Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  “She doesn’t see you, Kiyun,” she returned. “You and I— we’re like dreams to her. We don’t exist to the wolves. What is in her eyes—what she sees night and day—is the ghost of Aranur.”

  “It’s been two months. She’s got to let him go.”

  “He was her fife.”

  His voice was hard. “He’ll be her death.”

  “No,” Tehena returned. “In her own way, she’s as stubborn as Asuli. But where that one looked only to herself, Dion searches elsewhere.”

  Kiyun’s voice was low. “He told me to make sure she sought healing, not death. All I’ve done is help her turn her back on her own county, her own land.”

  “When there is no one left to hold you to the earth, why not seek the moons?”

  “She has Olarun still, and Tomi. She has Gamon and you and me. Her own father and brother are still alive. She can’t abandon them.”

  “She hasn’t really abandoned them.” Tehena’s voice was thoughtful. “She’s just changing the way she lives. I think she sees a way to make the future safer. To confront the one thing on this world that threatens the family she has left.”

  He shook his head. “What she seeks is still escape, Tehena. If death comes to her, she won’t fight it now. She’ll welcome it like a gift.”

  “I’m not so sure anymore.” Tehena’s hard voice was quiet. Absendy, she rubbed at her forearms. “Something changed in her, back in that town, after the Gray Ones Called her. She’s focused now. Before, they drew her—showed her the way. Now, I think she draws them. Whatever she sees when she stares at those peaks—it isn’t part of the wolves. And Aranur’s image might haunt her days, but it won’t be that one who kills her. Out here, there are alien eyes to stalk her and alien deaths to find.”

  He followed her gaze toward the ragged peaks. “It is said that they are born like black demons, in the bowels of the earth. That as they grow, they change. By the time they’re adult they are white as the snow over which they fly, and their wings encompass the heavens.”

  Tehena bundled up her bedroll. “There are no heavens near Aiueven. Dion at least knows that.”

  “Aye.” But he said nothing more.

  Two more days of slow, steep riding brought them to the Aiueven Wall. There they halted. It was like facing a forest of barrier bushes: The spiny shrubs were three meters tall and so thickly grown that their spines turned in upon themselves and pierced their own wiry branches. Dion fingered the edge of the bushes, twitching back as the sharp thorns pricked her hand. Like life, she thought, always drawing blood.

  “Do we go through now, or camp here?” Tehena asked. Dion hesitated, and the other woman added, “The skies are clear—it will be cold tonight.”

  “If we stay on this side of the wall, we at least have the Kiaskari spring house to sleep in,” Kiyun added.

  “All right.” Dion nodded. She rubbed at her gut.

  Tehena’s gaze followed the movement. “We’ve been eating off the land for days now, Dion, and the groundroots are getting thin as the soil. We won’t be able to stay here for long.”

  “It won’t take long to find them.”

  Kiyun gave her a thoughtful look. “For you to find them, or for them to find us?”

  Dion shrugged. Kiyun and Tehena exchanged a long glance.

  The night air was thin and cutting as paper, but the sky was thick with stars. They were washed out along the path the moons made and thick as curdled milk along the edges of the horizon. In the distance, a wolf pack raised its voice. Dion rose and went outside. She wrapped herself in her white parka and stood for a long time, listening.

  Tehena, restless, got up to stand with her. The lanky woman pulled her cloak tightly around her as the night wind bit into their cheeks.

  “Two days,” Dion said softly in the dark. “As soon as we reach the snowpack I will see Aiueven.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There is something other than wolves in the packsong. I feel that, in my mind. Like Aranur’s voice, only sharper. I asked, in that village, if they were ever sighted, and the people laughed and said yes.”

  “They laughed?”

  Dion smiled without humor. “Every couple of years, they told me, some climber would dare the snowpacks. The few that have ever made it back—they lived only a few hours. They died with their bones soft as pudding. They had seen Aiueven, they would say. They had touched the wings that stripped their bodies like worms eating them out from inside.”

  Tehena drew her cloak more tightly around her.

  Dion glanced at her. “Don’t worry. They’re sighted over the towns, too, but they never attack. They touch humans only if their dens are threatened—if the climbers get near the peaks.”

  “And that’s what we intend to do.”

  The wolfwalker shrugged.

  “Dion, you’ll be the death of us.”

  “You could always stay behind.”

  The other woman snorted.

  Dion’s voice was soft. “I can Call them now.”

  “Through the wolves?”

  “Through myself.”

  “Dion,” Tehena said quietly. “You stopped drinking rou after Sidisport.”

  The wolf walker didn’t answer.

  “And you stopped using brevven in your meatrolls.”

  Dion hesitated but still didn’t speak.

  Tehena prodded deliberately. “It’s more than the rou and the brevven.”

  The wolfwalker almost sighed. Tehena waited, and finally, Dion said the words. “I’m pregnant.”

  Tehena nodded shortly, but her voice was cold as the air. “And you’re out here, looking for likely death, instead of caring for your baby.”

  Dion’s jaw tightened, and her own voice was hard. “It’s too early to lose her.”

  “But not too early to lose yourself?”

  Dion’s silence was answer enough.

  Tehena paused. “It’s a she?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re not one to jeopardize your child’s future, Dion.”

  The wolfwalker’s face tightened. “It is the future that I’m thinking of.” She held up her hand, cutting off the other woman’s reply. “What kind of future will my daughter have with the threat of Aiueven here? And Olarun—what of him? He’s always had a bent for the sciences. Will I find him dead one day, with the mark of the Aiueven? Or will he find his own death in the wilderness from raiders or worlags or worse—because he has no other option of a place to live? Do I condemn my children to the life I lead because I can give them no other choice?”

  “The Gray Ones—”

  “The Gray Ones can’t protect them—not from worlags or lepa or plague. Olarun has rejected the wolves already; he will never be a wolfwalker. But this baby … If she bonds with the Gray Ones, she’ll just link herself with death in yet another way. I can’t keep Ovousibas from her, not if she’s my child. Even if she doesn’t become a healer, she’ll feel what I do and read it from the wolves’ minds as easily as she’ll read trails. And if she follows our sciences and strives for the stars, she’ll be struck down by aliens the moment her work takes her up to the skies or it becomes recognizable to their sight or perceptions. All this hiding of our work … Aranur’s goal be damned, Tehena. The aliens have ways of knowing that put all of us at risk. And how can I ignore what could happen to my children—the death that doesn’t have to be? If I have the chance to act, how can I not act now?”

  “Death now, death later—what’s the difference? It’s all the same in the end. A long path winding up to the moons or down to the seventh hell. All you can hope is that your children live well because of the things you have taught them.”

  Dion stared out at the stark line of snow against the green-black treeline. “My lessons were hard ones, then. Life and death, with little in between.”

  Tehena pointed with her chin at Dion’s stomach. “You, at least, have another chance to change. How many people have that?”

  Dion looked at her friend. F
or a moment, time flashed between them. Eyes flickered and blinked, and though they were yellow, what she saw were not the gazes of the wolves, but of alien eyes instead. She shook her head mutely, and Tehena didn’t realize that it was not her words that Dion had answered, but the threat of Aiueven.

  In the morning, they found one of the barrier channels and moved carefully through the forest of thorns to the other side of the wall. They built two shelters on the other side: one for them, and a lean-to for the dnudu. It took the entire day to build the structures, but as Kiyun said, better to be prepared to stay than find oneself out in the ice.

  The next morning dawned with the sky light gray, covered in high, thin clouds. Only a faint line marked the spot where, kilometers away, the sky met the snow, and the massing clouds swirled above it. There was a cold wind sweeping down from the peaks, and it bit at their cheeks and hands. But Dion didn’t hear the wind or the crackling of trees that waved in it; instead, it was Aranur’s voice she heard.

  She closed her eyes. It was as though his drive to bind her to his future had followed him into death. Eight hundred years of memories, and each year’s images were harder to bear. The wolves, who had given her life itself, would not let her forget him. The dull sunlight turned her eyelids red inside; it was blood she smelled on the wind.

  Woljwalker! distant voices called.

  I’m here, she returned.

  She let her mind open, and the wolves surged in. With the wolves this close, the packsong swelled, and the Gray Ones howled. They were still gathering behind her, around her, drawn to her with her Call. Already, on the other side of the barrier bushes, three of them paced the wall of thorns. Within moments, some of the wolves braved the barrier and slunk through the narrow channel. When they appeared on the other side, they lifted their mental voices to the others, then raced toward Dion, flashing past her like streaks of gray. Woljwalker, they howled in joy. You seek our future. We run on your trail.

  Go back, she told them urgently.

  Go back? You Call us. You hunt for us.

  “Aye, I do.” Her voice was low. “But I hunt this prey alone. There is alien death here that is swift like the claws of the lepa, and if it kills men as easily as they say, what would it do to you?”

  But they didn’t come back. Instead, they paused on an icy rise and waited for her to follow. Yellow eyes seemed to gleam in her head. Run with us, Woljwalker.

  “I’ll follow you,” she said softly. “Though it will likely mean my death.”

  We trade with you, life for life.

  Dion’s hand rubbed protectively across her belly.

  The Gray Ones caught the sense of the baby and wove their words into her thoughts. Your cubs are ours. We watch your litters as our own. They will run with our yearlings and sing with the pack. We promise this, Woljwalker.

  Slowly, she nodded.

  There were no roads on this side of the barrier; instead, they had to orient their trail to a hand-drawn map. It was slow, hard going, and they made only six kays that day. The next day they made only four. Early in the afternoon, one of the dnudu fell into a ravine and broke its neck. It took the rest of that day to get down that drop-off and recover their packs and gear.

  The third day, they began to work their way out along one of the glacier valleys. At the edges, where the snow was too thin and the rocks too thick for snowshoes, they fell through the crusty, half-frozen drifts as often as they walked on the ice. The dnudu struggled with the weight of the packs. That night, they built no fire, but used their tiny fuel stoves for heating snow into water and soup. A chunk of dnudu made part of their repast and that of the wolves. Dion heard the Gray Ones worrying at the bones long into the night.

  They were slow rising the next day, as though the cold kept them in their beds. When they finally started to pack up, it was midmorning, and the sun was bright behind the light-gray layer of clouds. The wolves had been close all night; the snow between the stunted trees was pocked with sleeping holes and marked with yellow urine. Dion looked back the way they had come. Their ragged, hoof-chopped path through the snow was like a brutal tear, as though some giant claw had reached down and ripped white land apart.

  Dion stared into the distance. The hard, bright light made it difficult to see detail, but there was something in the sky. Kiyun shaded his eyes and followed her gaze. “Too big for a lepa,” he muttered. “And the glide pattern’s wrong …” But something crawled between his shoulders with his words, and he was already moving, picking up the packs and moving the dnudu under the thick trees. “Dion,” he called sharply.

  She didn’t move with him. Instead, she crunched through the snow, sinking abruptly when her boots broke through the crust and fighting to continue forward till she stood out in the white expanse. Kiyun cursed and started after her, but she stopped him with a gesture. Dion held out her arms. In her white parka and leggings, her white boots and gloves, she should have been nearly invisible. But the shadow in the sky seemed to hesitate. Then it began to glide down.

  Come, she cried out.

  Something empty and vibrant hit her at the same time—some kind of power so vast that it filled her consciousness. Suddenly, there was a bigger void with the power than there was without it. Words, images struck her like a sledge.

  (Child/youngling)?

  The Gray Ones surged in Dion’s head. She tried to check the flow of gray that swept in on the tail of that voice. Instinctively, the wolves urged her to run, while instead she stood her ground. The wolves’ fear of power almost blinded their minds to the promise they had used to Call her. But her promise was like a leash, strangling her terror, holding her in place through then-need, while she wanted to flee.

  The vastness seemed to sense her struggle. Like a blast of cold air, it swept across her mind. Slitted yellow eyes blinked.

  (Child/youngling), it cried.

  Come, she forced herself to send. Come, she said. I am here.

  She saw the Aiueven as it closed on her and felt her chest freeze. She wanted to run, wanted to turn and flee in panic. She wanted to dive beneath the snowpack and burrow to some sort of safety. Gray voices howled at her in her head. Aranur ’s voice was sharp. Seek life, not death …

  She stood her ground.

  The alien dove at her like a rock. Its claws were long, like those of the lepa; its lips were more beak than teeth. Instead of a mouth, it had a gash, as if an ax had been taken to a smooth plane of metal. Instead of eyes, this creature had slits. Instead of a nose, its face was split by a ridge of silver spines. And where the lepa’s color was a greasy black, the Aiueven’s color was scaled and white as though its feathers were more like a solid surface. Its feet were more like hands, and there were tiny arms along the arch of its wings, with small hands at the midpoint of the arch.

  Her jaw clenched as she fought her fear. Come, she called it to her.

  It swooped. For an instant, she glimpsed Kiyun and Tehena staring out from the trees. Then the power struck like a furnace. Arrogant claws crushed her arms to her sides as she was lifted from the snow.

  “Dion!” Kiyun screamed at her.

  His voice was lost in the rush of air that followed her into the sky.

  XXI

  Skickitic kitlitic, Kin

  Winter brushing the tops of the trees

  Stettitic siklitic, Stin

  Wind brushing my wings

  Kitlis tik’klis abriklis, Kin

  Youth brushing the stars with its dreams

  Skit’lettic kitlitin, Kin

  Our wings, brushing the stars

  The birdman carried Dion like a lepa carries its prey. Its handlike feet clutched her around her chest, and its legs drew her up against it. Colder than she would have thought possible, she clung to its talon-hands. Instinctive terror blinded her while the ground dropped farther away. At the same time, some obscure part of her mind marveled at the speed of its flight, and another part of her brain objectively and remorselessly calculated the time it would take to fall to the
ground if the alien let her go.

  Vast words rumbled through her head—questions and demands. Images she didn’t understand blocked both her fear and her thoughts so that she could not even try to answer. WhyAvhat is your flight? sent the birdman. Where is your (mother/ancestry)? Why/name (name/image) wings?

  A rough hill skimmed up below, then fell away like water as they shot out on the other side of the crest. The bile rose in Dion’s throat as even that tentative closeness thrust itself away while the wind whistled and cut like vicious, icy jets.

  (Wings/name) your flight/why? (Color/name) your (mother/breeding)? What/color your mind? Flight too (early/youth/cold). Why/why? The talon-hands gripped her ribs like a steel corset, then shifted, laying her body flatter to the wind. The deepness rolled on and the cold cut in closer. Her hands, without her gloves on, were already a purple white.

  Dion, Dione, woman, healer, grief… Wings/name? Scout, Aranur, bitter, wolves, Dione. Her mind was too shocked from the blasts of ice-laden air to answer coherently.

  Why are you (alone/cold/too-young)? Where is your (mother-debt/comfort/future)? Why (flight/freedom)?

  “No mother,” Dion gasped, not realizing that she instinctively projected her answer through her mind. “Don’t have … mother. No flight.”

  The Aiueven seemed to understand her. You are (cold/young) to try (freedom/future), he returned. His sharp-gray voice sounded labored, but the impression of youth he sent to her hit Dion like a fist. She felt suddenly like the child he assumed her to be: wingless, immobilized by the cold. Child … Children … Her stomach muscles contracted as though the baby in her own belly reacted.

  (Mother/mother/comfort/source/mother), the Aiueven returned, picking up her distress.

  She tried to dig her fingers deeper into the Aiueven’s leg. Her temples, barely covered by the fur-lined warcap, felt naked to the wind. They ached with pounding icy hammers, and her teeth burned with the freezing air. She could hardly feel her ears. The edges of her eyelids were freezing, a little at a time, from the tearing that the wind stripped from them, and all she could do was duck her head like a bird against her arms and chest.