“Yes, child,” Bertha said. “It is time now.”
“I thought that time had passed.”
“It comes again. It always does; it is the Way.”
“It is the Way,” Jelena agreed with a smile, and leaned down and kissed Bertha’s cheek. “Good bye, old friend,” she whispered, the tears coursing down her cheeks.
• • •
“I was thinking today,” Jelena said to Michael, “that a great deal of hard work and effort could have been avoided had I done one simple thing. When I consider leaving the tribe and taking the unawakened with me, and securing our territory and planting the fields, fishing the river, building the paddock, capturing the wild mustangs, training the warriors, fighting off the Jackals … Quite a lot of it was not strictly necessary. Had I done one simple thing some time ago.”
“Yes,” Michael said comfortably. “But then, think how I feel. Had I done one simple thing some time ago, you wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. It makes me feel guilty. I could have saved you quite a bit of work.”
“Well,” Jelena said. “We were young and foolish.”
“We’re still young and foolish,” Michael said with a grin. “I set out after you. Bertha told me to go south.”
“I went north.”
“Ay. At the time, she said south, so I went south.”
“Had you gone north …” she said with a sigh. “In the name of the first born, no wonder I’m tired all the time. I’ve been quite busy.”
“Now is no time to rest,” Michael said.
Chapter Thirty
Jelena folded her arms across the saddle horn and leaned forward. She saw the riders in the distance, headed her way. She and her tribe had made the rendezvous point an hour or so early. She’d sent out scouts and they’d already reported back. The wolves seethed around the bay stallion, who had finally learned to ignore their presence.
The day was barely beginning to break. The horses stamped their hooves restlessly, her warriors still and sturdy in their battle dress. They wore armor, helmets and face masks in red and black lacquer, the shapes strange and frightening. As they were meant to be. She had her helmet in hand as the company of Wudu-faesten approached.
Michael wore the chainlink the mechanic so lovingly fashioned for the riders. He clinked musically when he moved. She herself clicked, the lacquer plates of her armor clattering against each other like the chittering of beetles.
Michael leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her second, Yahood, cantered forward as Rufus, Michael’s second, did.
“The strategy is simple,” Jelena said. “Don’t get killed. Try to avoid serious injury. Make a lot of noise, trample what you can, set fire to what you can’t. We are going to ride like the wind and sweep through the territory of the Sithans so quickly they will not have time to arm themselves.”
“Ay, simple enough for me,” Michael said.
“And we will do it again and again until they beg for us to leave them alone. Then we’ll think about it,” Jelena said. “And if we’re feeling generous that day, we will cease. But until that time arrives, we will come against them as often as needed. We will hammer them until they give up their warlike ways.”
Michael smiled and shook his head. “For me, the necessity to fight a battle is just that, a necessity, a grim and burdensome duty that must be done. For you, it is high entertainment. You like getting hit over the head with swords.”
“Ay, and what would the world be like if we were all the same?”
She glanced up at the sky and nodded to Michael, who withdrew to lead his own riders. She cantered back to her warriors, riding the big bay up and down the front ranks. The cavalry rode the fast feral mustangs. The wolves twined in and out of the lines, padding alongside the troops, eager for the spoils of war. Then Jelena stopped and at a signal from Michael, she raised her swords, one in each hand, and howled in a voice that carried across all the territory, “Children of the Wolves! On to victory!”
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