Tamora Pierce - Immortals 2 - Wolf-Speaker

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CHAPTER ONE

ENCOUNTERS

The wolves of the Long Lake Pack, gorged on a careless

mountain sheep, slept as they digested their meal. Only Brokefang,

their chieftain, was awake to see the moon rise. He sat on a stone

outcrop, thinking—an odd pastime for a wolf. In the last full moon

of summer, on the advice of Old White, the wolf god, he had sent

his best travelers, Fleetfoot and Russet, in search of a two-

legger who once belonged to his pack, Their orders were to bring

her to him, to speak to the local humans on his behalf. The sight

of that nights full autumn moon reminded him that winter was

coming. What if his messengers couldn't find Daine? What if

something had happened to them?

He did not like "what if" thoughts. Until he'd met Daine two

winters before, he had worried about nothing but eating, mating,

ruling his pack, and scratching fleas. Now he had complex thoughts

all the time, whether he wanted them or not

Soft chatter overhead made him look up. Two bats had met a

stranger. Clinging to a branch over his head, the three traded

gossip in the manner of their kind. The newcomer brought word of a

two-legger on the other side of the mountains, one who was human

outside and Beast-People inside. She carried news from bats in the

southwest, and if a Long Lake bat was hurt, she could heal him

with her magic. She traveled in odd company: two horses, a pony,

an extremely tall human male, a big lizard, and two wolves.

The local bats exclaimed over the news. Their colony should hear

this, they decided. Would the visitor come and tell them in their

cave-home? Along with their guest, the bats took to the air.

Brokefang stretched. One new thought had been that he could learn

much if he listened to the talk of nonwolves. Now he could see it

was a good thought, so perhaps the others were good, too. He was

interested to hear that Daine also had learned new things since

leaving the pack. Before, she could not talk directly with bats.

Her healing was done with stinging liquids, needles, thread, and

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CHAPTER ONE

splints, not magic.

He stopped in midstretch as he remembered something. When

Fleetfoot and Russet had gone, the pack was laired near the

valley's southern entrance, where a river flowed from the lake.

While they eventually could find the new den in the valleys

western mountains, it might take them days to locate the pack.

He would take his wolves south and guide his visitors home.

Two days later, the girl called Daine watched rain fall outside

the cave where she and her friends had taken refuge. For someone

Brokefang regarded as Pack, she looked quite human. She was five

foot five, slim for her fourteen and a half years, with blue-gray

eyes the color of the clouds overhead. Her curly brown hair was

tightly pinned up, her clothes as practical as her hairstyle: a

blue cotton shirt, tan breeches, and soft-soled boots. Around her

neck a heavy silver claw hung on a leather thong.

She played with the claw, thinking. She had been born in mountains

like these, in a town called Snowsdale over the border in Galla.

The first twelve years of her life were spent there, before she

lost her family. When she left Galla to serve the king and queen

of Tortall, she had hoped that she might never see the mountains

again. And here she was, in a place that could be Snowsdale's

twin.

Soon she would be with the wolves that had hunted in her old home.

They had left soon after she did: Fleetfoot and Russet, her

guides, had told of fleeing human hunters to find their new home

by the Long Lake. What would it be like to see them again? To be

with them again?

"What are you thinking of?" a light male voice asked from deeper

inside the cave. "You look grim."

Daine turned around. Seated cross-legged by the fire, a traveling

desk on his knees, was her teacher, the wizard Numair Salmalin. He

wore his springy mass of black hair tied into a horsetail, away

from his dark face and out of his brown eyes. His ink brush was

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CHAPTER ONE

dwarfed by the hand that held it, an exceptionally large hand that

was graceful in spite of its size.

"I'm just wondering if Onua is managing the Rider horses all right

without me. I know the king told her he needed us to come here,

but I still feel as if I should be helping her."

The man raised his eyebrows. "You know very well Onua managed the

Rider horses for years before you came to work there. What's

really bothering you?"

She made a face. She never could distract him when he wanted to

know something. "I'm scared."

He put down his brush and gave her his full attention. "What of?"

She looked at her hands. They were chapped from cold, and this was

only the third week of September. "Remember what I told you? That

I went crazy and hunted with wolves after bandits killed Ma and

Grandda and our animals?"

He nodded. "They helped you to avenge the deaths."

"What if it happens again? When I see them, what if I forget I'm

human and start thinking I'm a wolf again? I'm s'posed to have

control of my wild magic now, but what if it isn't enough?" She

tubbed her arms, shivering.

"May I remind you that the spell that keeps your human self apart

from your magic self is one I created?" he teased, white teeth

flashing in a grin. "How can you imply a working performed by your

obedient servant"—he bowed, an odd contortion in a sitting

man—"might be anything but perfect?" More seriously he added,

"Daine, the spell covers all your contacts. You won't lose

control."

"What if it wasn't the magic? What if I simply went mad?"

Strong teeth gripped her elbow hard, Daine looked around into the

bright eyes of her pony, Cloud. If I have to bite you to stop you

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CHAPTER ONE

feeling sorry for yourself, I will, the mare informed her. You are

being silly.

Numair, used to these silent exchanges, asked, "What does she

say?"

"She says I'm feeling sorry for myself. I don't think she

understands."

I understand that you fidget over stupid things. Cloud released

Daines elbow. The stork-man will tell you.

"Don't fret," said the mage. "Remember, you allowed me into your

mind when you first came to Tortall. If there was a seed of

genuine madness there, I would have found it."

Daine smiled. "There's folk who would say you're the last man to

know who's crazy and who's not. I know a cook who won't let you in

his kitchen, a palace quartermaster who says he'll lock you up if

you raid his supplies again—"

"Enough!" Numair held up his hands in surrender.

"Just so you know." Feeling better, she asked, "What are you

writing?"

He picked up his ink brush once more. "A report to King Jonathan."

"Another one?" she asked, startled. "But we sent one off a week

ago,"

"He said regular reports, magelet. That means weekly. It's a small

price to pay for being allowed to come to the rescue of your wolf

friends, I just wish I had better news to send."

"I don't think we'll find those missing people." In March a group

of the C^ieens Riders—seven young men and women—had disappeared in

this general area. In July twenty soldiers from the Tortallan army

had also vanished, "They could've been anywhere inside a hundred

or two hundred miles of us."

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CHAPTER ONE

"All we can do is look," Numair said as he wrote. "As wanderers we

have seen far more than soldiers will. Even so, it's a shame the

whole northeastern border is opaque to magical vision. I hadn't

realized that a search by foot would be so chancy."

"Why can't you wizards see this place with your magic?" Daine

wanted to know. "When I asked the king, he said something about

the City of the Gods, and an aura, but then we got interrupted and

he never did explain."

"It has to do with the City of the Gods being the oldest center

for the teaching of magic. Over the centuries magic seeped into

the very rock of the city itself, and then spread. The result is a

magical aura that blanks out the city and the lands around it for

something like a five-hundred-mile radius,"

Daine whistled appreciation of the distance involved. "So the only

way to look at all this mountain rock is by eye. That's going to

be a job and a half"

"Precisely. Tell me, how far do you think we arc from our

destination?"

Fleetfoot and Russet had measured distance in the miles a wolf

travels in a day. Daine had to divide that in half to figure how

far humans might go on horseback. "Half a day's ride to the south

entrance to the valley, where the Dunlath River flows out of the

Long Lake. From — " She stopped as something whispered in her

mind. Animals were coming, looking for her. She ran to the mouth

of the cave as their horses bolted past.

Here they came up the trail, wolves, three in the lead and four

behind. Two of the leaders were her guides to the Long Lake: the

small, reddish white

male known as Russet and the brown-and-gray female called

Fleetfoot. Between them trotted a huge, black-and-gray timber

wolf, plumed tail boldly erect.

"Brokefang!" Daine yelled. "Numair, it's the pack/" She ran to

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摘要：

CHAPTERONECHAPTERONEENCOUNTERSThewolvesoftheLongLakePack,gorgedonacarelessmountainsheep,sleptastheydigestedtheirmeal.OnlyBrokefang,theirchieftain,wasawaketoseethemoonrise.Hesatonastoneoutcrop,thinking—anoddpastimeforawolf.Inthelastfullmoonofsummer,ontheadviceofOldWhite,thewolfgod,hehadsenthisbesttra...

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