Wolf in Night

by Tara K. Harper

  She felt a chill. Take me in—

  Vesh leapt back with a snarl. One wolf snapped at Nori’s leg with a vicious bite that had her stumbling away. Grey Helt’s fur was bristled like a hedgehog, and another one’s lips had curled back so far that its mouth seemed to drip red off its teeth like the open maw of a poolah. Even Rishte stared at her like a badgerbear, caught up in the defense of the pack.

  “Easy. Easy,” Nori breathed. She swallowed her sudden fear that it was she, not the seep, that was the greater danger. She edged back, automatically letting the hum rise in her throat. She kept her gaze on Rishte. “I mean no harm to you.”

  Vesh growled without stopping, and some part of Nori’s brain wondered how wolves could do that while still breathing. The other part focused on that sense of deliberate death. It had been recent, like a hunting trail a few years old, not faded like the Ancients. It crawled like cold steel up her spine. She could almost taste the dread in Rishte.

  It was Helt who nipped at his mate’s shoulder, glared once more at the wolfwalker, and indicated the trail.

  Nori understood. There would be no more memory-walk. Not with her. What she didn’t know was whether their rejection was for any wolfwalker who sought that danger, or for her alone, the scout with the taint in her mind.

  X

  Look closely, the signs are small,

  Like spider prints in dust.

  —from Tracking the Moons, by Vergi Vendo

  Wakje watched and chewed on a stalk of grass as Payne paced the edge of firelight. This close to the trailhead, the verge was wide. He had room to jog if he wanted.

  Mye, Ki’s son, turned over again in his sleeping bag. “Moonworms, Payne, are you going to pace all night?”

  “If I have to,” he said shortly.

  “You might at least try to sleep.” Mye tried to restuff his shirt under his head.

  Ed Proving belched softly, and one of the chovas rustled his bag of jerky, trying to get the last pieces. Another outrider was snoring like a bollusk. Payne’s voice was dry. “I’m more likely to sleep in a full-blast furnace than with all this peace and quiet.”

  Ki glanced over from his watch post. Like both his sons, he was a lean man, incredibly fast in spite of his age. It was Ki who had taught Nori the knife and the guitar, with his fingers flying equally well over steel or strings. He’d taught Payne and Nori to ride, climb, shoot, splice rope, how to judge a man’s moves by his balance and the way he set his muscles. Ki had eyes like a lepa watching the grass, seeking any movement, yet he’d never lifted his voice to them in all the years he’d taught them. Payne’s father had said more than once that, if it hadn’t been for Nori and Payne, Ki would have gone back to his raider ways within a year of joining Payne’s father. It was why Ki avoided their mother as much as Wakje did. The Wolfwalker Dione was a constant reminder of how they’d been caught and sentenced, of the killers who lurked inside them. When Payne bonded—if he bonded, Payne reminded himself—Ki might turn away from him, too.

  Now Ki watched Payne with an unreadable brown gaze. “You won’t be any good tomorrow. You’ll need sharp eyes to catch her trail.”

  “I know,” Payne returned too shortly. He was trying to stay controlled, but it had grown harder as every hour passed. Nori might be older by two years, but Payne had looked after her since he was twelve. No one had asked him to, but he’d been there when they’d brought her back from Sidisport. Payne and Nori always slept side by side—she’d had nightmares since she was born, but after Sidisport the dreams were worse. In the months it took for her to recover, he’d become a shadow-guard. He’d followed her until she got so used to it that she stopped looking over her shoulder to find him. Mama had been furious when she learned that he’d been challenging the older boys, but Papa had taken Payne quietly aside and shown him a few more techniques. With what Wakje, Ki, Weed, and his other uncles had taught him, he’d lost only three of those fights. He’d also earned a strange, unconditional approval from his uncles, as if, even at twelve, he’d suddenly become a man, one whom even they could rely on, almost an extension of the Wolven Guard. It had been exhilarating, and he’d been cocky as a preening chak until he’d been caught by six boys behind the packing house. If his uncle Weed hadn’t come along, he’d have had every bone—not just an arm, a wrist, and a nose—broken well into the second moon.

  And Nori, well, she could fight, but she rarely did. She was terrified of something inside her. He’d seen her freeze up a dozen times rather than strike first, as if some demon could tear physically out through her skin if she lost control of herself. And then afterward, the blinding headaches that could put her down for a ninan. She could barely be trusted to defend herself until after she was actually attacked.

  Payne rubbed his jaw and stared at the camp with its small, lonely fire in the midst of the tramped-down clearing. If Nori had been uneasy, if Wakje and Ki thought someone was stalking her in the caravan, perhaps she had fled willingly to protect herself or to draw the danger off.

  Dammit to the ninth hell and back, he cursed silently. Out here, away from the caravan, she’d have no one to watch her back. He wanted to snarl at Murton as the chovas pretended not to watch him. One of the other chovas, Gretzell, raised Payne’s hackles also. There was something far too jovial about the man, like a fatty veneer over a rigid, vicious core. Even maSera, the slender young outrider with the long brown braid, felt like a threat right now. “Idiot-brained bollusk,” he cursed himself.

  “Payne,” Ki started.

  He whirled and slammed his fist into a tree.

  The small camp went silent.

  He stared at his own hand. He hadn’t known that was in him. “Moonwormed ass of a cave bleeder,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and rubbed his bruised knuckles. Two of them were already welling out blood. He wiped them on his leggings and met his uncle’s gaze. His voice was low. “My apologies.” But he couldn’t help adding, “It’s just that she could be anywhere. She could be—” He shrugged angrily.

  Wakje waited a minute. Then he said simply, flatly, “Payne.”

  The warning was clear. The ex-raider had never tolerated a man who lacked control. Payne took a breath, let it out. “I know,” he returned finally. “But I can’t sleep. I can’t sit still. I just need to . . . move.” He resumed his pacing like a badgerbear in a cage.

  Wakje’s cold eyes followed the youth, but his thoughts flew after Nori. The two were close enough that the one sometimes unconsciously felt what the other did. They both admitted that they could sense the wolves on the edge of their minds. If Payne was this restless, perhaps he reflected the girl through the Grey Ones who never quite left either one. Wakje remembered more than one grey dusk with gleaming eyes, a carcass shredded by long-jawed fangs, the smell of blood and musk . . . Wakje felt a chill in his bones. He had never trusted the grey.

  XI

  “Rest a while,” said the Tiwar.

  “Why?” she asked, puzzled.

  His voice was soft. “Because you are still bleeding.”

  —from Wrestling the Moons

  By the time Nori saw the barrier bushes for Deepening Road, she was barely doing a walk-jog. The wolves had judged the wagon’s speed well; it wasn’t far ahead. But instead of relief at catching up, she was getting increasingly jumpy. She finally realized that it wasn’t her, but Rishte’s growing sense of fear as the wild wolves approached the humans. Bad enough that he’d had to trail the behemoth-wagons all day to get her attention. Now she wanted him—and the pack—to nip at the giants’ heels. She had to dig deep for the discipline to hold the wolf-link open and still lope toward the wagon sounds.

  The odor of the shrubs began to hit her like sharp, jabbing slaps. The fireweed, blackthorn, and roroot that made up the hedge were usually faint—just a mild, pithy scent easily dulled by the herbs planted inside the border. For some reason, the stench of this stretch was stronger. She wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe shallowly. It took her more moments to realize that, with
their link as open as a gossip’s mouth, Rishte was sending her the odors received by the entire pack. The nasal assault was from the Grey Ones. “Rishte—” Abruptly, she closed down on the link. Her last sharp sense of the wolf was an echo of lupine laughter.

  She crossed the first wide lane, stumbled over the tree-lined meridian on knees made of gelatin, and forced herself onto the other side of the road. It seemed to take forever to catch up those last few hundred meters to the trailing wagon guards. There were no dogs to warn of her approach, for which she was grateful. The wolves would have killed any guard-pets. Still, the wolves stayed in the rootroad trees as she loped up behind the city chovas.

  Instinctively, Nori had stayed in the shadows until she was close, and the one outrider who had looked over his shoulder hadn’t seen her. She didn’t have the voice to call out to them, and with the wolves in her mind she couldn’t force herself to do it. The pack was on the edge of attack-panic already as she took their pups among humans. She simply drew up beside one of the riders and, numbed, waited for him to realize she was there. She was not disappointed by the reaction.

  “Buk piss!” one of the younger ones cried out. The youth jerked the reins and actually startled his dnu into his partner’s mount.

  “What the—” The young woman’s mount skittered into the meridian, nearly unseating the girl in the soft edge of the roots. “Hevre take you—” she snapped.

  The first youth drew a sword so shiny that Nori could see its engraving. His thoughts—and his sudden spike of fear—were transparent: the beasts he saw behind him were a pack of the pink-eyed, doglike bihwadi, slavering at his heels.

  There was a commotion in the front of the wagon as the lead guards reacted to the noise in the back. Nori didn’t have breath to reassure them, but it didn’t matter. Already the third guard, the one who had been alert, was putting his half-drawn sword back in the scabbard. This man was no youth, and he’d read her in an instant. Quickly he whistled the signal for a ring-runner, then nudged his dnu closer to Nori.

  She didn’t greet him. She just extended her hand. He caught her sweat-slick wrist with a firm, callused grip and swung her up as if he didn’t even notice her weight. He settled her more firmly behind him before he realized her whole body was trembling. Rishte dropped back to the pack with a low, mental snarl.

  “Vidon, did you see that?” the young woman guard said excitedly, wheeling her dnu around.

  “They’re not bihwadi,” the first youth returned eagerly. “They’re wolves.” He yanked his dnu carelessly back to the center of the road and twisted to peer back at the Grey Ones.

  Nori glanced at the two city guards, and almost slid from the dnu as she did so. She was straddling the edge of the saddle’s flange, just in front of the dnu’s belly segment. She scooted closer to the older man, but it didn’t help. Her balance was off, precarious, as if she were unsuited for riding. She grabbed the guard’s belt to steady herself and cursed at her undisciplined mind. Again, it wasn’t her; it was Rishte. Four legs, not two. Low balance, not tall. Ruthlessly, she clamped down on the fragile bond. There was instant relief for her body. She ignored the frustrated howl that rang through her mind. Now her muscles knew what to do, and she slid easily into the riding beast’s rhythm.

  The first youth wrenched his dnu around so that he could see the creatures behind them. “It’s an escort,” he guessed, forgetting to keep his voice low. At a hard glance from Nori’s rider, the youth reined back into position, but he was unfazed by the discipline. “I’m Vidon neBerum,” he introduced excitedly. “Subrank student to Gankira and Lee, Tamrani Ser, of the Third House, Liegtha. She’s Gariala maStura, subrank student to Gankira and Lee, Flint-dau and Glass-dau. You’re riding behind neLivek.”

  With her mind caught in the wolves, the titles washed over her without meaning. She recognized only the sense of the words, that the woman was high guild, and the young man Tamrani, and that both were out of Sidisport. They were anathema to Ariye, then. She nodded a tense acknowledgment and searched her memory for the more familiar name, neLivek. He was perhaps eighty or ninety, thick with aged muscle, but not yet showing the thin white hair of someone well over a hundred. She’d felt the twisted scar on the palm of his hand when he’d taken her wrist. Along with that, he wore a southern-style harness with a double rack-quiver.

  “NeLivek of the Two Seeds?” she asked over the man’s shoulder. Her voice was hoarse and dry from running and too much snarling at Rishte.

  “Aye.” He was surprised, and he spat the seeds he’d been sucking to the side of the road. “Though it’s been a while since anyone called me that. I go by Tysil neLivek in the trade lanes.” He’d gotten the other rep-name forty years ago as an outrider with a Diton caravan. It was a wry reminder that the cozar remembered a man’s reputation long after he himself had misplaced it.

  NeLivek glanced over his shoulder, then lost the beginnings of his grin. Up close, the blood streaks were clear. He made a subtle signal at the man who was cantering back from the front, but kept his voice casual as he untied his bota bag and passed it to Nori. “This is Hunter,” he introduced. He ignored Vidon’s look when he didn’t bother with the formalities. “He’s in charge of this spit-poor excuse for an escort. We’re outriding the cozar family of Rocknight Styne. They broke a wheel and fell behind the train.”

  She nodded as she uncapped the bota bag. That explained the number of outriders. An Ell wouldn’t usually hold up an entire caravan for one disabled wagon, but he would dispatch as many guards as he could to escort a fallback till it rejoined the safety of the line.

  The taller man, Hunter, judged the way her legs kept twitching as if she were still racing the black road. She was jumpy as a Grey One. He half expected her to startle back into the dark at the sound of his voice. “Warm night for running,” he commented.

  Nori jerked another nod. Her breathing was still hard, and she did not trust her voice.

  Hunter scowled as he realized just why Vidon was staring so blatantly. That sling barely covered her. “Vidon, Gariala, ride forward,” he ordered curtly. With an arch look from Gariala, the two reluctantly obeyed, leaving the rear guard to neLivek. The tall man stripped off his overvest. “We’ll stop in ten or fifteen minutes at the Clever Springs wayside.” He held out the garment. “This should do for now, unless you need a shirt before you wash.”

  Nori glanced down and wanted to roll her eyes. As casual as scouts had to be with each other, one still had to make allowances for teens. “I’ll wait,” she said shortly. She shrugged the proffered vest on over the sling.

  Hunter nodded his approval. As with most experienced ring-runners, she didn’t put prudishness ahead of safety. Besides, the treated leather wiped off like chancloth, although—and Hunter hid a grin at the thought—his mother would swoon if she knew how her expensive gift had been baptized. Considering the state of this ring-runner’s skin, had the woman asked for a shirt, it would have been stained beyond saving. “Raiders or worlags?” he asked.

  “Aye,” Nori answered obliquely.

  “Both?” He was startled in spite of himself.

  She nodded and drew the vest in more closely. It was body-warm and well softened, and it smelled of man and dnu. It wasn’t standard chovas gear, not with that fancy edging and tooling as fine as any she’d seen. Her family was well off, but even they didn’t wear things like this on the trail. This vest would cost two months of scouting wages. Rich, then, she thought, but riding guard for a fallback wagon? She slanted Hunter a look.

  He knew what she saw: a man maybe five, six years older than herself, with the typical broad shoulders and muscular build of a southern Ariyen. His hair was so dark it was nearly black, and long enough in the Ariyen style that he braided it back and tied it with a leather thong for travel. It wasn’t an affectation, as it would have been on Fentris the Fop. He just hated the bother of getting it cut.

  In the sunlight, there would be hints of red and gold in his hair, and his eyes would be a sharp, cl
ear green. In the moonlight, his face looked angled and planed, cold, perhaps even harsh. His mother had told him more than once that he could have been as handsome as his brothers, except that his chin was too square, his eyebrows too thick, and his nose too arrogant to appeal to any woman. When he’d escorted his sisters to events, he made them look as delicate as three-thread lace. His face hardened at the thought of his sister, and he fingered his layered belt again. Jianan had almost paid with her life for the notes that Hunter now carried.

  Nori’s eyes flicked to the fingers that tapped the thick belt, and Hunter’s hand stopped abruptly. His green eyes narrowed at Nori. Only four hours ago, Fentris Shae had caught up to him and handed over Jianan’s notes. Now this woman came out of the night with a tale of outrunning worlags? Fentris knew the city like the back of his hand, but knew nothing about the forest. The fop would never have noticed if he’d been followed. That left Hunter here, late in the night, with seven untried city youths at his side, two years of reports on his person, a possible murderer at his back, and all of them kays from the caravan.

  Nori caught the sudden sharpness in his gaze and went still.

  From behind, Rishte bristled. Danger. He watches. Bare your fangs.

  Hunter started to speak, then stopped himself. She was poised not for the kill, but to flee. She had reacted as if he was a threat to her, not she a danger to him. He said softly, “We mean no harm to you.”

  Nori tried to smile, but her lips curled ferally instead. Rishte’s instincts were too close.

  Someone called back from the front, and Hunter didn’t look away from her as he ordered sharply, “Hold position. We’ll stop at the wayside.”

  Nori forced herself to sit back. He had an unconscious authority that reassured her more than his words ever could. Her father had the same manner, as did her uncles. Great, she thought. He was one of the perfect ones, like Payne. Tall, skilled, confident, strong—his arm muscles were corded like twistwood. He probably couldn’t even spell fear. Even his clothes were perfect: full-cut for easy movement, dull colors, and varied patterns to deceive the eye in the forest. His riding boots were tesselskin. Tough, light, breathable, and with just enough give that they never seemed to bind. Expensive as oldEarth fox, and not usually worn on rough trails. He was either too ignorant to realize just how badly they could be gouged up, or too wealthy to care what they would cost to replace.