Spirit of the Wolves (10 page)

Marra snorted. Both ravens glared down at us.

“Babywolves,” Jlela grumbled. She disentangled her neck from Tlitoo's and took off for a higher branch.

Tlitoo puffed up the feathers around his neck and croaked irritably. I thought he might spit a twig at us, but he just spread his wings, wide and strong, and flew up to rejoin Jlela.

A human voice sounded across the plain.

“Begin the hunt!”

The call came from a tall female. The furless-headed male
stood on one side of her, RalZun on the other. TaLi gestured to us. We walked slowly across the plain, keeping our bodies relaxed until we reached the humans. We all lowered our ears politely and sat.

“They're smaller than I remember,” the tall female said without returning our greeting. I ignored her rudeness. She probably didn't know any better.

“That's HesMi,” TaLi whispered to us in a voice too soft for humans to hear. “She leads Kaar's council of elders this season.” The female looked strong and smelled of power. “And the bald one is IniMin.” She nodded toward the furless-headed male who had glared at me. “He's the one who doesn't want wolves around.”

I was relieved to see that Kaar didn't believe the nonsense that females couldn't lead, or hunt, as some of the humans in the Wide Valley did. The dominant human called HesMi watched us curiously. The furless IniMin wore a pleasant expression, but if he'd been a wolf, his backfur would have been raised. Humans didn't seem to understand that their scents revealed as much about them as their words, and this human smelled of malice.

I leaned against TaLi as Marra huffed in anticipation. Ázzuen yipped softly and licked the top of my head. I turned to share the excitement of the hunt with Pell, but he was watching me and Ázzuen with narrowed eyes.

BreLan bent down to whisper in TaLi's ear.

“Tell the wolves which elk to hunt,” BreLan said. “Show HesMi that the wolves will do what you tell them to do.”

I couldn't let her do that. Not if we were to prove to the
Sentinels that we were the humans' equals. Navdru had probably sent someone to watch us.

I sat down, then looked away from TaLi, as I had when I'd once refused to swim across the river without her back in the Wide Valley.

And she understood me. As clearly as if I had spoken to her. Watching me carefully, she whispered to BreLan.

“No. We want HesMi to see what the wolves can do on their own.” I stood and panted a smile at her and then licked her hand. She smiled back at me and spoke to HesMi and IniMin.

“The wolves can pick out the best animals to hunt. It's one of the ways they help us.” She stood tall, more like a grown human than I'd ever seen her.

“Fine,” HesMi said, and several humans whispered to one another. I looked behind me to see if any of them were going to argue, but they just watched us, intrigued. RalZun had said that many of them had lived in Kaar when wolves still hunted with the villagers there.

A strong smell of spruce wafted across the plain, even though there were no spruce trees nearby. I sneezed.

“Find a good one, Kaala,” TaLi said. I licked her hand and set out onto the plain. My packmates followed.

I took a deep breath. I needed to find prey we could catch quickly. We would need to work with the humans to bring down the prey, without submitting to them, getting them injured, or making them uncomfortable. It would take all of our skill and strength to do so.

“What first, Kaala?” Pell said. He had led almost as many
hunts as a leaderwolf and didn't seem at all concerned about this one. I smiled back, opening my mouth to taste the rich scent of elk.

“Find the easiest prey you can,” I said. If I had been trying to impress a wolf pack, I might have hunted the most challenging beast I could find. For the humans, I would bring down prey as quickly as I could. I heard my voice grow strong. “Marra and Pell, you start chasing them. See if any tire quickly. Ázzuen, you run among them and see if you can smell any weak ones.”

All three dipped their heads to me and darted to the elk.

I waited, resisting the urge to run to the hunt like an eager pup, and watched as Marra and Pell bolted a group of elk. All of them were healthy and fast. Pell put on an extra burst of speed, outrunning Marra for a moment, splitting the elk into the faster and the slower. It was a beautiful move, done so smoothly that the elk didn't notice that my packmates had divided their herd. Marra swerved to join him and they split the slower group of elk once more. Pell's long legs followed one upon the other, the muscles in his haunches stretching and contracting.

Ázzuen barked.

He had been running low to the ground next to the group of elk that had run off when Pell and Marra had first split the herd. The elk he'd found looked healthy and ran well, but he stuck to her side.

“This one has bloodflies!” he yipped to me. Ruuqo and Rissa had taught us about the parasites that invaded prey's lungs, and had shown us how to recognize their scent in the carcass of a dead horse. A prey infested with bloodflies could
still eat and could sprint short distances, but tired quickly and had slower reactions.

I stood, torn. Pell and Marra would find a slower elk, and it would be weary by the time they did so. But the elk they chased all seemed alert and strong. Ázzuen's might not be so. And it was fatter than the others—prey the humans would appreciate more.

I woofed to Marra and Pell, alerting them to Ázzuen's choice. They barely broke stride to look at me, follow my gaze to Ázzuen, and then turn to run toward him and his elk. I caught TaLi's eye and stared at Ázzuen and his prey. She understood me.

“That one!” she said to HesMi. “With the black forehead and the white patch on its back!” I hadn't seen anything different about the elk's back but I'd noticed that the humans relied on visual clues to tell each other things. Ázzuen thought that they saw more colors than we did. They certainly needed something to compensate for their weak noses and ears.

Hoots and shouts filled the air as long, lanky young humans led the charge. Marra and Ázzuen drove the elk to them. In a flurry of thrown spears, the elk went down. It screamed and kicked as more humans converged on it, spears raised. Before the dying beast's legs stopped moving, Marra pelted toward several of the elk she and Pell had been chasing earlier. MikLan took off after her, and several humans followed the boy. The humans couldn't keep pace with Marra, but when she drove two elk toward them, their sharpsticks flew once more. Humans and wolves moved with the ease of a pack that had hunted together for years. One of the elk fell, three spears in its flesh. The other shied away. Right into Pell's jaws. He
leapt on it, with a swift graceful jump, biting into its haunch. My heart caught when it kicked out at him, and I ran to his aid just as TaLi pulled back her arm and let her spear fly from the throwing stick. The tool made it possible for even a relatively small human like TaLi to throw a spear far and fast.

The beast staggered and fell just as I reached it. I dodged hooves and rolled away from the wounded prey. It kicked twice more and then was still. When I got to my paws, I saw humans surrounding the fallen elk.

TaLi ran to me, whooping. She stumbled and landed on her rump. I stood over her and licked her all over, aware of the humans celebrating all around us. The scent of joy and triumph arose from wolf and human alike. We had killed three elk with the humans before the sun had climbed halfway up the sky.

I scanned the plain as the elk fled, and a flash of movement drew my attention to the trees bordering the plain. Milsindra stood watching us. That was why I had smelled spruce before. I didn't know whether the Sentinels had sent her or she had come on her own, but I had no problem with her seeing our success. She bared her teeth in her unpleasant smile and stalked off into the woods. I waited until she was gone, then snarled at the place where she had been.

The scent of fresh meat taunted me from across the plain. I restrained myself from running to one of the elk to tear into its rich flesh, and was pleased to see Pell, Ázzuen, and Marra doing the same. Most of the humans, including their leader, HesMi, were celebrating our successful hunt. TaLi and RalZun made their way across the plain to stand next to the human leader, and the old man beamed at me. Then I caught the sour
smell of anger. IniMin was not celebrating. He stood apart from HesMi and the others. When he turned his head to meet my gaze, I saw the small shift in his face, a tightening of the muscles around his mouth and eyes, a slight thinning of his lips. His forehead stretched so that his ears moved a little farther back on his furless head. He was furious, and none of the humans seemed to realize it. There was no way I could warn TaLi with our clumsy way of communicating. RalZun whispered something to the girl. She glanced at IniMin and narrowed her eyes.

“The wolves get their share.” I almost didn't recognize the strong, authoritative voice as TaLi's. There was nothing of the uncertain human child I'd known in the Wide Valley. She was looking toward one of the dead elk, her hands clenched into tight fists.

That was when I saw that Pell and Marra had stopped waiting and had torn into the beast. A few of the humans were moving forward in protest, but stopped when TaLi spoke. HesMi nodded to them, and they backed off. Ázzuen bolted to join the others at the prey and, after one last anxious look at HesMi, I did, too. Soon I was lying next to the beast and biting into its belly. For a few moments I knew nothing but rich meat, warm flesh, and the glorious feeling of food in my stomach. Ázzuen was on one side of me, Pell on the other, as we fed. It was Marra who pulled away first.

“We should stop,” she said thickly. “Leave good greslin for the humans.” Greslin was the best, richest part of a prey. Marra had eaten so fast she was gasping.

I managed to drag myself away from the elk. Ázzuen and Pell did the same. Most of the humans were bent over the
other carcasses. But six of them, including IniMin, were making their way toward us, determined expressions on their faces.

“Let them have it,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Pell asked, flicking a glance to where Milsindra had stood. He'd seen her, too.

“I'm sure.” It was one thing to avoid being submissive, but there was no reason to purposely challenge the humans. A wolf who fought every time she saw another wolf wasn't strong. She was foolish. I had learned that in the Wide Valley. The balance of a pack was kept by standing up for oneself, but also by thinking of the good of packmates. I wanted the humans to see us as packmates, not rivals.

We stepped away from the carcass. TaLi scrambled after the six approaching humans. HesMi followed behind, keeping pace easily with her long legs. The humans swarmed around the carcass. As they cut into what was left of the elk, I watched TaLi. She crinkled her eyes at me.

“Kaala,” she said, “will you bring me the rib bone?” She pointed to a smallish bone to my right. I picked it up and dragged it over to her. Even a small elk bone wasn't light. When I brought it to her, she smiled up at HesMi.

HesMi smiled back. IniMin stepped away from the carcass and stomped over to us, frowning.

“Get me that bit of meat there, wolf,” he ordered. I looked up at him, sat, and yawned. He shoved his foot into my ribs, not kicking me but trying to push me toward the carcass. I lay down.

TaLi crouched down beside me and buried her face in my fur. She was laughing. She lifted her head, her face composed. “Kaala, would you bring me the piece of meat by the rock?”

I got to my paws and raced to the small bit of meat. When I brought it back to TaLi, she put it in the sack that HesMi carried. The human leader grunted and walked away. TaLi crouched, wrapped her arms around me, and rested her cheek on my head.

“We did it, Kaala,” she whispered. I leaned against her, my chest warming.

“It's only the beginning,” I said, twisting around to lick her face. I thought I saw a flicker of understanding in her eyes before she hugged me hard and stood to race after HesMi. It felt like there was nothing we couldn't do together.

A grunt of effort came from my left. Pell was pulling a chunk of the elk's rib cage into the woods. He struggled to haul it over a small rise at the edge of the plain. Ázzuen was listening intently to HesMi and TaLi. He would tell me anything important they said. I trotted to the edge of the plain to help Pell. Together we dragged the rib bones into the woods.

He'd gathered a large pile of meat in the shade of the pine trees. Tlitoo and Jlela stood atop it, picking at bits of flesh and skin. I helped Pell drag the rib bones to the pile.

“That should keep the Sentinels happy,” I said. The Sentinels hadn't asked us to bring them meat, but it certainly couldn't hurt to do so. And it would prove that we weren't just doing what the humans told us to.

A patch of sun streamed in through the trees. I stood in it, reveling in the warmth on my back. I stretched, working out the kinks in my spine and the tightness in my shoulders. Pell smiled at me. We had done well. Tlitoo and Jlela perched in a pine tree, watching us intently.

“The humans don't seem to mind our hunting with them
as equals,” Pell said. He was still grinning at me, his mouth wide and his tongue peeking out from between his teeth.

“There's still a long way to go,” I warned. It wasn't like Pell to be so overeager. “It's just one hunt.”

“If anyone can do it, you can, Kaala,” he said. His face softened. “You're extraordinary. I've known you could be a leaderwolf since you were a pup running through the territories with no idea what you were doing. I knew it when I first saw you spying on us at Wolf Killer Hill. You'll be a strong leaderwolf someday. And I want to be there when you are.”

I blinked at him. I opened my mouth to answer. Nothing came out.

“It's late in the season, but we still have time to make pups,” he said, moving closer to stand next to me in the patch of sun. “Torell wanted me to mate last year, but there wasn't any wolf I wanted. I'm glad I waited.”