Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  “A man’s reputation is sometimes worth knowing,” Kiyun said flatly.

  “Don’t think they don’t know yours already,” Dion returned dryly. “The cozar have an excellent network. They keep track of reputations, physical descriptions, habits, and travel patterns. They knew us the moment I said our names. Probably before. ‘The cozar know a man better than he knows himself.’ ”

  Tehena eyed the caravan ahead. “I don’t think I like that.”

  Kiyun grinned slyly. “If I were you, I don’t think I’d like that either.”

  “If you were me, you’d have twice the brains, and thinking would no longer be painful.”

  Dion hid her smile.

  They rode two kays, crossed a wide bridge, then an open expanse of snow across which the wind blasted. Finally, the mountainside rose again on the right, and they could see around the next ridge. It was slow, and they had to pace themselves to remain behind the train. They could have taken up the front guard, but that would have been rude as they had joined the cozar, not the other way around. Right now, Dion preferred hanging back so that the wolves were not noticed.

  Dion closed her eyes and let the sense of the Gray Ones wash through her. Cold air cutting through the nose. Clean, wet odors. Legs breaking through the ice crusts . . . A sense of vibration reached her, and she stiffened, automatically seeking the sound in the packsong. It was low—too low for her to distinguish, but it was there. Without thinking, she whistled the warning. Her thoughts flashed out to the wolfpack. Danger! The hunter in the snow—

  “What is it?” Kiyun shouted as Dion spurred her dnu into a sprint.

  Dion’s free hand fisted against her belly, and she fought the urge to turn her dnu and flee the other direction. Protect.

  Ahead, the rearguard riders twisted at her whistle and waited impatiently for them to catch up. “What is it?” one of them shouted as she neared them.

  “Glacier worm,” she shouted tightly.

  The lead rider followed her gesture. She pulled up beside them, and he frowned. “There? The snow is too shallow—”

  “Not there.” She pointed. “Up there, working its way along a river run, hidden under the snow. It will spook the dnu and take the wagons right off the cliff.”

  “It’s too steep, too cold to stop. The wheels will freeze onto the road.”

  “Then I suggest you get ready to fight.”

  The cozar gave her a sharp look. He turned and whistled the signal up the line, and Dion could see tension snap through the wagons. Her small group cantered with the other cozar along the line until they passed over a third of the wagons. Other cliff-side riders met them on the snow side while the wagons rumbled slowly.

  “Here,” she said sharply, drawing up her dnu by a steep slope.

  “I see nothing.” He glanced at the men and women beside him, and they shook their heads in agreement.

  “It will be here,” Dion said firmly.

  The cozar studied her for a moment, then nodded curtly and deployed his riders. “Heavy shafts,” he directed. “We want penetration, not speed. Beren, use the autobarbs, they’ll tear more when they hit. Hilian, your bow is too light. Stay back with the wagons.”

  Tehena and Kiyun had strung their bows at Dion’s first warning, and the cozar gave them a nod as he noted the weight of their weapons. Dion herself stayed back. She ached with tension and had strung her own recurve, but she could not bring herself to stand frontline when she carried the last remnant of Aranur as the child within her womb. As if he read her thoughts, Kiyun shifted slightly ahead of her, and Tehena stayed beside her, almost sheltering her from being able to shoot her own bow. Dion gave the woman an irritated look, but Tehena merely pointed for her to remain farther back. There was no overt sense of the glacier worm, and the wolves were far enough downslope that Dion could no longer feel its presence through the pack. She could now only wait with the others.

  Her eyes scanned the slopes and tips of the rock while the wagons rumbled past. She saw nothing out of place. The snow was hard-crusted; there were no loose drifts to shiver with movement. But as she looked around, she realized that there was something else. It was the outer wall along the road, not the cliffs that the others stared at. A break in the snow that lined the wall, a break that might have been formed when some other wagon plunged off. She started to speak.

  The snowbank erupted. A ringed mouth shot out toward the riders like an arrow. Even with their bows half nocked, there was an instant in which half the archers froze. Only six arrows instantly drew. One second passed as the worm elongated with its lunge—an infinite second in which someone screamed, and the arrows released, and a team of dnu spooked like rabbits. The worm thinned like a stretched sock out of the side of the mountain. Pearlized skin glistened like crusted snow. The ring of teeth was full open as it shot forward. This was no baby worm. This was a full-grown predator.

  Dion held her dnu firmly with her knees and shot from the saddle, over the heads of the other archers. The maw of the worm snapped right between two archers and closed on a third as half a dozen arrows buried themselves in pearlized flesh. The man didn’t scream as the worm’s mouth clamped shut. Dion’s ears shivered as if battered by the unnatural quiet.

  Shocked archers drew belatedly, and half lost their mark as they scrambled out of the way. The wagoners were shouting at the dnu, forcing them to stay on the road. Arrows flew. The worm snapped back as pain signals worked through to its brain. Anchored in the snowpack, it thrashed sidways across the road, and five cozar were knocked flying. A dnu team half reared. The glacier worm writhed. Dion could see its eyes: tiny, glowing dots on the “face.” A purplish red ichor stained the snow. She did not think as she drew again, but the team behind her jumped awkwardly, slamming into her dnu, and her arrow went short, barely missing a cozar as he released. He cursed her and drew again. The worm coiled back. It shot out again like light, knocking aside an archer and biting at the team of dnu.

  Wolfwalker!

  Dion’s dnu danced to the side in terror. She rode it automatically, nocking and releasing. The second bolt sank into the worm’s pale pink maw beside another archer’s. The mouth snapped early, catching only a leg of the lead dnu. Blood spurted. The dnu screamed. Its front leg was torn completely off, and it reared in a twisting motion. The entire team plunged toward the drop-off. “Back, back!” the drover shouted.

  Dion nocked, drew, released. Four others were somehow beside her, in the relative calm of her position. Nock, draw, hold, release . . . The claws, tear. Heat, teeth. Protect the cub. Snow flattened beneath the worm. To the left, a man dragged himself clear. A wagoner screamed, “Cut it free, cut it free!” as two men ran beside the team and slashed at the traces of the dying dnu, knowing that the worm could take them any second. An older archer flung himself to the snow and braced himself, drawing and releasing as the others worked frantically behind him.

  The worm turned, slammed down, snapped, and struck a woman so hard she was flung into a snowbank and buried in the powder. A man sprawled unmoving in the worm’s wake. The beast recoiled to strike again, and almost in desperation, the archers pounded their bolts home. The wounded dnu was cut free, and it bolted in panic, the upper half of its foreleg dangling weirdly. It didn’t get three meters. The worm shot out and, drawn by the scent of blood, clamped its teeth over the segmented spine. A spray of blood and viscera arced out as it dragged back both halves of the beast. But the worm did not slide back as fast as it had come out, and the arrows chased it into its hole.

  Dion held her fire. Her bolt was nocked but not released, and the other archers did the same. For a long moment, the wagons rolled, and the archers held their pose. But bow arms began to ache, and two archers lowered their weapons, though they kept them at the ready. Others finally did the same. The drovers’ eyes were wide as they rumbled past.

  Dion put the bolt back in her quiver. It was loose, and she glanced down in faint surprise. There were only four left. Carefully, she unstrung her bow. Of the
archers who had stood their ground, two were dead: the one who had become worm meat, and one who had been crushed. One woman was missing, and three of the men began to dig at the bank where she had disappeared. One man was struggling with his legs.

  Dion made her way to the man, but he was cursing the others around him. “If my spine was snapped, I wouldn’t be able to feel every moons-damned broken bone, now would I?” He screamed as they eased him onto a makeshift stretcher. He cursed them without pause, then bit his lip so hard the blood streamed down his chin as they lifted him and got him to the back of one of the wagons.

  Dion made as if to follow, but one of the cozar stopped her. “Urowa is a healer.”

  She nodded.

  Cozar in the wagons thrust shovels out into reaching hands. “MaShimi went in over there.” The man pointed. The others were already hurrying to the bank where the woman had been flung. The air bit at their cheeks, and their hands were tense. “Hurry,” the lead cozar snapped.

  No one spoke. It took several minutes to unbury the woman. When they dragged her out, she was shaking. The woman gasped, cried, and did not stop shivering as they hauled her forward to the last wagon that was already passing their position. “Go, go!” the man shouted as she half tumbled and half crawled through the flaps.

  The drover did not need to be encouraged. He snapped the traces, and the dnu strained from their pace into a slow trot. The rest of the riders mounted.

  Dion hung back. Tehena glanced at her, reined in, and waited skittishly for the wolfwalker. One of the cozar noticed that she did not mount up. “What is it?” he called softly as he turned. Dion gestured with her chin toward the tunnel, then handed her reins to Tehena. Carefully, she worked her way around the spots of ichor to the hole. She had to stand on her toes to peer inside, and her nostrils flared as she sorted out the scents that remained.

  The cozar started back. “Don’t—” he said sharply as he realized what she was doing.

  She held up her hand to stop him. “The tunnel has been used before. The layers of ice are old.”

  Gingerly, he joined her. He glanced at her, realized from her expression that she would go in if he did not, and levered himself up into the hole. He crouched for a moment to calm his breathing. He had to force himself to move deeper into the cave and run his hands over the sides. Goddamn wolfwalkers, he cursed under his breath. Always wanting people to be heroes. Getting them killed more often than not. He felt a tremble in the snow and almost bolted until he realized it was his own legs, not the glacier worm returning. He finished his examination and quickly moved back to the road.

  He nodded at Dion. “Hard to say, but at least a couple of ninans.”

  “We should post a warning.”

  He shook his head to hide the shudder that wanted to cut loose across his shoulders from remaining so near the tunnel. “Worm might return,” he managed almost calmly.

  Dion did not notice. She was staring up the road at the wagons that had rolled on past. “It was wounded, and it has fed. It will not come back for hours.”

  “Banners wouldn’t last long in these winds. A ninan maybe. No more.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Long enough to save one life?”

  He regarded her uncomfortably. Then he nodded, mounted, and trotted after the wagons. He didn’t glance back to see if Dion and Tehena remained at the site. He seemed to know that they would stay until the warnings were erected. A few moments later, he returned with another man, four poles, some line, and two squares of red cloth. By the time they were finished setting the flags, the end of the wagon train was out of sight along the cliff, and the lead wagons were crawling like largons back into view far ahead.

  As they reached hailing distance of the last wagon, Dion felt the tension seep out of the two cozar. For all that they were nomadic and prided themselves on their independence, their sense of safety depended on staying close to the wagons. Those rolling platforms were their homes, their forts, their sanctuaries. They were safe, she realized, as long as they stayed together. Her voice was low, to herself, and perhaps to the gray in her mind. “My children have never been safe,” she said. Only the cold wind heard her.

  XXVII

  Talon Drovic neVolen

  Is truth, truth?

  Or is it context?

  —Question of the elders at the Test of Abis

  Something was wrong. Like a blade against his throat, the threat cut into his breathing. The wolves that distantly tamped down on his convulsions also clouded his mind, and he could not focus. Cold. Danger. Find, whispered the gray. Protect.

  He glanced at the riders who cantered around him, but they rode easily, their weapons slung or sheathed, their eyes constantly scanning the forest, the canopy, the ground. None of them rode with anything other than normal wariness. He studied them surreptitiously: Sojourn, Mal, Ki, and Dangyon; Oroan, Rakdi, Roc—still simmering from days before. Harare, with the vanity of his straight, blond hair bound in a long, swinging braid. Fit, with his sharp face and thoughtful eyes. Thick-shouldered Wakje, rumpled Weed . . .

  Talon winced as he passed out of the shade into a patch of sunlight. He closed his eyes as he thought. Kilaltian’s group of eight was west on a parallel trail; Darity’s six were east and probably ahead. But the sense of danger did not seem to do with the other raiders or with a venge or a single tracker. This was a more general prickling of the hairs along the back of his neck. Worlags? There were too many riders to tempt a worlag band. The lepa had already flocked that year; the poolah would be in pairs.

  Talon squinted against the sun. It was not hot; with the altitude they had gained from riding up through the foothills, the air was barely warm. Even so, the wolves seemed to set the chill into his bones, while his flesh prickled with fever. He knew the herbs would relieve the pain, soften the fever, eliminate the convulsions. He knew Drovic would meet up with him later and offer more of the tincture. Or he could ride after his father and reach him in hours to get more of those drugs. If he knew what those drugs were, he could get more himself to relieve this twice-damned pain. Unless the herbs were forbidden, he thought suddenly, and it took Drovic’s “persuasion” to get them.

  His fists clenched at the howling that rode his brain, and the tautness of his muscles made them ache as much as the chill. Gods damn him, but he would not turn back to Drovic. East—that was the direction he needed, and for the first time, he was riding right. The wolves were still clearing his head of pain, and he was beginning to remember the roads. “ ‘The wounds will heal; the strength return; the warrior ride with purpose.’ ” He found himself muttering, and breathed a foul oath. He was deluding himself. The pain had never lessened, and now it cramped his muscles with an intensity that made him feel like iron. He was cold, and the pit of his stomach made him taste danger with every breath.

  It was late afternoon, and they were on the downside of a small valley where the trees were thick and a network of tiny streams fed down to a shrunken creek. There were no signs of forest cat; no musk scents of badgerbear. He could smell the soil faintly through the distant wolves; hear the brushing sounds as they moved through the growth. One of them leaped a blowdown, and he smelled a faint odor of hare.

  The sense of danger was his alone.

  “I need my mind,” he muttered, trying to form and send the thought to the wolves. There was resistance in the lupine fog as he tried to clear his skull of the wolves, but Talon maintained his sense of urgency. Reluctantly, the wolves drew back. It was a mistake. For a moment, the raw pain was merely a tightening across his body. Then his guts flared bright-hot. His arms bound up with tension. He spasmed against the saddle horn. He cried out—he heard the humiliation of his own pain. Then he hit the ground with a convulsion that shot agony through his healing shoulder and wracked him into a twitching, fetal position.

  “Moonworms!” Some part of his mind registered the curses as a startled dnu leaped his body.

  “Boos-trimmed gelbugs—”

  His visio
n was spotted as if the tension of his body put pressure on his eyes. His teeth were gritted together; he had not bitten his tongue, and it choked him as much as his pain.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Just fell out of the saddle—”

  “Talon,” Sojourn snapped from beside him. The man grabbed at Talon’s arm, and the taller man spasmed, his elbow catching Sojourn on the ribs. “Wakje, help hold him down.”

  The raider put his weight on Talon and ignored the tall man’s bitten scream. “For how long?” Wakje’s voice was dry.

  “As long as it takes,” Sojourn retorted. “Dangyon, put your weight to work. Ki, grab his legs.”

  Talon closed them off and screamed in his mind for the wolves. The gray voices swept close. His muscles were rock; his chest so rigid he could not breathe. His bones would snap with the spasm. Moons of mercy! Even his thoughts gasped.

  The packsong swelled chaotically. Gods, he whimpered. Help me.

  He shuddered horribly, the convulsion shaking the raiders. Then the gray voices swept back in, separating his mind from the pain, soothing his jaw, then neck. He gasped and blinked.

  “He’s coming around.”

  “This one was bad.” It was Oroan. She watched Talon instinctively try to straighten his limbs while they were still cramped with tautness. “Carry him?” Her voice was expressionless.

  There was a pause. The question was an interesting one. Ride or die—it was basic law. But it was Oroan’s day to be messenger between Kilaltian’s group and theirs; if she didn’t want to take the news to Kilaltian, or if Weed didn’t ride to Darity . . . Weed picked at a loose thread on his sleeve as he studied Talon, and Wakje studied Weed.