Promise Of The Wolves by Dorothy Hearst Read Free Book Online

springy moss to lie in and soft dirt to play in, and the tall trees would give us shade in the hot summer afternoons to come. I could hear a spring full of good water burbling nearby. It was worth the long, terrifying walk and the sore leg.
    Ázzuen, Marra, and I stood together at the roots of the fallen spruce, looking in wonder at this good place. Borlla and Unnan huddled together by a large boulder, whispering and looking at us. Reel poked his nose between them, trying to hear what they were saying. I knew they were planning some harm for us. But before they could make trouble, old Trevegg trotted across the clearing, bringing them over to where we stood. I resisted the temptation to knock Borlla ears over tail when she stepped hard on Ázzuen’s injured paw, making him yelp.
    “Listen, pups,” Trevegg said before Ázzuen or I could retaliate, “this is Fallen Tree Gathering Place, one of the five gathering places, or homesites, in our territories. You must learn it and remember it.”
    Trevegg was the oldest wolf in the pack, and Ruuqo’s uncle. He had the same dark-rimmed eyes as Ruuqo, but Ruuqo’s eyes always seemed anxious while Trevegg’s were open and kind. The fur around his muzzle and eyes was faded to a lighter shade than the rest of his coat, giving him a gentle, welcoming appearance. He opened his mouth to breathe in the scents of our new home.
    “Gathering places are where we come to plan hunts, and to develop strategies to defend our territories. They are where wolves who have wandered from the pack can return, and where pups can grow strong while the pack hunts. Wolves must wander to eat, but good, safe, and healthy gathering places make a pack strong.” He gazed across the clearing. “Never forget a gathering place, for you never know when you may need it again.”
    I lifted my face to the wind, tasting the acorn-tinted scent of Fallen Tree. I memorized the rippling of the breeze in the bushes and buried my nose in the dirt that smelled of my pack.
    “Watch, pups!” Yllin called from halfway across the clearing. She dropped onto one shoulder and rolled onto her back, turning to and fro in the dirt and grunting happily. She and her brother, Minn, were just a year old, Rissa and Ruuqo’s pups from the year before. Although they were nearly as large as the grown wolves, and considered almost full members of the pack, they were not really grown up. We watched her curiously.
    “When you leave part of yourself on the earth,” Trevegg explained as Yllin continued to roll gleefully in the dirt, “on a bush or a tree, or on the body of an animal whose spirit has returned to the moon, you speak to the Balance.” Trevegg seemed younger when he taught us, years of hunting and fighting lifting from his face. “The Balance is what holds the world together. The Ancients—Sun, Moon, Earth, and Grandmother Sky—who rule the lives of all creatures, created the Balance so that no one creature might grow too strong and cause problems for all others. You will learn more of the Ancients,” he said sternly as Ázzuen opened his mouth to interrupt with a question, “if you survive your first winter. Know now that they are more powerful than any creature. And know that we must obey their rules, and the rules of the Balance. Every creature,” he continued, “every plant, every breath of air is part of the Balance. With everything we do, we must remember to respect the world we have been granted. So even as we take things—water from the river, meat from a successful hunt—we leave part of ourselves as well, to show our gratitude for what the Ancients have given us.”
    One by one, we dropped onto one shoulder and rolled in a spot where weeks before a rabbit had died. A pungent fox had long since carried him away, but the scent of what had been life remained. We coated ourselves with the scent, adding our own essences to the spot and claiming Fallen Tree Gathering Place as our home. I knew then what I had not