The Dragon of Despair (11 page)

FIREKEEPER FOUND THE EVENING SPENT
with Ewen Brooks and his household incredibly disturbing. It was not just being closed into a small, somewhat smoky room with people she didn’t know, nor was it that Blind Seer was not with her, nor even was it that she longed for the moment when she would be reunited with her family.

Memories surged beneath the surface of her thoughts, memories she hadn’t even suspected she had and so were all the more disturbing for their gentle stirring.

Surely she had spent many hours in a room much like this one. Surely she had listened to similar conversations. There was a note in Ewen’s voice as he spoke of his dreams that she had heard before, a barely suppressed passion so intense that she felt that the passion in and of itself should have been enough to make the dream come true.

Although the wolf-woman longed to flee, she made herself remain, listening, watching, learning.

She remembered all too well the stories she had heard from the Royal Beasts the previous autumn, stories that held their history of their encounters with humanity. She knew as none of these humans did that the Beasts had long memories and would resent this new settlement as they had resented little else.

As Ewen prosed on, almost worshipfully evoking images of hot bread baked in their own ovens, of tools crafted at their own forges, of mines dug in the western face of the mountain to supply iron, and of fields so bountiful that winter hunger would be laughable, Firekeeper found herself wondering for the first time why the Beasts had tolerated Prince Barden’s settlement. Would they tolerate this one for the same reason? She resolved to ask the Ones just as soon as she could.

When Dawn Brooks began arranging for sleeping accommodations, Firekeeper slipped out the door. Only one of the long-bodied hound dogs drowsing in the yard noticed her going, and he swallowed his own baying alarm in response to her growled warning.

Shadows dark as puddled ink hid the wolf-woman as she raced toward the tree line. Once under the shelter of the trees she slowed, knowing that none in the human community had the eyes to see her. An owl hooted from a tree and she paused, wondering if it was speaking to her, but it proved only a Cousin, diving after mice foraging at the edges of the cleared field.

Once her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, Firekeeper easily found a game trail and paced along it. She didn’t know yet where the wolves were denning, but they would find her. Blind Seer, at least, could be counted on to do so. Nor did he disappoint her. The wolf-woman was still breathing deeply to get the scent of smoke out from her nostrils when Blind Seer pounced at her from the shadow of a squat evergreen.

Quick as the wolf was, Firekeeper heard the sound as his paws pushed against the ground and was ready for him, bracing herself so that rather than knocking her flat as he had intended, he found himself caught in her arms. She couldn’t hold him—he was too large for that—but it won her points in their undeclared game.

They wrestled for a bit until Blind Seer had pinned her against the duff and bracken, his paws planted on her chest, taking his penalty in sloppy licks across her face.

“Venison stew,” he declared. “More heavily seasoned than is to my taste, but then I like my meat blood-hot.”

“And from your sloppy bathing,” Firekeeper said, shoving him back and tugging at a bit of matted blood his wade in a stream hadn’t quite washed away, “I can tell you had it. Have you found the pack?”

“I have and they bid me bring you to them,” the blue-eyed wolf replied. “They would have howled, but this year’s pups are yet small and some of those young hunters—if what humans do can truly be called hunting—have shown too much interest in learning where we are staying these days.”

Firekeeper held up a hand, again aware that this was a human gesture she would not have used a year before.

“This year’s pups?” she asked. “When last we spoke with the One Female she said she did not intend a litter this year, that there were pups enough to rear.”

Blind Seer’s ears flattened slightly in an expression of confusion.

“I had forgotten that,” he said, “and was simply pleased to see the fat furballs looking so healthy. There are four this litter: two males, two females.”

Firekeeper put her question away as yet another one to ask the Ones and instead asked:

“You say the humans have been looking for where the pack dens. Have they found them?”

“Not yet,” Blind Seer scoffed. “Those younglings are not as woods wise as they believe—not even as woods wise as Edlin and far from as expert as Race Forester. Nor has the pack made it easy for them. Some of our own yearlings have been going out to distant points and singing their own praises, leaving trampled paw prints in the mud where these trackers may find them, and otherwise confusing the signs.”

“Wise,” said Firekeeper, rising to her feet and brushing some of the mess from her clothes and hair, “for I do not think there is any great love for wolf-kind among those in the new Bardenville.”

“So they remember the prince, then,” Blind Seer said. “That’s interesting.”

“Their One,” Firekeeper said, “this Ewen Brooks, has taken Barden’s dream for his own. I think Derian was right. These people are like young wolves full of the urge to disperse. They saw nowhere to go until…”

She fell silent, her fingernails digging into her palms.

“Until?” Blind Seer prompted.

“Until my return showed them the trail.”

“Don’t blame yourself, dear heart,” the wolf replied. “Even if you had not returned from here, Earl Kestrel and his folk would have done so. The end would have been the same.”

Firekeeper nodded, but remained uncomforted.

Would the wolves have let Earl Kestrel return if they had not promised her mother—that forgotten human woman—that they would give Firekeeper a chance to know her human heritage? Kestrel’s small company—Derian, Ox, Race, and Valet—would have been easy hunting even for her relatively small pack, and had Kestrel’s expedition not returned, then the fear that had held the humans to their side of the mountain would have remained undiminished.

Such thoughts did nothing to assuage the unhappiness that had plagued Firekeeper since first she had realized that humans were moving west. As Blind Seer led her to this season’s denning place, she felt like a young wolf who had been caught trying to steal a bone from a bigger, stronger wolf—certain she was about to get a drubbing.

But the only drubbing she received—initially at least—was the roisterous greeting of the wolf pack. The spring before, when Earl Kestrel had led his expedition west, the pack had consisted of eight adults, six pups, and Firekeeper. By the time she had visited the following autumn, two of the puppies had died, and an adult male had dispersed, ranging elsewhere, perhaps to find a mate of his own.

Nor had the internal dynamic of the pack remained unchanged between the autumn of her departure and the spring of her return. The Ones continued to reign unchallenged, but the younger ones had grown. The four surviving pups had become leggy wolflings. The Whiner—once the weakest yearling in the pack—had grown stronger and more confident. With the dispersal of the adult male, the hierarchy of the remaining adults had shifted.

Now, once the flying romp of fur slowed to a panting whirl, Firekeeper was surprised to see two strangers among the pack. These had not greeted her as the others had, but had hung back, neither unfriendly nor familiar.

Firekeeper stood, her hand still buried in the One Female’s pale fur—for the One Female’s coat was silvery, like new-fallen snow in the moonlight—and felt as shy before these lupine strangers as ever she did before humans. She felt more shy in a way, for among humans she entertained a vague sense of superiority that she did not feel when among wolves.

The One Female took mercy on her, saying:

“Firekeeper, this is Sharp Fang, who has come to us from further west and north. Since we now have our own Sharp Fang…” She indicated the Whiner with some pride. “…we call our visitor Northwest.”

Northwest was a male, his fur white around jaw and muzzle, but mixed grey-brown around his eyes, over his ears, and down the back of his neck where the same grey-brown made a saddle over the lighter fur of his underbody. Her recent visit to New Kelvin had made Firekeeper all too aware of masks, and she couldn’t help but think that this male looked as if he wore one.

Northwest’s eyes were yellow-gold, their gaze so penetrating and analytical that Firekeeper felt like a bug on a rock. She locked her gaze with his, unwilling, even though Northwest was quite large and looked as if he could knock her down without half trying, to abase herself. She didn’t know the stranger’s standing in her pack and wasn’t about to accord him the same automatic respect she had always given those who had cared for her.

The One Female did not demand she do so, but indicated the other newcomer.

“Do you remember Wind Whisper? She was with us many years ago, when you were very small.”

Firekeeper studied the she-wolf. Wind Whisper’s coat was equal parts silver-grey and charcoal black, the black clustering in the vicinity of her ears, muzzle, and legs, the grey blending in elsewhere, though the tip of her otherwise grey tail was black. Her eyes were the color of old pine-tree tears and her bearing was strong and lithe, with no trace of age.

For the first time, Firekeeper found herself wondering how old the Royal Wolves might grow to be. She had never much paid attention to the passage of time, but humans seemed to do little else. From them she had learned that her tenure among the wolves had probably been between ten and twelve years. She herself remembered no time she had not been a wolf, except sometimes, perhaps, in dreams.

A sudden panic squeezed her heart. She had heard Race Forester speak of one of his bird dogs as growing old at twelve years. Did Royal Wolves age at the same rate? She knew that Blind Seer had celebrated his fourth year early this spring. Numbers still were not her strong point, but she knew that twelve was just beyond two hands and that four filled one hand almost entirely.

There had been three One Males in her memory. Was this replacement a result of aging on the part of the wolves? Did they become unfit for their places just as age was rendering King Tedric unfit for elements of his? A human king might delegate others to lead in battle. Tedric had done just that last autumn—otherwise the war might have been called King Tedric’s War rather than King Allister’s.

A One never delegated another to lead. Either they were slain by a competitor or beaten so sorely that none doubted they were past their time.

Suddenly Firekeeper felt afraid of a human life, afraid that its length might take her beyond all those she loved. Then she shook herself. She herself was a wolf, no human to be coddled by servants in a castle as was King Tedric or by children and grandchildren in a cottage as was Holly Gardener. Death was more likely to find her than was old age.

And perhaps it was proof that she was a wolf at heart that this thought gave her comfort. Perhaps it was only proof that she was very young.

Firekeeper remembered her manners and recalled her attention to the One Female’s question.

“I do not remember you,” she said to Wind Whisper. “But puppies have no memory beyond their last meal and no dreams beyond the next.”

Wind Whisper panted with laughter.

“True enough,” she said, “and you were a very ill pup. How we struggled to make you to eat, but the fire had badly damaged you. If it had not been for…”

Wind Whisper stopped, snapping at her haunch as if after a fly. When she resumed, it was as if she had forgotten what she had been about to say.

“Well, you’ve grown into a fine young creature. Nicely spoken, too, and lighter on your feet than any of the two-legs I’ve seen over in that smoky nest they’ve built themselves.”

Blind Seer wagged his great brush of a tail, pleased at this compliment to his friend.

“When did you leave this pack?” he asked Wind Whisper. “And where did you go?”

“Long before you were born, Blue-Eyes,” she replied, “even before your mother came to rule this pack.”

Again Firekeeper was struck by the difference between how she and the wolves grew and aged. She had known both the One Male and the One Female as pups. The One Female had been of this pack, the One Male of a neighboring pack with whom her own sometimes joined for winter hunts and summer romps.

To her, now, both wolves were adults, wise and strong, yet she could recall them as fat furballs like the four who even now romped with each other in a sheltered hollow, their mock battles indulgently supervised by a couple of the yearlings. How old were the Ones now? Eight? Ten?

The thought troubled her as never before. Citrine Shield was about that age and she was a child. Firekeeper knew that she herself was still growing. She’d grown taller even over the last year. With the bounty of human larders to augment her own hunting she’d put on weight, developed breasts, and, if Holly’s comments were anything on which to judge, she had more changing yet to come.

Blind Seer had filled out some, grown a bit broader through the chest. Indeed, he promised to live up to the image of his father—the previous One Male, who had sired only one litter before dying in a winter hunting accident.