Wolf's Blood (24 page)

Firekeeper and Blind Seer had expected some such question, and had come up with a suitable explanation in advance.

“Is almost like when we come to you,” Firekeeper said. “When we live on Misheemnekuru, we have a small pack. Message come to us from Dark Death—that is now One Male of that pack—that the new puppies is born, but is not too strong. We go to see them, and maybe to see if help is in our hands.”

The young parents’ sympathetic response made Firekeeper feel quite guilty. Immediately, she was pressed to describe what was wrong, and when—quite reasonably—she could not explain, Doc and Elise began coming up with possible illnesses on their own. When Firekeeper and Blind Seer departed to meet their boat, Firekeeper had quite a heavy sack containing a variety of possible treatments slung over one shoulder.

She wished she could confide in these good friends the true reason for her trip, but that would mean telling too much else—including revealing the existence of the maimalodalum. Therefore, she must keep her promised silence.

Firekeeper hugged her friends and Blind Seer wriggled in the very puppy-like fashion he reserved for those he liked best.

“Come and visit when you get back,” Elise said. “Let us know how the puppies are.”

“I try,” Firekeeper said. “I try.”

A SMALL SAILBOAT was waiting in the appointed place, and the crew greeted Firekeeper with respect and Blind Seer with something closer to awe. Once again, Firekeeper was reminded of the deep respect with which the Liglimom viewed the Wise Beasts, a respect that kept the Sanctuary Islands as an area free from humans, other than a small outpost at one tip of one of the outer islands.

The boat set course for the lights that marked the outpost, but when they neared the islands, a dull thud shook the hull.

“What was that?” one of the sailors asked.

Blind Seer answered,
“Tell him that there are Wise Seals in the water. If one of the crew will come to the bow with a light, the seals will guide them to a safe place where we may be dropped off, closer to our destination.”

Firekeeper translated the gist of this, and the sailors obediently did as they were told. Well before the medication she had taken before leaving Doc and Elise could wear off, the wolves were leaping ashore.

“Thank you,” Firekeeper said. “The seals will guide you again to open water.”

The sailor in the bow grinned, his teeth catching the light, so that he seemed all smile. “Tell them we are honored to accept their guidance. Will you be able to get back to the mainland?”

“If no other way,” Firekeeper said, “I will go to the outpost and most politely request for someone to give me a boat ride.”

“That’s all right then,” the sailor said.

Firekeeper nodded, turning away from the lantern, and letting her gaze adjust to the darkness. In a moment she could distinguish the darker shadows that were tree trunks. In a moment more, she could see clearly.

To the sailors watching from the boat, it seemed that she merely shook her hair from her eyes, then stepped with perfect sureness into the absolute darkness of the island’s interior.

XII

  FOLLOWING HIS FATHER-IN-LAW’S advice, King Bryessidan did not schedule a follow-up meeting until several days following the one at which the Once Dead had testified.

“Give them time to think over what they’ve learned,” the older king said. He was bouncing two-year-old Vahon on his foot as he talked. “Give them time to talk to each other, for the ones closer to their homelands to send messages and maybe get answers. Let the allies make sure they’re still friends, and those who hate each other have time to remember why. Let them plot.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, it will save a great deal of time when we all gather around a table again. Right now, they don’t know what they want. When we meet again, they’ll have a better idea.”

Bryessidan looked at the other man, decided that he might as well think of him as an ally. For one thing, if he didn’t, Gidji was quite likely to make life unbearable for him; for another, the old king had done nothing to deserve distrust.

Bryessidan found a smile. “And I suppose that’s exactly what we’re doing. You and I. Allies talking to each other, trying to decide what we want.”

King Hurwin slipped Vahon off his foot, and four-year-old Neysa raced to take her brother’s place. The king adjusted his bouncing rhythm to the heavier load before speaking.

“Do you know what you want, Bryessidan?”

“I want these people to leave here knowing I’m not conspiring to break the terms of my father’s surrender. I want them to leave the Mires alone.”

“I think you have achieved that. I think you have even achieved more. Before this the Mires was rather like a thief released from jail, time served, but trust unrestored. You’ve shrubbery and hit Blind Seer along flank and shoulder, biting at his ear in an enthusiastic greeting.

The older wolf knocked the new arrival back and rolled him over, biting the loose skin on his throat and shaking him fiercely. The younger wolf went limp in surrender, but couldn’t stop his hindquarters wriggling in joyful welcome.

As soon as Blind Seer released him, the young wolf bounded over to Firekeeper, his greeting less physically exuberant, but no less joyful.

“Firekeeper! Firekeeper! Blind Seer!” he howled.

“Rascal!” Firekeeper howled in reply. She grabbed him and hugged him hard. “You’re filling out nicely. Strong bones under that baggy fur. The winter’s eating was good then?”

“Good,” Rascal agreed, “for winter. Dark Death and Moon Frost won territory for us on one of the islands bordering Center Island—not too far from where the building collapsed. Do you remember?”

Firekeeper shuddered. “I hope I never forget. That is not a lesson to learn twice.”

“So Dark Death tells it,” Rascal agreed. “We sing the story to the little pups as well.”

“Then you still run with that pack?” Blind Seer asked.

Rascal was Moon Frost’s younger brother. It was not unusual for a younger wolf to run with his parents or an older sibling until he himself found a mate. Some never did form packs of their own, preferring the secondary role.

“For this last winter,” Rascal said. “The puppies were never too strong, and my speed and strength were much appreciated.”

“Did Moon Frost whelp again this spring?” Firekeeper asked.

“No. She felt she was not strong enough, and, as I said, last year’s two needed all our care.”

By now the trio had begun moving inland, Firekeeper and Blind Seer following Rascal’s guidance with an automatic acceptance that this was his place to lead, theirs to follow.

“The pups lived through the winter?” Blind Seer asked.

“Both,” Rascal said, with pride, “and both show signs that this summer—if they avoid the snakes, bad food, storms, and all the rest—they will outgrow their weakness.”

“And the rest of the pack?”

“We will meet with them soon enough,” Rascal said. “You are to rest with us until evening. Then the tide will be low enough to permit the crossing to Center Island.”

Neither Firekeeper nor Blind Seer asked why the seals had not simply guided the sailboat directly to Center Island. The yarimaimalom fiercely guarded their right to hold Misheemnekuru as their own, permitting no humans to visit there. Letting the sailboat touch shore at another place than the designated outpost had already been a huge concession, a courtesy granted the visitors in thanks for the role they had played in protecting the islands two years before—and perhaps a small kindness shown to Firekeeper’s seasickness. However, letting the sailors take the vessels into the waterways that ran between the islands, letting them thus scout the interior, would have been more than even courtesy could permit.

In a short time, they met up with Dark Death, Moon Frost, and their two pups. All four resembled each other rather more than wolves, even wolves of one pack, usually did. Inbreeding had been a serious problem for the wolves of Misheemnekuru at one time, and Firekeeper had been astonished to learn that the wolves knew their lineages in detail, as might a human. Another difference was that although the packs of Misheemnekuru were led by a mated pair, the pups the female bore were not necessarily fathered by her “mate.” Sometimes, the best combination for strong pups was not the best to lead a pack.

Firekeeper glanced sidelong at Blind Seer. There had been a time she had thought he might have chosen to run with Moon Frost. Certainly, the sleek female had made her interest obvious—even obnoxious. When Firekeeper had learned that Moon Frost was carrying pups, she had even wondered if Blind Seer might have taken up the local custom, but she had never asked. When the pups had been born, weak, sickly, and showing all the signs of the inbreeding that sometimes plagued the island packs, she had felt angry with herself for being reassured, and had done her best to make sure those pups were well fed and well cared for.

The meeting of the newcomers with their former pack mates was warm and enthusiastic, a whirling of fur and flashing of fangs that would have convinced an untutored human that the wolves were trying to kill each other—or at least reestablishing some sense of hierarchy. When the greeting was done, Firekeeper had a thin slice running down one arm, and bruises and scrapes over her torso. She flung herself down on the relatively soft carpet of leaves, and let the two pups—tall wolflings now—inspect her and remind themselves that her scent was familiar.

“You wintered well,” Firekeeper said. “To show fat so early in the season is a good sign indeed.”

Dark Death thumped behind his ear with one hind leg, bringing away a great tuft of wooly fur from his undercoat.

“The weather was mild, and the deer and elk stayed fat,” he said. “And with Rascal’s tutoring, the pups learned to be of help when taking prey larger than a rabbit.”

Moon Frost panted laughter. “Although we did eat a lot of rabbits. Three adults and two younglings are not much for taking big game. We missed you and your bow.”

Firekeeper didn’t doubt they had. That good, long year they had all run together, unencumbered by pups, exploring the length and breadth of Misheemnekuru, had been a fat year for them all. They had hunted as wolves hunt, but when the prey was clever, often Firekeeper’s arrows made the difference.

Stories were told then, some of friends Firekeeper and Blind Seer had not seen for a time, some of victorious hunts, more of the times when the deer leapt, escaped, and the pack went hungry, but had learned something so that next time that same leap and twist meant a broken neck and good eating for all. In turn, Firekeeper and Blind Seer told of Bitter and Lovable, of the jaguar Truth, for each of these were known here, and missed.

But even as she told how Lovable still gloried in hoarding anything that caught the light—and of the time she had tried to keep dewdrops—or repeated one of Bitter’s dry jests, Firekeeper was reminded of everything they could not say. Thus, for all the warmth of this homecoming, she felt lonely, and snuggled a little closer against Blind Seer’s flank.

They slept when the day grew hot—although here the weather was neither as hot as the lands near the Setting Sun stronghold, nor as cool and windblown as in the Nexus Islands. Raven calls, harsh and friendly, woke them when afternoon was feeling the delicious threads of evening coolness.

Escorted by the ravens, the entire pack headed to the place where, when the tide was low and the currents not too strong, wolves could easily swim between this island and Center Island. Here Blind Seer and Firekeeper parted from their friends.

“We are welcome on Center Island,” Dark Death said, “but spring hunting is thin hunting, and there are wolves enough on that island. Sing the moon tonight. From ear to ear, throat to throat, the song will carry and all Misheemnekuru will recall the many reasons we have to give you both welcome.”

Firekeeper nodded. “We will sing, but first we must speak with the maimalodalum.”

“One of their kin went with you last year,” Moon Frost remembered. “Is he well?”

“Well enough,” Firekeeper said.

Blind Seer had already begun wading into the water.

“The tide will rise while you chatter, dear heart,” he called back. “Has talking with ravens turned you into one?”

For answer, Firekeeper splashed into the shallows beside him, feeling the tug of the current, and how the salt water stung the fresh scrapes on her skin. There were times she truly wished for the protection offered by a thick fur coat, even if fur would be uncomfortable come summer.

Wading ashore on the farther bank, Firekeeper turned to wave to the watching wolves. Beside her, Blind Seer shook, showering her throughly with salt water and bits of shed fur. Rascal yipped in amusement, although Firekeeper didn’t think the joke was that good. If Blind Seer had waited until she had dried off, that might have been funny.

She bent at the waist to press the worst of the wet from her hair, then squeezed the rather tattered cotton of her shirt. On inspection, the shirt wasn’t worth saving, and she took it off. Wringing the worst of the water from it, she bound it around her waist.