If they thought we were responsible for the death of a human, they would kill us. The woman moved, though, and got weakly to her feet. Her leg was bleeding. Two humans led her away, limping.
I looked up at TaLi, wondering why she wasn’t defending us. Her face was thoughtful. HesMi glared at her.
“It was chasing a wolf.” DavRian waved an arm at Lallna, who was still crouched by the herb den, staring around the human village, her chest heaving and her eyes still wide with fear.
“You said it came here before,” TaLi said reasonably. “The wolves are not the problem. But they can be the solution.”
I looked up at her. She couldn’t mean what I thought she did.
HesMi looked her over. “You think your wolves can help us kill it? We’ve tried before. I’ve lost three hunters to it.”
“You won’t lose any with me and the wolves,” she said with such certainty that I began to believe her myself.
I expected HesMi to argue with her, or ask her to prove herself. But she just gave TaLi a long, measuring look and dipped her head sharply. She must have really wanted the rhino dead.
“Be ready by tomorrow mo
rning.” She stalked after the wounded female.
BreLan gripped TaLi’s other arm.
“It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you.”
TaLi pulled away and glared at him, arms crossed and chin raised. BreLan took both her shoulders gently, then, and spoke to her as I had once heard TaLi speak to a crying child. Ázzuen crouched at their feet, looking from one to the other.
“You can’t help the krianans if you get yourself killed,” BreLan said. “You have to be careful.”
“There isn’t time,” she responded. “Careful will have us on the edges of the Spring Festival watching as DavRian becomes the new krianan. He’s convinced half the young men that I’m addle-witted and weak and that the wolves are dangerous.”
“DavRian has been talking to the young males,” Ázzuen whispered to me. “He calls you ‘Bloody Moon’ and keeps telling them that Marra was attacking MikLan. Some of them believe his lies. What happened with Neesa?”
“Later,” I said, looking around. I saw neither RalZun nor IniMin, but I could smell them both nearby. Tlitoo flew across the clearing to land next to us. He immediately began pulling at one of the elkskin ties that held BreLan’s foot-coverings in place.
“I have to prove myself quickly. Now.” TaLi ducked away from BreLan’s grasp. “It’s like home. Half the people in the village are starting to believe that their females are less important than their males. If I don’t show them I’m as strong as they are, they’ll dismiss me as weak.”
“It’s a ridiculous risk,” he said.
“You take risks all the time,” she countered. “You have to trust me, BreLan. You can’t keep protecting me. Not if I’m going to be the village krianan. You wouldn’t have tried to stop NiaLi.”
I saw the answer in his eyes: he hadn’t been in love with NiaLi.
“I’ll need all of you, Kaala,” she said. Her voice trembled the slightest bit. I licked her hand. Then she strode off toward the large clearing at the center of the village. BreLan took a step and tripped over his raven-loosened foot-covering. Tlitoo gurgled happily and hopped to my side. “It will be a good hunt,” he said. “It will be good to kill a rhino for the humans.”
It was an easy thing for him to say. He could hide in the trees. My legs trembled at the thought of facing the huge, horned beast. But if we didn’t hunt it, DavRian and IniMin could say we were more a threat to the village than a help, and Milsindra would tell the Sentinels we were not committed enough to their cause. “I’ll need all of you,” TaLi had said, and I could still taste her salty skin on my tongue. I would rather be gored by a hundred rhinos than disappoint her. I forced my legs to stop shaking, butted Tlitoo with my head, and nipped Ázzuen’s muzzle. We had prey to hunt.
16
At dawn the next morning, TaLi strode purposefully across Kaar’s central clearing to greet HesMi and RalZun. I kept as close to her side as I could without tripping her. She whispered to me as we walked.
“Ever since a rhino killed JaliMin’s brother, HesMi has hated them. She says they charge humans on purpose.” HesMi had lost a grandchild to the rhino. I could understand why she would despise them.
Ázzuen loped up beside me and looked up at TaLi. “Does she know what she’s doing?” he asked. I had no answer for him. TaLi was smart, and she was brave, but she was still only a partly grown girl. A rhino could trample her to death easily.
HesMi and RalZun stood with a large group of humans around one of the larger fire pits. I saw reluctance and ridicule in some faces, excitement in some, and fear in most of them.
“It’s a good test of what the wolves can do for us,” HesMi said as if ending an argument, then turned to loom over TaLi.
“Do not endanger any of my hunters unnecessarily.” She glowered.
“I would never risk the lives of those who follow me to the hunt,” TaLi said formally.
HesMi picked up a hollowed-out auroch horn that she wore on a strap across her chest, and blew into it. A sound like the lowing of a wounded elkryn resonated through the village.
“The hunt has been called,” she said. “See to it that you do right by it.”
TaLi dipped her head to the human leader. Then she clutched my backfur tightly and pulled me as she turned away. I looked up to see her jaw clenched and her lips tight with anxiety now that the others could no longer see her.
“Get Pell,” I said to Tlitoo. He had to have returned from the hills by now. Tlitoo flipped his wings back, considering. “Please,” I added.
“He does not like the humans, wolf. I am not sure it is a good idea to have him here.”
I growled, wondering why nothing could ever be easy. When Ruuqo and Rissa told someone to do something, they did it. Though perhaps not with ravens.
“I’ll go!” Prannan said. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me. “I’ll find him for you!” He raced off into the woods, his tail whipping with excitement.
Too soon for my liking, we left the village in search of the rhino. Its path wasn’t hard to follow. It had crashed through the bush like a Greatwolf. I’d never known any one creature to make so much noise or cause such destruction. Sage bushes, junipers, and saplings lay trampled in its path.
RalZun and HesMi walked side by side at the front of the line of humans. IniMin and DavRian were a step behind them, even though the hunt was TaLi’s. She and I walked quietly in the center of the pack of humans. A rustling from above told me the ravens were nearby. Many of the humans were laughing and poking each other, which seemed like odd behavior as we prepared to hunt such vicious prey.
“I’ll bet you run screaming back to the village when you see it,” one male said to another.
“I think you’ll wet yourself when it looks at you,” the taunted male replied.
“I’ll bet my spear draws the first blood,” a girl near TaLi’s age said.
“There won’t be a rhino to hunt if you all don’t shut up,” HesMi said, looking over her shoulder, but she smiled when she said it. Ázzuen whuffed softly next to me, then darted forward in front of the three young humans who had been arguing. He lowered his elbows and lifted his rump in an invitation to play. The humans laughed and one of the males poked a walking stick gently at Ázzuen. He seized it in his teeth and then let it go as he trotted back to me. The humans laughed again. I stared at Ázzuen.
“What was that?”
“It’s like our hunt ceremony.” He licked a splinter from his muzzle. Before a hunt, we often played as a way of preparing to risk our lives for each other, and to come together as a pack instead of as individuals.
The humans quieted as the woods thinned. I expected them to lead us to an open plain, like most hunting grounds, but they stopped before the woods opened up. There, rooting among the vines and bushes at the edge of the woods, was the rhino.
It looked even bigger close up.
“There used to be more of them,” RalZun rasped to me, leaning on his spear. “When it was colder here, years ago. Most of the ones that are left live north in the cooler regions.”
“Like the mammoths,” Pell said, stepping up quietly beside us, Prannan panting at his side. “They’re twice as big as this beast. We hunted one once.” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not; the Stone Peaks were always claiming to hunt dangerous prey. But he was eyeing the rhino calmly, and I was glad to have him there. He certainly had more practice hunting than I did, and that experience could save our lives. I touched my nose to his face in greeting. He gave me a long look, then turned his gaze to the prey.
“They often graze on the plains,” RalZun said, “but they’ll feed on forest lichen as well. If we can get it to stay in the woods instead of back out onto the grass where it can charge, we have a better chance.”
The beast snuffled at the edge of the woods. If we could sneak around it, we could scare it deeper into the trees.
IniMin, his arms folded across his chest and sunlight shining off his hairless scalp, spoke loudly. “We cannot afford to lose more hunters.”
“That’s why I brought the wolves,” TaLi said. To the humans she may have appeared calm. But I could hear her rapidly beating heart and smell her anxiety.
A clattering of wood made me jump and startled the rhino from its browsing. It glared in our direction, snorted out a great gust of air, and trotted onto the plain, where it lowered its head and stared at us before disappearing behind tall grasses.
DavRian stood over a pile of sharpsticks that had fallen onto the rock-strewn ground.
“I brought extra spears to help in the hunt.” He shrugged.
TaLi eyed him stonily. “You won’t stop me, you know.”
DavRian just smiled at her. “I brought too many spears and dropped them by mistake,” he said. “But if your wolves are really as magnificent as you say they are, it shouldn’t matter.”
His face was smooth and friendly, but he couldn’t keep the sneer from his voice.
TaLi turned from him. “Come on, Kaala.”
Stiffening my spine against the trembling in my legs, I walked at her side. Pell strode forward ahead of us. Prannan ran up to my flank and looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Are you sure we can hunt it?” he said.
“A wolf can hunt any prey, if he’s smart enough,” I heard myself say. It was something Ruuqo had told us long ago, when we were smallpups. I believed it when he’d said it, six moons before, but I didn’t now. I didn’t believe we could hunt the huge beast. But if Prannan was afraid, he wouldn’t hunt as well. His ears twitched uncertainly for a moment and then he dipped his head and fell behind me again. He’d believed me. It made me wonder how often Ruuqo and Rissa had pretended a confidence they didn’t have.
The rhino had stomped farther out onto the plain, hiding in the tall grass. At first I couldn’t see exactly where it was. Then the grass wavered where there was no wind. Tlitoo and Jlela flew from the woods to circle above the moving grass. A shaggy hump and the tips of sharp horns poked up beneath them.
Spirit of the Wolves Page 15