Promise Of The Wolves (9 page)

“Most important of all,” Rissa said, “you must never kill a human, unless you are defending your life or your pack. If you kill a human without cause, you and your entire pack will be killed. The Greatwolves will destroy every wolf who shares your blood.”

That got our attention. We all stopped fidgeting and looking around Wood’s Edge and stared at Rissa.

“It is time,” Rissa said, “for you to learn of the covenant of the Wide Valley.”

She paused for a moment, and looked over to Ruuqo as if she expected him to argue with her again. He met her eyes coolly.

“If you are taking them to the humans when they’re still mud-brained pups,” he snarled, “then you may as well tell them of the legends.”

He stalked several wolflengths away, found a patch of damp earth by a rotting log, and lay down, turning his back to us.

“Very well,” Rissa said, refusing to respond to his anger. “There was a time when humans and wolves fought, and all of wolfkind nearly came to an end.” She paused. “You remember what you’ve learned of the Ancients?” she asked us.

“Sun, Moon, Earth, and Sky,” Ázzuen answered quickly, repeating what Trevegg had told us many moons before. “They created creatures and the Balance, and we have to follow their rules. But Trevegg wouldn’t tell us anything else,” he said.

Rissa whuffed a laugh at the exasperation in Ázzuen’s voice. He hated not knowing things. “That is correct,” she said. “And you will learn more when you need to. What you need to know now is that our ancestors promised the Ancients that this valley would be a place of peace. That is what the covenant is about. It is why we must keep the promise, and why the fate of all wolfkind rests upon our backs.”

Her voice took on the cadence of story, of legend passed down from one generation of wolf to another.

“The promise was made long ago,” she said, “when wolves had just become wolf and when humans were not yet human, when a wolf named Indru met a human at the northern edge of a great desert. Both were very hungry, and both were leading their packs in search of food.”

“This was a time,” Trevegg added, “when humans were not so different from all other creatures.” The oldwolf lay down with a contented sigh. “They were cleverer than some, and less clever than others, better at survival than some, and not as good as others. There were fewer of them than there are now, and they were covered with fur like a normal creature, not half naked like they are now.”

Borlla snorted, and Trevegg opened his mouth in a grin before continuing.

“Even then they stood tall on their hind legs, and even then they had some use of tools, though not nearly as many as they have now.”

“What are tools?” Ázzuen asked before I could.

“You have seen ravens strip twigs and use them to dig grubs out from the inside of trees?” Trevegg asked. “It is like that. That twig is a tool and the humans are better at using them than any other creature. It’s one of the gifts given to the humans by the Ancients, as we are given fleetness of foot and the cleverness of the hunt.”

“Their tools weren’t anything like they are now, though,” Yllin asserted, interrupting the oldwolf. “The human-to-be that Indru met only had a stick for digging and a sharpened rock for cutting. They were the same tools his ancestors and their ancestors before them had used. He hadn’t thought to put the rock on the end of a stick or to sharpen the stick to throw at prey.”

Yllin looked suddenly abashed when she realized she had taken over telling the story, but continued when Rissa nodded to her.

“Humans were scroungers then,” the youngwolf said, “living mostly by eating others’ prey, and by catching what small prey they could on their own.”

“They’re just scroungers?” Unnan demanded. “Why do we have to worry about them, then?”

“Be quiet, pup!” Ruuqo ordered from beside his log. Ázzuen startled beside me, and Marra gave a small yip. I’d thought Ruuqo was sleeping but clearly he was listening to everything. Unnan flattened his ears and Ruuqo watched him for a moment before turning away from us again.

“They were scroungers then,” Trevegg said, glaring at Unnan. “They are not now.”

I muffled a grunt of pleasure at Unnan’s embarrassment, and settled onto my haunches.

“It was a harsh time,” Rissa continued as if Yllin had never been interrupted, “and food was scarce. The humans-to-be were losing their fight to survive. Indru’s pack was struggling, too, and he had led them far in search of food. Although they fared better than the humans, he could not allow good prey to walk away. And by all that is wolf, the weak creatures standing before his pack should have been prey.”

I remembered how I’d felt when I saw the humans across the Tall Grass plain. How I’d been torn between wanting to fight them and wanting to run with them. I could imagine myself standing next to Indru, watching the humans. And before I knew what I was doing, I spoke.

“But he didn’t see them as prey,” I whispered, and then gasped when I realized what I had said. I lowered my ears before anyone could reprimand me.

Rissa pulled her lips back just a little, and then sighed. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft.

“He did not see them as prey. He looked into the eyes of the human and saw something he thought he recognized, something he might see in the eyes of a wolf.”

Ruuqo growled quietly from beside his log, and raised his head.

“Against all logic and sense,” Rissa continued, “Indru did not tell his pack to hunt the humans. Instead, he invited the tall-standing creatures to join his pack in play. And when the sun rose in the sky and it got too warm to run, they lay down together, and they slept, side by side.”

Rissa half closed her eyes. “When they awoke,” she said, “they awoke changed. Indru saw that the humans were not so different from wolves. When he looked more closely, he saw how sickly the humans really were—how close to death they were. And Indru did not want them to die. He wanted to be with them, to run with them as he would run with his pack. He could no more leave them to die than he could leave one of his pups hungry when his own belly was filled with meat. He decided to teach the humans some things to help them to survive. Some say that when the wolf and the human lay down together, their souls intertwined, and even when they stood and moved apart, each kept a piece of the other’s soul.”

“That is not part of the traditional story!” Ruuqo snapped, standing suddenly and making us all jump. He stalked over to us. “That’s not the legend as it’s meant to be told.”

“It’s what I heard as a pup,” Rissa countered. “Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s untrue.”

Ruuqo growled deep in his throat. He paced back to the rotting log and turned restlessly in a circle. I waited for him to lie down again. Instead, he strode back to Rissa and sat next to her, poised on his haunches as if ready to pounce. Rissa gave a soft, annoyed growl of her own before continuing.

“The wolves taught the humans how to work together to bring down prey so that they no longer needed to rely on others to catch their food,” she said. “They taught the humans to set up gathering places where they could come together to rest and plan.”

“These were the secrets of the wolf clans,” Ruuqo interrupted, “and Indru should have known better than to share them with the humans-to-be. Each creature has secrets—skills given to them by the Ancients—and all are forbidden to share them. For the Ancients knew that if one creature learned too much, it could grow too powerful and upset the Balance. Indru was so blinded by his feelings for the human-creatures that he ignored the law of the Ancients, and continued to teach the humans things they should not have known. Before long, the humans were changed.”

He stopped speaking and stalked back to his log. When it became clear he would not start again, Rissa took up the story.

“They were greatly changed. Because they hunted as a pack, they had more food to eat, and they grew stronger. In their new gathering places they came together, and found that many minds were better than one. They learned new ways to seek food, and better ways to shelter themselves. One cold night, when they wearied of shivering and of hiding from the beasts that hunted them, they learned to control fire.”

I’d seen fire when it sometimes ate through the trees and bushes of the forest. It seemed impossible that any creature could rule it, and I couldn’t help but wonder what such a creature would be like. Rissa’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I shook myself and crept in a little closer to her.

“When the humans learned to control fire,” she said, “they no longer needed their thick fur, and it fell away from their bodies like leaves off a tree. They learned new ways to use their tools and ways to make tools that their ancestors would never have imagined. They found new ways of killing and fighting. They grew arrogant and proud. ‘We are different,’ they said. ‘We are better than other creatures. See how no other creature makes fire? See how no other creature makes tools of rock and of wood.’”

The sound of flapping wings made all of us look up. Sleekwing landed in front of Rissa and Trevegg, his beak still bloody from his meal. My stomach rumbled at the thought of that good meat, just out of reach.

He pulled Rissa’s ear and flapped his wings in Trevegg’s face. When the oldwolf grinned and snapped his jaws at the raven, Sleekwing took flight, alighting on a branch just above us, where Rainsong waited for him. I wondered how long the ravens had been listening and why they cared to listen to our legend. Rissa watched them warily for a moment, and then spoke again.

“The humans decided that all other creatures should serve them,” she said. “The wolves refused, and humans and wolves fought. The humans, in their anger, began to kill every creature that would not submit to them. Then they set fire to the very forest they lived in.”

I shuddered. Trevegg had told me that fire had burned two of our best gathering places three years ago. I couldn’t imagine deliberately causing such destruction.

“That was what caught the attention of the Ancients,” Trevegg said. “And when the Ancients saw what the humans had learned from the wolves, and saw what the humans were doing, they knew that these creatures would threaten the Balance. That they would keep killing and keep destroying everything and every creature around them. And the Ancients would not allow such things to come to pass. So Sky announced to the wolves and humans of the world that the time had come for them to die.”

“When Indru heard this,” Rissa said, “he howled in sorrow and despair. He scaled the highest mountain he could find, and called out to the Ancients, to beg for the life of wolf and humankind. At first, they didn’t hear him.”

Rissa raised her head to look at Sleekwing and Rainsong in the tree above her. They both raised their wings, and Sleekwing spoke.

“Then, Tlitookilakin, the raven king, who had been watching the wolves and humans, flew all the way up to Sun and jabbed the Ancient with his sharp beak. Sun looked down and saw Indru, and called the other Ancients—Moon, Earth, and Grandmother Sky—to listen. Tlitookilakin flew to Indru’s side, for he did not want his ravens to starve for the foolishness of the wolves.”

The raven turned his head side to side and then settled back on his branch. Trevegg raised his muzzle to the wind, and then lowered it, and spoke to us again.

“Ears humbly lowered and tail tucked politely between his legs,” he said, “Indru stood before the Ancients. He spoke to them, showing as much courage as any wolf has ever had.

“‘Do not punish all wolves and humans,’ Indru begged, ‘for it was the fault of me and my pack that this happened. Do not end our lives. There are so many things we have yet to learn, so many things still to discover.’

“Sky sent a warm breeze through Indru’s fur. ‘All creatures have their time to live and their time to die,’ she said gently to the wolf. ‘It is time for you to make way for what comes next. It is the way it has always happened, and the way it must always be.’

“Indru looked at Sky in despair, not sure of what to do next. The raven king poked Indru hard in the rump, and the wolf spoke again.

“‘Our time is not yet done,’ he pleaded. ‘We have just begun to explore this lovely world we live on.’

“Earth rumbled in response to the compliment, making the mountain shake. Then Indru sat back and howled a song so sweet and mournful that even Sky trembled, and Moon and Earth held perfectly still for the first time in their long lives.

“The Ancients watched Indru with great curiosity. No other creature had stood before them and so courageously and so calmly argued its cause. The Ancients had lived a long, long time, and had grown tired of one another’s company. They were lonely—as lonely as a wolf without a pack. In the howl of the wolf, they saw the possibility of companions to end their loneliness. They spoke together while Indru and Tlitookilakin waited, shivering on the mountaintop. Finally, after what seemed to Indru like a lifetime, Sky spoke.

“‘We will grant you this request,’ Sky said, and Indru’s heart began to beat once more.

“‘But you must make us a promise—a promise that your children and your children’s children must keep.’

“‘I will promise anything,’ Indru said.