Wolf-speaker Read Online Free Page A

faith in her shining in his eyes. You said that you would. Now, are you and the man ready? It is time to go.
    Daine put Kitten atop the packs on Mangle’s back. Numair mounted Spots, and the girl mounted Cloud. “Lead on,” the mage told Brokefang.
    The wolves trotted down the trail away from the cave, followed by the horses and their riders. When the path forked, one end leading to the nearby river and the other into the mountains, Brokefang led them uphill.
    â€œIf we follow the river, won’t that take us into the valley?” Daine called. “It won’t be so hard on us.”
    Brokefang halted. It is easier, he agreed, as Daine translated for Numair. Humans go that way all the time. So also do soldiers, and men withmagic fires. It is best to avoid them. Men kill wolves on sight, remember, Pack-Sister?
    â€œMen with magic fires?” Numair asked, frowning.
    Men like you, said Brokefang, with the Light Inside.
    â€œWe call them mages,” Daine told him. “Or sorcerers, or wizards, or witches. What we call them depends on what they do.”
    Numair thought for a moment. “Lead on,” he said at last. “I prefer to avoid human notice for as long as possible. And thank you for the warning.”
    The humans, Kitten, and the horses followed the wolves up along the side of the mountains that rimmed the valley of the Long Lake. By noon they had come to a section of trail that was bare of trees. The wolves didn’t slow, but trotted into the open. Daine halted, listening. Something nasty was tickling at the back of her mind, a familiar sense that had nothing to do with mortal animals. Getting her crossbow, she put an arrow in the notch and fixed it in place with the clip.
    Numair took a step forward, and Cloud grabbed his tunic in her teeth.
    â€œStormwings,” Daine whispered. Numair drew back from the bare ground. Under the tree cover, they watched the sky.
    High overhead glided three creatures withhuman heads and chests, and great, spreading wings and claws. Daine knew from bitter experience that their birdlike limbs were steel, wrought to look like genuine feathers and claws. In sunlight they could angle those feathers to blind their enemies. They were battlefield creatures, living in human legend as monsters who dishonored the dead. Eyes cold, she aimed at the largest of the three.
    Numair put a hand on her arm. “Try to keep an open mind, magelet,” he whispered. “They haven’t attacked us.”
    â€œYet,” she hissed.
    Brokefang looked back to see what was wrong, and saw what they were looking at. These are harriers, he said. They help the soldiers and the mages.
    Daine relayed this to Numair as the wolves moved on, to wait for them in the trees on the other side of the clearing.
    â€œStormwings that work in conjunction with humans,” the man commented softly. “That sounds like Emperor Ozorne’s work.” The emperor of the southern kingdom of Carthak was a mage who seemed to have a special relationship with minor immortals, and with Stormwings in particular. Some, Numair included, thought it was Ozorne’s doing that had freed so many immortals from the Divine Realms in the first place. He had his eye on Tortall’s wealth, and many thought he meant toattack when the country’s defenders were worn out from battling immortals.
    â€œNow can I shoot them?” Daine wanted to know.
    â€œYou may not. They still have done nothing to harm us.”
    The Stormwings flew off. Vexed with her friend, Daine fumed and waited until she could no longer sense the immortals before leading the way onto the trail once more. They were halfway across the open space when Numair stopped, frowning at a large, blackened crater down the slope from them. “That’s not a natural occurrence,” he remarked, and walked toward it.
    â€œThis isn’t the time to explore!” Daine hissed. If he heard, he gave no sign of it.