Read Online The Golden Swan by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online

a wolf again, and I whined and barked aloud with the joy of it. From a standing start I leaped away, rushed into the thicket of night, ran down a rabbit almost before I knew it was there. I beg your pardon, little sister, but I am famished , I gasped, and I ripped it up on the spot, bolted down the warm, sustaining meat, food and drink in one, so good! Then I thought of Frain and I was ashamed. I had eaten and had saved nothing for him. I would kill him a deer, I thought, all by myself. No, I would not be able to drag such a large carcass back to him.… I found the rabbit’s nest and absently bit down the little morsels it contained. I would have to find something I could take back to Frain. It was dawn by the time I returned to him, trotting along with a large hare in my mouth. Frain was awake, sitting and looking worried, waiting for me. I bounded up to him and laid the hare at his feet, and for a moment he looked as if he might faint. I had not considered how my new form would shock him, and I cringed in apology.
    â€œDair?” he whispered.
    I swung my head up and down in an exaggerated nod.
    â€œWell. You make a lovely wolf.” He blinked and swallowed, recovering. He touched the hare. “Thank you. But how am I to cook it? All sorts of riffraff will see the smoke and come for breakfast.”
    I stood up, stretching, rippling my muscles, and gave him a meaningful look. He laughed a low laugh.
    â€œJust let them try, you say? All right, Dair.”
    He cooked and ate, and as it turned out no one disturbed us. By the time he was done morning was half spent, so we made short miles that day. But I caught him a coney for his supper, and I could see the strength returning to him. It made me glad. I felled a wild pig near our camp that night and feasted and showed him the carcass in the morning so that he could roast himself a haunch.
    We journeyed on. I kept to my wolf form, worrying fitfully that I might not be able to find my way out of it again but knowing in a deeper way that I would make a change when it was time. After several days we found ourselves in a slightly more settled country. Homesteads lay widely scattered between woodlots and overgrown meadows. I hoped Frain would ask some human for news of Maeve, for I had heard nothing of a haunt in the forest talk. It must have been because animals do not fear such things the way people do—I could not suggest a sortie to Frain, of course. I could scarcely tell him anything at all.
    He did his scouting on his own. The day after I killed a young deer he disappeared into a cottage with a slab of the venison. I waited in a thicket for him, and presently he returned to me with bread, blackberries, cheese and news.
    â€œThe south road to Jabul runs only a few days from here,” he reported. “Once we find it, we should be able to follow it north to the place Trevyn named.” He walked on cheerfully.
    But there was to be no walking in the days that followed. During the night, as bad luck would have it, Frain became ill. Some strange human ailment—something in the food had affected him. Pain bent him in knots, terrible pain, and by morning he was out of his mind, whether from the cramps or fever or fatigue I was not certain. He lay panting and did not recognize me when I sat beside him.
    â€œWhy, hello, Father,” he said with a grim heartiness that chilled me.
    I stared. Soon he reached up and touched my fur and laughed, a strained, unhealthy laugh.
    â€œFabron, the dog-king of Vaire! Scion of staghounds.” Grasping my neck, he pulled himself up, sitting and feeling at the points of my ears. He frowned in puzzlement, trying to smooth them down to lie flat as a staghound’s ought. “No, no, you are a usurper, I keep forgetting,” he murmured. “You will die for that someday, Father, you know you will. Destiny—”
    I whined in inquiry, and he lay back and wagged a finger at me, gravely