The wolf laid back his ears as if he, too, felt the discomfort of our difference. ‘Dost tha dare to threaten this one, dinrai?’ he asked, and now there was a cold and deadly amusement in his voice. ‘Will tha pack come to avenge tha?’

‘No one will come to revenge me for there will be no funaga left to do so if I fail in the quest laid on me by the oldOnes,’ I sent as coldly as he. ‘Nor will there be any of the Brildane to seek revenge. There will be no hot green valley in the mountains and no shining water. There will be nothing in all the world but wind and stone and lifeless water.’

‘The oldOnes did speak to this one long ago of Innle who will free beasts from the funaga-li,’ sneered the wolf. ‘Now tha comes but tha speaks of the doom of a world. Mayhap tha be a different Innle.’

‘There is but one Innle of beastlegend and if you say I am not that one, then you are blind,’ I sent sharply, knowing that beasts could tell that I was the Seeker. It had something to do with the way they could see a spirit with their waking eyes. There must be something in mine that identified me.

After a long silence, the wolf finally asked, ‘Why dost tha come here, dinrai?’

‘I came to ask the Brildane to accompany me on my quest,’ I said, wishing Darga or Maruman had seen fit to tell me why the wolves were needed.

‘Aye, the Brildane will go with tha if tha quest is to find tha longsleep, dinrai-li,’ a new voice snarled into my mind. I would have winced if I could have moved, for though this mindvoice was less powerful than the mind of the pack leader, it seethed with a complex brew of loathing and madness that made my head spin. Yet strangely, the new mind fitted more comfortably against mine, as if it had communicated before with humans. The speaker was a lean, old wolf with dark grey fur gone to white at the muzzle. He had crept forward from the rest, teeth bared and red tongue lolling and I felt his intention to kill me even as his muscles bunched, and my mind went glassy with terror.

But the pack leader turned his head and gave a sharp snapping bark. The old wolf recoiled, his eyes slitted with rage, and as he slunk back, I noticed that he had lost one ear and that the fur on that side of his head was white.

The leader turned his attention back to me. ‘Speakswift dinrai, for Gobor One Ear will not long be held off. He did be savaged by tha brother and he is not alone in his slaver for vengeance.’

Bewildered, I sent, ‘My brother is long dead, and never did he come to the mountains, let alone do harm to any beast.’