Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) (21 page)

Caspian smiled internally. His friend had gotten better at spinning the truth to his advantage, at least. It was unlike Khelt to lie outright, but even he understood that it would be foolhardy to paint his clan's struggles in an unfavourable light.

"Easy to outwit, are they?" Miral said from his seat opposite. He was leaning against a thick log, one knee up as he etched a piece of bone with the skill of a masterful craftsman. "I hear the Sun People have driven you from your home, Khelt. And now we learn your den mother and seers have abandoned you. Your great status is no longer so great, it seems."

"My daughter was a gift to your clan, Khelt," Adel's father said. His arms were folded as they had been the night before, his voice soft and deep. "I was assured she would hold the title of den mother and become your mate. Now she wanders without the safety of a pack or the status you promised her."

"Her exile is my business," Khelt responded, baring his teeth with a hint of a threat behind his words.

Caspian resisted the urge to intervene. What Khelt said next had the potential to reflect poorly on both their packs, but this was his moment to speak.

"Still, it is of concern," Gheran said. "Your pack has long been known for the wisdom and the number of its seers. It seems you can hold that distinction no longer."

"It is a blow I take without regret," Khelt said. "I have seers enough to tend my pack still, and, fortune willing, a new den mother before long. I am better off without the witch. I warn you, her meddling would be the bane of many a foolish alpha."

Caspian clenched his jaw uncomfortably, catching the curious looks that passed between the others. Adel's father had a dark glare trained on Khelt.

A chuckle from Miral broke the quiet. "The bane of a fool who knows not how to handle a woman, I think. You should have given her to me. My seers are as worthless as the soggy herbs they pretend to divine the future from."

Khelt's broad shoulders swelled. "Question my strength with a challenge, Miral, or keep your tongue to yourself."

Miral was on his feet in an instant, tossing his piece of painstakingly carved bone into the fire like it was nothing. "Ah, a worthy challenge? It has been many years since I cut my wolf's teeth on the flesh of another alpha."

This time Caspian could not stand by and watch without intervening. "A range of mountains stands between the territories the pair of you lay claim to. What have you to win from such a challenge?"

The two alphas stared each other down for a moment longer, but both seemed to realise the good sense of Caspian's words. While they might have been fierce enemies under different circumstances, their clans were so distant from one another that any kind of conflict served little purpose. An alpha might challenge another if he hoped to absorb a smaller pack into his own, but Khelt and Miral led clans so vast that such a prize would cause more problems than it was worth.

It was fortunate, too, for while both alphas matched one another in size, Caspian suspected Miral's age and experience might lend him a distinct edge over Khelt.

With a slow blink of his amber eyes, Miral turned his attention to Caspian. "I thought you were Adel's guard dog?"

"I count friends among many packs," Caspian replied, matching Miral's easy smile.

"And a wise friend he is too," Khelt said, clapping a hand on his companion's shoulder. "I am weary from the journey and have no taste for fighting this night. Unless you wish to cast me out of the circle, then spare no more talk on the troubles of my pack. They are mine to deal with and mine alone."

Caspian felt the tense atmosphere settle slightly. Even without Adel and her seers, the size of Khelt's clan and the territories he lay claim to still put half the other alphas in attendance to shame. His status might have taken a blow, but he was still unquestionably a powerful leader.

They stayed to exchange words with the others briefly, but it was little more than a customary gesture of respect between the alphas. Nothing of real significance would be discussed until the gathering was settled in earnest, with the alphas sitting up all night long to challenge and reconcile the differences that had arisen between their packs over the past three years.

Soon the small gathering began to disperse as the alphas returned to their own private camps, and Caspian made ready to excuse himself and bring word of what had happened back to Adel. But Khelt caught his arm as he turned to go, gesturing in the direction of his own camp on the opposite side of the clearing.

"News will get back to them on its own. Come, sit with me and tell me of all that has happened since we last parted. I have missed your tales and the way you tell them."

Caspian glanced over at the silhouette of Adel's tent atop its hillock, dim and eerie, and then back across the expanse of warm fires littering the clearing in the opposite direction. With a sigh and a smile, he allowed himself to be guided back the way he had come.

Khelt laughed and shook his friend eagerly by the shoulders. "How have you managed all these months without me to take that look of worry off your face? Forget the gathering, forget their talk! We will have time for our worries when there is less good merriment to be had. Tonight I want you by my fire, a haunch of meat in my hand, and a woman in my furs."

It was almost like the pair of them were boys again, before they had ever taken on the responsibility of grown men or been forced to part ways. After so long, Caspian needed a night of such freedom. He smiled, putting thoughts of Adel and the others to the back of his mind.

"I dread to think how many women have littered your furs lately. What is it like, being free to indulge again to your heart's content?"

"Ah, females come and go, but it takes a special one to truly stir a man's blood." He looked at Caspian a little forlornly. "You are the fortunate one of us in that regard, my friend. Tell me of your own love, and perhaps I shall share with you a story or two about mine."

Khelt's company quickly loosened Caspian's tongue, and by the time they were back at his fire the pair of them were talking as Caspian had not talked in many months.

The others clustered around him as he retold the tale of Netya's meeting with the Sun People and Turec's clan. They listened with fascination as he described the lands that lay beyond the mountains. Gasps of fear left their lips as he recounted the night of the flood, and grim nods of understanding followed when he spoke of the gruelling winter thereafter. Caspian's former packmates hung on his every word, until at last he finished the tale, omitting only the confrontation with Miral toward the end. Even in such trusted company, he would not risk letting loose any gossip that might antagonise the other alpha any further.

Interspersed with his own story and continuing on after he finished, he listened to Khelt and old Oke as they told him the tale of their own year. They had not crossed the mountains as they first intended, electing instead to make a den in the foothills to the south. It was a dangerous place for them to settle, bordering on the territory of Adel's old clan, with whom they had been sworn enemies less than a generation prior. But the land was warm and fertile, with eggs to collect from birds on the low slopes of the mountains and fine hunting back in the north. Two of their elders had passed away that winter despite the relative warmth and comfort of their caves, but a new child had also been born that following spring. It had given the pack hope, and Khelt had worked tirelessly to keep his clan's spirits up, leading regular hunts in person and setting routine tasks to keep his people occupied.

By the time the storytelling was over the crescent moon was high in the sky, and Khelt stepped aside from his pack to mingle with the others. It was not uncommon for an alpha to share the fire of another clan, but it was certainly a great honour to all those in attendance. Joining a group of mixed men and women from different packs, Caspian and his friend slipped easily into the jovial atmosphere, and it was several moments before anyone even realised they had an alpha in their midst.

Shrugging off their flattery, Khelt laughed at their jokes and shared in their banter, and before long a man and woman from Alpha Gheran's pack were passing around waterskins filled with a delicious drink of fermented fruits. The taste of it was far sweeter than the bitter, fiery stuff made from seeds that Caspian was used to, and soon he was roaring with laughter as loud as Khelt, his mind contentedly fogged and his worries forgotten.

Their boisterous behaviour attracted others, turning their communal fire into a small gathering as interesting new foods and drinks from half a dozen different packs were passed around, men and women finding pleasurable company at each other's sides, and a few good-natured tussles between wolves breaking out. A few hours later Khelt had his arm around an attractive sandy-haired girl, and Caspian was sharing a waterskin with two young huntresses who seemed loathe to abandon their seats on the ground next to him.

"You waste your time with him, women," Khelt chuckled, removing his hand from the comfortable place it had been nestled beneath his own companion's clothing to gesture at the other two. "He has a beauty of his own waiting for him. A grand seeress, den mother of the days to come!" He laughed, picking up his wooden cup for another drink and sending half of its contents splashing into the fire in the process.

"My friend, you are too kind," Caspian replied, shaking his head in affected exasperation, before addressing his two companions apologetically. "He has it right, though. My furs are filled, and my woman awaits."

"She should learn to share," one of the girls said. "The celebration of the summer fires takes place in but a few days. Will you have eyes for any others on that night?"

"I think not," Caspian said. "Pleasures are easy to fritter away, but love... Ah." He sighed, looking to the sky above. "I must learn it, like the motions of a dance. Take my friend tonight, exhaust him instead of me."

Khelt laughed again. "I would be glad to be exhausted by three such beauties! But it is you they want, curse your handsome eyes, Caspian." He gestured with his cup again. "Ask him why he left me for a clan of women! Fair seers, all of them." The alpha squinted for a moment, then offered a half-shrug. "Most of them."

"You have gotten too much of a taste for that drink, friend," Caspian replied with a smile. "You will be asleep before you have the chance to enjoy any of your other pleasures tonight."

Khelt shook his head. "Only a weak man sleeps away his drink." He swallowed another mouthful, before turning to the women to answer his own self-imposed question. "He loves the attention of girls like you. As any man should! Ah, he pretends he has little taste for it, but I know better." He winked at Caspian. "There is a hot-blooded wolf inside him still."

"And fortunately he knows when to keep his muzzle to the ground," Caspian replied.

They carried on with their drinking, the teasing banter keeping them in high spirits as the night wore on. After a time Caspian found himself sitting back to back with Khelt, one of the huntresses lying on the ground next to him with her head resting against his thigh. She looked up at him curiously in a lull between bouts of laughter, and asked a sincere question.

"What does it mean to be in love?"

Caspian drew a long breath, shrugging his shoulders. "Can anyone say? I do not understand it myself, only that it is more than pleasure, more than companionship. There is no magic to it that I know of, and yet it feels like the work of the spirits."

"Then tell me of your love," the girl said. "What kind of a woman is she? Who is it that can win the heart of a man like you?"

"She is... forever asking questions of the world," Caspian replied, his thoughts growing distant from the conversations around him as he considered. "You would not think it of her at first. There is quietness to her. Meekness, even, but so many times I have seen her overcome it. She has wisdom and bravery in her heart, stronger than she believes."

"It is her strength that you love?"

Caspian's brow furrowed. "No, it is more than that. She is like a budding flower. Fragile, but able to bloom into something wonderful at times. If her petals were forever bared, I might lose the will to nurture her. And if she remained a closed bud, what would there be for me to nurture?"

"Listen to him," Khelt said. "Speaking of women as if they were flowers." But the alpha's ribbing tone was subdued. Even he seemed to have been touched in some way by Caspian's fanciful words.

"She seems fortunate to have a man who would tend her so," the girl said.

"I hope she feels that way," he replied. The conversation around them had dimmed, and the momentary lapse allowed Caspian to hear a snort of contempt from the other side of the fire.

There sat Adel's brother, Karel, and the same grimace of frustration he had worn two days prior still adorned his face. Normally Caspian would have ignored such a thing, but whether it was due to the fermented drink or the sincerity with which he had just spoken his heartfelt words, a pinch of anger bit the back of his throat.

"You have something to say?" he asked of the other male.

Karel shook his head with a barely hidden look of distaste. "You speak elegant words, but few men would waste such talk on a sun wolf."

"Then many men must be great fools. I care not what she is."

"You care not that she will give you weak children and bear a fragile wolf? You are bold to speak of fools when you take such a woman for your own." Karel gave him a dark look. "And when you follow a seer in place of an alpha."