He murmured something then, soft and low, something she didn’t understand, had never heard before. Probably some Triotian endearment he had called Brielle, she thought bitterly. Now that he was home, his thoughts would all be of his dead mate, the woman he had loved, had bonded with, and the one he would no doubt die still longing for.
A sound echoed sharp in the stillness. Instinctively Shaylah stiffened; she didn’t know enough about the wild things of Trios not to worry about what it might be. Oddly, that was the first thing that occurred to her; the thought that they had been found by the Coalition didn’t come until Wolf’s body went rigid behind her.
He seemed to know instantly that she was awake, for he hissed a warning to be quiet. As if I wouldn’t, she thought, irritation sparking inside her. Just because I seem to do everything wrong when it comes to you, she told him in silent annoyance, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all my training.
As the darkness waned, the certainty waxed; there was someone—or something—out there.
“We’re being watched,” he whispered at last.
“I know that,” she snapped under her breath.
“Up there, I think,” he said, looking upward toward the trail they had been following.
Shaylah followed the direction of his look. Trees, she thought, in the same shock she’d felt when she’d first touched the grass. Real trees. She could see them now in the gray light. Was that the source of that fragrance she’d scented earlier? She seemed to vaguely remember the one time she’d seen trees like this, that even the dry, preserved branches had held a—much fainter—version of this fresh, clean smell. That they still flourished here, amid the destruction, the barren landscape of tumbled rock, stunned her.
“I’m going to try for my pack and the weapon,” Wolf whispered, snapping her back to the disaster at hand.
“Why don’t you just announce what you’re going to do?” she whispered back furiously. “That thing’s the size of a . . . a cannon.”
“I don’t see any alternative at the moment. I can’t risk assuming he’s one of mine. Or they,” he amended.
“Yours?” Did all Triotians have this odd “my people” habit? she wondered. “Never mind.” With a sigh, she reached into her jacket pocket. “Here,” she said, handing him the small handheld disrupter.
Wolf stared at it in the gray dawn light. “You . . . had this all along?”
She read his surprise. “What did you expect me to do, use it on you?”
“The Sunbird . . . I would have thought you would have . . .”
“I should have,” she repeated tiredly. “But I didn’t have the energy anymore.”
He shifted his steady gaze to her. After a long, silent moment, he said softly, “Have I defeated you, Shaylah?”
The unexpected use of her name put a quaver in her voice, making the spiritlessness of her voice even more obvious. “I defeated myself. Fools usually do.”
And I am a fool, she thought. For handing you my ship, for hoping you might forgive me. For even thinking there was a chance that you could forget the five stolen years of your life that hang between us.
“You are many things,” Wolf said quietly, “but you are not a fool.”
And then he moved, sliding out from under the silver cloth with a swift, smooth uncoiling of his body, the small weapon concealed in his hand.
“Hold!”
Wolf froze in a crouch, and Shaylah’s heart leaped in dread; he was in the open, exposed, vulnerable. It wasn’t until Wolf looked back at her, a puzzled expression on his face, that she realized that the voice they’d heard had been young. Very young.
“Don’t move! I’ve got a blaster, and I’ll use it!”
Yes, very young; Shaylah confirmed her impression.
“Unless the Coalition is taking on children these days,” Wolf said in low tones that would carry only to her, “I think we can eliminate that possibility.”
He straightened up and casually stuffed his hands in his pockets, discreetly hiding the disrupter in one of them.
“I said don’t move!”
Wolf pulled his hands—now empty—out of his pockets and shrugged elaborately.
“Whatever you say,” he called out agreeably. “I’m not about to go up unarmed against a man with a blaster.”
There was a pause; then, in the same young voice, “You’d better not. I’ve got you both dead center in my sights.”
Shaylah almost smiled despite herself. There had been unmistakable pride in those words; Wolf’s deliberate use of the word man had had the desired effect. She heard the sound of cautious movement toward them.
“You’ve got us, all right,” Wolf agreed again. “What are you going to do with us?”
Another pause, a sudden halting of footsteps. Then, with some of the pride shaken, “You’ll find out.”
“Then I guess we’d better get ready to move.” Wolf’s voice held a credible note of resignation. “I suppose you’re going to want to show off your prisoners to your clan.”
Shaylah registered the use of the traditional Triotian word even as she realized that Wolf had planted the suggestion intentionally.
“You bet I am.” The pride was back with the resilience of the young. “You just stay right where you are.”
There was more movement, then a scrambling sound over rocks. And then, through the belt of trees, popped a figure that made Shaylah smother another smile. And made Wolf, for some reason, suck in a long, harsh breath.
He was, if she guessed generously, maybe ten years old. He was as tall as perhaps her waist; he barely came to Wolf’s hip. The old, battered blaster he held looked as if it hadn’t fired a round in years. His eyes, very wary, and much too old-looking for his young face, were green. Not the vivid, grass green of Wolf’s, but a lighter shade flecked with gold. His hair, shaggy and nearly as long as Wolf’s, was as brown as the soil that graced his golden skin.
Golden. That beautiful shade that was not white, yet not brown, nor red, nor yellow, but a glowing combination of them all. Shaylah knew then. The boy was Triotian.
She also knew then what had made Wolf take that deep breath; after five years of thinking himself the last of his kind, it had to be a shock to be face-to-face with living evidence to the contrary.
The boy, it seemed, had reached the same conclusion. “You’re Triotian!” He stared at Wolf accusingly.
“Yes.”
“Then what are you doing with this Coalition trash?”
Shaylah winced. They began young here, she thought. But why not? The Coalition deserved the hatred of these people. She glanced at Wolf; would he, too, be calling her that and worse, now that he was here on what was left of his home?
“Perhaps,” Wolf said mildly, “she is my prisoner.”
And that, Shaylah thought grimly, answered that. Telling herself it was no more than she deserved, she forced herself not to react. Wondering what, if anything, the future held for her, she looked away from Wolf.
The boy was still eyeing them suspiciously, but Wolf tactfully maneuvered him toward what he wanted: to lead them to his people. The boy hesitated at first, casting a doubtful look at the cannon strapped to Wolf’s pack. Wolf unfastened it and handed it to the boy.
“Smart man. Never leave a stranger armed until you’re sure of his affiliation.”
A look of dismay crossed the young face at the weight of the weapon. Carrying it would, Shaylah realized, keep him too busy to fire that blaster. If, of course, the thing would fire at all.
At last, convinced it was the only thing to do, the boy let them pick up their things, then turned and led the way out of the small clearing. It was more of the same, a long, painful trek down the steep trail. She felt fairly rested, but this was still tough going. Shaylah groaned inwardly as her knees began to ache again. Then, ab
ruptly, they turned and started upward.
Occasionally she glanced around, although on the steep, narrow trail it was wiser to pay attention to your footing. The view was unsettling; areas of stark desolation, left in rubble by Coalition attacks, alternated with patches of determined, soft greenery. The stillness of dawning was disturbed only by their passage and an infrequent sound of some animal she didn’t recognize.
They walked on, twisting, turning. Shaylah would have been long lost by now, but the boy—and Wolf—moved with unerring certainty. Did he know where they were going as well as the boy did?
They came to a sudden stop. Well, she thought wryly, if Wolf had known where they were going, she bet he was confused now; they had come up against a solid rock wall.
“Now what?” she asked.
Wolf silently studied the barrier before them for a moment. Then he grinned. “Up and over, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Are you crazy?” Shaylah stared at him, then the blank face of stone. Well, almost blank. When Wolf gestured, she saw a vertical row of small pockets carved in the stone.
“Females first,” Wolf said, still grinning. “I’ll hold your pack and then pass it up to you.”
“Up?” She realized he meant her to climb the rock, using those tiny pockets as hand and footholds. She rounded on him. “I told you I am not a ground trooper. Nor am I a . . . a . . .”
“A mountain goat?”
Shaylah scowled at him. She didn’t know what a mountain goat was, but she didn’t like the sound of it. And Wolf was just a bit too smug.
“You can do it, Captain,” he said in clearly mocking encouragement.
Stung, Shaylah fell into his trap even knowing that was exactly what it was. “Of course I can. The question is, will I?”
Wolf glanced at the boy beside them, who was still clutching at both heavy weapons, although he looked decidedly weary of them both. “I don’t see that we have much choice.”
And so Shaylah found herself clambering up a sheer face of Triotian rock. It was easier than she had thought; whoever had carved the pockets had spaced them perfectly. Just at the top, she reached backward; Wolf handed her her pack and started up himself. Shaylah scrambled up the last step, looked around, and nearly groaned aloud. Before her was a narrow passageway between two towering walls of rock, and as she peered down it, it seemed endless.
“Great,” she muttered. “I suppose we have another league or two to go.”
“That depends,” Wolf said blandly as he came up beside her. “Is a league still three miles or so?”
Shaylah scowled at him again. “Triotians never did adapt well to the advances of the rest of the cosmos.”
“Maybe we were happy with what worked for us.”
“And look where it got you.”
The words were out before she thought about it; she regretted them the moment she saw the flare of anger in his face and in the tension of his body.
“I’m sorry, Wolf,” she said softly as the boy neared the top of the climb.
“Why? You’re quite right.”
With that he turned his back to her, leaning over to extend a hand to the weary child. After a moment’s hesitation the boy took it, and Wolf lifted him the rest of the way with an ease that made Shaylah wonder if there wasn’t something magic in this place for him, something that made him draw an incredible strength from the land itself.
Then, suddenly, something he’d said registered. “Do you mean you know where we’re going?”
“I think so.” He looked at the boy. “They’re in the caves, aren’t they?” Panic flashed in the child’s face. “You’ve done your job, son,” Wolf said soothingly. “You’ve brought the intruders in, as well as any man. Now let’s go the rest of the way. You can make a grand entrance.”
The child perked up, nodded, and turned to dart down the narrow passageway. Shaylah stared at Wolf; he’d been gentle, almost tender with the child. As he’d been with her once, when she had cried in his arms. The combination of gentleness and strength called to something deep inside her, and she knew that the love she’d felt for him before had changed, deepened. And she knew as well it was only more hopeless.
They had barely entered the passage when they were confronted in the darkness by two men. Apparently warned by the boy, they said nothing, but there was no mistaking the weapons they held: much more functional-looking versions of the boy’s blaster. The men nudged them inside. She could hear the boy’s voice, high-pitched with excitement.
“. . . right there, Grandfather! I rounded them up and brought them to you all by myself.”
“A dangerous thing, but a brave one, Pavel,” an unseen man answered.
“Glendar,” Wolf breathed, his body gone rigid.
“You know him?” Shaylah asked in a whisper.
“I know him,” Wolf said, his voice vibrant with anticipation. He stepped forward, still in the shadows yet able to see into the interior of the cave, which was lit, Shaylah saw, with some primitive sort of live flame device encased in a clear bubble.
“Let’s see this Triotian of yours,” the man said.
“He’s right here, Grandfather.”
The man turned, and Shaylah could see that he was older; his hair, once the same color as the boy’s, was thick with gray. His face was lined with strain, and she knew this was a man who had carried a heavy burden for a long time.
She waited for Wolf to do something, to call out to this man he said he knew. But Wolf, oddly, hesitated beside her. She could feel his tension, feel it coiling inside him. Then, without a word, he stepped forward. Into the light.
The older man paled. He stared, obviously in shock. Gasps echoed in the cave from unseen watchers. A long, silent moment spun out before the old man found his voice.
“My God!” he rasped out. “Dare, my God, we thought you were dead!”
Shaylah saw Wolf’s taut body relax and realized he had feared the man would not recognize him.
“You know me, then,” Wolf said, beginning to smile.
“Of course I do,” the old man said, offended dignity overcoming his shock. “I helped raise you from a pup, didn’t I?”
“I have not forgotten, Glendar. But I am much changed. It has been a long, hard time.”
The weary, lined face moved oddly, and Shaylah realized the old man was fighting tears. “Too long,” he whispered. “Welcome home, Your Highness.”
Chapter 13
SHAYLAH SAT IN the tiny alcove, barely aware of the guard stationed outside the makeshift barred entrance. It was about four feet square, barely more than a cage. It was far too small for her to stand upright, and the rough stone floor was cold and uncomfortable. She wondered vaguely what they were going to do with her, but, with the numbness of a brain that had absorbed one shock too many, she wasn’t sure she cared.
This dazed feeling had enveloped her as soon as the band of people in the cave had enveloped Wolf, crying out their joy and amazement. Wolf obviously had forgotten her existence in the joy of reunion, never even turning to look at her. She could have escaped then, she realized now, but where would she have gone? She was used to navigating from above, not amid the twisted wreckage of this rocky place. She never would have found her way back to the Sunbird. And then the idea had become academic as the two guards who had accompanied them down the dark passage, for the first time seeing her in the light of the cave, recognized her Coalition flight suit.
The bigger of the two had wanted, unmistakably, to kill her on the spot. The other restrained him, saying it was not for them to decide. They had, none too gently, shoved her down a side tunnel that looked like it had been hand carved in the wall of the cave, and into this small, barred alcove. With a few vicious curses thrown in after her.
“You Coalition scum will learn that we have not been beaten,” one of them s
neered at her. “With Prince Dare to lead us now, we will take back that which has been stolen from us!”
Prince Dare. His Royal Highness Prince Darian of Trios. Eos, Shaylah thought as she huddled in the corner. It explained so much. That odd air of regalness she had noticed about him, even in chains. The habit he had of referring to Triotians as “my people.” That snap of command in his voice that had so astounded her after the humble manner of the slave. It even explained his ability as a pilot; the royal heir would of course have access to any vessel in Trios’s small but modern fleet.
She had even, she realized with another stunning flash of realization, seen him before. Years ago, and not in person, but on a cinefilm her parents had brought home from Trios when she was a child. In it had been a segment on the royal family, and even then Shaylah had been caught by the novelty of a boy, only a few years older than herself, who would someday rule a world.
She had studied that boy, already tall and lithe, and looking as if he would much rather be out causing mischief than standing at some ceremony in formal regalia. And even as a boy, he had shown great presence, combining the best aspects of the king and his queen, in both looks and personality. He had been, oddly enough, the first person Shaylah had thought about when her exultant flight instructor in the Academy had proclaimed to the class that Trios had been “accepted into the Coalition.”
She could see, now that she knew, traces of that boy in Wolf: the golden mane of hair, the determined jaw, and the promise of great strength in his young body. But the look of carefree youth that had lit childish green eyes was long vanquished, replaced by the formidable strength of one who has seen too much, endured too much to ever be truly young again.
“Wolf,” she whispered to herself. He would always be Wolf to her, in her mind and in her heart. When she heard her own soft uttering of the name, Shaylah realized that, despite her self-castigation, despite her acknowledgment of her own folly, she had not quite given up all hope that there might yet be a future for them. And realized now that giving up was exactly what she must do.
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