The Dragon of Despair (12 page)

“You’re distracted, Little Two-legs,” the One Male commented.

Rip was a big silver-grey wolf with a dark streak running the length of his spine even to the tip of his tail and a broad, white ruff. He was the One Female’s second mate, having won her against all comers. The Ones seemed well suited, but Firekeeper had the impression, as Northwest twitched an ear to attend to the One Male’s comment, that Northwest thought that perhaps he himself would serve better as One.

Firekeeper shook herself from this uncomfortable thought by addressing the One Female.

“Mother,” she said, gesturing toward the four romping pups who were now fiercely battling over a much-chewed tree branch, “when Blind Seer and I came home last you said that you didn’t plan on pups this spring, yet here I see four as strong and healthy as any in the land.”

Firekeeper knew from past experience that the One Female could decide not to bear pups. She wasn’t certain of the mechanics of the choice, but recalled it happening several seasons over her life. Usually the reason was that enough young had survived the previous season, but that couldn’t be the purpose here. The four yearlings were ample proof that the previous litter (numbering six initially) had done well.

The One Female swept her tail through the duff where she had reclined when her introductions were completed.

“Always full of questions, Little Two-legs,” she said, amused. Then she grew serious.

“I had a dream,” she went on, “a dream of flood. In it, a tree fell across a stream, damming it for a moment, but its trunk was too thin and the flood crashed over it and my pack was drowned. When I awoke, I felt stirring within me, stirring that had been quiet until that time, fed to fullness and settled into sleep by the growing pups. I might have fought them, I suppose, but my dream was warning and the One Male and I tied that very afternoon.”

Firekeeper nodded, nor did she question the One Female’s account of her dream. Its antecedents were apparent.

“Did you dream this,” she asked, “before or after the humans came to the Burnt Place?”

“Before they came to settle,” the One Female replied, “but over the autumn, before winter closed the gap in the mountains, a small group came and sniffed about. Perhaps these were the first trickle of the flood in my dream.”

Blind Seer cut in.

“You never mentioned this to us!” he said indignantly.

The One Female growled softly.

“And since when is it my duty to inform wandering pups of the business of the pack?”

Blind Seer abased himself. His own status within the pack was ambiguous. He had left of his own desire, wishing to accompany Firekeeper. In this way he had separated himself from the pack. However, as he had never joined another pack, nor formed one of his own—unless his relationship with Firekeeper could be taken as a pack of sorts—Blind Seer could still be said to belong to this pack, even as Firekeeper was still welcome.

The One Female licked her son’s nose, accepting his apology.

“You had worries enough last winter,” she said. “The One Male and I decided that this human coming should not be added to them. Indeed, those first might have been trappers or furriers more daring than the usual run, brought across the mountains by curiosity and with that curiosity fed never to return.”

“Are those who came last autumn among those who returned?” Firekeeper asked, never doubting the wolves would have noted the scents.

“Yes,” the One Female replied. “The One Male has made a study of them, for he was here while I was away and took better note of them.”

The One Male, who had been gnawing a thick bone much as a man might have smoked a pipe, cracked it along its length and licked out the marrow before speaking.

“Not only,” he said, carefully arranging his thoughts, “are there those who are the same—though, of course there are more now—but the male who serves as One in their pack was the leader of those who scouted.”

Firekeeper bit her lip.

“The humans call him Ewen Brooks,” she said. Then she recounted Ewen’s history as she had heard him tell it to Derian. Sensing the wolves’ interest, she went on to detail Ewen’s raptures about the potential of these western lands.

“So it is as we suspected,” the One Male said, and he sounded not in the least surprised. “Human ways may be strange to us, but the wingéd folk who came to look at them said that the two-legs were showing denning behaviors. Indeed, we had thought so even before the birds offered their opinions, for why else would the humans fell trees to make sturdy places to live and bring their young with them if they didn’t intend to stay?”

He rolled the shattered bone beneath his paw, but Firekeeper was certain his forlorn expression had nothing to do with having licked it clean of marrow.

“It is good,” he said at last, “that you chose to come home. We were thinking about sending for you.”

Firekeeper didn’t need to ask why and didn’t waste breath doing so.

The One Male went on. “There are many and mixed feelings regarding the coming here of these human folk. Do you remember the tales you were told last autumn, the tales of how the Royal Beasts first met two-legged kind?”

Firekeeper nodded. “At first there was some balance between the four-footed and two-legged kind. Then the humans became territorial. They fought themselves and they fought our people. In the end, because the humans had great powers we did not, we retreated across the mountains where they did not like to come. They did not follow us because they did not like the mountains. Also, a sickness came over the humans, burning to death those who had the most power. In the end, so many humans had died that they no longer had to fight each other for land. We in turn decided to stay where we had come and leave them the lands east of the Iron Mountains.”

It was a short form of the elaborate tale she had been told, but served to demonstrate that she remembered the high points.

The One Male thumped his tail in approval.

“Good enough, Little Two-legs, though you condense the time over which events occurred. Remember that this rivalry and fighting and the time of the sickness happened over many long years.”

“I,” snapped Northwest, “do not see why how much time it took matters at all! What is important is that these humans now are different from those humans then. Those humans then had great powers. The Ones of my pack tell of lightning drawn from the sky, of fire burning through the air and catching onto fur and flesh, of senses so acute that not even the stealthiest among us could go unnoticed.

“These humans have none of these powers. Two nights ago I crept into their settlement, ate one of their foolish birds as she slept on her nest, pissed on their doorposts, and the only ones among them who noticed my coming were their silky-haired foxes and these cringed from my least growl. They at least knew their master.”

“Dogs,” Firekeeper said inconsequentially. “The humans raise them as they raise their horses and mules. They come in many sizes and shapes. Some of the larger, indeed, might give a wolf second pause.”

“But not these,” Northwest challenged.

“No,” Firekeeper agreed. “These have been bred for tracking by scent and for bringing back prey felled by arrows. Hunt more often in their chicken coops and Ewen Brooks might bring from the east dogs meant for the hunting of bear and wolves.”

“Cousin-kind,” Northwest sneered.

“True,” Firekeeper said, “but enough of these Cousin-kind hunting dogs might give even a sharp fang like yourself trouble.”

Northwest grumbled, but did not debate the point further. Instead he said:

“But you agree that these humans have none of the great powers that eventually drove the Beasts of old to flee west of the Iron Mountains?”

Firekeeper frowned. “Most do not, but last winter Blind Seer and I went into New Kelvin—the human land north of the White Water River—and there we saw things that make me think we cannot dismiss human powers so easily.”

“You wish to protect them!” Northwest snarled. “They are naked, hairless beasts like yourself. You think if we take them as our prey you will no longer be safe among us, no longer safe to swagger beneath your pack’s protection. That is why you speak of them as if we, the greatest hunters in all the forests of all the world, should fear them.”

Firekeeper jumped to her feet, her Fang in her hand. In a single leap, Blind Seer was at her side, crouched to spring.

Sharp Fang—as Firekeeper must grow used to thinking of the Whiner—joined them. Apparently, she felt more fondness for her two-legged sister than Firekeeper might have imagined.

“Stop!” barked the One Female, surging to her feet, her fangs bared at all. “Stop this nonsense!”

Everyone cringed back, for the One Female did not lead the pack owing to the glossiness of her gleaming silver coat. Indeed, everyone knew that though she had but one mouth to bite with, the One Male would be as her second and two such bites would take a season to heal—if the victim did not die at once.

“Stop,” the One Female repeated. “Little Two-legs, curl away your Fang. Northwest, stop taunting Firekeeper. You are a guest here and she is my pup.”

Obediently, Firekeeper eased her Fang back into its Mouth. Blind Seer and Sharp Fang ranged back onto their haunches, but their lips didn’t quite hide their snarls nor their posture their smugness. They were one with the pack. Northwest was outside it and in anything but a leadership challenge he would fight one to many.

No fool, Northwest flung himself down and rolled onto his back, exposing his throat to the Ones and whimpering in proper apology. The Ones accepted this and only when all were restored to harmony again—a romping and playing that involved all the pack, even the puppies and the guests—only then did the discussion resume.

“So,” Firekeeper said, keeping her comments neutral and nonjudgmental, “I take it that Northwest believes the humans should be killed or driven away, not allowed to take root here. I can’t say I disagree with him.”

Northwest perked his ears in surprise.

“Nor can I say I agree,” Firekeeper continued. “The matter is complex. Fear kept the humans from west of the Iron Mountains once, but it may not again. I have seen humans flee what they fear. I have seen them seek it out and kill it. What I do not understand is when they choose to run and when they choose to kill.”

“You are saying that the humans might try to kill all of us if we kill these invaders?” Wind Whisper asked, the first thing she had said in a long time.

“I don’t know,” Firekeeper replied honestly. “There are many of us, but there are many of them, too, and if what Derian—that is my human friend with fur the color of a fox’s—if what Derian says is true, many humans feel there is no longer land enough for them all in the east. Many years have passed since the Fire Plague and territories have been sectioned out among the humans as birds section out nesting grounds in the spring. Some feel—like this Ewen Brooks—that they need new nesting lands and these are easiest to take.”

“Then we shouldn’t make the taking easy,” Northwest replied, his ears canted and mouth open to indicate the utter simplicity of the concept. “If they find that those who come here die, then no more will come. We will be a fur plague to them, even as once we were.

“And this time,” he reminded them all, “they will not have the great powers.”

This time Firekeeper did not challenge Northwest on that point. She herself wasn’t sure just what powers did rest among the humans. She knew they had lesser talents, such as Doc’s for healing or Holly’s for raising plants. These did not seem akin to the ability to make lightning strike or fire rage through empty air.

“I have a question,” Firekeeper said, turning to Wind Whisper, “if you will forgive me if what I ask is somehow rude.”

Wind Whisper wagged her tail. “Ask and I will forgive if you give insult unknowing.”

“You were of this pack when Prince Barden came and founded the first human settlement. If I understand rightly, the wolves did not chase these humans away. Indeed, my human mother apparently had friends among the wolves who would take in her orphaned child and raise it as one of the pack.”

Those words were harder to say than Firekeeper had believed possible. She hated with every pulse of her blood to admit she had ever existed as other than a wolf.

“Why didn’t the wolves then chase away the humans? Why did they even make friends with them?”

From the stirring of the other wolves, Firekeeper realized that the rest of the pack—except for possibly the One Male and the One Female—did not know the answer any more than she did.

Wind Whisper glanced at the Ones and held their gazes a long moment.

“I do know,” she replied at last. “Now, remember. I was but a junior pack member, maybe of the age of your Blind Seer, here. Indeed, I came here as part of my own dispersal journey. I do not know the full counsels of my elders.”

Firekeeper grunted her understanding and Wind Whisper continued:

“Those who crossed the mountains when you were small did much as this group has done. First they sent scouts. Only after these had found a good place for the rest to den did they go back and bring their mates and young. Because of this, we had a good deal of time to consider what to do.

“Many felt as Northwest does, that the humans should be slain, but there was one great difference between our knowing now and our knowing then. Then we did not know that the humans were without the great powers of which our legends still tell.”

“So!” began Northwest triumphantly, but the One Female growled him to cringing silence.

Wind Whisper went on. “The wingéd folk had maintained spies among humankind, but these were few and could only learn so much by watching and listening from without. Their observations seemed to confirm that the great powers were gone, but there were evidences here and there of talents that made us wonder if the Fire Plague had completely burned sorcery from human blood.”

She paused and thumped behind her ear with a hind foot, though it was early for fleas.

“I speak, you understand, of the humans of those lands directly east of this part of the mountains. In other areas such as the lands farther north—New Kelvin, I think you called it—the wingéd folk were less certain. That uncertainty was why the humans who came were let live and indeed somewhat courted by our pack. The wise ones decided that we must learn more about them before we hunted. What if the great powers had grown again into their blood? Then we might be bringing the old wars into this new refuge.”