Wolf-speaker Read Online Free PDF

pond. At the water’s edge trails crossed and recrossed, and large, flattened areas in the brush marked wolf beds.
    A challenge-bark came from a bunch of reeds, and five half-grown wolves, their colors ranging from brown to frosted gray, tumbled out. They still bore remnants of soft baby fur, and were in the process of trading milk teeth for meat teeth. Eyeingthe strangers, they whined and growled nervously, until the pack surrounded them and shut the new-comers off from view.
    Another grown wolf, a black, gray, and brown male, pranced over to say hello. “He’s Longwind,” Daine informed Numair. “He was baby-sitting.” To the wolf she said, “Say hello to my friends. Cloud you know.” As Longwind obeyed, the girl walked up to the pack. The moment the pups noticed her they backed away.
    Frostfur said with grim satisfaction, I knew bringing strangers was a mistake. Brokefang nuzzled his mate, trying to sweeten her temper.
    Fleetfoot stuck her nose under the belly of one of the male pups and scooted him forward. We know this isn’t what you’re used to, she told him, but you may as well learn now as later.
    Russet gripped a female pup by the scruff of the neck and dragged her to the girl, adding, Daine is Pack, and if she is Pack, so are these others.
    The female was the one to walk forward, still clumsy on her feet, to sniff Daine’s palm. She is Leaper, Russet said, and Leaper wagged her tail. The male pup trotted over. He is Chaser, commented Russet. These others are too silly to have names. At that the remaining three pups approached timidly, whining.
    Daine introduced the young wolves to her friends. The pups came to accept Numair, thehorses, and Cloud, but nothing could make them like the young dragon. When she went near them, they would run to hide behind an adult wolf. At last Kitten turned gray, the color that meant she was sulking, and waddled over to the pond. There she played with stones, pretending to ignore everyone.
    Why is she sad? asked Russet. They are pups. They don’t know any better.
    â€œShe’s no more than a pup herself,” Daine replied. “I can’t even talk to her as I could to her ma. She looks big, but as dragons go she’s a baby.”
    I see. Getting up, the red-coated wolf trotted over to the dragon and began to paw at her rocks. Soon they were playing, and Kittens’s scales regained their normal, gold-tinged blue color.
    Daine was wrestling a stick out of the jaws of a pup she had decided to call Silly when Brokefang came to say, We hunt. Since the pups accept you and Numair and the horses, will you guard them?
    â€œWe’ll be honored to guard your pups,” Daine told him.
    The pack left, and Numair began to cook as Daine groomed the horses. The smell of frying bacon called the pups to the fire, their noses twitching. The new scent canceled some of their fear of Kitten: as long as she kept to one side of the fire and they to the other, the young wolves didn’t object. When the first pan of bacon was done, Numair gave in to the pleading in five pairs ofbrown eyes and one pair of slit-pupiled blue, and doled it out to his audience.
    After Numair, the pups, and the horses went to bed, Daine lay awake, listening to the chatter of owls and bats. At the fringe of her magic she felt immortals pass overhead. They weren’t Stormwings, or griffins, or any of the others she had met before. She sensed she would not like these if they did meet. There was a nasty undertone to them in her mind, like the taint of old blood.
    The pack returned not long after the creatures’ presence faded in her mind. Was it good hunting? she asked Brokefang silently, so she wouldn’t disturb Numair.
    He came to sit with her. An old and stringy elk. He gave us a good run, though, he replied Cloud says you are trying to fit into her skull. It sounds like an interesting thing.
    I tried it once, said Daine. Cloud thinks I might do better