Through Wolf's Eyes

I AAA-ROOO! AAA-ROOO! Distant, yet carrying, the wolf's howl broke the late-afternoon stillness. In the depths of the forest, a young woman, as T strong and supple as the sound, rose noiselessly to her feet. With bloodstained fingers, she pushed her short, dark brown hair away from her ears to better hear the call. Aaa-rooo! Aaa-rooo! It was a sentry howl, relayed from a great distance to the east. The young woman understood its message more easily than she would have understood any form of human speech. "Strangers! Strangers! Strangers! Strange!" The last lilt of inflection clarified the previous howls. Whatever was coming from the east was not merely a trespasserperhaps a young wolf dispersing from his birth packbut an unknown quantity. But from the relay signal that preceded the call, the strangers were far away. The young woman felt a momentary flicker of curiosity. Hunger, however, was more pressing. The cold times were not long past and her memories of dark, freezing days, when even the stupid fish were unreachable beneath the ice, were sharp. She squatted again and continued skinning a still warm rabbit, musing, not for the first time, how much more convenient it would be if she could eat it as her kinfolk did: fur, bone, flesh, and guts all in one luxurious mouthful. * * * AAA-ROOO! AAA-ROOO! Derian Carter, the youngest member of Earl Kestrel's expedition, felt his shoulder jerked nearly out of its socket when the wolf howl pierced the late-afternoon peace. The haunting sound startled the sensitive chestnut mare he was unbridling nearly out of her highly bred stockings. "Easy, easy, Roanne," he murmured mechanically, all too aware that his own heart was racing. That wolf soundedclose! As Derian eased the mare's headstall over ears that couldn't seem to decide whether to prick in alarm or flatten in annoyance, he said in a voice he was pleased to discover remained calm, almost nonchalant: "That sounds like a big wolf out there, Race." Race Forester, the guide for Earl Kestrel's expedition, looked down his long nose at the younger man and chuckled. He was a lean fellow with a strong, steady tread that spoke of long distances traveled afoot and blond hair bleached so white by constant exposure to the sun that he would look much the same at sixty as he did at thirty. "That it does, Derian." Race stroked his short but full beard as he glanced around their sheltered forest camp, systematically noting the areas that would need to be secured now that big predators were about. "Wolves always sound bigger when you're on their turf, rather than safe behind a city wall." Derian swallowed a retort. In the weeks since Earl Kestrel's expedition had departed the capital of Hawk Haven, Race had rarely missed an opportunity to remind the members (other than the earl himself) that Race himself was the woodsman, while they were mere city folk. Only the fact that Race's contempt was so generally administered had kept Derian from calling him out and showing him that a city-bred man could know a thing or two. Only that, Derian admitted honestly (though only to himself), and the fact that Race would probably turn Derian into a smear on the turf. Though Derian Carter was tall enough to need to duck his head going through low doorways, muscular enough to handle the most spirited horse or work from dawn to dusk loading and unloading wagons at his father's warehouses, there was something about Race Forester's sinewy form, about the way he carried his slighter build, that made Derian doubt who would be the winner in a hand-to-hand fight. And, with another surge of honesty, Derian admitted that the woodsLindskold, Jane is the author of 'Through Wolf's Eyes', published 2001 under ISBN 9780312874278 and ISBN 0312874278.