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.""Humans can be that way," Blind Seer replied."Still, I wish we were a larger pack than we three.My nose tellsme that the forest is filled with those who could harm us if they didn't care to preserve this Bruck."Firekeeper shrugged in wordless reply.That had always been the risk.She still felt fortunate that they hadmanaged to capture a human, even if it was this fainting Bruck.She had thought they would need to begin with aBeast, and hope a human would come in time."It all seemed like a great and noble adventure at the start, you know," Bruck said, his voice thin and wispy withshock."I don't expect you to believe me, but that's how it seemed.""'It'?" Firekeeper asked, tilting her head to one side in a wolfish expression of confusion."I not understand.""I didn't make myself very clear, did I?" Bruck pulled himself from Firekeeper's hold, then sat up."I don't supposeyou would let me move to where I could lean against that tree track.Sitting on the ground this way, not being able tosupport myself with my hands, is making my muscles ache.""Not try anything," Firekeeper warned, tapping her Fang."If promise, then you can lean.""I do promise," Bruck said, accepting her help in getting to his feet, then shuffling a few steps over to theindicated tree."You see, I think I want to tell you about it about our great and noble venture, and what came from itin the end."XXV"IT WAS A great and noble venture," Bruck began again, sitting straight, his posture somehow managing tosuggest that he was holding up the tree and not the other way around.Firekeeper settled in to listen.Wolves like stories.Having no writing, that is how they pass along everything thatis important and many things that are merely interesting or amusing.Firekeeper listened to Bruck's voice feeling itselfinto the words as wolf would listen, hearing those words, but never losing awareness of the rhythms of the forestaround her.If this offer to tell a story was all some sort of trick, something meant to distract her from watchfulness, thenBruck would be sadly disappointed."Do you know anything of Virim?" Bruck asked."Of Virim and his great vision?""Know some of Virim," Firekeeper said."Tell of this vision." Bruck nodded."Virim decided that he wasn't goingto let the New World be destroyed by those who ruled the Old.Virim's creed if you can call it a creed; his system ofbelief, rather was neat and logical, and differed on one key point from those beliefs held by most of those in the OldWorld.In the Old World, those who ruled believed that because humans and their magic had come to dominate thoselands we knew, then they could do the same wherever they went.Is that fairly clear?"Firekeeper nodded, frustrated that Bruck could talk so much and say so little, yet unwilling to slow this flood oftalk.She'd learned that freely speaking humans often said more than they intended.Bruck went on."Virim believed that if humans wanted to dominate those places where there were no otherinhabitants than humans and what you would call Cousins, well, that was fine.However, when it came to dominatingplaces where there were already intelligent inhabitants, then he believed they should show some respect for those whohad come there first.""But not if they were humans," Firekeeper said, making sure she understood this, "or Cousins.""That's right," Bruck said."Virim was realistic in his thinking.He felt that humans had always competed withother humans, even if, or maybe even especially if, those humans didn't look particularly like them.He thought thathumans had done a fairly good job of either dominating, destroying, or avoiding Cousin-kind.However, he thoughtthat the Beasts of the New World fell into a new category and should be respected as such."Firekeeper blinked.What else could Beasts be thought of as being? she thought, wishing she could ask Blind Seer, but unwilling tovoice anything until she was certain just how much this Bruck understood.I suppose that humans might have thoughtof the Royal Beasts as being like another type of humans, just with another shape.That would be very human.Neverhaving lived close to other bloods, never having seen how different wolf is from bear is from puma is from deer, theymight well believe that all thinking creatures were merely humans despite their skins and senses and ways of living."When the rulers of the Old World decided that the time had come to push west of the mountains, deeper into theNew World, Virim tried to dissuade them.He failed, and decided to take more direct action.""To make querinalo," Firekeeper said, impatient now."And we know it worked."Bruck's smile turned sly."But isn't knowing how it worked what you have come here to learn? Listen just a littlemore."Firekeeper felt a bit ashamed of herself."Talk," she said."Please.""Querinalo," Bruck said, "is less a disease or illness in the conventional sense than it is a magical curse thatmimics the course of a disease."Firekeeper nodded."A curse," Bruck said."A draining curse, a wasting curse, a curse that would remove the threat to the New Worldwe had sworn to protect.We thought ourselves noble.We thought ourselves virtuous.It was not until the corpsesbegan to accumulate that we realized we were also genocidal."Firekeeper tilted her head to one side, not knowing that last word.She thought about asking Bruck what it meant,but there was a strange look on his face, and she held her silence."Can you believe we thought about killing without thinking about the deaths?" Bruck asked.Firekeeper nodded.She could indeed.She had seen that years ago, when angry human had fought angry human ina venture they called "war." Only afterward had any seemed to consider that the "enemies" that they had fought werealso mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, each one and every one, no matter how poor andhow small.beloved by someone.Bruck must have seen her understanding, for he went on."But what we had done was worse than that.We knew we would be draining away.We thought someonethought, I can't remember just who after all these years that it would be a pity if all that life, all that energy, went towaste.So something else was added to the curse.We ad."He froze in midbreath, in midword, bound hands rising to claw at his throat.He made choking sounds, gutturaland wet, smothered as if his breath was being squeezed from him.Horrified, Firekeeper watched as the color began to drain from Bruck's face.Bruck's skin was naturally palealready, but this was different.The living pinkness of his skin was draining away from top to bottom, so his foreheadwas white in contrast to his nose, then his nose in contrast to lips suddenly white.Even his hair seemed to have lessshine.Firekeeper wanted to help the struggling man, but although she surged to her feet, Fang in hand, she could seenothing at which to strike, although that nothing was strangling Bruck.She thought it could not be a good thing to have his head lost-blood, so she thrust her Fang back into its Mouth.Grabbing Bruck, she turned him so his feet were higher than his head.Color did not return immediately, but Bruck seemed to breathe a touch easier.She was about to see if she couldturn him completely around, perhaps hang his legs over a tree limb, when a low growl warned her back."Keep watch," Blind Seer said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]