Nori nodded. Wakje often got up and walked the camp in the middle of the night. She wondered sometimes if his dreams were as bad as hers. “The watcher, he was over by Rezuku’s wagon?”
But Proving shook his head. “He was eight wagons down from yours in my direction. And he was relieved by another man at the second watch, and by a woman just before dawn.” He caught the determination in her violet eyes. “I wouldn’t go looking for them, Black Wolf, not without a passel of armed folk at my back. They all moved like your uncles, sure and quiet.”
“But you heard them.”
He chuckled without humor. “I heard the rasp of their leathers every time they moved.”
And every snore, rustle, and murmur around him. No wonder the man couldn’t sleep. But she said only “My thanks” as she rode forward again.
Kettre was waiting with the message master. Nori shook her head almost imperceptibly as she greeted the old woman casually.
“Eight messages, prepaid,” the message master told her, handing over a bundle of message rings and a thin roll of paper. “Your duty.”
Nori glanced at the three carved and painted sticks, then slid them into her pouch. Regardless of shape, the wooden messages were all called message rings. They weren’t the most efficient way to communicate, but they were one of the most personal. The emotion and style of the carver went directly into the wood, the messages couldn’t be accidentally changed in travel without the damage showing. They’d been used since the sixth century for almost all formal agreements between merchants, Houses, guilds, and counties. They were like promises, she thought. Or like code. The nuances, implications and even hidden messages in the carvings were often invisible to any but the person who would receive them.
She checked the five paper slips, then rerolled them and slid them into their tube. Then she met the message master’s pale eyes and said softly and deliberately, “Nine messages, my duty.”
The old woman opened her mouth to correct her, then halted. “Nine messages, aye.” She squinted at Nori. “I can’t quite remember who brought in that last one, though.”
“Ah, it came in with a ring-runner last night. Not the usual rider.”
“Of course.” The thin woman made a note in her tally book. “I don’t know what’s getting into my brain these days. Bad tallies, messages astray.” She shook her head.
Kettre asked in a low voice, “Did you ever find those missing rings?”
Nori gave her friend a sharp look, and the old cozar gazed at both of them for a moment. “Not a hair of them,” she finally answered, equally softly. Two chovas trotted toward the wagon, and the message master said more loudly in a sour voice, “That idiot Mato actually accused me of claiming they were missing just so I could still charge them for the sending. I’d have bitten his head off if I had your teeth, Black Wolf. My birds never come back empty-toed without me seeing it, you can bet the sixth moon on that.”
Nori and Kettre hid grins.
The old woman waved for the chovas to wait, and picked up a small stack of books with her thin hands. “If you’ve got company on the ride, you can take this up also, if you’re willing.”
Nori glanced at the three books. “Ah, the monthly trade-off.” They were well worn, but they’d be welcome at the isolated tower. “What titles?”
“Two classics and one modern: Landfall, by Lurien, Who Hunts the Wolves, and On the Edge of Aiueven, by Reveven.”
“I’ve been avoiding that last one,” she admitted as the cozar handed them up to Kettre.
The old message master grinned toothily. “As have I.”
“I hear he still claims it’s based on my mother.”
“I’d say he wishes he were your mother, saving the world and all. But what does an old woman know?” The message master shrugged her thin, bony shoulders. “It’s a fast way to silver to mention Dione. On your way now, Black Wolf.” As the waiting chovas took their place, the old woman called after them, “And don’t forget to bring back the other books they’ve finished.”
They waved over their shoulders.
They were well ahead of the caravan before Nori told Kettre about the watcher Ed Proving had seen the night before.
Kettre scowled. “Watchers, kidnappings, and attacks on the road? Someone’s got to be communicating constantly to put that all together.”
Nori nodded. “We’ll start watching the ring-runners and message master more closely. If messages are going missing, someone might be intercepting or stealing them so she can’t keep a record. Uncle Wakje says they did that sometimes to make it harder to backtrack them later.”
Kettre slanted her a look. “I don’t see how you’re going to be able to tell anything from that old spider. She just added a nonexistent message to her tally simply because you asked. You might as well call her a tally ho.”
“Moons, Kettre.” Nori looked around quickly.
“Don’t worry, she didn’t hear me,” the woman returned sourly. “Besides, it’s true.”
“It’s completely different,” Nori returned sharply. She scowled at Kettre’s knowing look. “I’m different,” she said finally. “She’d tell me if anyone other than the Ell or Hafell asked her to do the same thing.”
“Of course. MaDione.”
“Moonworm crap,” Nori muttered. Kettre was right. As usual, the message master had assumed that, if Nori asked for help, it was really for her mother.
It was quiet as they started up the narrow path. Even the jackbraws seemed subdued and lazy in the warming sun. Small goldencups grew out of the bark on the sky side of the trees, and the scent of lemon and cloves was heavy in the air. Nori noted it all, saw and smelled and heard it all, but she’d left the cozar behind in her mind. Her senses stretched now for something else. She didn’t have long to wait.
Forty meters up the trail, Rishte slipped out of the brush. Kettre stiffened in her saddle, but Nori grinned. The yearling bared his teeth. He was poised with eagerness. Nori didn’t even look at Kettre. She simply leaned forward, spurred her dnu, and jumped the riding beast forward. Rishte turned and pelted away. He seemed to laugh in her mind, and she felt her muscles loosen with speed. Up, up—
“Damn you, Nori!” Kettre belatedly spurred her dnu after the wolfwalker.
The trail wasn’t yet steep, and the dnu charged up the trail after the wolf. Rishte leapt a half-cut log, and Nori sailed after him. Her dnu landed with bunched legs. It bucked itself up, then bounded over the next log, and Nori threw her head back and laughed out loud. Rishte howled in her head.
She finally pulled up at a switchback where the trail began to steepen. Kettre caught up a moment later. “By the molded cheese of a forgotten Tumuwen herder, you might give a girl a warning.”
Nori laughed. “You never used to have trouble keeping up.”
Kettre made a face. “Wait till we’re back in the city. Then we’ll see who falls behind.”
Nori grinned. “Speaking of the city, did you see Surah before you left?”
“No, but I heard she’s now down on Silverheart Street.”
“That sounds pretty, at least.”
Kettre sighed. “It’s a whore street, Nori.”
“Oh.” Nori felt like an idiot. She glanced at the wolf. He stood on the switchback, panting easily and waiting for them to go again. Up? he seemed to ask.
At least there she knew what to do. She nudged her dnu after him again. The riding beast was used to wolves and didn’t blink at the command, but Kettre had to urge her own dnu hard.
It took two hours to reach the ridge. From there, they could see the message tower that squatted one hill over. It was a newer stone structure, fully enclosed, poking out from the trees like a multieyed monster. A set of massive, tubed mirrors were mounted on the top, two facing south, and two facing north. Each was covered with lines of shutters to close it off when not in use.
“Predator flag is up,” Kettre murmured.
Nori nodded slightly. “It’s a hungry spring.”
As they watched, the shutters flickered, and a mirror began to flash. The light flashed on the edge of the cylindrical shield, and Nori’s eyes narrowed as she squinted at it.
“Anything interesting?” Kettre asked.
Nori watched for a moment, then shook her head. “Nothing that affects us. The bridge is still out on the lower Raine River, so those elders will be late to council.”
“What a tragedy.” Kettre laughed at her expression. “You can’t claim you’re thinking otherwise.”
“What I think and what I’ll admit are two very different things.”
“As always, Black Wolf. As always.”
Following the wolf, they clambered down the next stretch of trail. Rishte stayed ahead of them, turning every now and then to wait. Up two more switchbacks, a steep stretch that would have had their calves aching if they had been jogging . . . Rishte was trotting ahead, looking back, trotting ahead again. Nori felt her lips stretch in an answering grin. Not even the threat of predators could make her feel trapped out here.
When Rishte paused and growled softly in her mind, Nori pulled up. Mudslides, rockfalls, and old trees had broken most of the barrier bushes. What was left was a ragged line of pitiful shrubs clinging to the side of the hill in a desperate attempt to stay rooted. She nocked her bow with a borrowed arrow and kept her eyes sharp.
Kettre followed suit. She’d learned long ago that the wolfwalker had sensitive ears and eyes. When Nori eased forward, Kettre kept her distance so both had room to run.
They had almost reached the tower when Nori pointed. Kettre saw nothing, but ahead, Rishte’s bristle was up. Their riding beasts were uneasy, and starting to chitter with fear. Kettre could feel hers tremble. Like Nori, she crooned to soothe it.
Someone in the tower noticed them down on the trail. A small face appeared, disappeared, then leaned out, pointed to the right, and waved another red-striped flag. “Watch for . . . ba . . . ,” he shouted. “Ba . . . bear . . .”
Nori raised her hand in acknowledgment. She waited a moment listening to the trees. Then she nodded at Kettre, jabbed her heels in the sides of her trembling dnu, and loosed him. Kettre reacted instantly. Both creatures jumped. Somewhere behind, the women caught a glimpse of reddish brown fur, but Nori yelled wildly and charged the tower. Kettre was on her heels. They didn’t even try to dismount and open the gate. They simply hunched down, sailed over, and skidded into the courtyard.
“Moons!” Kettre burst out as they reined in.
Nori was laughing. She pushed her braid back over her shoulder and grinned at the other woman. Frustrated, the badgerbear flowed near the gate, stretched up and clawed the top of the beams, then padded back along the wall. Nori listened to it retreat. Then she tucked her bow back in its holder and dismounted.
The tower man called down, “Have a nice ride?”
The wolfwalker grinned back up. “Two hours of boredom for two seconds of fun.”
“Come on up, then. I’ve got your packet ready.”
Kettre just shook her head.
“Nine messages, none urgent,” Nori reported to the lanky man and his partner when they reached the high message room. She had known Jezeren since they were children, but she didn’t know the woman with him, and she didn’t like the avid look in the tower woman’s gaze. “Your duty,” she said formally, handing over the packet. She let her fingers tap it meaningfully before letting go.
“My duty, acknowledged.” The lanky man looked through the messages. He hesitated almost imperceptibly when the count came up short, but logged them in, and reached over to pick up his own packet. “I’ve got five going back down. Your duty, Black Wolf.” He handed them over and logged them out.
“My duty, acknowledged,” she accepted. She counted the four slips of paper, then rolled and tubed them tightly. The fifth message, the wooden message ring, was more formal: a small carved invitation hoop for Ell Tai, with beads, knotted line, feathers, and an ebony centerpiece. “Lovely,” she murmured. She added slyly, “Although I hear the artist is a bit hung up on himself.”
He chuckled. She knew he’d made the ring. “I hear the other carvers are jealous.”
She grinned in return.
“I’m to mention that Bafaro’s son is available to carve the reply. I don’t think they really believed my competition,” he emphasized, “would stay with one train long enough to do it herself.”
Nori shrugged. Few knew she had been doing Ell Tai’s message rings since she was seventeen. She took no coin—the old Ell had done her more than one favor, so the carving wasn’t listed as council duty, and she was careful to work in private. The only reason Jezeren knew her work, and she his, was that they had trained with the same master carver.
Nori had been drawn to the work from the beginning. The patterns seemed natural, as if she could see through the wood as she worked. That, and the slitted eyes that watched her thoughts seemed to approve of the patterns she carved. With the wolf so close in her mind, she didn’t examine the patterns too carefully as she tucked the formal ring back into its pouch and snapped it onto her belt.
Jezeren’s partner looked as if she wanted to speak, and the mirror man glanced at Nori’s small bundle of books and said quickly, “Are those the monthly trade?”
Nori nodded. “Two classics, one modern.” She handed them over and tried to avoid meeting his partner’s gaze. The woman had already called her the Daughter of Dione, Jangharat, Black Wolf, and The Sudden on the stairs up to the tower. Jangharat, she understood. She’d earned the Tumuwen name, “shadow of the forest,” years ago when scouting with her mother. But how the tower woman had ever heard that last rep-name, The Sudden, was beyond her. She dreaded going back down, where she could be obligated to a meal and an endless half hour of gossip. Instead, she hopped up on the message table and leaned her shoulders against the wall as if settling in. “Tai’s message master has always liked Landfall,” she offered. “Thought you might not mind a reread.”
The mirror man leaned back in his own chair. “Aye, it’s a good one. I always liked that scene with the third alien, myself.”
“It’s alright,” Nori answered diffidently. “My favorite is still the part where the wolves hit ground the first time.”
“You mean the part where they scatter?”
“You know that wasn’t a scatter,” she corrected. “More of a loosing of the wolves. If you’re willing?” She gestured at the water bota.
“As you like.” He nodded. “No, they scattered, Black Wolf. They were so far gone when they hit the trees, it was three days before any one of them was seen again.”
“Excuse me, maDione,” the tower woman interrupted. “Would you like some tea or rou instead of plain water? We have some excellent brews down in the kitchen. We can talk more easily there, too, catch up on the news.”
“My thanks, but water is fine.” Nori barely glanced at her. “I have to disagree,” she went on to Jezeren almost without pause. “The Landers knew where the wolves were. That whole scene is an analogy of freedom: to be loosed on an open world after a year and a half on a colony ship, paying aliens to haul them across hundreds of solar systems, only to dump them on the wrong planet, where they couldn’t know if they could make it.”
“It’s not freedom if you’re still tethered to the landing site—”
“Which they weren’t,” she answered. “Except by their desire to remain together.”
“That’s not an analogy of freedom, but of the fear they had to overcome to spread out on the world.”
The tower woman resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Black Wolf,” she tried again. “Perhaps you’d like to try some of the early roast? I’d be happy to serve you myself, perhaps find out what’s happening in the pre-Test rounds?”
“Later, later.” Nori waved her away and continued, “They feared nothing at that point that isn’t always an issue on any colony planet. What were the dangers? What were the risks? They faced everything the moment they set foot down, and they didn�
��t do it like timid mice, but in one fell swoop.”
“One fell swoop is right. They had eleven years before the Aiueven came down hard enough to kill off more than a third of the population. And again, I’d say that that isn’t an analogy of freedom, but a cautionary tale—”
The woman tapped her finger against her chair and tried once more to interrupt, but Kettre gave her a wry smile. “We could be here a while,” she murmured. “They can argue this story for hours.”
“You’d think the Wolfwalker’s Daughter would have better things to do when she’s riding tower duty,” the woman said, a bit too sharply.
Kettre shrugged. “I’d be happy to try the roast and the rou. You know—” She leaned in conspiratorily. “—I was with the searchers who went out to find her when she left Ell Tai’s train the other night.”
The woman’s eyes gleamed. “I’d love to hear all about it.”
Kettre winked at Nori, who pretended not to notice. “. . . not until the end,” Nori went on as the other two women made their way down the stairs. “That’s when Sarro Duerr realizes what he has to do to buy the freedom they thought they had at Landfall—”
The lower door shut on the stairs. For a moment, there was silence in the tower room. Nori and Jezeren looked at each other. “New partner?” Nori asked finally.
“Aye, out of Sidisport. Moons, but I thought she’d never leave.” He stood up. “When she saw the Daughter of Dione riding in the courtyard, she just about tripped on her own pants to meet you.” He pulled a book off the shelf, bent the spines back, and eased a flattened roll of paper out of the gap between the covers.
Nori hopped off the table. “So what have you got?”
Jezeren was all business now. “The usual gossip, a few notes of interest. You’ll want to check these.”
Wolf in Night Page 25
