Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Tyronnen regarded him for a long moment, but Rhom didn’t budge. Finally, the Lloroi smiled wryly. “I should expect, from knowing your twin for so long, how stubborn you would be.”

  Rhom shrugged.

  Still, Gamon hesitated. The Lloroi met the older man’s gaze and shrugged in turn. When Tyronnen began to speak, he did not look at Rhom. Instead, the Lloroi stared out the dark window at the edge of night that threatened to encroach on the room. “It was long ago, and we were young.” He hesitated, then seemed to decide. “There was an older boy named Drovic . . .”

  XXXVII

  Ember Dione maMarin

  The wolf still hunts where angels fear to tread.

  —Randonnen saying

  Dion stood, knee-deep in the snow, her body almost steaming with sweat. She took in a long, slow breath and catalogued the aches she had acquired over the past four days. Tag-sparring with Kiyun had always been a lesson in avoidance. Kiyun was fast, but not startlingly so; it was his power that made him such a danger. In tag-sparring, she didn’t even have to worry about that, since they used slaps and tags to demonstrate their strikes. It was not just her pregnancy that made her slow—she had had too many injuries that year and too little rework to learn to spar around them. Her timing was off. She had better get it back on, she told herself grimly. No one who rode the trails could afford to let themselves get sloppy, and with the hunter on the way, Dion’s child was in even more danger. She resisted the urge to rub the ache where she’d almost pulled a muscle in her thigh. Her only consolation was that Kiyun had a few pulled muscles of his own from that spinning leap he’d used to avoid her sweep.

  She stared north along the curve of the road that led out of the courtyard. The snow was already melting; the late summer sun had turned the surfaces brilliant with mountain tears. The stubborn plants in the sheltered boxes looked scraggly, but they were still alive. The sense of the wolves, which had faded from her mind, had never quite gone away. Instead, it lurked like a thin fog on the horizon of her thoughts.

  It was odd, she thought. She had crossed mountains before and had lost the sense of the wolves in the heights. It had been an awareness of emptiness, an ache, a space inside. This time, she could still hear the Gray Ones. Faint, yes, but still there. She was more sensitive now. Her contact with the aliens had given her that perception, but she had no real feel of distance. Instead, it seemed as if the life between her and the wolves was too thin to support full conversation, not that the wolves were far away.

  Talon and his riders came down out of Wayward Pass in a flurry of snow. It was not a storm, only a pocket of chaos— loose snow from the drifts—that ended almost as abruptly as the road. One moment, they were rounding a steep cliff in a whirl of whiteness; the next, they were facing a drop-off as clear as the second hell. Ahead of them, the wolves barely paused. Gray Ursh raised his head and sniffed the wind; two others explored the old shattered tracks. Then they turned and trotted south along the curve of stone.

  Talon, I tell you this utter truth: If you set foot in Ariye, you will die. Drovic’s words echoed bleakly. Talon had ridden this road before, but it had been years ago, and he had been going home then, home to Ramaj Ariye, home to his sons, to his mate. He tilted his head and sniffed the air, unconsciously mimicking Ursh. They were too far north. The woman he hunted had moved south.

  Mal huddled farther into his parka, and Oroan shivered as they spurred their dnu after Talon. Dangyon looked down over the drop-off as they turned onto the other road, and Sojourn grinned at the thick-chested man’s expression. His voice carried clearly over the fresh snow. “Thinking of doing a reckon?”

  Dangyon glanced at the cliff again. “Thinking of an oldEarth saying: ‘Where angels fear to tread.’ ”

  “We’re no angels, Dangyon.”

  “Then this ice is the devil’s drink, and we’ll be drowning here before long.”

  “Sky’s clear.”

  “Not for long. It’s been days now, and we’re overdue for a storm.”

  Sojourn twisted to look back at the cut through which they had come. The sky to the east was mostly clear, but the clouds were moving in with them. He couldn’t help judging the weight of the meat packs that Talon had insisted on buying. For the wolves, Talon had said. But Sojourn’s belly tightened with the thought of snow. They could make it to a passhouse—the shelters were placed throughout the mountains—but what then? He had been in a mountain storm once, trapped for two ninans, with only the food in his pack and two other men to starve with. He forced himself to look away from the meat bags, glanced at Talon’s rigid back, and eyed the wolves ahead.

  Dangyon followed the slender man’s gaze. The nondescript man might not show much expression, but Dangyon had known him for years, and the tension in Sojourn’s body was as clear as words. “Don’t worry,” the heavy man told him. “Talon has the wolves on his side. We won’t miss a passhouse for the weather.”

  Sojourn nodded, but did not answer. In spite of his own fear, it wasn’t the wolves or the weather that put the worry in his gut. It was Talon’s push toward Ariye.

  Rhom followed Gray Hishn’s gaze. The wolf’s yellow eyes stared north into the snow-white night. The summer moons floated between the peaks like ships. His hand gripped the gray scruff only partly to bring him closer to his twin. His touch calmed Hishn as his voice could not—it was a reminder of Hishn’s wolfwalker, and of the gray wolf’s own mortality. The slopes here were permanently frozen, the walls of the road ice-crusted and banked with old snow that was rock-hard with age. What trees there were were thick-barked, with a core of deep sapwood. The snowdrops poked their tiny blades through holes they made in the ice, and the only other signs of life were the faint, veinlike trails of the snoweels in some of the deeper drifts. The courtyard was wind-stripped like the road. It stretched like a beacon that begged for them to follow.

  The wolf’s breath made tiny clouds in the last of the evening light, and Hishn turned her head to meet Rhom’s eyes. The sudden perception of lupine senses, the visceral pulse, the musky core of body heat under layers of cold-tipped fur . . . It hit him hard, and he almost clenched his fist in the thick pelt. “I know,” he murmured.

  She is close.

  “We’ll reach her in four days.”

  We can run ahead, reach her sooner.

  The sense of speed was already in the Gray One’s mind, and Rhom had to force himself to stay in place. “If something happens to us, you’ll starve. Stay with us until we know where she is for sure.”

  The gray voice was worried. I cannot hear her clearly.

  “It’s the altitude,” he explained. “There’s not enough life to carry your voice through the passes.”

  But the gray creature surprised him. There are other wolves, she sent.

  “Here? In the mountains?”

  Coming. Hishn bared her teeth unconsciously. Hunting.

  Hunting Dion . . . Rhom broke the link and stared out at the snow. The sky was clear and cold, and the line of moons washed out the stars over the peaks. The light brightened the snow like a reversed dawn, and the road was a clear swath through the shadows. Five days to the pass, he thought—if the weather held, maybe four. Beyond that . . .

  He straightened as Gamon crunched through the snow.

  The older man followed his gaze to the north. “Thought I’d find you out here.” Gamon paused, then added lightly, “She won’t get any closer for wishing.”

  “There are other wolves in the mountains.”

  Gamon gave him a sharp look, then glanced at Hishn.

  “They’re hunting.” Rhom’s voice was soft as he stared north. “Hunting my twin. They have her trail—I can feel it.”

  Gamon took off his cap and ran his hand through his hair. “Can’t ride at night, Rhom. Not here.”

  The younger man nodded slowly, but Gamon thought that, if the Randonnen had his way, they would still be in the saddle, with their dnu chipping the ice from the road.

  Drovic had stopped
cursing his dnu, his men, and himself some time ago. Now he merely rode with a grim thinness to his lips. They would reach the passhouse in two days. There was weather on the horizon, but it didn’t look yet like a storm. If he was lucky, it would hold off until he reached the next shelter; luckier still, and it would blow over and give them clear roads to the top.

  He had no doubts that Talon was now heading south. Talon had headed straight up the mountain range. He would have had to take the northern cut through, which came out in Kiren. Talon would have to drop down again to reach Ariye. Drovic didn’t expect his son to change his mind and go elsewhere. Ariye pulled his son like a mudsucker. Drovic understood it. It was the motive that drove Drovic—his need for his mate, for his family, for what he couldn’t have. The need had been drummed into Drovic by his own father, and Drovic had drilled it into Talon. Neither one could turn away. But Talon thought he could regain what was gone instead of struggle for something new, and in such a fight, Drovic could lose him completely. He had one more chance to stop him, to keep Talon from the wolves. No Gray Ones could reach his son at these heights. Talon’s mind would be clear and cold as logic, as Drovic had taught him from the beginning, yet he would be controlled as Drovic had arranged. Here, Talon would regain the goal. The wolves could howl all they wanted, but cut off by the peaks, they could not touch his son. Drovic’s lips twisted in a bitter caricature of a smile. Wolves—they dragged men back like the aliens, away from the future, into the dirt of the world. They had made themselves part of this planet. They never strove for anything new. They simply lived, like leeches, part of a chain of blood.

  He spat to the side and watched in satisfaction as the spittle froze on contact. Then he raised his head to the sky and bared his teeth, letting the cold burn in his mouth. Cold as the seventh hell, he thought. It was comforting as home.

  XXXVIII

  Ember Dione maMarin

  Every man makes a choice.

  It’s not the deciding that’s difficult,

  It’s living with the decision.

  —Druce neRhame, Ariyen Lloroi, AL 116-194 Last of the Martyrs

  Tehena was chewing the walls. The skinny woman stalked the great room, pulling a cloak irritably around her and yanking at her stringy hair. She rubbed at a window, turned to come back and speak, shut her mouth, paced again, then began to bite at her hangnails. She stared at Dion without pause.

  Dion sighed. “Say it.”

  Tehena’s voice was flat. “Healer, it’s been three days. We cannot stay here forever.”

  “Rhom will be here soon.”

  “There’s a storm moving in, and our food will not last through it. Without new stores . . .” The lanky woman shook her head. “We cannot take the emergency supplies from the passhouse. We don’t need them. It’s not right.”

  Dion shrugged, still staring toward the north. “We can hunt.”

  Tehena rolled her eyes. “Sure. Kiyun and I will just wander out and wrestle down a glacier worm. We can live on that for a ninan—if it doesn’t kill us.”

  “It’s food,” Dion said calmly.

  “For you, perhaps. You’ve eaten enough with the wolves that you no longer know what it is to be human. And we’re on the Ariyen border. Four days, Dion, and we could have real food—not trail stew. We could have beds with more than one blanket. A ninan, and we would be home.”

  Dion closed her eyes.

  Tehena hesitated. “Is it the wolves?”

  “They are quiet here,” she answered finally. “They have haunted me for so long, howling with Aranur’s voice—with his memories. Here, they give me peace.”

  “But here, we cannot stay.”

  “One more day, Tehena.”

  “No, Dion. One more day, and we’ll be caught here by the storm.” The lanky woman regarded the wolfwalker steadily. “We must ride on to Ariye.”

  The wolfwalker stood for a long moment, staring toward the north. Tehena was right—she knew it. But he was getting closer. Here, she could face him on her own. In Ariye, there were always the wolves . . .

  “Dion,” Tehena said urgently.

  Dion looked once more at the passhouse. An hour later, they rode away. Behind them, Dion felt the wolves, howling in her mind.

  Talon stared at the road. Something had changed—his prey was on the move again, heading toward Ariye. He urged his dnu to a steady trot in the wake of the wolves. They turned and glanced back to make sure he followed, and he felt the leash of urgency tighten in his gut. This time, he didn’t mind.

  Behind him, the slim, stone walls of Melt Shelter disappeared against a horizon that thickened with subtle clouds. He had seen the promise they held, but the coming storm did not matter. One day to the passhouse that led to Ariye, one day to the wolves and the woman. After that, he could think again.

  The predawn dark was as bright as the moons. The forest behind Dion was a pattern of black spiky pillars above a snow-white quilt. The air was clear; the sky a quiet, frigid blue-black. It would not last. Already the clouds were lowering over the northern peaks, and the slow fourth moon, which hung midsky, would be swallowed within the hour. Tehena and Kiyun still burrowed in their sleeping bags.

  Dion patted her dnu on its neck and settled her meager saddle pack. She tried to tune out the wolves. This high in the mountains, and they still pulled like a mudsucker, but now it was not south toward Hishn and home in Ariye, but north, back toward the birdmen. The wolves couldn’t want her dead. No, it was the hunter who was now out of place, somehow above her among the peaks. He had crossed the mountains behind her, and the wolves were driving her back.

  She clenched her fingers into a mitted fist, then pressed them against her belly. She would show more in another month. Her child—the child she now shared with the birdmen. The child who was linked to aliens, not just humans and wolves. And the Gray Ones . . . The wolves would want her to share this child with the man they hounded to mate her. Her hand clenched again. North, and the wolves and Aiueven.

  Wolfwalker, the wolves cried faintly.

  “I hear you,” she whispered. Automatically, she listened for Gray Hishn’s voice, but the gray wolf echoed the wild ones. There was little life to carry their howls, and Hishn was farther away. But like worlags, all were relentless.

  Come to us, they howled in the distance. Run. Blood and stars, steel and ice . . . She focused and realized that the thoughts of the wild wolves were much sharper than she expected. The distance that muted their images barely muddied their projected longing. It cut her heart, and she gasped.

  You are hurting me, she cried out.

  You Called. We cannot cross to you. They howled, and her name was drawn out as they reached across the ice. Wolfwalkerwolfwalker . . .

  She glanced back at the tent. It was a form of safety, she thought, like the cozar with their wagons. It represented what she could have if she turned her back on need—friends, Ariye, the thick love of the wolves. Suddenly angry, she tightened the cinch on the hammer-headed dnu and swung onto the stolid beast. It stamped its six feet softly, but Dion did not give the signal to trot. Instead, she stared up at the three ghostly moons. “Have you ever given me a choice?” she demanded. “A choice that I could live with?” Her words left clouds in the air.

  The moons did not answer. Instead, the packsong echoed. Hunt, close, closer . . . She stared at the dnu-shattered road of snow. Those tracks would not remain for long before they too would be swept under by the coming storm. By tomorrow, there would be only lumps and drifts across the Ariyen road. By the time the others roused from sleep, she would be kays to the north. She tightened her grip on the reins, glanced back once more at the tent, then turned and deliberately rode away.

  XXXIX

  Ember Dione maMarin

  Don’t look so hard that you miss the path; Don’t swallow whole when you can chew each thought like a piece of old jerky; Even a simple stone can hide truth; Even the sand holds water.

  —Yegros Chu, Randonnen philosopher

  Rho
m urged his dnu in the wake of Ammesdo’s mount. Dawn was still, with only a smattering of snowflakes to hint at stronger weather. He knew his twin was close. The wolves almost strained to leap ahead, and Gray Hishn was held by only a thread. They stayed out of survival, but their need for food would soon be crushed under their need to reach the wolfwalker.

  There was another party up ahead—he had seen a tent on the slope a half day below the passhouse. Stay, he begged the other party silently. Stay and help him find his twin. But dawn had brought a layer of clouds, and when they had cleared, the tent was gone, and the riders had moved on to the pass.

  Talon scanned the mountain. The snow was falling lightly, and he could see the ridge behind which the passhouse squatted like a stone den. They would easily make it by dusk.

  There was tension in the other rai—he cut himself off from that word. Not raiders. There was tension in his men and women , and it was only slightly eased by the wolves. The wolf pack that bounded ahead of them had already eaten a third of their supplies, and they still had days to go to reach the Ariyen border. They would all be hungry by then. He stared at the distant ridge and bit back the eagerness that threatened to spill over to the wolves. He was close. He could feel her. He had to fight the strength that sang in his muscles to keep from spurring his dnu. Had to unclench the hands that threatened to crush the already flattened leather reins. But he was close enough to taste her in the gray.

  One of the wolves looked back. That ragged bond between them, the chain that was no bond of love but of need—that geas that twisted his guts . . . Find her, yes. And then take back his freedom. Control his future, control his life.

  Freedom, the wolves seemed to whisper.

  The gray that edged his hard mind seemed satisfied.

  “They are hours below us,” Kiyun murmured.