Wolf's Blood

Chapter One Firekeeper stood, feet planted slightly apart, head held high, and looked from her past into her future. She was a woman of indeterminate age, certainly no longer a child, but beyond that certain estimation placing her age would have been a challenge. Life lived in all the tempers changing seasons could hold had browned fair skin and faded brown hair, but her eyes were bright, her teeth white and strong. Her attire showed hard use. She was clad in worn leather trousers laced below the knee, and a battered cotton shirt that might once have been dyed pale green. Her feet were bare. A long hunting knife from whose hilt a garnet shone a muted dark red was belted at her waist. A bow was slung over her shoulder, along with a quiver containing a handful of arrows. Dozens of scars, silvery white against the tanned skin, again testified to a hard life, yet there was a quickness to Firekeeper's motions, a fluidity and power that spoke of youth and youth's vigor. This contrasted vividly with something in her dark, dark eyes, something that hinted at challenges and sorrows young bones and muscles should not have known, but that had scarred as deeply as any tooth or claw. "Blind Seer, how many years have gone by since you and I crossed the Iron Mountains into the east?" Firekeeper spoke a language most humans would not have even realized was being spoken, much less understood, and the one to whom she spoke was no human but rather a grey wolf the size of a small pony, albeit much leaner in build. Blind Seer did not look at Firekeeper when she spoke, his piercingly blue eyes focused, as were her own, on some middle distance. "Six springs into spring again," came the wolf's reply. "Six rounding of does' sides and budding of new antlers on proud bucks, six springs where fat puppies stumbled from the dens in which their mothers had hidden them to face the proud inspection of their packs. Six, if you count this spring, and this I do most sincerely." Firekeeper huffed agreement through her nose, a movement of air that spoke volumes to the wolf. "Is it spring, then, that makes me restless?" "Don't blame spring, sweet Firekeeper. Spring has done nothing but be spring. You know who is to blame, who has been whispering in your ear. I have heard what you say in your dreams, and although you have not told me, I know who has returned to haunt you." "I have always had nightmares," Firekeeper replied, not quite admitting to the truth of the wolf's statement. "Always," Blind Seer agreed. "As long as I have known you, as long as any of my pack have known youand we took you in and made you our own when you were but a small childas long ago as that and maybe before, you have had nightmares, but this is something different, and you know it and I know it. Will you deny what is as plain as sunlight on a cloudless day?" Firekeeper sighed and buried her hand in the thick fur of Blind Seer's scruff. "I cannot, nor will I, at least not to you. Three nights running and three more before that, the Meddler has come into my dreams. He talks most seriously, and the matters he raises are grave and seem to make sense, but I fear to be guided by him." Blind Seer's hackles rose. Firekeeper felt the stiff guard hairs of his coat prickle against her skin. "ThLindskold, Jane is the author of 'Wolf's Blood', published 2008 under ISBN 9780765353740 and ISBN 0765353741.