Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  Distant light caught Hishn’s eyes, and the gray wolf’s mental voice changed. Dion shivered out of the packsong. She focused so that she saw the pinpoints of light from Ontai. “Hishn?” she asked softly, over the hooves of the dnu. She could have spoken mentally, but she needed the sound of her voice to anchor her in her own world and outside of the howling packsong.

  Wolfwalker! Hishn returned.

  The wolf further opened the link between them until Dion was swamped with the Gray One’s senses. She peered through both Hishn’s eyes and her own, but she saw lights on in only five homes up ahead. There was nothing more than a front light at the relay stable itself. She frowned, slowing as the line of rootroad trees hid the village again.

  Wolfwalker? The wolf’s voice rang in her head. It hadn’t been a human word that was sent, rather the image Gray Hishn had of her. But fifteen years with the wolf in her head, and Dion couldn’t help but know how to interpret the lupine images. The only thing she wished was that she had the perception of the alien birdmen. Legend told that the Aiueven were able to see into human brains, not just into lupine minds. For Dion, being able to tell the difference between raider and Ariyen would have been a useful trait.

  “Stay with me, Hishn.” Her voice was soft with unease. “There were two dnu by that second house. Maybe they’ve moved the relay beasts over for some reason.”

  There are no hunters here or ahead, the wolf returned. The dens here smell of stale food and sleep sweat.

  Absently, Dion bit her lip. Hishn’s senses were tuned to the wilderness, and her predator sense was strong. If the Gray One said there was no danger here, Dion was inclined to believe it. She shifted to a rolling post as the six-legged dnu slowed itself further and fell into its scuttling gait. This close to the village proper, the clouds of gnats that hovered above the road hit her like tufts of smoke. She blinked and snorted and spit them out as they fluttered into her face. “The ice fevers hit this village hard,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand. “Nine died in this village, including three in the council. Perhaps this is part of those changes.”

  The gray wolf snorted softly. Fevers burn change into all of us.

  Dion gave the wolf a sharp look. The image sent had not been recent, but old, as though the wolf had tapped into a memory of disease. The gleam of yellow eyes that looked into her mind seemed layered with other, older, foreign eyes. Dion started to follow that thought back into the Gray One’s mind, but the shiver she felt at the echo of death made her withdraw. She could not ignore her chill of recognition. The memory of fever the wolf had pushed to her mind was of plague, not winter death.

  It had been years since Dion had felt that fever herself, but her own images of it were sharp. What had decimated the Ancients eight centuries ago had almost killed her too, and she could still feel the touch of aliens behind the minds of the wolves. Still feel the sense of those foreign minds that had sent the plague to the humans. From their peaks in the north, Aiueven still watched the humans and kept them from the stars. And what had once been a tentative colony world had become an earthbound prison. No human had returned to the stars in over eight hundred years. She bit her lip as that sense of time remained in Hishn’s mind. It had been too long—those centuries without the sciences of the Ancients. Aranur’s goal, his county’s goals to return to the technology of long ago—they were blind hopes. The aliens who had lived here first would not allow any more human progression. So the domes of the Ancients were still ridden with plague, and the wolves, who had helped to colonize this world, still carried their own seeds of disease.

  Hishn howled, low in her mind, and the sound was echoed through the packsong. A hundred voices came softly back. None of them pushed, none of them pressed her, but she felt their need like a pressure on her chest. How could she not, when half the cubs birthed were stillborn on the ground? The alien plague had affected the wolves far longer than it had the humans, and Dion had made a promise to the wolves about the Aiueven disease.

  It had been thirteen years, and that promise hung unfulfilled in her head, suspended in the work that she did each month and never quite finished. Each semicure she thought she found went nowhere when tested out. And the other work—the immediate work—of healing, of teaching in Ariyen clinics, of making her scouting runs … That work seemed to press in on her life. What time she had left went to her sons, not to quiet, frustrating labs.

  She took a long, slow breath, letting the night air clear her lungs of the stench of ancient plague. The wolves were as patient as winter demons. Their memories would not fade with time— neither those of plague nor of her promise to cure it. And she was only thirty-eight. Raiders and worlags and lepa and work might postpone her duty, but they could not destroy it. She had two hundred years and more to find the cause of the alien death. To heal the wolves … To see them bring forth living litters instead of so many stillborn cubs … Aranur dreamed of the Ancients’ stars, but Dion dreamed of thwarting death.

  Gray Hishn looked back at her from the road, and Dion felt the impact of those yellow eyes as their minds blended thoughts and words. You think of your promise. Of your bond to us.

  Her answer was a projection, her voice a set of ringing images in the gray creature’s mind. You saved my brother. Saved Aranur and his family. I want that same salvation for you—freedom from death, from the plague. It is my dream for you as much as Aranur’s dream of the future is for his people.

  Dreams are like threads, returned the wolf. They weave themselves into the packsong. They will not end till they die with you.

  “Aye,” Dion said softly, as she turned beneath an arbor. The trees arched overhead into a canopy that splintered the moonlight against the road. “But what dreams die that cannot be recovered?”

  Hishn heard her voice, not over the sounds of the dnu’s drumming hooves, but as another mental projection. A dream is a howl that lifts to the moons, the massive wolf returned. The silence of the stars is our answer. There is no end to either—the howl or the silence. What you dream and what you promise—they are forever in the packsong.

  “They might be forever in your packsong, Hishn, but my memory is short. I have in my head only what I have lived or dreamed of, not all the lives that you remember. And if I fail in my promise to you, I cannot simply pass on my memories as you do.”

  Then I will pass them on for you to your wolf cubs and your wolf cubs cubs.

  The image of her two younger sons was clear—her oldest, Tomi, had never been comfortable with wolves—but Dion didn’t answer. The cure she had promised to search for—that was hers to find. And she could not forget it. Each voice of the Gray Ones that touched her mind was tainted with alien plague. The history that was memory to Hishn was killing the wolves off slowly. To find that … To find a cure was a goal that Dion had set. She might be a grandmother ten times over before she found that cure, but she’d be damned to all nine hells of the moons before she would quit that work.

  She felt her jaw tense and looked down. Her hands were almost clenched on the reins, as if her determination was set in her fingers as much as in her mind. She laughed wryly, and relaxed back in the saddle. Hishn glanced back, eyes gleaming.

  Dion came out from under the arbor barely a kay away from the village, but she did not see the figures of the relay men she expected in front of the relay station. Unconsciously, her hand strayed to the hilt of her sword. She stretched her mind through the senses of the wolf to see the buildings more clearly. Her human sense of shape fed the wolf more specifics than the lupine black-and-white night vision, while the Gray One’s sense of movement and contrast merged with hers to create a fuller mental picture.

  Now she could see them—the three men at the stable, right there on the edge of town. But they merely stood, watching, and there were no dnu nearby. It wasn’t until she rounded the last corner and entered the village proper that she saw again the elder’s house where the relay dnu stood instead.

  The two people who waited in the fight fr
om the elder’s house were not mounted; neither made a move to get in the saddle or bring the dnu up to speed for her to switch mounts while riding. If one of them was her escort, he didn’t seem inclined to ride. Dion slowed further. Still neither of the two villagers moved, and finally, having no choice, she pulled to a stop.

  “Healer Dione.” The elder stepped slightly out of the light so that her thin silhouette grew more reedy. “We are honored by your visit.”

  Warily, Dion eyed the older woman. “I’m honored by your greeting this night, Elder Lea,” she said, not quite so swiftly as to be rude. “However,” she added, “I’m riding the black road, not visiting. I need a new mount, my escort, and both quickly.” She cast a brief, appraising glance at the youth, then looked at the riding beasts. “Are those the relay dnu?”

  The elder preened. “These are much better than the normal relay dnu, Healer Dione.” She stepped forward and petted the neck of one of the dnu. The beast skittered nervously. “Their coats shine like oil on water, and their temperaments are gentle yet still spirited. No bulging temple veins in these pretties—their heads are finely shaped.” Her voice held obvious pride. “They’re from my own stable.”

  Dion tried to see beyond the breeding to the meat of the animals. The dnu looked well-fed and glossy, sure enough, but their legs were dainty, not muscle-lanky, and their necks showed the fat, shapely thickness of short exercise rather than the leanness of long running. “They look like fine dnu,” she started, “but—”

  “They’re the very best in the village,” the elder assured, missing the glint in Dion’s eyes at the deliberate interruption.

  Hishn skirted the dnu and sniffed their haunches so that their eyes rolled back skittishly. They are like mice in a meadow— easy to frighten, easy to catch. I could run them down before they reached the forest.

  Dion shot the wolf a mental warning. Don’t unsettle them.

  But Hishn’s low growl was already rising. The Gray One’s automatic challenge brought a roughness to Dion’s own voice, and she struggled to smooth her words before speaking. “Elder,” she began again, “I appreciate the offer of dnu from your own stables, but I don’t need pretty and gentle in a beast. I need only speed and endurance. I prefer something trail wise. Where are the relay dnu?”

  “Surely you’re not suggesting that we allow you to ride out on the mangiest beasts we have—”

  “If they’re fast enough, yes,” the wolfwalker said, her voice just an edge short of sharp. “I’m not afraid of mange.”

  The youth at the elder’s side made a sound suspiciously like a snort. The elder shot him a look before spreading her hands in a shrug. “But Healer—”

  Hishn growled clearly now, and Dion, aching and numb from her ride, forgot to keep her voice calm. “By the moons, elder, I’ve told you what I need in a dnu—speed and endurance. Nothing else. I don’t care what kind of coats or tails or fat-shaped necks they have. If they don’t get me to the venge by dawn, some of our people could die.” Unconsciously, she tightened her knees in irritation, and her own mount, tired as it was, chit-tered and stamped its middle legs.

  The three stablemen, emboldened by Dion’s words, crossed the street to hear more clearly. Lights went on in another house, and two faces appeared at a window. Gray Hishn’s ears flicked, and the faint sound of pounding hooves filtered into Dion’s head through the wolf. “Who’s coming now?” she demanded.

  “Just one of the farmers,” the youth said casually.

  Hishn was already moving away from the dnu to eye the approaching rider and beasts. One man, three dnu, the gray wolf sent. TJiey are fresh from the stable, and he is fresh from his bed. They smell of sleep-sweat and eagerness.

  Dion, her ears tuned to the nuance of emotion as Hishn’s were to the breathing of prey, did not bother to watch the incoming rider. Instead, she let Hishn watch them approach while she turned her attention to the youth. He was tall and carried a sword that looked too new to have been used. His bow was bright with varnish, rather than oiled and dull as a scout would have left it. He stood confidently, but he made no move to join her. “You are my escort?” she asked sharply.

  “If you wish it, Wolfwalker.”

  Something more in his voice gave her pause. “You’re trained?”

  “Trained, yes,” he returned, with such a slight emphasis on the first word that Dion hesitated again.

  “Experienced?”

  “No, Wolfwalker.”

  Dion caught the anger that flashed in the elder’s eyes, then realized the resemblance of the elder’s aged features to those of the youth. No wonder the young man had done as he had, warning her of his status without speaking of it at all. Her own anger, fed by exhaustion and Hishn’s rising aggression, swamped her. It wasn’t about the venge, she realized, it was about respect for others’ lives. She worked so hard to save those she could … Aranur drove her to it by example, the council by request; but she believed in what she did. To be confronted with an elder who had such a lack of consideration for others that she could cause Ariyens to die—and have no better excuse for it than a desire to look important … Dion fought to form words, not fists. “And there are no more experienced fighters in this village? What happened to Bogie and Jonn?”

  “They are—” the elder began.

  “Asleep, Wolfwalker,” the youth cut in blandly. “Or out of the village boundaries. At best, they are half an hour away;’

  Dion tried to bite off her anger, but it clipped her words so that they hit the air like cracks of a whip. “Elder Lea, my relay request for a riding beast and escort should have reached you an hour ago. I’ve got to make Carston by the seventh moonrise, and I’ve got to hit Kitman by dawn. The Zaidi shortcut is the only route that will get me there on time. It is not a ride for the inexperienced. We’ll be outside the barrier bushes for over fifteen kays. The moons are high, so any predator will catch the glints even from our eyes. There’s fog to hide the road from our hooves, and the worlag packs are hunting nightly. Yet you hand me a grain-fed dnu for a mount and an escort who has yet to earn his sword.”

  The elder broke in. “Healer, Royce is from my own family. We’re simply trying to honor your presence with our best—”

  “My presence be damned. I’m here as a relay rider, and I need a relay dnu. I don’t need a beast whose strength peters out after the first hill. I need a dnu with endurance. More, I need a beast that has seen enough trail riding that it doesn’t jump off the road with every intimation of danger.” She glared at the elder. “Have you or haven’t you such a beast?”

  “These, Healer—”

  Dion snarled suddenly, and the sound was too much like a wolf. “Damn it to the seventh hell.” Her anger brought a tightness to the gray wolf’s throat. Yellow eyes gleamed at the elder, and involuntarily, the old woman stepped back to the light, leaving Dion, in the dark, a somehow menacing shadow. At the edge of the village proper, the approaching rider, trailing two riderless dnu, rounded die street corner and pounded loudly toward the growing group.

  In front of the wolfwalker, Royce felt his stomach tense. That third beast—that was for him. So he’d ride with Dione after all. His hands were suddenly nervous, and his feet itched in their boots. Gray Hishn’s eyes gleamed at him, but only the wolf-walker noticed.

  “Healer Dione.” One of the stablemen caught her suddenly sharp attention.

  She half wheeled her mount to face him. “What is it?”

  The short man cast a cautious look at the elder. “There are relay dnu if you wish one, but it will take us some time to get them.”

  By now there were a dozen people on the street, but Dion ignored them. “Do it,” she said to the man. “Please,” she added belatedly.

  The elder’s pride snapped out. “They are my stables, Healer. I choose the mounts that are to be used for relay, just as I select those who work in my stables.” She gestured sharply to the man who had unwisely spoken. “Those dnu are not fit for you. Take these or take nothing.”

/>   Slowly, Dion cursed under her breath. Shortcut or no, she couldn’t make it to Carston, let alone Kitman, on the worn-out dnu she now sat—it was tired as a winter worlag. And weary as she herself had become, she’d been careless again with her words. She’d escalated a challenge of the elder’s leadership, and with it, gods help her, she’d put the lives of her mate and his men at stake. For a long moment, she stared at the elder. Then her anger hardened into a coal, igniting a slow burn in her gut. She didn’t give a damn if she offended this woman or not, she realized. The long ride had left her no patience.

  “You would put my people—our people’s—lives in danger for the sake of your pride?” Her voice was low and steady, but hard as steel in the air. “How many of your own men and women have ridden out on a venge trusting that their elders had the judgment to send the fastest and most experienced to help? Do you think they’d trust your dnu on such a ride?” There was an ugly murmur in the small crowd. Dion’s hand crept toward the hilt of her sword, but the sound had not been directed at her.

  The incoming rider pulled up his dnu, and the elder glanced at him, then glared as she recognized the one-armed figure. “Tule? What are you doing here? Go back to your fields. You have no business with me this night.”

  The hulking man didn’t bother looking at the elder. Instead, he gave Dion an appraising look then maneuvered one of his extra dnu close to her tired beast. The others gave way like water, but the elder placed herself between Tule’s dnu and Dion’s. “Get your ronyons away from here, Tule.” She grabbed at the reins. “They aren’t fit for her to ride.”