I did not see Ázzuen and Marra try to follow me. They were stopped only when Werrna and Minn pinned them to the ground. I didn’t hear Trevegg arguing with Ruuqo, or Yllin speaking softly to Rissa. My head felt like it was stuffed with dried leaves and dirt; my tongue was thick in my mouth, making it hard to breathe. The sound of a thousand flies filled my ears and I didn’t feel the earth beneath my feet or the dense bushes pressing against my fur when I left the path. I knew I should be thinking of some way to help TaLi, some way to get her to safety. And Ázzuen and Marra, too, if Ruuqo chose to fight. But it was all I could do to keep moving. I was so exhausted from the fight that I only made it as far as the river before my legs gave out and I collapsed into the mud.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, listening to the river, feeling the cool, damp air reach deep into my fur and onto my skin. I knew that if Ruuqo found me still in the territory he would probably kill me. But I didn’t care. I think if no one had come along, I might never have gotten up, but instead stayed until the Balance welcomed me into the softness of the earth.
Only when I heard the heavy step of the Greatwolves and smelled their earthy scent did I raise my head.
“Come on, then,” Jandru said.
I still couldn’t bring myself to rise. I lay in the mud blinking up at them.
“You give up easily.” I had hoped for sympathy, but Frandra’s voice was contemptuous. “One fight and you lie here like dead prey. I thought you had more backbone.”
I had nothing to say, so I kept silent, resting my head on my paws.
“What did you expect, when you challenged your leaderwolf?” Jandru demanded, his tone no kinder than Frandra’s. “What did you think would happen?”
“He threatened TaLi.” My voice sounded as if it came from far away. “He said he would kill her. I had to do something.”
“So you did something.” Jandru stretched his great shoulders. “Accept the consequences. You’re no longer Swift River pack. So what are you? Why did you fight to live when you were a pup? Why did you bother to run now, when Ruuqo would have killed you?”
“I don’t know what I am if I am not Swift River,” I said, getting angry. “How can I?”
Frandra snorted. “Well, the surest way not to find out is to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Let me know when you’re done with that.”
Stung, I got up to face her. She and Jandru turned and walked swiftly into the woods. My feet seemed to move of their own accord, and I followed them.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
They gave no answer. Their legs were so much longer than mine that I had to run to keep up, and was too breathless to ask again. It had been a long, long night and my body was tired. My head wasn’t working right. It was like my thoughts were moving through thick mud. Frandra and Jandru didn’t seem to notice that I was struggling, but at last they slowed a bit, allowing me to walk rather than scramble after them, and then stopped next to an abandoned fox den by several large boulders. I realized we were not far from the circle of stones where they had met the humans for the Speaking.
“We’ll rest here, until nightfall,” Jandru said, his eyes sweeping over me as I shook with exhaustion.
“I have to get TaLi,” I said weakly. “I have to go back.” I was so tired it was all I could do to talk, but I felt like I was leaving part of myself behind.
“We have to get out of the valley,” Jandru said. “As soon as possible.”
That made sense. Ruuqo had said he would kill me. Questions and worry buzzed in my head. I wanted to go back for TaLi. I wanted to know where the Greatwolves were taking me. But I had run from the Stone Peaks, and fought with Ruuqo and been banished from my pack. Exhaustion and despair overcame my will, and I was asleep before I knew I was lying on the ground.
When I opened my eyes, Frandra and Jandru were watching me anxiously.
“Good,” Frandra said shortly. “Get up and get moving. We’re leaving.”
“And be quiet,” Jandru added. “There are other Greatwolves around and if they find us, we’ll all be in danger.”
I forced myself the rest of the way awake. It was already past dusk. I’d slept through the daylight hours without noticing the passage of time.
I stood. The muscles in my haunches and shoulders protested as I tried to stretch. Even the creases between the pads of my feet hurt. But my long sleep and the cool evening air had revived my good sense, and concern for my friends had burned away my confusion. I felt like myself again. It was as if the wolf I had been the day before was a slow, stunned shadow of myself. Something less than me. I was angry with myself that I had let the Greatwolves take me away. That I had let a whole day pass without returning for TaLi, or finding out if Ruuqo was going to fight. It frightened me that I could so easily lose myself. That I had almost betrayed everyone and everything I cared about just because I was scared and tired. I shook myself hard.
Frandra and Jandru had already begun walking. When they noticed I wasn’t following, they stopped and looked back.
“Hurry up,” Jandru ordered.
“I’m not coming,” I said. “I’m going to get TaLi.”
Both Greatwolves stared at me for a moment, as if they couldn’t believe I would defy them.
“No,” Frandra said, and began to walk again.
I stayed where I was. Jandru growled and walked back to me. He prodded me with his muzzle. I dug my paws into the earth. I knew they could drag me if they wanted to. Well, let them, I thought grimly, because it was the only way they were going to get me to budge. Then I realized that the Greatwolves had been very quiet, as if they were hiding. And Jandru had said they were worried about being overheard by other Greatwolves. I stood my ground.
“I won’t leave without my human. Or Ázzuen and Marra.” If Ruuqo joined the fight, I thought, they would need to leave the valley, too.
Jandru whuffed in annoyance.
“There is no time to argue with you,” he snapped. “It is too late for them. They are all already as good as dead.”
I felt as if someone had sucked the air from my lungs.
“What do you mean?” I demanded, forgetting to be quiet. The Greatwolves snarled at me. I lowered my ears in apology, but continued to meet Jandru’s gaze.
“What do you mean they’re already as good as dead?”
“We don’t have time to discuss it now!” Frandra snarled. “We must leave the valley at once. If we are discovered by the other Greatwolves, we will be able to do nothing to help you.”
“But why?” I demanded.
Jandru growled impatiently and took another step toward me, his teeth bared in a terrifying snarl. I was certain he was going to take me in his teeth and drag me away. I stepped back.
“Wolflet!!”
We all jumped at the sound. Tlitoo flew from the direction of Fallen Tree, barely visible above the treetops, wings beating hard. He flew straight down from high above, so quickly I thought he would crash into the ground. He pulled up at the last moment, landing at my feet with a thump.
“You should not have run off, wolflet,” he said, his chest heaving. “It was hard to find you.”
“Where have you been?”
“Away,” he panted, “finding answers.”
I was so glad to see him I almost howled. I knew that he was not really protection against the Greatwolves, but I didn’t care. He had come to find me. I was not alone. I turned back to Frandra and Jandru.
“Why are they as good as dead?”
It was Tlitoo who answered.
“All wolves and all humans in the valley are to be killed if there is a fight, any fight,” he said. He turned a beady glare on the Greatwolves. “You have not told all,” he accused, flaring his wings. I realized that he was agitated as well as tired from a fast flight. “You have not told the smallwolves or the human krianans all. You don’t care about the wolves here. It doesn’t matter to you if they die.” He turned to me. “There are other places, wolf.”
“What do you mean?” I said, confused. “Of course there are other places.”
“Other places like this!” he croaked impatiently. “With other wolves and other Bigwolves besides the ones here. I have flown outside the Wide Valley and beyond the grasslands past that. The old human told me to. The Bigwolves don’t care if you live or die, wolflet. You must listen. They have other wolves in other valleys,” he said again.
This seemed to be an important point but I couldn’t figure out what he meant. “They will kill your family and your humans as if they were no better than prey and replace you with others.” He raised his wings daringly at the Greatwolves. “It is true. I saw it. And spoke to my raven brothers and sisters from far away who told me of it.”
I was still trying to sort out what Tlitoo meant and was startled by Jandru’s voice.
“It is true,” he acknowledged, looking coolly at Tlitoo. “What has been done here is an experiment to see if the humans and wolves of this valley can live together. And it is not the only place we have tried this. It’s more than either of you can understand. There’s a great paradox, of wolves and of humans, and if you don’t understand the paradox you cannot understand what we do.”
“The paradox is that humans and wolves must be together but can’t be together,” I interrupted, annoyed by his arrogance. Why did he think I was too stupid to understand? “Humans need us with them to keep them close to nature so they don’t destroy everything. But they fear us too much to keep us near and then we fight with them. That’s the paradox. That’s why you meet with the human krianans each full moon. So you can be close to some of them without causing a war. The human krianan told us. And I saw you.” I said nothing about the spiritwolf. I figured if the Greatwolves had secrets, then so could I.
Frandra’s eyes narrowed. “You were wrong to watch the Speaking,” she said to me. “There are very good reasons we keep the secrets of the legends.” For a brief, terrified moment, I thought she might attack me. Then she sighed.
“You do not understand as much as you think you do. Nor does that old human. What the paradox means is this: If we are not with the humans, the Ancients will kill us. If we are with the humans and fight with them, the Ancients will kill us. The only way we’ve found to avoid both is the Speakings. We Greatwolves have been struggling with the Speakings, the humans, and the paradox for longer than your soft puppy brain can possibly imagine.”
Tlitoo raised his wings at her.
“But now your Speakings no longer work,” he quorked. “Now the Bigwolves are dying.”
“We may be,” Jandru snarled, “or we may not be. But we need to have wolves to take over for us if we are no longer here. That is why you must leave the valley, Kaala. We have believed since your birth that you are the one meant to carry on the bloodline. The Greatwolf council disagrees. If you’d been accepted into your pack, like we told you to be, they might have accepted you. Now they will not. They prefer another.”
I remembered what the old woman had said the day I first met her. “You want me to meet with the humans, like you do,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, “with TaLi as my krianan.” I looked around, half expecting them to have the girl hidden away somewhere.
Frandra and Jandru exchanged uncomfortable glances. Tlitoo stalked up to them and gave a strange hiss I had never heard from any raven.
“No,” Jandru said. “It’s too late for that. The girl’s blood is tainted by the violence of her tribe. We cannot rescue her. We are not even supposed to rescue you. The Greatwolf council has determined that the wolves and humans of the Wide Valley have failed. If any humans or wolves fight one another, as it is clear they will, all in the valley must die. The council will kill them all. Otherwise, the war will spread, and wolfkind will be no more. You are too close to the humans, Kaala, to be a watcher yourself, but your children’s children may be the ones to take over for us if need be. You must come with us now, or die as soon as any wolf attacks a human.”
“What about my pack?” I demanded. “What about TaLi and her tribe?”
“What of them?” Frandra answered carelessly. “The future of wolfkind is more important than any wolf, than any wolf pack or human tribe. We will start again elsewhere.”
I was stunned at the Greatwolves’ callousness.
“I told you so, wolflet,” Tlitoo said.
“I won’t,” I said. “I won’t go with you.”
“Then we will drag you by your tail,” Jandru snapped, losing patience. He started toward me. I backed up, knowing I couldn’t outrun him, but ready to try. Tlitoo flared his wings, preparing to take flight or to fight. I wasn’t sure which.
“It isn’t fair!” I cried, not bothering to be quiet. “You lied to me. You lied to all of us. You told us we are to stay away from the humans without telling us why. And without telling us we are really meant to be with them.” The Greatwolves were looking at me furiously. I didn’t care. “The legends say nothing of the paradox and it’s the most important thing of all. Now you’re going to kill all the wolves and humans in the valley when all we’ve done is follow the legends! All because the legends lie!”
“She’s right,” said an ancient voice, a voice of dry sticks and blowing dirt.
Frandra and Jandru swung their heads around. Zorindru, the Greatwolf leader who had presided over the Speaking, sat beside a large boulder. I didn’t know how long he’d been there. Beside him, her hand resting upon his back, stood TaLi’s grandmother.
“Did you really think,” the ancient wolf said to Frandra and Jandru, “that she would just go with you? And did you really think that I would not find out what you are doing?” He spoke softly, and the fur on his back rose only the slightest bit, but it was enough to make Frandra and Jandru lower their ears. They looked so much like scolded pups, I found myself tempted to laugh.
I wanted to run to greet the old woman, but was too in awe of the old Greatwolf to move. Tlitoo had no such hesitation. He flew to the old woman and landed on her shoulder and then hopped down to land atop the ancient Greatwolf’s back. From there, he hissed once more, and glared at Jandru and Frandra.
“NiaLi and I have been speaking,” Zorindru said, nodding to the old woman. “I think perhaps it is time to tell the smallwolves of the valley—and the humans—some of why we do what we do.” He opened his huge jaws in a smile, and shook Tlitoo from his fur. The raven alighted on a nearby rock, still staring beadily at Frandra and Jandru.
“They are the secrets of the Greatwolves!” Frandra protested.
“And it is time you shared them!” the old woman snapped, fearless before the giant wolves. I remembered then that she could understand our normal speech as well as Oldspeak. “You have kept secrets from us for too long,” she said. “Zorindru has told me that you plan to kill us all, and I demand to know why.”
“It is not something humans, or smallwolves, can understand,” Frandra said contemptuously. “We have taken on the burden of the covenant because you are too weak to do so. We need tell you nothing.”
“I disagree,” Zorindru said mildly.
Frandra opened her mouth to protest. Zorindru silenced her with the barest beginnings of a snarl. “I still lead the Greatwolf council,” he said, “and if Kaala is to leave the valley, she has the right to know the real reason why. I will not tell you everything, youngwolf—there are secrets the Greatwolves still must keep—but I will tell you what I can.”
I lowered my ears and tail to the ancient Greatwolf. The old woman held out her hand to me, and I walked over to let her lean against me as she lowered herself onto a flat rock. I sat next to her on the cool dirt. Zorindru settled his old body onto the ground next to us and began to speak in his crackling twigs voice.
“Your legends speak the truth in some ways,” he said, “but not in others. It’s true that Indru and his pack changed the humans. It is also true that the Ancients nearly ended wolf-and humankind and that, to save them, Indru made a promise. But he did not promise to shun the humans. He promised that he and his descendants would watch over them, and would do so for all time.”
I watched him silently for a moment. I believed the ancientwolf. Something in his manner made me trust him, and it made sense to me that Indru would want to watch over the humans, that doing so is what wolves must do. And if it were true, then everything Frandra and Jandru had said was true, too. “But it didn’t work?” I asked at last.
“It did not. Wolves and humans fought and the wolves forsook their promise.” Pain filled the ancientwolf’s eyes. He shook himself hard and continued. “When the wolves broke their word, the Ancients sent a winter three years long, to end the lives of wolves and humans. Then a youngwolf named Lydda brought humans and wolves together again, and the long winter ended.”
I knew by then that Lydda, the youngwolf he spoke of, was the spiritwolf who came to me. “Our legends say that she caused the winter by going to the humans,” I said to the old Greatwolf.
“She did not. She ended the long winter when she brought humans and wolves together again. It’s what convinced the Ancients to give us one more chance—a last chance—to be with humans without causing a war.”
“But there was a war,” I said, remembering what the spiritwolf had told me.
“There would have been,” the ancientwolf said, “if we had not stopped it. Wolves and humans began to fight, and that is when the Greatwolf council came to be. We knew that if we allowed the fight to continue, the Ancients would send back the long winter. That’s when we realized that if we were to watch humans, we must do so from afar. So we created the Speakings, to fulfill Indru’s promise without risking war.”
“What happened to Lydda?” I asked, a sick feeling swimming in my stomach. I wondered if Zorindru would lie to me.
“We had to send her away,” the ancientwolf said, confirming what the spiritwolf had told me. “If she had stayed, she would have caused more trouble. She had not the strength to do what had to be done.”
Tlitoo quorked what I knew had to be an insult. Zorindru must have seen the shock and disapproval on my face, for he lowered his nose to mine.
“Lydda thought only of her human and what was best for him,” he said. “This was a decision for wiser wolves. We had no choice but to send her away. It was best for all wolfkind.”
“And now the Bigwolves die,” Tlitoo insisted.
Zorindru dipped his head. “For generation upon generation,” the ancientwolf said, “we have been trying to find the wolves to take our place, selecting who may have pups and who may not. We have done so in many places—valleys, islands, and mountaintops. And in these places we have failed and failed again. Here in the Wide Valley we have come closest to success. You were a surprise, Kaala. Ordinarily when a pup is born without our permission, it must be killed, as were your littermates. But when Frandra and Jandru told us of your birth and saw the mark of the crescent moon on your chest, some of us thought you might be the one to give birth to those wolves who would be watchers. That is why you may be spared, and why we wish to take you from the valley.”
“You know who my father is.” I knew it then, as certainly as I knew the moon would rise each night.
“I will not tell you that,” Zorindru said, and there was no yielding in his voice. “I will tell you that we believe that, in you, we have found what we have sought since the time of Lydda. The Greatwolf council disagrees. They believe that since you like humans so much, your children will as well.”
Tlitoo’s voice, when he spoke, was softer than I’d ever heard it.
You still lie. There’s more.
The Bigwolves yet have secrets.
What now is to come?
I thought Zorindru would be furious. Frandra and Jandru certainly were. But the look the ancientwolf turned on the raven was thoughtful, and full of pain.
“Secrets they will remain, raven. There’s not a roost anywhere in the world you could fly to that would protect you if I told you of the council’s secrets.”
“Kaala,” Frandra said, doing her best to sound conciliatory, “you must trust us when we tell you it is best for all if you leave the valley with us now. We saved your life when you were a smallpup. We have only your best interests at heart.”
I didn’t meet her eyes. Lydda had left the valley. Lydda had done what she was told. I looked far up into the face of the ancient Greatwolf.
“I won’t go with you,” I said quietly. “If you make me go, I’ll stop eating and I’ll die. Maybe,” I said, hoping I sounded as if I knew what I was talking about, “I can stop the fight.”
I thought I saw a smile in the Greatwolf’s eyes. It was gone too quickly for me to be sure.
“Then I will speak to the council of this,” he said, surprising me.
I blinked at him. Jandru gave a small grunt of surprise.
“You’ll ask them to stop the fight?” I asked. “To help my pack?”
“That I cannot do,” the Greatwolf said. “As soon as teeth meet flesh, there will be nothing I can do. But perhaps they will spare the Wide Valley wolves and humans if there is no fight.”
“It will be too late, then!” Frandra protested. “She must come away now, or everything we’ve worked for will be for nothing!”
“She has a right to make her own choice,” TaLi’s grandmother said sharply. “You cannot take that away from her.”
Frandra and Jandru both growled and advanced upon her. She looked at them unflinchingly.
“No,” Zorindru said, “we cannot take that away.” He glared at the other Greatwolves, who flattened their ears and backed away from the old woman.
Zorindru bent his head to look into my eyes.
“But listen, youngwolf,” he said gently. “I can make no guarantees. I am the leader of the Greatwolves, yet I cannot make the council do everything I say. They still may kill the Wide Valley wolves, even if there is no fight. What I can do is to take you from this valley. I will take your friends—Ázzuen and Marra—too, so you will not be alone. And I will take you to your mother,” he said, watching me carefully. “I can find out where she is, and I will take you to her.”
I looked at him in amazement and my heart beat fast in my chest. My mother. Not a day in my life had passed when I had not wondered where she was, when I had not thought about finding her. I had promised her I would do so. If Zorindru could take me to her, I wouldn’t have to worry about Ruuqo or the Stone Peaks. I wouldn’t have to worry about gaining romma or stopping the fight. I would be with my mother, and maybe even my father, and would never have to worry about being alone again.
And my packmates would die, even if they didn’t fight. And TaLi would die. And BreLan and MikLan.
“No,” I said. “I won’t let my pack or our humans be killed. I’ll get Ruuqo to stop the fight.”
“Very well,” he said. “I will speak to the council now,” he said, and began to walk stiffly in the direction of the stone circle. He stopped before Frandra and Jandru. “You will come with me,” he ordered. They looked as if they wanted to argue, and Frandra muttered under her breath, but they lowered their ears and followed him, glaring back at me over their shoulders.
I watched them go. Before their tails had fully disappeared, Tlitoo gave a great shriek.
“What do you wait for, wolflet? You are too fat for me to carry you!”
I paused for a moment, wondering if I should leave the old woman alone in the woods.
“Go, youngster,” she said. “I have been taking care of myself in these woods from long before your great-grandmother’s great-grandmother was born. I will join you when I can.”
I let her lean on me again to help her rise from the rock. Then I began the long run back to our territory.
I had run for only a few minutes when soft footsteps on dry leaves made me stop. Ázzuen and Marra stepped out into my path.
“You didn’t think we’d let you go alone, did you?” Ázzuen said.
At first I tried to get them to leave, to escape the valley and wait for me and our humans. I told them of Lydda and of the Greatwolves’ plans. They wouldn’t go.
“It’s our future, too,” Marra insisted. “We have the right to stay and try to stop the fight.”
“And we won’t leave BreLan and MikLan to be killed,” Ázzuen added.
“We’ve made up our minds,” Marra said, “so don’t waste time arguing.”
I took a deep breath to try to reason with them. Then I realized that I didn’t want to argue. I rested my head on Ázzuen’s back, and then placed a paw on Marra’s shoulder. The last of my doubt left my heart.
“This way,” Ázzuen said.