Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Talon bit back his comment. Had that town harbored even a single lab, it would have been Drovic who opened their graves to steal what they created. “It won’t matter once they get our scent.” He hesitated, then said deliberately, “We should backtrack and swing east to put at least one ridge between us before nightfall.”

  “The eastern route circles the whole damn ridge. It would add three more days to the ride. I want to reach the Bilocctar border by the end of the ninan.”

  “Then it’s south where we’ve already burned our bridge, west into the swarm, or north into the arms of the venge.” Talon’s cold gaze swept the forest again, judging the size of the camp. “If they’re two dozen strong, they’ll put up a hard fight.”

  “Pah,” Drovic spat. “I doubt we’d lose even one man. Those riders are green as spring grass, worse than the youngest among us. Look at them. I can see metal flashing like a woman’s eyes for half the saddles down there. No experienced rider would carry such a giveaway.”

  Talon felt his lips twist. “Weak, arrogant, and inexperienced? Then we should attack them for the gear alone, for the practice, for the joy of killing.”

  Drovic did not miss the self-mocking bitterness that crept into his son’s voice. “If you needed more practice killing, you should have told me,” he said mildy. “I could have arranged something more convenient. As it is, they’re too far away. We’ll ease back and wait a few hours. If they haven’t moved on by then, we’ll double back and take another route west.”

  They moved quietly back down the trail to a lower set of clearings. There they set a guard and watered the dnu more thoroughly at the small pond beneath the trees. Talon let his dnu drink deeply and tried to ignore the game trails that he knew twisted east.

  Roc moved up beside him. “Talon,” she murmured. The gash she had received on her cheekbone had healed to a ragged mark, and with her hair in its finicky braid, she looked oddly well-coifed against the jagged scab. She glanced at the forest. “Are you communing with the trees or—” her voice dropped low with meaning—“daydreaming of a better bed than your empty one last night?”

  “Right now, I prefer to think of the trees,” he said. His voice was sharp from the Gray Ones, and he took a breath to lower it.

  Roc put her hand on his sleeve, and like a wild wolf, he flinched away. Her face tightened. Her voice grew hard. “Talon—” she started.

  “Leave me be,” he returned curtly. He didn’t realize that, like a male Gray One to his mate, he automatically turned the back of his shoulder to her to protect his face and neck from her snapping.

  Roc’s eyes flashed. She was a slender, shapely woman with high cheekbones and hungry, soulful brown eyes. She moved with grace and speed and fire, and yet had a startling strength. It was a strength born of hate, not of muscle. Her two vanities— her honey-toned hair and her voice, a lovely voice that could charm a badgerbear—made her seem a thing of beauty, but Talon knew better. That beauty, like a blade, was merely a weapon. She used it as others used knives. Now, she leaned against the rock cairn with studied elegance, and her gaze was that of a worlag. “You avoid me now, after all we’ve shared?”

  Talon’s slow smile was at odds with the litheness of his movements. “And how much have we shared?” he asked lazily. “Was it of so much value?” He felt the wolves within him growl at the woman as if she grated on the gray. Then he moved aside so that others could take their turn at the water. He indicated the spring with a nod of his chin that somehow took in her figure. “I’m done here,” he said softly.

  Roc’s gaze shuttered. She stepped so close to him that her breasts almost brushed his chest. Her glittering eyes stared up. “You dream of someone who’s not even here? I healed you, Talon—not that Ariyen bitch who left you. You’re changing,” she breathed. “Beginning to think you’re better than me and the rest of those who ride with you. That is a dangerous game, son of Drovic.”

  He merely smiled. Roc almost trembled with rage as he turned away, and he knew that his careless expression would eat at her like fleas. He didn’t look back as he led his dnu away to make room for Morley and Ki.

  From the shadows, the wolves watched the raiders. They did not follow Talon back to the camp. Instead, they took the high, thin game trail to the top of the ridge, where they could watch what went on below. Had they been any other creatures, he would have been lost to them among the other raiders, but the wolves saw with more than their eyes. His taste was in their mouths, his scent was in their noses; and an image of a stronger man was bound into their minds.

  They raised their heads and sniffed the air. The packsong echoed with longing. The eight Gray Ones felt the weight of other packs join them, and the determination that rang through the packsong goaded them to go after Talon. It was becoming a naked need.

  Gray Paksh nudged the yearling, Chenl, and looked at Ursh and Thoi. Chenl was the only pup born last year to their pack, and after hundreds of kays, he was leaned down to the hardness of his elders. Gray Ursh whuffed softly as the yearling licked his mother’s torn ear. We are far from home, the male sent.

  Paksh shrugged mentally and nipped at Chenl. We agreed, she returned. We Answered. We are bound.

  Gray Thoi felt the tight barrenness of her own womb. She had not forgotten the burning convulsions Paksh had endured as the other pups died in her womb, or the fact that the memory of that birthing, which had echoed in the pack, had not been alone. The Wolfwalker promised. Life for life. It is for all the packs, all the pups, she reminded him.

  There was a sense of agreement.

  Thoi raised her muzzle and sought the taste of Talon on the wind. He still hears us, she reassured herself and the others.

  Ursh’s yellow eyes gleamed. The male stretched in that indefinable, mental way, the dimension that was the gift of the Ancients. He tasted the edge of Talon’s thoughts. He felt the recognition of his presence in the man’s mind and the man’s rejection of his pressure—the frustration of the man—and was satisfied. He turned his gaze to his mate. He listens. Like us, he has no choice. Our voice grows stronger in him, and he is beginning to feel her, to see his need. When his need is strong enough, he will find her.

  He rose and padded after the raiders. The other wolves went with him.

  VIII

  Ember Dione maMarin

  Necessity teaches;

  The moons judge.

  —Randonnen proverb

  The mountain valley was a rift of green among the whitened peaks, but Dion couldn’t seem to relax. Tirek, a tall, hazel-eyed man, lifted a few leaves from the stubby greenhouse plants as he continued, “. . . didn’t do well this year, but the meigia bloomed twice.” His assistant scurried down the aisle to shift a set of half-planted pots out of their way.

  Dion listened with only half an ear as they walked the greenhouse. South, the Gray Ones urged her. South and west . . . She glanced out the half-steamed windows, but the wolves were kays away, waiting restlessly in the dry grass beneath the cold-stunted trees.

  Dion shook them back in her mind. The sense that the inn was not her proper den was partly her own, not just that of the wolf pack. It was the road, she thought. She had become too intimate with it. The white stone may have branched off to the village, but its main body coiled among the peaks, and that snaking route called her as much as the wolves did.

  “Of course, that means it will only have half its usual strength,” Tirek added. He squatted to show her the row of reducing jars that sat beneath one of the benches. Dion’s nostrils flared with the sweet copper scent.

  He smiled at her expression. “The foxfire oil was more potent than usual. I’d be happy to trade some for that vellace you brought in.” He kept his gaze on hers, but his appreciation of her was obvious. For all that she was scarred, there was beauty in her bones and a remarkable grace of movement. Too, there was a sense of power in those violet eyes, and it made him curious. It was said that wolfwalkers were as wild in bed as they were running with the wolves. He wouldn’t mi
nd touching that wildness for himself. He let his smile grow wider.

  In her mind, the Gray Ones bristled. Dion ignored them. Tirek was no threat. He was a handsome man with a good face and a well-kept, muscular body. His hair glinted with a dozen shades of brown, and his dirt-stained hands had been gentle as he separated the bluewing ferns to show her the spores. He was also an excellent archer, but whatever death he had dealt had not left him dark or bitter. Dion envied him that calm, and wondered. A moment ago, he had put his hand on her arm to guide her around a pile of freshly dug tubers, and the warmth of his hard-calloused fingers had been deliberate, almost shocking. It had been months since a man had touched her like that.

  The wolves bristled again, and Dion raised startled eyes to Tirek. Wolves tended to start bonding near the end of summer in preparation for spring mating. This pressure from the wild ones to ride south and west—it was not simply a need for Gray Hishn or the pressure of her promise to heal the wolves. The urgency was flavored with desire for a mate.

  Tirek regarded her with growing intensity as he misinterpreted her expression. “Healer maBrist mentioned that if you’d consider staying a few days, she could dry whatever herbs you needed.” Up the aisle, his assistant watched them curiously.

  Graysong tightened.

  Even though her pregnancy barely showed, Tirek knew of her child—his sister had guessed it immediately when they had been introduced—women could never hide that sort of thing from each other. Still, he looked at her with desire. Dion studied his face with almost blank curiousity.

  In the back of her mind, the Gray Ones growled low.

  But it had been so long since she had been able to forget her duties, her reputation, her supposed skills and simply lean on a strong man; so long since she had been simply a human being, not a legend. She fingered a fuzzy-leaved plant. “I could use some angelica,” she said softly.

  The wolves tensed as they read her thoughts, and their unease became lupine anger. Not him, they sent in her mind.

  Tirek couldn’t hear the wolves. “We’ve got some drying over here. Wait, hold still,” he said quietly. He brushed at her cheek where a feathered wisp of fern had caught. His touch lingered a moment too long.

  The wolves seemed to erupt in her head, blinding her with sudden aggression. Not him, they snapped. Dion’s mind swirled with gray. Only Leader. The hunter to the moons and back. They snarled at Tirek through her eyes. The sense of another man was indistinct, but the voice was clear, the voice of her mate, the voice of the dead. Wolfwalker . . . The Gray Ones threw it at her like a vow. Mentally, Dion staggered.

  Tirek yanked his hand back. Dion stared at him as her vision cleared. Her lips had curled back to bare her teeth, and her hands were tensed into claws. Tirek’s weight shifted as he read the threat in her body. “I meant no offense, Healer Dione,” he said quickly.

  For a moment, with the wolves snapping in her hands, she thought she would strike him. She had to steady her voice before saying by way of apology, “I’ve been too long on the road.” But there was a glint in her eyes that spoke of anger in spite of her words, and Tirek carefully shifted away. He did not touch her again.

  Dion was seething as she made her way to the local healer’s clinic. Threads of gray still snapped in her mind, and she snarled back at the wolves. Why? she demanded. The graysong shivered under her anger.

  The den, the bond, the mating . . .

  She stared at the hills where the wolves waited. Her voice was harsh. “My mate is dead, for all the good you did him.” Let the wolves in, he had said. Use their strength. Her hands had been claws in his arms, but his weight had been an anchor, pulling down, down. The wolves had surged, blinding her. Steel had flashed, raiders had cursed, blood had splattered the seawall. Call the wolves, he had told her. But it had not been enough, never enough to keep the dead from the moons. She had torn his jerkin, his sleeve, then his flesh with her nails, digging into his weight. But she hadn’t held on, not long enough. And he’d fallen, fallen onto the rocks and then drowned in the hungry sea.

  The Gray Ones howled deep in her mind, and she bit back at the sworling gray. She didn’t need their engineered memories to constantly revive her own, but she couldn’t keep them out of her mind. Their strength was like a prisoner, and they were bound by those last desperate moments in which she had fought for Aranur’s life, locking the wolves to her with her Call. Time had passed, but they had not let go. Instead, they had taken her need and turned it into their own, trapping and hounding her toward what they wanted instead. South and east, into Ariye, to face what—or who—the wolves demanded? She clenched her fists until the growl was audible in her throat.

  “Healer Dione?”

  She whipped around with almost lethal intent.

  The other healer stumbled back.

  Dion held up her hand, palm out, to stop the tall, willowy woman. She was still blinded by the sense of gray. She controlled herself with difficulty until she could make out the silhouette. “Yes,” she said finally.

  But her voice was still too much the growl, and the other woman steadied herself before speaking. “I’m Healer maBrist. We had arranged for a tour of the clinic.”

  Dion took a breath and forced herself to smile. “I’m sorry, Healer. I was just woolgathering.”

  “I would have said wolf-gathering.” MaBrist gathered her calm back around her like a cloak. “And it’s Siana, please.” She was an older woman who had made master healer late in life because of the isolation of her town, but her maturity stood her in good stead. She had a serene manner about her, one that said, “I am calm, and my hands are gentle but strong; you can trust your life to me.” Now, her light blue eyes studied Dion with quiet intensity. Dion kept her face expressionless as the taller woman noted the shallowness of the scars that the message rings reported had laid her open to her cheekbones. “You heal well,” was all Siana said, though, before motioning Dion to the clinic.

  Dion swallowed the gray in her throat and forced herself to chat as they walked to the small stone building. Inside, the clinic was surprisingly large, but only two beds were occupied. “We use the other half for meetings when it’s clear,” Siana explained. “Alpine accidents tend to involve more than one person, and our fever seasons are heavy.” Dion nodded at the intern who sat near the opposite wall. The young man had been studying a book and watching the patients closely, but he got eagerly to his feet as they entered.

  Siana checked the latest notes the intern had made. “They are trappers,” she explained, motioning at the patients. “They were caught in Subtle Valley by a series of storms and avalanches, and they ran out of extractor roots before they could make it out by the backtrails.”

  Dion nodded. The slack expressions and drooping eyelids were a giveaway of the accumulation of toxins. The Ancients had not had time to fully adapt to the world before the alien plague stole their technology. Delion and other extractor plants had been seeded throughout the continents as a short-term solution. That had allowed the original colonists to filter out the toxins of this world’s flora and fauna until mutations could be developed that would give humans the tolerance they needed. But with their technology gone barely a decade after landing, humans now lived on the dregs of the seeded species the Ancients had had time to provide. Extractors, peetrees, rootroads—they were the visible basis of human science. It was the species that had been developed since then—the fungi, the plankton, the bacteria—on which humans now pinned their hopes.

  “How long were they off the extractors?” she asked.

  “Fourteen days. They were picked up a few days ago by a caravan and dropped off here.”

  “Cozar or merchant?”

  “Cozar.”

  Dion nodded. That meant they would likely have had their own healer and would have started treatment immediately. Dion laid her hand lightly on one man’s neck to feel for the pulse. The trapper’s brown eyes flickered dully, but he made no sound, and Siana watched as Dion’s gaze became unfocused. Sh
e realized that the wolfwalker was drawing on her bond with the wolves, and felt a twinge of envy that surprised her. “They’re responding well,” the willowy healer murmured. “I expect them to recover within the next ninan.”

  The pulse was a low, sluggish hammer beneath Dion’s fingers, but her perception went deeper than that. With the wolves heightening her senses, she had learned to touch the patterns of other bodies. Blood, vessels, tissues, bone—she could almost see the molecules that had attached to the trapper’s blood and organs, could feel the chemical sponge of the massive, concentrated doses of extractors that Siana was giving him. Power shivered inside her. Wolves seemed suddenly dim, and lightning seared her nerves with the pattern of the trapper’s body. The lance of energy startled her like a deer. Abruptly, she clamped down hard. For a moment, it was all she could do to breathe. Then the sense of power subsided. She let out her breath carefully and glanced at Siana, but the healer was taking the other man’s pulse.

  That energy had not been the wolves sharpening her senses. It had been something else, something cold and eerie, something deep in the back of her mind. The wolf-human bond was not natural, but what Dion had just felt was purely alien—something she had felt only in the north. Moonworms, but as long as she was in these mountains, she was still too close to the aliens. Those cold, slitted yellow eyes seemed to hang at the edge of her consciousness. They were as unlike the warm golden gaze of the wolves as cold crystal was from honey. That, and the link between the aliens and her mind was a purer, harder form of energy. It was like a sheath of ice along the inside of her skull, one that would reflect internal energy like a mirror or lens should she let her mind focus in any one direction. She wondered suddenly if the wolves were driving her toward the distant hunter to protect her from herself, or to distract her from the alien cold they could not help but sense in her mind.