"Maverick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bethke Bruce)

Chapter 7. Maverick

The spur of rock jutted straight out from the side of the mountain forming a natural balcony. Maverick sat on the edge of the spur, drinking in the clean pine smell of the forested valley below and watching the moons’ light glitter and dance on the river in the distance. Smallface was now near its zenith, and it cast a cool, white light with almost no shadow. Largeface, just barely above the horizon, was a dull orange globe the color and shape of a vingfruit with a bite taken out of it.

Somehow, the sight of the two moons together in the sky stirred something deep and primal in Maverick’s soul. As if the two were directly linked, his excitement grew as Largeface rose. He paced nervously around the rock spur. A half-dozen times he yelped sharply when he thought he heard something. His excitement only grew stronger when the sounds turned out to be false alarms.

Then the sound he’d been waiting for came wafting gently on the wind, and it was raw, beautiful, and absolutely unmistakable.

At first, it was very soft and distant. Arooo. Just one voice at first, lonely, plaintive, and far away. The sound sent chills up and down Maverick’s spine and set his hackles standing on end.

Then another voice joined in, a little closer. Arooooo! The first voice responded, and the forests and mountains threw back the echo of the ancient, wordless cry.

No, those weren’t echoes, those were yet more voices, joining in the chorus of a song that was as old as his race. Voices joined, and picked up, and repeated. AROOO! The call carried for miles across the hills and valleys. Not just miles; hundreds of miles, as the voices followed the rising moon west across the land. As it had on certain nights for thousands of years, the song chased the twin moons clear across the world, from the eastern shores to the western sea.

When he judged the time to be right, Maverick threw his head back, flattened his ears, and joined in. AROOOO! I am Maverick! I am here, my brothers! I join you! AROOOOOO!

Other intelligible words began rising out of the joyous, incoherent howl of BeastTongue. I am ChippedFang.

I am DoesNotFollow.

I am RaggedEar.

I am SmellsBad. I join you!

The Howl Network had just come on line.

The Howl Network reached from sea to sea, and from the land of AlwaysSnow to the Uncrossable Desert. It covered the land, but it was not terribly efficient. Maverick had plenty of time to think while listening to the threads of news that twisted through the air.

This time, though, he thought silently. How strange, lad. The pack-kin insult and despise the outcasts. If they catch you in their territory - and outnumber you by at least three to one - they ’ ll attack you, and even try to kill you.

Yet if it weren ’ t for the outcasts, not a one of them would ever know what was happening just fifty trots outside his pack ’ s territory.

Oops. A message that he found interesting echoed through the night. Maverick picked it up, repeated it, and added a few comments of his own. Then he went back to thinking.

Hmm. I add comments, and ChippedFang adds comments, and DoesNotFollow adds comments… Might be interesting sometime to get the originator and the final receiver of the message together, to see how much the message changes along the line.

More messages wafted through the damp spring air. Weather reports from out west; looked like heavy rain this year. Further accounts of renewed fighting between two feuding packs in the southeast; oh, those two had been fighting for years without resolution. A hunting report on the grazer migration in the north; it seemed the calves were fat and slow this year, and the sharpfangs few in number. Maverick dutifully picked up and repeated each message without comment, then went back to his first line of thought.

Yes, the pack-kin hate loners. They attack you; they warn their pups that they ’ II turn out like you if they aren ’ t good. They call you pups o/the FirstBeast, and blame you/or everything that ’ s wrong with their cozy little world.

Maverick thought of the last pack he’d encountered, less than a week before. The freshly healed scar on his leg gave him another sharp twinge, but he smiled anyway, and for a moment lost himself in a memory of soft young fur and a certain long pink tongue.

Yes, the pack-kin hate you. But on warm spring evenings when the mood is in the air, their virgin daughters seekyou out.

And when their huntleaders are all dead or driven off by internal fighting, who do they ask to be their new leaders?

Maverick stood up on all fours a moment, yawned as wide as his jaw would allow, and indulged in a long stretch that ran from his haunches clear out to the toes of his forepaws. Then he treated himself to one more smile.

“Face it, kid. They’re just plain jealous. ”

Oops! A new message was coming through the night, and he’d almost missed it. Maverick quickly sat down, cocked his ears, and listened attentively to the voice-he thought it was RaggedEar-that relayed the story.

“-report from the eastern lakes country. The kin of PackHome are seeing GodBeings again.

“PackHome was the scene of last year’s so-called ‘Hill of Stars’ incident, in which an enormous, shining sanddigger’s nest reportedly appeared in the midst of isolated hunting territory.

“The sudden appearance of the Hill of Stars was accompanied by an invasion of ‘WalkingStones. ’ These creatures, which walked on their hind legs at all times and had no smell, killed several kin by throwing lightning from their fingertips.

“ At about the same time, a mysterious kin known as SilverSides joined the pack. She destroyed several of the WalkingStones, and forced the GodBeing that lived in the Hill of Stars to come out for single combat. Local kin say that SilverSides became a GodBeing herself and went into the Hill of Stars.

“Since then, SilverSides has been seen only once, in the company of a strange, half-kin, half-GodBeing creature named Wolruf. ”

Wolruf?Maverick wondered. What ’ s a wolruf?

“LifeCrier, who speaks the history for the kin of PackHome, says that SilverSides was a gift of the OldMother and has returned to her. LifeCrier insists that SilverSides will return to lead the hunt and protect all the kin.

“Young kin from many packs have come to the eastern lakes country to hear LifeCrier speak and hoping to glimpse the GodBeings. But there are stories of widespread confusion.

“In the meantime, the faithful wait, and the Hill of Stars itself remains silent. This report was first cried by StormBringer on the eastern lakes echo. ”

Maverick sat quietly a few moments longer, listening to the last reverberations of the message die out against the mountainside. Then the yips and howls started up again as other kin picked up the story and repeated it. Maverick cleared his throat, laid his ears back, took a deep breath

And thought better of it. “PackHome, eh? In the eastern lakes country?” He squeezed out a tight-lipped smile, got to his feet, and trotted over to where the spur of rock joined the side of the mountain. “Sounds like a chaotic, leaderless mess to me. ” At the top of the trail he paused to look at the stars and get a good fix on the direction he was heading. Then he started carefully picking his way down the talus-covered slope.

“Just the place for a strong kin with a little ambition, eh, lad?”

He looked up at the stars one more time and noted that LargeFace was now well up in the sky. In this phase the shadowy outline of SplitEar, the kin in the moon, stood out very clearly.

Maverick couldn’t help but feel that old SplitEar, first pup of the OldMother, was smiling down on him.