Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Dion closed her eyes and let their minds mesh faintly. The Gray One must be nearly on the passhouse. Dion could not help the hope that leapt into her mind. She turned her head so Drovic could not see her expression.

  The surge in her voice was answered by a dozen wild ones. She could almost see the passhouse through their eyes like a tiny contrasting block of white and black squatting up ahead. Could almost smell the dnu in the stables. Inside the house, to the left—

  Like an answer, the door burst open. Frigid air swept around the man in the doorway. Dion caught her breath. Her eyes were blurred. The moons themselves had come—

  Steel flashed. Kiyun leapt in like a badgerbear. He caught Slu half out of his coat on the elbow and snapped the man’s arm bone like a toothpick. Slu started to scream, and Kiyun stabbed home. Tehena darted into the room in Kiyun’s shadow with an arrow aimed for Drovic. Cheyko caught the movement and pulled his knife. The raider lunged into the lean woman’s path. Like water, Tehena dropped and loosed her bolt. Cheyko hit Tehena in the chest, but the bolt had released. The lanky woman flew back into the door frame.

  Dion kicked free of the bedroll and stuck out her legs to trip neBrenton as he jumped past her to meet Kiyun’s charge. Kiyun slammed the man to the floor. Cheyko tangled with them and struck the wall hard, stunned. Dion struggled to her feet, but Drovic caught her shoulder, snarled like a worlag, and threw her into the packs. She fought free with a snarl, as Tehena faced Drovic alone. Dion’s throat worked, but only a tiny sound ragged its way out in a mockery of a word. Dion launched herself at Drovic’s back. Tehena stabbed in, and Drovic brushed the thin woman aside. Dion’s elbows caught him on the back of the head. He grunted and missed his own thrust, lost his grip on the hilt of his knife. His cross-fist punch to Tehena’s jaw was a leaden hammer. Tehena took the edge of it on her jaw and fell, caught a second uppercut from neBrenton as she dropped, and stabbed up instinctively as she fell. The man took the blade in the side.

  Drovic had already twisted to slam Dion. She kicked for his kidney, but he blocked, swiveled, and trapped her against the wall with a meaty arm. She took his first blow on her shoulder. He aimed high to keep from injuring her—she knew this as he avoided the obvious blow to her gut.

  Her claw-hand swung up and caught Drovic in the inner thigh, and his leg jerked back. She tore muscle, not flesh, but his hand clenched her jerkin and slammed her again to the wall. Her half-hearted kick was wasted in air, but Drovic was gripping his thigh.

  “Moon-spawned bitch—” he cursed.

  The gray in her head swirled. There were more wolves than just Yoshi in her sight. She snarled, ripped free, and launched herself again, short range, full force. Drovic didn’t bother to block. He simply punched her midair. She took the blow, but her own strength forced her forward, and her hands found the sides of his neck. He tore at her claws, roared, and threw them both against the wall, crushing her between him and the wood.

  Wolfwalker!

  Her ribs bowed in ominously; her grip went slack. She slipped slowly to the floor. Drovic glared down at her, but she simply lay, gasping against the wall. Then he whirled to face Kiyun.

  Kiyun’s steel dripped blood. Tehena swayed nearby, her sword up and determinedly steady even as her pale eyes peered dizzily at Drovic.

  Dion didn’t move. It wasn’t pain; it wasn’t fear that held her motionless. It was the howling in her mind. Wolfwalkerwolfwalkerwolfwalker . . .

  Kiyun half turned. Drovic felt his lips stretch in a grin. Tehena yelled at Dion as a storm seemed to burst into the room. But the wolfwalker flinched back, her fists half pressed over her eyes. This was the moons—the light in her eyes, the ring of steel, the screaming of the wolves. More men shouted as they crowded the door. Her ears cringed against bone. She stared, but could see only light and steel and one man—a tall man, his image blurred by wolves. Her guts turned to ice.

  Hishn howled, deafening her to the room. The Gray Ones snarled like demons as they clawed at the outer doors.

  “Talon,” Drovic snapped. “Kill them.”

  And the hunter moved to obey. His sword flicked up and he stepped into the attack, not at Drovic, but at Kiyun. Dion cried out, a wild sound that made no noise, an animal sound of silence. The wolves—her focus, her will—the wolves, they had brought her strength in steel, and that strength had betrayed her. She could not see for the gray in her eyes. She could not hear for the howling.

  The Gray Ones had brought their mate for her here, and that mate—he was a raider.

  XLI

  Ember Dione maMarin

  Who leaps to heaven in a single bound?

  —fragment from an oldEarth poem by Theodore Roethke, oldEarth poet

  Kiyun and Tehena went down like pebbles in a rockfall. In the confusion, Drovic grabbed Dion and hauled her fists from her temple. “Speak through the wolves,” he breathed, “and I’ll kill him, son or no. He’ll decide this on his own, not for some wolf howl of yours.”

  But her eyes were on the hunter she could only glimpse around Drovic. There was something in the lupine din— something that shocked the ice and hunger from her twisted gut and shattered what was left of her control. She began to struggle wildly.

  Drovic slammed her against the wall so that she could not see the hunter, the man, the him whom the wolves had brought. Drovic felt the tension in her like a shock. “Are they dead?” he snapped as the raiders rolled Kiyun and Tehena against the other wall and got out some line to bind them.

  Wakje looked up. “No.” Oroan stuffed a gag in Kiyun’s slack, bloody mouth; Harare noted Tehena’s bloody nose and didn’t gag the woman. Wakje went back to tying their limbs. Drovic eyed them narrowly, and Dion almost wrenched free. He slammed her absently back again to the wall, and Talon jerked as if he’d been kicked. The tall man started forward. Dion trembled violently, the air seemed to crackle, and powder sifted down from the wood where her arms touched the wall.

  Drovic barely noticed the tingling along his skin, but his hands were like manacles. “Talon,” he snapped. “Get back.”

  But Talon’s head was bursting with wolf. Outside, the wild ones were circling in the snow, snapping at the stone walls. He had caught a glimpse of the woman behind his father, and the howls were tearing apart his thoughts. His eyes were blinded like hers. A stud of blue, glittering against creamy skin . . . His mate, his world, kum-tai . . . The shadow woman struggled madly, and a snarl tore through his head. For a moment, the world balanced on the back of a wolf. Then the woman screamed silently, and the sound echoed inside his skull with the gray. He dropped his sword. The steel clattered, nicking his boot. He didn’t notice. He didn’t realize he had fallen to his knees. Rakdi grasped his shoulder and jerked him back. Dangyon caught him like a child.

  Talon’s vision began to clear. He caught a glimpse of Dion’s face. Black hair, silky in the firelight; high cheekbones and a slender, strong chin. Scars that raged down one side of her face—scars that he understood. They were made by claws, talons, his own fingers of grief. He met that wild gaze and froze. Then he found strength again and leaped as Drovic half turned to shove Dion down again. Like a beast, his lips twisted. He caught Drovic’s arm and jerked the older man so hard that his father stumbled aside. Then Talon’s hard hands dug into her shoulders. He stared into her eyes. Dark eyes, violet eyes . . .

  Drovic lunged back to his feet. “Talon—”

  “Mine,” he snarled at his father. His teeth were bared as he half whirled, and his knife was in his right hand, guarding Dion.

  Drovic stepped slowly back. He chose his words with care. “She is yours, if you want her.”

  “She is mine.”

  Rakdi looked from Drovic, to Talon, to Dion, to the two who were now tied. His eyes narrowed. Harare exchanged a look with Weed, and Dangyon shook his head slowly to himself. There could be only one woman with eyes like that who would be a goal of Drovic’s—only one who could have drawn Talon through the wolves.

  Talon ignored them and st
ared down at Dion. “Who are you?” he breathed.

  She did not answer. Her lips worked, but she made only a rough, choked semblance of a syllable. Was it fear? he demanded silently. Was it the cringing terror of the cloaked woman in that town, the animal fear that had so disgusted him? Was that all the wolves had promised? His fingers dug in cruelly, and neither noticed that her bound hands clutched his chest just as desperately.

  “Who are you?” he repeated more harshly. Her lack of response enraged him. He gripped her chin as if that would force her voice from her throat.

  Her eyes blazed. Power seemed to suck from his body. She breathed something.

  Wolves howled, and one voice seemed to strike out. His mate, dead in his arms. The wolves like a sea around him . . . “Who?” he shouted, enraged.

  Drovic saw Dion’s eyes blaze. He did not seem to move, but his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.

  Talon didn’t notice. He was immobilized by those eyes, by that violet fire that reached out to his mind and consumed him. The heat of her rage was his own. Her grief, it was the fulcrum. Raw pain was a grip on his throat. The wolves that howled inside his head hammered him with sound.

  She stared at him, and some part of her saw how he reflected the looks of his father. Saw that Drovic, the man who had torn her life apart, was blood of her son’s blood, the father of their father. Yet Drovic was alive, as was the hunter-man before her. Alive—not on the path to the moons. She made a hoarse sound, a broken sound curled with horror and thickened with shock and wonder.

  Drovic’s eyes widened as he heard Dion’s voice. His gaze flicked to the floor where the decay had set in, to the wall where the surface was powdered. His skin had tingled, and she had gone gaunt like a skeleton after the wall had changed. Dione, the wolfwalker. Dione, who healed her patients. Dione, the Heart of Ariye . . . The trembling, the weakness, the things his son had said in fever and at other times in passing. The woman ran with the Gray Ones, and the woman was a healer. She had come out of the north, where the aliens lived, and she had powdered the wood like flour. “Ovousibas,” he breathed.

  Dion stripped strength out of her starved body, out of the wolves, out of Talon himself and thrust it into her throat. Burned tissues closed, blood pounded, still draining where her throat was open. She gagged on her own blood. But she found that shred of voice again. She gasped out a single word.

  “Aranur—”

  Talon froze. The world seemed to crystallize.

  He thrust her away like fire.

  This time, when she hit the wall, she clung to it for strength. Her voice, scarred with pain, clung to his ears. He did not take his gaze from hers, but he twisted his head toward his father. “Who is she?” he choked. The older man did not answer. “Who is she?” he shouted at Drovic.

  Drovic did not know how the lines suddenly deepened on his own face. He regarded his son, the woman, and felt them both slipping away. Felt his guts twist as he realized what he must do. His jaw tightened like that of his son, and his voice was curiously flat as he finally said, “She is your mate.”

  “My mate,” he repeated dumbly.

  “The Healer Dione. The Heart of Ariye. The Gray Wolf of Ramaj Randonnen.” Drovic took a breath and forced his voice to steady. “She is your mate, Son, and always was—the wolfwalker, Ember Dione.”

  XLII

  Talon Drovic neVolen

  They say that Death, like God, is the reflection of a mirror In which men become heavy with shame, guiltily cold or hollow; They say that Death, like God, o fers clarity Of every joy and petty act in which men wallow; They say the face of Death, like God, has two expressions, And the judgment lips spit gritty truths to swallow; They say that Death, like God, can o fer man redemption If he accepts the mirror and the second chance which follows. If man accepts, Death steps back, the lungs breathe; a sporadic pulse becomes a drum, And man stands again— Between the ambition of his man-made heaven and his history of hell. First chance at life is birth and blind acquiescence of one’s path; Second is the open eyes, the mirror, and the decision to face oneself: Birth is easy to forgive: Initial life is shaped by many, not just one. It is the second choice which is judged so harshly, And which cannot be undone.

  —From “The Face of Death,” by Yegros Chu, Randonnen philosopher

  “My mate,” Talon repeated.

  Some thread of hope left over from Dion’s life twisted in her like a knife. Oh, moons of mercy, moons of light . . . The verse ran over and over in her mind, punctuated by wolves. She tried to speak again, but the one word she had forced through the still-raw tissue had half cut off her breathing. She reached out to touch him with her hands. Aranur, she cried out.

  Wolfwalkerwolfwalker . . . It was his voice, and she knew now that it was real. Not a stranger taunting her through the wolfsong. Not memory, not a ghost. Real.

  Hishn, she cried. Reach him. Aranur . . .

  Outside, the gray wolf snarled at the others, and the wild wolves fell back. Gray Thoi met Hishn’s eyes in challenge. Both wolves’ scruff was stiff. Their pelts slowly turned white as the snow dusted both in the growing storm, but Dion’s need held them together. It was Gray Paksh who broke into the snarls and blended the other voices.

  The Gray Ones called back. Leader. Aranur . . .

  There was no bond between wolves and man, only through the woman. Still, some echo of that name reached him through the gray shield that still lay on his mind. A shadow of an image—tall, black-haired, with a catlike grace, a man whole and strong—it crawled on the inside of his skull.

  Talon blanched, but Drovic’s voice cut in before he could catch that thread and make it his own. “Talon,” his father said sharply. “She might be your mate, but she killed your own son in Ariye. She took him into the meadow with the lepa and let them tear him apart. She left you for dead in Sidisport, let you fall from her own hands to the sea.” The older man stepped forward. “This is the woman who took your other boy away from you, who abandoned you to the raiders. You were dying, but she didn’t care. She rode away from you, straight to Randonnen, and never stopped to look back—”

  Talon cut him off with a curt gesture. He cocked his head at Dion. Violet eyes, slightly unfocused, staring back at him. Dark eyes in the night. Eyes worn by grief and rage. “You . . . left me,” he tried out the words. “I fell, and you left me for dead.”

  She shook her head, numbly. Aranur . . .

  “I called for you—I shouted for you through the wolves, but you never answered.” He felt the strength shiver in her as she gathered herself again. She seemed to pale before his eyes. He caught her before she could fall.

  Her skin seemed to sparkle with energy, and his fingers tingled where they touched her. He tightened his grip as the hint of power released. She trembled and clung weakly, but he did not think it was from fear. There was too much will in her eyes. Her voice was whiskey-rough. “The moons had taken you. You were dead as the son we had lost.”

  “You killed him.”

  Despair, grief, suicide, guilt—they flashed in her violet eyes. She forced herself to speak. “The skies had been clear, the herb cutters had been there in the meadow that morning. We were halfway across the grass when the lepa flocked. We didn’t make it to the caves. Olarun survived. Danton didn’t, yet he left us as surely as if he had himself died. He stays now with our eldest, Tomi.” Her voice was still a whisper. He didn’t know, she thought, meeting his cold gaze. He didn’t know about the child in her womb. She felt him withdraw, and she half moaned, unable to hold back the sound.

  But he touched her cheek. His fingers traced the scars that ravaged the left side of her face. “You . . . died.”

  Aranur . . .

  “You died in my arms.” Wolves, converging like a tsunami, sweeping him along. Wolves in his mind, tearing at her soul to force it back to her body after the lepa had killed her. And wolves in her eyes, in her arms at the coast, grasping him above the wave-swept rocks when her own strength failed to hold on. She reached
up, her hands still bound, to touch his wrist. “As did you. I saw you fall from the seawall. They said—” She broke off. “You were dead. You went down in the waves. You never fought the water.”

  He stared at her, then caught her wrists in his hands. He turned them over, his hard thumbs feeling the strength in her slender fingers, tracing the raw wounds on her wrists. “I told you to call the wolves. To take in their strength to fight.”

  “We were fighting the raiders,” she whispered. “Fighting your father.” She did not dare look at his men. Instead, she clutched his hands. “Oh moons, the wolves, they have brought you back to me.”

  He felt the shiver go through her as she still trembled with energy. With his gaze on hers, it was a familiar, twisting sensation that seemed to suck at his body. Abruptly, he drew his knife and worked through the lines on her wrists. He nicked the swollen flesh, but she did not flinch even when more blood welled out. Instead, her right hand went involuntarily to his chest to feel for the tiny jewels she prayed would still be there.

  His hand covered hers; then he sheathed his knife and touched her sternum in turn to feel the matching studs.

  Drovic stepped forward again. “Talon—”

  His father broke off at the vicious look on his face. Weed removed his cap and rubbed at his twisted ear. Sojourn hesitated, but Pen merely shrugged and made herself busy picking up the scattered packs while Dangyon and two others dragged Kiyun and Tehena to another room.

  “Your voice,” Talon said slowly, looking down at his mate. “Vertal?”

  She shook her head. “Randerwood bark. Chianshu root and cussid.” At his frown, she dropped her gaze to her belly. Talon followed her gesture. His rough hands pressed against her skin, then slid inside her gapped tunic. Her swollen belly triggered memories from years ago. “Mine,” he said slowly.

  She nodded.

  He caught her chin and stared grimly into her eyes. “You will not leave me again.”

  She shivered. There was something in his eyes that did not speak of the man she had mated, but the man who was Drovic’s son. “We are kum-tai,” she whispered.