Home, the den, the mate, the cub.
His low voice was cold with fury. “You think you can replace my family with some ghost woman? That I want someone else in my heart? That I want to be someone else in your eyes? I want what I was, not this. I want what I had,” he snarled.
The wolf’s yellow eyes gleamed.
Abruptly, he turned away, breaking the link between them. He knew the wolf was still close. “If I hunt,” he muttered, splashing back to the bank, “I’ll do it because I want what I will find, not because you force it on me.”
His words seemed to fade into the gray, met by a sense of lupine satisfaction as if Talon had somehow agreed with the wolf’s urging.
He cursed again to the water. “I’ll be no pawn of wolves or men,” he muttered. In his skull, the wolves disagreed, and they gnawed at the inside of his thoughts as he stalked back to find his breakfast.
In camp, Ki was cursing to start the day. Beetles had gotten into his bow bag, and the bowstring was half shredded. “Moons-damned, pickled crap of a constipated cow,” Ki snarled quietly as he unwound the fragments of the string.
Talon snorted as he passed the brown-haired man. “You don’t even know what a cow is.”
“Not all of us live only by the sword, Talon. Some of us went to school.” Ki pushed the curly, silky hair from his eyes. It was the man’s one vanity, and he never wore it braided. Someday, thought Talon, it would get him killed. He studied Ki for a moment. In some ways, Ki was the opposite of everything Talon had learned from his father and the other weapons masters: Never take the first blow, for any damage is disadvantage. Test your enemy with opportunity, but don’t actually let him hit you. Strike first from strength; don’t wait for false weakness. Keep your hair trimmed and your eyes clear.
Ki was what Drovic called a secondhand fighter. The brown-haired man let his opponent strike first, so that he could see his attacker’s style of fighting; then he hit back fast and hard. When he created openings, he gave too much advantage to his enemy to draw that first feint out into a committed blow. After sixteen years on first venges and then raids, Ki was collecting scars the way a deer collected ticks.
Talon had begun to think that Ki’s icy demeanor while fighting was a mask, not a true picture. Whereas Talon’s mind seemed to crystallize in action, Ki seemed to be blinded by the ice. Talon’s awareness was a heightened state in which he saw every movement with an instinctively accurate realization of risk. Ki seemed to be coldly dangerous, not with heightened awareness, but as a desperate mask that covered chaotic sensation. The man was a secondhand fighter because he reacted to what he felt, not what he saw. Ki had to feel the threat first as movement, and he might not ever actually see it. Only the man’s reflexes had so far kept him from getting killed, and age and the cumulation of scores of injuries would slow those down before long. Talon shook his head at his own thoughts. Ki was as much an enigma as any man who rode with Drovic for any length of time, and he answered the other man dryly. “School for six years barely gets you to the study of dnu, let alone the cows of the Ancients.”
Ki searched for another bowstring. “So you think you know about cows?”
“Do you?”
“It’s a bollusk with split hooves.”
“That’s a goat,” Talon corrected absently, tugging on the pack straps to check their strength.
“What?”
“Goats have split hooves.”
“That’s the only difference?”
He shrugged. “Cows have four stomachs. Bollusks have one. You’d be better off checking teeth if you want to tell the difference between the animals of oldEarth.”
Ki gave him a suspicious look as he wound the new string on his bow. “What do you mean, teeth?”
“Those things in your mouth that help you chew.” Talon finished checking his own gear.
“You mean they have or haven’t any?”
Talon grunted something noncommittally.
Ki scowled as he bent the bow to test it. “Well, nine hells on your backside, Talon, Drovic has bragged often enough about your education that if you know about stomachs and hooves, you must know about that.” Satisfied with the repair, he unstrung the bow and packed it. “So are there any or not?”
“What?”
“Front teeth.”
“In a goat?”
“No, in a cow.”
“Moonworms.” Talon rolled his eyes and led his dnu away.
“No one ever talks about cow teeth,” Ki muttered.
Talon watched him toss the ends of the old bowstring into the refuse pit. By now, insect scavengers like those in that pit would have left Jervid’s bones and moved on to fresher meals. Gelbugs, largons, chameleons, worms . . . Within hours of death, Jervid’s body would have been a stiff and half-hollowed carcass; within days, it would have been clean as a ten-year ham bone. The Ancients had a saying: “Three flies eat as much as a lion.” If oldEarth flies were anything like this world’s largons and worms, Talon could well believe it. The only things they would have left would be the metals on Jervid’s gear. No raider had taken those coins or weapons. It was one of Drovic’s rules. One could take another raider’s life, but not his wealth, his home, or his mate. That would be a breaking of brotherhood, a breaking of the pack. It was one more thing that set Drovic’s band apart from other raiders.
Talon glanced left at Sojourn. Sojourn had not known that Talon had killed Biekin back in that town. Talon knew that his silence had probably led Sojourn to assume that the townsman had killed Biekin, and that Talon had in turn killed the townsman. No doubt Sojourn had thought Biekin’s copper had been free for the taking. Talon rubbed his jaw and eyed Sojourn speculatively. The brotherhood was already broken, but the other man did not yet know it.
The slender man glanced at him and caught something in his expression. “All right?”
Talon shrugged deliberately. “Sore as a one-legged dog,” he returned tersely. He slung his saddle bags onto his dnu.
Sojourn grinned at the oldEarth saying. “Dogs have teeth.”
“Dogs are polite bihwadi. They bark first, bite later. You hear a dog, at least you’ve had a warning.”
Sojourn’s voice became soft. “As it is with the wolves?”
Talon stilled for an almost imperceptible moment, then shrugged casually. “Wolves aren’t half as mean as dogs. It’s why the oldEarthers found it so easy to kill them near to extinction.”
The other man installed his bow on his saddle. “You’ve a mean, cold streak yourself, Talon.”
“Thought that was part of a leader’s job,” he muttered, lashing his sleeping bag behind his packs.
Sojourn paused. He kept his voice low. “You’re not going to keep leading anyone if someone pikes you for it.”
Talon gave the other man a long look. “That someone will find that my bite is worse than my bark.”
Sojourn raised his eyebrow. “That would be a fight to see.”
“Which fight?”
“Drovic and you.”
“Drovic? You think he would challenge me over a little dissatisfaction?” Talon yanked the cinch strap tight. “Even if he was of a mind to do so, I wouldn’t fight him over that.”
Sojourn raised one slender eyebrow. “Now that raises the question: Over what, then?”
Talon checked his botas. “Over nothing—as long as he keeps to his goals and leaves me to keep to mine. I won’t challenge him while I ride with him. We share blood, not just bread, he and I.”
“Honor among family or honor among thieves,” Sojourn murmured.
Talon swung up in the saddle. “It is a flexible concept,” he agreed.
The other man looked at him sharply.
But Talon shrugged, and there was nothing in his expression that could have been taken as insult.
As they rode out, Talon knew that Sojourn watched him closely. It was as if the other raider knew that Talon’s mind was clouded, not just with the wolves, but with rage and grief and hatred. Like
his father before him, Talon had been betrayed, left for dead, his family gone. It was history repeating itself, and in blood, always in blood. Talon had regained part of his memory since that aborted raid, but even the parts he did remember were patchy and starting to fade again like grass in summer sun. If it kept on like this, by the end of the year he’d be lucky to know his own name.
A wolf growled faintly in his mind, breaking his thoughts. Instantly, Talon stiffened. He pulled up short, a warning on his breath, and Morley and Ebi almost ran him down as he slowed. The oaths as the other riders piled up were thick as lice.
“Talon?” Sojourn asked sharply.
He smoothed his expression from the blankness of listening to the wolves. “Danger,” he said shortly.
“A venge?”
He shook his head, but it wasn’t an answer. A stinger bit the back of his neck, and he slapped it, squishing it against his skin. He took a breath and whistled a sharp blast to call his father, followed by a trill and a rising one. Ahead, the other riders came to a straggling halt. “Back to the last trailhead,” he shouted.
In the lead, Drovic gestured for the rest of the raiders to remain where they were, and instead cantered to his son. “Report,” he snapped. “And don’t use that whistle again for anyone but me. That’s a family tone, not for others. Use the standard call-back trill.”
Talon met his flinty gaze with one of his own. “Two flocks of pelan flew up to the right. I caught a glimpse as we hit an opening.” It was truth, but not the answer; he had read the threat from the wolves. “There’s something in the forest.”
Nearby, Ebi slapped at his neck, then his cheek. “Pissing moons,” Strapel cursed beside him. The tiny stingers were irritating. A dnu jerked, and Drovic’s gaze sharpened. “Talon?”
Another stinger bit Talon’s neck, and his dnu shifted uneasily. He slapped at the insect. But when he took the reins again, the color of the dead insect on his palm caught his eye. The small splotch was solid red, not yellow-red as it should have been. And in the back of his skull, through that faint gray fog, he saw a red shadow hum over the brush. The wolves were high up looking down on the forest, safe above the swarm. Their unease was for Talon, not the pack.
“Moons, it’s a swarm,” he said sharply. “Cover your eyes.” He didn’t wait for Drovic. He kicked his dnu to a gallop. The riding beast needed no urging; the growing cloud of stingers had it prancing in place.
Drovic spurred his dnu after Talon. The milling riders turned and charged after them. Behind them, the air buzzed as more stingers flew out of the heavy brush. Talon didn’t waste time with orders. Those insects were scouts, not even the leading edge, but they were already thick in the air. The following swarm wouldn’t kill the raiders intentionally; the stingers were going for the dnu. Either way, falling or stopping was death.
“The trailhead,” he shouted to Drovic.
Drovic slapped at his ear. “That trail turns east.”
Near the rear of the group, neVoan’s dnu reared up, unseating him. Piven’s dnu, next in line, panicked and bolted sideways into the brush. Piven’s scream as the swarm caught up was lost in neVoan’s shrieking.
“Moons,” Talon cursed. He could do nothing, nothing. This wasn’t a foe to fight, but to flee.
Drovic did not look back. “They’ll hold the swarm for a while.”
Talon cursed at the callousness.
“Rye Road is ahead,” Drovic continued sharply.
“That will put us ahead of the leading edge like rabbits before the wolves,” Talon returned in a hard voice. “The east trail will take us up the ridge, above the swarm till it passes.”
Drovic cast him a dark glance at his choice of words, but nodded his agreement. Behind them, a thick arm of stingers swirled around the downed riders and dnu who now lay still on the rootroad.
They pulled up hard at the trailhead. Talon jumped down. First in, first duty—the rule of the road. He sprinted into the brush. Wajke, Roc, and Weed joined him quickly, hastily holding or tying back the worst of the branches. Drovic barely waited for them to clear the trail before leading the raiders through. “We’ll wait at the summit,” Drovic told him. He spurred his dnu to a gallop.
The others blasted past. Talon kept his arm over his eyes to protect it from the dust. One whipping bough caught Weed on his cauliflower ear, leaving a line of blood. It automatically attracted a stray stinger. Weed didn’t bother to curse. He just waited for the dnu to pass, then slapped futilely at the swelling bite and let the branches gently back over the trail.
Roc and Wakje grabbed the reins of the four dnu to lead them out of scent range of the swarm, but the dnu fought the reins, chittering their fear. Wakje dodged a foreleg, and Roc swore as one of her beasts nipped at her hands. She forced herself to croon. The dulcet tones were at odds with the violence in the woman’s eyes. Talon grinned as he noted that the words she sang were all curses.
A few more stinger scouts found Talon. “Four, five minutes,” he told Weed. The other man nodded. They twisted some brush into crude sweepers, moving quickly to brush the trail. Even a swarm would not make them forget the threat of a curious venge. Any riders who stopped would see the brush marks as distinctly as tracks, but Talon was hiding their turnoff only from a casual eye that would pass at a fair clip.
Weed and Talon broke their crude brooms apart, slapped at the growing cloud of stingers, and ran for the chittering dnu. Weed quickly checked the brush for the loose threads that he always seemed to shed, found one, and jerked it free as he vaulted into the saddle.
Talon felt his tension grow as he looked back quickly to judge any telltale signs, then kicked his dnu into a gallop with the others. Behind them, the stingers hummed on the road, then spread out loosely over the forest. A thin arm followed the trail for a moment, then curled smoothly back into the main wash of insects that drowned the brush. Talon felt the adrenaline surge leave his body as they climbed above the swarm. The road below would not be safe for hours, possibly not till morning, but that was no longer his worry. They could slow now to let their dnu catch their breath.
A flash of gray caught the corner of his eye as he approached a fork in the trail. East and north. The wolves were eager.
Talon nodded. He could turn off, keep riding east, stay behind the swarm. He could— His thoughts broke off abruptly. “Damn worm-spawned mutts,” he muttered. He forced himself to take the left fork, not the one that ran east.
“Talon?” Wakje murmured.
“It’s nothing,” he snarled back.
But he felt trapped as if driven before a storm, not of stingers but of gray. He couldn’t truly blame the wolves. They were caught in his wake like waves rolling after a ship. They couldn’t break free any more than Talon could; they could only echo his needs back at him, howling them into the gray. Wolves, the gray, a woman, a bond . . . He ground his teeth and savored the splintering pain that shot up his skull with the pressure. They would come back, he knew, to remind him of what they wanted, in his dreams if not in the day. It was only a matter of time.
VII
Talon Drovic neVolen
The sword makes a better handshake. The knife makes a smoother speech. An enemy makes a wilder lover. A foe creates a stronger goal.
The mother uses the sharpest pin. The win o fers a hard descent. The friend accepts both envy and rage. The asp at your bosom is hardest to see.
—Ariyen proverbs
Talon and the others caught up to Drovic’s group at the base of a cracked granite ridge. They had lost two riders and dnu to the stingers, along with two of the pack beasts, almost all in Darity’s group. Drovic wasn’t pleased, but in a swarm year, losses were expected, and at least the pack dnu had been carrying standard gear, not the bioforms they had stolen. Drovic nodded and motioned for his son to climb with him to a vantage point.
Talon knew he shouldn’t take offense as Drovic automatically assumed the lead. His right wrist was not yet strong, and his left hand was still half curled in a claw w
here the tendons were healing short. The sword thrust he’d taken to his upper arm had damaged nerves, not just muscle, and his right shoulder ached with what would become a chronic pain. But he looked up at his father climbing smoothly above him, and resented being second. Drovic was strong as a bollusk, but too heavy and fast to be graceful. He brute-forced his way up the rocks, just as he slashed his way through the counties. Push, ride, fight, drive forward—that was the sum of their lives. Talon cursed the stone that broke away under his hands and tried not to wish it was Drovic.
He topped out with a wince and squatted beside his father. For long moments, neither one spoke. “There,” Talon said softly. “About six hundred meters due west of that patch of dead pintrees, half a kay north of the swarm line.”
“A camp,” Drovic said softly, a moment later.
“Two dozen men. Maybe more.”
“Good eye, Son.”
Talon hid his unexpected pleasure at his father’s words. It was a small thing, a vain thing, and it would be a thorn in his gut in the future, when he tried to break away. He caught his breath inaudibly at the sudden surge of gray that came with the thought of leaving Drovic. Blinded, he held his tongue until it cleared, then took a careful breath. He could still see the edge of gray in his mind, hear the howling that crept along his skull, but the rightness of the thought remained, and his hands twitched with the strength of conviction. “There are more dnu than riders. The extras might be pack beasts, but I can’t see traders taking this route.”
“It’s a venge,” Drovic said flatly. “I can smell it. If they ride this way, they’ll run right up our nostrils.” He cursed under his breath. “What were they doing there? Just waiting for the swarm to box us in? If they bother to keep even a simple watch, they’ll see us like white warts on a worlag.”
“There was smoke this morning to the south, near Siphel.”
“I saw it,” Drovic said sourly. “Was pissed enough to consider joining a venge myself.”
Talon hid his humor.
“What worm-spawned idiots would raid that place?” Drovic continued softly. “They have nothing. No steel, no trade, no science. All they did was stir up trouble for the rest of us.”
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 9
