Whither goes your heart?
If it travels on need alone, it is lost.
Whither goes your courage?
If it runs on pride alone, it is nothing.
Whither goes your life?
If it has no goal, it has already ended;
And you are already dead.
—From “Jumping the Abyss,” by Syal Mortel, Randonnen elder, 452 A.L.
Without the constant din of the wolves in her head, Dion found herself restless. The evening had been boisterous until night’s call, when the children and most of the adults went to bed. Now the night was quiet.
A group of men still stood around the courtyard fire telling stories and discussing the odd bit of philosophy. Dion paced one of the courtyards, then strode out into the snow on the moonlit slope, only to stand in an open expanse, staring at the cold moons. It was the hunter, she realized. Her thoughts revolved around him, but she could feel barely a thread of him in the near-silent packsong. He had been part of her uneasiness long enough that his absence was almost as painful as his presence.
The knot of men by the fire pit welcomed her silently. One of the others was there—one of the three men who rode separately, and he looked as dark and dangerous up close as he had on his dnu. He nodded to her, and she did not realize that her own wariness matched his—that they watched shadows like wolves and worlags together. She simply sat with the cozar until the fire died down and the brief wind grew cold enough that all but one of them turned in. Chantz dipped a mug in the pot still heating over the coals and held it out to her. Dion regarded him expressionlessly. She had heard the talk. The man might not raid against the cozar, but there was little question about what he did on his own. There was a worlag under his skin.
He watched her closely. When he spoke, she knew he had been following her thoughts. “You think we are raiders.”
She raised one dark eyebrow. “Are you?”
He did not answer. He merely held out the mug and waited.
Finally, Dion took it. It was hot against her chilled flesh, and it made her shiver.
“You’re cold.”
She raised her violet eyes.
“Cold in the heart,” he said softly. “I know you, I think.”
“We have not met,” she said stiffly.
“No, but I know you like myself.” He paused, his voice low. “I had a mate once.”
His words split the wall that she had so painstakingly built around her heart. It was unexpected, and it opened her to her grief like a flood. Her voice was barely a whisper. “As did I.” She stared at him. She could not help her words. “Are we so scarred, you and I?”
The man shrugged. “They say lost souls can recognize each other.”
“That saying is about the path to the moons.”
“And I know you like myself,” he reminded her obliquely. “Can you state with truth that you have chosen a different trail?”
Dion laughed, but the sound was a little wild. “No, though I wish I could.”
He shrugged and poked at the fire. “Some of us have no hope. We long for the moons because we think we will find our love again in that coldness. Or we long for the moons because there is no real purpose in what we do. We are trapped by our past.” He smiled without humor at her surprise. “You don’t expect such thoughts of someone like me?”
She shrugged.
He studied her for a moment, then turned back to the fire. “What I have—it is life, not living.” He nodded at her. “You are not that far dead. You can still take a different road.”
“But not you.” The question was more a statement.
“No. Not now. Not for me. But if we had met when I was younger; if you had been . . .” His voice trailed off.
Dion felt the rage within her. She swallowed it with difficulty. “If I had been what? More like you? Like a—” She bit down on the words to stop them.
Chantz’s eyes were suddenly cold. “Like a thief? A killer? You think men like me gravitate toward the violence? Maybe we do, but if so, it’s because the moons pushed us out of the paths of accepted violence and into the ones of death. And if the choice is to die on the trial block, or continue breathing free, which would you choose, wolfwalker? It might not be much of a life, but it is life.” He turned back to the fire. “Though not much of a goal for a master healer like you.”
She clenched her fists around the mug.
He caught her tension. “I do not mistake the Gray Wolf of Ramaj Randonnen. I know you after all.”
“You know nothing,” she snarled.
He smiled slowly, but there was no humor in the expression. “I know that you ache inside like a three-month hunger. I know that you breathe only because your body can’t quite stop on its own. I know that you run, from the ghosts, from grief—it doesn’t matter. You run like the wolves who haunt you, and you will never face life again until you stop running and accept your guilt.”
She breathed almost raggedly with the effort of holding back her fury. “And who are you to judge me? Can you claim to have stopped running?”
Chantz’s voice was mild. “It’s not the life I would have chosen, but yes, I no longer run. I face life. I know what it is and what it is not. I know who I am.” He reached out and touched the back of her hand where new scars lay over old. “If we had lived different lives . . .”
She stared at the marks on her flesh. All the faint scars, deep scars—even the line of fingernail scars where she had not held onto her mate but let him fall to his death. All were marks of death. Her fury flared into blinding grief. If she and he had lived different lives? She caught her breath on a sob. “We did,” she whispered, “and we are still the same.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. He made a small gesture, and almost without volition, she went into his arms. He was tall and strong, and he wrapped her in his arms as if he could cherish her forever. He murmured words that made no sense and stroked her hair as if she were his mate, and she clung to him as if he were Aranur. There was no love between them. They were simply two souls, lost in the night, rocking in the coals of their grief.
Beside the passhouse, Kiyun’s hand clamped Tehena’s arm like a vise, holding the woman in place. “Let them be,” he said, his voice low but sharp. “If she does not choose a mate on her own, the wolves will force her to take the one they bring her.”
“The wolves chose the mate she should have—the one she needs, the one who will make her whole.”
“And with their needs in her mind, she will obey them, and be a tool again, nothing more. She will never be whole. She will live for their goal and die a bit every day.”
Tehena tried to wrench free. “She is not a woman who can divide her love between men, and that is not her mate. That is a worm-spawned raider.”
Kiyun’s grip did not relax. “Just because the wolves choose for her doesn’t mean she must accept the choice. And it was raiders who took Aranur away from her. Maybe she can find some peace on her own by facing one again.”
“By facing her worst nightmare? You’re insane.”
“You think she should give up completely to the will of the wolves?”
She shook him off violently. “And if he wants more from her than an embrace?”
Kiyun said softly. “It is Dion’s life, not yours, to make such a choice.”
Her life is the only life I have. Tehena did not say the words, but they all but battered the back of her gritted teeth, trying to get out. The woman clenched her bony fists, but some bleakness deep in Kiyun’s eyes caught her, and she realized he felt the same.
XXXV
Talon Drovic neVolen
Steel and blood may fill my heart, but Gray cuts both like butter.
—Ariyen proverb
Air and noir. Sky and darkness. Moons and blackened steel . . . Images mixed and twisted. Cold air rushed by his roaring ears. He saw flashing steel. Heard wolves, and knew that only their strength could save him. Cried out for the use of their strength and speed, and felt them
fill him with gray. He grabbed for that strength. Strained toward hands, clutched steel. Grasped the knife over another pair of thick, gnarled hands, and the other man suddenly stopped fighting and pulled him in instead. But it was into himself that he stabbed. The blade went in a dozen times, cutting into other bodies, and each time stabbing his own. The sword went through his shoulder, and he screamed out for the strength of the wolves even as they ripped him apart with his own weight. Then the woman was there—soft voice, firm hands, a voice as gray as the wolves. Hands soothed; hands reached. Dark eyes stared into his, to the path to the moons and beyond. He felt her let go of something dark and stretch across pain to reach him. The convulsions eased again. She nodded and the wolves let go, and he fell, and all that was left was the pain, the agony . . .
He stared into the dawn. His jaw was like rock, his arms so tense with a half-controlled convulsion that he jerked rather than blinked. For a moment, gray light and gray voices still blended. Then his mental cry reached the Gray Ones, and they swept in, catching the agony before it could snap his bones. He breathed raggedly. He could smell a faint musk in the undergrowth and knew the wolves had been near. Dnu piss, he thought, forcing himself to his knees. They were always near. Driving, lashing him on, and holding the only shield to the pain that lurked beneath his muscles.
He could not help the speed he set when they hit the road. The sense of urgency was stronger. The wolves remained out of sight, but the gray fog that dulled the spasms was laced with eagerness. He sucked on a piece of dried jerky for breakfast and listened to the wolves.
Every kay put distance between him and his father. Every kay was a leap north and east, loosening the chains that bound his mind. East. The wolves. The woman. Ariye. It was a litany of need.
They would have to circle the mountain that stood between him and Kiaskari, or ride back south to go north through Ramaj Ariye—a direction he resisted. Drovic could follow him, but by the time the older man caught his trail, Talon would be at least a full day ahead. Or, if Drovic guessed his intent, Drovic would cut up on the other side of the mountain to block his way back down through the pass. Either way, Talon could not avoid going north. He needed the woman first.
They wound down into a canyon and brushed through a young stand of curio trees, then back up on a wider game trail. Talon rode unerringly, choosing the paths that the wolves laid out in his mind. He could feel their eagerness, the blunt satisfaction that he was riding as they directed. It would have angered him, but there was too much gray in his mind— the pain he felt had not left him, and those wolves were the only buffer between his body and himself.
Blackheart trees turned to alpine scrub, then back to curio saplings. A redbark, twisted from box-pale fungi, marked a fork in the trail. There was a half-fallen cedar tree, the sudden scent of lemon as they brushed through hemlock grass. The forest was quiet, and no one spoke behind him. They rode swiftly, stopping only a few times for quick breaks to rest their legs and to water the dnu. They ate in the saddle and made camp only when dusk was gone. There was barely a murmur as they bedded down.
The next day began the same. Talon woke with his muscles tightening into brick. He barely caught the edge of gray that softened that rigid pain. Gods, he breathed in his mind. Should the wolves ever leave him, his body would break itself with rictus. Move forward, he told himself harshly. There were healing hands in the gray . . . There was a memory—an image, a fragment of conversation. He didn’t know what, but it was of that healer. He had heard her name, had seen her before. Perhaps she had healed him in the past. Either way, she would take away the pain. There was power in her hands. Power that could reach through the gray, the power of both aliens and Ancients gripped in two slender hands. He could use that power if he held it himself, use it to reach the stars.
He rose slowly, to hide his stiff muscles. The others were doing the same. No one questioned their speed as they set out again. The threat of Drovic was enough to keep them all pushing forward.
Talon stopped them midmorning after they crossed a half-bare ridge; then he went back to scout the view. Wakje and Ki went with him, belly-crawling to a vantage point on the other side of the crest where they could see the roads. Only a few stretches were visible through the trees, and in an hour and a half of watching the distance, there were no obvious riders. Talon shrugged to himself and returned to the other raiders.
They traveled swiftly, crossing the foothills of the Illusory Mountains on an old road that was soft and mushy. Only a thin track on one side showed use—most likely by herds of eerin. The wolves did not use it; they were east, along a parallel ridge. Talon felt their presence more in the dulled sense of pain than in any distinct images or howls.
They had been following the old road for two kays when Talon suddenly held up his hand. Something had alerted him, but it was not the wolves. His own eyes had caught something different. The others halted. Quickly, Talon lay along the length of the dnu to lower his profile. The others followed suit.
They waited.
For minutes, nothing happened. Then, up ahead, to the right, something shifted in the brush. A hooved creature eased out on the road. From behind, Dangyon caught his breath. The buck looked down the road and flicked its tail up, showing its swatch of white hair. Then it moved with powerful grace out onto the open roots. It was a smooth, light brown color, with antlers branching out from the top of its head, and it had only four legs. Its body swept back in an arched line from a single set of ribs. Its shoulders were thick with muscle. Only two of Talon’s people had ever seen one before, but all had heard the legends. “Deer,” Sojourn breathed for them all.
As if it heard, the creature poised, midroad, and watched them for a moment. Then it moved on into the brush on the other side. Oroan held her breath; Ki didn’t move; and Sojourn actually crossed himself in the ancient sign of blessing. A few seconds later, two does, a fawn, another doe, and then four others moved across and wound silently up the draw. Tawny hides and black noses, graceful movements that looked more like a languid walk than the six-legged skittering of dnu. A moment, no more, and they were gone. Talon’s men were left like statues in the road, staring into the trees.
Talon slowly straightened. Behind him, the others did the same. But no one spoke, and no one moved forward until Talon finally urged his dnu into motion. It was as if they recognized that what they had witnessed was rare enough that mere words would destroy it.
They stopped briefly at a forty-home village, and the village folk seemed to gather like wary dogs as Talon and Dangyon went into the store. “Two kilos trail mix; eight kilos pan flour; two kilos of side meat, cut and wrapped in eight sections. Four kilos jerked bollusk . . .” Talon gave the store man his list in a concise, clear voice. The store man continued to hesitate, and Talon cocked his head and continued. “. . . four botas, two pairs of moccasins—these sizes here. Ten cold-weather liners—one extra long, one extra wide . . .” He set a bag of silver on the counter as he talked, and the store man’s brown eyes flickered from Talon’s face as he automatically judged the size of the bag. Without taking his eyes from Talon’s, the store man gestured for the stock boy.
Talon didn’t blame the man’s wariness. He knew what they looked like. They were tough, armed, and expressionless, too ready to fight, too aware of each movement in the street as the village men watched almost nervously. All of them had the dark skin of men who had lived long enough with dirt that it colored their flesh past weathering and darkened their nails like paint. Their neck lines were grimy, their eyes narrowed with threat. Talon’s own hard-planed face was tight with the pain that never left him, making him look dangerous as a lepa, and he knew that the store man would have bit off a sleeping worlag’s toe before he believed they were not raiders. Talon had insisted that they ride in openly and together, but he also knew that it would take only one shift toward a sword to split this village like fire. Still, they had ridden in, and the store man was logging their order. “. . . Seal everything for rain, a
nd wrap it for cold,” he concluded.
The store man nodded but made no move toward the money. Talon merely looked at him, then used his eyes to indicate the bag.
The store man cleared his throat. “Had a good crop of learberry this year. Most of it’s already dried.”
Talon cocked his head to regard him.
“Two kilos?” the store man asked.
Talon nodded again.
Only then did the other man take the money bag, and Talon noted that the villager’s hand was almost too steady as the man grasped the leather and turned away to count out what he needed.
Dangyon wandered to the window and idly watched the other raiders. It was a deceptive pose, as was Harare’s casual leaning on his saddle horns, and Weed’s joking with Roc and Mal. They were alert as badgerbear. When they finished packing the supplies and rode away, their shoulders itched like redweed. It was with a collective sigh that the curve of the road hid the village.
Harare shook his head. “Didn’t think we could do it,” he said to Dangyon as they cantered down the stone road.
“No threat, no fight,” Dangyon returned.
“He’s got the balls of a worlag,” the other man said almost admiringly.
“And then some,” Dangyon agreed.
They stayed on the road only a kay before Talon turned off again. The villagers had let them go, but he would not tax their generosity.
Several kays later, they began climbing toward a high, bare ridge from which they should be able to see enough to choose their next route. But Talon’s eyes narrowed as they followed the trace up the steep hill. The edges of the tracks at a forked switchback were clearly defined, with little weathering. The uniform marks also made it obvious that these were domesticated, not wild dnu. Talon pursed his lips, thinking. There were no venges in this area—not with so many of the village men still in town. And these riders had been in a hurry. The pressure marks had pushed plateaus up beside the tracks, and pebbles nearby had loose shadows.
Wakje and Dangyon joined him on the ground, and together, they automatically gridded the trail in their minds to count the tracks. “Three?” Wakje murmured.
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 36