The yearling leapt to her. He licked at the blood on her hands, her face. It was a steadying sense, that rough tongue licking and cleaning, as if the world stopped sucking away. The black void in her sight began to fade, and she could hear past the roaring in her ears. Hunter was murmuring to Leanna, rolling up the pelt, moons only knew why. It would be a long day in the second hell before she’d touch that thing again.
“Rishte,” she whimpered.
Here, here. The pack is here. Wolfwalkerwolfwalker. The prey is down. The danger is gone. The prey is dead.
“No,” she managed. “The hunt is still up.” Payne was still somewhere along the cliff, facing the rest of the Harumen. He couldn’t feel them the way she could, couldn’t tell how close they were. He’d never had that sense of life. He had no taint in his mind. She shuddered in a breath and tried to control her shaking. Blood had already dried under and around her nails and in her knuckle lines. It was sticky between her fingers, and even Rishte’s tongue couldn’t clean it off. She wiped her hands in the moss, then rubbed them with dirt and scraped them off with crushed leaves. She scrubbed her face with grass. Rishte sniffed her carefully for gelbugs and nipped the one he found on her braid. She couldn’t hide her shudder.
“Nori?” Hunter asked quietly.
She looked up, away from him, and forced out the words. “Leanna, are you alright?”
Fentris was dabbing at the girl’s throat, and she answered quickly, “It’s shallow. I’m okay, but Kettre’s down. They shot her in the side when she passed us. They had her for a while, Black Wolf.” There had been the slightest hesitation in Leanna’s voice as she named her cousin. She had seen the wolfwalker’s eyes when the badgerbear—when Black Wolf in the badgerbear pelt—leapt toward her. She couldn’t quite bring herself to name her cousin more closely. “She’s bleeding, Black Wolf. Badly. And they have her as a hostage. That way, along the cliff.”
Nori thrust herself to her feet. She was still shuddering. She tried not to look at her bloody hands as she tried to calm herself. “What about Payne?” she demanded.
Leanna answered almost before she finished. “He’s okay. He and Wakje are keeping them pinned down.”
Two men against eight or nine? Hunter started to speak, but Nori turned to the wolf. My brother, our pack, can you find them?
He snarled and backed away. The blood-place. The death-place.
Nori stared at him. Blood-scent and plague sense mixed in his mind. She demanded, Here? Along these cliffs?
His golden eyes seemed to snap.
She started to reach out, but he slid back. Plague, the curse of the Ancients. Lower, below, near water. She tried to think, but his dread pounded at her like a drum. She felt the hum begin in her throat. Trust me, she tried to send. I will not take us there.
He snarled, and she closed her eyes, reaching through their minds. Trust me, trust me. Just take me to my brother.
He leapt away into the woods.
Bile churned in her stomach. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She needed her mind, not just her hands. “Stay with her,” she ordered Fentris curtly.
But Leanna shook her head. “I’m alright by myself. Take him with you.”
“Not a chance.”
Fentris saw Nori glance at the pelt and understood. There were still badgerbears in the area, and other threats less visible, and Leanna had joined the rest of them in bleeding enough for a predator to scent. He said flatly, “If we’re not on your heels, we’ll be soon enough behind you.”
She glanced at Hunter.
“If it’s short, I can make it,” he answered obliquely.
“Give me your shirt and belt.”
He yanked off the shirt. “You’re making a habit of taking men’s clothes off.”
She dragged it on and tried to ignore the stickiness where the blood on her skin wasn’t dry. “The belt,” she said curtly, keeping her eyes down as she gathered up the shirt.
He hesitated.
“Hurry up.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I don’t have time to explain.” She took it from him almost before he had finished slipping it off. She wrapped it around her waist, cinched it up, and tugged the oversized shirt into place. Then she put her hands on the arrow shaft still in his leg. “Ready?”
“For that? Moonworms, give me a minute.”
“It’s in the fleshy part,” she told him. “It looks like it missed the major vessels and nerves. It will bleed, but that’s a good thing.” And it would make him weaker, not stronger. He wouldn’t be able to stop her. She tightened her grip.
He glared at her. “Bleeding is good? You’re kidding.”
“No, actually I’m not. The better the bleeding, the cleaner the wound.” It was truth, but not the whole truth.
“Black Wolf, your bedside manner really needs work.” He took a breath. “Alright. Go.”
She snapped it fast and cleanly, but for all that, he almost bit through his own teeth. By the time he could see again, she had wadded half his shirt into pads and was binding them onto his leg. “Ready?”
He cursed under his breath. “I wish you’d stop asking me that. You always follow up with something that could kill a dnu.”
“Come on, then.” She sprinted toward the standoff. She didn’t look back, and he was grateful. As he forced himself onto the path, the blood pulsed out of his leg into the hasty bandage, and it jarred with nearly blinding pain at every step he took.
Ahead, Nori ran near silently, ignoring the gnats that flocked to her sticky skin. After the race, the struggle, the image of Gretzell falling, the forest was eerily silent. Whatever had happened was over. Payne, she cried under her breath.
She shoved through brush and cut into the forest instead of following the cliff path. She could hear Hunter limping more irregularly, then falling behind, but she didn’t dare stop.
Ahead, Rishte answered, but he snarled as he sent it. The sense of death was stronger.
Old death, burning death, not the death from blood. She understood too well. Trust me, she snarled in return.
She halted when she caught Payne’s scent in the yearling’s nostrils. She gave a low birdcall, and waited. A second later, the response came from up ahead. She pulled the wolf back, then dropped and wormed her way forward. He growled in her mind, caught in the sense of the hunt and the fear that she walked into danger. She had to snap at him to keep him in place. Your fur is no protection, she snarled. He subsided angrily.
Hunter staggered up, and the wolf sent a shaft of hurt into her mind that she accepted man, not wolf. She shook her head and sent the image of the bow and bolts. “His fangs reach further,” she told him sharply. Rishte slunk back to watch.
She looked back at Hunter’s face. It was grey beneath the tan, and she wondered that he was still standing. Then he pushed himself down behind a tree and worked his way forward behind her. When she eased through the ferns to her brother, Payne glanced back and stiffened at what he saw. Nori shook her head. It’s not mine, she signaled, but she could see he didn’t believe her. She shook her head more sharply, but he caught her scent and nearly gagged. “By the gods, Nori—”
“Badgerbear pelt,” she whispered. “Fresh. To get the drop on the one with Leanna.”
Payne swallowed. She looked monstrous, Medusa-like with blood-streaked skin and clotted hair. There were bits of flesh glued onto her clothes. The gnats tried to land on her hands where her nails were grimed with red and the dirt she had crawled through. He flicked a gelbug off her shoulder and didn’t tell her. She had a horror of the things.
He nodded forward. “There are seven left in the rocks. Wora, maSera, B’Kosan, and four others. We’ve got them pinned, but they’ve got Kettre.”
She nodded. She could just see Kettre. The woman lay half on her side, a blood swath on the ground where they had dragged her into reach. Nori’s stomach clenched at Kettre’s stillness, but she could still feel the other woman. She prayed it wasn’t delusion. Then Kettre’s fingers
moved, and she knew she was still alive. “Uncle Wakje?” she whispered.
He pointed with one finger. “Thirty meters, last I saw.”
She nodded slightly. Keep moving, don’t settle in, fire from many positions, don’t let them pin you down. It was classic raider tactics.
Payne said almost under his breath, “We can get in on them from the right if you’re up for it.”
“No bow. No sword,” she whispered back. “Hunter’s down to four arrows. He’s wounded, Payne. He’ll get his shot off if he has to, but he’s like to pass out any minute.”
“Dammit. And he’s got a seventy-pounder.” Which meant Nori could draw the Tamrani’s bow if she had to, but she couldn’t shoot it as well as her own. “What about Fentris?”
“He’s weak; he’s lost a lot of blood.” They both looked back as the slim Tamrani and Leanna limped through the woods behind them. She pointed with her chin toward the rocks. “They want safe passage?”
“Aye. And something else.”
One of them called, “Time’s almost up, neBentar. Hand them over or watch us start the carving. She can take a lot of pain before she dies.”
Nori’s jaw tightened. She took a breath, then let it out, controlling the grey rage inside her. “They want Condari’s papers.”
Payne nodded. “And your scout book. Can you get them?”
“Already did.” She unknotted Hunter’s belt.
Beside her, the Tamrani’s hand shot out as he realized what she intended. “No,” he said sharply. “My sister nearly died to get those letters and maps. That’s two years of research, of information. It could stop a citywide war.”
“Did your sister survive?”
“Yes, but—”
“Kettre won’t.”
His fingers dug into her wrist. “Black Wolf, Jangharat, I can’t let you do this. That’s evidence, and I need it for the council.”
Payne shifted, but Nori didn’t take her eyes from the man. “Do you know what’s in those letters?”
“Of course, but that’s not enough.”
“It is enough for me.” She rotated her hand, and his own wrist nearly snapped before he jerked it back. Then she kicked him just above his leg wound. He blacked out like a stroke.
Payne cursed, but Nori was already worming forward. By the time Hunter could see again, Payne was layering broad leaves under the pad on the wound, and Nori was near the ravine.
Nori didn’t let herself look back. She squirmed over roots like a snake and scraped past a spiny brush. Her lips pulled back at the stronger sense of plague death. It was close, below, at the base of the cliff, somewhere down near the streams.
She crouched on the roots and caught her breath. There were two things she still had to do. She gathered her scout book and Hunter’s belt, then dug a small branch out of the soil and got out her skinniest blade. A few moments later, she stood up by the silverheart tree. “I have what you want,” she called flatly.
“Step forward,” Wora called back. “Away from the trees.”
She obeyed. Gnats flitted around her head and arms over the dried blood. There were twigs in her hair, and her teeth were bared.
“Shit on a worlag.” The curse was startled out of the Haruman. She looked like she’d bathed in blood. He studied her for a moment, then stood, his own war bolt nocked and pointed at Nori. “Let’s see them,” he ordered harshly.
She unrolled the belt, opened the hidden pouches inside, and pulled out the nearly transparent papers.
“Open them.” Obediently, she unfolded the papers. She turned them so he could see them, but he snarled, “Read one.”
Hunter cursed her audibly from the forest, but she ignored him. “ ‘The east–west trade route is falling off. Four caravans that usually trade across Ariye have rescheduled along the Sidisport route and back up on the Randonnen border for the fall. The following properties have changed hands on the Eilian route and appear to be fallow, but there are rumors that builders have been scheduled for future work: Lot Five Sixty-one in Sakas Borough, Lot Five Sixty-four—”
He cut her off. “That’s enough. Seal them back in the belt and toss it here.”
“Damn you, Black Wolf,” Hunter snapped. “I’ll kill you myself.”
Behind Wora, B’Kosan heard the Tamrani and smiled without humor. His hand tightened on his own bow. The sharp, narrow arrowheads he carried would tear through a war cap or jerkin like hers like thick paper. He couldn’t help imagining Hunter’s or The Brother’s expression if he skewered Black Wolf’s head. Wora snorted as one of the men behind him murmured, “That would save us a lot of trouble.”
Nori watched Wora like a wolf as she tasted the air around them. The cliff was cracked and stained with old water trails, and she smelled swamp fungus faintly up from below. Wora found himself shifting uncomfortably at her steady gaze. It angered him, and he straightened. “The papers, Black Wolf.”
She folded them, tucked them back in the belt and sealed it, then flung it toward the rocks. B’Kosan caught it one-handed like a snake, rerolled the leather, and stuffed it in a belt pouch. “Now the scout book,” Wora commanded.
Nori hesitated.
“The scout book, Black Wolf, or this woman dies now, and from what I hear you can’t afford to lose one of the few friends you have.”
She reached into her own belt pouch and pulled out the slim book. He could see the hole in the stained cover.
“Toss it to B’Kosan.” The other man caught it, grinned at her with a leer, and tucked it into the pouch with the belt. “Now back away,” Wora commanded.
“No.” She remained standing, and her violet eyes burned in her bloody face. She could smell the clove bush on the Harumen, the blood, the sweat-scent. She could see the kill-thought in their eyes.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Wora said very softly, “Back away, Black Wolf.”
She shook her head slowly, and the silence of her answer was more menacing than the nocked arrows he knew were aimed at him from behind her. Wora glanced at the forest as if it were filling with wolves, but there was no movement among the trees. He couldn’t see the ex-raider or The Brother or the two Tamrani with them, and his eyes narrowed. He dropped his aim to point at Kettre’s back. “Get back. Now.”
Her voice was harsh. “We will not allow you back into the forest to attack us from behind or to track us back to the towns.”
“Don’t be stupid, Black Wolf. Your friend’s life is under the bow.”
“Her life will be in as much jeopardy if we let you go here, up top.”
Up top? Her words made him pause. “You have another option.”
She didn’t nod. She could hear Rishte behind her, not in her ears, but in her skull, and even within his fear of death, the yearling wanted blood. She didn’t blame him. It was her need the wolf was picking up, not his own. She pushed him back hard. He must not learn that from her.
She looked at the Harumen. “Your dnu are scattered. You’ll spend hours rounding up enough of them to ride out, if you can get them all in the first place. The carcasses we left half an hour back on the trail will be calling predators here from kays around. They’ll be eager for any kind of flesh, and your wounded will be like candy.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you propose?”
“You take the papers, the scout book, and go down the cliff.” She felt her stomach twist.
Slitted eyes sharpened in the back of her head. (Death/danger.) Warn them, whispered her mother-mother.
She ignored the icy voice. “We will stay here with Kettre.”
He was silent for a moment. “We’d need a rope.”
“We have one.” The slitted eyes blinked, and Nori swallowed visibly. Her lips curled back, and she cursed the taint till it faded under the grey.
“Your rope?” Wora snorted at her offer, and he started to raise the weapon.
“It’s alright.” Nori’s smile held no humor. “It’s new. It’s not the one from the wagon.”
The H
aruman’s expression went carefully blank. So she’d known. That explained a few things. The question was, how much did she know for sure, how much had she guessed, and what did she suspect? His fingers itched to get into her scout book. “What would keep you from shooting us on rappel?”
“Kettre,” she bit out. “She’s under your knife till the last man goes down.”
“Not good enough. The last man down would be dead meat.”
The cold yellow eyes grew sharper (Old/gone) death, blood-debt, and burning . . .
She met Wora’s gaze with difficulty. Her stomach had tightened, and her fists were clenched. She had to force the words into her voice. “By the time he is ready to descend, you’ll have clear shots from below if we approach the edge of the cliff. Besides, it would do us little good to kill one man here and leave the rest alive. We couldn’t follow you down, or you’d shoot us as we descended.” She felt his wavering. She made her voice quiet, firm, oddly soothing. “I swear to you as a wolfwalker, I swear to you on the souls of the wolves, I swear to you as—” She hesitated almost imperceptibly. “—the Daughter of Dione that we will let you go unharmed if you give Kettre to us alive, as she is now, and take the cliff route away.”
“We keep the letters and the book.”
“Aye.”
He glanced at Kettre.
“Alive,” Nori snarled softly. “As she is right now.”
He stared at her. “Get the rope,” he said finally, harshly.
The greasy twist of nausea tightened. She stayed where she was, waiting while Leanna crawled to Wakje and retrieved the rope slung over the ex-raider’s shoulders. Then she waited while Payne brought it forward. Her brother half rose carefully behind the tree and handed it out, then dropped and wormed his way back to another shooting point. She threw the rope out by the rocks.
Warily, one of the men eased out to get it. It wasn’t a Haruman, but their hired tracker, and Nori’s eyes narrowed at him. She knew him. She’d seen him before in Maupin. He was an older man without family, one who spent most of his time in the woods. He’d take almost any duty. So that was how they’d known more closely where she’d taken her group. “Broziah,” she said flatly.
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