Wolf-speaker by Tamora Pierce Page B

exception of Frostfur and Battle, left the reeds and followed. They had been gone only a moment when Frostfur went after them. Daine smiled. It seemed that a new skill, like sulking, couldn’t stand up to the demands of Frostfur’s stomach.
    Kitten tugged at Daine’s belt-pouch. The girl kept flint and steel there, and this was Kittens’s way to say it was breakfast time. “I s’pose you’re right,” she told the dragon. “We’d all feel better for some food.”
    Working quickly, she built a mound of tinder and wood in the fire pit and set it to blazing. Looking up, she saw that the pups, Battle, Cloud, and Kitten had each brought a good-sized branch for her fire.
    â€œYou’re learning new things too quick for me,” she said. “Thank you. I think there’s a sausage in my packs that might feed us.”
    You don’t have to give me any, Cloud said with a shudder. I don’t know what meat eaters see in that stuff.
    Once she had fed everyone, Daine went to clean up. Not wanting to bathe in the pond, where soap would linger in water drunk by the wolves, she used a stream nearby. On her return to the clearing she found the pups, Cloud, and Kitten fast asleep. It was warm for autumn. Battle was cooling off, lying belly-down on the damp earth by the pond.
    â€œYou know the thing I’ve been trying?” she asked the tawny-pelted female. “I did it with Brokefang and Russet.”
    When you ride inside them, Battle answered. Russet said it was fun. Do you want to try it with me?
    â€œIf you don’t mind,” the girl said.
    Very well. Battle closed her eyes and rested her chin on her feet. All I ask is that we not run around. It is too hot.
    Daine grinned. “Fair enough.” Sitting next to Battle, she first listened around her, checking for any sense that enemies were close. All she heard was the normal chatter of forest dwellers: squirrels, birds, and the like. Feeling safe, she focused on Battle. The joining happened faster than ever. Settling into thefemale’s mind, she felt as if she belonged there. Perhaps Cloud had been right, and she was practically a wolf
    Battle checked the pups with one drowsy eye. They were hardly pups anymore. Soon they would hunt with the pack. She was sorry they had grown so fast. Watching over them was more fun when they were small and fuzzy.
    Gazing at each of the young ones through Battle’s eyes, Daine realized that even in daylight the wolf had no color vision. On the other hand, she hardly needed it. The marks on each pup’s face and body were clearer to Battle’s eyes than Daine’s, and she could tell each pup’s scent from the others with the wolf’s vivid sense of smell. Battle inhaled and identified the scents that came into her nose for Daine. She inhaled again, enjoying Daine’s fascination with odors as if she too smelled them for the first time.
    Eventually the girl returned to her own body. Heavy-eyed, she crawled on all fours to her bedroll, turned three times against her rumpled blankets, and went to sleep curled up in a tight knot. When she woke, the late sun shone through treetops as shadows collected below. She had slept through the wolves’ return. Brokefang was sprawled beside her, gorged on deer meat and fast asleep.
    She touched him to ask, May I join with you?
    Brokefang opened one sleepy eye. Do I have to wake up?
    I don’t think so.
    The eye closed. Then go ahead.
    She was learning how to listen, to bring herself speedily into his mind. Now, as with Battle, she made the changeover quickly. With Battle fresh in her memory, she saw how different the pack leader’s mind was, not in terms of size, but of space. Numair had said, in an anatomy lesson, that humans used little of their brains. She knew that animals were the same, though they used more of what lay between their ears than humans did. For Brokefang the difference was that each nook and