Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  Close, Aranur’s people moved. From Dion’s left, the outermost raider seemed to grow impatient, wondering if the venge was near. The man had barely risen from behind his rock when he went down with a bolt in his cheek. He screamed and kept screaming until the sound was abruptly cut off, and Dion knew that someone else had struck a killing blow. But the focus in her mind left her distant from the noise.

  There was a rush from Aranur’s men. A bracing from the raiders against the attack. A figure rose carefully in front of Dion, aiming at the Ariyens, and she knew her body moved because the man went down with her arrow in his back. He thrashed and tore the ferns and finally stopped breathing.

  Dion crawled up beside him to take his warbolts after rolling his body off his quiver. She didn’t look at the blood that marked her skin as her hands grasped his soaked leather jerkin.

  Raider archers let fly with their bolts. Somewhere ahead, a woman cursed quietly as her bolt missed her mark, and a man beside her cursed too, but with eagerness because his bolt hit his mark straight on. Someone screamed, and Dion tuned it out. Something brushed by her knee, and she jerked back, dropping instantly behind a log. Another bolt whicked over her head. Quickly, she elbowed along the log until she reached a slight depression and could ease herself away.

  She reached a root mass and crouched there for cover. Aranur was a hundred meters away, his steel flashing as he squared off with a slender raider. The raider moved like lightning—Aranur was hard-pressed to stay his ground and force the other man back. Tule had locked with a burly man, shouting to Royce as he did so. To the right of the one-armed man, from the cover of a rock pile, three Ariyens were angling their shots to catch one of the raider archers. And two raiders had dragged an Ariyen archer from his place between the boulders, grappling him to the ground. Dion grasped her bow, but did not nock an arrow. With the figures struggling as they were, she could shoot the Ariyen as easily as the raiders.

  She saw it all and yet saw nothing. She saw the Ariyen archer escape, and one of the grappling raiders die; saw an Ariyen swordsman go down and another raider run. It had happened before—the warbolts flying, the flash of steel in the dawn. Distance kept her mind from the fight, and foreknowledge of the death she saw locked her emotions. There was a speed and accentuation to movement and fear, but the world itself was unreal and dimmed; the forest made of blood, not brown and green.

  An arrow sliced across her forearm. Abruptly, she lost her grip on her bow. She lunged for it instinctively, but another bolt checked her motion. And a raider charged from between the trees, his bow nocked with another arrow, his dnu churning up the ferns. From back on the road, Hishn read Dion’s heightened emotion and howled into her head. Dion howled back, her eyes glinting. Another arrow, and this one sliced through her leggings as she jumped for cover.

  He was almost upon her. She scrambled to the side, barely regaining her feet. The raider had jammed his bow in his saddle holder and now grabbed his sword. Dion threw her own blade up. Even with the angle of her sword—steep, to let the blow slide off—the force of the man’s blow was jarring. She was smashed to her knees like a nail beneath a mallet. Her warcap slipped; the silver healer’s circlet showed.

  Her distant focus shattered. Blue-gray eyes stared intently into hers. Some part of her mind noticed the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, the shallow lines that seamed his face. Sweat beaded the raider’s brow beneath gray-peppered hair. The man’s breath was suddenly harsh in his throat as he took in the silver glint of the circlet. Something changed in his eyes. Blood was suddenly real again; steel was suddenly cold. Dion thrust herself up, back to her feet.

  The raider charged. She leaped aside, and the midshoulder of his dnu hit her like a mace. Tangled, she went flying over a log. She hit the ground like a sack of old shoes, her limbs flailing out. Then the sting of sap hit her neck. She scrambled to her feet.

  The raider’s dnu stamped its hooves, its muscles bunched beneath short, bristly fur. When the man charged, he cut Dion even farther away from the line of the fight, like an eerin from the herd. His sword was there before hers, beating her own blade down. His speed was like that of Aranur, blindingly fast. Dion felt a thread of fear lace her breathing. This man was better than she.

  He spurred the dnu forward, and she had to dodge. Again he spurred the beast forward. She flung herself around a tree. Away from the rocks, from the raiders, from the others, who couldn’t see her—like an animal, she was being herded. It was forceful. It was clever. It was … deliberate.

  Wolfwalker! Hishn howled, feeling the fear grow in her gut.

  Hishn, she returned quickly. Stay away. The Ariyens will protect me. I just have to get back to their line.

  A fourth time, the raider charged. This time he twisted his dnu so that it half reared its hooves, striking out at her arms. She flung herself back, but she was at the top of a draw. The soft loamy edge crumbled away. She cursed—and went down the layered humus, half sliding through and half leaping over the meter-deep leaves and soil. Without hesitation, the raider followed.

  He caught her near the bottom, slicing at her as his dnu jumped past. She parried his blow neatly and slashed at his boots. Parried again, then thrust away. Ducked. Twisted. Slipped on a moss rock and cursed under her breath as her ankle scraped nastily along it. Hishn’s voice rang in her skull. The wolf’s strength fed her arm, making her muscles bunch. But she barely turned the blows. The six-legged mount thundered past again, blinding her with the dirt and leaves kicked up in its wake. Like a dancer, it pivoted on two of its side legs to come back at a dead run. She cut up, catching the base of the man’s boot as he jerked his leg away. But though she sliced through leather, the blade was caught by stirrup, not bone. She had to jerk it free. She barely managed to loose her throwing knife at the raider’s reaching arm.

  “Moons-damned pail of worlag piss,” he snarled as he jerked back, not quickly enough. The knife sliced his biceps, not deeply, but enough to bloody him. He cut viciously down at her. Hishn howled, and Dion turned his blade again, but the sheer force of the blow threw her back against the half-rocky, half-muddy ground. The raider grabbed at her but got air, not tunic. Dion, out of reach, scrambled over a rock and faced him, ready to dodge as soon as he committed his rush. She knew how to take him now, she thought. His fighting moves were like Aranur’s, but he was not riding for the best cuts.

  He spurred forward and she dove sideways, under a log that had fallen at an angle. Soft earth and rotted splinters jammed against her cheeks and went down into her tunic. The raider’s sword hit the log beside her arm. The force of it shook the dead wood like a drum.

  No chips had flown; the blade had not cut at all. He had swung to batter, not kill. Dion froze. Fear was a sudden, sharp taste in her mouth. He saw her realization. For a moment, both were still, caught in the dawn tableau. Then, in a voice as soft as fog, he said, “You are mine, Dione.”

  It was instinct that shoved her back, away from his lightning-fast hands. His words had been like blades of glass, sliding into her chest. She felt a terror slide in with them. Death—she had faced that often enough. But capture … She had been beaten once, long ago, and the memory had never faded. She had seen refugees from raider-run camps. And bodies after raider capture … This man’s eyes were intent as a wolf’s. This was no raider who struck out blindly for greed; this was a man with focus. He knew her. He wanted her. And he was more skilled than she.

  She felt her hand grip her hilt too hard. Her name on his lips— so steadily, so determined—it had shattered her. She had lost her evenness—her distance. Hishn howled at the rush of her fear.

  He charged. Clinging to the dnu by his knees, he leaned down and made a grab for her hair. His heavy fingers caught the edge of her warcap, and she ducked frantically away, leaving the cap in his hands with a handful of hair. He flung the cap aside, and his eyes did not leave her face. He spurred the riding beast forward.

  Fear coalesced into a knot of fire. The howling burst open her head.
Wolves seemed to flood into her mind, leaving a wash of gray across her brain. Fear shifted to fury. Her feet were suddenly paws that dug into the soil. Her eyes flared with a lupine tint that was lost in the light of dawn. But the raider caught that hint of yellow and hesitated for an instant. His dnu pulled up; Dion flashed away, sprinting through the trees.

  Ferns whipped her face and arms. The soil clung to her boots. Long, fallen branches caught at her feet, but she leaped them like a wolf. From the other side of the rise, back by the road, Hishn was sprinting toward her. She no longer held the wolf back. The danger to Hishn from attacking the man—of losing her fear of humans and turning unexpectedly against others— was no longer Dion’s concern. It was Dion’s life now or his, and she could die without Hishn’s strength.

  And then the raider’s dnu caught her. The flat of the man’s blade struck the edge of her shoulder. She went down sideways, slipping in the soil, barely missed by the hooves. The raider slid off his dnu in a single movement, following her down.

  As she fell, she twisted her sword between them, the long knife in her other hand coming up to meet it. The hilt of his blade caught in her crossed brace. His blow, frustrated, hung over her face in an instant of matched strength. Blood from his arm dripped onto hers.

  Hishn’s snarl was behind her eyes; the gray wolf’s strength in her arms. The raider breathed heavily. His teeth were white and straight. His eyes were dark and piercing, like a lepa on its prey. Her back was against a rock and the soil, and one of his knees was grinding into hers. But her focus was on that heavy hilt that hung over her face and temple. And the raider eyed her with steady intensity as he began to power her back.

  “Why?” she breathed.

  He didn’t waste his breath in answer. His weight bore down. Her shoulders strained. Her arms wavered.

  “Why?” she shrieked. And gave way like the wind. The raider’s hilt struck down like an ax. He buried it in the soil. “Bitch of a lepa,” he cursed as she wrenched away.

  He grabbed for her arm. Her knife slashed back, and he jerked away, the blade scraping again along his muscle. They scrambled, broke apart, then clashed. She was barely faster than he. His sword arm was like a mallet pounding through her guard, and her elbow was still jarred from before. Again he beat her blade skillfully aside, then lunged to strike at her head. But this time she dodged forward, into his arms, then under and away. He caught only a handful of tunic and jerkin.

  It was enough. He twisted his fist, and Dion’s body was flung in a tangle of limbs. The tip of her sword caught against a tree trunk, and she lost her grip on the hilt. The blade flashed out like a falling star. The raider grappled her hard, managing to catch one of her arms just above the elbow. Then her knife caught him on his hip.

  He screamed, a short, brutal sound, and slammed her down. Enraged, he swung the hilt of his sword to strike her chin. But she writhed away, and his blow struck only her shoulder.

  Hishn! she cried out.

  I come!

  She tore a rock from the ground and flung it. It missed his head by two handspans. He barely ducked. He scrambled after her, grabbing her foot, and holding on as she kicked at his face. The forest seemed to roil around them. He caught the feral glare of her teeth just as his hand closed on her knee. She bucked like a dnu, kicking and cutting at his hands. He took a slash to his wrist, one to his ribs as they twisted together and jerked back apart, another to his biceps. The last one cut through the leather. He didn’t bother to curse; his breath was too harsh, and she was too quick—the Ariyens had taught her well. If he could get one of her hands, he’d have her. But he couldn’t get to the tie-straps on his belt—he needed both hands just to keep her on the ground.

  She slapped another blow aside and grabbed the hilt of his own blade, but he jerked it away. His weight was an advantage now.

  Then the gray wolf hurtled out of the brush. Dion’s eyes, tinged with yellow, warned him an instant before. He twisted, trying to bring round his sword, but the burning tearing of his flesh forced him to drop the blade. The wolf flashed past. Instinctively, with one hand clenched in Dion’s jerkin, he scrambled to his feet, dragging the wolfwalker with him. His dnu skittered sideways, out of his reach. The gray wolf burst back. The raider took one look at the yellow eyes and grabbed for the saddle. Dion fought him wildly. Her fists struck his chin, not his neck, as he ducked his head against her blows. Her legs kicked the dnu as she struck out. The man caught the saddle pommel of the half-rearing beast but lost his grip on Dion’s jerkin. Hishn snapped. Dion dropped like a rock. The riding beast panicked. With his weight hanging off its side and the gray wolf at its haunches, the man cursed. The dnu leaped forward, away from the wolf. The raider swung up, bouncing off the ground like a trick rider.

  Dion staggered to her feet, her weight light on one leg. The raider wheeled his dnu. For an instant their eyes met again, blue-gray gaze piercing violet. There was rage in his eyes, and purpose, and hunt—like a lepa eyeing a rabbit. His hand was clamped on his hip as he stifled the blood that flowed there, and Dion’s hands were pressed to her side. Her ribs felt cracked from his blows. Gray Hishn, between them, snarled deep through her throat. The raider pointed at her in silent promise. Then he wheeled the riding beast again and sprinted for the rise.

  Dion grabbed her sword and ran after the raider, staggering up the side of the draw as her feet slid in the slick humus. She stopped at the top, her breath coming in gasps. She had to cling to a tree to stand. The fear was like bile on her tongue, and her heartbeat was crushing her brain. The raider was already near the other fighters, racing toward the cliff. What had seemed like hours down in the draw had been only minutes up here. Swords still flashed and people cursed, and the man who had cut Dion off from the others was now halfway through the melee. Two men staggered into his path, and the raider slammed into them both, throwing the Ariyen free and trampling his own man under his dnu. Then he was through. Of the three bolts that followed him to the cliff, only one hit near its mark. Like a weak tail, that bolt stuck in the raider’s saddle, snapping back and forth as the man spurred his mount up the pass.

  Dion followed him through Hishn’s senses as much as through her own. The sounds of his hooves, his breathing, his curse … The raider barely kept his seat as the dnu’s front legs jolted onto the steep path. The sides of the pass closed in. Two more arrows hit the rock beside him, flinging stone chips into his face. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he wrenched his shoulders sideways as the dnu plunged beneath a wicked overhang. And when he passed the second ledge, he reached out to the rocky wall. A moment later, the thunder of falling rocks blocked the route behind him.

  III

  It is dark, and in this darkness

  is the cry of hungry death;

  It is cold, and with this icy breath

  of steel comes fearful chill;

  It is silent now, and in this quiet

  dawn lie bodies still;

  It is over now, and still I stand

  and feel the tears that freeze my cheeks.

  and search for life that once had been.

  For now the steel is fed again,

  but when shall the silver shine?

  —Second refrain, Lament of the Healer Dione, I

  Dion forced herself to move toward the fight. Hishn’s eyes saw the movement of the bow raised in her direction before she did, and the howl that hit her mind flung her to the ground. She dropped behind a tree just as the bolt whished through the ferns. A moment later the archer was killed, and Dion saw that too, through Hishn’s eyes.

  There were six raiders on the ground; two still grappling with Ariyens. Two more fought viciously near the cliff, and one last archer hid in the boulders. Another swordsman went down, and the Ariyens shifted their attack. Aranur was over there, his back to a boulder, fighting a raider coldly, viciously. Dion stumbled forward, still trying to catch her breath. Her elbow still rang as if jammed, and her shoulder was wrenched where she’d taken the brunt of the raider’s strength
. Her ribs were not cracked, she knew, only bruised, but her breathing was painful and thin. She felt again those fists, that hilt … The man’s voice echoing back in her mind … Urgency. Purpose. What had she become in Ariye, that a raider wanted her? The shudder that caught her was almost shocking in its depth.

  Hishn caught her leggings in lupine teeth. Stay. You are hurt.

  It is nothing.

  Hishn growled at her. Your fangs are weak as old Neyshas. Your mate does not need your help.

  Dion glared at the wolf, but those yellow eyes gleamed with unrelenting truth. Her bow had been lost somewhere to her right. Her quiver was empty—the arrows had been lost in the draw. Her sword in that melee would simply be one more weapon in Aranur’s way. She nodded shortly, jerkily. Besides, there was something wrong with her hands. They were shaking like the ferns.

  She fumbled at her belt pouches for the small healer’s kit. “I’ll need Monteverdi,” she muttered to the wolf.

  Your packmate is already here.

  She looked up. The lanky man had just ridden into sight on the road. The intern looked anxious, glancing nervously from side to side as he neared the fighting. But he slid quickly enough from his dnu to kneel beside one of the Ariyens. The man pushed him irritably away, pointing to another man lying nearby. A moment later, Dion joined them. “He’s dead,” she said flatly, as Monteverdi tried to find a pulse on the body.

  Monteverdi’s face shuttered. “All right,” he said. He straightened up, glanced at her, then took her arm firmly. “Dion—”

  Absently, she looked down. The slash that had split the edge of the leather tunic had split skin as well, and blood now soaked her arm. Annoyed, she shook off Monteverdi’s grip.

  The tall intern asked something, taking her arm again, but she couldn’t answer. Something about blood, he was saying, and shock. She shook her head. It was not shock she felt, but something else, deep and gripping and cold. This blood was not from a wound meant to kill her, but one from a stunning blow. And it was not the sight of her own blood that chilled her now, but the words she had heard from that raider.