Wolf Hunting

by Jane Lindskold

  Derian was trying to decide whether he should volunteer to go with Eshinarvash, or whether he would look like one of the stable boys, eager to make any excuse to exercise some noble's horse, when Truth padded over to join the group around the fire. She sat up straight, in a position more like that of a house cat than her normal sprawl.

  She's letting Harjeedian and me know she has something to say, Derian thought.

  In a moment, Plik started translating.

  "I have had - that is Truth has had, not me - some odd experiences of late. You all know that the Meddler has troubled my dreams, and that he is the Voice who guided me, the one who aided Firekeeper. He has some interest in the twins, some interest that goes deeper than anything he has claimed to this point - even to me. Of this I am certain."

  There was a pause, and Plik said softly, "Blind Seer wants to know what proof. Truth admits it's more of a hunch than anything else, but states that she's a diviner and knows how to read omens. Wait, she's getting back to her point.

  "Truth says that the Meddler is teaching her something that he says will enable us to reach the twins, but that her lessons are not yet complete. She suggests that we wait in patience for her to be ready." Plik's tone changed. "Oh-ho, that was a mistake. Firekeeper wants to know who made Truth the One of this pack."

  "Great," Derian groaned. "Firekeeper, don't you dare go rushing off just to prove that Truth can't boss you."

  Firekeeper looked at him, brown eyes all innocence. "I not rush off, Derian, but I think we have more to do than wait for Tram to get enough sleep."

  Plik raised a paw. "Are you going to insist on rushing that copse then?"

  Firekeeper frowned. "No, but maybe as was said, we go and look more, for yarimaimalom, for other things. I think you is right, Plik. More scouting, especially on those plains where Harjeedian's maps say these twins' family once have this Setting Sun."

  Eshinarvash snorted, and Plik translated.

  "Eshinarvash says he would run with Blind Seer, but perhaps it would be wisest to send two groups. He thinks that he could carry me. Firekeeper and Blind Seer could check in another direction. No one would stay out longer than during the daylight hours."

  Plik made a gesture that indicated he was now speaking for himself. "I appreciate the suggestion - and I know Eshinarvash was thinking my sensitivity to magic would be useful - but I do not think I can stay astride his back for a long stretch. I can barely manage a pony. My legs, quite honestly, are not long enough. I had trouble during our walk through the forest yesterday."

  Eshinarvash snorted, shook his mane, and stomped. Plik's eyes widened slightly.

  "Eshinarvash just suggested that he could carry both Derian and myself. This would strip the camp, but if Truth would remain with Harjeedian to guard the ravens..."

  Truth licked her paw and Derian was not surprised when Plik said, "Tram says, of course she would stay here and guard. Tearing around the landscape does not suit her either."

  Derian tried to keep an excited tremor from his voice. "Do we go today? It's not even midday yet."

  'Tomorrow, please," Plik said. "My legs ache from walking all yesterday - walking when I didn't ride. Remember, I am far older than you. Although they would never say so, I bet Firekeeper and Blind Seer would like a rest and a chance to eat something larger than a rabbit."

  Firekeeper didn't say anything, but Blind Seer rose and stretched, his languid motions making words unnecessary.

  "Tomorrow, then," Firekeeper said. "If Truth is not ready to find the twins yet."

  Tram looked at the wolf-woman, yawned, and with insulting deliberateness strolled into the sunlight and became as sunlight and shadows once more.

  YOU SHOWED ME BITTER ON PURPOSE, didn't you?" Truth asked.

  They were in the green-gold spaces. The Meddler was no longer just a voice, but was a completely visible human. Truth thought about asking why, then decided it wasn't important.

  "You always think the worst of me," the Meddler replied.

  "But I notice you don't deny it. Why don't you ever give a straight answer?"

  "Why didn't you tell your companions as soon as you began to suspect that your 'Voice' was also the Meddler?"

  "That isn't an answer."

  "Humor me."

  Truth licked between two front toes. "I wasn't precisely certain, and also... You speak of them as my 'companions,' but actually I don't know them very well."

  "And?"

  "And I am unaccustomed to venturing into something as volatile as that revelation would be without being able to check the omens as to what the response would be."

  "So it is for me," the Meddler said. "I have been a prisoner for a long time. You people are new to me. Sometimes I ask a question to try and find out what you are really asking."

  Truth rose. "And sometimes asking a question of your own permits you to avoid answering my question. I think you showed me Bitter in order to tempt me back here."

  "Did you need tempting?"

  "I might have done so."

  The Meddler sighed. "I wish you could think well of me. Maybe I wanted to encourage Bitter to return to his body, and I knew that he would be suspicious of a stranger but trust a friend."

  "So you admit that you manipulated the situation!"

  "I arranged that you should meet, yes."

  Truth yawned, showing every one of her teeth. "The night is growing no younger. I now know how to get here without your guidance. What is next?"

  "Next you must learn to travel through this space. It is not quite the same as traveling in those spaces into which you were born."

  Truth bent her ears to listening. She could already tell it was going to be a long night, and she was doubly glad that she had suggested the others do some further scouting.

  She might be able to catch up on her sleep during the day.

  ACHING MUSCLES MADE PLIK'S SLEEP that night less than restful. He had never thought himself a sedentary creature, but he had been forced to adapt his assessment The walk back from the copse had been taken at what the wolves clearly felt was a leisurely pace. Blind Seer had even wandered off to do a bit of hunting. Even so, by the end, Plik was wondering just how much scorn he would garner if he asked one of the others to call Eshinarvash.

  Now the two wolves slept close to each other, almost unmoving, and Plik found himself resenting the ease of their relaxation. He was aware of other things, too, of the time close to dawn that Truth returned to the camp, evidently weary to the point of exhaustion, yet bearing no signs or scents of exertion.

  He was aware how during his turn at night watch Derian spent hours going over his tack, polishing the leather to satin shine and increased suppleness. He was aware how Harjeedian rose time after time, forcing liquid food and water into Bitter, and how each time Lovable awoke as well and hovered anxiously, crooning almost musically over her mate.

  The camp started stirring at dawn, and by the time the first clear sunlight had penetrated the forest canopy, they were ready to go. Eshinarvash had insisted he would permit a saddle. Part of Derian's handiwork over the night had been rigging a sort of sidesaddle pad for Plik.

  "It's not that I don't like you," the young man grinned, "but you're awfully big and hairy to sit all day on my lap."

  Plik found the seat remarkably comfortable and secure. The day ahead - during which he had envisioned that tortured muscles would be further stretched - no longer seemed so impossible.

  It was an oversimplification to say that the plains ran east-west. They filled a river valley and probably had their origin in long-ago flooding from the river that emerged from the mountains to the west. Using the copse as a center point, Firekeeper and Blind Seer volunteered to go to the west - thereby passing the copse (although they promised this would be from a distance). The group carried by Eshinarvash settled for the eastern route.

  "After all," Eshinarvash said, "who wants to play games of precedence with a pair of wolves? Young wolves at that?"

  Plik agreed, bu
t he was willing to credit Firekeeper and Blind Seer with a certain amount of protectiveness as well. The thick grass meant the wolves should be able to pass below the line of sight from the copse. There was no way that Eshinarvash could manage to hide.

  To further permit them to pass without being noticed, Eshinarvash kept to the forest for the first part of their journey, emerging from the trees only when the natural rise and fall of the land blocked direct line of sight from the problematic copse.

  "Of course," Plik said, "if whatever is there - if anything is there - has the ability to scout from above, then we've gone to a great deal of trouble for nothing."

  Derian, his excitement at riding Eshinarvash only apparent because his companions could smell it in his sweat, turned to Plik, an easy grin lighting his features.

  "If there's one thing I've learned over these last couple of years it's that it's usually worth taking the trouble to check the area out. I've rarely felt stupid afterwards when nothing happens - only when something happens that I could have prevented if I'd been more careful."

  He went on to tell a tale from his first trip into New Kelvin, a tale involving an attack by some very nasty bandits. Plik felt his fur rise as he listened, and he wondered what would have happened to him if he'd been there. Nothing good, of that much he was certain.

  Eshinarvash seemed to be having similar thoughts, for his skin kept rippling as if to chase off imaginary flies.

  Listening to the tale actually increased their alertness rather than diminishing it. They located the remnants of what Derian said looked like farmsteads. They stopped for lunch in what had obviously been an orchard. However, although they found ample signs of the former human inhabitants, they found none of the other inhabitants who should have been there.

  "No large predators," Eshinarvash said, scenting the wind, his nostrils flared. "No great herds, though these plains are an invitation to browsers and grazers alike. Have you noticed that even the larger birds are not evident? There are ample songbirds, a few crows, but no hawks, no eagles, no ravens. Where have they gone? What has driven them away?"

  Derian, who had been refilling their canteens from a spring, scanned the horizon as if his hazel eyes might see what the horse's sense of smell had missed.

  "I wish I knew," he said.

  "I wonder if you do? " asked a voice from up in one of the trees. "I really wonder if you do?"

  Derian looked startled, and Plik realized that the human had not heard words, only a drawn-out sound rather like "shiiish."

  However, when Eshinarvash raised his head and snorted, the human reached for the sword he wore at his waist Plik's heart skipped a beat in his excitement What was there? How had they missed it?

  "Who's there?" he asked. "We do wish to know. We have come searching for those who should be here."

  The rasping hiss took on a deeper, snoring note.

  "But you travel with a human. Surely you are not to be trusted"

  "He is a human," Plik said. "That is true. What does that matter?"

  "Humans happened here," came the reply. "Two humans, so battered and insignificant that none worried much about their coming. A few warned us that humans are dangerous. They warned us that bad things would happen, especially when the newcomers began poking around the old buildings, but we did not listen - much to our misfortune."

  Derian was looking very disturbed now. "Plik, I can tell you and Eshinarvash are talking to someone. Can you tell me what's going on?"

  Plik raised both hands to stroke the white line of his eyebrows. "As soon as I know, you'll be the first person I tell."

  XVII

  THE NOISES THAT WERE COMING from the leafy cover of the pear tree under which they had sat to take their lunch made Derian's skin crawl. They were hoarse and rasping, terse and truncated, and sounded full of barely suppressed anger.

  Plik and Eshinarvash seemed more excited than afraid, and Derian soon gathered why. At last they had found one of the missing yarimaimalom.

  The creature in question turned out to be what Derian had grown up calling a barn owl, although the creature in question apparently took great offense at the term with its implications that her people depended on humans for nesting areas. She - the creature in question turned out to be female - was a lovely creature. Her facial feathers were pure white, deep-set, and unusually flat, even for an owl. The contrast of this elongated white face to her rusty-brown upper plumage and pale under plumage was striking and oddly unsettling.

  She introduced herself with the name Night's Terror, but she seemed more terrified than terrible. Whenever Derian so much as looked directly at her, she rutched up her feathers and made horrible noises. Eventually, when Plik and Eshinarvash had worked her story from her, Derian didn't much blame Night's Terror for her reaction.

  Night's Terror had been born in the forests that bordered this plain and had rarely had reason to leave the area since. She had never even seen a human until the arrival of two who must have been the twins a year or so before. Several of the winged folk who kept a wider range knew what humans were, and explained that they could be dangerous, but other yarimaimalom noted that these two humans looked like a breed that had been typically found to be favorably disposed to the Wise Beasts.

  "A few of our kind," Night's Terror went on, with Plik translating for Derian, "great arrogant beasts of that type that fear little in any case, went to call upon these newcomers. These self-appointed ambassadors were immediately recognized by the humans as Kind rather than Cousin, and given fair welcome. The humans made clear that they had no intention of harming the current residents, and even made some effort to ascertain which beasts they would be permitted to hunt and which they must avoid.

  'To be honest, we rather welcomed these two humans. They were amusing and interesting, something new to gossip about during the dull stretches of winter. The humans experienced some difficulties during the winter, for they were singularly ill adapted to survive, but when there was game to spare the predators dropped something by. Even I dropped off the occasional mouse or vole."

  Derian hid a grin at the thought of how those two humans must have reacted to finding dead mice on their doorstep, but then he recalled the rare times Firekeeper had talked about her childhood. She had spoken about the thin times of winter when even the wolf pack's assistance had not been enough to keep her from starvation. Perhaps the twins might have appreciated those mice more than Derian had first supposed.

  "Something changed soon after the coming of spring,"

  Night's Terror went on. "I cannot say what it was, for I was busy with fledglings and had little time or attention for anything else. However, those who had befriended the humans said that they scented strange things in and about the place the two humans had taken for their lair. A few of the keener-nosed claimed they scented other humans, but we all knew this was impossible. No human could have entered this territory without our knowing."

  Plik raised a hand and said something he immediately translated for Derian. "Night's Terror, earlier you said that these strange humans 'poked around old buildings.' What old buildings? We have seen nothing that would qualify, only some roofless foundations."

  Night's Terror ruffled her feathers. "You force my tale out of turn. One of the strangest things that happened was when the buildings wherein the two humans had made their nest began to change. The first change was social rather than otherwise. The yarimaimaiom who had taken to visiting the pair of humans found themselves no longer invited in past the main entry.

  "Next many noticed that the plant growth had become thicker. At first nothing much was thought of this, for those who had visited human lands related how humans had a special art for making plants grow where they desired and often rather more swiftly than one would expect. Later, however, when trees that should have taken several years to grow appeared overnight, then questions were asked, but by then it was too late to ask them."

  Night's Terror paused and swiveled her head around so that even Derian knew
she was waiting to be prompted. Eshinarvash did so with a snort and a stamp of one hoof.

  "The two humans had ceased to go abroad," Night's Terror went on. "Nor did they speak with the yarimaimalom any longer. Where once there had been a large building in rather better condition than any other building in the area there was now a copse of trees."

  "A copse of trees," Plik repeated. "You mean that strange one to the southwest, nearer to the river?"

  "That very one," Night's Terror agreed. "You know how curious certain Beasts can be. Where I was willing to leave well enough alone, others had to pry. Some went into that wood. None ever returned."

  "None?" Derian asked in surprise.

  Night's Terror flapped her wings at the sound of his voice, but deigned answer after Plik translated.

  "None. I think it was some sort of cat that went in first, though it might have been a bear. The humans had a gift for making sweet things the bears quite liked. In any case, whichever beast it was didn't come out again, nor was a body found, nor was blood scented by those who claimed they would have known. These foolish first ones had friends, and these risked themselves to try and find their friends. These too vanished.

  "Soon after, other bad things began to happen. Briars that seemed to have a taste for living meat started growing at the verges of the forest. Beasts wise and not so became their prey. Then - and I tell you this is true, though I don't expect you to believe me - there came creatures with the form of beasts, but made of vine and twig."

  Eshinarvash pawed the ground, drawing a trench through the moldering pear leaves with his hoof.

  "We have some knowledge of these," Plik translated faithfully. Derian realized that though there was little reason he should have done so, he had understood the Wise Horse.

  "You have?" Night's Terror asked, and made herself into a feathery oval.