Secrets of the Wolves

by Dorothy Hearst

  “Then how do you?” HuLin demanded. “Neither you nor the old woman will tell me.”

  TaLi pushed the hair from her eyes and looked at her feet. She certainly couldn’t tell HuLin that the krianans spoke to the Greatwolves. “You know we have to preserve the Balance,” she said at last.

  “She’s right, HuLin,” KiLi said. The female had been hanging back, watching HuLin and DavRian. Now she stepped forward. The male at her side came forward with her. He was tall and strong-looking, and he and the female looked formidable together. Four other humans stood in a loose half-moon shape around them, offering silent support. “We can’t give up our old ways on a whim. And you can’t force us to do so. Your son tried that.”

  “And you and your friends humiliated him so much that he left us,” HuLin said through clenched teeth.

  KiLi kept her voice calm. “We all want what’s best for the Lin tribe. But we won’t be rushed. We respect you as our leader, but we can’t let you toss aside everything we’ve known. We have no objections to you choosing TaLi’s mate as you will—it’s your right to do so—but we must decide as a tribe what is best for us. You know that.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, and she and the male walked away. The other humans followed.

  Once, when I was a smallpup, Ruuqo was furious with me and wanted to send me away. But too many other wolves in the pack considered me a valuable pack member, and he had to accept their will. A leaderwolf only leads if others follow. Clearly it was the same with the humans.

  HuLin watched his tribemates go, then turned on TaLi.

  “You will not drive the Rian boy away as you drove my son away,” he snarled. “If I choose him as your mate, you will go to him. And I will get the tribe to renounce the nonsense that old woman has fed them.”

  He stalked off to one of the shelters, threw aside the pelt at its entrance, and ducked inside. As soon as he was gone, TaLi shrugged off the cloak so that it fell into the dirt.

  RinaLi hissed at her. “Are you a fool? It is the most valuable gift any woman of Lin has received. And if DavRian is the Rian tribe’s krianan you will have all the status you could want. Though if he still wants you after your behavior today, we’ll be lucky.”

  TaLi’s face went pale, then darkened, and she opened her mouth to answer back. Then she took several deep breaths and pressed her lips shut. She grabbed a handful of my fur, and I leaned against her. RinaLi regarded us both for a moment, then nodded. She picked up the cloak, stroking the soft, thick hide.

  “He’s a more suitable match than BreLan, but having them both here will make DavRian value you more.” Satisfaction filled her voice. “We’ll give the two of them until the Spring Gathering, then you will take DavRian as your mate.”

  TaLi kept her lips pressed tightly together, saying nothing. Her grasp on my fur tightened enough to hurt, but I stayed at her side. After a moment, RinaLi shook her head once, and stalked off, taking the cloak with her.

  TaLi released her grip on my fur, reached down for one of the stones at her feet, and hurled it against a nearby tree, sending bark flying from it. I remembered the sound that had woken me and saw several stones around the tree trunk. She stood there next to me, shaking for a moment, then rubbed one of her foot-coverings against the other.

  “Come on, Silvermoon,” she said. “I’m not supposed to marry a swamp snake, I am supposed to be this tribe’s krianan.” She pulled herself up to her full scrawny height, then stomped off into the woods toward NiaLi’s shelter. I didn’t try to stop her. I needed to talk to the old krianan, too. I’d hoped to hunt several more times with the humans, to gain their trust more completely before moving on to the next part of our plan, but if TaLi was going to be sent away, we would have to act more quickly.

  Ázzuen agreed to stay at the human homesite while Trevegg and I followed TaLi to her grandmother’s shelter. NiaLi lived across the river from the other humans, in our own territory. She had lived with the other humans of TaLi’s tribe, until HuLin had grown tired of her telling him what he could and could not hunt. He hadn’t been able to stop her from being the tribe’s krianan, but he had sent her to live away from the rest of the tribe.

  Trevegg and I easily swam the river, then waited for TaLi to pick her way across, stepping from rock to rock in a disturbingly precarious manner. I kept a nervous eye on her, ready to jump back into the water if she fell. The first time I found her was when she had toppled into the river trying to make just such a crossing.

  “You need to teach her to swim,” Trevegg said to me, watching TaLi’s unsteady progress. “I can’t believe she doesn’t fall in more often.”

  TaLi leapt the last wolflength of the river, landing in a squat on the muddy riverbank. She saw the two of us watching her and made a face.

  “I know what I’m doing,” she said.

  Trevegg snorted and trotted off into the woods. I followed with TaLi. She moved swiftly for a human, and I expected to get to NiaLi’s home quickly. But when we reached the deer path that led to the old woman’s shelter, TaLi stepped off the path and into the woods, walking in the wrong direction.

  “This way, Silvermoon,” she said.

  I whined at her and took several steps in the direction we were supposed to be going. When she didn’t follow, I walked back to her, pawed at her thigh, and whined again, looking down the path to NiaLi’s.

  “She doesn’t live there anymore, Silvermoon,” TaLi said. “Not since TonLin left the tribe.” She crouched down so that her face was level with mine. I noticed river mud on her ear and licked it off. Trevegg, who had realized we were no longer behind him, padded over to sit beside us.

  “After the big snowstorm, HuLin tried to make his son krianan without consulting anyone. Those in the tribe who believe in honoring the Balance wouldn’t let him. Then, when I told TonLin I wouldn’t be his mate, he left, and HuLin blamed my grandmother. So did a lot of other people who want to abandon the old ways. They threatened her and tried to burn her shelter. So she had to find a new place to live, a secret place. BreLan, MikLan, and I built her a new shelter. It’s this way.”

  She walked quickly through the woods, avoiding the paths the humans usually liked to use. When she reached a narrow, rocky pathway, she broke into a run. Trevegg and I followed at an easy lope.

  We had run only a few minutes when we smelled Greatwolf. We slowed and then stopped when Frandra and Jandru, the Greatwolves who watched over the Swift River pack, stepped out in front of us.

  My relief that it was the two of them rather than Milsindra and my surprise that they were not disguising their scents as she had done were quickly replaced with trepidation as I remembered I had promised to meet them at the quarter moon to tell them of our progress with the humans. That quarter moon had come and gone and I had been so involved with the humans that I’d completely forgotten to seek out the Greatwolves.

  I lowered my tail and ears as I slunk forward to greet Frandra and Jandru, my mind racing as I tried to think of what I could say to excuse myself. Ázzuen and Marra were both better at thinking up excuses than I was.

  As I opened my mouth, hoping that something reasonable would come out, Trevegg whuffed in warning and Jandru’s head snaked out toward me so quickly I saw only a blur of fur and a flash of teeth. The Greatwolf seized my neck fur in his jaws, flipped me over onto my back, and began dragging me through the woods. I was nearly grown, but Jandru pulled me through the dirt as easily as if I were a newpup. I was uncomfortably reminded of the way I had once hauled a shrub-hare around before snapping its neck and eating it.

  I twisted around and scrabbled to get my feet under me, but only succeeded in kicking up dirt and leaves into my own face. I tried to dig a paw into Jandru’s chest, but he just shook me hard once and flipped me back over onto my side. Frandra, running beside him, jabbed me hard in the ribs with her muzzle. I decided it would be best to stop struggling. I hung limp, looking at Jandru’s mud-dampened chest fur as he pulled me along.

  He and Frandra moved quickly, an
d I heard Trevegg’s scrabbling pawsteps as he raced to keep up and TaLi’s running feet not far behind him. The humans could move fairly quickly when they wanted to, and Trevegg was fleet for a wolf of his age, but the Greatwolves were faster; they quickly left TaLi and Trevegg behind. They didn’t bother finding a clear, quiet path through the woods. They just pushed through whatever bushes might be in their way. After several jolting minutes, Jandru crashed through a thicket of prickly tartberry bushes and dumped me on my rump in a puddle of muddy snowmelt.

  I sat there for a moment, dizzy and disoriented. I smelled Greatwolf fur, mint, spruce trees, berry bushes, and smoke. The most powerful scent, however, was the aroma of human. I also heard the sound of preyskins flapping against stone. I shook my head, confused, and when my dizziness subsided and my vision cleared I saw to my surprise that I was sitting in front of a human shelter. I smelled herbs, and a familiar human scent. It had to be the old woman’s new shelter.

  Like her old dwelling, NiaLi’s home was not separate from the woods surrounding it like other human shelters, but rather grew up from the ground, as a tree might. Its stone and mud base made it as sturdy as any of the other human shelters, but NiaLi had cleared only a small space around it, so that it felt as comfortable as any of our gathering places. Or at least it did when there weren’t two angry Greatwolves hovering over me.

  I stood and shook puddle water from my fur. Jandru immediately seized me in his jaws again, dragged me to NiaLi’s shelter, and pushed his way through the antelope skins that hung in a narrow opening to the structure. Then he tossed me onto the hard-packed dirt and dried grasses inside.

  “I think she would have come on her own four paws, Jandru.” The old voice, filled with amusement, calmed me.

  “She needs to remember who’s in charge in this valley,” Frandra snarled, stalking into the old woman’s home. “You were supposed to come to us five nights ago, pup.”

  Shakily I got to my feet and greeted NiaLi, then faced the Greatwolves.

  “I was coming,” I said. “I was trying to get the humans to accept us in their homesite first. Then we could tell the council we were succeeding.”

  Frandra glared at me.

  “You really do think we’re fools, don’t you? Do you think I don’t know that you care more about your humans and your friends than about the Greatwolf council? You do whatever you like and then make excuses for it afterward. You think you know everything, but you don’t know enough about what happens in this valley to make decisions without consulting us. You had better learn that, pup.” She took a breath to calm herself. I watched her, surprised. I wasn’t used to seeing Greatwolves overcome by emotion. When she spoke again, her voice was strained. “Things have changed since Ice Moon’s wane.” She shook her shaggy head, as if to clear it. “The council may no longer be satisfied with our bargain.”

  “I know that,” I said before I could stop myself, then wished I hadn’t. I didn’t mean to tell the Greatwolves about my encounter with Milsindra.

  “How do you know?” Frandra demanded.

  Just then, Trevegg pushed his way into the old woman’s shelter. He greeted NiaLi first, accepted the bit of firemeat she slipped to him, then acknowledged the two Greatwolves. They did not return his greeting.

  “If we wanted you to be here, oldwolf, we would have asked you to join us,” Frandra snarled. “Leave.”

  Trevegg sat next to the old woman’s fire and wrapped his tail around his legs. Jandru raised his hackles and bared his teeth, I scooted back against the wall of the shelter, but Trevegg glared right back at the Greatwolf.

  “Oh, quit marking your territory, Jandru,” the oldwolf snapped, his own hackles lifting in annoyance. “I’ve lived nine winters and hunted a valley’s worth of prey. Do you think I fear anything you can do to me?” Trevegg glared at the two Greatwolves. “Now, what is this about?”

  Jandru closed his lips over his teeth, and Frandra gave a soft growl. I watched the two Greatwolves, doing my best to avoid staring at them in a way they might consider disrespectful.

  The old woman’s new shelter was small and the fire in the center took up some of the space. Four wolves and one human crowded it. I pressed myself against the stone-mud walls as both Greatwolves growled.

  “Come now, my friends,” NiaLi said at last, breaking the tension. “Frandra, Jandru, you did not bring us together to keep your secrets.” Both Greatwolves looked at the old woman, and Jandru lowered his ears to her. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d lowered his ears to a forest deer. I’d never have thought a Greatwolf would treat any human as an equal.

  “We didn’t bring all of us together at all,” Frandra said, glaring at Trevegg.

  “Ask the pup,” Jandru grumbled, “since she seems to know so much that she doesn’t have to consult us when she’s supposed to.”

  Four pairs of eyes turned to me. I considered whether or not to tell the Greatwolves what I knew. Jandru and Frandra were two of our only allies among the Greatwolves, but I didn’t trust them the way I trusted Zorindru, the Greatwolf leader. They had been willing to let my pack and my humans die and to use me the way the humans used their tools. I looked down at my paws.

  “Come over here, Kaala,” NiaLi said. She sat near the fire, on a pile of furs and preyskins, wrapped in still more skins. I walked over to her and sat at her feet, pressing gently against her. She smelled of the skins and of herbs dried in the sun.

  “Will you tell me?” she asked. “I would like to know.”

  I would do anything for NiaLi. Still, I hesitated, torn between my need for allies in the Greatwolf council and my fear of betrayal. I looked up into the old krianan’s wrinkled face. She was thinner than she had been, as many of the humans were after winter’s hardships, but there was something else, too. She smelled of weakness, of a fading of life, and in spite of that she also smelled of strength and confidence, of a certainty of what was right. I took a breath. She had known Jandru and Frandra longer than I could imagine. I might not trust them, but I trusted her. And Trevegg. I caught the oldwolf’s eye and saw that his hackles had lowered.

  “I think it’s all right, Kaala,” he said.

  I told them about Milsindra, how she had threatened me after the failed hunt at Oldwoods, though I revealed nothing of my mother or of my plans to outwit Milsindra and leave the valley to find her. I did tell them of Milsindra’s belief that the Ancients wanted me to fail, and how fanatical she was about it. I told them that she had said she would do everything she could to make sure that I did fail, even if I was able to get the humans to accept us.

  “And you didn’t think to tell us this?” Frandra snapped. “It is not fanatical and Milsindra is not the only one who thinks it may be so. She has told the council that you have hunted with the humans and that it is unnatural that a wolf should do so. She said no true wolf would hunt with the humans and fail to let the council know. She’s convinced half the council that this proves that you are an aberrant wolf and a risk to wolfkind.”

  When her words came to an abrupt halt, I raised my eyes and was shocked to see her shaking, unable to continue speaking. NiaLi reached out to Frandra, pulling the huge wolf down beside her.

  “Why would they believe that?” I asked. “Are they stupid? It doesn’t make any sense.” Trevegg shoved his hip against mine in warning.

  “Doesn’t it?” Jandru hissed, his eyes glittering in the light of NiaLi’s fire. “Well, perhaps this will. Milsindra has told the council that by hunting with the humans, you have angered the Ancients and that we will soon see the consequence of their wrath. If we do not stop behaving in ways unfit for wolves, they will send disaster down upon us. That we have had one warning already.”

  “What warning is that, Jandru?” NiaLi interrupted, her voice gentle. “I have not heard of these warnings. Is it something you have neglected to tell me?” She was stroking Frandra’s chest, calming the trembling Greatwolf.

  Jandru’s furious gaze left my face and softened when it settl
ed upon NiaLi. He addressed her respectfully, as he would a wolf of equal status.

  “If the Ancients grow displeased with a wolf or wolves, Nia, they will give three warnings—and if these warnings are not heeded, the Ancients will send death down upon us. The warnings can be a winter that lasts too long, or prey leaving the valley and causing starvation and war, or an illness that wipes out entire packs. Or”—he paused and looked at me hard—“wolves begin to disappear with no explanation and with no mark left behind.”

  Trevegg rumbled loudly, deep in his chest. I went cold. A wolf had disappeared. Because of me. When I had long ago dared the other Swift River pups to chase the horse herd and Reel had been trampled, his death was not the only thing the pack blamed me for. Borlla was another of Rissa’s pups and my greatest enemy in the pack. She, Reel, and Unnan had terrorized me when I was the smallest and weakest Swift River pup. After Reel died, Borlla had stopped eating. Then she disappeared. With no explanation. With no mark left behind.

  “Borlla,” I said. “This is because of Borlla?”

  “We never found her, Jandru,” Trevegg said, “but she could have wandered away on her own. She was grieving. It can’t be enough to mean anything.”

  A flicker of movement from above caught my eye. I looked up as a feather floated down to land on my muzzle. I sneezed, then twisted my head to peer up at the top of the old woman’s shelter. Hanging upside down, in the hole that allowed the fire-smoke to escape the dwelling, was a dark bird-shape. Tlitoo saw me watching him, quorked once, and pulled himself back out of the shelter.

  Jandru’s gaze was still upon me. “Two nights ago,” he said, “a Wind Lake wolf went missing, a youngwolf not yet a year old. They have not found him, nor any trace of him. They looked everywhere to see if he’d gone exploring and they howled for him. There was no answer and he left no scent trail. No wolf has disappeared from the valley in my lifetime. Now two have vanished in less than half a year, and both of them after Kaala pulled the human child from the river.”