Greyhawk Adventures: Master Wolf Part 20

"Tam," whispered Mika, willing the wolf to live with all of his being. He started to rise, time still frozen, and saw the princess coming at him.

Without thinking, without premeditation, Mika held out his hand, the one that held the gem, and said the magic words, the wolf spell, at the very moment she sank her nails into his arm.

Time fragmented. Splintered apart. Then slowly rea.s.sembled. Everything was the same, but everything was different.

Hornsbuck sat on the floor still singing his song.

RedTail lifted his muzzle and howled.

The roan stamped his foot and snorted, tentatively nibbling a weed that had sprung up behind the broken altar. The warm sun filtered down on the strange tableau in the ruined temple. Shone down on Mika as he walked slowly out of the temple cradling Tam in his arms. Shone down on the small female wolf that followed closely at his heels, her thin pointed muzzle b.u.mping into his legs at his every step. She whined uncertainly, as though afraid of being left behind. Her tail was held low, curled between her long delicate hind quarters.

She whimpered as the man walked away as though she did not exist. Then she sat down on her black furry haunches and lifted her dainty muzzle to the warm sun and howled. The sound echoed through the empty ruin, reverberating from one rounded wall to the next, a peculiar keening wail that held an oddly human quality of pain and grief.

As the last echo faded from the air, the wolf lowered her head. She turned her eyes, one green, one blue, and sought out the retreating figure of the man. Rising slowly, she stared after him for a long uncertain moment, then hesitantly, she crept forward, and followed in his footsteps.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Rose Estes lives in a house in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which is older than she is, with a horde of kids and cats that keep her busy writing for a living. She originated the ENDLESS QUEST series of books for TSR, and has written a number of children's books, including Children of the Dragon and Trail of Death. Her pre-historic adventure novel, Blood of the Tiger, first of a trilogy, will be published later in 1987.

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