Secrets of the Wolves

by Dorothy Hearst

  “Don’t commit yourself to an attack until the last instant,” he said, releasing me. “You’d already decided to go to the right, so when I moved, you had no other options. You could have changed directions, backed up, or bitten my paw. You have to keep thinking as you move. Leave your options open. Try again.”

  An hour later, Ázzuen, Marra, and I stood, panting but triumphant in front of the Stone Peak wolves. We had all successfully gotten past each of the three Stone Peaks. Tlitoo, bored with our practice, searched for insects in the pile of branches.

  “Good,” Torell said. “I think that we can help each other.” I was breathing too hard to answer, which was probably for the best. It seemed idiotic to me that Torell believed that being able to fight made a wolf trustworthy. Pirra, the Wind Lake leaderwolf, was one of the Wide Valley’s best fighters, and she was no more trustworthy than a hyena.

  “We think that the Greatwolf cache is somewhere beyond the Western Plains, not far from where we’ll take you to hunt aurochs if you would like to go,” Pell said. “At the very edge of the plain there’s a ridge of low hills. The land beyond the ridge is flat, and you should be able to see far beyond it. We’ve seen groups of Greatwolves going together over that ridge. That’s where you should look.”

  “It is in territories the Greatwolves have claimed as their own.” Ceela grinned. “Which is another reason auroch-hunting is dangerous.”

  “You will want some time to decide whether or not you wish to accept our offer,” Torell said. “Do not take too much time. The Greatwolves are more wary of us than usual. Go meet Frandra and Jandru as you said you would, so that they will not be suspicious.”

  “Doing what the Greatwolves tell her to do is what would make them suspicious of her,” Tlitoo said from his branch pile.

  Something that sounded like a chuckle came from Pell’s direction. When I looked at him, his eyes were half-closed, as if he were concentrating on something, but his muzzle was tight with the effort not to smile. Ázzuen and Marra laughed aloud. I glared at all of them.

  “Go to your Greatwolves and your pack,” Torell said to me, a slight smile on his muzzle. “Meet us at our gathering place by the prey drive in two nights’ time if you decide to hunt with us and to help us find what the Greatwolves hide.”

  I dipped my head to him, finding myself compelled to treat him as I would one of my own leaderwolves. “Thank you,” I said. Gingerly, I held my muzzle out to him. He took it gently in his mouth, then did the same to Ázzuen and Marra. I felt myself relax at his gentle treatment of us. Marra licked me and then Ázzuen on the cheek, then set off for the Lan tribe’s lands. With one last look around, I began to back out of the clearing, then stopped. Something Torell had said earlier was still bothering me.

  “Ruuqo and Rissa wouldn’t betray a promise. They wouldn’t sacrifice their honor for their safety. They told Zorindru they would help us, and they won’t go back on their word.”

  Torell started to say something, then stopped himself. “I hope you are right, youngwolf. In any case, if you wish to help us and, I think, yourselves and your humans, come to us two moonrises from now.”

  Once again, I began to back out of the clearing. I stopped, startled, when a wolf emerged from the bushes beside me. It was Arrun, Torell and Ceela’s secondwolf. He was a brawny, dark-coated wolf. I had met him before and found him slow-witted and obstinate.

  Torell narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Hidden Grove by now?” he asked his secondwolf.

  “There is something you need to see, Torell,” Arrun said. “The Swift River youngwolves should see it, too.”

  “What is it?” Ceela demanded.

  Arrun met her eyes. I had no idea what he communicated to her but she dipped her head sharply, and when the second-wolf left the clearing, she and Torell went with him.

  “Will you come?” Pell asked.

  Ázzuen’s tail twitched eagerly. It wasn’t late-sun yet. We still might make it back in time to meet the Greatwolves. Or we might not.

  “Yes,” I said, and allowed him to precede us out of the clearing.

  Arrun led us to the north, along the boundary of Stone Peak and Wind Lake territory. It was rocky, dusty land, with little for prey to eat. I remembered Torell once telling Ruuqo that we Swift River wolves had much of the valley’s best hunting grounds. I had dismissed it as a ploy to gain more land, but I began to wonder if he had spoken the truth.

  Arrun ran at a slow lope through Stone Peak lands. Although I was tired from our long run to the prey drive and Torell’s fighting lessons, the muscles in my legs twitched with the longing to run faster. I still had to find Jandru and Frandra to tell them about the prey. I began to doubt the wisdom of staying so long with the Stone Peaks. Arrun kept looking over his shoulder as he ran, looking at me and at Ázzuen, as if he wished to say something to us. I’d had nothing but bad experiences with Arrun and made a point of avoiding his gaze.

  Arrun stopped at a shallow pond to drink. Gratefully I lapped at the still, stale water. I much preferred the running water of the river, but I was thirsty enough to drink anything.

  When we finished drinking, Arrun began to walk, his slow, almost hesitant pace making me want to growl my impatience. One look at Torell and Ceela stopped me from doing so.

  “Where are you taking us, Arrun?” Pell asked, noticing my annoyance. I shot him a grateful look.

  “Aspen Glen,” Arrun replied, and would say nothing more. He stopped a few minutes later, at the very edge of the slender trees. He lowered his head to Ceela and Torell, and stepped aside so they could take the lead. I saw a flicker of black just above me, and looked up to see Tlitoo peering at me from one of the aspens. The two leaderwolves pushed past us and began to walk across a flat, grassy plain. Arrun and Pell followed them, and Ázzuen and I came last. Ceela’s sharp intake of breath and Pell’s quick, anxious look in my direction didn’t prepare me for what was there.

  At first, as I walked behind the Stone Peak wolves onto the plain, I didn’t understand what it was I scented. I smelled Swift River wolf, but no Swift River wolf would be so far into Stone Peak territory. I took a few steps, then stopped, perplexed. Ázzuen shifted his weight uneasily from one paw to the other. Then I gave a yip of excitement as I finally realized what it was that I smelled through the confusion of grass and aspens and Stone Peak wolf. It was Yllin; she was still in the valley!

  Unable to restrain myself, I squeezed past the Stone Peaks and began to run in the direction of the scent.

  It took a moment to realize just what the grayish lump in the grass was. I didn’t truly understand until I stood almost directly over the limp pile of fur and flesh.

  Yllin had not been dead long. Her flesh was cool, but not yet stiff; the blood at her belly and chest was sticky and fresh-smelling. I stared at her. She was not the first dead wolf I had seen. Ázzuen’s littermate, Reel, had looked and smelled much the same after he had been trampled to death by the horses, but I still wasn’t prepared for the strangeness of the scent, the smell of Yllin but not quite Yllin. Of wolf but not wolf.

  Ázzuen whimpered softly. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me.

  I drew closer to Yllin and saw that her belly had been torn open—a huge gaping tear that could only have been made by very large teeth. A rock lion’s teeth could have made such a wound, or a bear’s. But the other scent mixed with Yllin’s fear and blood was the scent of the Greatwolf Milsindra.

  My body seemed to understand what my brain did not and my chest grew heavy and my legs weak. It took all my strength to turn to face the Stone Peaks. They had stepped back respectfully, leaving us alone by Yllin’s body.

  “The Greatwolves killed her,” I said. The rasp of a voice that came from my throat sounded like some other wolf. I remembered how Yllin had stood up to Milsindra at the spruce grove. Surely that couldn’t be enough reason for Milsindra to kill her.

  “I was on my way to the Hidden Grove Gathering Place,” Arrun said, his usually surly face
gentle. “She was still alive when I found her. She said that she and another wolf were leaving the valley five nights ago when they were intercepted by the Greatwolves. The Greatwolves told them it was forbidden to leave the valley, that no Wide Valley wolf would be allowed to leave for any reason. Then the Greatwolves attacked. Yllin and the other youngwolf fled. They got separated, she said, and she hid in a cave until today, when she grew too thirsty to stay hidden any longer. She was making her way back to Swift River territory when Milsindra found her and attacked. I stayed with her until she died,” he said gruffly, “so she would not have to die alone.”

  A violent rustling shook the trees behind us. Tlitoo’s shriek pierced my ears as he flew to us. He circled Yllin’s body once, screeched again, and returned to his aspen, hissing.

  “They told her she could go,” I said in that strange, strangled voice that seemed to be the only thing that could come from my throat. “They told her she could mate outside the valley!”

  “Evidently, they changed their minds,” Torell said, his scarred face grim.

  “But she was going back,” Ázzuen said. “Why did they kill her if she was obeying them and going back home?” His voice cracked on the last word.

  “To make an example of her,” Ceela said. “To show other wolves in the valley what will happen if they try to leave.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the mud from my thoughts. I could see Yllin running, faster than even Marra, leaping over a stream the rest of us had to wade. She wasn’t even two years old. She should have led a pack someday.

  I opened my throat to howl for her.

  “Kaala, wait,” Pell said urgently. “The Greatwolves will hear you.”

  “So what?” I said. I didn’t care what they heard.

  “Think, Kaala.” The harshness in his voice forced his words through the thickness of my thoughts. “What do most packs do when the prey leaves?”

  “Follow the prey,” I said automatically. “Where the prey goes, so goes the pack.” It was what every pup learned.

  Then I realized what Pell was trying to tell me. The Greatwolves had forbidden any wolf from leaving the valley, then drove the prey away.

  “They’ve trapped us.” At first I didn’t recognize Ázzuen’s voice. I had never heard such anger and bitterness in it. “They sent the prey away and will not let any wolves leave. So we’ll have to fight each other and the humans.”

  None of the Stone Peaks answered. If we howled for Yllin, the Greatwolves would know we had found her and it would give them the advantage.

  “I will tell the others, wolf,” Tlitoo said. He circled Yllin one more time and then took flight back toward Swift River territory.

  “They should be the ones to sing for her anyway, Kaala,” Ázzuen said.

  I sat, staring at Yllin’s body. Ázzuen sat at my side, not quite touching me. I couldn’t make myself decide what to do next. I looked at Ázzuen, but he was still watching Yllin, as if she might suddenly get to her feet and talk to us.

  “Take them back to Swift River land,” Torell said at last, addressing Pell. “Keep them safe in their passage through our lands.”

  “I will do so, leaderwolf,” Pell said formally.

  “Find your Greatwolves and your pack, youngwolves,” Torell said to me. “We will await your decision about what you wish to do.”

  Ázzuen and I each touched Yllin’s cool flesh one more time, inhaling her scent so that it would always be part of who we were, and so that she would always be part of Swift River. Then we left her to the earth. Pell led us silently through Stone Peak territories. I was grateful to him for not trying to talk to me and not trying to get me to talk to him. As soon as we could hear the river that divided our lands, he touched his nose to my face, dipped his head to Ázzuen, and left us.

  13

  We didn’t have to search for Frandra and Jandru. They were waiting for us at the riverbank. I stopped a few wolflengths from them, not knowing where to begin, what to tell them first, but as soon as they saw us emerge from the woods, Jandru spoke.

  “We know about the prey, youngwolf,” he said. “And the raven has told us about your packmate.”

  Tlitoo balanced on a very small rock in the middle of the river, watching the water intently. The ancient raven stood on a larger rock next to him. I was glad I wouldn’t have to say aloud that Yllin was dead; it made it too real.

  “What are you going to tell the council?” I asked. Amid my grief I felt the smallest measure of relief. The council would have to act against Milsindra now. She was tampering with the very Balance.

  Frandra shook river water from her shaggy coat. They must have swum across to the Stone Peak side of the river just before we arrived at the riverbank.

  “The council won’t punish Milsindra for disciplining a wolf trying to leave the valley when forbidden to do so,” she said. “As for the prey, the council, for now, is choosing to do nothing. We will, when the time is right, try to change their minds.” She lowered her muzzle just a little. “I am sorry for the loss of your packmate.”

  She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded like Yllin was just one more part of the Greatwolves’ power struggle.

  “Why aren’t they doing anything?”

  “That isn’t your concern,” Frandra snapped. “You will go back to your humans and let us deal with the council.”

  I didn’t think. I just launched myself at her, slamming into her hard, muscular chest. I fell back on the muddy riverbank and leapt again, forgetting everything Torell had taught me about fighting. Frandra snapped her teeth together, seizing my neck fur. She shook me once, then dropped me on the ground. When I got dizzily to my feet, Ázzuen was standing between me and the Greatwolves and Tlitoo was soaring across the river. He didn’t touch the Greatwolves, but he hovered above them for a moment, talons extended. The ancient raven screeched at him, and Tlitoo settled next to Ázzuen and began jabbing at nonexistent bugs in the river mud.

  “I will allow you that, youngwolf,” Frandra said, her voice flat with anger. “I understand you are grieving. But do not try my patience.”

  I was shaking. With fear. With anger and sorrow. With frustration at my inability to get the Greatwolves to avenge Yllin’s death, or even to admit it was wrong. I was more grateful than I could express when Ázzuen spoke.

  “Why can’t you get the council to do anything about the prey?” he asked. His voice was even, controlled. “Every wolf in the valley will suffer, and the council is supposed to take care of us.”

  If I hadn’t been watching her so closely, I wouldn’t have seen Frandra’s shoulders sag. She immediately straightened.

  “Milsindra is winning more wolves over to her side. We will try to reason with the council, but they may not listen.”

  “Pell said ten Greatwolves were chasing the prey, Kaala,” Ázzuen said over his shoulder. “Remember? Half the council.”

  “Exactly half,” Jandru said, shuffling forward to stand beside his mate. He didn’t ask us how we knew; he would assume the ravens had told us. “Any wolf with sense can see that Milsindra should not drive away the prey. But when wolves wish to believe in something, the truth won’t stop them from doing so. Milsindra’s followers believe that the Ancients wish them to rule wolfkind and control the humans. She has convinced them that if they wish the Ancients’ favor, they will help her prove that you and your humans are a threat to wolfkind.”

  Ázzuen spoke into the silence that followed, his indignation clear. “So, first the council said that if we couldn’t live with the humans for a year without fighting, it would show that the Ancients don’t approve of humans and wolves being together. Now, they’re saying that it’s acceptable for Milsindra to make us fail because that’s what the Ancients would really want?”

  Jandru blinked a few times, trying to catch up with Ázzuen. I knew how he felt.

  “Yes,” he said, slowly. “I had not thought of it that way, but it appears to be so.”

  “So you’re just giving up?�
�� I said, finding my voice at last. I didn’t understand how they could be so weak. Torell’s words sounded in my head. He spoke of fighting and taking chances. Frandra and Jandru sat on the riverside as if the fight were already over. I couldn’t keep the contempt from my tone. “You are giving up.”

  “Why don’t you fight them?” Ázzuen challenged. “We can get the other packs in the valley to help us,” he said, carefully not mentioning Torell.

  “We are not giving up!” Jandru’s growl made the ground beneath my feet shake. “We have been fighting for longer than you have been alive to give us trouble. And the other packs will do nothing for you.”

  “How do you know?” I demanded.

  Jandru shook his head hard. “Idiot. Why do you think your packmate was killed? Do you even know?”

  “To trap us.”

  “They made the prey leave and now no wolf can leave to follow it,” Ázzuen added. Tlitoo quorked softly, still pretending to be intent on his search for food. The old raven had joined him on the riverbank.

  “That is only part of it,” Jandru said. “You’re supposed to be smart,” he growled at Ázzuen. “Think about it. What other message does it send?”

  I didn’t know. That they had power over us? That they could kill us whenever they wanted? We already knew that. Neither Ázzuen nor I answered.

  “By siding with us,” Frandra said, “Ruuqo and Rissa have made enemies of Milsindra and her followers. Milsindra is letting other packs in the valley know what will happen if they take our side against hers. Ruuqo and Rissa did so, and Milsindra killed one of their most promising youngwolves.”

  I nearly vomited up the stagnant pond water I had lapped. Frandra didn’t need to say the rest. Ruuqo and Rissa had helped me, and Yllin had died.