Spirit of the Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

watching MikLan suspiciously more than once, and he startled easily when he was around them.
    Ãzzuen claimed another rock and Marra the third. I wanted to keep watch with them, but it had been two frenzied,panicked days of running and fighting for my life since I’d had a good rest. My eyes were closing as I stood.
    MikLan sat cross-legged at the shelter’s entrance, his spear across his lap, his face serious. He was younger than TaLi. It was hard to trust him to watch over us, but he wanted to take on adult responsibilities, just like I did, and I admired him for it. As I stumbled toward the shelter, he smiled at me. MikLan had always been easy with us, even more so than TaLi. From the first time we met him, he had treated us just as he would his own kind. Marra thought that it was because he was still fully a child. I hoped he wouldn’t lose that easy trust now that he was leaving childhood behind.
    I left my packmates on guard and crept into the shelter. TaLi was already asleep, and I settled down next to her. I listened to her even breathing and waited for sleep to come. But as tired as I was, my eyes would not stay closed. I wriggled closer to TaLi. I needed rest, but there was something I needed more.
    â€œTlitoo!” I whispered. He didn’t answer. I called again, a little louder. I was about to call a third time, when he stalked into the shelter.
    â€œI am not an owl, wolf. I am not a bat. I have been up too much of this night already.”
    â€œI want to see what she’s dreaming,” I said.
    He clacked his beak in annoyance. I lowered my ears.
    â€œAll right, wolflet,” he grumbled. “If you look at me like a hungry pup, I have no choice. But next time you are most in need of a nap, I will wake you up.”
    Still grumbling, he pushed in between me and the sleepinggirl. I had told no one, not even Ázzuen, what Tlitoo and I could do together. I didn’t want my friends to know how different I really was.
    Tlitoo and I had gone into the minds of Greatwolf and ordinary wolf alike, but it was entering TaLi’s thoughts that most fascinated me. I wanted more than anything to be able to talk to her. When Tlitoo took me into TaLi’s mind, I felt as close to her as to another wolf, and I craved that closeness now.
    Tlitoo quorked softly and lay against me, so that he was touching both me and the girl. He needed contact with both of us to make the journey.
    I readied myself for the lack of sound and smell that always accompanied me into the mind of another, and for the sudden feeling of falling that still made me gasp. I couldn’t prepare for the confusion and dizziness that followed me into TaLi’s mind. Entering into the thoughts of another wolf was less jolting. The strangeness of the way humans saw their world—through vibrant colors and soft edges—was especially disorienting.
    I waited until my nausea receded, then sank into TaLi’s thoughts.
    I saw the old woman’s face and cringed away, remembering how I’d helped cause her death. Then I took a deep breath. If this day in the old woman’s shelter was important enough for TaLi to dream of it, I could have the courage to see it. I allowed myself to relax into her thoughts.

    TaLi knew that her grandmother would not be with her much longer. The old woman had told her that her lungs had weakened, that she would not live out another winter, and that TaLi would have to be ready to take over as krianan.
    â€œYou have the wolves,” NiaLi said. “You are the first to run with them in many years. That will help you.” TaLi looked over her shoulder. A young wolf slept heavily against the mud-rock wall of the shelter, snoring a little and moving her paws in her sleep.
    TaLi walked over to the wolf and sat beside her.
    â€œI can’t talk to her,” TaLi said. “Not the way you do.” She had spoken to the animals when she was little. She’d talked to rabbits