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best to be useful. She handed him her bag and smiled as he turned to race back toward the lodge. He
would arrive, panting and gabbling his baby talk, and her mother would know at once that E-lo-ni was
back from her morning's work.
Before she reached the home lodge, however, the girl paused and raised her head. Far away, almost
beyond her range of hearing, there came a long howl. Faint though it was, it held such fury and grief that it
chilled her heart. She had heard many a direwolf cry in the night, but never before had she heard such a
sound by day.
Do-na-ti had gone in that direction when they parted that morning!
Some instinct as sure as the wolf's told E-lo-ni that she must go. Without pausing to do anything except
catch up her grandfather's spear that leaned beside the lodge, she began to run, her feet sure on the rough
ground, her strong legs pounding steadily toward the source of that terrible howl.
Focused upon that unseen goal, she ran until her heart drummed in her throat, her pulse threatened to
burst her veins. Yet she was a woman of the People, honed by the plains and toughened by their
dangers. She did not pause to rest or take a moment to think of what she might meet when she arrived.
She would know what to do when she came to the spot where she would meet the direwolf.
The sun slipped down as she sped over the undulating ground, up and down ravines, through patches of
brush and over the mounded villages of the Small Brothers who lived beneath the ground. Long before
she arrived, she could see a darker brown lump lying flat against the pale tan of the ridge behind it.
As she drew nearer, E-lo-ni knew that it was a person. Whether it was Do-na-ti or anther of the People,
she felt grim triumph that she had realized his danger and come so quickly. Whoever it might be was in
need of help.
Her steps were loud, crunching into the dry and pebbly soil, and as she came very near she heard a
raucous squawk. Heavy wings flapped, and buzzards rose beyond the ridge, as if interrupted as they
surrounded carrion. To her relief, none seemed, as yet, to have attacked the prone body that was,
without any doubt, that of her man.
As she slowed, from beyond that ridge there came a silent, snarling shape. A direwolf topped the stony
outcrop and moved toward Do-na-ti, its neck hair erect, its eyes blazing with hatred and deadly intent.
The stink of it shocked E-lo-ni into caution.
A spear was all very well when one was surrounded by hunters, all intent upon distracting a beast while
getting a good chance to kill it. One person alone, faced with a creature whose shoulder reached higher
than her head, must think before acting, if she wanted to live to see another sunrise.
Strangely, the wolf had not seemed to notice her, all its attention being concentrated upon the
unconscious man. That gave her the chance to drop behind a shelf of rock and slither around it into the
protection of the curving ridge itself. The stone layers were stepped, with a shallow ditch between them
for most of the way, offering concealment as she crept along.
That held its own dangers, of course. She moved quickly, but each hand or knee went down only after a
searching glance that would spot any snake within striking distance. A rustle off to her right froze her in
position as E-lo-ni tried to locate its source.
A mottled brown shape slithered out of a cranny, its scales whispering against the hot stone, and looped
across the way ahead of her. When it had flowed into a crack in the next ledge, she breathed out at last,
sweat beading her body. She did not fear death, but she had seen people die in convulsions after being
bitten by one of the reptiles, and she had a healthy fear of them.
Then she went on, following the ridge until she was behind the wolf. Always she was watching for rattlers
while keeping an eye on the buzzards as they settled again onto whatever dead thing lay behind the ridge.
If they came on this side and went for the eyes of her mate, she must attack them, direwolf or no.
When she peered out between two angles of rock, she could see that the wolf was approaching Do-na-ti
very slowly, as if it feared him. Its ears were laid back, and its belly almost touched the ground as it slunk
cautiously toward its motionless prey.
From this angle she could see on the other side of the limp body a bundle about which flies buzzed
frantically. A hide? It had to be, fresh-killed, already beginning to stink. The direwolf paused beside that
and sniffed at it. Then it sat back on its haunches and raised its muzzle toward the sky.
This howl was even more mournful than that other which had set E-lo-ni on the trail. It held pain and
anger and blood lust. Understanding that from her own experience and that of her people, the girl knew
that if she did not distract the beast it would kill her mate-to-be. Retribution, whatever one's kind, was
something built into the plains creatures.
She reached into the edge of the ditch, where shards of stone had weathered away from the parent rock, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]