Wolf in Night
by TARA K. HARPER
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Windows Vista / XP / 2000, Mac OS X, Sony Reader Features
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Windows 98+, Tablet PC, Pocket PC 2003 Features
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Windows PC, Palm, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, SymbianOS, Blackberry, iLiad, eBookMan, and more. Features
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All Palm & Pocket PC handheld devices plus all Windows and Macintosh computers. Features
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Wolf in Night Summary
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THE TIME IS NOW. Raised on a foreign world where telepathic wolves hunt in the mountains and mysterious aliens guard against the encroachment of humanity, Nori has grown up scouting in the wilderness. Like her mother before her, she searches for dangers that could devastate the isolated towns scattered across the countryside. But the wolves have already encountered those forces. Now, disturbed by the sense of death along the broken cliffs of Ariye, they reach out to one who can help them. Unsuspecting, Nori answers the Grey Ones’ call–only to find herself mentally bonded to a half-grown, ferocious wolf. Spies and assassins stalk the scouts and wolfwalkers while a deadly threat, once thought to be contained, spreads across the land. Caught between the wolves and the horror of plague, and with hired hunters at her heels, Nori is hounded deep into the wilderness to begin a journey that must end in victory…or death. |
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I A wolf doesn’t choose his wolfwalker, He can’t help being drawn to your side; There’s a tiny place in his brain and yours Which seeks the other’s mind. It’s a need, a desire, a hunger in both, An addiction that pulls like a chain, It resonates between you, like the sun Blinding and swamping your thoughts, Like the wind rising and falling, falling, Like the packsong calling, calling. It binds you like two halves of a knot That cannot come undone. —excerpt from Who Hunts the Wolves Afternoon, just west of Willow Road . . . The wolf watched from the shadows with a predatory sense, an animal tang of hunger. Evening was approaching fast, when color would shift into shades of grey and the air would grow cool with danger. The young wolf knew what would come with the darkness. He was a year old, experienced enough that the hunt was no longer fearsome, but still young enough that it was something he eagerly sought. This time, he hunted alone. He hunched beside the roots with a waxleaf tickling his fur. He flicked his ears absently. The yearling liked the weak warmth of spring. Deep winter was hard hunting, especially since it would be two more years before he came into his full strength. Spring meant creatures weak with hunger or heavy with their young. It meant easy running in soft earth, not deep drifts of snow. He inhaled quickly, trying to catch the scent of his prey. From the shadows, his golden eyes stared unblinking, seeking even a blurred glimpse of movement, but the thick hedge remained impenetrable to his gaze. Overhead, dark vines climbed along the spiny barrier bushes. The vines here were old enough that they stretched up into the arch of trees that hung over the man-made trails. They were two wide streams of white, those man-trails, made of wood so firm it was hard as stone. He’d run on such trails in winter when their wood-warmth kept them from freezing. At night, they glowed like the moons, and the humans used them like highways, clattering this way and that. They didn’t seem to care that any hunter could hear them. They didn’t care about scents, either, for dozens of strange, nose-clogging odors clung to that long line of movement. It was hard to separate out the things from which the odors came. Some were forest smells carried along with the man-things, like the smell of the danger-fang, the tano, and that of the tiny, venomous weibers. Others were strictly man-scent: sharp smells, unpleasant ones, metal grease and oils. Then there was the smell of the spiny barrier that the yearling crouched behind. It was a man-thing, too, planted deliberately, according to the pack elders. It stank to keep the beasts away and wouldn’t harm the wolves. Unpleasant, yes, but the other side meant safety. The yearling’s ears flicked again at an impression of motion much closer to his position. He was not mistaken. At the base of the bushes, slow blue flowers closed their soft, hungry mouths on the gnats that fluttered nearby. Everything was thickening and strengthening, not just with spring, but with the coming dusk. On the other side of the hedge, the behemoths rumbled, unaware, unflinching, unstoppable. Rishte could hear little over their noise, but he knew his prey had moved beyond him. He scanned the roadside fruitlessly. He could feel the creature like the prickling of fur when one steps up to a trap. It was waiting, faintly wanting him as much as he wanted it. Calling for him to approach. Like an itch just under the skin, it clawed at his consciousness. It had been there all day. At dawn it had begun to tug like a packmate on the rough edge of play. In the grey light of morning, it had crept through the forest. It had grown stronger as the pack moved out warily to hunt the thin eerin that grazed eagerly on fresh |
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eBooks > Titles > Authors > Science Fiction > Science Fiction > TARA K. HARPER > Wolf in Night