Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Rhom’s lips twitched. From the date of the message stick he had received, and from the way the worn stick had been passed on to him, he had suspected something like this. “And in Sheets?” he asked mildly.

  “They don’t call it Three Sheets to the Wind for nothing. I picked up a map from a ring-runner—another Randonnen rast who gave me some rag with just enough accuracy that, with all those ridge folds, I was off by seventeen kays by the end of the second day. Finally found myself on Walkin’ River with two more nights wasted before I could backtrack to town. I had some hard words for the elders when I finally caught up to them.”

  “I’m sure they apologized.”

  Gamon didn’t miss the Randonnen’s amusement. “Oh, they apologized, all right—and sent me out on another road where the clove bushes were so thick I cried for a day and a half before the acid from the thrice-damned warning puffs washed fully out of my eyes. By that time, Dion’s trail was cold as a lepa’s heart, and I could have died of old age before I found her. I figured my best bet was to find you so you could do the directing.” Gamon shot him a hard look. “That was no easier, Rhom. They sent me up Three Minute River, then halfway across Flatnose Trail where it’s so steep you could sleep comfortably standing up. Twice they put me onto Concentric Road before I figured it out. Moonworms, but they even tried to get me to ride the Oracle—claimed it was the fastest route to the sea.”

  The skin around Rhom’s eyes crinkled. That was a Randonnen way of saying the route was the fastest way to your goal. The Oracle River was indeed the fastest route to the sea, but it was also deadly with steep waterfalls and rocks that would tear the bottom out of any kayak that hit the standing waves wrong. Gamon might have made it downriver—about half those who dared it did, after all—but it would have been a long, white-water route without climb-out banks, and it would have taken the Ariyen weapons master two ninans to return from its endpoint. “And did you ride the Oracle?” Rhom asked, curious in spite of himself.

  “Worlag piss, of course not. I took one look at that water and backed away with my knife in my hands. Damn good thing I did. I practically had to draw sword when they tried to force me near the kayaks on the way to Tiltin’ Tavern.”

  Rhom barked a laugh, then slowly sobered. “They were just trying to protect Dion.”

  “Like you?”

  Rhom regarded the older man for a long, silent moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I knew you before, Gamon, but that was many years ago. What are you now?”

  Gamon’s voice was tight with irony. “Ariyen, Rhom, as I’ve always been.”

  “And now?”

  “And now, I ride to find her again.”

  “To make it right, or to take her back to Ariye?”

  Gamon hesitated.

  Rhom forced his hands to remain unclenched. He was not the round-bellied, good-humored blacksmith of town tales. He was a woodsman and mountain climber, a fighter who had followed his father into smithing because he loved the feel of steel in his hands, a man who had seen his share of violence, who had seen his twin weather the same. His sister was as much a part of him as his arms were part of his body. His instinct to protect her, even at a distance, was as strong as a pack of wolves.

  “And if I said it was to bring her back to Ariye?”

  “Then I would say, you’ll need the luck of all nine moons.”

  Gamon’s jaw tightened as he withheld his anger. “I’d have that luck if you’d ride with me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because danger lurks around your twin like a badgerbear. It calls, and she answers eagerly, like a dying wolf trying for one more bite at the world that savaged her.”

  Rhom’s eyes flickered, but his voice was steady. “She’s a wolfwalker. The wilderness is her home. She cannot avoid its dangers.”

  “Then ride with me because we need her.”

  “Ariye has other wolfwalkers.”

  “Not as many as are here in Randonnen, and none that are Ember Dione.” Gamon tried a different tack. “She’s lost, Rhom. She needs saving.”

  “And you didn’t leave much of her to save.”

  The edge in Gamon’s voice sharpened. “We’re not the enemy, Rhom. And if we don’t find your sister soon, we could lose her. Not to herself, but to the wolves.” He nodded at Rhom’s frown. “She’s running with the wild ones like a pack leader, not like the human scout she should be. She’s ignoring the message rings, moving from town to town like a cozar, staying out of reach of the elders.”

  Rhom opened his mouth to retort, but Gamon cut him off with a small gesture. It was a simple movement, but it had all the years of Gamon’s calm command behind it, and Rhom subsided warily.

  “And I’m not the only one tracking her, Rhom. There will be others on her trail, others who need or want her skills, others who won’t be so gentle. At least I’ll give her a choice.”

  At that, Rhom’s own anger flared. “She had no choice the moment she mated with Aranur.”

  “And Aranur is dead.”

  “Aye.” The word held a wealth of meaning.

  Gamon looked at the younger man with a steady gray gaze. His voice was quiet. “When we find her, look at her eyes, Rhom. She’s too far into the gray. She’ll not return to you or me, not to her home, not to the sons she left behind. Bring her back now, or give her up to the wolves. She will run no other trail.”

  Gamon waited, and Rhom scuffed absently at the dust under his boot. Years ago, he had led his twin out of Randonnen and into Ariyen danger. Now it was she who pulled him from their home. He could almost feel the hard hands of the world gathering in the shadows, feel steel stretching down from the peaks. Those blades reached for Ember Dione, and the wolfwalker was his sister. If the threat he sensed was only an echo of what Dion felt through the wolves, what did it portend for her?

  He stood and gazed at the older man. His voice was flat. “I will ride.”

  IV

  Talon Drovic neVolen

  To hell and farther into the fires

  Toward truth and all its pain

  —from The Lost Ring, by Aranur Bentar neDannon

  Talon’s bones were cold. He clenched the reins more tightly as he led his riders at a distance-eating canter. Even beneath the pintrees where the morning heat grew quickly oppressive, he couldn’t ignore his shivers. He leaned low under a branch as his dnu scrambled across a dry ditch, and winced at the lurch and jar. Char was caught under his nails, and dried blood crusted in his knuckles. The pain in his head was now a hammer that struck with every hoofbeat. Behind him someone cursed, and a woman—Oroan, he thought— laughed harshly. None of the villagers had charged in pursuit. In the gloom, he did not blame them.

  They left a trail that a blind man could have followed at a dead run. It didn’t matter. By the time the fires back in the village were fully controlled and the townsmen could form a venge to hunt the raiders down, Talon’s men would be out on the eastern road. By that time, the initial fury would have passed. Reality and fear would rule, and the townsmen would have to consider what they could lose if they followed the raiders too closely.

  Kilaltian’s dozen had joined Talon’s riders an hour out of the raid. Neither group spoke or slowed as they merged. Talon simply motioned for Kilaltian to fall in behind them. Harare’s riders moved up and left the rear guard to the fresher men. Now they rode as one group, one long arm of violence.

  Talon’s father had stayed with Darity’s group, keeping the escape route clear ahead and holding the gear they would need as they ran. With Darity’s group, the band would be over forty strong, and few villages harbored enough fighting skill to challenge them as a whole. That was no boast. Talon, Kilaltian, Rakdi, Sojourn, and Drovic were graded at various weapons master levels—although Talon was still healing and had yet to regain his full strength. As for the others, they were an effectively motley lot. Some had actually been soldiers in the rare Bilocctar army; most were more like oldEarth mercenaries. About half were young and fai
rly new to raiding. Others, like Mal and Rakdi, were older. For a competition archer, Mal couldn’t shoot worth beans under pressure, but the dour man was remarkable with a sword or staff. Wakje was coldly skilled with any weapon. Ilandin was mousy and unobtrusive until a fight, where she turned nasty as a fiveclawed lepa. All were competent except Weed, who didn’t seem proficient enough with any weapon to have survived as long as he had; and Dangyon, who often relied more on size than skill. Most of these riders didn’t have the finesse of decades in the fighting rings, but Talon had decided long ago that that wasn’t a disadvantage. Wooden swords and rubber knives were no substitute for steel, and these raiders had spent enough time killing with brutal efficiency that finesse would have been silk on a worlag. He ducked a branch and guided his dnu around a clump of stinkweed. By the time the message towers started tracking his riders, they would be past the nearest settlements. Unless they ran straight into a venge, they should be clear by the end of the day and could start working north again. He looked left, then back, then called sharply to Dangyon, “Where’s Jervid?”

  “Holdin’ shoulder on Mal.” The barrel-chested man had a heavy accent, marking him as yet another man from the northwestern counties. With few exceptions, almost all of Drovic’s current band were from the western lands. Two were even from the rare territories that had opened outside the counties. Only Talon and Drovic were from Ariye, Jervid from Eilif, and Harare, with that distinctive blond hair, from one of the eastern counties on the other side of the desert.

  Talon looked again and made out Mal and Jervid. Mal was stuffing a bloody cloth up under his warcap as he rode, and Talon’s lips tightened. Holding shoulder should not have been necessary. Mal’s wound and those of the others should have been minor, except that they had gone in from the south where the martial ring was located. If Jervid had not roused the fighters at that end, the raid could have been a cakewalk. A dash in through the fields, the shock to the north end, the fires to distract, a quick, directed search and grab for the rumored bioforms, and then the retreat back into the gloom, circling the village fighters who would run directly toward the attack. But it had turned into a battle, and now three of his men were dead as the moons, while Mal and six others were wounded.

  Through the brush, he glimpsed the shadowed eastern road and didn’t bother to slow. Kilaltian shouted at him to wait to check the expanse, but he burst out on the rootroad without pause. There was no danger. He felt that with a certainty that would have unnerved him before. It was the Gray Ones who gave him that confidence, and in spite of his wariness, he threw a shaft of mental gratitude toward the gray beasts who had watched the rootroad for him. They would help him, aye, as long as he headed north or east. The wolves howled at the edge of his mind, then raced away. Talon led his group on.

  And threw up his fist to halt his riders abruptly. From their full canter, they came to a ragged stop. “What is it?” Kilaltian called sharply.

  Talon was already off his dnu. “Wait,” he ordered over his shoulder.

  Kilaltian’s eyes narrowed, but he gestured for his group to obey.

  Talon’s nostrils flared with the hint of a sweetness the wolves had smelled barely a moment before. The gray ones might be trying to force him north for their own goals, but at least their nearness was useful. He pushed his way through the bushes, closed his eyes, and tested the air. The grass was still springing up from the back-kick of gray paws. Left— they had smelled the scent to the left.

  He shoved through the light brush till he saw the woody shrubs. The chopper pods were still tightly closed—with the shadows from the hills and the thick tree trunks, the sun had not yet touched them. Years ago, one of his uncles had hung a strand of young pods on Talon’s saddle. In the dim barn light, among the pea strings he had carried for food, he had not noticed the pods. But when he had ridden out into the sun, they had exploded like tiny darts. That had been followed by two hells of a long ninan spent picking them out of his skin. It had been a sharp lesson, as it had been intended, to be aware of everything, especially what he would take for granted.

  But that had been early spring, and those chopper pods had been young. This was the end of summer. These cream-colored pods—he snapped them off carefully and placed each one gently in his war cap—were neither young nor soft. Tightly closed by night, they loosened their wings at the touch of direct sunlight, and when loosened, a simple vibration would launch them. These pods would cut through a man like starving knives to bury their seeds in flesh.

  Talon hurried back to the road. The raiders waited impatiently.

  “Chopper pods,” he answered Kilaltian’s unspoken question. “Take my dnu,” he ordered Sojourn. “Move ahead.”

  Fit grinned as he saw the seeds, but Kilaltian gave Talon a sharp look. “How did you know they were there?” the man asked.

  “They’ve been growing along this stretch of road for years,” Talon said truthfully. He knew they would think he had regained more of his memory than expected, but better that lie than explaining the wolves. “Move on,” he repeated. He opened his warcap to expose the pods, knowing that even Kilaltian wouldn’t argue with the ripe pods in his hands.

  The other man shot him a dark look, but rode ahead. Sojourn stayed behind as Talon set the pods out across the road. Talon ignored the bead of sweat that slipped down his temple as he placed the sensitive pods in the shafts of shade. Against the pale root planks, the dusty pods could go unnoticed by anyone traveling at a canter until they were practically on top of the seeds. A moment later, and Talon mounted his dnu, spurring it to a gallop to catch up to the other riders. Sojourn was no less eager than he to leave. A few beams from that sun, and the pods would have flown at them like wasps.

  They met up with Darity’s dozen near noon. Drovic gave Talon a sharp look as the overall count came up short. Neither man said anything over the thunder of the hooves. They circled a small settlement without worrying about noise, and ignored the calls that first were greetings, and then alarms. Finally, they reached the caravan meadow. It was a wide space, cleared for over a hundred wagons and used for county fairs. The short, sturdy grass that covered it was one of oldEarth’s toughest strains, and it grew thickly in spite of the beating it took from the dnu and men and wagons.

  “How much time?” Talon asked shortly.

  “We’ll take ten minutes.” Drovic gestured sharply as the rest of the raiders came to a halt. They hardly needed the direction. As usual, they began unlashing their bundles and dropping them to the ground. “Sort there,” Kilaltian directed curtly. “Pack there.”

  Talon slid from his saddle with forced smoothness. He had been prepared for the weakness in his leg where Biekin had struck him, but a spasm also caught his shoulder where the muscles were still healing. He had to hide his irritation as his father’s eyes glinted. As usual, Drovic had noted the flinch before Talon could suppress it.

  Four raiders quickly sorted the goods into piles. Another foursome packed the loot into saddlebags and panniers. Nortun moved quietly among the wounded, producing bandages and salves, and like a packrat, tucking objects into others’ packs. Talon joined the group at the well basin. A quick scrub took most of the soot from his face and rinsed the blood from his flesh, if not from under his fingernails. The smells that clung to his jerkin were rancid. Quickly he shrugged into cleaner, more deceptively stylish clothes. The others did the same. The pattern was well rehearsed. By the time they left the clearing, they would look more like a venge on its way to action, not like raiders riding away.

  Talon pursed his lips as he gave a quick once-over to his own riders: Cheyko, Harare, Oroan, Weed . . . Ki had a bloody cloth around his upper arm as he sorted the last of the goods, but that bandage would be hidden under his tunic when he finished dressing. Mal, his long face tight, was no longer bleeding from his forehead, but the saturnine man rubbed at his temples often enough that Talon thought their headaches matched. Roc sported an impressive welt along one pale cheekbone. Her honey-brown braid was spa
ttered with mud, her usual calm was absent, and she was jittery as a watercat. Her hands shook as she slicked down and rebraided her hair. Dangyon, unmistakable with his barrel chest, was resetting his saddle after treating a slash on his dnu’s flank. Sojourn, who had come out without a scratch, smelled of smoke and fire. Biekin, of course, was dead.

  Drovic barely nodded as his son joined him again. “Report.”

  Talon felt his lips tighten before he spoke. He tried to ignore the wolves near his mind. Their call to hunt that shadow woman had become distracting, blurring his vision with images of violet eyes. He could almost feel the gentle hands that had roamed his fevered body in his dreams and made him hard with desire. His urge to find and protect that woman was becoming as pointed as a starving man’s hunger—a gray geas strong enough that Talon had begun to make mistakes. Four ninans ago, he had actually mentioned the wolves to his father, and Drovic had struck him with a fist like a club and left him lying in the dust. Enraged, Talon had leaped to his feet, then had almost fainted from the blinding pain that had lanced back through his head. Drovic had merely watched, waiting like a badgerbear should Talon stagger back to his feet. Now the wolves snarled in his head as if he should challenge his father’s arrogance. But he had to heal, had to give himself time. Had to regain his strength before he could strike out again on his own to follow his goals or theirs. His fist clenched on his blade, and his edge of anger grew icy as he felt the hilt of that sword. He hated that blade for its lightness, but his wrist was still not strong enough for the length of steel he craved. Before the fever, he had healed quickly, sometimes with lightning speed. He was not used to being weak or slow—crippled, he thought the word harshly—and it grated on his nerves as much as on his father’s. He was crippled now as Ki could have been because of Jervid’s error. “Three dead, six wounded,” he returned tersely. “Two targets were searched, but only cursorily. No access found.”