Wolf Captured (61 page)

Firekeeper continued her inspection. The task before her was almost impossibly difficult. She must get not only herself but three wolves out of this deep hole. Normally, the wolves’ size was to their advantage, but down here, where vibrations might cause further landslides, it added to the difficulty. Moreover, two of the wolves were injured and could not be expected to move with their usual strength and grace.

She paused before a mound of dirt and debris, the one under which Moon Frost had been trapped. It reached halfway to the edge of the pit, but the material that made it up was loose and compacted under Firekeeper’s weight. She could not climb here, nor could she climb even if she moved all the dirt and made a great heap. It would still be too soft to bear her weight.

Before Firekeeper had left the mainland, Harjeedian had urged several items of camping gear on her. She had accepted the canteen and medical kit with alacrity. Now she wished she had taken his offer of a length of strong line.

You could have carried it wrapped around your waist, Little Two-legs,
she thought, calling herself by her puppy name as she often did when angry with herself,
but you did not wish to be encumbered. Still, maybe there will be a way.

One thing there was in quantity was vines. Generations of the plants must have snaked across the cellar, gradually creating the impression of solidity that had fooled Blind Seer. The vine mat might even have been dense enough to bear the weight of a small creature like a mouse or rabbit.

Especially if it grew across remnants of the floor—or should I think of it as a ceiling, since I am now below? I felt something give before Moon Frost and I fell. I suspect the ceiling had held until then.

With a methodical patience that would have surprised those of her human friends who thought her impulsive, Firekeeper sorted through the tangle of twisting vines. Moon Frost awoke while she was doing so and lay watching for a time.

“What are you doing, Firekeeper? Are you finding what you can eat and what you cannot? Remember that wolves cannot eat vines. We eat meat.”

Firekeeper knew the wolf was in pain from her broken leg. There had been nothing in the medical kit Harjeedian had given her that would dull pain in something the size of the wolf. For this reason, Firekeeper excused Moon Frost’s rudeness—and even the threat implicit in her final statement.

“I cannot eat vines either,” she said, “or at least not to get nourishment from them. I am hoping to make a rope from the greenest and longest lengths. The small dry pieces I set aside for kindling, so if night finds us here again, I can make a fire.”

“Rope?” Moon Frost asked, tilting her head to one side. “I have seen rope, but how will it help us here?”

“If I can make a rope strong enough to bear my weight, I hope to get it over one of those beams above. I have been studying them, and that central one looks sturdier than the rest. It may have been protected from the worst of the weather by the flooring above it.”

“So then you are out,” Moon Frost snapped. “I have seen you climb like a squirrel. The rest of us cannot climb so.”

“No, but from above I may be able to get help. Would your kin not come?”

Dark Death replied. “Closest kin are my pack, across the inlet we would have crossed last night, but Firekeeper, what good would they do? All they could do is drop in food and sing dirges when at last we die. They cannot change the nature of this trap. I do not think any Beast could do so.”

Firekeeper was startled. She had already thought of several ways they might get out of the hole. True, they were adaptations of things she had learned from humans, but didn’t the Wise Wolves know human ways?

She didn’t wish to anger the wolves by questioning their abilities. It hadn’t taken Moon Frost’s words to make her aware that she was trapped in a hole with three large carnivores. Blind Seer would not eat her—at least not unless she was already dead and he was truly hungry—but these other two might feel differently, especially if starvation was chewing out their bellies.

Nor did she think Blind Seer could protect her. He was stronger than he had been the night before, but the blow to his head had made him disoriented. This was not a condition in which she would wish a fight on him.

To turn the conversation away from this, Firekeeper asked something that had been much in her thoughts.

“Do your people ever call on the humans for help? Let us say in a circumstance like this one where they might be of assistance or in a time of flood or storm?”

“Never,” Dark Death replied. “The ban against humans coming to Misheemnekuru is absolute. If we cannot help ourselves, we die.”

Moon Frost agreed.

“Even those of us who guard the territories closest to where the humans dwell observe this. Our stories tell of times long past when the occasional heavily armed human violated our sanctuary. We dealt with them ourselves, even when the humans offered aid.”

Firekeeper had enough long lengths of strong, green vine by now and started plaiting a rope. It was tedious work, and more than once she had to start over when a section proved too brittle. After a time, she learned which vines would handle the strain of being worked without breaking and the process moved along more quickly.

Silence had followed the discussion of whether aid could come to them, but now Dark Death snuffled at her handiwork.

“What are you doing, Firekeeper? Why do you twist the pieces that way?”

“I make them stronger,” she said. “It is like a wolf pack. Three are stronger than one, and if there is one that finds itself a bit weak, then the other two will keep it from breaking. Even before I knew humans, I did a little of this, but humans have taught me a better way. I would prefer lengths of hide, but these should do.”

“Will these bits of vine hold you?”

“There is only one way to know,” Firekeeper replied levelly, “and that will be in the testing.”

By the time she finished her rope, the sun was high enough to make them glad for the shadows cast from above.

Firekeeper took up her bow; she had carried it in her hand when she fell and it had not been damaged. To the shaft of an arrow she attached the vine rope, then put the arrow to the string.

“This will be easier than throwing,” she explained, seeing Moon Frost struggling not to cringe at the proximity of the weapon. The wolves knew well how deadly an arrow could be. “All of you come away from the walls and back from that central beam. If anything collapses further, we should be safe.”

Blind Seer was awake enough to understand this and staggered away from where he had lain close to the seep, both so that he might drink without effort and to cool himself. It hurt Firekeeper to see him so, his fur matted with wet and moving as if he were older than Neck Breaker and Cricket combined. Still, she said nothing. Weakness was not coddled among wolves, and she knew he would not appreciate her hovering over him.

Instead, Firekeeper got the rope over the beam with her first try. The rope hung over the beam, and with a few jumps, Firekeeper grasped the arrow and pulled the end down where she could reach it. Then she secured the rope to the beam, holding her breath while she did so. This was the critical point. The vines could more easily bear weight than they could take further twisting, but still they might break. To her great relief, they held.

“Watch lest my climbing makes something fall,” she warned.

“Firekeeper,” Blind Seer said, “make good your boast.”

Climbing rope was not like climbing trees or rocks, but the fight to take Smuggler’s Light had taught Firekeeper a few things. She climbed mostly with the strength in her arms, using her feet when necessary. Her shoulders ached where they had struck the ground in her fall, protesting this continued hard use, but she ignored them.

As it took her weight, the beam creaked. Dirt pattered around the edges into the cellar. She heard one of the wolves sneeze.

Then she was at the top and must switch her grip from rope to beam. Firekeeper thought about climbing on top of the beam and walking along it, but dreaded that the jolt as her weight landed on top might cause the old wood to crack. Instead, laboriously, hand over hand, she made her way along the length.

Beneath her fingers the beam was rough and splintery in some places, slippery with rot in others, but Firekeeper maintained her grip. She could feel the hot breath of the wolves as they paced her from below, but could not spare the breath to warn them away. When at last she reached the edge, she saw the beam was set into mortar. It looked secure, so she heaved herself up and onto the solid ground above. Little crumbs of greyish stone trickled down, but the old wood held.

A slide of dirt and bits of stone followed the impact of her landing, but the wolves were prepared for the possibility and took no worse injury than a patina of dirt on their fur. She heard further sneezing.

Firekeeper stood, careful to keep back from that treacherous edge, and heard the wolves howl their pleasure when they saw her rise.

“Bravely done,” Dark Death said. “Now that you are up, what plans have you for us?”

Firekeeper shook the dirt from herself and dabbed at a few scrapes on her mostly unprotected skin. Her shirt and much of her trousers had gone for kindling, bandages, and wash rags.

“Remember what I told you of stairs and ladders?” she replied. “I will make you such. We will test where the edge is sound and you will come up that way. First, though, I think I will hunt for you. Even strong wolves need food if they are to mend.”

Her fish trap yielded several slim silvery fish, each as long as her forearm. Firekeeper kept one for herself, then tossed the others down, making sure one landed near Blind Seer. She was pleased to see that—contrary to usual wolfish manners—neither Moon Frost nor Dark Death crowded him out of his meal.

Of course, they know he is my pack mate, and they need me to get them out of that hole.

Firekeeper kindled herself a small fire and set her chosen fish to cook above it.

Howling wolves and strange vibrations in the earth had made the rabbits skittish, but nonetheless Firekeeper set snares. A yearling buck, uneducated as to the reach of a long bow, proved less cautious than the rabbits and Firekeeper was able to kill it with two well-placed arrows. Venison was better food for wolves, and adequately fed, they settled to wait for her to tell them what to do.

This is a good thing about wolves,
Firekeeper thought.
Humans would worry and fuss, ask many questions, and waste my time with the need to answer them.

But she couldn’t help but think that perhaps just such human worrying had been what created ladders, staircases, and the other tools she was coming to appreciate.

There is something to be said for both ways. Perhaps Blind Seer is right and there is some value even in things that seem useless.

After finishing her fish, several handfuls of watercress, and a rather tart apple, Firekeeper went back to the problem of how to get the wolves out of the cellar. First she established which edge was most stable. This done, she used a length of vine to measure the depth she needed to bridge.

Dark Death gripped it in his teeth, saving her the need to weight it, and cooperatively moving back and forth so Firekeeper could judge the added distance needed to deal with angles, since the wolves could not be expected to climb straight up. Blind Seer had managed in the tunnels beneath Thendulla Lypella, but Moon Frost’s foreleg was broken and Dark Death had never even seen a ladder in use. Had Blind Seer not been injured, he might have demonstrated, but Firekeeper was leaving nothing to chance.

A stairway would have been best, but Firekeeper knew that it would take days to haul rocks of large enough size to be of use. Then, too, she was not sure she could build a staircase. She tried a few in miniature, but they did not seem stable.

A ladder, then, must answer. She had saved the hide and sinews from the yearling buck so there would be no need to fuss with brittle vines. Her camping gear included a small but very solid hatchet. She’d already learned the usefulness of axes, but had never had one of her one. During this venture she had come to love the hatchet almost as much as she did her Fang.

The wolves remained patient as she cut and trimmed two solid young trees for the side supports, then made the rungs from thick sections of branch on which she left the bark for better traction. It was a very long process, made more so by several false starts before Firekeeper worked out the best ways to tie things together.

She resolved to make a better study of tying knots. Hadn’t the sailors aboard
Fayonejunjal
always been tying things together? Perhaps if she could keep her stomach from troubling her, she could learn from them.

By midafternoon, the rabbits had grown less cautious and Firekeeper found several in her snares. All but one she tossed down to the wolves, and once again neither of the others denied Blind Seer his share. The blue-eyed wolf showed signs of recovery, and when Firekeeper at last completed the ladder, he volunteered to test it.

“Let me see if it bears my weight, first,” Firekeeper said. “Then we will see about the rest of you.”

As before, everyone stood back from the edge while she placed the ladder, but the earth seemed to have stabilized and only token bits fell. Firekeeper clambered down the ladder, noting where the rungs needed tightening. After she had done so, she ran up and down it a few times until it did not shift in the least.

Blind Seer shouldered her back.

“Now it is my time,” he said. “I have climbed these before.”

Firekeeper braced the base of the ladder as Blind Seer went up. He moved steadily, but to she who knew him there was a trace of hesitation on a few steps. After he was up, there was no stopping the others from trying. Dark Death made a few false starts before understanding how he must balance, but with her broken foreleg Moon Frost could not manage.

“I can tuck it beneath me on the flat,” she said, “but here I fall to the side.”

“I have thought on this,” Firekeeper said. “I must carry you to the top. I will need my arms, so you must drape yourself over my back and let my arms and legs serve as your own. We will bind your leg so that it will not be jarred.”