Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Tehena nodded. She could just see the small dots of another party approaching along the pass. It was a large party— a dozen riders, perhaps—but one with pack dnu, not wagons. They seemed to be moving swiftly.

  “We could wait for them.”

  “We could,” she agreed noncommittally. “She might come back.”

  They both knew the chance of that. Kiyun looked north along the shattered snow. “She should make it to the passhouse before the storm hits.”

  “Then so can we.” Tehena gave one last study of the party in the distance, then swung up on her dnu.

  Kiyun didn’t bother to answer. Neither of them would allow Dion to run alone into the storm. The Gray Ones might not be beside her, but he had seen the look in her eyes last night. Even here, the wolves were strong enough to pull Ember Dione back north, and the wolfwalker was still partly feral.

  “She will be all right,” Tehena murmured.

  “Of course,” Kiyun answered firmly.

  Neither one said anything about the doubt in each other’s eyes.

  Dion hunched in the saddle. It had been stupid to go ahead alone, no matter how the Gray Ones pulled. She had let herself listen to the howling in her skull and had not paid enough attention to the road. Now she was paying the price. A kay ago, her dnu had slipped badly on the ice, hitting one of its middle legs. Since then, it had been struggling. She had healed animals before—wolves, dnu—but never without the Gray Ones nearby. The only times she had healed herself at a distance, the wolves had been close in her mind. Here, they were growing stronger in her mind, but they were not close enough to use.

  She could turn back. Neither Tehena nor Kiyun would have gone on toward Ariye without her, and both would follow her through the snow. It had been stupid to leave them behind at all. Stupid to think she could keep her daughter safe on her own. She was pregnant, for moons’ sake. Whatever she had thought of her skills before, they were nothing now. She hoped it was the leftover presence of the aliens in her mind, not her own arrogance, that had skewed her judgment. Now she had no choice. She was closer to the passhouse than to her friends, and she would not risk harm to her child by turning back in this storm.

  Her dnu slipped again. Unbalanced, it shifted sideways and plunged through the crust of snow. For a moment, it floundered heavily, its uninjured legs churning, while she tried to guide its hump-bucking body. There was ice under the snow, and it could not get good purchase.

  “Moonwormed, chak-driven beetle-beast,” she cursed. Her own anger surprised her. She forced the dnu to climb back up when it would have taken the easier slide down that it had already started. When they finally regained the road, she was breathing just as heavily as the dnu. At least she would be warm enough at the passhouse, from anger if nothing else. If she was lucky, there would be someone else at the shelter who might have better gear for treating the wounded beast. Until then, it was the dnu, the snow, and her anger. And the wolves, of course, she thought sourly.

  As if her thought triggered them to affirm that she was in the pass, the Gray Ones howled louder. Wolfwalkerwolfwalkerwolfwalker . . .

  I am coming, she returned sharply. Driven, she was always driven, but now, it was as much by her own needs as the wolves’.

  Two kays, no more, and she would be up to the shelter, long before the storm. She twisted to look back and did not see the wolves who kept crawling through her thoughts. Even knowing that Rhom was closing in, the gray voices were stronger than they should possibly be, especially if there were only two wolves, Hishn and Yoshi. At this altitude, with almost no life to sustain and repeat the packsong, the sense of them still ought to be distant and faint, like half-forgotten lyrics. But when she stretched, she could hear the wolves like clear echoes.

  Her attention sharpened, and it made the wolfsong shiver. In answer, out of that din rose a single gray voice. It was a snarl that caught Dion’s breath.

  Wolfwalker . . .

  “Hishn . . .” she breathed. Faint as Hishn was, the massive wolf seemed to throw power across the distance. Wolfwalker, we are coming . . .

  Dion bowed her head. Her hands fisted on the reins, and she struggled against a wave of emptiness that bit at her cheeks with the cold. Leaving Hishn behind had been a selfish escape, a wallowing in grief and a self-punishment for the guilt she had felt for letting her son and mate die. When she had finally begun to acknowledge that guilt and admit that she must find the heart to raise another child, she was trapped by the promises she had made: the oath sworn to other Gray Ones, the oath to the alien. She had bound herself to this world in too many ways, and the promises that bound her had, through the echoes of the wolves, bound another, as well.

  She had to face that man and free him from the reflection of her own griefs. If this man heard the wolves so clearly that he was driven across three counties, his anger was justified. Like a predator wounded and driven to hunt what he had lost, he was raging against her unintentional geas while his own needs tore at her memory of Aranur’s voice that still echoed in the gray. The wolfwalker and the hunter—their griefs matched, their rage and desperation blended into a single wolfsong. And if the wolves had their way, Dion and that hunter would mate in a maelstrom of need, not love, and she would lose Aranur forever. His memories would be set aside, his voice would fade, his touch would disappear from her skin as the wolves opened her mind to the hunter. She could not hold two men in her heart. This hunter would force her to face Aranur’s death, then would leave her to that emptiness when she freed him from the wolves. The wolves would subside as Dion let go of her mate and raised her daughter alone. They thought the child would give her enough strength, that the cure she promised would come.

  Wolfwalker, the gray voice whispered.

  She closed her eyes. To face the elders in Ariye, the oath to the alien, her promise to the wolves, she knew that she must somehow hold this child apart from the promises she had made. She caught her breath. “One duty, not three, until you are grown,” she told the child in her womb. “And that, only to be a child.” There was a fierceness in her answer that was made not of wilderness, but of will. It was a thread to herself, one that she had thought lost. She had been will without strength, but even will could find a way to survive, could find and wield its own strength. She gathered that determination and twisted it into a stronger cord.

  Wolfwalkerwolfwalker . . .

  “One duty, until she is grown,” she returned sharply.

  There was a pause in the distant packsong. When the wolves came back, faint though they were, they came in like a claw. They cut through her determination until her promise to them was bare and bleeding, tinged with yellow and the images of plague and the alien Aiueven.

  “I have not forgotten,” she snarled back. “We are bound like sisters. I will neither forsake you nor let you die. But I will keep our daughter safe—”

  She cut herself off. “Misbegotten moons of the north,” she cursed. She could no longer tell if she was addressing the wolves. That sense of alien yellow eyes, of the bond between mother and daughter, had been pulled right out of her mind. The touch of the alien mother—a mother that was now hers—had never faded with the distance from the north as had the wolves’ voices with altitude. That touch of yellow in the back of her mind had been constant. With the Gray Ones as faint as they were, the touch of alien eyes seemed stronger and more clear. It was as much a living link as the bond she had with the wolves. Fear crawled with the cold. The link she had forged with the alien had been born of desperation, not of will. All her life, she had fought death with her weapons, her hands, and finally, her mind. She wondered bitterly if that struggle had always been more a desperate fear of failure—a fear of loss, of weakness—than a determination to win.

  “Or both,” she whispered. She was afraid—afraid of losing the last of her mate, afraid of losing this child as she had lost her others. So she had given this child to another mother, not just to herself. Now the Aiueven mother considered Dion’s child her own. Di
on wondered if even the power in that alien was enough to keep this child safe from the hungry world. She flexed her fingers as if she could draw on that power from a distance, and looked down at the growing bulge. “You are bound even as I am,” she whispered. “But I promise you this—and it is a third promise to bind me. You will see more than I, live more freely than your brothers ever did. Your vision, doubled with the eyes of the wolves and with a mother I never had, will be like Aranur’s, greater than mine alone. You will see beyond the mountains, beyond the stars.” She caught her breath. “My child, whom I promised away.”

  Deep in her mind, yellow slitted eyes seemed to blink, then fade back into the packsong. In her mind, the Gray Ones growled around her.

  Tehena and Kiyun slogged through snow, then clattered across bare stone. The healer had left the tent gear with them, taking only emergency supplies, and breaking camp had cost Tehena and Kiyun twenty minutes after they realized her absence. They had had to stop barely an hour later when one of the leather shoes for the dnu loosened and fell off.

  “Hours,” Tehena muttered. They were now hours behind the wolfwalker. And Dion could leave the trail any time to reach her goal. She glanced at Kiyun and cursed his steady strength, wishing she could add it to her own and then fly to the wolfwalker’s side.

  Kiyun glanced back and didn’t comment at her dark expression. Tehena was difficult at best, and when she looked like that, he tried to keep his distance. Tehena’s expression was warranted—they would be lucky to reach the passhouse by evening, and if Dion was waiting there for them, he’d be surprised. The wolfwalker had had that look in her eyes, and wasn’t one for standing still. With the wolves behind her, the healer could make it to the pass and ride on through the night to the other side of the mountain.

  Talon studied the sky. He was close. She was coming to him—the wolves could feel her drawing near. She was almost close enough to feel. “Soon,” he whispered to the sky. The moons barely glowed behind the clouds to shine through the growing flurries, but he saw the pass clearly. The road fell away on both sides, seeming to gather speed as it plunged down through the snow.

  He barely glanced at his men. Mal was shivering, he knew, and Ki and Dangyon were feeling the chill, but he could not stop. Not now. Not as close as this. Three hours, and they would make the next passhouse. After that . . . His hands clenched in his gloves. After that, the woman, the wolves, and Ariye.

  XL

  Ember Dione maMarin

  Fight or give up;

  Fight, or you lose your choices;

  Fight, or you lose your life.

  —from the Book of Abis

  Dion shivered hard. The stable was not warm, but it was better than the bite of the wind. There were over a dozen dnu already there. “Pack dnu,” she murmured. “Traders.” She did not question her relief. It was sharp enough that the wolves must have fed her sense of danger even at their distance.

  She led her riding beast to an empty stall, removed its gear and tack, and grabbed the pitchfork to toss hay into the manger. She cursed herself to keep moving while she forked fresh straw onto the flooring. Finally, she rubbed down the creature with one of the cold-stiffened lice rags. The dnu’s injured leg was bruised, but not broken; it could wait while she traded for ointment. What she carried with her would do little good for the dnu. She straightened from rubbing the creature and realized as her breath came more quickly that the exertion had been needed as much to warm herself as it was to wipe the sweat from its coat.

  She was trembling as she made her way to the passhouse. She had not realized how much her child was sapping her strength. She leaned for a moment against the barn wall. The cold stone clung to her gloves. When she pulled free, she left a glove print behind in the ice.

  She fumbled with the door to the passhouse and closed it quietly by habit. The wood corridor glowed with light. Heat, food . . . The four traders were in the inner area. She knew there were only four; the other dnu were pack beasts.

  The men had warmed a single room, and their careless voices were distorted by the walls that divided the stone building. The odor of stew—ubiquitous stew, she thought wryly—came to her nose. She was shivering uncontrollably now, but there was heat just inside that door. Her daughter would be safe. It did not occur to her that they might turn her away from their fire until she had warmed. She could see little through the heat-fogged window in the door, so she knocked quickly, then opened the door and stepped in. Heat hit her like a fist. She clenched her suddenly aching teeth and stood still, her eyes taking in the room. There was a neat stack of saddlebags along one wall, four bedrolls on the lower bunks along the walls. A broad-shouldered man stood facing the fire, talking to another; a third was stretched out in his blankets; a fourth dug through a saddlebag. They were stripped down to undertunics and trousers, and they whirled at her entrance. The sleeping man came awake, his hand reaching for his sword. The fourth straightened with his own weapon. The two by the fire whipped around. She registered their movements without shifting—she had expected the startlement. But then her gaze caught on the older man: broad shoulders, narrow waist, and blue-gray eyes like chips of ice . . .

  She felt her breath freeze in her mouth. Heavy-boned eyebrows, prominent cheekbones, hair peppered like Gamon’s . . .

  He stared at her.

  “You—” She forced it out.

  The man set his mug on the mantel with exaggerated care and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. He had a powerful grace that seemed to fill the room. It was a power she had felt before. Before the seawall, before the death, on the border of Ariye. Ferns had broken beneath her as they had fought in a near-silent forest. His dnu had charged; her strike had barely made him pause. His eyes, blue and chipped with ice. And months later, the coast, the seawall, the steel stabbing in. The death of her mate . . .

  Memories blinded her. She yanked at her sword, but the shivers wracked her body so that she fumbled the blade. She jerked it free and tried to shrug, one-handed, out of her cloak. One of the raiders shifted as if to disarm her, but Drovic gestured sharply at the man to remain still. He stared at her in turn. “Dione,” he said softly, wonderingly.

  “Bandrovic.” She choked out the name. “Lepa-spawned son of a mudsucker—”

  Drovic stepped forward. His voice was mild. “Calm yourself, Dione. You will wake my other raider.”

  Her eyes went nearly black with rage. In the firelight, she was consumed by the blaze. She struggled to shake her cloak off her left arm. The sword shook in her other hand. She didn’t notice. “You—you took me, took my mate.” Her voice was tight and rising. “You’ve cost me everything—”

  “Not everything,” Drovic corrected. He gestured negligently. “The death of your son was your fault, not mine.”

  Dion went deathly pale. For a moment, the room seemed frozen, the flames a two-dimensional drawing, the men unmoving, Drovic’s eyes like halspreth stones. The wind outside was a silent shroud that draped across the passhouse. Then the wall around her guarded heart fractured like an eggshell.

  Drovic watched her color change from rage to shock to blindness. “Aye,” he said softly. Slowly, he drew his sword. He was never without it, and his hand, unlike hers, was steady. “Ember Dione maMarin. You blame me, and I suppose I understand that. But you deal in death as I do,” he said softly. “We are not so different, you and I. Your rage at me is a mirror.”

  “No,” she choked. Her sword rose to attack position.

  He cocked his head as if to study her. “It is fate that brought you here, Dione. Fate that gives each of us the power to destroy the other. But you are cold, Dione, and alone in the night. You have no riders with you. No other blades, no bowmen. You cannot even call the wolves because of the altitude. There is no one to stand between us now, no one to blunt the truth. It is down to you and I.” Dion heard him blindly. She did not have to call the wolves—they were there in the snow already. She could feel them closing in from the heights. There was snow in their pelt
s, ice between their toes. Tehena, Kiyun, Rhom, Gamon—they were in the mountain passes, and the thought of her friends, her brother, triggered a strength that did not lie in her body. It was a strength that said she was alone and would ever be so and must find her will in herself, and yet that she was not alone and would never be so again. A litany of self-judgment flashed through her mind. To seek, to fight, to heal, to grieve and flee . . . She was everything she feared, and yet she kept on moving forward. She fought to heal, then drew her sword and killed. She killed, then took up her healer’s band. She reached out, but stayed remote like a wolf; she loved, but it was a love that could survive only in wilderness. Without her mate, she had no balance; without her sons, she had no hope, and without hope to protect her, she had become defenseless. It was not her world she ran from—the duties and obligations—but the fear that she could not face on her own the endless battles inside her. She knew the threads of what she lost were still there, waiting to be rewoven, and that she was afraid to touch them together. Yet the hunter was closing in, and that man would grab at the power she carried while his rage ignored what she had had with Aranur. This raider before her was the symbol of that hunter, the father of the beast. Thus, the hunter was her future; the raider before her was the step she must take to grasp the reins of her life. The hunter, Bandrovic—they were the end of a spear, the contact point, the blood point, the point at which life stopped and started again. Face them, and she found herself. The cold in her bones was a slap of realization. Her life, her world, the wolves, her child. Control, she told herself.

  “So, Dione,” he prompted softly.

  “Bandrovic,” she said, suddenly calm. “It is down to you and I,” she agreed with a voice as soft as night. “But this time, I will fight.”

  Drovic smiled—then lunged.

  She saw it before he moved. Yellow eyes—wolf eyes, alien eyes—they quickened her sight like a lepa. She beat aside the attack, ignoring the way her elbow rang with the force of his lunge. The three other raiders scrambled out of the way as they tried to get out of the door and into the relative safety of the hall. She ignored them. They would not interfere.