From below, Rishte was watching the man. Nori could feel the sense of movement in the lupine gaze. He must have suspected something; he had stopped on the trail. He waited. They waited. A long ten minutes passed. Finally, he seemed satisfied and moved on. This time, Rishte watched him go.
Nori raised her head and listened to the forest. “Stay quiet,” she breathed to Kettre. “He’s moving on down, but let’s be safe about it.” She levered herself up—away from the fresh dung.
The other woman sat up. “For a moment there,” Kettre whispered back. “Poised as she was, I thought that doe was thinking about acting as a career.”
“What do you mean?”
Kettre started grinning. “To doo or not to doo, that is the question.”
Nori tried to hold it back, but she couldn’t help it. She giggled.
“Well, then,” Kettre whispered, “doo we go on?”
“Stop it,” Nori whispered back. “No one likes a punster. And yes, we go on. We have to see where they are. After all, this isn’t just a job, it’s a dooty.”
Kettre stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Her shoulder shook even after Nori reached over and pushed her down into the leaves.
Nori looked up to see the wolf watching in disgust from the brush to the side. He panted at her silently, and she just shook her head.
With Rishte to watch before them, they went on with more speed than care. It took them half an hour to climb the rest of the way, and Nori’s thighs and calves were aching by the time they reached the lookout.
She took her belt pack off, lay down and wormed out to the dusty edge. “Just in case,” she told Kettre over her shoulder. The other woman sighed and followed suit. A moment later, they were side by side on the rocky ledge, looking out over the forest.
It was a decent lookout. The ridge was steep enough that only a few trees managed to cling to the slope. Most of them topped out below the ledge. Far below, the dark canopy swept up the ridge like a wave that crested in a slide area just below their perch. There were no breaks in the trees and only a few thin spots to indicate clearings or small meadows. The only hint of Oracle Creek was a faint dipped-out line through the green. Birds darted up, arced out, and plunged back into the purple-green canopy of spring growth, while wind sent cat’s paws through soft leaves. Just below the lookout, two blue-winged palts dove at a flock of red-shafted, shivering finches. The small birds weren’t unarmed. Twice, they turned and attacked the palts before diving back into the trees. Nori listened to their harsh cries with half an ear, her other mental ear catching the sense of Rishte nosing in the brush behind them. She wormed out a bit further until Kettre hissed, “Not so far.”
She thumped on the rock with her fist. “I know this ridge. It’s solid.”
“A lot of comfort that will be when you fall.”
Nori snorted. “I’m as likely to fall here as in love.”
Kettre cast her a speculative glance. “And how are things going with Condari?”
Nori stared out at the forest. “Things are fine with the Tamrani.”
“The Tamrani, is it?”
“It is,” she said firmly.
“Dangling dogs, Nori, you haven’t been interested in a man for years. Maybe it’s time to think about trying it again.”
Nori shrugged. As she’d grown, even those boys she’d known for years wanted the legend more than the girl. Aside from Kettre and a few others, her friends had been as bad as the raiders, the betrayals worse than beatings. Payne said she was still picking the knives out of her back. She didn’t disagree. So she simply shrugged. “You only have to club me two or three times before I learn my lesson. Besides, it’s not men in general. It’s elders, councilmen, guildmen, and Bilocctans.”
“And citymen, traders, and Tamrani,” the other woman added.
“Just on general principle,” Nori agreed with a grin.
Kettre made a disgusted sound. “You can’t go through life distrusting everyone.”
“Why not? I don’t even trust myself.”
In spite of herself, Kettre laughed. “You’re a strange one, Jangharat.”
“As are you, Kettre ’Nother Knife.” Nori pointed abruptly. “There. Eight o’clock. Follow the line of the creek, to the right-angled bend, then look east two or three hundred meters.”
Kettre followed her gaze. “Oh, crap on a stickbeast and scrape him clean.”
“Aye. We’ll have to hurry.”
“Look at all those birds flying up. That’s not a small party. That’s twice the size of the one that chased us out of town.”
“They must have found some friends.”
“I’d like a few more friends myself.”
“The woodrast den must have made them wary.” Nori wormed her way back. “We’ll have to find a few more ways to slow them down. Perhaps a snap-back or two on the trail, with a puffbag from a clove bush, just waiting to break on their heads.”
Kettre smiled slowly. “Hunter’s right. You’re nasty, Nori-girl. But then, you learned from the best.”
“That I did.” Nori gave her a grin. “You ready for a fast skid down?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
XXXIV
Dik-dik hunt the forest mice;
Rast can hunt the dik-dik;
Forest cat hunt forest rast;
Worlags hunt the wounded cats;
Bihwadi suck the worlag dry;
Who will hunt bihwadi?
—from Who Hunts Whom? by Capira Rhodaback Thyme
They regained their group only an hour ahead of the trackers. When Nori told Wakje what they’d seen, he snapped at the others, “Mount up.”
Fentris stopped Payne. “How could they catch up so far so fast?”
He barely glanced at the slim Tamrani. “We stopped in Maupin, we didn’t start today till an hour after dawn, and they can follow a trail like ours at a run.” He swung into the saddle. “And we’re scouting the trails for them.”
This time, Wakje didn’t even hesitate to motion Nori into the lead. The ex-raider fell in at the rear, then dropped back far enough to be able to see the entire line ahead of him.
The trail was open, then shuttered and tangled with spring growth. They twisted through massive trees as big around as small houses. They took a steep game trail to shave off some switchbacks, then worked their way carefully over two small hills to avoid skylining themselves. Wakje set two snap-backs on their trail to slow their pursuers. They didn’t bother to try hiding their tracks. They couldn’t, not with so many dnu. Better to find a place to stand and fight, he told them, or simply outride the trackers. Nori agreed. They rode swiftly, but she kept her mind open to the grey so that the sense of the wolf could guide her. It was like having an invisible compass inside her. She knew which way to go. The only problem was that she sometimes struck off-trail to reach the wolf instead of following the paths.
She could hear other wolves behind the yearling. It was the pack of hungry ones she had sensed up on the lookout ridge. She couldn’t tell if they were drawn to Rishte or to her, but they seemed to add to her tension. She kept looking ahead as if she would see them. It only made her more nervous.
They crossed a swollen stream and spent ten minutes trampling the mud into a sinkhole. Wakje was pleased. By the time they left, the sinkhole was deep and its surface smooth. If they were lucky, it would mire the first rider who tried to cross it.
When a clump of pinmites flurried over Kettre and Hunter’s heads, Nori told them to ride ahead. While Kettre and Hunter combed the mites out of their hair, she located the nest, gathered it carefully, and set it just above the trail, on the back side of a tiny fork on an overhanging branch. When the Harumen passed and disturbed the bough, the entire nest would burst.
At noon, Nori guessed they were a few hours ahead of the Harumen. While the others made cold camp, she went into the brush to find some clove bushes. It was early in the year, so not many of them were ripe, but several had that translu
cent look that spoke of spice. She broke three off. Hunter watched as she carried them back to a steep part on the trail and set them against a flattish rock, then bent a soft, new-growth twig back in front of them. That was held back by a thin upright between that twig and a low sweeping branch that hung over the trail. The first dnu past would brush the branch aside, the twig would slip, and the clove balls fall and burst.
She caught Hunter’s grin and smiled without humor. “As long as it’s not raining when the balls burst, it will make their eyes water for hours.”
They rested the dnu for an hour, and Nori ate hungrily—too hungrily. She coaxed Rishte close enough to take some jerky, but her stomach stayed cramped after she’d eaten, and it wasn’t until she met the yearling’s eyes that she realized it was the sense of the other pack in the hills. The Grey Ones were hunting, tracking some eerin, but the grazers had moved swiftly, disturbed by so many riders. The wolves were turning south, back toward smaller prey.
Two hours later, on the outside edge of a steep trail, Nori found the trail washed out and the earth crumbling into a rocky stream below. They had to backtrack quickly and work their way farther east. They lost what time they had gained. Payne confirmed this when he caught a glimpse of movement one hill back.
Hunter led his dnu up beside Wakje’s as they quickly watered their mounts at a small pond. He glanced back at Leanna and murmured to Wakje, “They’ve got to be close by now.”
“They’d have seen where we backtracked,” the ex-raider agreed.
On his other side, Fentris tucked a tear in his sleeve up under the edge of his jerkin. If they didn’t get to a wider trail, he’d be dressed in rags soon. He glanced at The Brother’s clothes. He should have worn heavier leather. “Why doesn’t the wolfwalker muddy the trail?” he asked Wakje. “Make it look as if we’ve gone in different directions?”
The older man raised one cold eyebrow. “All our tracks are different. We’d have to split up for real to make that work, and that means one group takes the brunt of the Harumen.”
“But the Harumen would split up also.”
“No.” He took up his reins. “They’d follow the group that has what they want.”
Fentris glanced at Hunter and said softly, “The question is, which of us do they want?”
Hunter’s hand itched to touch his paper belt. “We could switch dnu.”
Wakje snorted. “First time you peed, their tracker would know.”
Fentris looked startled. “Excuse me?”
Payne hid a grin. “Women don’t stand,” he explained as he led his dnu past.
They rode another hour at a hard pace. Nori looked wistfully at two clumps of bluebells and their ripening seeds. She mock-whimpered as she caught a glimpse of a thick patch of ali herbs between the trees, and then passed up a patch of roostertail. Payne grinned at her back. He could almost hear her cursing their pace.
By the time Nori pulled up for the next resting spot, Fentris had been branch-whipped a dozen times until his cheek was cut twice and his arms marked by welts. His fancy shirt was in ribbons, and he was now wearing one of Payne’s jerkins. His hands, which might have been callused for swordfighting, weren’t used to such long hours grasping rough branches and being stung with sap. He sported four blisters the size of Wakje’s thumbnails.
Hunter had fared little better. His jaw was scraped where a rough branch had whipped back, and his calf had a bruise the size of his fist. He pulled a twig out of his war cap, yanked a fern from his stirrup, and muttered a city curse.
“Nori?” Payne asked softly as she studied the trail fork.
“We’re too far west,” she answered worriedly. “We need to stay away from the cliffs.” As if there were any land in Ariye that didn’t have ridges and canyons, draws and folds of mountainous hills. She glanced at the trees. They were shifting into stands of heavy evergreens, the kind that dug their roots deep into rocky ground and clung where lighter trees washed away. It wasn’t a good sign.
“There’s Loblolly Trail,” he suggested. “The lower loop leads back toward one of the main trails to Willow Road.”
“We’re already fourteen or fifteen kays from the road, and Loblolly doesn’t curve away from the gullies until after it goes down through three canyon swamps. It would slow us down like snails in dry sand. If it rains, we’ll be trapped in there for days. Even the ring-runners avoid it in spring. And—” She lowered her voice. “—Rishte refuses to go there.”
Plague. She didn’t have to say it now. “Is he close enough to find us a better way?”
“No. He’s uneasy, though, and it’s getting worse.”
“The Harumen?”
“Perhaps.” With the Harumen close behind them, and Nori growing more anxious about their direction, she didn’t blame the wolf for dwelling on the hunters. She stretched toward the yearling. When he snarled at the fork, she looked back on the trail, then turned left.
Two kays later, she realized she must have misinterpreted his sending. The wolf had pulled in, closer to the group, until Nori glimpsed him almost continuously. His voice was a constant stream of almost-impressions, like a set of extra senses in the back of her head that were never quite clear. Smells, movements that weren’t there when she looked. Yellow-black shadows that distorted what she saw. Itches she couldn’t scratch. She found herself shifting awkwardly in the saddle, as if she wanted to run, not ride, and move at a faster pace. She had to shake herself to set aside the growls that filled her mind with the tension of being hunted. When a pair of bluewings exploded out of the brush in front of her, she jumped and almost unseated herself.
“Dammit,” she cursed. She pulled up and soothed her dnu.
Danger, the wolf seemed to growl at her.
I already know that, she muttered under her breath. It’s on our heels like clay. She tried to focus her thoughts. “How close?”
He sent back an impression of intensity, hunger, of hunting.
“Harumen.” She looked over her shoulder. The muggy spring sun was shafting down between the heavy, puffy clouds, and now shot low through the trees. It was getting on toward evening, and her riding beast stamped its feet impatiently. It could smell water up ahead. “Easy, easy,” she murmured. Her nostrils flared as she took in the smells. She frowned. The predators would be stirring soon for their evening meals, and if she wasn’t careful, she could find her party caught between two sets of fangs.
Behind her, Fentris asked softly, “Wolfwalker?”
She held up her hand to silence him. Still, she heard nothing behind them.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” she ordered flatly.
In her mind, Rishte growled, and she sent him a mental thanks. He snarled more loudly as she shifted into a smooth trot. She tried to soothe him, but he seemed to bare his mental teeth. He wanted her to leave the group, but she wasn’t obeying. Instead, she headed for the stream at a canter.
The rushing stream muted the sounds of the dnu. The scent of water and the mud of the streambank masked other, more subtle odors. With weak light filtering through the breeze, the leaves were in constant motion, making the land deceptive even to one who was used to the forest’s motion. Nori looked back one more time.
And the first clawed beast flowed out like a red-brown net from the depths of a massive root-ball. Her dnu half reared, but paws caught it on the shoulder, and the riding beast screamed. The forest seemed to erupt. Nori yanked her dnu up, but its foreleg snapped, and it shrieked, then screamed again as the first badgerbear ripped its thigh.
Run. Dodge! Danger—
A second badgerbear tore out of the brush. Payne yelled, and Fentris’s dnu bucked and corkscrewed back from the second beast. The badgerbear went for its belly, slashing into flesh.
Blood. Hot acid. Strike, bite—
Nori jerked her leg up as black claws slashed through the cinch strap. The saddle started to slip. She grabbed her bow, tried for her quiver, and kicked off desperately, but there was no purchase on the loose leather. For
an instant, she was face-to-face with a small badgerbear. She jabbed instinctively with the bow. The beast’s teeth snapped on air. Then she kicked free and landed hard on her shoulder under the hooves. The youngling staggered as the dnu kicked it. It jerked back and swiped at the bony leg, and Nori scrambled away.
Payne’s dnu tried to bolt. Hunter’s mount spooked and slammed into a tree, tangling in the roots. It bucked and shrieked as he fought it. Fentris’s dnu twisted, spun, kicked out, and sprayed blood across the crumpled brush. Leanna screamed at Wakje to shoot, shoot, but the ex-raider held his fire. There were two adult badgerbears, not just the cub; his war bolts wouldn’t kill them, just enrage them to greater violence. They’d take the dnu before the humans if Nori could get away.
Hunter was down, shoving quickly away through the brush, holding his bow up over his head. Fentris was still in the saddle. The slim man slashed at the badgerbear, but it was like trying to hold water and hack it. The beast wasn’t there when he cut. Another paw raked his dnu. The creature bolted. Fentris clung for an instant, saw the rock pile ahead, and hauled hard on the reins.
He barely missed Nori. She scrambled to her feet, felt the hot sense of beast, and jerked as a war bolt slashed past. She whipped around. An adult was almost on her. But the badgerbear stuttered as Hunter’s second bolt caught it in the back.
“Nori, run,” he shouted. The beast twisted and clawed at its back. The bolt snapped off, and the creature lunged forward. The wolfwalker plunged off-trail. She dodged around a deadfall, took two steps, and slammed into a log masked by the ferns. She vaulted it blindly and landed half on ground, half in the soft hole on the other side. For a moment, the badgerbear hung over the log, snarling down at her face. Then it whirled and screamed its hunting cry as a third bolt ripped its neck.
Wakje aimed again. He was on one knee, coldly clear: Draw, nock, wait, wait, there, when it turned toward Nori. Draw, nock, wait—He shifted, then released, caught the adult in the side. The beast finally whirled and charged back.
Wolf in Night Page 45