Secrets of the Wolves Page 4

  “But what?” old Trevegg asked, watching the Greatwolf sharply.

  “But there is enough opposition to my rule that Milsindra was able to insist upon some conditions, upon a test.” The seriousness left his face, and he panted a smile. “Or rather I suggested one and let Milsindra think it was her idea.”

  “What test?” I said, feeling my stomach clench. Wasn’t it enough that I had to find a way to stop wolves and humans from fighting when I was not yet ten moons old? Even with my pack helping, as they had promised to do, it was a daunting task.

  “The council says that it is not enough merely to keep peace for a year, that wolves and humans could refrain from fighting for that long merely by keeping away from one another and would fight again soon after.”

  “I wouldn’t do that!” I stood, too restless to stay sitting. “I want to be with the humans.” Zorindru’s reproving glare silenced me. His eyes rested on me for a moment before he continued.

  “The council has decreed that for the course of one year, wolves must live with the humans, as members of the same family, as members of the same pack.”

  For a moment we all looked at him in shock.

  “The two packs must become one,” Tlitoo crooned from atop his stump.

  “That’s what NiaLi told us we should do,” I said, remembering the words TaLi’s grandmother had spoken. “After the Tall Grass fight she said that the two packs must become one, that it was the only way we could keep peace between wolves and humans.”

  “You told us later that the council would never agree,” Trevegg said. “You said they would never let us be together with the humans, that we would have to find another way. What changed?”

  I barely heard the oldwolf as an unexpected surge of anger rose up in me. The humans were mine. I was the one who had brought wolves and humans together in peace. I had risked everything to be with them and had been banished from my pack because of it. I had been called a drelshik—a cursed wolf. I had risked my life. And now the Greatwolves were ordering us to live with the humans, when it was what I had wanted to do in the first place.

  Then I felt my heart lift. That was it? That was the task? We were to live with the humans. It would be me. It would have to be me. I knew the humans best.

  “Stop looking so pleased with yourself!” Ruuqo snapped. I realized that my ears had lifted and my tail had begun to wag of its own accord. Quickly I tucked it down between my legs. It rose up again. Ázzuen’s tail thumped in the snow. Unnan growled softly.

  “Pups,” Ruuqo snarled. “We’re supposed to entrust this to pups?”

  The fury in Ruuqo’s voice surprised me. He was always careful to follow the rules of etiquette when speaking to Greatwolves, even when he disagreed with them. I never thought I’d hear him challenge the highest-ranking Greatwolf in the valley.

  “Exactly how are we supposed to do this?” he demanded. “We’re more likely to grow wings and fly like the ravens than to get the humans to allow us into their homes.”

  “I have not yet figured that out,” Zorindru admitted, “but I wouldn’t have agreed to the test if I didn’t think it was possible for you to succeed. And if you wish to save your pack, Ruuqo, you must find a way.” He looked sharply at the leaderwolf. “You cannot go on as if nothing has changed.”

  “We have no intention of doing so, Lordwolf,” Rissa said. “But Ruuqo is right. The humans will never trust us enough to allow us into their homesites.”

  Tlitoo quorked into the silence that followed. “I heard more. The Grumpwolves said more.”

  Zorindru sighed. “What did you hear?”

  “They said smallwolves are weak. They said wolves will be the humans’ slaves. They said the paradox will make the smallwolves fail and that it would be better to kill all wolves than to let the true nature of wolfkind be compromised. I heard them. They were loud.”

  The paradox. It was why wolves and humans had never been able to come together peacefully. In order to keep humans from destroying everything around them, our ancestors had promised that wolves would stay close by the humans. Yet every time wolves and humans were together, they fought.

  “They said wolves would not be wolves,” Tlitoo added. “I did not understand that. What else would wolves be?”

  “If wolves are allowed to become too subservient to humans,” Jandru said, “as the humans always seem to insist, we will lose something essential to our being, the part of us that is uniquely wolf and part of the Balance. We will be wolf no more. That is why there are two kinds of wolves: Greatwolves to watch over the humans and you smallwolves. One kind of wolf to guard the humans, the other to keep the legacies of wolfkind safe for future generations. Indru himself commanded it be so.”

  Indru was the leaderwolf of the pack from which all Wide Valley wolves descended, the wolf who had bargained with the Ancients themselves for the survival of wolfkind.

  “That,” Jandru said, “is why much of the council does not want smallwolves near the humans. They are not the ones meant to be the watchers.” He turned his head slightly so he could meet Zorindru’s gaze out of the corner of his eye.

  Zorindru looked as if he was going to say something. He stopped himself, closing his mouth with a snap.

  “So wolves must be with humans for a year,” Rissa said when Zorindru remained silent.

  “Yes,” the oldwolf replied. “You have three moons to get them to accept you into their homes and must stay there for a year after that.”

  “Will you help us?” I asked.

  “I cannot. If I do, the council will claim that it was I, not you, who kept the humans under control. You will not see me again until you have succeeded—or failed—in your task.”

  My joy at being allowed to be with the humans fled. “What if I can’t do it?” I whispered. “What if I fail?”

  It was Frandra who answered. “Then the council will do as it wished to do at autumn’s end. The experiment of the Wide Valley will be deemed a failure, and the wolves and humans in the valley will be killed. We will try again elsewhere. With smallwolves who actually do what they’re told.”

  “And packs that are able to control their pups,” Jandru added.

  “Is that true?” I asked Zorindru.

  “It is,” he said. “If you fail, I will no longer be leader of the council and Milsindra will be able to do as she wishes. If you fail here in the Wide Valley, then we will know that smallwolves cannot be guardians of the humans and that wolves and humans cannot be together. Understand this,” the old Greatwolf said, “those on the council who follow Milsindra have agreed to this test because they are certain you will fail. They don’t think it’s possible to live with humans without fighting them or becoming their slaves. You must find a way to prove them wrong.”

  Ázzuen began shifting from one paw to another and looking from Ruuqo and Rissa to Zorindru.

  “I know,” he said. “I know what we can do.”

  We all looked at him. I thought one of the older wolves might reprimand him for addressing the Greatwolf leader, but they didn’t. Ázzuen was already gaining a reputation for being the smartest wolf in the pack. Even wolves from other packs knew he was clever.

  “It’s something Zorindru said about Milsindra,” he continued, shamelessly flattering the old Greatwolf. “We don’t ask the humans to let us come into their homesites. We get them to ask us. We make them think it’s their idea.”

  Ruuqo looked at Ázzuen as if all of his fur had fallen off, and Frandra and Jandru and Unnan all laughed out loud. But Zorindru cocked his head.

  “I would like to hear this,” he said, and sat down once again as Ázzuen began to speak.

  3

  Ázzuen’s plan was simple. In the Wide Valley, a wolf who seeks welcome into a new pack might bring a gift of meat to the pack’s leaderwolves. Doing so not only shows that the wolf respects the pack leaders, but also proves she can hunt well, and thus would be a valuable addition to the pack. We would bring such gifts to the humans. The three Gre
atwolves had listened silently as Ázzuen spoke and agreed to let us try. I was to go to Frandra and Jandru in a quarter moon’s time to tell them if it was working. They would tell NiaLi of the plan. The old woman, I hoped, would tell TaLi. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get everyone to agree on the plan.

  Agreeing how to go about it proved to be less simple.

  Ázzuen, Marra, and I wanted to take our three humans hunting and bring a whole prey to the human homesite. We also assumed that the three of us would be the wolves who went to stay with the humans. Ruuqo and Rissa rejected both plans. They watched silently as Zorindru, Jandru, and Frandra left the gathering place, then huddled together with Trevegg, whispering for several moments. I tried to hear what they were saying, but the wind was blowing the wrong way. Finally they stopped talking and called us over to them.

  “Hunting with the young humans is too uncertain,” Rissa said, sniffing at the junipers the Greatwolves had crushed. “We have only three moons to gain the humans’ trust, and it took you nearly that long just to catch one deer with them. How can we know you’ll hunt more successfully now?”

  “And how will you convince them you helped with the hunt?” Ruuqo added, joining Rissa at the edge of the gathering place. “Your girl is too submissive in her pack to convince them, and you say they no longer listen to their elder.”

  That was all true, which didn’t make me like it. Unnan smirked. Tlitoo tapped his beak against a rock to get our attention.

  “Wolves,” he gurgled.

  “You three pups can’t go anyway,” Ruuqo said, ignoring the raven. “You don’t know enough to keep from making mistakes. Kaala will go, and we’ll send an older wolf with her.”

  That made me mad. If we’d left it up to the adult wolves, we’d all have been killed by the Greatwolves at autumn’s end. I needed my leaderwolves’ help, but it infuriated me that they thought they could manage the humans better than we could.

  “We’ve done fine on our own so far.” I tried my best to keep my temper from my voice. “Ázzuen, Marra, and I can handle the humans.”

  “You can handle the youngest of them,” Rissa said, stretching in the sun that had begun to seep into the clearing. “The young of any creature are more open to new things. The older humans, the ones who hold the power, may be more difficult.” The condescension in her voice made me want to bite something.

  “Wolves!” Tlitoo quorked, more loudly.

  “We also need the approval of the other packs in the valley,” Trevegg added. He had taken over Zorindru’s resting spot beside the watch-stump. “Even if their survival depends upon our success, they won’t be comfortable with three pups in charge.”

  “We’ll send Trevegg with Kaala,” Ruuqo said, ending the discussion. “But the question of how to get the meat to the humans remains. If you just walk into their homesite, even with meat, they will be threatened.”

  Ázzuen had been silent through all of this, sulking because he was not to be allowed to go to the humans. “There’s a way,” he said. There was an edge of impatience in his voice, as if he was annoyed that no one else had been quick enough to figure out what he knew. It was the first time I’d ever heard him disrespectful of senior wolves.

  “What way?” Ruuqo asked, warning in his voice.

  It was Tlitoo who answered. He stalked over to stand between Ruuqo and Rissa. “You do not have to go to the humans, dourwolf. We will bring them to you.”

  “And why would they follow you?” Ruuqo asked.

  Tlitoo picked a bug out of Rissa’s fur and swallowed it.

  “We take the humans to prey many times,” he said. “As we do for you.”

  Ravens often brought us to prey, living or dead. They could find it much more easily than we could, but they couldn’t kill a horse or a deer. And even though their beaks were strong, it was difficult for them to tear through thick hides to get to the meat. When they alerted us to prey, we tore the meat from the carcass, or killed living prey, and shared it with them. I’d always thought it was a unique relationship. So, apparently, did Ruuqo.

  “You give prey to the humans?” he demanded. “When there is not always enough for us?”

  “We lead humans to prey when it suits us,” Tlitoo responded. “They leave behind more meat than you do and are not as fast at catching ravens. Did you think we would allow ourselves to starve every time you are slow chasing prey?”

  “You knew of this?” Ruuqo asked Ázzuen.

  “I followed them once, when I went to BreLan’s tribe,” Ázzuen said, using the humans’ word for their pack. Ázzuen’s human, BreLan, and his brother, MikLan, were part of a tribe a half-day’s walk from TaLi’s home. “I saw them show the humans where an antelope had fallen off a cliff and was dying,” Ázzuen continued, his nose in the air. He was risking trouble speaking so rudely to Ruuqo. “I asked Tlitoo about it.”

  “Do you want the ravens’ help or do you not?” Tlitoo asked, raising his wings. “If not, I will find someone who does. Stone Peaks might. Tree Line pack might.”

  “Yes,” Trevegg interrupted before Ruuqo could answer. “We would welcome the help of the ravens. It would be an honor.”

  Tlitoo considered him for a moment. “Then I will tell my friends. We will bring the humans. Yes, wolf, your humans,” he said when I opened my mouth to speak. “I know where they will be. Their minds are nearly as simple as a wolf’s.” He turned again to Ruuqo. “When you have managed to capture something bigger than a dirt squirrel, I will come for you.” With that he took flight, leaving us to plan the hunt.

  Two days later, I placed a piece of deer belly on the pile of meat we had set aside for the humans and watched as Yllin and Minn chased scroungers away from what was left of the snow deer carcass. Hyenas, of course. They were always the first to show up when someone else had gone to the trouble of killing something. Minn and Yllin were the pack’s young-wolves, one year older than us pups. Yllin had helped me throughout my puphood, encouraging me to persevere when other wolves in the pack thought I would die as a smallpup. She was a strong wolf, and many in the pack assumed she would be a leaderwolf someday. Minn was a bully and I stayed away from him as much as I could. They were faster than the older wolves and still a bit bigger than we were, so discouraging scroungers was their responsibility. They were also the ones who had driven the snow deer from the Alder Grove to the Great Plain, a huge, flat expanse of grass, tall half-moon-shaped rocks, and dirt. One deer had fallen behind the others, and by the time it got to the Great Plain, it was exhausted. We killed it easily. We ate only some of the best parts of the deer—the good organ meat and part of the rich, fatty belly. We would save some for later. The rest would be for the humans.

  As Yllin and Minn chased the hyenas off the plain, I trotted over to join Trevegg at the carcass. Werrna—Ruuqo and Rissa’s secondwolf—was with him. She was complaining that we shouldn’t waste such good meat on the humans.

  “They won’t appreciate it,” she grumbled as she watched Ruuqo set a large, fatty piece of meat aside. Her eyes were restless in her scarred face. Werrna was not born to Swift River. She had joined the pack when she was already three years old. It’s unusual for a full-grown female to be accepted into a new pack; she’s too much competition for the female leaderwolf. Werrna was extremely strong and always steady, an excellent tracker who never shied away from a fight or challenge, and therefore was a valuable addition to any pack. Still, it said a good deal about Rissa’s confidence in her own power that she allowed Werrna to stay. No one had told us pups how Werrna had gotten her scars, and none of us was brave enough to ask. Werrna was easily annoyed.

  Trevegg laughed at her. “You’re as greedy as a pup. You ate two big pieces of the liver, I saw you, and there’s plenty of gres lin left.”

  The greslin was what we called the best meat of a kill, the good organ meat and the rich fat of the belly that Werrna so coveted.

  “Still wasted on smoke-brained humans,” Werrna muttered.

  “We won’t get
anywhere bringing them gristle and bone,” Trevegg said. His eyes lit with mischief. “But I will make you a wager.”

  “What wager is that, oldwolf?” she said, a reluctant smile beginning to tug at the corners of her muzzle. I’d found out only recently that the adult wolves of our pack liked to place bets on things.

  “I will gamble my share of the greslin from our next kill that by the time we have given the humans good meat six times, they will have invited us into their homesite.”

  Werrna snorted. “I hate to deprive an oldwolf of his food,” she said, “but it will take at least twenty gifts before the humans allow us within farting distance of their fires.”

  “It is a wager, then!” Trevegg said, his tail wagging. “I look forward to eating well!”

  I looked at them in astonishment. How could they be making bets on something so important?

  With a grin that made me glad I wasn’t prey, Werrna took a huge piece of deer belly in her jaws and dragged it off to the woods. Trevegg watched her go, and for just an instant, the laughter in his face changed to concern. When he saw me watching him, he poked me in the ribs with his nose, dashed past me to the deer carcass, and began to help Ruuqo and Rissa drag it into the woods. I started to follow him, but before I could take a step, the cries of the ravens alerted us to the humans’ approach.

  Ruuqo barked sharply. Trevegg let go of the carcass and we ran together to the pile of meat intended for the humans, which we had set in a bright patch of sunlight so the humans couldn’t help but see it. The carcass was now at the very edge of the plain, thirty wolflengths to the left of the meat pile. We wanted the humans to see the carcass, to see that we had brought down the prey we were offering them. But we also wanted to take what was left of the snow deer with us. There was no reason, Rissa had said, to be overly generous.

  Werrna and Unnan darted from the woods and ran to help Rissa guard the carcass. Ruuqo left them there and joined the rest of the pack in the shadow of one of the giant rocks, twenty wolflengths to the right of our meat pile. Rissa said that if the humans saw all of us, they would be too fearful to take our gifts. The sheer face of the rock and the tall grass surrounding it allowed the pack to watch the humans without being seen, ready to protect us if the humans attacked but hidden from weak human eyes. Yllin and Minn were guarding Ázzuen and Marra, who had made it clear that they were unhappy about not being able to go to the humans, but Ruuqo crouched at the very edge of the rock, ready to run to our aid if needed. I swallowed hard. The pack was ready.