The Dragon of Despair (9 page)

“You’ve got it,” Derian said, more relieved than he could express. He’d thought he’d need to explain this far more carefully. Then he remembered something.

“Wolves are territorial,” he said, “aren’t they?”

“Very,” Firekeeper said, and though she didn’t turn to face him, he saw the edge of a scowl on her shadowed face. “And what these humans who want land don’t seem to think is that this land they go to is claimed. It is claimed by my people—by the wolves and by the other Royal Beasts.”

Derian swallowed hard. Even knowing Firekeeper, knowing Blind Seer and Elation, he hadn’t ever thought about the western lands in that way. To him it was empty land, open for claiming. Now he saw that to Firekeeper, at least, that was far from the case.

“You say the wolves and the other Royal Beasts,” he repeated. “They share?”

Firekeeper shrugged expressively.

“As beasts share. A wolf pack hunts larger game than do a raccoon. A raven eats the spoils of the wolf. A great cat, it may or may not share—so with the bear. Each lives in with the others or starves or dies. I not think humans is like this.”

Derian bit into his lip. He thought of mousetraps and hound packs, fences and borders, and, of course, feuds and wars. Human culture seemed to have grown up around ways to keep from sharing with anyone other than those most important to you personally.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a time, then Derian asked:

“Firekeeper, do you think the beasts will harm these human colonists?”

Firekeeper shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Derian had the uncomfortable feeling that what she really meant was. “I won’t say.”

In that moment, he knew what side the wolf-woman would be on if a conflict came and the night which had seemed so safe and so friendly grew darker, and he shared with the mules and horses a restless unease.

IV

FIREKEEPER WAS THE FIRST TO SEE
the small community that had been constructed over the ruins of Prince Barden’s failed effort. Moments like this brought home to her more forcefully than anything else how much she had changed in a year.

A year ago she wouldn’t have known what a horse was—much less how to differentiate it from a pony or a mule. She would have figured out that the oddly shaped things set about the cleared area were shelters, but she wouldn’t have known how to see the difference between a tent and a cabin under construction, nor would she have recognized the purpose of the wall rising around the perimeter of the cleared area.

“Here,” she said to Blind Seer. “They build their dens here!”

She was surprised at outrage rising within her. This place meant no more to her than any other section of the forest—or so she had thought. The wolf’s reply was laconic.

“Not a bad idea, really,” Blind Seer said. “The first to come here when you were small cut down the bigger trees. Even the many years that have turned since fire destroyed Barden’s colony haven’t been enough for those great trees to grow back. Earl Kestrel’s venture last year cut down many of the saplings for corral and tent poles. They even cleared some of the rubble and vines. And this place was well chosen in the first place.”

Firekeeper grunted irritably, but she understood what he meant, especially now that she had lived among humans and come to know what they needed and valued. The place Prince Barden had chosen was near to fresh running water. It was on fairly level ground, which humans liked not only for building their homes, but for planting their fields. Moreover, it was less than a day’s easy journey from the gap through the Iron Mountains. Still, she felt offended, as if her own home had been invaded.

“Perhaps,” she said to Blind Seer, “I didn’t believe the humans had really come here to settle—no matter what Fox Hair said—until I saw this place. What are we going to do?”

Blind Seer rubbed his great head against her arm. In turn, she buried her hand in his fur and felt comforted.

“I think,” the wolf said after some consideration, “that Derian must go to them. Humans are as territorial as a mother bird guarding her nest. They may already feel themselves owners of everything they touch. If they find Derian camping a distance from here, they may view him as an intruder.”

Firekeeper nodded—a human gesture she had learned and that had become a habit. She’d been using it for moons past. Only now, here on the fringes of where she’d been only a wolf, did she feel herself use the gesture and think it odd.

“I agree,” she replied. “Derian’s purpose in coming west was to bring those stones and gifts to the ones who died here. He cannot avoid this place without failing.”

She studied the human encampment, forcing herself to strip away the new construction and see the place as it had been when she had left it.

“These newcomers have left the place where the earl told his people to re-bury the bones and such they took from the Burnt Place,” she said, feeling some relief. “They have some feelings then.”

“Feelings for dried bones burnt beyond good eating,” Blind Seer scoffed. “You are becoming very human, Firekeeper.”

She caught him a sharp blow on one shoulder.

“Never say that!” she growled. “Never!”

Blind Seer’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled back from his fangs in an ugly snarl. He glowered at her and she held his stare, her hand drifting in the direction of the garnet-hilted knife that hung at her belt.

Maybe it was this. Maybe it was that—despite the fact that he was younger than her in years—Blind Seer had been trained to view the wolf-woman as a pup, entitled to the forbearance the senior wolf gives the pup. For whatever the reason, Blind Seer’s snarl melted to tongue-panting amiability and his tail gave a faint wag.

“I won’t call you a human,” he conceded. “Shall Fox Hair tell those there that you are with him?”

Firekeeper considered. Her first impulse was to deny her presence. She wanted nothing more than to flee humans and human things. Then her loyalty to and affection for Derian rose, reminding her just how vulnerable one human—especially one human possessed of what others might see as wealth—could be. She didn’t know these humans. They might be as kind as Holly Gardener, but they could be closer kin to the bandits who had attacked them along the road in New Kelvin.

“I think,” she said, “that I must let them see me. Fox Hair should not be thought alone. Where is Elation? That bird is always flapping about whenever one wants her least. Now that she could be useful, I haven’t seen her since last sunrise.”

“Elation flew west,” Blind Seer replied. “I think she is as disturbed as you about this human settling—more, maybe, for the wingéd folk could have sent her word and forewarning and they did not.”

Firekeeper considered that and the sour feeling in her gut grew stronger. She had grown accustomed to having little or no contact with the Royal Wolves. Blind Seer alone of all her pack had accompanied her east over the Iron Mountains when she departed with Earl Kestrel’s expedition. There were Cousin Wolves in the Norwood Grant, but these were limited in their conversation. They might be bullied into telling where game could be found, but they no more offered friendly gossip than did a chattering brook.

For the first time she wondered why some member of her and Blind Seer’s pack—for they had howled their coming—had not come to meet them and bring them this news.

“We go back to Fox Hair, then,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “I will go with him to this denning of humans, see that they treat him well, and then go find our mother and father. They will know what is being done about this—if the Royal Beasts see it as invasion or as something to be tolerated as one tolerates fleas in the summer.”

Blind Seer shook.

“Even with fleas,” he reminded her, “one scratches.”

DERIAN LISTENED TO FIREKEEPER’S
report with mingled dismay and resignation.

Fleetingly, he wondered if King Tedric had known—if his request to Derian had been less a means of gathering information than a subtle warning that Derian and Firekeeper might not find the lands over the mountains as they had left them.

Then why didn’t the king just tell me?
Derian mused to himself. Immediately he answered his own question.
Because if he did so, he would have taken official notice of these adventurers and for some reason he doesn’t wish to do so.

Derian sighed. Not for the first time, he was very glad not to be the king. Sometimes it was hard enough being the king’s most junior counselor.

He knew Firekeeper well enough to know that, although she was trying to keep her reaction to herself, she was very upset. He didn’t need to ask why. This was the land in which she had grown up, the place where her parents had died, where her own ancestors were buried. To find that place defiled must be more upsetting that he could imagine.

However, since the wolf-woman was trying to hide her feelings, Derian decided not to comment. Instead he asked:

“Think we can get there today?”

“By twilight, yes,” Firekeeper replied. “Maybe sooner, though parts of the trail are muddy and a creek so swollen we will need to take the pack animals around to a shallow place.”

“The mules,” Derian hinted, “will move faster if you and Blind Seer are with me.”

Firekeeper nodded a touch grimly and fell into line next to the lead animal.

They arrived at the settlement shortly before dusk. The long rays of the setting sun filtering through the trees were more than enough for Derian to make his own assessment of the place. Firekeeper might have grown sophisticated enough to tell tents from cabins, but her counting still tended toward the “one, two, many” variety unless she felt numbers were important. Even then, she didn’t bother much with numbers over ten. Privately, Derian suspected she continued to count on her fingers.

So I guess we’ll need to get her using her toes. After all, she won’t wear shoes.

He was still smiling slightly at his own joke when a man emerged from the settlement, walking through what would someday be a gate, though now it was only gateposts set in the framework of a partially built log palisade.

“Welcome to Bardenville,” the man said, smiling widely. “I’m Ewen Brooks.”

Ewen was shorter than Derian, but then most people were. By any other reckoning he would have been considered tall. There was no doubt he was strong. Even with the evening chill gathering, he wore nothing over his short-sleeved smock, exposing forearms rippling with muscle. His brown hair and beard were neatly trimmed, though the beard was worn somewhat longer than was typical in the city.

Fleetingly, Derian wondered if “Brooks” might be a newly chosen surname. It certainly didn’t reflect a profession, as most did, and location names were more common in crowded areas where there might be more than one baker or carpenter. He filed that information away for future reference.

“I’m Derian Carter,” he replied. Then, deciding that honesty was best, he continued, “I was out here a year or so ago with Earl Kestrel. I’ve come back with grave markers for…”

He paused, not certain if mentioning the failed first expedition might be taken as an insult to this new venture.

Ewen Brooks, however, didn’t seem at all put out.

“For the prince’s folks,” he finished for Derian. “That’s good. We found the burial plot and left it untouched. We’ll be glad to have your markers. Kestrel’s idea?”

“My own,” Derian said. Realizing he sounded affronted, he quickly went on. “I was out by the battlefield at the end of King Allister’s War, making markers for the dead. I kept thinking of these people, buried as best we could, but with their graves unmarked. It seemed their spirits would rest better for the remembrance.”

“Quite a trip to make for spirits unrelated to you,” Ewen said, and from his tone Derian couldn’t tell whether the other man thought him foolish or honorable.

“I’ve brought someone who was related to them,” Derian said. He glanced back and found Firekeeper standing alongside the lead mule, so still that she almost vanished in the dusk. “Firekeeper, come and meet our host.”

He knew he was stretching the point. Ewen Brooks hadn’t precisely invited them to stay, but he had greeted them and had said the grave markers would be welcome.