Free The Dragon of Despair by Jane Lindskold Page A

come to know what they needed and valued. The place Prince Barden had chosen was near to fresh running water. It was on fairly level ground, which humans liked not only for building their homes, but for planting their fields. Moreover, it was less than a day’s easy journey from the gap through the Iron Mountains. Still, she felt offended, as if her own home had been invaded.
    “Perhaps,” she said to Blind Seer, “I didn’t believe the humans had really come here to settle—no matter what Fox Hair said—until I saw this place. What are we going to do?”
    Blind Seer rubbed his great head against her arm. In turn, she buried her hand in his fur and felt comforted.
    “I think,” the wolf said after some consideration, “that Derian must go to them. Humans are as territorial as a mother bird guarding her nest. They may already feel themselves owners of everything they touch. If they find Derian camping a distance from here, they may view him as an intruder.”
    Firekeeper nodded—a human gesture she had learned and that had become a habit. She’d been using it for moons past. Only now, here on the fringes of where she’d been only a wolf, did she feel herself use the gesture and think it odd.
    “I agree,” she replied. “Derian’s purpose in coming west was to bring those stones and gifts to the ones who died here. He cannot avoid this place without failing.”
    She studied the human encampment, forcing herself to strip away the new construction and see the place as it had been when she had left it.
    “These newcomers have left the place where the earl told his people to re-bury the bones and such they took from the Burnt Place,” she said, feeling some relief. “They have some feelings then.”
    “Feelings for dried bones burnt beyond good eating,” Blind Seer scoffed. “You are becoming very human, Firekeeper.”
    She caught him a sharp blow on one shoulder.
    “Never say that!” she growled. “Never!”
    Blind Seer’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled back from his fangs in an ugly snarl. He glowered at her and she held his stare, her hand drifting in the direction of the garnet-hilted knife that hung at her belt.
    Maybe it was this. Maybe it was that—despite the fact that he was younger than her in years—Blind Seer had been trained to view the wolf-woman as a pup, entitled to the forbearance the senior wolf gives the pup. For whatever the reason, Blind Seer’s snarl melted to tongue-panting amiability and his tail gave a faint wag.
    “I won’t call you a human,” he conceded. “Shall Fox Hair tell those there that you are with him?”
    Firekeeper considered. Her first impulse was to deny her presence. She wanted nothing more than to flee humans and human things. Then her loyalty to and affection for Derian rose, reminding her just how vulnerable one human—especially one human possessed of what others might see as wealth—could be. She didn’t know these humans. They might be as kind as Holly Gardener, but they could be closer kin to the bandits who had attacked them along the road in New Kelvin.
    “I think,” she said, “that I must let them see me. Fox Hair should not be thought alone. Where is Elation? That bird is always flapping about whenever one wants her least. Now that she could be useful, I haven’t seen her since last sunrise.”
    “Elation flew west,” Blind Seer replied. “I think she is as disturbed as you about this human settling—more, maybe, for the wingéd folk could have sent her word and forewarning and they did not.”
    Firekeeper considered that and the sour feeling in her gut grew stronger. She had grown accustomed to having little or no contact with the Royal Wolves. Blind Seer alone of all her pack had accompanied her east over the Iron Mountains when she departed with Earl Kestrel’s expedition. There were Cousin Wolves in the Norwood Grant, but these were limited in their conversation. They might be bullied into telling where game could be found, but