Dion smiled her approval. “How much are you carrying now?”
“I have one dried root, and this fresh one.”
“And if we were to be out for a ninan, and you were going to eat only wild plants, how many roots would you need to carry?”
“Two if they were from the garden,” he returned proudly. “Just one, if it was wild.”
Danton scowled. “It’d be bitter if it was wild.”
“Wild or not, extractors are lifesavers,” his brother quoted importantly.
Dion half smiled at her younger son. “Life is an acquired taste, little wolf. You’ll understand that more when you’re older.”
The younger boy scowled at his brother. “If I was as old as you, I’d eat meat all the time when I went out by myself.”
This time Dion smiled without reservation. “You’d certainly try to do that, I’m sure. But it’s more difficult to make a good snare than it is to pull a tuber from the ground. You’re more likely to find roots man rabbits laying around for your supper.”
“Besides, meat has more toxins than plants,” Olarun admonished.
“Meat is different than plants,” Dion corrected. “Most meats do have more toxins than plants, but some meats have less. It takes a while to learn how much of the extractors to use with each type. Until you know exactly which animals contain how much toxin, the best rule to follow is to use twice as much extractor as you would if the quantity of meat was a plant.”
“How come we have to use extractors anyway?” Danton asked. “Why can’t you just heal the plants so they don’t make us sick when we eat them?”
This time Dion laughed outright. “It is we, not the plants, that are the problem, little wolf. This world wasn’t made for humans, and the food that grows here naturally is poison to us even now. The extractor plants, when cooked with the native food, strip the poison from what we eat. Without extractors, there would be almost nothing safe to put in your mouth. After a while you would be very, very hungry.”
“I’m hungry now,” he returned.
Dion mussed his hair. “Then let’s eat when we get to Still Meadow.”
As she brought the boys to the edge of the meadow, she let her mind range across the hills to Hishn. The ridge between them barely dulled the persistent thread of Hishn’s voice, and the Gray One sent back a shaft of lupine joy. Dion let it curl her Up as she told the boys to pull out their packed lunches. For claiming to be as hungry as they were, they ate slowly, constantly stopping to pick at this leaf or that, to bother this bug, to see which of them could dig their feet deepest into the dirt.
Dion wondered, as she watched them, whether either of them would bond with the wolves. They could hear Hishn clearly, but neither had taken one of the gray wolf’s pups. Hishn said it was the strength of Dion’s own bond that allowed them to hear the packsong, and their love for Hishn that prevented them from separating the wolf cubs from their wolf mother. But the boys were growing fast. Soon they would be independent enough to seek out their own gray packsong, to hear the wolves for themselves.
Danton, having finished his meatroll, shifted his gaze to the meadow. “Why can’t we ever ride dnu up here?” he asked.
“Because dnu get bogged down in the marshy parts of the meadow,” Dion answered automatically. “And dnu don’t like wild wolves.”
“There aren’t wild wolves here now.”
“No,” Dion agreed.
“Were there wild wolves on OldEarth?” Olarun asked.
“And on the moons?” Danton added.
Dion smiled. “OldEarth had only one moon.”
“I bet there were hundreds of wolfwalkers on OldEarth,” Olarun said to his brother.
“I bet there were thousands,” Danton retorted.
“I bet I could have been a better wolf walker there than you,” the older boy shot back.
Dion watched them with a half-sober smile. Her sons would never see OldEarth—not if the aliens kept humans earthbound instead of allowing them once again to reach for the stars. She sighed, then studied the skies and the angle of the sun before risking a more open position in the meadow. But there were no lepa in sight. Whatever lone beast she had sighted earlier from Dry Ridge had either gone down on its prey or flown farther away. Tenantler Ridge, to the west, looked clear; and the wolves would have noticed if anything had flown over Moshok Valley to the east. “Ready to go?” she interrupted the I-bet game of the boys. They nodded emphatically, and she adjusted the packs on their shoulders.
Her eyes scanned the meadow, searching for movement and color that would indicate predator or prey: the shrubs that sprouted branches a hair too thick, the lumps in the grass that weren’t rocks … But the meadow movements were normal, quiet. There were no warning calls from the grazing creatures, except those that reacted to the boys.
“Predator check,” she told them, pointing to a small stand of silverheart trees. Obediently, they moved into the stand and squatted down into the ferns so that they could see her from between the thin trunks. From the edge of the meadow, she glanced at them, gave Olarun a stern look when he punched Danton on the shoulder for poking him, and then stepped out into the grass. She moved slowly, cautiously, then ran a hundred meters into the meadow in a serpentine pattern. With Hishn’s senses in her nose, she had to narrow their bond so that the odors in her own nose were stronger than the ones the gray wolf sent. But the only creatures she scared up were a flock of pelan, and the birds settled down again within seconds, telling her that there were no predators visible from the air.
She turned, grinned, and waved for the boys to join her. They barely waited for her gesture before they raced each other from the forest. Danton tripped, and Olarun shouted gleefully at him; the younger boy was up in an instant, trying to catch up to his brother.
For an hour, they raced through the meadow, running, teasing each other, playing tag. Dion showed them the shallow ground caves made of old, crumbling lava rock that, over time, had humped up into mounds of soil and brush. They had a moment’s excitement when one of the entrances collapsed beneath Danton’s weight, but Dion yanked him clear before his legs were caught in the rubble. They were more wary of the caves after that.
Danton peered carefully into another shallow cave. “Momma, how come there aren’t any worlags here?”
“Because, little wolf, this meadow is half swamp, especially in spring and fall. It’s too wet for worlags,” she returned absently. “They’ll take to snow, but not water.”
“I told you so,” Olarun hissed to Danton.
“I bet a lepa would live here if it wanted to,” the younger boy retorted.
Dion half smiled. “Lepa are cave-dwelling birds, that’s true, but they wouldn’t climb down into a lava tube—ground caves are where the worlags live, and worlags kill lepa as easily as lepa kill wolves. Only if a lepa is desperate to chase its prey will it ever try to get inside a ground cave.”
“What if one did? What if one chased you down a cave?” Danton persisted.
“Then I’d light a fire to keep it off. Smoke disorients lepa the same way it disorients a dnu. And no lepa will attack you through fire.”
“I could build a fire in a cave,” Olarun declared.
“So could I,” Danton put in quickly.
“You both know how to build fires,” she agreed. “But it’s different when you build a fire in a cave. You don’t want to smoke yourself out of the cave and right back into the lepa’s claws. So you have to build the fire downwind as always, but close enough to the front to protect you and not so far outside the cave that the lepa can get between you and the fire. Of course, you could always choose a cave with a built-in chimney—one that has a nice living room, with plenty of windows …”
Olarun rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure, Momma.”
She just smiled.
She took them along channels of sluggish spring water that hid between the low grasses. There were striped eels in the mud, and curled balls of worms; there were spray beetles on the
rocks. Dion let a handful of beetles crawl around on her hands and nibble lightly at her skin. She looked at her boys, at the expressions on their faces as they felt with awe the tiny mouths of the insects. There was excitement in their voices. There was a lightness in her sight. She set the beedes back on the rocks and sat back on her heels. For the first time in ninans she felt free. Slowly, she got to her feet. Then she threw out her arms and twirled, letting her voice howl with Hishn’s mental cry. Olarun leaped up and began to spin with her. His young voice tried to imitate the terraced tones of the wolves, and Danton started laughing. The three collapsed in a heap of rough-housing play.
Finally, Dion tossed the boys away. “Enough,” she said, breathless. “You won’t have enough energy left to make camp.”
“Yes we will,” Danton protested, throwing himself back on her.
She took his weight easily and swung him in a circle, dropping him gently on a mat of grass. Then there was nothing for it but to do the same again with Olarun. “Ah—” She stopped them with a gesture from leaping back up. “No more. We have to choose our campsite.”
“Parcit Pond,” Danton said without hesitation.
“Moshok Valley,” Olarun said as quickly.
Dion smiled at her youngest. “Parcit Pond is a swamp right now. Do you really want to sleep in the middle of a swarm of biting, stinging, creeping, slithering crawlers, bugs, and eels?”
“Yes,” Danton said firmly.
Dion grinned at his stubborn expression. “Then I’ll make sure we find you some. But both the pond and the valley are kays away.”
“The valley is closer,” Olarun said confidently.
“Yes, but the state you two are in, it would take six hours to get over the ridge and down to the flatlands to camp.”
“The wolves are in the valley,” Olarun urged.
Dion gave him a careful casual look. “How do you know that? Can you hear Hishn?”
“He’s just saying that,” Danton cut in, the jealousy on his face as clear as water. “He can’t hear anything.”
“I can too hear her.” Olarun purred up his chest. “She’s like a creepy little fog in the back of my mind.”
Dion got caught between a laugh and a choke. “I’m sure Hishn will appreciate the compliment,” she managed finally. She opened her mind to the gray wolf and sent on to Hishn an image of the creepy fog. Hishn’s response was immediate and sharp.
Dion glanced at the sky. “You want a swamp, Danton; and Olarun, you want the wolves?” Both boys nodded. “Then how about Jama Creek? It’s just this side of Moshok Valley; it’s swamp on one side and rock on the other. The lava tubes, rotten as they are down there, lead back along the cliffs. And,” she added, “there’s a wolf pack denning there.” Her eyes became unfocused for a moment. “In fact,” her voice grew soft, “if you look very carefully—” She pointed toward the distant edge of the meadow. “—you can see three of the wolves there now.”
Eagerly, the boys turned. The tiny dots at the edge of the grasses were almost invisible. Not until one of the yearlings moved did Danton see where they were. Olarun mistook a rock pile for the Gray Ones, and it was minutes before he recognized the real lupine shadows.
By the time Dion began to lead her boys east, the wolves had disappeared. The sun was afternoon-bright and hot as an insult. The meadow became humid, the muddy grass sticky, and Dion moved them along more quickly. Once they started across the expanse, there would be no turning back, and she had no desire to be in the meadow after dark. The spring gatherers would be out in force by the end of the ninan, judging by the circles that marked their digging-test patches, but there was no one else in the meadow as yet to keep them company. And she could not have led her sons along the perimeter—the creeks and bogs that lined the meadow were treacherous in spring.
She scanned the skies, then listened for the noises of the other creatures in the meadow. There was no nervousness, no wariness except in the animals that watched her own steps. Still, she kept her bow strung and her sword loose in its scabbard.
Three times, she did a predator check, leaving the boys simply lying in the grass rather than crouched in fern stands or near old, burned-out logs. Predators tended to find shade themselves when they weren’t doing serious hunting. Several times she ran on ahead, then stopped and climbed on a log or hump of rock to watch the wind-movements of the grass behind her sons. She had done this so many times for herself; now she was doing it for them. The pattern of life seemed to connect past and future, and Dion found herself smiling. She studied the grasses and let herself stretch to see back along their trail. But the early afternoon was quiet, and the meadow was well named. Nothing haunted their footsteps.
Each time she checked their backtrail, she let her mind expand with the senses of the wolves. She couldn’t tell if it was her imagination or not that there was a hint of her older son in that bond, but Olarun assured her that he could tell when she opened her mind to Hishn.
Do you hear him? she asked the gray wolf on the other side of the ridge.
He is faint, like a wisp of smoke, Hishn sent back. I hear the echo of his voice in yours.
Dion couldn’t help her rush of pride. She couldn’t articulate what she felt, even to the wolf, but it swamped her like a wave. Someday, she told Hishn, He’ll run with Aranur and me. And the packsong between us will be full and rich with the depth of family, not just with you and me.
Hishn snarled. Young. Strong—he is one of us already. Young wolf! Wolfwalker cub! Wolfwalker!
Dion raised her wolf-clouded eyes to the skies. The east was clear, and in the south only a line of pelan crossed the afternoon blue. Hishn’s wolf pack, kays away, brought down an old, sick eerin, and the sense of that kill made Dion pause until her eyesight cleared. When she could focus again, there was a single blot, heavy and dark in the west, where the sun angled down over Tenantler Ridge. Warily, she eyed that shape. “Come,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
She hurried them now, as if the angle of the sun were a lance pointing to her sons, but the single lepa in the distance circled only that ridge, eyeing something else. Dion tried to shake her chill, but she couldn’t help remembering Gamon’s stories of other late migrations. Where one lepa circles, a hundred eyes watch … She studied the birdbeast for a long moment, then eyed her boys critically. Then she took their packs, lashed the small bundles to her own, and made a game of racing to each water channel that cut across the grass.
They made good speed, but Dion’s shoulders were beginning to twitch. She knew that feeling, and it made her hurry the boys more. But although there was no place here to hide, they were close to the caves and the end of the meadow, and no lepa could hunt them from the sky once they were back among the trees.
Wolfwalker? Hishn’s voice cut through her unease.
Dion shook her head, forgetting that the boys could see her. They stopped, watching, and she eyed the clear sky as if it were a liar. I’ll feel more comfortable when we get near the caves, she told the wolf. I don’t like this openness.
You are close. I can feel your nearness to the pack, and they can smell the mold of the caves from their dust wallows. The caves you seek are between you.
Dion glanced at her boys’ faces. What about the other end of the meadow? There’s a lepa circling over the ridge, and it’s been in the sky too long. What are the other lepa doing back there? Are they shifting, moving, getting ready to migrate?
Hishn’s voice seemed to split into a dozen images as she sent out the call to the wolves. The flood of voices that returned filtered out in the gray wolf’s mind so that what she returned to Dion was a tapestry of lupine threads. There were wolves near the meadow, but only to the east, by the deeper lava tubes. The west was lepa country, and even with new pups to feed and hunger ripe in their bellies, the Gray Ones avoided those ridges.
Ten minutes later, a second lepa joined the first one in the sky. Dion saw it rise from the same ridge as the first had appeared. She pushed the boys harder
now, but they didn’t complain. There was something in her voice that alerted them. “This way,” she said, a bit too sharply, when Danton veered to the left. “Around these rocks, not over them,” she told Olarun when he automatically started up. “The caves are just up ahead.” They ran now in earnest, not with eagerness, and Dion ran half backward, one sharp eye on her flagging sons; one wary eye on the sky.
The grass whipped at their leggings, slapping them with green, husk-heavy heads. The suddenly soft patches of ground tripped up their feet. “This way,” Dion urged them. “Watch that patch of fireweed.”
Grazing creatures leaped up from grassy hiding places and bolted away from Dion’s haste. The wolfwalker kept up the pace. A small group of herd beasts spooked at the other end of the meadow, and Dion caught their distant panic out of the comer of her eye. She looked back. For an instant, her own breath choked her. There were no longer only two lepa in the sky. What had been only two pairs of wings had turned into a hundred. The blackness that was spewing into the sky was like a fountain of ink.
“Run now, boys,” she said sharply. “The caves. You can see them there on the right.”
“Momma—” Danton started.
“Don’t talk—run” she snapped.
Olarun looked over his shoulder. He faltered.
Dion slapped his shoulder forward. “Don’t look back. I’m here. I’ll be with you. Faster now, Olarun.”
The boy jumped a water channel and slipped in the mud on the other side, but Dion hauled him up before his feet were wet. They lost seconds. Danton was silent, scared, straining to keep the pace, crowded by his mother as she urged him on. He tripped and fell in another water channel, and Dion paused to jerk him to his feet. Olarun ran ahead. She could hear the meadow rustling now as other creatures fled, and she shot her warning to the wolves that echoed in her mind.
Wolf's Bane Page 13
