Wolf in Night

by Tara K. Harper

  Nori couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Don’t forget the other edge.”

  The healer held her breath for a moment, then let it out before saying, “It’s clean, Black Wolf. There’s no sign of infection.” She started to reach for a cloth to dab away the fluids.

  “Here.” Nori handed her a double pad. She was ready with the dressing almost before the healer was done. “She’s hard on her head. You’ll want to pack it well.”

  Kettre rolled her eyes, and the healer said sharply, “Black Wolf—” The woman broke off. When she spoke again, she said firmly. “MaDione?”

  “Aye, what do you need?” Nori looked quickly down at the tray of instruments and dressings. She thought she’d anticipated every move. Perhaps the cotton strips for binding the pad?

  “I need for you to wait outside. Now.”

  Nori looked up. “Outside? But—” Her gaze flew to Kettre’s face. The other woman raised one brown, sculpted eyebrow at her, and she stared. “Kettre?”

  The woman didn’t bother to hide her satisfaction. “Keyo ’bye, Black Wolf.”

  “Outside,” the healer repeated firmly. “Now.” She took up her tweezers again. “I believe the door is that way, Black Wolf.”

  Kettre’s brown eyes danced. Deliberately, she ignored Nori. “So how does it look?” she asked the healer.

  “It’s healing well,” said the woman. “You might have a headache for a few more days, but that’s normal. Now let me see your ribs.”

  Nori hesitated at the door with her hand on the knob, but the healer looked up and jerked a nod sternly outside. As the door was closing behind her, she heard Kettre say, “One more thing about that gash: just tell me if it’s cross-stitch.”

  Outside, leftover rain dripped from the old woman’s gutters, and the sound was like an interminably slow drum. They had been two days in the forest before they reached the village. Nori had spent both nights stalking six of the Harumen’s riding beasts, as well as two of their own. She was dragging with exhaustion by the second dawn, but she had come back with eight dnu on a long-line lead, a bag of washed tubers, a small pack of sour early berries, and a handful of limp, dead woodmice to scramble with eight fragile eggs from a pair of palts that had nested too high on the cliff. The rest of the dnu would filter back to the villages or become badgerbear meat.

  They’d been more than lucky, Nori acknowledged. Neither Tamrani had been in good shape by the time the rains hit hard. Kettre had been wan as bleached-out silk, but the shallow claw marks in Nori’s own back had scabbed cleanly, as had Leanna’s neck from the Haruman’s knife. Wakje’s arm was barely gashed, and Payne had only a bruised hip.

  She looked across the road. Fentris was limping out of the general store where he’d bribed the storekeep to break into the latest shipment of clothes for a fanciful elder. The garments might be a bit old in their style, but at least they weren’t made of chancloth.

  Nori paced irritably, tried to sit, and stood again almost immediately. She was waiting only for word of Ki. With a bit more luck of the moons, Payne would come back with news of the ex-raider and his sons within the hour.

  Rishte growled softly from the tree line, and she closed her eyes. His voice was clearer, easier to hear. The fear and tension, the kills by the cliffs—everything had combined to sharpen them for each other. There was a . . . brilliance to it, she decided. Like water under a harsh sun. It should be hard and grating, but instead she slid into it and simply felt the grey.

  Rider closing in on the town.

  That would be Payne. She opened her eyes to watch the end of the street. With five of the moons climbing over the steep roofs, there was light enough to see every paving stone, and plenty of light to identify her brother at a distance when he cantered onto the street.

  “I’ve sent the messages for Ki,” he told her as he reined in.

  “What word on the archers he tracked?”

  “They dropped out of sight like three stones in the sea.” Payne shook his head. “Either they know a hidey-hole he doesn’t, or someone was covering for them and covering well.”

  She nodded. Wora had all but confirmed for her that there were more in the county.

  Payne glanced at the clinic. The doors were conspicuously shut, and Kettre was not in sight. “The healer kicked you out?” he guessed. She scowled, and he hid a grin. “Serves you right for kibitzing.”

  “I wasn’t kibitzing.” She made a face. “I was . . . helping.”

  “You helped yourself right out the door.” He looked across at the Tamrani. “I’ve arranged for a wagon in the morning. Are they finished packing?”

  “Soon enough. If Fentris doesn’t stop buying fairly quickly, Uncle Wakje will just wait till the Tamrani turns his back, then toss his pack in the waste pit.”

  Payne chuckled. “Once they’re on the wagons, they won’t have to worry about it. They can eat like spoiled elders, ride like kings, and sit on their bums all the way to the road as safe as a cozar at fireside.” He grinned as she snorted. “So, Wolfwalker, are you ready to ride?”

  “Aye.” And Rishte was more than ready to run. “We’re still going on tonight?”

  “You think I want to stay? We’re a five-day ride out of Shockton, and we have three short days to get there.” He wheeled his dnu.

  “Then I guess I’ll say my ride-safes.”

  “Be quick, Nori-girl. I’ll wait on the road.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t looking forward to this. The papers she’d stolen from Hunter’s belt burned in her mind. He had tried to speak to her several times as she led them out of the forest to the village, but their argument on the edge of the cliff stood between them like a worlag.

  Hunter saw Payne trot away and raised his hand to catch her attention as he limped aross the street. He frowned as he watched her expression close up when he stepped up on the sidewalk. He hadn’t realized how free she had been with her laughter when they were out in the forest. Now she was as stiff and reserved as the day they had met.

  For a moment, the two looked at each other. Then Hunter said, “I’ve been meaning to ask, make baskets from their bones?”

  She shrugged, uncomfortable. “I thought it had a nice sound to it.”

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

  She looked toward the forest. “All my sides are bad.”

  “Not from what I’ve seen.” He studied her closed expression. “You know we’ll still have to get eight or nine venge riders and go after the Harumen.”

  “My mother will take care of that.”

  “Dione?” She couldn’t be serious. He’d seen Nori’s face when she’d pressed the Haruman on the cliff. She’d been intent, digging at whatever the man knew, at any signal she could read. That wasn’t the act of a woman who could just walk away from trouble. He stared at her. “After all that’s happened, all we’ve learned, you’re still handing this off to your mother?”

  If it’s about plague, yes, she thought silently. There was no other who could survive it. And if there was a way to get those papers back from the bodies of the Harumen and out of the mouth of plague, Dione would find that way. Only after that would the rest be up to Nori. She said finally, simply, “There’s no need to hurry to find the Harumen. They never left the forest.”

  “How do you know that?” he said sharply. “Through the wolves?”

  Her lip curled. For a moment, he caught something other than the grey in her violet eyes. The wolf snarled through her throat, and his skin seemed to crawl. Then she blinked, and became just a woman again standing in front of him, turning away for her dnu. He caught her arm. “I need those papers, Black Wolf. I need them for the council. I can get a venge together in a day and head back into the forest.”

  “No,” she said sharply. “No,” she said more calmly. “You can’t.” He hadn’t called her anything but Black Wolf or maDione since she had kicked him in his wound, and she bit back another apology. She said finally, “It would be suicide.”

  “W
hy?” he demanded.

  She shook her head.

  “It’s suicide, so you send your mother in? And then rush off to Payne’s Test?” He caught the guilt in her gaze. “You—” His voice broke off. “You aren’t dropping this at all,” he realized. “You are going to speak to the council. You’re going to tell them about the attacks, the Harumen, the threat to Ariye.”

  She looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

  His green eyes narrowed. “Even the Wolfwalker’s Daughter would need some sort of proof to back up a story like this.” He caught a flicker in her gaze, and it fell into place for him. “Damn you, not all my papers were lost. You held some back.” He felt the fury build and nodded at the fresh flash of guilt. “You stole some reports, then traded the rest for Kettre.”

  Silently she nodded.

  “How many?” he demanded. “How many did you hold back?”

  “Two.”

  “Which ones?” His voice was too harsh, and he didn’t try to soften it.

  Her own reply was stiff. “One report and a letter from your sister. There wasn’t time to be picky.” He glared at her, and she shrugged and started to turn away.

  His hand shot out and he gripped her arm hard. “I want them.”

  She didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she stared after Payne. “They’re in your pack,” she said softly.

  “But you read them.” He didn’t need her nod. “And you understood what they implied.”

  Silently, she nodded.

  “So you know of the threat to the counties, that the trade routes look to be ready to shift, and that something must happen to cause it. Something big and something deadly. The Houses are already on the edge of war. They’ll erupt over something like this. The violence will spill out into Ariye if it isn’t already here.”

  Again, she nodded.

  His voice was flat. “You now have a duty, Wolfwalker.”

  She looked up at him, and he wasn’t surprised to see his own anger mirrored in her violet eyes. Her voice was soft. “House Wars, Sidisport, Harumen, and trade. Those are your duty, not mine, Tamrani. I already have a duty, and it reaches farther than any Haruman or House can strike.”

  “So you will stand before the council.”

  “Aye.” Her voice was quiet. “It’s time.” He started to grip her arm, but she stepped back. She was still wary around him, even though she could still feel his hands on her waist, the heat and strength when he’d lifted or held her, the timbre of his voice. She looked away. She had to remind herself that they weren’t friends. They were barely allies, and he was from Sidisport himself, from one of the greater Houses. He would be approaching the council for his own ends, not to help Ariye.

  This time, Nori would be there. She’d have to be. She would not let Hunter—or Fentris, she acknowledged—hide their secrets from the elders when they could harm Ariye. She didn’t worry that she might not be believed against two First Sons of the Tamrani. She had worked for her parents for years, taking in information from their contacts and reporting to the Lloroi. Her word had been proven again and again. And she was the Daughter of Dione. Even the elders who didn’t know her would listen when she spoke. After that, when the councils broke up for the day, and the doors closed for the inner circle, she would speak again, about plague. Payne might get a solo Journey after all, she thought. With Grey Hishn gone these past two years, Dione would need a partner wolf to heal herself with Ovousibas after exposing herself to plague. She might take Nori and Rishte with her to use their lupine link.

  Hunter frowned as she said nothing else. He prodded, “It’s time you take up duty, but you still won’t ride with me.”

  She smiled without humor and shook her head. She yearned for Rishte, she pulled the wolf as much as the wolf pulled her, but this Tamrani pulled her, too. This close, he was in her senses until she wanted to touch his skin, feel his hands, taste his breath. She forced herself not to move toward him. With plague and the wolf and the taint in her mind, she couldn’t afford another link that could tear her loyalties. Instead, she slipped off the boardwalk and walked toward her dnu.

  He stared after her. “I can’t believe you’re just walking away.”

  For a moment, she rested her forehead on the warm neck of her riding beast. Her voice was low, and she breathed into its fur, “I cannot believe you’d let me.” She didn’t think he would hear her, and she started to mount.

  But Hunter dropped onto the street, took two quick steps, and plucked her from the saddle. He spun her around to face him. She didn’t fight the movement, nor would she look at him, but when he tilted her chin up, he could see both hunger and fear in her eyes. “What if I said I would not let you go?”

  She looked down at his long, tanned fingers. They were scratched from the ride and one bore a long, shallow cut. And they were barely holding her. She could brush him off. She could slip past, even simply step away from him, and she knew that this time he wouldn’t try to stop her.

  “What if I don’t let you go?” he repeated more quietly.

  She almost reached up to touch his arm. From the edge of the village, Rishte growled. She dropped her hand, but met his gaze and smiled so faintly he wasn’t sure he saw it. Her voice was soft. “Then I’d say you’ll see me in Shockton.”

  This time, she did slip free.

  She mounted and turned her dnu after Payne. Shockton. Council. Duty. In the dark, she could see it with clarity, and it wasn’t just the grey in her eyes that sharpened her sight. She was stronger inside, as if standing up to the taint on the cliff had given her a foundation from which to launch herself or challenge it again. Or challenge anyone, she realized. She would no longer wait till she turned twenty-three to stand before the council. She stared at her hands, then up at the moons. She almost laughed at the sense of freedom the simple decision gave her. It was dark and muddy and still damp from the downpour, and yet she felt as if everything was light. Every sense was alert, like the words of the Fourteenth Martyr: The moonlight glistens like ice on the leaves, and I am blinded by its brilliance. Every image she saw was so crisp with its edge of rain that it seemed indelibly etched on her mind. She could still smell Hunter’s hands on her skin, taste wet leaves on the air, hear her dnu’s soft breath in the wind. It was as though paths that had been fogged up before were now clear. As if, when duty rose and her goal became clear, it would no longer be dreaded, but welcome.

  Wolfwalkerwolfwalkerwolfwalke—

  She answered with a growl. She glanced back at Hunter, and he raised his hand once. She was almost to the edge of the trees when he called, “Jangharat.”

  She twisted to look back.

  “You could have kept the shirt,” he called.

  In the moonlight, he saw her teeth flash. “What makes you think I didn’t?” She shrugged out of her jerkin and stuffed it into a saddlebag. It took him a moment to realize she was wearing an oversized blouse, or rather, a blousy shirt of blue-brown silk. His shirt, in fact.

  Slowly, he grinned. “I’ll take that back someday.”

  He thought she laughed, like a moonmaid in the night. Then she turned her dnu in a tight circle as a salute, and spurred the beast after the wolf.

  Author’s Note

  Wolves, wolf-dog hybrids, and exotic and wild cats might seem like romantic pets. The sleekness of the musculature, the mystique and excitement of keeping a wild animal as a companion . . . For many owners, wild and exotic animals symbolize freedom and wilderness. For other owners, wild animals from wolves to bobcats to snakes provide a status symbol—something that makes the owner interesting. Many owners claim they are helping keep an animal species from becoming extinct, that they care adequately for their pets’ needs, and that they love wild creatures.

  However, most predator and wild or exotic animals need to range over wide areas. They need to be socialized with their own species. They need to know how to survive, hunt, breed, and raise their young in their own habitat. And each species’ needs are different. A solitary wolf, wi
thout the companionship of other wolves with whom it forms sophisticated relationships, can become neurotic and unpredictable. A cougar, however, stakes out its own territory and, unless it is mating or is a female raising its young, lives and hunts as a solitary predator. Both wolves and cougars can range fifty to four hundred square miles over the course of a year. Keeping a wolf or cougar as a pet is like raising a child in a closet.

  Wild animals are not easily domesticated. Even when raised from birth by humans, these animals are dramatically different from domestic animals. Wild animals are dangerous and unpredictable, even though they might appear calm or trained, or seem too cute to grow dangerous with age. Wolves and exotic cats make charming, playful pups and kittens, but the adult creatures are still predators. For example, lion kittens are cute, ticklish animals that like to be handled (all kittens are). They mouth things with tiny, kitten teeth. But adult cats become solitary, highly territorial, and possessive predators. Some will rebel against authority, including that of the handlers they have known since birth. They can show unexpected aggression. Virtually all wild and exotic cats, including ocelots, margay, serval, cougar, and bobcat, can turn vicious as they age.

  Monkeys and other nonhuman primates also develop frustrating behavior as they age. Monkeys keep themselves clean and give each other much-needed day-to-day social interaction and reassurance by grooming each other. A monkey kept by itself can become filthy and depressed, and can begin mutilating itself—pulling out its hair, and so on. When a monkey grows up, it climbs on everything, vocalizes loudly, bites, scratches, exhibits sexual behavior toward you and your guests, and, like a wolf, marks everything in its territory with urine. It is almost impossible to housebreak or control a monkey.

  Many people think they can train wolves in the same manner that they train dogs. They cannot. Even if well cared for, wolves do not act as dogs do. Wolves howl. They chew through almost anything, including tables, couches, walls, and fences. They excavate ten-foot pits in your backyard. They mark everything with urine and cannot be house-trained. (Domestic canid breeds that still have a bit of wolf in them can also have these traits.) Punishing a wolf for tearing up your recliner or urinating on the living room wall is punishing the animal for instinctive and natural behavior.