Sorceress of Darshiva

practical?"
    "Probably not, but it's his decision. He thinks it's the right thing to do, and I more or less agree with him. You're going to have to explain some things to her, though. She doesn't have much reason to trust man, and I don't want her to go into a panic when the others catch up with us." He turned to the she-wolf.
    "Everything will be well again, little sister," he told her. "Now, let us go find your young one."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
    The half-grown pup was so emaciated that it could not stand, so Polgara resorted to the simple expedient of picking it up by the scruff of its neck between her jaws and carrying it out of the den.
    "Go meet the others," she instructed Garion. "Don't let them get too close until I've had time to talk with our little sister here. Bring back food, though. Put as much as you can carry in a sack and come right back."
    "Yes, Aunt Pol." He loped back toward the road, changed into his own form, and waited for his friends.
    "We've got a little bit of a problem," he told them when they arrived. "We've found an injured female just up ahead in those woods. She's starving, and she has a young one as well."
    "A baby?" Ce'Nedra exclaimed.
    "Not exactly," he said, going to one of the food packs and beginning to load a stout canvas bag with meat and cheese.
    "But you just said—"
    "It's a puppy, Ce'Nedra. The female is a she-wolf."
    "What?"
    "It's a wolf. She got her paw caught in a trap. She can't run, so she can't hunt. She'll be coming with us—at least until her paw heals."
    "But-"
    "No buts. She's coming with us. Durnik, can you work out some way we can carry her without having the horses go wild?"
    "I'll think of something," the smith replied.
    "Under the circumstances, don't you think this altruism might be misplaced?" Sadi asked mildly.
    "No," Garion said, tying the top of the sack shut, "I don't. There's a hill in the middle of those woods. Stay on this side of it until we can persuade her that we don't mean to harm her. There's water there, but it's too close to her den. We'll have to wait a bit before we can water the horses."
    "What's got you so angry?" Silk asked him.
    "If I had the time, I'd look up the man who set that trap and break his leg—in several places. I've got to go back now. She and the puppy are very hungry." He slung the sack over his shoulder and stalked off. His anger was, he knew, irrational, and there had not really been any excuse for being surly with Ce'Nedra and the others, but he could not have helped himself. The wolfs calm acceptance of death and her mourning for her lost mate had torn at his heart, and anger kept the tears out of his eyes.
    The sack was awkward to carry, once he had changed form, and it kept throwing him off balance, but he stumbled on with his head high to keep his burden from dragging on the ground. Polgara and Belgarath were talking with the she-wolf when he reached the den again. The injured wolf had a skeptical expression in her eyes as she listened.
    "She can't accept it," Polgara said.
    "Does she think you're lying?" Garion asked, dropping the sack.
    "Wolves don't understand the meaning of that word. She thinks we're mistaken. We're going to have to show her. She met you first, so she might trust you a little more. Change back. You'll need your hands to untie the knot in that sack, anyway."
    "All right." He drew his own image in his imagination and changed.
    "How remarkable," the she-wolf said in amazement.
    Belgarath looked at her sharply. "Why did you say that?" he asked her.
    "Did you not find it so?"
    "I am accustomed to it. Why did you choose those particular words?"
    "They came to me. I am no pack-leader, and I have no need to choose my word with care in order to protect my dignity."
    Garion had opened the sack and he laid meat and cheese on the ground in front of her. She began to eat ravenously. He knelt beside the starving pup and began to feed him, being careful to keep his fingers away from the needle-sharp teeth.
    "A little bit at a time," Polgara cautioned. "Don't make him sick."
    When the she-wolf had eaten her fill, she limped to the spring which came bubbling out from between two rocks and drank. Garion picked up the puppy and carried him to the spring so that he could also drink.
    "You are not like the other man-things," the she-wolf observed.
    "No," he agreed. "Not entirely."
    "Are you mated?" she asked.
    "Yes."
    "To a wolf or to one of the shes of the man-things?"
    "To one of the shes of this kind." He tapped