Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  They were nearing the end of the tunnel openings, but Rhom knew as well as Gamon that there could be more creatures watching from the nearby rocks. He eyed the older man carefully in the moonlight. “There is something about that that bothers you.”

  “Everything about that bothered me,” Gamon said sharply. He took a breath to control the bite of his own temper. He indicated the next part of the trail with a curt gesture. To Rhom’s bone-dry eyes, it was a barely flatter line on the ravine floor, but the Randonnen followed with relief as they left the pits behind. He looked over his shoulder and noted that there was more than one pair of eyes watching them from the tunnels.

  “Something felt familiar,” Gamon admitted quietly as they went on. “A move perhaps, seen at a distance, or a particular stance or voice. Not enough to identify. I keep going over it in my head, but I saw only one of the men who went over the wall, and that only briefly. Of the raiders who were left or who escaped through the streets, I recognized only one, and he was already dead.”

  “You’ve got a bad-luck family, Gamon. Just about everyone in direct line with the Lloroi has been kidnapped if they haven’t been killed.”

  Gamon smiled without humor. “The luck of the Lloroi.”

  “And Dion?”

  Gamon didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “She chose to live with Aranur, to share those risks.”

  “And so, his enemies became hers.” Rhom’s voice was suddenly harsh. “You gave her a kum-tai path to the moons when you mated the two of them. She was never safe in Ariye. Even if she and Aranur never became leaders, they were targeted as such.”

  Gamon glanced over his shoulder. When he ran his hand through his hair, there was a sweat line where his hat had rested; seeing it, Rhom felt an obscure satisfaction. “There are many types of leaders, Rhom: those who are elected, those who are forced into it, those who worm their way into a position of power, and those who are popular. Which ones would you strike if you wanted to provoke the greatest response?”

  Rhom started to answer automatically, then paused.

  “Aye,” Gamon turned back to the trail. “Those who are elected can be replaced. Those who worm their way in usually work at odds with the other leaders. And those who are forced into leadership make good martyrs but often step down as soon as the need for them is gone. Neither Dion nor Aranur wanted to lead; they were popular by their own actions. They were leaders not because they were elders, but because other people wanted to be like them.”

  “Aranur could have challenged the Lloroi for leadership any time he wanted,” Rhom said slowly.

  “Yes, but he would never have issued that challenge.” On that, Gamon’s voice was firm. “Oh, perhaps before he lost his parents, when he was young, like all boys, he wanted to rule the world. He was driven even then. He was fierce as his father in reaching for his goals, and sometimes blind to the path to get there. He needed someone to balance that, someone more unstructured, more willing to run for the simple joy of running, more willing to simply be. Aranur may have been Dion’s strength, but she was his humanity. He would never have made a good Lloroi, and I think he recognized that. He was too focused, too violent in the pursuit, too strong by himself.”

  Rhom’s voice was bitter. “And Dion wasn’t part of that violence?”

  Gamon kept his voice quiet. “Aranur understan—understood,” he corrected, “violence as Dion never will. He looked at people and saw what they were. She looks at people and sees what they should be, what they should do. She acts to re-balance the world to the should-be, instead of simply accepting reality. Violence to her is the horror; to Aranur, it was a tool. It is Dion, not Aranur, who accepts the compromise. It’s she who can be manipulated by the threat of violence. Aranur would simply have destroyed the threat and considered the job well done. Give Dion the right threat, and she’ll go along to the seventh hell itself.”

  “You don’t understand wolfwalkers, Gamon. The packsong they hear and call to is always real, either by memory or by the action of the moment. Dion must act willingly, or the wolves will pass along her reluctance as a Calling. A wolfwalker has to deliberately lie to hide truth from the wolves, and extreme emotions are still read and passed along to other wolfwalkers. Threaten Dion, and a dozen wolves will Answer.”

  “Dion has been able to lie to Gray Hishn before,” the older man disagreed.

  “That was when their bond was new, but even then, Hishn was able to read the emotions behind the lie. At this point, I don’t think either can truly lie to the other.”

  “There are herbs that will play with a man’s mind.”

  “It’s a moot point, Gamon. If raiders wanted her alive, what would have been the goal? Ramaj Ariye?”

  “Slow control of leadership?” Gamon countered. “She was influential, and a weakening here and there will break the strongest dam.”

  “I can’t believe you wouldn’t see something like that coming at you like a worlag. You’d be more likely to mate with a Yorundan than let blackmail, rumor, or threat taint the council.”

  “Yorunda is a haven for misfits,” Gamon retorted mildly.

  “They’re not misfits,” Rhom corrected. “They’re just like Randonnens—too independent to control.”

  Gamon’s voice was dry. “Aye, and if they weren’t so justice-minded, they would make good raiders themselves.” He shook his head. “Ariye is a central county. It’s one of the reasons we remain responsible for directing the recovery of the Ancients’ sciences. Whoever controls Ramaj Ariye could control most of the humanity on this god-forsaken planet because everyone has to pass through Ariye to go from east to west.”

  “Does Dion realize this?” Rhom asked quietly.

  He pulled up to study the rough cliffs where they closed in again on the trail. “She is a wolfwalker,” he answered simply.

  Rhom reined to a stop beside him. “Yes, but does she understand the implications of what you’re saying?”

  Gamon looked at him then. “Aranur understood them.”

  Rhom’s gaze did not waver.

  The older man was silent for a long moment. “Your twin has never been involved in the politics of the county. She left that to Aranur and the elders. Yes, she knows Ariye is important, but that very fact is unimportant to her. She reacts to the moment, not to the vision of the future, and whether the county is controlled by one Lloroi or another won’t change her bond with the wolves.” The gray-haired man shrugged. “No one thinks it strange. Randonnens aren’t known for their excessive politics.”

  Rhom’s voice was carefully neutral. “And Dion less than most?”

  Gamon looked at him steadily. “And perhaps we protected her from it to keep her burdens lighter.”

  Rhom heard the underlying grief in the older man’s voice and felt ashamed. His sister was still alive; Gamon had lost a man who was like a son to him. “It was not her duty,” he murmured to himself. “She had other obligations.”

  “Other obligations?”

  Rhom missed the tone in the older man’s voice. “She had her duties as a healer and scout, mother and mate. She didn’t need to take on others.”

  “So it is their duty, not hers, regardless of her other obligations?” Gamon rounded on him so harshly that the smith’s dnu took a step back. “Their duty, not yours or mine? Where do you draw that line, Rhom? At what point do you say that it is Aranur’s duty, not Dion’s, to have vision, to protect the county? Or that it is my burden, but not yours?”

  Rhom stared at the older man.

  Gamon closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. When he looked at Rhom again, his voice was low. “Forgive me,” he said. “I take my anger out on you, when of all things, that is my burden to bear.”

  “No,” Rhom said flatly. “Anger we can share. It is grief that must be private.”

  Slowly the older man nodded.

  Gamon pointed with his chin at the trail ahead. Rhom followed his gesture. The air cooled further, and a chill crossed his heat-dried skin. Beneath the three mo
ons, he could make out another stretch of pitted, tunneled ground.

  Gamon’s voice was quiet. “Shall we go again?”

  They moved on into the shadows of stone.

  XVI

  Talon Drovic neVolan

  The worm turns;

  Man abides.

  —Ariyen saying

  Another day, a dozen kays. Talon bore the ride in near silence. The wolves seemed to make his thoughts sharper, his memories more acute, but the gray fog that held back the pain was blinding in its own way. The shield they built between him and his own body was thick with foreign memories, faint visions of other people and times. Wolves howled constantly in his head, and half the time he answered mentally without thinking. Yet still he had no real bond with them, only the link of pain. Soothing hands, healing hands . . . The woman, he told himself almost blankly. In his mind, she was inexorably linked with his pain. Reach her, he thought, and the agony would fade, his strength return, his bloody sword find peace. Reach her, and he wouldn’t need Drovic anymore, wouldn’t keep craving the herbs.

  Another day, and Darity’s lead party killed a small band of beetlelike worlags that nosed too close to their noon camp. Kilaltian’s party lamed two dnu on a stretch of trail riddled with sinkholes. To complete the circle of bad luck, Talon almost lost Wakje to a slow-moving river. Halfway across, Wakje had begun listing in the saddle. Then slowly, comically, cursing at the inevitability caused by a broken cinch strap, the man had slid, feet caught in suddenly loose stirrups, upside-down under the dnu and into the frigid water. Wakje’s dnu bolted out of the loose straps for the shore, leaving the saddle and man behind; Wakje was caught on submerged debris till he tore free and came up spitting. With a muttered curse, Drovic moved the other two groups on ahead. It took Talon’s men half an hour to find the saddle on the bottom of the stream and another half hour to clean it of mud and repair it. In the meantime, Talon, Rakdi, and Oroan climbed a tiny outcropping to check their backtrail while they waited. It was a good thing they did. They caught three glimpses of riders along a stretch where the road curved out from under the trees.

  “I count twelve,” Oroan murmured to Talon. She used her thumb to judge the distance. “They’re about two hours behind us.”

  Rakdi nodded his agreement. “I don’t see any pack dnu,” he added.

  Talon squinted, but his vision was alternately blurred with gray fog or pain. Next to Wakje and Talon, Oroan and Rakdi had the best eyesight, and he didn’t question their statements, just motioned for them to return with him to the others. It took all his will to make it down the steep, rock-strewn slope. He stumbled twice, and the second time Oroan caught his arm, letting go as fast as he regained his balance. She moved on without a word. It was Rakdi who met his furious gaze, but the ex-elder merely nodded back at the trail. Gods, Talon thought angrily. They all thought he was an invalid. It took him moments to realize that Oroan had not ridiculed his weakness as she usually taunted the others. He scuff-slid down a patch of embankment and eyed her back below. It suddenly occurred to him that she and Roc had hung out with Jervid, Fit, and Biekin when Talon had first taken over his group. Since then, Oroan had gravitated toward the older Rakdi and Dangyon. She was a chameleon fighter, he realized. She reflected those around her. When Drovic had raged and stomped around, she had done the same. With Talon, she had become more calm, more centered. He watched the woman and wondered, if she did have a choice, if she would choose to follow Drovic’s revenge or Talon’s goals instead.

  The late-summer heat was dry, and the riders bore their sweat in relative silence as they cantered fast. Tracks of sweat ran down from Talon’s armpits; his tunic was sticky, his eyes squinting as they rode between shadow and light. By noon, he figured that they were only twenty minutes behind Drovic. With the threat of the small venge on their backtrail, they pushed the dnu hard.

  Talon’s tension also remained high. The wolfsong had continued growing stronger as if more Gray Ones joined it. That was not abnormal. There were more wolves in the north and east than in the south and west. Years ago, there had been a Calling in Ariye, and the wolves had gathered like lepa, streaming across borders and mountains to Answer. Now, there were few wolves in Bilocctar, only a few more in Eilif, and many in Ariye and Randonnen. The valley—the Circle of Fifths—the meeting place of five counties, had been a place of the Ancients and their original wolves. With the more recent migration from west to east, the valley held even more gray creatures. The closer Talon got to that meeting point, the stronger grew the graysong, and the more he needed the north and east. That wolf-sent urgency was like mold, insidious and touching every thought. He flexed his wrist, then his left hand, then the muscles across his shoulders. In the past two days, he’d swear that his strength had grown greater, even if his muscles were so tight they threatened to blind him and break his own bones at the same time. The only thing holding him together was the wolves, and behind them, the need for the woman.

  Protect, the wolves seemed to echo.

  He smiled grimly. That was not what he intended to do once he found the wolfwalker woman. She had power in her hands, and she had used it to trap him in gray. Whatever danger she fled from, it would be nothing compared to him.

  They had just topped out on the forested rise that dropped down into the valley when the wolves tightened Talon’s skull. Instantly, he threw up his hand. Dangyon and Sojourn snapped awake as the group came to a milling halt, and Talon closed his eyes to listen. Dnu shifted, but no one spoke.

  Ahead, blood scent. Fear.

  “Who?” Talon asked softly.

  Hunters. Prey. Blood in the grass.

  He felt a chill. Drovic. “Where?”

  He received a rough image of man-scent along the flanks of the small valley, with the heavy scent of a knot of men in the center. The contact faded, and he knew the wolf was gone. Talon blinked several times before he turned to the others. “They have Drovic.”

  Sojourn eyed him warily. “A venge?”

  He nodded. “There aren’t many in the venge,” he said shortly. “They’re probably the other half of the group we saw on the road, but they’ve got flank guards watching the approaches to the valley. Dangyon, Sojourn, Oroan, Mal—you take the west flank. Cheyko, Roc, Fit, Harare—you take the east. Rakdi, Ki—find the venge dnu and secure them or drive them off. They’re on the west side of the valley. Wakje, Weed—you’re with me. Get me descriptions and locations of every man whose firing on my father. And no killing,” he added sharply. “Tie the guards, knock them out, let them run if you have to. But leave the venge men alive.”

  “Aye.” Harare returned crisply among the murmur of assent. Harare resisted the impulse to add “sir.” With the conviction returning to his voice and the confidence to his body, Talon was sounding more like Drovic every day.

  But Fit and Roc didn’t move. Roc’s voice was wary as she objected to Talon, “It’s a hell of a lot harder to take a man alive than to kill him or let him bleed out.”

  “Why alive?” Sojourn put in.

  “Think battle chess,” he said shortly. “Take out the flanks, position yourself for a crossfire killing zone, then show your foe your strength. There’s no need to go for blood if the enemy backs down.”

  “This venge has enough men to trap Drovic without letting a single man out to warn us—”

  “And there are no parallel trails around here. They think we’re all riding together, and that they have all of us trapped in that valley. That’s why we leave the flank guards alive.” Talon’s slate-gray gaze was cold, but his blood began to tighten with anticipation. “Once the flanks are secure—use the finch calls, they’re obvious enough—the venge will realize that they’re now between Drovic and us. It would be a bloodbath for them to continue then.”

  “County men know that they’re better off fighting than being taken by raiders.”

  “Not if I offer them their lives. We’ll have the flank guards to prove our intentions.”

  “Drovic will never
allow it.”

  “Drovic’s is one of the lives I’ll save.”

  Sojourn’s lips quirked. “It will be interesting,” he commented, “to see how he repays you.”

  “Aye,” Talon said simply.

  He led Wakje and Weed at a hard gallop into a thick stand of black spruce. There they kicked out of the stirrups and dodged into the trees. Wakje and Weed were right behind him as he hit the valley meadow and went full-length into the grass. Something flickered a meter away, but he was rolling, belly-crawling before he consciously realized that the flicker had been a war arrow. He could hear Drovic’s men, but he wasn’t sure if the cry was in his ears or the wolves’.

  Heat, pollens, crushed grass, hot wind. Protect. Protect.

  He dragged his sword hilt-first beside him and ignored the howlings. Classic, he thought. A perfect X-ambush with overlapping fire lines. The venge men must have been waiting for hours, long enough for the wildlife to settle back down and consider the motionless men part of the terrain. Even the chunko birds wouldn’t give Drovic a warning.

  Another arrow cut grass near Talon. “They’re in the grass,” a venge man called out. “Watch yourselves.”

  There was no answer from the other ambushers, but Talon did not expect one. There was safety in silence. In the bowl of the meadow, a voice was as good as a target.

  Another war bolt missed Talon by an arm’s length. Near the center of the field, someone screamed. Drovic’s voice rapped out a set of quick, harsh commands and fell silent. Long grass blinded Talon as he elbow-crawled to circle the direction from which the arrow came. He left a snake trail of crushed grains, but it didn’t matter; the ground had dipped, and he was lower than the archers thought—the bolts missed by over a handspan. He breathed as quietly as he could, but the smell of the wild grains was overpowering. He choked and found that it was his snarl that cut off his breath, not the scent he smelled through his nose.