Silver Moons, Black Steel

by Tara K. Harper

  Drovic stepped toward his son. “Talon—”

  “Aranur,” the Lloroi said quickly, half holding out his hand.

  Gamon shifted, then held himself still. He was not part of this. Rhom hesitated, met Dion’s gaze, and did the same. He found himself near one of the raiders and unconsciously moved back with them, closer to the benches. It was as if he stood in a different world, only able to watch. The raiders seemed to feel the same, for they did not interfere. Before him, as Talon regarded the man who fathered him and the uncles who had raised him, Rakdi pulled a piece of jerky from one of his belt pouches and absently offered it to Rhom. Rhom took the jerky automatically, and only belatedly realized he was sharing meat with a raider. He hesitated again, and Rakdi’s sharp gaze quirked. The Randonnen nodded almost imperceptibly at the irony; then he began to chew.

  Drovic did not even notice. “Come back with me,” he said to his son. “Ride for a better goal. You’ve found your name, your mate, the truth of your existence. In four, five months, you’ll have another child. Why sacrifice this daughter to the slow death of Tyronnen’s leadership? Why support what holds us back? Ask him—” He jerked his head toward Tyronnen. “—why his world is so small. Why we still live in nine counties. Ask him if it is from fear, not courage, that we huddle in our homes. Ask yourself if you want this child to know only that, and not have the will to stand up to the future.”

  “The future?” Tyronnen’s voice was sharp as he cut in. “You would destroy us before we could get a hundred years into the future. Allow the people to spread without boundaries, and we lose control of our science. Uncontrolled, they could bring about change—invention, advancement—things that we don’t yet know how to hide, can’t hide, as our history has shown. Things that would incite the aliens to kill us. Control the people, and you control their work. Control that, and you keep the plague at bay while we find a better way to live on this world, a better path to the stars.”

  Drovic started to retort, but Talon cut both men off. “Do you hear yourselves?” He jerked his chin at his father. “You, Father, have fighters, but you’ve been a raider so long that you’ve forgotten how to build them into anything other than terrorists. You’ve forgotten your goal of the stars.” He stabbed his finger at his uncle. “And you. You’ve been in power so long that you’ve forgotten how to move forward. You control the people out of fear, not because you want to touch the stars, but because you fear the aliens, the plague. Because you fear your own death.”

  The Lloroi shook his head. “It is not death that I fear, but annihilation. It may seem that we have lost the world to the aliens, but we Ariyens have faith in our future. We are the martyrs of the ordinary. Our county is filled with that— ordinary heroes of every kind. Not the flashy kind like Drovic wants, but the solid, steady kind in which each man’s work and sacrifice lives on and furthers the world.”

  Talon nodded shortly. “That is your power base—the hope of the people. You use it like Drovic uses fear.” He turned to his father. “And you—you’ve killed too long, Drovic. You forgot the dream. The stars are an excuse now, not the real goal. You live in defiance of nothing.”

  Drovic’s voice was harsh. “Live in defiance or live in fear. There are no other choices. You think you can have the dream with him? He would wait a thousand years before trying to reach the stars. Stay with him and you give in to fear, not courage.”

  “At least it is a goal. Without that, a man is nothing.” Talon’s jaw was tight with anger.

  “Talon,” Drovic said almost quietly. “Come with me. You can bring your people, your mate, your wolves, for all I care. With me, you will always have truth. The truth of the world, the truth of who you are.”

  Talon did not look at Dion, but he felt her sudden tension. His voice was flat. “My mate has found her will again. She’ll not agree to your path.”

  “Then we will soften her memory so that she sees a different option. Truth can be its own strength.”

  Rhom stiffened. Rakdi tensed with the smith, ready to start the fight as he felt the Randonnen shift.

  But Talon’s eyes were for his father. “Is that truth in the context of the drugs you gave to me? You never lied to me, but every word was a falsehood. I want no part of that, and I want no puppet beside me. Touch my mate, and I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Then leave her, or she will destroy you.”

  Talon’s eyes were cold as he stared back at his father. “As much as the moons belong to this world, this woman belongs to me. We are kum-tai.” His hand linked with Dion’s, and their white-knuckled fingers gripped each other with almost desperate strength.

  Drovic saw. “So you choose.”

  “As do you.”

  Father and son stared into each other’s eyes. Neither moved, but it was as if they stepped irrevocably back from each other. Drovic caught his breath. “Vengeance is its own death,” he said bleakly.

  Tyronnen’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  Talon regarded both men for a long moment. Then he turned to his own fighters. “As I choose, do you choose with me?” Gamon stirred uneasily at his words. Talon shot his uncle a hard look and turned back to his raiders. “When I ride,” he demanded of them, “do you ride with me?”

  Rakdi’s voice was dry. “The Ariyen trial blocks are a bit too close for comfort. Were you thinking north or south?”

  Talon looked at his father, his uncles, Rhom. He looked down at Dion. He could feel the wolves in her mind. They might have relaxed their geas, but they still held the pain at bay. It was there like dread. But now he also felt Dion’s mental hands strengthening the shield and softening the tension that had once bent his bones to breaking. He felt the balance of his self as he touched her mind through the wolves. It was a subtle thing, but behind it lurked the wildness he craved, the will that was built on conviction, the uncompromising direction for his strength, the calm confidence of the woman who mothered his sons. “I stay with my mate,” he said slowly.

  Rakdi took a breath and said, “That makes it pretty clear.” But Dangyon rocked subtly back on his heels, thoughtfully. Talon had not said he chose Ariye, but that he chose the wolfwalker. The barrel-chested man kept his face expressionless, but Cheyko had an odd look on his face, and Weed rubbed his curled ear.

  Talon looked over his fighters, but not one moved to stand with him. “You’ll ride with Drovic, even now?”

  Harare looked uncomfortable. “I’ll ride with Talon, but not with Aranur of Ariye.” Weed nodded slowly in agreement, and even Oroan scowled.

  Talon felt his jaw tighten. “Look at him.” He jerked his chin at his father. “Under him, you were nothing. With him, no one cared if you lived or died. No one cared if you were wounded. No one wanted you to be more than a body that wielded a sword. Under him, you were what you were— killers, robbers, raiders. Nothing more. If you ever want to hold something good in your hands, then stay with me, with Dione.”

  Rakdi regarded the three leaders askance. “Good, bad, what’s the difference? He wants our steel; you want our steel; the Lloroi wants it if only to break it. We don’t see a difference between you. It’s all violence and blood and the pound of your heart and that edge where the steel hangs in front of your eyes before it slides into your foe. A man who stands still is dead.”

  “A man who stands still can sometimes see a different road than the one he runs down blindly. I give you a chance to be men again.”

  But Ki shook his head. “Everything you did for us was a lie, Aranur.” The young fighter said his name like a curse. “You’re not even a raider.”

  “I fought with you. I killed with you. I’m now no more than you are.”

  “Under the influence of antrixi.” Sojourn’s voice was quiet. “In all nine counties, there is no trial block that would convict you of those crimes. And there is no trial block that is not as eagerly waiting to taste our blood.” He jerked his head toward Drovic. “We belong with him, not you.”

  Talon stepped forward,
and Dion started to step with him, but he stopped her with a hard hand against her shoulder. Dion’s eyes narrowed with their own dangerous glint, and she shrugged his hand off. Talon shot her a glance, but her lips drew back in a half snarl. Gray Hishn echoed the sound.

  Talon almost glared at Dion, but those violet eyes were lit with their own fire. There was fear in the woman—he could almost smell it amidst all the steel, but there was also strength and stubbornness. He knew instinctively that Dione might bend, but she would fight even him with every bit of power in her if he tried to control her like that.

  Slowly, he dropped his hand. This time, when the wolfwalker moved forward with him, he did not try to stop her. He came face-to-face with Sojourn. He regarded the other man for a moment, then slid his sword from his scabbard and held it out like a gift. His voice was soft when he said, “If you are no more than what you say you are, prove it to me now.”

  Drovic’s blue-flecked gaze was suddenly sharp. He tensed in spite of himself, and Hishn growled, but the wolfwalker held the beast back. Wolf and woman poised like Drovic, their balance on edge as they watched for Sojourn’s response. To the side, the Lloroi had paled, and Gamon felt his own hand clench. Rhom merely watched like a second wolf behind Dion, and Talon thought that the two Randonnens were linked by more than blood.

  Sojourn looked at the gleaming steel, then up at Talon’s expression. There was no flicker of fear in Talon’s eyes, no tightening of the muscles along his jaw or temples. Beside him, the wolfwalker had stepped slightly back. She was poised, but not to attack. Sojourn realized suddenly that both she and Talon knew he would not do it. The realization brought with it a rush of anger. He slid his own sword from his scabbard. “If you think to push us into your old way of life, you can forget that like the second moon.” Like lightning, he slapped Talon’s blade down, then snapped the point of his sword to the tall man’s throat.

  “Do it,” Talon said softly. “Prove that you are less of a man than I believe you to be.”

  Sojourn’s muscles tensed, and a trickle of blood raced down Talon’s neck.

  Talon did not flinch. “Kill your future,” he went on. “Make sure you believe you are nothing.”

  The other man’s voice was low and harsh. “You did yourself no favors when you took us out of the gangs. The one thing a raider returns to is the violence that he knows.”

  “And the one thing some of you never forgot is the wanting of something more. You were beginning to have that with me. You touched pride again, Sojourn. You had a goal that did not depend on murder. Are you so eager to return to the man who kept your steel so bloody? That’s what Drovic wants of you. He wants you so hopeless and uncaring that you will do whatever he asks because it doesn’t matter even to yourself whether you live or die.”

  “Do you really think we care how long we live? We’re alive now. That’s all that matters.”

  Talon did not look down at the blade. He could feel the blood trickling down his neck like a worm and crawling into his tunic. His voice was soft. “If so, then slide it in.”

  XLIII

  Talon Drovic neVolen

  A grave is a simple solution;

  Life carries much more risk.

  —Randonnen proverb

  Sojourn’s brown-gray eyes burned. His hand tensed. “Don’t you care, Wolfwalker, that he will die?”

  Dion’s hand clenched Hishn’s scruff; the other touched Talon’s arm. Her voice was still rough, but her words were clear. “Faith creates its own future.”

  Sojourn actually took his eyes from Talon to stare at the healer. “In the fevers, he used to call out your name. You could hear him—you had the ear of the wolves—but you had no faith then that it was real, or you would not have left him.”

  She didn’t flinch from the raider’s words. They would hang around her neck forever, but Aranur was here now, and she was beside him, and even the will of the wolves could not separate them again. “I heard him,” she acknowledged. “And I found nothing of him to hold. And knowing he was dead, I cursed the moons that they silenced our son and haunted me instead with his voice. I heard him forever,” she whispered, “but grief forces many blindnesses, and I was more blind than most.”

  Sojourn remained silent for a long moment. There was a bleakness in the wolfwalker’s words that hurt him. He started to lower his sword. But Talon’s gray eyes flared with triumph, and the brown-eyed man stiffened. Without warning, he stepped in. Dion cried out. The sword stabbed into Talon’s chest.

  And stopped. Talon caught his cry before he breathed it out. Felt the steel penetrate tissue, cut its tip into bone. Felt a surge of power that burned through every vein with Dion’s grip on his arm even as Sojourn halted his own strike. Power, Talon thought exultantly. It was there in his mate like fire lancing through his body from her hand. Hishn snarled, and the graysong surged and subsided. Motion froze.

  Sojourn looked down at the blade. He seemed as frozen as the others.

  Talon reached up and took the steel in his hand. The remnants of fire licked through his body; Dion’s hand trembled on his arm. He glanced down and saw the tightened bones of her face and knew. That had been the power he had sought, the thing he felt in the graysong. It was the power of the Ancients, of the aliens. The power that had drawn him, trapped him in the wolves so that his mate could be whole again. She had sent it through his body, closing the wound as it opened even though Sojourn stopped.

  Talon smiled coldly. The edge of the blade cut into his palm. Blood seeped into his jerkin. He pushed the sword away from his chest, and Sojourn stepped back, dropping the point so that it stained the floor.

  Sojourn could have stabbed harder, could have pushed the point home. Could have done Drovic’s will or challenged Drovic and found out finally whether it was in him to lead or follow. He stared at the blood that oozed out of Talon’s chest. He realized he would never know, had not yet reached deep enough in himself to know what he could do, would do, for his beliefs. He met Talon’s steady gaze as his center opened like an empty grave. If it had been a challenge, if Talon had fought back, had played Sojourn’s rage off against his guilt . . . But the tall man had merely waited for Sojourn to make up his mind. Sojourn looked at Dion with her hand on Talon’s sleeve, then back at the man she stood with. His voice was curiously flat, almost apologetic, and his lips twisted as he heard his own tone. “I could never ride with you. My journey must be my own.”

  Talon nodded slowly. He looked at Drovic, then at his men and women. They did not move to join him, but except for Sojourn, neither did they move to Drovic. He nodded again, as if their very silence had been their decision. His voice was firm as he turned to the Lloroi. “What of my men and women?”

  Tyronnen stepped forward. “Your chest—”

  Talon cut him off. “What of my people?”

  The Lloroi hesitated. Talon’s face was tight, but not with fear or pain. “You want to claim them?” Tyronnen asked shrewdly. “They cannot escape the trials.”

  Talon’s fighters tensed, and behind Gamon, the Ariyens edged slowly forward. Both groups’ hands were on their hilts, but neither quite drew steel. Tyronnen, Talon, Dion, and Drovic stood in the middle. In a fight, some of each group would escape, but Drovic would make sure that Tyronnen would die, and the Lloroi did not think that Dion would leave Talon’s side. It would be a bloodbath. This shelter would become a tomb for the winter, stocked with bodies, not food.

  Talon did not back down, and the stain on his chest was spreading. Beside him, Dion reached for his hand, and he twined his fingers with hers. He felt the twist of vision, the shock of energy. Felt the blood clot on his ribs. Calcium spiked between the gemstones where the sword had chipped the bone, but Dion’s mental voice was a layer between him and the pain. “Take them to the trial block,” he said, “and I will stand beside them.”

  Tyronnen shook his head. “You’re not one of them. You never were, no matter what kind of steel you held.”

  Talon frowned.


  “So,” Rakdi said softly, “you’re giving up on us, then.”

  Talon did not answer. He stared at his people, but he didn’t see them. Instead, he saw the face of a village boy who stared up at him through shattered wood. A face that was wide with terror, not recognition. A pair of eyes that saw only death. Talon had changed that fear into hope, and that one act had been the point at which he began to become again the man that he had been.

  He hesitated, and Tyronnen’s voice was uncompromising. “You cannot save them from their fate.”

  “Their lives are mine,” Talon returned softly. “Their actions were mine, at my orders. Their journey here was my path, not theirs. And so, too, their fate is mine.” With his words, the line of raiders seemed to solidify.

  “Aranur, you cannot—” The Lloroi broke off. “You can’t give up your life for these . . . raiders. They’re not—”

  “They’re not worth it?” Talon’s gray eyes were hard. “If you can see no value in them, then you see no value in me. Is that a truth you can live with?”

  The Lloroi’s voice was harsh as he countered. “Are these killers the neighbors you want us to live with? Who among us has not lost a brother or sister, daughter or son to the raiders? Who among us has not seen some kind of death at their hands?”

  Words flicked through Talon’s memory, but Rhom found them first. The Randonnen’s voice was deceptively mild. “You sound like the Lloroi.”

  “I am the Lloroi,” Tyronnen said sharply.

  “I mean Lloroi Zentsis, of Bilocctar,” Rhom corrected. “ ‘Do you want them in your county? In your city? In your home?’ He was speaking of us—of Dion and me and Aranur, Gamon, Tyrel—of your own son, Tyronnen. It’s what Zentsis said to his people, just before he tried to have us executed on the sands. Because we were spies, he said, uncivilized and violent. Because they had lost children and mates and parents to the Ariyen conflicts. Because we would influence the youth of his county to follow our evil ways.”