“You are close to the wolves.” It was a question, not a statement.
“Aye,” Rhom agreed. “As Dion’s twin, I couldn’t help but be close.”
“Can you use the wolves to reach her?”
“I’m no wolfwalker. Even if I could find a wolf on the other side of the desert, Dion would be out of range when I did. She’s heading higher into the mountains even now, and the wolves can’t follow where there is no game. Eventually she’ll leave them behind. By the time I reach Hishn, Dion will be deaf to the wolves, not just to me.”
“So as the pack falls behind, the distance will also make their voices faint.”
“And help to keep her human,” he agreed.
“As much as she was before.”
Rhom gave him a sharp look.
The older man shrugged. “She’s your sister. You think of her as human first, and a wolfwalker only second. I don’t have that blindness. She is a wolfwalker—one of the strongest I’ve ever met, and one who was caught only briefly in a human mating. Surely you can see that. Growing up with you, she ran wild in the Randonnen mountains, and when she came to Ariye, she ran wild in our peaks as a scout, and we encouraged that. We needed her skills.”
“She paid too high a price to work for you.”
Gamon did not disagree. His weathered hands tightened on the worn leather reins, and he looked down at his fingers. They were gnarled now from decades of riding and fighting. They would be aching knobs in fifty years, long before he could see himself quitting. But he could not let go of his sword any more than the wolves could release Rhom’s twin. He looked back at the other man. “It’s a hard road you are choosing, Rhom.”
The burly rider gazed at Gamon. “No harder than the one she has taken.” He followed Gamon’s glance north past the sands. “If we go up through the Ariyen pass, we’ll find word of her one way or another. There are only two ways into Ariye from the north, and even Dion must take one.”
“She has always found her own routes, Rhom.”
Rhom’s voice was flat. “She won’t be able to feel the wolves thickly at that altitude, and that will frighten her, remind her of her mortality, keep her from bushwhacking the snow. Without the wolves, she’ll be stuck on the roads like us. And this is the first time she has been without her own wolf for so long. I don’t think she can stand it much more.” He frowned slowly. “But, we could help Gray Hishn call Dion more strongly to Ariye.”
Gamon raised his gray eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“We could take Hishn with us. Take her north.”
“Into the mountains?” Gamon was already shaking his head. “You just pointed out that the Gray One would starve before we passed the first peak.”
“Not if we carry food enough for her as well as us.”
“You’re talking about provisioning a wolf, Rhom.”
The younger man grinned. “Yes.” He made the word a so-what question.
Gamon cocked his head, then slowly grinned in return. “I won’t share my dnu.”
“You will if Hishn gets hungry.”
Gamon chuckled, then grew serious. “If we take Hishn with us, Dion will know we are coming.”
“Then she will know she has to face me.” His voice was quiet. “We are twins, Gamon. I will not let her go.”
The older man nodded slowly. He stared out at the alpine desert, and his memories of the sand and grit of previous crossings clung to his skin and made him want for water. Finally he said, “If we are to continue, you should know where the next two tinajas are.” The younger man nodded, and he knew that Rhom would listen and remember just as accurately as his twin recalled wolfsong. “That red streak on the left ridge, that is the road we follow. Trace that line down to where it disappears in a dark vee. Two thumb-widths to the right you will see a speck of shadow that is shaped like a worlag’s main claw-hand. That’s the overhang under which we’ll find our first tinaja if the next roadside spring is dry.”
“How far?”
“About ten hours from the next well. One good night of riding.”
“And the next well?”
“Twelve hours if we rode straight through. But we’ll camp at dawn when we reach the first tinaja, and sit out the heat of the day.”
Rhom nodded, then paused. “Why did we ride in the heat yesterday?”
The older man’s voice was dry. “So that you could feel it firsthand, before we had gone too far to take a different route.”
Rhom’s violet eyes grew cold. “You hoped I would choose to circle to the north or take the southern road instead. You gambled that I would give in to comfort, rather than risk the sun.”
The other man corrected, “I hoped that you would make the decision about this route while fully understanding the risk, not just what you imagined it to be.”
Rhom nodded, but his eyes remained narrowed.
The gray-haired rider shrugged, wiped his brow, and reset the wide-brimmed hat that had replaced his war cap. “At least for today, it will be a flat, easy road.”
“Except for the heat,” Rhom returned shortly.
“Aye, except for that.” Gamon pulled his bandana up over his mouth.
The younger man followed suit. He glanced down at the sand that had hidden the worm. It was smooth again like a liar.
XII
Talon Drovic neVolen
Violence and fear are our arrows,
Agony, our sword.
—Ariyen saying
The raiders followed Drovic up through Eilif like a flock of lepa, swift and dark and dangerous. With their numbers down to just over thirty, they could no longer afford to work roundabout up the county. They had lost four riders on the ridge, one to their own hands rather than leave him bleeding, and five others were wounded. With Mal and Ki still out of action, that meant they had barely twenty-five fighters. Drovic was pissed as a pregnant worlag.
They passed the blackened skeletons of a short caravan, then rode around a small village where the husks of two burned houses still wept sap. The once-living ribs of the homes were cracked and charred, and clouds of insects covered the pitch that streaked the black posts with a sickly, sticky yellow. Drovic muttered as he saw the ruins, “Goddamn raiders will bring every venge in the county down on us.”
Another day, and they were still fifty kays from the border, and far enough from Drovic’s contact for handling the bioforms that Drovic began snarling and snapping at everything like a rabid dog with broken teeth. The man’s desire to cut through everyone, caravan or village alike, was becoming almost a living entity. Talon understood his father’s sentiments, though not for the same reasons. He found himself flexing his weakened wrist more often, and noted that the sword he carried was becoming light for his hand. Soon, he told himself.
Drovic’s face was set as they made a dark camp in another of the clearings he had marked on his maps. There were always dips and hollows between ridges, places where thirty men could hide without being seen or heard. Drovic collected such places, marking them on his maps, sending scouts to check them out, and caching wood in some. Talon had kept a similar set of notes once, but those notes were gone. Now he relied on his father, and that was one more irritation that worked at his aching mind. He rubbed his temples and cursed the ax of pain that kept cutting his skull as he pulled up beneath the trees.
This place was a dry pond about sixty meters long, nestled between two hills. The surrounding trees were broad-leaved and dense, and there were few exposed rocks to pass along the sounds of the camp. Still, the raiders made no fires and cooked only by stove. Bad enough that the food smells would waft along on the wind; fire would be worse. Light flickering up into the leaves would be as blatant a sign to their presence as if they hung a body on the trail, and the smell of a wood fire was so distinct that a hunter could scent it kays away.
Drovic squatted beside Talon as his son brewed his bitter tincture. “How bad is it?”
Talon shrugged. It was the old wound, not the new bruises, that p
ounded his skull. Without the herbs, that pain would have been blinding. “It’s been over three months,” he said sourly, watching the rou. “You’d think I’d be better by now.”
Drovic raised his eyebrow. “You’re stronger, you can ride longer, and the dizzy spells are mostly gone. Keep taking those herbs, and you’ll be whole again by the end of the year.”
Talon took advantage of the suggestion to test the mixture and avoid his father’s eyes. The dizzy spells were completely gone; it was the tincture, not the wound, that fuzzied his mind, and the wolves that made him stagger. He sniffed the brew and drank it quickly down. It was bitter as usual, and he followed it with a long drink of water from the bota Drovic handed him.
Drovic took the bota back, swigged, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he looked around the clearing. The sky had remained clear, and it would be chilly by early morning, but the trees would shelter them from the sun, and they had water in the stream. “We’ll stay here a day,” the older man decided. “There’s too much traffic on the roads. I want to let some of it pass.”
Talon nodded. He understood Drovic’s concern. The venges had not let up, and this far north, the communities were more tightly knit. It was easy to note the strangers. “Too many hunters,” he murmured. He caught his father’s dry expression and grinned in spite of himself. “Pots and kettles,” he agreed.
“Could be a general housecleaning,” Drovic mused. “Either way,” he said sourly, “You have your wish. We’ll have to head east for fifteen more kays before we can turn back toward Bilocctar.”
Talon shrugged deliberately. He had no choice in the urging of the wolves, but the wolves would not let him go. He no longer argued. The images from his dreams were becoming clearer each day. The woman, slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired . . . He watched his father walk away, and worked his wrist to strengthen it.
In the morning, clouds swept down from the mountains until they were enveloped in a constant drizzle. Drovic cursed the rain, cursed the daylight, cursed the dnu and raiders. He finally sent Talon, Wakje, and Ki up a ridge to scout a better route. They were thirty kays south of the Circle of Fifths, and Talon could actually see the pass that led into Ramaj Ariye. It drew his eyes like glue, and he had to bite down on the surge of gray in his head as he squatted by Ki and Wakje.
“Think that’s Edinton over there,” Wakje pointed.
Talon followed Wakje’s gaze. Neither used binoculars. A flash of light on the glass would be worse than a torch for announcing their presence. “That’s the roof of the message tower,” he confirmed.
“Too bad we can’t stop in,” Ki murmured. “I hear they make a rabbit dish that would make a dead man salivate.”
Wakje grinned sourly. “No difference between rabbit and rast if it’s your last meal.”
“I’d risk it,” Ki returned. “No subcutaneous fat, just juicy, tasty meat in a sage-and-orange glaze . . .” He sighed. “The Ancients really knew what they were doing when they brought rabbits here.”
Talon raised one dark eyebrow. “You know about rabbits but not about cows?”
“I’ve never seen a cow.” Ki gave him a suspicious look. “You going to tell me that there’s something odd about rabbit teeth?”
“No, not unless you mean that they grow right through its skull.”
Ki looked startled. “Through its brain?”
“Brain, bone, jaw, and skull. Top and bottom, just like two french curves, one inside the other.”
“Right,” he sneered.
“Truly. They chew on rocks to wear their teeth down and keep from stabbing themselves.”
“Sure, Talon.”
He held up his hands. “I swear to the seventh moon.”
Wakje sent Talon a sly look as Ki turned away. “You keep swearing on that moon, and it’ll fall out of the sky and crush you.”
Talon merely grinned. But when they made to climb down from the ridge, he didn’t follow immediately. Instead, he stared to the east. Find. Find her . . . Wakje turned back and watched him for a long moment until Talon met his gaze, deliberately looked north, and moved to join him and Ki.
They regrouped, and Drovic kept them at a canter and turned them west again. Talon nearly bit his lip as they passed another road east. The chill in his bones was getting worse, as if the farther north they rode, the more his limbs grew icy. “We should reconsider riding the old trails,” Talon suggested to Drovic. “Or head farther north where the farms peter out, before turning west. It might even be better to go all the way up to the Circle of Fifths before cutting over to Bilocctar.”
“That’s a hell of a long ride.”
“Yes, but at least we’d reach Bilocctar without losing half our men. We’re too noticeable here.” North, he thought. Or east. Either one relieved the pressure of the gray geas.
“Still sure about the trails?”
“Sure as a woman in love.”
Drovic nodded his approval.
They turned onto a wide trail that Talon had no trouble identifying. Some things were apparently never forgotten, and he knew he had scouted here when he was a young man: he had a vague memory of running trail with his father’s brother, of a clumsy pack with straps cutting into his thin shoulders, blisters on his heels from his boots, and a curse in every breath.
As the day wore on, he rode with that too-familiar tension. The skin around his eyes was tight, and he had to force himself to concentrate. Behind him, Mal listed slightly as his own riding beast stumbled, and Talon, hearing it, let his own dnu fall back. “All right?” he asked sharply.
Instinctively, Mal straightened up. “Fine as the fur on a stickbeast,” the dour man retorted.
It was something the barrel-chested Dangyon would have said, and Mal had perfectly mimicked the other man’s accent. Talon’s lips quirked. He caught a flicker of wry appreciation in Mal’s eyes. The man knew that Talon had seen his weakness, but the raider also knew that Talon, with his own stubborn pride in riding in spite of the pain, would not humiliate Mal by offering his support.
They made Long Road without incident except for leaving the dust of the shortcut hanging in the air like nooses. Talon brushed at his war cap to knock away the mites that might have clung to it. “Left shoulder,” he told Sojourn as the other man trotted beside him. Sojourn slapped at a tiny knot.
“Damned parasites,” the other man said sourly. “I wouldn’t mind them so much if they wouldn’t bite more than once. Know the difference between a mite and a mate?”
Talon shook his head.
“Neither do I, but I hear the mite bites less often.”
“You’ve been alone too long if you’ve become that soured on women.”
“As have you, if you’re turning down Roc when she’s offering that kind of body.”
Talon’s gaze narrowed. “Roc sees everyone as a toy to vent her hate on. Perhaps I want more than a body that holds only violence.”
“Hate and rage have to be expressed as much as love and kindness.” The other man grinned slyly. “And an enemy can make a better lover than a friend.”
Talon didn’t answer.
By late afternoon, when they reached the south branch of the Cades River, Talon’s headache was pounding like the hooves of the dnu. Drovic glanced back at his son and gestured with his chin for the younger man to join him.
“Water’s low, but swift,” Talon said shortly as he reined in.
Drovic pointed. “We’ll cross there.”
Talon nodded and resisted the inclination to look back at Ki or Mal.
Drovic motioned the point riders across, their dnu stepping gingerly down into the flow. Strapel had his bow strung and an arrow in hand, though the bolt was not yet nocked. Ebi, in the lead, had his sword half drawn.
“They share everything, don’t they,” Talon commented, noting the way each man was completely aware of the other.
Drovic recognized the nonverbal question, the need for his son to know more about his own men. If Drovic was disappointed that
Talon did not recall more, the older man hid it well. He said merely, “It started when they were the only ones to survive a raid they had been on together. They joined up with me after that. A month later, we were hit by bihwadi— it was a swarm year, just like this one, and we lost three-quarters of our men. Ebi pulled a beast off Strapel’s back. Strapel returned the favor when Ebi stepped in a poolah’s trap. For the last two years, they’ve believed that each survives only because of the other.”
Strapel’s dnu hit a deeper spot and was swept downstream a few meters before it regained its footing in the shallows. Ebi poised, ready to help, but the other man didn’t need it. As Strapel splashed through then thinner water, Ebi moved into the main flow, keeping his sword chest-high.
“Neither will be effective until they reach the bank,” Drovic noted sardonically.
Talon shrugged. “There is comfort in holding a weapon near-ready while crossing an open space.”
Drovic glanced at him. “You begin to think as your men do, not just for yourself.”
“Is that not my nature?”
“Always,” Drovic said dryly.
“And that is a disappointment to you?”
Drovic shrugged, his eyes on the river. “I had hoped that, someday, you would follow me as Lloroi, but even by the time your mother died, I think I knew that you would never take my place on the council. You had the focus and strength you needed, but not that kind of will.” His voice grew quiet, as if he spoke more to himself than to Talon. “There have always been two kinds of leaders: the ones who pass up victory because they might spill their own blood or lose men, and those who risk everything to do what must be done, regardless of the cost. I always feared you would be the first kind of leader.”
Talon kept his mouth shut with difficulty. There was a slow burn in his gut from his father’s words. A ninan, he reminded himself. He should be strong enough then. He had not gained back much memory, but he was slowly putting on weight, and the wolves, in spite of hounding him, were focusing on his strength. He flexed his hand on the leather reins and kept his eyes off his father.
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 14
