Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  When the riders fell in behind the pack, Aranur didn’t look back. He knew who they were: the healers, summoned by message rings that had been run through the darkness. They rode well back from the tide of gray, and the wolves, linked to Dion, ignored them. And then they were into the rising hills that led to Dion’s home.

  The dnu, pushed to shreds of endurance, gasped as they leaped up the roads. Aranur held his knees firm, guiding his dnu over rough spots as it began to stumble. He could see the lights from their house, and he felt a wash of relief weaken his grip. Gamon, he thought, and Tomi—both were there. He didn’t even notice, as they swept toward the lights, that the sea of gray had lessened. Gray shadows, filtered out by the trees, disappeared into the rocks near his home. When he reached the yard and swept past the gate, there were only eight still with them.

  Hlshn growled in his mind, and his dnu, as if suddenly released, collapsed. He barely kicked free, leaping away from the saddle and the weight of the dying beast. As his boots struck earth, he stumbled with Dion’s weight but somehow kept his feet. The riding beast, limp as a carcass, sprawled on the courtyard stone.

  Aranur ran for the house with Dion in his arms. He shouldered aside the white-faced women who waited anxiously on the porch. Hishn flashed through the crowd at his heels, somehow shifting ahead of him so that the wolf’s fangs, even more than Aranur’s haste, moved the healers aside. “Hurry,” he snarled. “They’re holding her.”

  “This way—” And, “Who’s holding her? What do you mean?”

  “The wolves,” he snapped, not knowing how it sounded. “They’ve got their teeth in her heart.”

  His uncle Gamon appeared and pulled him toward the bed that had been covered with sheets and bandage pads. As Aranur laid Dion down and staggered back, suddenly relieved of her weight, he realized that the darkness of his clothes was not the night, but her blood. He started to reach for her again, but was shoved unceremoniously aside.

  Suddenly there were too many people, too many bodies in the room. People reached for the same bandages; washes of cleansing fluids splashed together. Someone stepped on Hishn, and the wolf bit a woman’s knee. The woman screamed shortly, terrified, and Gamon jumped between them.

  “It bit me,” the woman sobbed.

  “Get it out of here,” one of the healers snapped, not even bothering to look.

  “Gamon—” another healer started.

  Aranur’s hard voice cut through the din. “The wolf stays— unless you want Dion to die.”

  The room went silent. Then it burst again into action. This time, Gray Hishn was not bothered.

  Aranur was pushed back to the wall. He found Olarun beside him and pulled him to his side. The boy stared at the he Jers, at his mother, at the wolf. When one of the healers herded Gamon out the door, the boy almost fled before them. He hesitated in the hall, looking back at the room that seemed to seethe with healers. Gamon said something to him and touched his arm, but he didn’t hear. The boy’s lips moved, then he turned and bolted toward the front door. He was running by the time he hit the porch.

  “Olarun,” Aranur shouted.

  Gamon caught the other man’s arm. “Let him go. His shoulder wound is stitched and sealed against jellbugs. It’s his heart that needs to bleed now.”

  Aranur stared into the dark. His son. His only son. Because Danton now was dead. It hit him then that his youngest boy was gone. His knees weakened. A void swept in. “Danton,” he whispered. He swore, long and low-voiced, in the night. The darkness cursed him back.

  Gamon tried to pull him back in the house, but he resisted. With the light from the house behind him, the forest was black to his eyes. He could not see Olarun. “Dear moons,” he whispered. “Oh, gods …”

  “He’ll be all right.” Gamon pulled on his arm. “He’ll come back.”

  Aranur couldn’t take his eyes from the forest, the courtyard, the night. There were still wolves there—he could feel them. Like a sea of gray, they seethed at the edge of his mind. And they were with Olarun, he realized, following the boy in the darkness. Something tried to scream free inside Aranur’s chest, but the steel of decades hardened his face. Slowly, he turned back to the house.

  Gamon looked as if he wanted to ask a question, but Aranur shook his head. He went back and, from the doorway, watched the healers work.

  It was time that killed his hope more than anything. They worked over her far too long, cleaning wounds so deep that Dion’s soul should have escaped long before the dawn. Time, which should have given her life, ate at his mind like worms. He fixed an image of his mate in his head and held it there as they worked.

  And later, when dawn blinked at the sky and silhouetted the mountains, the healers dispersed. The night nurse checked Dion, then stepped away, and Aranur was left alone.

  He sank down into the nurse’s chair. Dion’s form was swathed in bandages, some of which were already spotted with blood Only one hand was without coverings. He touched those fingers, cold and still on the sheets. Then he gripped her hand hard. His head sank onto her forearm.

  “Live,” he whispered.

  “Live.”

  VII

  What do you have hut yourself?

  Whom do you face hut yourself’?

  What do you hear but your voice in the night?

  Whom do you know but yourself?

  —Answer to the Second Riddle of the Ages

  Aranur awoke when the dawn healer did the final check for her shift, and he eyed her blearily.

  “You should get some sleep,” she advised gently. “You’ll be no good to her, getting sick yourself.”

  Aranur shrugged. But he stood and tried to stretch cramped limbs. Between the wolf-driven ride and sitting all night, his legs had stiffened to logs. He looked for Hishn, but the gray wolf wasn’t there. He chilled.

  “It’s all right,” the healer assured him. “Dion is all right. The wolf just went out to relieve itself, I think.”

  Aranur paced the room. “Did Olarun come back?”

  “He’s asleep. Downstairs.”

  Aranur raised his eyebrows.

  “He didn’t want to sleep in his room, or in the one you share with Dion. He’s over by Gamon and Tehena, camped out on the living-room floor.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her.

  “Better to be back in a few hours,” she returned gently. “After you’ve had some sleep.”

  He ignored her.

  When he returned, he found the day healer had taken over and was sitting in his chair. He looked at the man, looked at Dion, then looked back at the healer until the man glanced up and caught the expression on his face. The healer eyed him for a moment, then stood, saying quietly, “I’ll take this chair,” and moved to the other side of the bed.

  Aranur sat down heavily. When he took Dion’s hand, he squeezed it as if to tell her he was back. Then he put his head down again on her arm, as though he would be able to feel her pulse through her skin.

  Five days passed. Five nights dragged on. Tehena settled in to one of the guest rooms and refused to leave. The hard-faced woman wasn’t cook or hostess, nurse or nanny or helper, and she pestered the healers with hovering and constant criticism. Her words, acidic as worlag piss, irritated even Gamon. But somehow having Tehena there made Dion rest more easily, and it was Aranur who forced the healers to let her stay.

  Tomi, Aranur’s eldest, adopted son, and Gamon finally took over the nursing so that the healers could go home. The healers didn’t argue: inside, there was Tehena; outside, eight wolves had refused to leave, and they surrounded the house like a gauntlet. The yard, pitted with sleeping holes and wallows, was an obstacle course of gray bodies and bones through which the healers had to tiptoe.

  A ninan went by like a trial in which voices drone on without pause. There were words in Aranur’s head that circled like a lepa flock. Danton was dead. Dion was not living. Olarun was no longer there. Olarun, his own son … And Danton—Danton was gone. The boys’ roo
m was shut, and no one—not even Olarun—opened the door. Aranur tried to bring some of Ola-run’s things from the room the two boys had shared, but his son put them back in the hallway outside the room as soon as Aranur turned his back.

  It was guilt, not his shoulder, that bothered the boy. Olarun refused even to enter his mother’s room. Each morning, he would go to the doorway to see if Dion had opened her eyes before he would turn away in silence. Aranur couldn’t get him to speak of what had happened. In the boy’s eyes, it was his fault that Danton had died, that his mother lay like a statue. Aranur could almost see the logic in Olarun’s eyes: If he blamed himself, surely his father blamed him too?

  And Dion—she lay still as death. It was weakness, said the healers, from the loss of blood, but Aranur wasn’t so sure. There was a quietness about her that disturbed him—a quietness that echoed in his mind where, before, the gray swell of the wolves had rung with the tang of her voice. He found no solace in the assurance that she needed sleep to heal. She was conscious, he knew; he could feel it in the way Hishn looked at her. But he could not reach her. He stared down at her body. His son, his mate … He stalked from the room like death.

  As though Dion’s growing strength was reflected within the wolf pack, the wolves grew surly, then vicious. Twice they erupted into violence, fighting among themselves. The second time, Aranur and Gamon were standing on the porch eating some of the soup brought over by Tomi’s Promised. One of the younger males slowly trotted too close to one of Gray Yoshi’s bones, and the pack leader snarled. The young male didn’t move fast enough out of the way. Instantly, the wolf pack was a frenzied mass of fur and snarls and slashing, ripping teeth. A moment later, it was over. The young male yearling was dead.

  Aranur and Gamon stared at the wolf body. “Moons above us,” the older man murmured, his soup bowl forgotten in his hands.

  “They killed one of their own.” Aranur’s voice had a stunned quality.

  Gamon tried to shrug, but his eyes were caught by the limpness of the wolf. “Males always challenge males.”

  “Not that young. That male was a yearling—he wasn’t old enough to challenge Yoshi or any other adult.” Aranur started to step down from the porch. “He had to be sick for them to kill him. I want to take a look at the body.”

  Gamon caught his arm. “Might not be a good idea to walk into that right now.”

  Aranur hesitated. Gray Yoshi looked up and caught his gaze. There was an impact of anger and grief that hit him like a punch. He staggered. His soup splashed out. Gamon cursed.

  Aranur caught his balance against the porch post. He glanced down at the soup bowl he had emptied over his and Gamon’s boots. “Sorry,” he said belatedly.

  “They got to you, didn’t they?”

  Aranur looked out at the wolves. “That they did,” he agreed softly.

  “They’re getting to Dion, too.”

  “I know it.”

  The older man ran his hand through his gray hair. “Something has to break her out, Aranur. Something or someone.”

  Aranur’s voice was instantly sharp. “I am trying, Gamon.”

  “Yes, you’re trying,” his uncle agreed. “But it might not be you who can reach her right now. She needs something else that’s stronger. She’s alert enough to hear the wolves—we know that. But she doesn’t seem to care.”

  “What do you want me to do? I’ve talked to her. I’ve urged her. I’ve begged and pleaded with her to live. By the gods, I’ve cursed her. I’ve even had Tehena curse her—and you know the kind of vitriol that scrawny woman can spout. I’ve brought nearly every friend Dion has to the house to try to force her to wake. By all the moons that ride the sky, I can barely stand to see her as she is.” He gestured impotently at the house. “That… apathetic body in there—that’s not my mate. That’s not the Dion who climbs and runs and breathes the wilderness. That’s not the woman who stood with me before the council, who Called the wolves, who fought with me to protect her right to run her own trails. That body in there—that’s not the Gray Wolf of Randonnen. Dion—my Dion—is the one who conned me into camping out in a stinkweed patch—remember that? She’s the one who put fire weed in my extractor bag. Who danced with me on Dawnbreak Cliffs. That in there—that’s not my mate. That’s what’s left of someone when the person is gone. It’s nothing more than a shell.”

  “She’ll heal, Aranur—”

  Aranur cut his uncle off with a gesture. “It’s not just her body, Gamon. It’s her center—her heart. Can’t you see it? It’s no longer the heart of a wolf. It’s broken—shattered like glass. And I’m not enough to mend it. Me, Olarun, Tomi, the wolves—we’re not enough to help her.”

  Now Gamon sounded angry. “So when Danton died, so did she? She’s gone, and you’re just going to accept that?”

  “Dammit, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s just… She’s just…” He half raised his fists to pound on the porch, then let them fall helplessly. For a moment that seemed to hang between them forever, he stared into Gray Yoshi’s eyes. Something old flickered deep in the yellow gaze; some gray-bound grief released. Aranur’s breath caught like ice in his throat. When he could finally breathe again, when he turned back to the house, Gamon followed in silence.

  The eyes of the wolves turned after them. Deep in the pack-song, a thread of gray shifted, twisted, curled around another thought. An older grief, brought by slitted eyes, washed through the memories. Longing swept back and forth in the packsong while the fire of the fevers burned away at their griefs, leaving only graves behind. The wolves howled, and Gray Yoshi stirred. He gathered those threads together. His yellow eyes gleamed as he blended the song and sent it to Hishn’s mind.

  At Dion’s bedside, the gray wolf rose and placed her head on the bed next to the wolfwalker’s arm. Softly, Hishn whuffed. Her whine was so low that it was more mental than physical, and somehow it reached the wolfwalker.

  Dion didn’t stir, didn’t open her eyes, but a single tear formed at the edge of her eyelashes. It hung for a moment, like hope before it falls. Then it slid down her face to her hair.

  VIII

  Demon within

  Doesn ’t hide in your heart—

  He is meshed with your Self

  From which you can ’t part.

  When you feel Demon’s touch

  He is goading you on;

  When you fee I Demon move

  He is guarding his own;

  When you hear Demon shriek

  He has taken his hold—

  Not of your heart—

  But your soul.

  —The Tiwar, in Wrestling the Moons

  Dion stuffed an extra tunic into her saddlebag, then strapped the bag closed. Her other saddlebag was packed; her weapons were oiled and sharpened; her herb pouches were full; her dnu was eager to go. Gray Hishn waited for her at the edge of the forest, where the narrow road led from their clump of houses down toward the town. There were wolves in the mountains— she could hear them like a thunder in her head. As though her illness had made her more sensitive, their voices called her strongly.

  She looked at her hands on the leather. She was thin, she realized. Her fingers had been scarred before with living, but now they were gaunt—more bone than flesh. She ought to eat more, she told herself absently, knowing even as she did so that she had no taste for food. The healing the wolves had promoted in her for the past three months had sapped her as much as it had made her whole. Her lips twisted bitterly. Whole … If she hadn’t been a wolfwalker, she’d still be tender from the wounds she’d sustained. As it was, with the ridges of flesh missing along her shoulders and back, with the muscles of her legs as seamed as a patchwork quilt, she was as whole as she was ever going to be. As whole as one could be when one had a void in one’s heart. As whole as one was who was no longer a mother. As whole as one who was lost. She wondered what that ringrunner’s storyteller would call it, then lost her expression completely. No good, no lesson, no truth could come of this. No story
teller could put a better face on what she felt right now.

  Aranur covered her hand with his. His grip was not gentle, and she looked up. “Don’t start,” she said softly, looking up.

  “You can’t run away.”

  “And you can’t protect me from my memories.”

  His gray eyes were like flint. “When I told you to make yourself less available to everyone, I didn’t mean this.”

  Dion stared at him. Her expression was suddenly stricken, and Aranur’s grip tightened. “Dion?”

  She tried to speak.

  “Dion?” he asked more sharply

  “If I … What you said, Aranur. Don’t you realize? If I had answered the healing summons, we would not have gone to Still Meadow. The boys would have stayed in Sharbrere. We would never have been caught by the lepa.”

  He crushed her hand in his. “Don’t do this, Dion.”

  “How can I help it? That message ring Vlado brought from the elders … If I had agreed to do my job, our son—my little wolf—would still be alive.”

  “You can’t know that—”

  She cut him off, her voice harsh. “I know that the one time I reject my responsibility, I lose the life of our son.”

  “You didn’t reject your responsibility; you were supposed to be off duty. And the boys had been promised a trip to Still Meadow. Their escorts could still have taken them out—everyone does it. Then both of them—and their escorts—would be dead At least you saved Olarun.”

  “Did I? I was uneasy about the lepa from the start, but I didn’t listen to myself. I was so determined to be with the boys … Oh, moons, Aranur, but what if I was so desperate for this break from work that I sacrificed our son?”

  Aranur was shocked at how haggard she looked. He didn’t remember grabbing her, but he was suddenly shaking her, shortly, viciously. He couldn’t help it, even when she cried out at his grip. “Don’t say that,” he snarled. “Don’t think it. Don’t let a single word of that cross your lips again. I’ll be damned if I let guilt kill you after all that you’ve survived.”