The humans need to learn the gifts of the wolves, and the
wolves promised long ago to help the humans not only with
hunting and surviving, but also with maintaining the great
Balance. However, every time the wolves and humans try to
live together, they end up fighting. Kaala's one chance to
redeem her reputation and that of her pack is to meet the
challenge of the Greatwolves and integrate the pack and the
tribe, but there are currents of deception of which Kaala
is unaware, both within the wolf pack and the human tribe.
Will she be able to prove they can all live peaceably as
equals?
The depictions of the characters, both wolf and
human, are so realistic and tender that readers will race
through each page to find out what happens next. Kaala,
barely out of puphood, is a lovely protagonist, embodying
all the frustrations, desires, and ambitions to prove
oneself inherent in all young creatures.
Years of research into the world of wolves combines with
mythical tale-telling to present a fantastical adventure set
in a world filled with lore. The rules of the Wide Valley
wolves were clear: Never consort with humans; never kill a
human unprovoked; never allow a mixed-blood wolf to live.
But they were rules destined to be broken.
Now, in the second riveting installment of The Wolf
Chronicles the stakes are higher than ever. Young Kaala of
the Swift River pack shattered the rules of the valley and
exposed the lies hidden beneath them. Now, responsibility
for the consequences rests with her. Along with her young
packmates and the humans they have befriended, she must find
a way for the wolves and humans of the Wide Valley to live
in harmony. If they succeed, Kaala will finally prove
herself worthy of her pack. But if she fails, the
Greatwolves who rule wolf-kind will kill every wolf and
human in the valley.
Told from the wolf ’s point-of-view and set 14,000 years ago
in a time when the cultures of wolves and humans were not so
different, Secrets of the Wolves transports us to a
world where instincts are our only compass and cooperation
between potential enemies could mean the difference between
life and death.
Excerpt
I caught the delicate scent of distant prey and stopped,
digging my paws into the earth. Lifting my muzzle to the
wind, I inhaled, allowing the distinctive ice-and-hoof aroma
to sink to the back of my throat. Snow deer, in our
territory and on the move. All at once, blood rushed to the
sensitive spot just behind my ears. My mouth moistened, and
every muscle in my body hungered for the chase. Next to me,
Ázzuen stood as still as I was, only his ears twitching.
Then his dark gray head began to sway, pulled between the
lure of prey and our task.
"We can’t go after them," I said. "We have to get to Tall
Grass."
"I know that," he replied, panting hard. We’d run most of
the way across our territory at full pelt. "I’m coming."
Neither of us moved. I could, just barely, restrain myself
from following the prey-scent, but I couldn’t bring myself
to move away from it. Neither could Ázzuen. The small
cluster of pine trees in which we stood blocked out the
early morning sun, allowing thick drops of moisture to form
on Ázzuen’s fur. His entire body now strained toward the
prey. As a fresh gust of deer-scent washed over us, I closed
my eyes.
A painful yank on the fur of my chest made me yelp. I glared
down to see dark eyes peering at me out of a gleaming black
feathered head and a sharp beak poised to jab at my paw. I
stepped back. Tlitoo raised his wings as if to take flight,
then strode forward to stand under my chin, staying within
stabbing distance. His winter plumage made him seem larger
than a not-yet-year-old raven should, and his tail and back
were speckled with the snow he’d been rolling in. He stared
a beady challenge at me, and then at Ázzuen, who jumped
aside to get out of beak range and buried his nose in the
snow, trying to freeze away the deer-scent.
When Tlitoo saw that he had our attention, he quirked softly.
"The Grimwolves are exactly fourteen minutes behind you,
wolflets, and their legs are much longer than yours. They
will catch up."
My throat tightened. I’d thought we had more time. The
Greatwolves had ruled the Wide Valley for as long as any
wolf could remember, and all wolves were required to obey them.
An angry howl made all three of us cringe. Stop! The command
in the Greatwolf Frandra’s voice was clear. And wait for us.
Stay at the pine grove. We will come for you.
"How do they know where we are?" I demanded. "Their noses
can’t be all that good." We’d heard rumors that the
Greatwolves could read the minds of other wolves. Ázzuen
claimed the Greatwolves made up those stories themselves.
"They smell us and they smell pine," he said firmly. "And
they’re guessing."
"It doesn’t matter, wolves!" Tlitoo rasped. "The longer you
blather, the closer they get!"
I took a deep breath, calming myself. The Greatwolves would
catch up with us in the end, and when they did they would be
angry. But I was determined to make it to the Tall Grass
plain before they found us, no matter what the consequence.
For on the morning wind there rode another scent, one even
more potent than that of the snow deer. A scent of sweat and
flesh, of smoke and pine, of meat cooked over fire: the
scent of the humans who shared our hunt. The ground beneath
our paws was softening with the beginnings of the thaw, and
the breeze that ruffled our fur sang of winter’s weakening.
For three nights, the Ice Moon had narrowed to the smallest
of crescents and then faded to darkness. And with the waning
of the Ice Moon, the wolves and humans of the Wide Valley
could be together once again.
It had been three moons since we’d last seen our humans, on
a cool autumn morning when the humans and wolves of the Wide
Valley had nearly gone to war. If we had done so, every wolf
and human in the valley would have been killed by order of
the Greatwolves. I had stopped that war, with the help of my
packmates, and in doing so had convinced the leader of the
Greatwolves to spare us. In exchange I had made a promise:
that for one year I would ensure that the wolves and humans
of the Wide Valley did not fight. If I succeeded, the Wide
Valley wolves and humans would live. If I failed, the
Greatwolves would kill us all.
The next night, a heavy snowstorm howled into the Wide
Valley, warning us that the hungry days of winter neared.
Wolves and humans, along with every other creature in the
valley, would have to struggle to survive the harsh winter,
and so the Greatwolves gave us three moons to prepare before
we took on the task of keeping peace between human and wolf—
as long as we stayed away from the humans during that time.
Today was the day our task was to begin. But two nights ago,
the Greatwolves had ordered us to come to them as soon as
the Ice Moon waned. Instead, awoken by Tlitoo’s warning,
we’d fled.
I met Ázzuen’s eyes and filled my throat with the cool
morning air. The Greatwolves had lied to us too many times.
With one last look in the direction of the snow deer, I
leapt over Tlitoo’s snowy back and sprinted toward the Tall
Grass plain, folding my ears against the wrathful howls of
the Greatwolves.
When we reached the Wood’s Edge Gathering Place, a few steps
from where the trees met the Tall Grass plain, we found
Marra pacing restlessly, her pale gray fur flecked with dirt
and leaves. She darted over to touch my nose and then
Ázzuen’s with her own, her muzzle quivering with impatience.
"Ruuqo and Rissa are on their way here with Trevegg," Marra
said quickly. "The rest of the pack went after the snow
deer." I had sent her on ahead to warn the leaderwolves that
the Greatwolves followed us; we hadn’t wanted to risk
howling. Tlitoo could have flown to them more quickly than
even fleet Marra could run, but he had refused to leave us.
He’d been agitated since waking us at dawn. Even now, he
stalked back and forth between me and Ázzuen, clacking his
beak impatiently.
Marra must have run like a hare to get back to Tall Grass so
quickly. She wasn’t even winded. She barely took a breath
before speaking again.
"MikLan and BreLan are out there," she said. They were the
two males that she and Ázzuen hunted with. "And your human,
too, Kaala."
I didn’t need her to tell me that. The aroma of humans had
grown overpowering, one human-scent in particular nearly
knocking me off my paws. I felt a familiar yearning deep in
my chest. TaLi and I had run the hunt together and slept
side by side. She was as much my packmate as any wolf and
her fragrance as much a part of my being as my own skin.
"Did Ruuqo and Rissa want us to wait for them?" Ázzuen
asked, taking a few steps toward the plain, then looking
back at us. His tail began to wave. Ruuqo and Rissa were the
leaderwolves of the Swift River pack. All wolves must obey
the will of their leaderwolves, especially wolves like
Ázzuen, Marra, and me, who at nine and a half moons old were
not yet quite considered adults.
"No," Marra replied, averting her eyes. "Rissa’s ribs hurt
her today, so the pack moves slowly." Rissa had injured her
ribs in a fight with a maddened elkryn three moons before,
only steps from where we now stood. It still hurt her when
the weather changed.
"Ruuqo said we should try to talk to the humans before the
Greatwolves get here." Marra licked a paw, still not meeting
my eyes. "You could have saved me the trouble of warning the
pack, Kaala, with all the noise the Greatwolves are making."
I narrowed my eyes, not entirely sure I believed Marra. She
wasn’t above stretching the truth from time to time, and I
doubted Ruuqo and Rissa would want youngwolves like us to
defy the Greatwolves without our pack leaders at our side. I
had worked hard all winter to regain the leaderwolves’ trust
and didn’t want to lose it again.
"We could wait," I said. "The pack will be here soon."
"So will the Gruntwolves!" Tlitoo retorted, slapping his
wings against his back. "You did not run all this way to
stop now. What is the point of making the Gripewolves angry
for no reason?" He picked up half a pinecone in his beak and
hurled it at me. It bounced off my shoulder. Slugwolf!" he
screeched.
"We are the ones who know the humans best, Kaala," Ázzuen
said, sensing my indecision.
Just then a furious and startlingly nearby Greatwolf howl
shook the air. My legs made up my mind for me. I was running
before I realized it, bolting from the safety of Wood’s Edge
with Ázzuen and Marra at my tail. We broke through a line of
spruce trees and onto the Tall Grass plain where we could at
last see our humans again.
Six of them stood around a mound of dirt and snow, poking at
it with the blunt ends of the long, deadly sharpsticks they
used for hunting. We loped across the plain slowly, not
wanting to startle the humans. Tall Grass was a large plain,
where we often hunted horses and other grazers. The humans
were halfway down the length of it and intent on their dirt
mound, so they didn’t notice us at first. TaLi’s scent
drifted more strongly than ever across the grass, but I
couldn’t pick her out among the humans. All three of the
females had flat, dark fur like TaLi’s and were dressed in
bear and wolverine skins against the cold. None of them,
however, was the right shape to be TaLi. Had I somehow
mistaken her scent? I slowed down. Tlitoo lost what little
patience he had when Ázzuen and Marra slowed, too.
"Plodwolves!" he shrieked. He flew over my head, scraping my
ears with his sharp talons, beating his wings hard to reach
the humans. He soared low over their heads. Several of the
humans leapt back, startled, and looked up at the raven.
That was when I saw her.
She was taller, even after only three moons. Her legs and
arms were long and very skinny, like someone had been
pulling on them, and she moved awkwardly, as if balancing on
a loose rock in the river. Ázzuen had stumbled around like
that earlier in the winter, when he suddenly grew taller
than any of us other pups and hadn’t yet accustomed himself
to his new height. A small whuff of surprise escaped my
throat as I realized that TaLi would not be a child much
longer. When I had pulled her from the river, not six moons
before, she had been smaller and much more solid-looking.
BreLan, the young male who hunted with Ázzuen, spotted us.
He gave a glad shout. That was all it took for Ázzuen and
Marra to charge full speed toward the humans. I hesitated,
suddenly uncertain. Many humans hated and feared us.
Trevegg, the elderwolf of our pack, had warned us that even
if our humans liked us now, they might change their minds as
they matured. I couldn’t help but wonder if TaLi, now nearly
grown, might no longer wish to run the hunt with me. I stole
forward, watching her for signs of fear or rejection. She
raised her hand to shade her eyes against the early morning
sun. Then she gave her huge, bared-tooth smile, set down her
sharpstick, and galloped toward me.
"Silvermoon!" she bellowed like an elk stuck in the mire. It
was her name for me, because of the moon-shape of white on
the light gray fur of my chest.
I broke into a run and met her before she had taken ten
steps on those ridiculous legs. I placed my paws gently on
her shoulders, taking care not to hurt or startle her. She
threw her arms around me and hurled her weight against me. I
allowed her to topple me over and she landed on my ribs.
Grunting in delight, I rolled her onto her back, and we
wrestled in the dirt until I stood atop her chest, panting.
The scent of her filled me, bringing back in a rush the
memory of the day I first found her. She had been struggling
for her life in the unforgiving waters of the Swift River,
and I had pulled her to safety. It was forbidden by ancient
laws for the wolves of the Wide Valley to have contact with
the humans, and I should have left her there on the
riverbank to live or not. But I couldn’t. Within moments of
looking into her dark eyes, I knew that leaving her to die
would be like abandoning part of myself in that river mud.
Ázzuen and I returned her to her home, an act that some in
the valley claimed had led to the battle at autumn’s end.
I pressed my nose against TaLi’s soft skin, inhaling as much
of her scent as I could.
"Silvermoon, you stink," the girl said, pushing me off her
chest and sitting up.
I wasn’t sure what she meant. Ázzuen, Marra, and I had dug
up one of our old caches of horse meat and had eaten some of
it the night before, which should have made my breath smell
good. But you could never tell with humans. I cocked my
head, considering what she might mean.
"You smell like you rolled in something dead!" she accused.
I panted happily. I had indeed rolled in something dead. The
old horse meat from our cache. All three of us had rolled in
it so we could let our pack know we’d eaten it and that
there was some left over for them. Horse meat was good
eating. I pressed myself against TaLi to share the scent
with her.
A look of horror crossed her face. "Silvermoon! You reek!
Get away." She shoved me again, hard. Those scrawny arms
were stronger than they looked.
"She means you smell very bad," Tlitoo offered, settling
himself beside me and running his beak through his wing
feathers. He plucked out one feather, examined it, and threw
it aside. He was calmer, now that we were with the humans.
It infuriated me. He had been frantic when he had awoken us.
He told us we had to convince our humans to go into hiding
until he found out what the Greatwolves were doing. He
wouldn’t tell me why, only that we and our humans might be
in danger if we didn’t.
"I know what she means," I snapped. But I wasn’t entirely
sure I did. Once, wolves and humans could communicate as
easily as one wolf speaks to another, but no more. Most
creatures can understand one another at least a little. We
can speak to ravens as if they are packmates, and to dholes
and rock bears almost as well. We can even understand some
prey. Somehow, though, almost all of the humans had lost the
ability to understand other creatures. A few could converse
in Oldspeak, the ancient language that all creatures once
spoke. Even fewer could understand us when we spoke
normally. Ta- Li’s grandmother could understand both
Oldspeak and our normal language, but she had spent a
lifetime learning from the wolves. TaLi and I were both
learning Oldspeak, but neither of us knew it well. Most of
the time I understood TaLi when she spoke, but I could
rarely make her understand me. And I had to make her
understand me. It was the reason we’d risked provoking the
Greatwolves. I paced in a tight circle, desperate to find a
way to communicate our message to TaLi.
"Too late, wolflet," Tlitoo quorked, twisting his head
almost all the way around to look behind him.
I followed his gaze. At the edge of the forest, about two
hundred wolflengths down the plain, the bushes trembled. A
moment later, two huge, shaggy wolves stalked onto Tall
Grass. Even from a distance, I could see their gaze sweeping
arrogantly over us and all six of the humans. Jandru and
Frandra were the Greatwolves the Swift River pack answered
to. They were also the ones who had been howling at us all
morning. I had known them since they had saved my life when
I was a smallpup and never knew if they were going to help
me or threaten me, but I knew that they would be furious
that I had ignored their orders. I didn’t want them anywhere
near our humans.
I stood, and Ázzuen and Marra rushed to stand beside me. The
three of us placed ourselves between the humans and the
angry Greatwolves.
"Now what?" Marra asked.
"I don’t know," I said.
"Ruuqo and Rissa are at Wood’s Edge," Ázzuen said, his nose
lifted high to catch their scents. "We can lead the
Greatwolves away from the humans and to the pack. Ruuqo and
Rissa will know what to say to the Greatwolves."
I wasn’t so sure, but it was as good an idea as any.
Greatwolves are faster than we are over long distances, but
a young wolf could outpace them over a short run, and I
wanted Frandra and Jandru as far from the humans as
possible. Once we got to Wood’s Edge, we could think of some
way to explain our actions. I began to trot toward Frandra
and Jandru. Ázzuen and Marra followed. We had gone only
forty wolflengths when we heard Tlitoo screech. BreLan,
MikLan, and several other humans were trying to follow us.
TaLi pushed at them, yelling that they should stay back; she
knew better than to be anywhere near angry Greatwolves. All
the humans knew that giant wolves roamed the valley, but
only a few knew of the Greatwolves’ role in humans’ lives.
And the Greatwolves wanted to keep it that way.
The other humans weren’t listening to TaLi, and she wasn’t
big enough to stop them. Tlitoo beat the humans about their
heads with his wings, driving them back. I didn’t envy them.
A raven’s wings are strong and, when spread, can be nearly
as wide as a wolf is long. I’d been hit by them often enough
to know it wasn’t pleasant. He was managing to move them,
but not quickly enough. The Greatwolves were getting closer.
"Help him," I said to Ázzuen and Marra. We had all stopped
to watch the humans.
Marra dipped her head and set off toward the humans, but
Ázzuen paused, clearly not wanting to leave me to the
Greatwolves.
"It’s fine," I said impatiently. Ázzuen had grown annoyingly
protective of me in the last few moons. "Go!" I couldn’t
wait any longer, the Greatwolves were getting too close. I
started running. Ázzuen followed me for a few steps. "Hurry
up!" I snapped at him. He still hesitated, then looked over
his shoulder. His human, BreLan, was trying to follow him in
spite of Tlitoo’s abuse.
"Be careful," Ázzuen ordered, butting my shoulder with his
head. He turned in midstride. "I’ll come if you need me," he
called over his shoulder.
I whuffed at the concern in his voice, then turned and ran
in earnest. When Frandra and Jandru saw that I was coming to
them, they stopped and sat, waiting for me. I lowered my
ears and tail, as if asking their pardon for disobeying
them, and I saw their expressions soften just a little.
Then, when I was a little more than halfway between them and
the humans, I turned sharply and bolted toward Wood’s Edge.
I didn’t look to see if the Greatwolves were following. I
knew they would be as soon as I heard Frandra’s angry
bellow. Head down, I stretched my legs as far as they would
go, kicking up dirt behind me.
Now that I was alone, fear tried to rise in me. I
concentrated on running, knowing that it was up to me to
make sure the Greatwolves didn’t go after the humans. To my
relief, I could smell that our pack had indeed arrived at
Wood’s Edge. The reassuring scents of my leaderwolves
loosened a lump in my chest I hadn’t realized was there.
I didn’t slow down when I reached Wood’s Edge. I dove
through the wolf-size hole in the low juniper bushes,
crashed into the gathering place in a shower of twigs and
dirt, and tumbled at the feet of the leaderwolves. Gasping,
I got to my feet. Ears back and tail low, I quickly greeted
Ruuqo and Rissa, the leaderwolves of Swift River pack, and
Trevegg, the pack’s elderwolf. They all accepted my
greetings. Ruuqo looked me over coolly. I could feel every
branch and bramble in my fur.
"What did you do to annoy the Greatwolves, this time,
Kaala?" he said, his voice mild. "We could hear them yowling
all the way at the Alder Grove. We’re missing a good hunt in
order to be here."
Ruuqo was a large, deep-chested wolf, his fur a medium gray.
In spite of his unruffled tone, his lips were tight with
anxiety and a scent of concern rose off of him. He held his
broad shoulders rigid as if ready for a fight.
I looked up into his dark rimmed eyes. If I lived to be as
old as the ancient yew tree atop Wolf Killer Hill, I would
never forget that Ruuqo had tried to kill me not long after
I was born, that he had killed my littermates and exiled my
mother, leaving me to fight alone for my place in the pack.
If not for the intervention of the Greatwolves, I would not
have lived past my first moon. I would never forget that
when he discovered I was spending time with the humans, he
had banished me, forcing me to leave the pack—a punishment
almost certain to lead to death for a wolf not seven moons
old. Not a day went by when I didn’t think of my mother, of
what my life would be like if she was still with me. Since I
had saved Rissa’s life three moons before, Ruuqo had
accepted me back into the pack, and had even been grateful
to me. But I would never forget. Though I owed him obedience
and allegiance as my leaderwolf, I would never like him.
"Tlitoo came for us at daybreak," I said, trying to get the
words out before Jandru and Frandra arrived. "He told us
that the Greatwolves had changed their minds. I wanted to
make sure the humans were warned." In case the Greatwolves
decided to kill them again, I thought. I saw old Trevegg
watching me and stood straighter. He was always telling me
that I needed to be more confident in my own strength.
"Changed their minds to what?" Rissa asked, stepping up to
stand beside her mate. She was only slightly smaller than
Ruuqo, with a bright white pelt unusual in a Wide Valley
wolf. While Ruuqo had shunned me throughout my puphood,
Rissa had treated me as one of her own pups. I often forgot
that Ázzuen, Marra, and I were not of the same litter. When
an elkryn had nearly trampled Rissa three moons before, it
had been pure instinct that drove me to leap upon it, taking
its nose in my teeth and distracting it so that TaLi and my
pack could kill it. Since then, Rissa had almost treated me
as an equal. A sister, rather than a youngwolf, and it made
me nervous. Once she even called me Neesa, my mother’s name.
My mother had been Rissa’s sister and they had spent their
entire lives together until my mother had been exiled.
"I’m not sure," I admitted. "He said there was trouble, and
that the Greatwolves were coming and that we should go to
the humans as quickly as we could. To warn them."
"And you believed a raven without asking for details?" Rissa
asked, amused. "You’re old enough to know better than that.
And we told Marra that you were to wait for us."
"And how did you expect to warn humans, anyway?" The snide
voice came from my right. "You can’t even talk to them." I
looked at Unnan out of the corner of my eye, wishing with
all my heart that Ruuqo and Rissa had left him at the hunt.
I hadn’t bothered to greet him. He was Ázzuen and Marra’s
littermate, and my greatest enemy in the pack. His small,
weaselly eyes flicked over me. I ignored him and answered Rissa.
"It was Tlitoo. I trust him," I said. "And the ravens don’t
usually lie much about the Greatwolves."
But Rissa was no longer watching me. She looked over my
head, into the trees that surrounded the eastern end of
Wood’s Edge, the direction the Greatwolves would be coming
from. Her nose twitched and her ears shot up. Ruuqo growled,
and Trevegg rose and stood rigid-legged behind the
leaderwolves. All three raised their back fur. I heard Unnan
gasp.
I pricked up my ears to listen for what had startled them
all and felt my own tail stiffen. The Greatwolves were
coming, as we knew they would. But there were too many of
them. Only Jandru and Frandra had followed me from Tall
Grass. Now, more than two dozen heavy paws crushed dry
leaves and sticks, and the scents of seven Greatwolves blew
into the gathering place, assailing our noses with the
scents of anger and menace. When I was a smallpup, there had
been only a few Greatwolves in the valley and most of them
were old. Since the battle at autumn’s end, many more had
come to the Wide Valley.
My heart pounded and my legs shook as I turned in the
direction of the approaching wolves. As I felt the ground
rumble with the growls of my packmates, panic closed my
throat, so I couldn’t have whimpered if I’d wanted to. For
the briefest moment, I considered running, but I stood my
ground with my packmates, wondering if it would be the last
time I would ever do so. Greatwolves came in such numbers
for one reason only—to kill packs of wolves that had
displeased them.