Once again, the Ariyen weighed the choice. It was the end of summer, but it had been a dry year, with no rain touching the desert. Out there, the ground was hard as iron or powdered like wind-blown ash. It wasn’t a desert of dunes, but of barren rock and soil that was thin with the remnants of wind-ground stones and pebbles and sand. There could be years in a row when no rain fell, others when winter laid down a layer of snow that fed the thirsty soil, and still others that suffered so much rain that the canyons were cut even deeper. At this time of year, because of the altitude, the night air would be close to freezing; by afternoon, it would boil their brains like stew.
Gamon ran his hand under the edge of his leather-and-metal-mesh war cap. Take that northern route, and by day, his skull would be a dutch oven of the Ancients, roasting his thoughts to death. And the dust . . . The grime that caked the sweat on their necks and discolored the legs of each dnu— that dust would become a cruel grit. Like hungry flies, it would scrape at their skin until their flesh was raw and open to worms. The wind would scour their eyes like a sandpad. Parched air would suck dry their mouths. Aye, they would make Ramaj Ariye, but they would be stalks of men.
Rhom followed his gaze. “It must be both our decisions.”
“She might have turned back.”
“No. She went on.”
Gamon did not dispute him. Instead, he gazed again at the desert. It was not that the distance was so great between Randonnen and Ariye—it was barely 110 kays as the crow flies. It was that they would have to ride a twisting path in and out of the canyons, climbing down and back up and out, and leaving the road for water. The actual distance was over 200 kays, and it would be more for he and Rhom.
Gamon had crossed those mesas many times with caravans and on dnu, but he had never crossed as late as this, and never in a swarm year. ‘Seven years for the lepa; seven times seven for the lesser’—it was an old saying, and not really accurate, for the bird-creatures called lepa could swarm every four or five years instead of migrating in pairs and small groups. But every few decades, those small groupings would explode into mass migrations and extend to the lesser beasts. In those years, even the beetles and gelbugs would mass and move like scythes through forests and fields. This was one of those swarm years.
If they were lucky, they would somehow avoid the sweeps of hunger and violence that could reach even into the desert. Luck, however, would have nothing to do with how often they could find water. Five of the major wells would be dry, and at least two of the closer springs would be dust. They could have carried water on a wagon, but they would have had to hire six men to ride with them to help get the transport down into and back up out of the canyons. The steep roads begged for accidents. On the other hand, each riding dnu would suck water like a sponge, and the dnu might not even last half a ninan, not with the desert predators.
“We could still ride north,” he murmured. “Follow their path up through Ramaj Kiren to Ramaj Kiaskari.”
“That trail’s cold as a stillborn poolah. We’d always be ninans behind her.”
“There’s the route Shilia took, the southern route to Ariye.”
“It adds fourteen days to the trail. No, we ride straight, we ride fast, and we reach the passes before her, or we’ll lose her among the ridges. Something is worrying at Dion’s heels. I can feel it like a hound on a cougar. She’ll not stay with the roads once she’s into Ariye. She’ll head straight into the forests.”
“We can’t ride right across that desert if the water wells are dry. Speed may be something we sacrifice to follow this road to Ariye.”
“We can’t afford to make that trade-off, Gamon. We’ll jog or walk or crawl if we have to, but those days will make a difference. By the time you reached me . . .” He shrugged meaningfully.
“Is it my fault you Randonnens are stubborn and stupid as bollusk? It’s not as if I wouldn’t have found Dion eventually.”
“Aye,” he agreed mildly. “But we wanted it on our terms, not yours.”
Gamon noted the use of the plural pronoun. “This road is risky, Rhom. We’d be certain of reaching Kiren if we took the caravan route.”
“No.” His voice was firm. “The southern route takes too long.” He gestured with his chin at the mesas. “We cross this quickly, then ride north and meet her before she hits the hills, as she comes back down through the passes.”
“Into Ariye,” Gamon said deliberately.
Rhom gave the older man a steady look. “Into Ariye,” he agreed. “Though she may not remain there long.”
Gamon chewed his lip absently as, one more time, he went over the route in his head. This late, they would have to leave the road at least four times to reach the few tinaja and tenor trees that would help to keep them alive, and that would add days to the route. And Rhom was heavy with muscle; he would need more water than he thought. That, and Rhom knew only the mountains. The Randonnen did not know how to endure the heat—how to lower his body temperature, how to breathe carefully, how to drink enough to sate the body without giving away water to sweat . . . Gamon regarded the desert and waited in studied silence.
Rhom glanced again at the southern fork. It had been eight years since he had last traveled to Ariye. With his mate, his children, his father, and his forge, life had simply been too full to extend far toward his distant twin. Now, time mocked him with its shortness, and the urgency that had pushed him this far spurred him on like a thorn. Gamon was right. This world was a danger to Dion. And he had left his sister on her own too long. Now it was time, not the heat, that worried him.
Nine days here, nine days there . . . They were far enough north that it would take two ninans to ride down through Fenn Forest to the river road in the valley. It was another half ninan to reach Ariye, and four more days to the upper towns. The desert route took half that. That was fourteen days of difference. Fourteen days of life.
Rhom looked north at the faint line of white that crossed the dry desert. He urged his dnu toward the canyons.
The older man rode with him.
X
Talon Drovic neVolen
Whose trap is it,
If you go in willingly?
—Question of the Elders at the Test of Abis
Talon’s vision gradually became fuzzy again as he rode, but he didn’t bother to shake his head. It wouldn’t help; it was the wolf pack that blurred his eyesight, while the edges of their packsong gnawed at his thoughts. He had been around wolf packs for years, though he had never bonded with them. He found his lips twisting in a mockery of a smile. Even as a child, Drovic had pushed him to take up the steel, rather than follow the path of the wolves. Now Talon’s toys were swords and men, and Drovic was no different. Drovic played with lives like a chess game, not caring what was sacrificed to his cause. Steal technology, find a cure for the plague, fight the aliens, and regain the Ancients’ stars . . . Talon’s blind acceptance of those goals was slipping away with each contact with the wolves. It wasn’t that the goals couldn’t be reached, just that every day seemed to leach a little more focus from his mind, steal more of his memory just as Drovic stole bioforms.
His gray eyes narrowed as he studied the forest. How close were they now, those ghosts? They held some knowledge of the plague—he knew healers who had touched that. He stretched toward the foggy gray and hoped that it would somehow clear the other fog in his head.
Instantly, the mental howl strengthened. There was no meshing of consciousness, no perfect blend of thoughts, just a maelstrom of lupine need. The lure of that packsong made him nearly writhe until he wanted to throw back his head and snarl with emptiness. He clenched his jaw just in time and strangled the sound in his throat. It was a long moment before he regained control.
“Moons-damned idiot!” He cursed himself under his breath. He should have known better. A man who was linked with the wolves could be haunted by any gray voice, pushed to any goal the Gray Ones set in his mind. The wolves tried to touch his mind again, and he cursed audibly until Da
ngyon, riding ahead of him, began grinning at his oaths.
Talon had managed to turn them east twice, once to avoid a venge and once to take advantage of the heavy traffic for a fair. But although they were still in Ramaj Eilif, they were inexorably shifting west. It was a direction that was beginning to gnaw at Talon as much as did the wolves. Ariye was the key, he told himself. Center of the counties, home of the Ancients’ science, base of the aliens’ mountains . . . Even without looking in the Gray Ones’ eyes, Talon could feel their intensity as they seemed to follow his thoughts.
Drovic noticed his expression and dropped back to a canter beside him. “What is it?”
“We should have gone east,” he said flatly, swatting at a grafbug. “Up into the mountains, out of the range of the venges.”
Drovic’s voice was equally short. “We don’t have the gear for that.”
“Then we’ll sell the lighter gear and buy what we need.”
The older man gave him a withering look.
Talon forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Steal it, kill for it, soak it in blood—does it matter? It’s gear, not technology. Why risk our lives for something so mundane? If I were lea—” He broke off at Drovic’s expression.
“But you aren’t leading, are you?” The older man’s gaze was as cold as his voice. “The day you can beat me with your own sword in hand is the day you will make decisions. Until then, it is I who makes the choices.” Drovic snorted. “Have you forgotten everything? We don’t buy what we need. We steal and kill so that we look like other raiders. If Ariye ever realized we were more mercenaries and soldiers than raiders, we’d be hunted down like carriers of the plague.”
“So we hide what we take with fire.”
“Or with slaughter or slaves.”
Talon’s lips thinned. How many men had Drovic killed, not to further his goal, but simply to protect his own group as he planned his long-term revenge? And when had his father ever actually struck a blow against the birdmen? He bit his lip to silence. Drovic took that as agreement.
They rode up the next ridge and back down into the cut on the other side, stopping well back from the next junction to wait for the caravan they had spotted. Automatically, each raider dropped from the saddle in silence, led his dnu into the brush beneath the trees, and forced his riding beast to its knees. Talon and Wakje left their dnu with the others and crept forward to keep a watch. Shafts of afternoon sun heated the air on the south side of the ridge, and the warming oils of the plants made a heady perfume when sensed through lupine nostrils. Dry leaves, skibug dung, the soft brush of the ferns . . .
Talon settled where skibugs had cut through the undergrowth. As with other swarms that year, the bugs had left their mark, and now the soil would hold their dung until the coming rains diluted it. Once wetted, the tiny eggs excreted in the protective dung would hatch, and the larvae would burrow, separating themselves by sex. The trail of the skibugs would be a double-track of male and female larvae, running nearly parallel to each other, spreading out as they grew, until they reached maturity and merged. That merging place should be noted for Nortun, and Talon automatically judged how far away that point would be. Garvoset, an herb that Nortun used in his wound lotion, grew well over skibug mergings.
Wolves howled abruptly. Talon’s eyes were instantly blinded. The thought of the herbs had triggered the Gray Ones like an eggbeater, scrambling his concentration. It was her, he realized. The image was almost clear. The woman: dark eyes, black hair, soft skin. The woman with the wolves. His fists clenched on grass. A woman who had trapped him, forced him to need something he could not recognize. Brittle strands shredded beneath his nails. A woman like Nortun, who worked with herbs.
Dion froze. The scars on the side of her face went white. She tried to blink, but her violet eyes were unfocused with the weight of a hundred wolves’ howling. Dust, old dung pounded into roots, the scent of rich forest soil . . . For an instant, the stall gate under her hands disappeared and the distant images became sharp. Her hand clenched the herb pouches at her belt. Wolfwalker, they sent. The den, the mate, the bonding.
Kiyun put his hand on her arm to shake her gently, but she twisted and snapped, and he snatched his hand back to save it from her teeth.
“Don’t touch her,” Tehena said sharply.
Dion breathed with difficulty, but the sharp burst in the pack was fading.
The thought in the gray was clear: The hunt sharpens.
Whose hunt? She forced out the thought.
Yellow eyes gleamed in her mind. Yours.
“Dion?” Kiyun asked.
She shook her head silently. She could not voice what she had felt. Whoever was in the packsong was now strong enough to force the sense of his own needs across the distance. They weren’t simple like hunger pangs or thirst. No, it had been desperation deep in the gray—a need to break out, to break free of a bond that he rejected but could not avoid. A need to strike at the world that had hurt him. Dion felt the pain like burning blood, and that frightened her almost as much as the icy fury behind that will. It was her own pain, her own needs, echoed in the pack. She shivered again, this time almost violently. The wolves in the distance were pushing that violence north and east, while those here drove her south. There was an invisible point at which their two packs would meet, and it was somewhere in these mountains.
She needed Ariye, she thought blindly. In spite of the elders, the duties, the graves, she needed home, her wolf, Ariye. The wild ones were too rough in her mind. She needed the smooth bond, the single wolf-bond that was intimate and calm, but Hishn was in Ariye. The need to protect the child in her womb colored the packsong’s urgency to protect their own pups. Protect, they whispered in her mind. Home, bonding, mating, life. Take away the burning. Promises, Healer. Ours. Yours.
Talon felt the clarity of his realization sing out into the gray, and the urge to snarl was almost unbearable even as the first wagons came into view. He gritted his jaw till his teeth ground like glass over sand. He forced himself to breathe. Forced himself to remain still and not spring up to run as the caravan riders drew closer. He wanted that woman. He recognized it now, that need that was borne in gray. In the wolf pack, she was his. That was what he had lost when he lost his family: home, a bond, his other half. He didn’t even know how much time had passed since he had been mated, but it had been long enough that the gem studs in his sternum had bound themselves to his bones. Long enough that his need had become a driving force that matched the will of the wolves.
Something whuffed beside him, and he started. Find her. Protect, the Gray Ones growled. East and north to the cold.
Talon cursed under his breath. If Wakje saw, or if his father caught the scent of wolf on him again . . .
The wolf crept forward a meter. Its black-rimmed eyes were intent on the road, and like Talon, its shoulders were tense. But the wagons rattled with smooth precision, and the soft voices of the drovers kept the dnu from starting as they caught the raiders’ scents.
“You don’t belong here,” Talon whispered to Gray Ursh.
It turned its yellow gaze to him, and he felt the shock of that voice like ringing crystal. Then follow, it commanded.
“Not yet.” He closed his eyes and broke the contact.
The wolf growled low but did not move away.
At the junction, two mid-caravan scouts pulled up to check the road. Both were older, with gray streaks in their hair and faces that showed the weathering of nine or ten decades. They were as much a mismatch as any pair: the woman was stocky and almost pudgy for her height; the man was lean as a bean-pole. But they were just as obviously so closely in tune that they had little need to speak. The woman simply raised her eyebrows slightly; the lean man nodded, and they moved on without looking again down the road, leading the wagons past. At some point, those wagons would meet up with the venges; someone would mention the other tracks . . .
Hunters, the Gray One agreed. Talon flicked his gaze at the wolf, but the Gray One did no
t blink.
It took twenty minutes for the last wagon to roll out of sight, and by that time, Talon was tight as a wire. As soon as the last wagon was fifty meters away, Wakje began to roll out of the ferns, but Talon hissed at the other man. The raider froze. A moment later, four trailing scouts rode into view, and Wakje’s face became blank and hard.
The trailing riders passed, and Talon got carefully to all fours before remembering his feet. Wakje gave him an odd glance, but said nothing. The gray wolf crept away.
They crossed quickly onto Gain Trail and began the steep climb through five kays of towering spruce and pintrees. The relative calm beneath the trees wouldn’t last. Like Roaring Ridge and Howling Hill, the wind was as unpredictable along the crest as a woman with child.
Talon rode point for his dozen, fifty meters behind Kilaltian’s group. They were last, not because he had been first before, but because he had most of the wounded. If anyone slowed down on the trail, it would be Talon’s group, not the others. He watched Mal carefully as he turned up another switchback. The dour man had still not recovered from his head wound, and his face remained pale, his headaches as blinding as Talon’s. “All right?” Talon asked quietly.
“How long to the top?” Mal muttered.
“Thirty minutes. Two more drop-offs.”
The other man didn’t bother to nod.
They rounded another switchback and brushed through a stand of high-altitude huckleberries. Each rider picked a handful of berries as he passed, but the lead riders did not strip the bushes. Every man could see how many berries there were; they took only the handful that would leave some for all the others. Talon noted it with satisfaction. Discipline was one of the reasons Drovic was successful.
A signal passed down the line for Talon to ride forward and join Drovic, and Talon had to admit that the older man had chosen this year’s riders well. Young as some of them were, the months had welded the group into a single mind. They could read each other’s body language, realize as a whole the threat that one of them felt, and automatically compensate for a weakness here by shifting their skills over there. Talon’s group in particular seemed to be achieving cohesion. It was something Drovic watched closely.
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