Night of the Wolf Read Online Free

men. None enjoys the emotion. The gray wolf didn’t either. He didn’t like remembering her. The memory of the fleshy passion they’d shared was tainted by the image of her ending.
    For a moment, the wolf felt terror that he sometimes walked on two legs. They were cruel with an inventiveness and a delight he couldn’t comprehend. Yet he partook of their nature. In fact, he was being tempted away from his wild innocence more and more often. This frightened him, but she and others of her kind drew him onward.
    It would take him a hundred years to find out she really hadn’t been beautiful. She hadn’t been young, either. She had borne three children; one died in infancy. She brought up the other two; they were grown when he had met their mother. After the gray wolf found out about this, he was grateful. Grateful they hadn’t met earlier and she had led a good long life before they had their chance encounter.
    The sun dipped below the mountain. The evening breeze ruffled the lake’s mirrored surface and the wolf’s fur.
    He saw the man.
    My,
the wolf thought,
he is a clever one.
The wolf froze. The observer stood in the woods near the top of the hill. He had chosen his position carefully. The breeze blew his scent away from the wolf, and he waited in the long shadow of one of the pines. Only the dark outline of one shoulder and the unmistakable silhouette of a human neck and face gave him away. As the wolf watched, the day faded, his eyes gathered in the last light, and he saw a gleam—the white of a human eye.
    He turned his head deliberately and studied the observer, letting him know he’d been seen. The man made no move, threatening or otherwise, so the wolf slipped into the water, swam the pond, and was gone.
     
    What is it? Blaze wondered as he made his way back to Mir’s house. All he’d seen was a wolf. True, the thing was a very large wolf, bigger than most men. The thick gray pelt suggested a mountain hunter, one who made his home in the high passes, moving with his fellows across glaciers. Blaze had seen him clearly in the shadows near the lake. But that thick gray and white pelt would be invisible against snow.
    Blaze shivered and not entirely at the rapidly deepening chill of evening. Yes, one struggling along through the drifts might look directly at this gray creature and not see him until he realized he was staring into a pair of large, yellow-brown eyes only a few feet away . . . and ahead of him. By then, there would be time for only a few seconds of prayer.
    He’d heard of men taken by these aristocratic wild killers, even men traveling with large armed parties. When he was told the stories, he’d always felt some impatience with these fools and with their escorts, who had sometimes been brought before him, asking for mercy. Telling their tale of having lost a companion or an important individual, and pleading it was not their fault, saying they either heard no cry or only a very brief one. Then, when they quickly retraced their steps, of finding only a few drops of blood soaking into the snow. After seeing this one, even at a distance, he suddenly felt a great deal more sympathy for their plight.
    As he was pushing his way through an exceptionally thick patch of undergrowth, he heard a whisper of sound behind him. Blaze’s mouth went suddenly dry and he found his knees weren’t steady. Mir claimed this wolf was sometimes a man, and seemed always able to think like a man.
    The creature had seen him and there was nothing to prevent the giant predator from misleading him by going off in one direction, then—as soon as he was out of sight—turning and following him through the dark wood.
    Blaze punched at his clothing and found the lantern Mir had given him under his mantle, hanging by a strap from his shoulder. He kindled a flame quickly by striking flint against an iron ring on his finger. As the wick caught, he realized his hands were shaking. He lifted the lantern high and saw he was in a