by Janny Wurts
But Rellah's outburst reflected only ignorance, and anger at things she could never understand. Skyfire gripped her shoulder, hot blood dripping through her fingers, eyes narrowed with a rage only Two-Spear might have equaled. This assault had not arisen from the blood of the wolf; pack hierarchy was a discipline ritualized to minimize deaths. Stealth, subterfuge, attacks calculated to catch the victim disadvantaged were subtleties reserved only for the taking of prey.
Ready now to kill out of hand, to discipline in the manner of the pack, the Wolfriders on the sidelines crowded around the offender. They caught his hands and feet, splayed him helpless upon the ground that, wolflike, they might rend him limb from limb.
First in their longing to tear out his throat was Huntress Skyfire; yet she did not. She shivered and overran instinct and kicked the nearest of the scufflers, who happened to be Skimmer, with her boot. 'Stop! Let him go.' When others were slow to listen, she jerked the knife from her flesh, then dove in and hammered them all with her fists, her elbows, her knees, and sent the offenders rolling away in surprise. Dizzy now, and caked with clinging dust, she glared around the circle of her follow. 'No elf must die.'
She remained upright until the knife-thrower had shambled to his feet and fled ashamed from the circle. Then the dizziness took her, and she staggered . . .
* * *
... and awoke, sweating in noonday heat, to scratch at a scar that seemed endlessly to itch, and to wonder just why this dream should return to trouble her. The tree hollow was stifling. Skyfire brushed damp hair from her eyes. She rolled for a breath of fresh air, and as her hand brushed empty space, realized. The Dreamsinger had left her. In the dance of moons since the fights had ended, this was not like him.
A chill roughened her skin, a premonition of something amiss. By reflex, Skyfire reached out with her mind for her mate.
His sending cut her awareness, sharp as a knife's edge with danger. One with his mind, she felt a blow strike his shoulder, then a sensation of falling, falling; and then pain, sudden and shattering and violent. She recoiled in shock, and slammed hard against the tree wall. Her mind rang with the Dreamsinger's sending, and the last, whispered syllable of her soulname.
'Kyr!' Her own scream snapped the link. 'Dreamsinger!'
She scrambled in a rush from her nook. Down the tree limb she slid, without bothering to reach for handholds. Bark scraped her skin. When she reached the main trunk, she leapt outward.
And re-experienced the rush of the Dreamsinger's fall for an instant of shared memory.
Then she struck ground. Rolling, banging into roots and the detritus of last year's leaves, she reached out to recapture the link. She received not the smallest spark from the Dreamsinger. Where once the air itself sang in echo of his magic, emptiness remained. The song, the life, the vitality, all had ceased in a terrible, smashing fall from the heights.
Skyfire fought her way to her feet. He was dead; she knew this beyond doubt. The wolf-pack sensed the kill through her distress. They gathered already, restless to dispose of the remains. Such was the Way, and not a thing Skyfire would forbid. Her mate was beyond help. Reason more dire than sentiment caused Skyfire to spring into action. With the weight of the Dreamsinger's cub heavy within her belly, she broke and ran from the clearing.
Only Sapling saw her go. But though Skimmer was soundly sleeping, and Pine was busy with a lover, and Owl absorbed by another of his enigmatic weavings, Skyfire's emotions cut through with an urgency that would not be denied. One by one the Wolfriders arose from their hollows, or abandoned the thread of their activities. In silence they gathered to follow their chieftess; of them all, only Rellah was obliged to ask where to look.
* * *
The ravine lay in the direction of sun-goes-up from the holt. Trees did not grow near the rim; only the toughest lichens could garner a foothold upon the jagged, flint-black rock that stabbed like teeth through the soil. Below, the stream carved a course like knotted thread, frayed at intervals into waterfalls that threw drifting curtains of mist. The sound of water tumbling and frothing over stone had fascinated the Dreamsinger. Many an afternoon he had lingered above the ravine, perched on an outcrop with his feet dangling.
Now Rellah stood on that same formation, her hide skirt pinched in nervous fingers, and her skin roughened by the moist chill that eddied off the falls far beneath.
'The Dreamsinger's song is ended,' she said. Unlike the Wolfriders gathered at the site, she avoided looking at the shadowy forms which darted like ghosts along the streambed. Years had done little to accustom her to the ways of the wolves. The fact that the mangled rag of flesh and bone that had once been a living elf was now only meat to sustain the pack revolted her. Curiosity alone brought her to the scene of death. The attraction for many of the others was similar. But Skyfire was not among the few who clustered with Sapling out of concern.
Apart from friends and Wolfriders, the chieftess knelt on the earth at the forest's edge. With a diligence that brooked no interruption, she examined the ground for sign, and found none. Now, more than ever, she missed the companionship of Woodbiter, who had hunted his last ravvit soon after the coming of the green season. Without the guidance of her wolf-friend, Skyfire could not unravel scents too faint for her nose. That such clues existed only fueled her frustration. Here she could smell the rancid leather track of a sandal, and there, clinging to ferns, the musky hint of sweat; just enough to know that an elf other than Dreamsinger had recently trodden this path. But the subtleties escaped her. Precisely which elf Skyfire had no way to determine.
Absorbed by the problem, the chieftess did not look up as the rest of the Wolfriders began to disburse. Sapling slapped her shoulder in sympathy, and Pine offered condolences. She acknowledged both with a nod, but made no move to return to the holt. Rellah's insistence that companionship might ease her grief was ignored.
'He was mad,' the older female said in her infuriating, superior way. 'His presence caused dissent, and if he chose to end his life, the whole tribe is better for it.'
Skyfire arose then, so suddenly the taller elf started. Pale with anger, the chieftess said, 'Kyr did not choose to die.'
Rellah recoiled a step. The Huntress's wrath was a palpable force, dangerous as the wolf crouched to spring. The first elf dared not argue, but retreated quickly, breaking into a clumsy run just beyond view in the forest.
Skyfire heard her departure as a noisy crashing of sticks, an inept intrusion that rankled upon nerves already overtaxed. Lips drawn back into a snarl that was all wolf, the chieftess returned to her task. She quartered the ground in relentlessly widening circles until twilight stole away the light.
Summer night fell, loud with the voices of crickets. The water crashed down its course, misting the air, and dew beaded the rocks over the precipice where the Dreamsinger had fallen. Huntress Skyfire straightened, aching in ways that had nothing to do with the fact she had spent hours on her knees. She perched in the niche her dead mate had left vacant, eyes closed in misery. No longer would the trees wear blossoms out of season, or brambles blaze with the colors of autumn during spring. The Dreamsinger was gone, his magic reduced to a memory. Only one legacy remained: the cub in Skyfire's womb quickened and steadily grew toward its birthing. As much for that unborn life as for her own grief, the Huntress could not let the father's death rest. The tragedy that had overtaken the Dreamsinger might one day happen to his offspring; as surely as she breathed air she knew that another elf had dealt the blow that precipitated the fatality. The act was a poison, a danger hidden as a snake among the tribe; a Wolfrider's mindset was trusting by nature. The Way of the wolves had no analog for murder.
Skyfire kicked irritably at the moss-caked stone of the ravine. To search out Dreamsinger's killer posed almost insurmountable problems. The sending she had shared in the instant before annihilation had shown no face; just the roughness of the hand that pushed, and the terrible plunge, and the pain. A wolf might unravel the scents, but by now the trail was cold. The tribe had crosse
d and recrossed the paths to the ravine, and Skyfire's own search had further obscured the evidence. Even without these complications, no other rider's wolf-friend could be trusted to investigate in her behalf. Pack members who bonded to an elf owed their first loyalty elsewhere. Should her request fall on a tribesmate who was involved, or in sympathy with the killer's cause, she would learn nothing but lies. Dreamsinger's madness had been feared, distrusted, and at the last resentfully tolerated because she had fought and bested every Wolfrider who had dared to challenge his presence. But dissidents remained, too timid or too crafty to fight. Of the many who had licked wounds in defeat, some might whisper for retribution. Factions lingered yet from the days of Two-Spear's chieftainship; Skyfire sensed them at the hunts like tangles in the continuity of the pack. Though most Wolfriders were not capable of intrigue, any one of them might be led by conspiracy.
Half lost in his song and the visions woven by magic, the Dreamsinger had never thought to take precautions. For that, Skyfire blamed herself. From the head of the ravine she listened to the howl carried out in her mate's memory. She did not return to participate. Alone on the height that had killed, she listened, straining to determine which voices were missing, and which sounded uncertain.
Her suspicions knotted uselessly into confusion. The howl for the Dreamsinger ended quickly. His brief stay with the tribe had largely been misunderstood. Skyfire alone had been able to temper his madness, and see beyond to the shape of Timmain's dream. Only she had seen promise of a future where the gentleness of elvish heritage might coexist with the hardy cunning of the wolf. Yet now, with one who murdered magic at large among the tribe, that future and that dream lay threatened.
Night deepened. The two moons lifted over the trees; light through the leaves dappled the forest floor, and touched the rocks at the precipice with a glint like dagger steel. The larger of the moons led the dance, silvering the spume which veiled the head of the gorge. The place where the Dreamsinger had fallen lay lost in black shadow. Brooding, sad, and uncertain what to do, his grieving mate shook back her bright hair.
'Which of us wished you dead?' she asked the empty air, the faces of the moons, the soft sigh of the wind. Only crickets answered. Their song of summer's plenty held nothing to console an empty heart. Restless with loss and frustration, the chieftess cursed.
At the sound, something at the forest's edge started back. Alarmed, Skyfire ducked low in the niche. Carelessness made her cross. She had been as trusting as her mate to linger here, and certainly as foolish. Now the rushing water at her back held threat enough to raise the hair at her nape. She carried the Dreamsinger's cub. If she could sense its gift of magic as it grew, so might others; so might the killer who had destroyed its father. A push from the same hands might send her to share his death. Memory of that plunge and the agony of its aftermath returned with a force like premonition. Skyfire shivered.
Cautiously she hugged the stone. A leap to safer ground might provoke a retreat; already this elf had proved his lack of courage. Yet she chose a more dangerous course. If she could tempt an attack, make her situation seem more precarious than it actually was, she might emerge after a scuffle with Dreamsinger's killer held captive.
But time passed, and the tunes of the crickets continued undisturbed. Skyfire listened until her ears ached. The forest night revealed nothing. At last forced to conclude that the movement had been an illusion born of grief, she raised her head and looked.
The angle of the moons had changed, plunged the trees in deep shadow. Yet the dark beneath the branches was not empty; there shone a pair of silver eyes, eerily identical to the Dreamsinger's.
Skyfire gasped. At the sound, the eyes flashed and turned, lost in the forest's dark. Shaking now, and fighting tears, Skyfire scrambled up from the precipice. She rested her cheek on cold rock. Her mate had not turned spirit to haunt her; she had seen only his gray wolf, who shared the color and intensity of his eyes. While the rest of the pack retired to sleep off gorged bellies, this one restless beast sought a master who would never hunt again.
Deprived of Woodbiter's company, and robbed forever of the Dreamsinger's mad passion, Skyfire longed to reach out to the wolf, to sink both hands to the wrists in his luxurious silver pelt. She wanted to weep in his warmth, and then to run, fast and strong, into the heat of the hunt.
'Song,' she called, though she knew the wolf would not come. Wolves who lost elf-friends did not bond to another tribe member; so said Owl, who sometimes, after dreamberries, remembered such things.
The appeal of Huntress Skyfire to her Dreamsinger's wolf brought only a flash of white brush as he turned and retreated into the trees. For a moment, she almost let him go.
Reason why she must not snapped her mood of brooding heartache. Skyfire started up from the rocks. Her brow furrowed with a determination the rest of her tribe knew better than to cross. Song was more than a wolf who had lost a master. He was the key to the identity of Dreamsinger's killer. For that one name, Skyfire was willing to undertake any difficulty, no matter how impossible.
Huntress Skyfire raced into the forest. The wolf fled ahead of her. Running hard, she glimpsed his form as a flash of silver through the glades where the moons' light struck through. She heard him as a rustle of leaves, the scrape of claws on stone, and the soft, disturbed breath of air as he sniffed his back trail for pursuit. Song was fleet, young, and clever enough as a hunter to have survived through the Dreamsinger's exile. Yet he was not a maverick by nature; he had challenged for position, and won acceptance in the pack that ran with the Wolfriders. Skyfire had fought him once, in the course of helping his master. She had gained the victory, but Song's submission had not cowed his spirit. His trust would be troublesome to earn, and time was of the essence. The Huntress understood enough of wolves to know that she must win Song over at once; otherwise loneliness would drive him to identify irrevocably with the pack.
* * *
The two moons lowered with the coming of dawn. Shadows turned vague and gray under the trees, and in that uncertain light, obstacles became difficult even for a keen-sighted elf to discern. A wolf, with better sense of smell, had less disadvantage. Song unavoidably drew ahead. Grimly Skyfire held to his trail. Exhaustion blurred her purpose; threat to her unborn cub merged with grief for her Dreamsinger. As she drove each tired foot into the next stride, the silver wolf who darted like a wraith out of reach came to symbolize the mate she had lost. If she could only catch up with the beast, if she could once touch its fur, something of the compassion she had learned through love might be recovered.
But Skyfire's persistent desperation won no ground. Song's intent to escape became all the more frantic. He did not understand the Huntress's motives; his strongest memory of her had been a fight, after which he had been forced to yield to her will. The wolf had let her run at her Dreamsinger's side out of submission, not goodwill. Now, with the master gone, Skyfire's pursuit keyed nothing but a primal instinct to flee. Years spent with an exile lent the wolf cunning: he was not habit-bound to any territory. Where a pack-raised beast would keep to familiar trails, his run a wide loop around a chosen area of forest, Song ran straight cross-country. He might not anticipate every twist in the terrain, or fallen log, or stone outcrop. He might be slowed by unexpected roots, or avoidance of a thicket too dense and tangled for running. Yet the Huntress who followed was equally disoriented; the safety of the cub she carried made her uneasy in strange country, where men might prowl, and unknown terrain lead her into danger. Eventually her two legs must tire, and then Song could slip like a shadow into the wood to seek out his own kind.
Still, Skyfire had spent most of the summer season hunting without any wolf-friend to bear her weight. Spring's crop of cubs had already been weaned when Woodbiter died, and those that were inclined to partner an elf had already bonded. Aware her predicament must extend through the next turn of seasons, the chieftess had hardened to compensate. She did not quit, but continued, stumbling and pushing through the brush, unti
l long after dawn. The sun blazed high overhead when at last she threw herself, panting, in a glade.
Song was footsore as well. His belly was empty of game, and his sinews too spent to hunt. Tail drooping, nose low, he sniffed out a small cave beneath an outcrop. There, he curled up and slept to recover his strength.
* * *
Although Skyfire was too weary to run, stubbornness would not let her quit. She tracked Song's footprints through last year's leaves, a briar thicket, and over the moist bed of a stream shrunken down to a trickle by summer. The heat of midday wore upon her energy, and hunger nagged her belly. Soon, for the sake of the cub she carried, she must stop for food and rest; but not yet. The impressions of Song's pads told of a stride no longer fluid. The wolf was tired also, and not so urgent in his flight. Presently Skyfire observed that his path began to meander, as he searched for a lair to take cover.
She paused then to wipe sweat from her face. If she found the wolf before he woke, she had a chance.
The cleft was situated beneath an outcrop of moss-caked stone. Spring water pooled nearby, protected by a stand of trees. Song's marks were plain in the mud by the bank. The darkness between the rocks held the warm scent of his fur. Certain the wolf had laired there, Skyfire retreated from the area with the care of a seasoned predator. She left no unnecessary scent, and made not a whisper of noise. Song must not awaken and discover her presence too soon.
The Huntress knelt at the spring and drank her fill, then wove a snare for small game. She retreated after that to wait. The sun on her back made her drowsy, yet she battled the lure of sleep; if she succumbed, and Song left while she rested, she would lose him. He had run too far through the night, well beyond the territory of the pack that ran with the tribe. This part of the forest was hunted by wolves unfamiliar with elves. Song would be forced to fight for a place among them, or move on as a loner who spurned others. His memory of the Dreamsinger's companionship would fade quickly, and Skyfire knew that success must depend on prompt action.