She didn’t try to climb down; her hands were still clumsy. Instead, she let the rope slide along her palm, heating her sleeve until it burned through just as she reached the second-story beams. She swung herself lighdy to the new footing. Below, Aranur looked down the street and waved vigorously at Tehena as she came into view six blocks away where she crossed another intersection.
Dion eased herself sideways until she was over the back door frame, then she let go of the rope. She slid down the side of the house, hit the top of the frame, and stalled in place for just a second. Her body began to fall out. Deliberately, she shoved away. She landed with a heavy thud, falling half backward onto the steps as her right leg collapsed beneath her. Twisting like a wolf, she regained her feet. She sprinted down the back door flight and jumped the gate without wasting time to open it. Aranur caught her arm before she left the ground, lifting her up behind him on the dnu.
Someone shouted, and Dion looked at Tehena. But it wasn’t the other woman. Three raiders had rounded the corner of the street behind Aranur and ahead of Tehena, and they were charging Aranur even now. The tall man didn’t wait. He kicked his beast into a gallop.
He would have turned into the side street, but there were two riders there just waiting for them to bolt into their arms. To the east, the two who had crossed a moment before already had their swords out. Aranur saw this at a glance and bolted ahead toward the seawall. Dion clung to his waist with one hand and drew his long knife with her other. Aranur didn’t object. The raiders behind them were coming on like a horde of flocking lepa. And behind them, like a forgotten guest, Tehena came at a gallop.
Aranur didn’t waste breath talking, and neither did Dion, but both cursed when they hit the waterfront. The road left and right was blocked by moving wagons. Aranur twisted his riding beast in a tight circle, cut off from the other roads. The dnu half reared, and he forced it to face the rushing figures. “It’s the seawall or nothing,” he shouted over his shoulder.
But Dion caught his arm. “No! Aranur, that’s what they want.”
“No choice—”
“It’s you they’re after. Give me the reins. I’ll charge them. They don’t care about me. You can get away on foot between the wagons.”
“No,” he snarled, twisting the dnu again, trapped between blockades. The small knot of raiders thundered straight at them. “Together or not at all.”
“Aranur—”
He spurred the riding beast viciously. Dion felt the dnu’s muscles gather. In her head, the wolfpack howled. Then the dnu leaped toward the raiders’ swords. Aranur hacked and met the first attack on the right, but the raider on the left struck him on the shoulder. The reins went slack as he lost them. The dnu bolted wildly.
Another raider slammed into them from the left, and Dion sliced at the man’s arm. The raider cried out as her steel sliced his sleeve. They broke free for an instant only, but one of the raiders hit his target dead-on. It wasn’t Aranur, but the dnu, that he struck, and the riding beast screamed and reared fully. For a moment, Aranur and Dion clung to the beast as its middle legs pawed air. Then Aranur yelled, “Jump free.”
She hit the road with jarring force, rolling and then tucking into a ball. A dnu leaped her cringing figure. Aranur landed meters away. A sword flashed near her, and she ducked under it and scrambled to her feet. Aranur took another flat blow to his shoulder. He staggered with the force of it. “Back,” he snarled at her. “To the wall—”
His voice cut off as two of the raiders charged. Dion jumped for Aranur’s side. She lashed out at the raider on the left, and the man danced back. She tripped on the curb behind her. The seawall—it was bare meters away. She lunged up on the sidewalk, twisted as a blade flashed at her, and grabbed the sword hilt of another lunging raider. Viciously, she twisted the blade free.
Aranur was already backed to the wall, but meters away from her. He slammed a raider with a brutal righthand blow as their swords jammed hilt-to-hilt. The raider aimed a kick, but Aranur shifted and took it on his hip instead. Another raider beat at Aranur’s arms and head while the first man kept their blades locked. Dion lunged at one of the raiders and was brought up short as Rossotti was suddenly before her. His clean-cut face was so incongruous that she almost pulled her blow. Brutally, the man slammed her back.
Aranur heard her cry. He was suddenly like fire, flickering here then there with speed. As though he had not even been challenged before, he became a blinding weapon. He jerked his blade free and stabbed one raider in the side of the gut. The man screamed hoarsely and had hardly dropped when Aranur dodged around his body, kicking the man as he went.
Dion took a blow on her stolen blade and turned it aside. Took another beat-attack, and felt her rope-torn hands start to weaken. “Damn you,” she cursed herself. Then Aranur was beside her. The messenger pulled back. For an instant, the raiders paused. Five of them circled Aranur and Dion. Behind them, the others guarded the group against Tehena, who slid off her dnu and ran at them. Blocks away, Kiyun and Gamon thundered down the street.
Aranur was half on his knees, his hands streaked with blood. “Dion,” he gasped. “Let the wolves in.”
She stood poised, waiting for the next, inevitable blade to stab in. She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t answer him. It was all she could do to hold the wild wolves back from enveloping her mind.
“Do it, Dion! Now!”
His voice was filled with urgency. As though his words released her control, she abruptly opened her mind. The packsong flooded in, and the gray rage that had banked inside her skull flamed suddenly into fire. She didn’t know that her eyes flickered yellow or that her stance and posture changed. She didn’t know that her lips curled back and her throat tightened into a howl. With the flood of gray that filled her mind, all she could see was movement and contrast; the flash of sunlight on steel.
She lunged with blinding speed.
NeVenklan cut decisively. Dion sidestepped, keeping herself between Aranur and the raiders. Behind her, Aranur grasped the wall and dragged himself up. There was blood seeping through his jerkin, but Dion didn’t see it. Her feet were padded, her hands like claws; in her mind, she smelled the raiders’ moves before they made them, saw their muscles tighten before they lunged. Some sixth sense read their energies, their attention, the way they focused before they moved. Yellow eyes flickered in her sight. And her mind swam with a gray sea of rage and hunt lust, fired hotter with her need. There was no familiarity between her and these wolves—no sense of restraint, no separation of one from the other. They were wild and raw to her, not smooth as Hishn was. And opened to them like a bowl to the air, Dion’s heart became solid gray.
She slashed inside a raider’s reach and cut jerkin, but no skin. She lunged and beat aside the messenger’s blade, then dropped the point of her blade suddenly and stabbed the man in the thigh. He screamed and cursed her but still managed to cut back. Bandrovic appeared beside neVenklan and lunged suddenly across toward Dion. But his blow wasn’t aimed at her. It was aimed at Aranur. Dion howled. Lupine speed fed her arms; gray power filled her legs. The steel slid by her ribs toward her mate, and her arm flashed in movement. She parried the blow and it struck stone. Bandrovic’s lips stretched—into a smile.
Instinctively, she realized what had happened. Bandrovic had caught her attack, and neVenklan was already past her, parrying Aranur’s blow. “Rast!” she screamed, trying to turn. This time Bandrovic’s strike was for her.
The force of his blow spun her back against the wall. She hit the stone with brutal force. Grimly, she lunged toward her mate. Aranur was struggling with neVenklan, and the two wrestled desperately along the top of the seawall as another raider rushed in and beat at Aranur’s head. Below, the tide cut across the rocks with single-minded intent, and the waves chopped up by the crosswind sucked at the sharp, black boulders.
Bandrovic danced out of Dion’s reach and glanced over his shoulder. What he saw made him grim. Gamon and Kiyun were almost at the seaw
all. Tehena was staggering back, running to keep one raider between her and another. Then Gamon charged past the woman and slammed into one of the raiders. Kiyun slid from his dnu in a single smooth motion, landing half on a raider as he parried the man’s blow while catching the man’s shoulder with his other hand. The change in the fighting style was almost palpable. Instead of twelve trapping two, it was suddenly five against eight.
Aranur and neVenklan were still pressed against the seawall, but Aranur was using the raider as a shield from the others’ blows. Bandrovic took one look at them, then struck hard at Dion, flinging her to the side and lunging past her. He was over the seawall and onto one of the built-in ladders before she could jump back to her feet.
She had barely leaped for the wall when someone grabbed her jerkin, slinging her around. She twisted, knifed the man, then went down with him as his hand stayed locked on the leather. Heavy as lead, the raider’s body crushed her to the stone, trapping her leg and hip. She was frantic to wriggle free. Boots lunged by her head, and suddenly there was a flash of steel. A raider woman crouched beside her. Dion snarled viciously and cut awkwardly up from the ground. The woman blocked the blow, then jerked back and fell to her side. Gamon hauled the wolfwalker up.
On the seawall, Aranur heaved neVenklan over to let the man fall to the rocks, but neVenklan wasn’t finished. His hand caught in Aranur’s belt, half dragging the Ariyen with him. Aranur staggered, off balance. From the side, the others closed in. The first stunning blow caught Aranur on the arm; the second on the temple. His knees buckled.
Dion screamed inarticulately and lashed out without control. The fury of her attack was almost frightening. But there were four raiders now between her and the seawall, and two were putting a rope around her mate while the others tried to haul up neVenklan. Kiyun smashed into the group, and one of the raiders barely beat the burly man off. The other man holding Aranur’s arms was caught by Dion’s thrown knife. The raider arched awkwardly, then toppled toward the rocks below. That man broke the hold of the others on neVenklan, and neVenklan grabbed again at Aranur. This time the Ariyen was dragged over the wall.
Like lightning, the other raiders lunged. One of them grabbed the rope around Aranur’s chest; the other grabbed his arm. Dion somehow melted through the fighting. She ripped a knife from someone’s belt and slashed the hands that grabbed at her. Someone jostled the raider with the rope, and the man cursed as he lost his grip. He barely blocked the blow aimed at his heart. He wasn’t so lucky with the other strike.
The other raider still clutched Aranur’s arm, holding the Ariyen from falling. For a moment, Dion and he were side by side, reaching down to the gray-eyed man. Aranur hung with neVenklan’s weight on his belt, dangling against the seawall. Together, raider and wolfwalker half pulled them up until they got one of Aranur’s arms over the stone wall. Then another man, dodging Kiyun’s blade, slammed into the man beside Dion. The raider lost his grip on Aranur’s shoulder. Some instinct warned the raider, and he half twisted to see steel cutting for his back. He jerked, jarring Dion and shoving her aside. She lost her hold on her mate. Someone grabbed at her arms as she fell back. Aranur’s grip, weak on the stone, slipped. Dion cursed wildly and fought against the hands. And as she struggled, with a short, strangled cry, Aranur let go.
XV
Where is hope,
When you can no longer hold it?
Dion ripped free and lunged forward, catching Aranur’s hand. His weight swung him in a short, sharp arc, slamming him into the wall. His eyes flickered as he struck. Blood seeped from his jerkin. Dion half screamed her rage at his weight, at neVenklan’s weight with his. Cold stone ground into her hips, her ribs. Her arm was tearing out of its socket. Then, suddenly, neVenklan’s hand seemed to lose its strength. With an inaudible sigh, the raider let go.
NeVenklan’s body struck hard. There was a sickening crack as his head hit the rocks: There was no doubt about his death. Below, Bandrovic barely glanced at neVenklan as he jumped awkwardly for the skiff that bobbed just off the rocks, laid out in the race of the tide. Three other raiders were already in it, letting down the sail.
Above, Aranur dangled like a doll.
Dion dug her fingers into his arm, drawing blood. She couldn’t hold on. Gray Ones, she screamed in her mind. The strength that surged back crushed Aranur’s wrist. She didn’t notice the sounds of the raiders, Gamon’s hoarse shout, the bay boats putting out with the tide. She didn’t see the blinding sun or the flash of steel or the water that glistened like alien eyes. She didn’t notice the tiny red stream that fell from Aranur’s body. But the long, wind-pushed drips arced down to the jagged boulders that lay at the edge of the bay. And when they hit, the waves rushed past and sucked his blood from the rocks.
Dion dug her fingernails into his wrist. Her free hand clawed for a hold on the too-smooth stone. A sword clattered against the wall beside her, but she ignored its cold steel. She strained, and lifted her mate by a hand span. “Damn you,” she screamed at the moons. And lifted again.
For a moment, Aranur’s eyes focused. “Dion,” he gasped. “The wolves …”
Someone fell against her, and her grip, jostled, slipped.
Aranur looked at her as if he were drowning. “Wolfwal—” he gasped.
Below, the tide water foamed over the rocks, and the rocks bared their teeth in the surf. A blade glanced off Dion’s arm, cutting leather and flesh. She couldn’t help her spasm. Her grip loosened.
“Aranur!” she screamed.
The wind stripped him away.
XVI
We die as we’ve always done—
Leaving the living behind.
—From Journey’s End, by Sarro Duerr, 2212 A.D.
Someone yanked Dion roughly from the wall. The hands caught in her jerkin, on her arms, and blindly, she fought like a wild wolf to stay on the stones. The howling in her head deafened her; the gray tide raced like the sea. She couldn’t see beyond Aranur’s eyes. Aranur’s voice. Aranur’s body falling, dropping to the rocks and the surge of the tide below. She caught one glimpse of his body, half on neVenklan’s, half on the rocks in the water. Then the racing waves sucked him away.
She screamed his name, but Kiyun yanked her from the wall and leaped out of the way of the blade that smashed down where he had been. She beat hysterically at his arms. The man ignored her and slammed the raider against the stone. The raider staggered back. “He’s gone,” Kiyun shouted, dragging at her. “Come on! We have to go—”
Gamon pulled at her from the other side. Tehena took a cut on her arm and staggered back, but the raider who fought the lean-faced woman did not press the attack. Instead, he leaped for the seawall ladders and slid out of sight. Gamon yanked Dion through the opening the raider left while Tehena cursed at them to move.
In a loose knot, they backed away from the wall while half the raiders went down the seawall and the other half guarded the first group’s escape. Gamon and Kiyun forced Dion away, and the raiders didn’t follow them. Instead, Bandrovic’s men melted away along the waterfront. Within minutes, the raiders were gone. The street was empty except for three bodies that lay sprawled and silent—half in the sun, half in the shade of the seawall—and the carcass of one of the dnu.
Dion wrenched violently free of Kiyun’s grip and flung herself back at the seawall, but there was no one below. Even neVenklan’s body was gone, sucked away by the tide. And out on the bay, where the brine waters clashed, the skiff raced southeast, angling across the tide. She stared at the boat, and in the bow, one of the raiders turned. They stared at each other across the bay—Bandrovic and her. Their faces were blank with the distance, and only their thoughts continued the fight while the sailing skiff shrank toward the ships.
Gamon followed her gaze, then urged her away from the wall, pulling remorselessly on her elbow until she stumbled away. There were no dnu on which to ride away; the beasts, riderless, had fled. They found only one of the beasts nearby, and that one was lame; both hind leg
s had been slashed, and it limped heavily. Gamon glanced back, where a ship followed the tide and the skiff toward the sea, then back at the faces that peered from the windows. “Let’s get out of here,” he said in a low voice. “Before someone gets too curious.”
Swiftly, they walked through the streets. Asuli met them a few blocks away, hovering nervously in the shadows of a restaurant awning. No one spoke to her, but the intern slid from her dnu and offered it silently to Dion. The wolfwalker didn’t notice. Asuli hesitated, then simply fell into step behind them. Gamon looked at Dion several times as they hurried, but the wolfwalker made no sound. Her face seemed blanched, and her lips were tightly shut; her neck muscles were taut as wires.
There was already more traffic on the streets, but few eyebrows raised at their appearance. In the one small market they pushed through, the vendors, noting the blood on their sleeves, left them alone. In fact, it took Gamon ten minutes to find someone who would give him directions to one of the city dnumarkets.
While Gamon talked to the vendor for directions, Tehena leaned close to Kiyun. “Aranur?” she asked, her voice low.
“Dead,” he returned. “He fell on the rocks.”
The hard-faced woman glanced at Dion. “Sure?”
“His body was twisted. He didn’t move when the tide sucked him down.”
Dion made a strangled sound—half sob, half snarl—and Kiyun grabbed her chin, pulling her to face him. She suffered his touch for a moment, then jerked free, her lips curled back. “She’s deep in the Gray Ones.” Kiyun’s voice was soft.
“Best if she is,” Gamon said flatly, turning to join them. Kiyun raised his eyebrows, and the older man nodded. “Better for her not to think. You need a healer?” he asked Tehena belatedly as the woman wrapped a rag around her arm.
The woman shrugged. “Time enough for that.” She nodded at the wolfwalker’s wrists. “What about Dion?”
Wolf's Bane Page 25
