The small boy who had been holding the rock darted forward, running until he was face-to-face with Trevegg. HuLin grabbed at him, trying to pull him back. A look of mischief lit Trevegg’s eyes. Before HuLin could pull the boy away, the oldwolf’s tongue shot out, and he licked the child from chin to forehead, and then from ear to ear. The boy shrieked with laughter and Trevegg rolled over onto his back, waving his legs in the air and grunting like a forest pig before shaking himself all over and standing again.
“Ridiculous oldwolf,” Tlitoo muttered in disgust. “No raven would ever behave that way.”
Trevegg didn’t dignify Tlitoo’s comment with a response. He shook himself once more, pelting the laughing boy with leaves and dirt. HuLin’s stiffly held shoulders relaxed.
TaLi stepped forward and placed a hand upon my back. BreLan stepped up beside her.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” TaLi told the other humans. “They’re friends.”
I felt a surge of gratitude. We had not had the chance to tell our humans the details of our plan, but TaLi was quickwitted, and I’d hoped she would be able to figure out what we were up to. I could tell that she was a little confused, but she was smart enough to follow our lead.
“Friends?” the young, stocky male said incredulously. “Wolves aren’t friends, TaLi. They’re dangerous.”
“They’re not dangerous and they are friends, DavRian,” TaLi said, annoyance making her voice sharp. I had to stop myself from growling my concern. I’d never heard her take that tone before.
“TaLi!” HuLin said harshly, making the girl jump. “You’re rude to a guest of our tribe.”
TaLi lowered her eyes and mumbled an apology. HuLin nodded and spoke again. “Now, what are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘friends’?”
At first, I thought TaLi would not be able to speak, she trembled so. I knew how she felt. I found few things as unnerving as speaking to Ruuqo and Rissa when they were angry with me. She dug her hands into my fur.
“We have hunted with these wolves,” she said, stumbling a little over her words, “BreLan, MikLan, and I.” BreLan placed his arm over her shoulder. I noticed the stocky male, DavRian, tensed when BreLan touched TaLi. TaLi’s voice steadied. “That time we brought home the deer meat that helped ShanLi when she was so sick was from when they hunted with us,” she said. “And all those rabbits we caught when it was first getting cold. And now they’ve brought us meat on their own.”
The human leader looked at her as if she had suddenly grown antlers on her head.
“This is nonsense,” he said softly.
“No,” BreLan said respectfully. “I was there. We hunted with them, and now they bring us gifts.” BreLan was a little overbearing sometimes, but right then I wanted to lick him from head to toe. Our humans were finding ways to communicate what we could not. I noticed that BreLan was scanning the plain behind us, clearly searching for Ázzuen. I picked the haunch meat out again, trying to offer it to him. Trevegg picked up his deer rib and held it out to the human leader.
“It’s impossible,” HuLin said. “Wolves steal from us, compete with us; they don’t bring us food.”
“Then what is that in their mouths, HuLin? Moss?” a cross voice said. The old woman walked forward, leaning on a branch from an oak tree. It was all I could do to keep from running forward to greet her. She must have been walking behind the other humans, slowed by her aging joints. NiaLi was TaLi’s grandmother, and the krianan—the spiritual leader—of the Lin tribe. She had been trained since childhood to speak with and understand wolfkind.
It was through the krianans that wolfkind had kept humans in touch with the natural world. Each moon, the human krianans met with the Greatwolves in ceremonies called Speakings. The krianans would take what they learned from the Greatwolves back to their tribes. NiaLi was the one who had helped me convince the Greatwolves to let us try to keep peace with the humans. She had once commanded great respect among the humans, TaLi had told me, but she had lost much of her influence since HuLin had taken over as the tribe’s leader several years before. When I had not been able to find her before, I feared she had died over the winter, as old creatures do, or that HuLin had sent her away for good.
HuLin’s face darkened. It didn’t take much to realize how much he disliked NiaLi. The old woman held her hand out to me.
“May I have that, Silvermoon?” she asked, using TaLi’s name for me.
I walked slowly to her, aware of all of the sharpsticks raised around me. I dropped the haunch meat at NiaLi’s feet.
“We want the humans to come hunt with us,” I told her. I could only hope that Frandra and Jandru would have told her of the new task.
The old woman dipped her head the slightest bit. I took several steps back. My ears moved back and forth, listening for any potential attack. I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, but they would have to wait.
I heard very soft, slow pawsteps, and out of the corner of my eye, saw Trevegg stepping slowly toward the human leader. He set his meat down and flattened his ears. But something in his manner disturbed HuLin, and the human leader stiffened, raising his sharpstick.
“Move away,” Trevegg whispered. “Now.” Reluctantly, I obeyed. If we left when HuLin was not comfortable with us, we might not get another chance to win the humans’ favor. But if I disobeyed Trevegg, the pack would not trust me with the humans. Slowly, I began to back up.
I had taken no more than three steps when I heard the sounds of a quick scuffle, a yelp, and a frantic scrabbling. Startled, I turned to see Ázzuen pelting across the plain, and a very angry Minn staring after him. Minn started to follow, but Ruuqo spoke softly to him and the youngwolf sat down again. I knew what Ruuqo was thinking. It was bad enough to have one wolf charging across the plain. Two of them running full pelt would certainly upset the humans. I looked for Marra and saw that Yllin was now lying completely on top of her as Marra stared resentfully after Ázzuen.
Ázzuen was going to be in a lot of trouble, but I didn’t blame him. If our situations had been reversed, I would have done the same thing. It would have been intolerable to be so close to the humans and not go to them. Still, of all of us pups, Ázzuen was the one who most often followed the rules. Until now.
Ázzuen, barely pausing by the pile of meat, snatched up a good-size hunk of deer belly in his jaws and continued across the plain at a gallop. He had the good sense to slow to a trot and then a walk as he neared us. The humans watched him with varying degrees of interest and fear. By the time he reached us, he had lowered himself all the way to his belly. He crawled pawswidth by pawswidth to HuLin, still clutching the deer meat in his jaws.
When he reached the human leader, he immediately rolled over onto his back, lying perfectly still, and offering his belly and neck as a submissive wolf would do to a leaderwolf. Every muscle in my body tensed. How could he do that? How could he make himself so vulnerable to an unpredictable human? We offered our bellies and necks only when we knew the wolf we so honored was reliable, when we knew that the wolf would not attack us. I couldn’t believe Ázzuen would take such a risk. I heard NiaLi’s sharp intake of breath and knew that she, at least, knew how open to danger Ázzuen was making himself. HuLin did not. He had no idea what Ázzuen was offering. But he did lower his sharpstick a little and smile cautiously, keeping his eyes on Ázzuen’s teeth. Ázzuen began to emit the calming scent that adult wolves use to put pups at ease and let the chunk of deer meat fall from his jaws. HuLin slowly reached for Ázzuen’s meat and for the rib bone Trevegg had set down, as if he expected that one of us would snatch them back. He set the meat behind his legs. BreLan stepped away from TaLi’s side, knelt down, and stroked Ázzuen’s chest. Ázzuen licked the young human’s hand.
At a blink from Trevegg, Ázzuen stood, and the three of us began to back away. I wanted to stay longer, to follow them back to their homesite, but Ruuqo and Rissa had insisted that we stay only long enough to allow the humans to accept our offering. We would leave the extra meat in the pile for them to take.
When we had backed several wolflengths away from the humans, we turned and began to run. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Ruuqo and the others who had been hiding behind the rock were racing to the carcass.
Trevegg hissed angrily at Ázzuen. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. He couldn’t snarl or growl at Ázzuen without upsetting the humans, but he narrowed his eyes in reproach.
“You know I should be here,” Ázzuen said. “You know that Kaala, Marra, and I are the best ones to be with the humans. You know Ruuqo is wrong to leave us out of it.”
“I do, as a matter of fact, know that, youngwolf,” Trevegg said, winning a surprised glance from Ázzuen. “You are not the only wolf in the pack capable of thought. However, there are ways to do things and there is more at stake here than what happens with this one pack of humans. If you are not bright enough to see that, I will see to it that you are let nowhere near those humans.”
Ázzuen started to protest.
“Later!” Trevegg snapped.
We kept running, sprinting past the meat pile and past our packmates, who were dragging what was left of the carcass into the woods. We didn’t stop to help them but kept running, as Ruuqo had ordered, until the pine trees concealed us. Once I was well hidden, I did stop, unable to resist looking back at the humans. I watched as they loped across the plain, stopping every ten paces or so to make sure they were safe. I watched as they came upon the pile of good, rich meat. And I watched as HuLin looked from the meat to the woods where we hid, and as he smiled the bared-tooth human smile at the bounty left to him by the wolves of the Swift River pack.
T
he instant we were all safely hidden in the woods, Ruuqo grabbed Ázzuen by his neck fur and slammed him to the ground. Ázzuen’s breath left his lungs with a whoosh that made me wince.
“What in the name of the moon were you thinking?” Ruuqo bared his teeth just above Ázzuen’s throat and pressed his front paws into Ázzuen’s ribs. “How dare you disobey? How dare you risk the safety of your pack? This isn’t a game. It’s far more important than whether or not you get to play with your humans!”
Ázzuen, lying flat on his back, tucked his tail between his legs, curled all four paws flat against his belly, and licked Ruuqo’s muzzle in apology.
“It wasn’t working,” he gasped, when he regained his breath. “Trevegg and Kaala were trying, but the humans were still afraid. The young male wanted to fight, and the leader was going to refuse Trevegg’s meat.” He gulped another breath and licked Ruuqo’s muzzle again. “I knew we had to find a way to make the humans more comfortable with us. I
know
how important it is. That’s why I didn’t ask you first, there wasn’t time.”
“He could have ruined everything,” Unnan said. “He knew what he was doing.”
I held my breath. Unnan was right. Ázzuen hadn’t asked Ruuqo because Ruuqo would’ve said no. Ruuqo knew that as well as anyone. I had to think of something to say to help Ázzuen. I turned to Marra for help, but she was scowling at Ázzuen.
I looked to Trevegg, but his face was stern; he was still angry. Looking around at the rest of the pack, I caught Yllin’s eye. She dipped her head to me and stepped forward to speak to Ruuqo. She was almost as tall as he was, though not as broad through the chest. It was easy to see her lean muscles, even through her winter-thick fur, and she stood with confidence. I felt my chest loosen. If Yllin spoke up for Ázzuen, Ruuqo might listen.
“He acted recklessly, leaderwolf,” she said, lowering her ears deferentially, “but the human leader accepted a gift from him and seems to like him. There isn’t any way to predict which wolf a human might like. And Ázzuen is smart enough to help us influence the humans.” She lowered her head and pressed her ears even farther back, so that there was no way Ruuqo could think she was challenging his authority. “I think we should allow him to go to the humans.”
Rissa looked at Yllin, amusement in her gaze. She knew as well as anyone that Yllin was no more submissive than she was. She nudged Ruuqo gently with her nose.
“We need all the help we can get, Lifemate,” she said. “It could mean the difference between failure and success. We don’t have enough time to ignore anything that gives us an advantage.”
“I realize that,” Ruuqo snapped. “I’m not a fool.” He bit down on Ázzuen’s neck, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to make Ázzuen whimper. “You are lucky, youngwolf,” he said, still glaring down at Ázzuen, “that it turned out well. I have no choice but to allow you to accompany Kaala and Trevegg to the humans. But you defied me and you threatened the safety of my pack. Do so again, I will leave you to Milsindra and her friends. And you are not in my favor.”
Ázzuen flattened his ears and gave a small whine. A leaderwolf’s favor is everything in a pack. It means the difference between feeding at a kill and not, between pack acceptance and rejection, and was especially important for a wolf not yet grown. Ázzuen would get less food for a while and perhaps be forced to sleep away from the rest of the pack. But I had been certain Ruuqo would punish him more severely, and certain that he would forbid Ázzuen any contact with the humans. I couldn’t believe that Ázzuen’s ploy had worked. From the expression on his face, neither did Ázzuen.
With one final growl, Ruuqo stepped off Ázzuen and stalked into the woods, Rissa and Werrna at his side. Unnan stopped for a moment, as if he wanted to stay with us, then grimaced and followed the others. Trevegg started to follow, then stopped, looking over his shoulder.
“We meet at Fallen Tree at darkfall to prepare our next gift to the humans. If I were you, youngwolves, I would find somewhere else to be until then.” He shook his head, making his ears flap, then trotted off into the woods.
Minn followed him, but Yllin stayed behind.
Ázzuen lay on the ground for a stunned moment, then leapt to his feet with an excited yip. He almost fell into Marra, who was glowering at him with even more fury than Ruuqo had shown.