Four times they crossed raider sign on the roads. The first time it was old sign, the deep hoofprints and shards of wagons locked into hardened mud where the traders had driven their caravans. The other two signs were more recent. At the fourth place they passed where raiders had fought, the stone cairns on the side of the road marked funeral pyres. The cairns still shifted and swirled with ash that had not yet been blown off by the wind.
They passed villages and small towns, skirted caravans, and watched the young men and women who traveled on their Internships and Journeys. Small groups, large groups, and once or twice, single riders … The days blended from one to the next.
Early into the second ninan, Dion eyed yet another pair of riders as she waited with Gamon and the wolf near one of the roadside message cairns. Kiyun and Tehena were checking the snares they had set out the previous night, while Dion and Gamon broke camp.
One of the young riders on the road raised his hand in greeting as he passed. Gamon waved slightly in return. His gray eyes followed the riders. “Young,” he murmured.
Dion nodded.
Gamon glanced at her, then motioned with his chin at the riders. “You were young like that when I met you. You and your brother—new as spring grass.”
Her eyes unfocused, as though she could feel her twin even at this distance.
Gamon caught her expression. “We could ride back east into Randonnen. You could see him and your father.”
Abruptly, her eyes focused. “No,” she said flatly.
“Dion, you need your family right now. If not Aranur and Tomi and Olarun, then why not your twin and his mate? You need someone to talk to—and you’ve always been able to talk to your twin.”
“He already knows. There is no need to tell him.”
He eyed her steadily. “He might be able to feel your pain at this distance, but don’t you think you owe him more than that? At the least, you should give him the reassurance of seeing you—of seeing that you’re okay.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I sent a message ring,” she said, her voice low.
“It’s not the same.” He studied her. “Ah, Dion,” he sighed finally. “You haven’t even seen your father in two years.”
She looked up then and met his gray, faded eyes. “What would I say if I saw them, Gamon? ‘Greetings, Father. I’ve killed your grandson?’ Or, ‘Say, Rhom, did you notice that really dark period when I let your nephew die?’ I look back, Gamon, and wonder how much danger my father really let Rhom and me get into when we were growing up. Then I look at my life and the life I’ve led my boys into, and I know what he and Rhom think of my taking my sons out on the trail. Their blame is deserved, Gamon. And that’s something I’m not ready to face.”
“They would never blame you. Only you do that. And your brother has taken his own children out on the trail.”
“But never far from home. And Randonnen is safer than Ariye. The lepa don’t breed in our mountains, so there is never danger from a flocking. The worlags are smaller, and we don’t even have barrier bushes. There’s no brown fungi or fruga bushes or eye-mites or spiela. But here in Ariye, all those things fill your forests, and they are dangers every day. By the moons, Gamon, I’ve taken my boys out where even adults are wary.”
“Aranur learned to run trail that way. I learned that way when I was a boy. Even the Lloroi grew up that way. How else would your sons grow up?” he demanded.
“Inside the barrier bushes,” she retorted.
“You’d rather have them ignorant?” Gamon shot back.
“I’d rather have them alive.”
Gamon was silent for a moment. “You can’t change the past, Dion, and you can’t bring Danton out of the grave, but you still have two sons. Tomi may not be your blood son, but he loves you like a mother. And Olarun will eventually return to you in his heart. He just needs time and comfort.”
“It’s comfort I can’t give him, Gamon.”
“Aye. He and you—you’re the same. You need someone to comfort you, Dion, so that you can again comfort your sons.”
Her lips twisted. “You think I need some kind of a mother?”
“If you do, that’s one thing I can’t get for you. You’ll have to settle for your father and brother.”
“I’ve said no, Gamon.”
“And you mean it,” he added, so flatly that the words meant the opposite of what he said.
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want to ride those trails again. There are graves in Randonnen, too.”
“You were not so uneager when I met you.”
“That was a long time ago,” she retorted.
“Not to me. I remember it clearly. You and your twin—you were so alike, so different back then. So protective of each other, and yet so independent. And that damned wolf, hovering and snarling like a mother guarding her pup after Aranur knocked you out. I had known it would have to be a different kind of woman who hooked my nephew’s heart, but I’d never thought he’d be so anxious for a mate that he’d tackle a woman from her dnu.”
A ghost of a smile touched Dion’s lips, though the expression did not reach her eyes. “My jaw hurt for a ninan afterwards.”
“What did you expect—fists of feather? He was a weapons master, even then.”
“Even then,” she agreed.
Gamon studied her face. “He needs you, Dion. Both he and Olarun. You know that just as you know your wolf. It’s been a ninan. You’ve run far enough. If you won’t go to your own family, go back to your mate and your sons.”
“I can’t—”
“Why not?” Gamon cut her off sharply. “You need Aranur and Tomi and Olarun as much as they need you. That, you can’t deny.”
But Dion was already shaking her head. “I can’t go back,” she repeated.
“What holds you to this trail?” he demanded. “Your search to find yourself again, as you so quaintly put it to Aranur? Your need to escape the blame you heap upon yourself? You can’t tell me it’s Hishn—the only reason that mutt is dogging your heels out here is that you’re pulling her as surely as if you put a rope on her neck and tied her to your dnu. She’d be back with her own pack now, running with her own mate, if you were at home. You may have brought the wolves back to Ariye, but it’s not as though there are so many anywhere that you can sacrifice any wolf’s litters. And Hishn—she’s one of the few wolves who gives birth to more than one pup at a time. Compared to Ancient years, most Gray Ones’ litters are barely token births. Hishn is the rare wolf who gives forth five—not dead—wolf cubs. Are you going to sacrifice your own Gray One’s children because you can’t face your mate?”
Dion couldn’t answer him.
“And how long, Dion, before the raiders find out that you’re riding these trails without Aranur? We crossed raider tracks this morning. If they find out you’re here, they could try again, here, to kill you.”
Slowly, Dion looked up. “You and Tehena and Kiyun— you’ve been talking about this behind my back?”
“You’ve seen the signs as clearly as we have.”
“I won’t go back.”
“Yet,” Gamon added almost grimly.
Dion’s violet eyes glinted. “I’m no pawn of yours, Gamon, to be pushed here and there by mere words.”
But the older man’s gray eyes had their own steely tone. His voice did not back down. “I can push harder, Dion, if you need such motivation.”
Something in her cracked. “Why do this to me?” she cried out. “Why say these things when you know I can’t hear them yet?”
“You’ve had enough time, Wolfwalker.” He used the title deliberately. “You need to start facing yourself again.”
“And you’ve appointed yourself my spirit guide?”
“Someone’s got to, and it might as well be me. I’m not just a friend, Dion, I’m family. I’m your uncle—through love if not blood—so I can say these things—and more, if necessary—to get you back where you belong.” He caught the twist of her lips.
“You think that’s humorous?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s that yesterday Kiyun went on about the same thing. ‘I’m not family,’ he told me, ’I’m a friend, so I can say these things to you.’”
Gamon grinned sourly. “And Tehena, how did she put it?”
“She didn’t put anything. She just asked where I wanted to go.”
“Moonwormed woman. She’d follow you though all nine hells and back if you asked it of her.”
Dion fingered a twig beside her, snapping it off absently. When she realized what she was doing, she threw the stick on the ground. Hishn stretched out and took the twig in her teeth, shredding it into fragments. Dion watched the wolf, letting Hishn’s sense of taste bring the bitter flavor of bark and sap to her own tongue. Her voice was quiet when she finally said, “I need more time, Gamon. I want to see land other than that in Ariye. I want to see rivers and valleys where the fog isn’t heavy with pain and death and loss. I want to see the ocean again. I want, Gamon, to go someplace where there aren’t so many ghosts.”
The older man didn’t speak for a moment. Then he touched her arm.
“Please,” she whispered, not even knowing what she was asking.
He pulled her to him, hugging her roughly. The hilt of his sword caught on her hip, and the archer’s patch on her forearm snagged on his tunic. Gamon shook his head as they untangled each other. Dion looked up into his grizzled face. “You Ariyen men—you never can learn to hug.”
“And you Randonnen women are always too stubborn to reason with.”
“It’s a gift,” she told him wryly.
“It’s a pain in the neck, Dion.”
“Gamon—”
“I know, I know. I’m just along for the ride, after all, seeing as how you aren’t much for conversation these days.” He glanced up the trail to see Kiyun and Tehena riding down.
Feeling Dion’s frustration, Hishn growled beside him.
He ignored the wolf. Deliberately, he said, “Remember Red Harbor, thirteen years ago?”
Dion’s face shadowed. “How could I not?”
“Do you also remember what Aranur told Tyrel after the boy’s sister died?”
“I do.”
“Say it, Dion. Say the words.”
Her violet eyes glinted dangerously, and Hishn rose slowly to her feet. The hackles on the wolf’s neck rose into a bristly mass. Dion didn’t notice. “I’m tired of hearing the words, Gamon,” she said, her voice hard. “And don’t give me that ‘you have to go on’ line again. If you haven’t lost a son, you can’t understand what I feel. If you haven’t caused the death of your own child, you’ll never understand what I live with.”
“You’re wallowing in guilt.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’ll kill yourself if you keep on.”
Her voice was suddenly quiet. “And why shouldn’t I do that, Gamon?”
The older man stared at her. He realized suddenly that the strain that pulled at the wolfwalker’s face was so much a part of her body that it could break her very bones. And that Hishn didn’t hover around Dion because the wolfwalker called the wolf, but because Hishn was herself afraid of losing her wolfwalker.
Dion’s eyes were dark. “Why should I go on?” she repeated. “Why should I let myself live? Just because I have a skill that the county needs? Because there are people who want to use my body, my skills?” Her fist clenched. “Am I nothing more than a tool to the people I’ve counted as friends?” Her knuckles, white before, began to shake. “What part of me is allowed to be human? What part of me may grieve?”
Gamon’s face hardened slowly. “You think you’re the only one to lose a child?”
“Yes.” Hishn’s snarl was in Dion’s throat, and the wolfwalker’s voice was harsh. “At this moment, right now, I am the only one who has lost a child. I don’t care who else feels grief right now. I don’t care how many ghosts you’ve hung on your sword. And for once, I don’t give a damn about another person’s loss. Don’t talk to me about others’ deaths, about going on, about being strong. I can’t feel anything but myself right now—don’t you at least see that?”
He nodded slowly. He glanced at Hishn, then back at the wolfwalker, noting the almost yellow glint to her shadowed eyes. “I can see that,” he said quietly.
“Then why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Tm not doing this for me, Dion, but for you and Aranur. My nephew never was one to run away from his problems, and he won’t let you do that either. Take too long to heal out here, and he’ll come after you and force you to face yourself. You’ll hate him for that, Dion. It will be a knife between you.”
Her face tightened. “I understand knives.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “more than most, you do. But do you need to wound your own mate as you wound yourself?”
“Gamon—”
“Whether you face yourself now or later, the circumstance doesn’t change, Dion: Danton died. You didn’t.” His voice was suddenly hard. “Deal with it.”
“I need time.”
“You have the rest of your life to grieve, Dion. How much time do you have to love those who are still near you?”
“I don’t have any more love to give,” she cried out.
“You do, Wolfwalker. You wouldn’t feel this strongly about Danton if you didn’t have more than enough love in you for the rest of your life.”
“You haven’t a clue how I feel, Gamon. Don’t speak to me of love.”
Like a wolf himself, the lean older man rounded on her. His gray eyes were suddenly as steely as Aranur’s, his hands like vises on her arms. Hishn was up and beside Dion in a flash. Gamon ignored the wolf, but the Gray One’s teeth were bared. “I lost my mother, my father,” he breathed in Dion’s face. “I lost all my brothers but one because of raiders. I lost two nieces who were like daughters to me, and you and I both know I could have stopped their deaths if my sword had been a little faster. There was a woman I would have Promised with who died in my arms before T could tell her what I felt.” His voice tightened to a snarl. “There was another woman I lost to my own reluctance to Promise. Don’t tell me I don’t know what you feel, Wolfwalker. I’ve lived long enough to lose a dozen lifetimes.”
Dion eyed the older man warily. Gamon’s calm wisdom had ripped away, leaving only the steel behind, and it was a hard, bright, bitter knot. She knew suddenly where Aranur got his iron will—it had been forged here, in his uncle Gamon. She tried to speak, but her lips were curled back with Hishn’s, and her throat tightened as if to tear out the gray-haired man’s words. She sucked in a breath. Nothing loosened in her chest, but suddenly, Hishn backed down.
Gamon studied Dion’s face as if to find a hint of anything insincere. Then he nodded, shortly.
Kiyun gave Dion a sharp look when he and Tehena rejoined her and Gamon. But she shook her head at him, and the burly man said nothing. He just reined in by the wolfwalker and led the way out onto the road.
It was midmorning by the time they reached the turnoff for one of the farming villages. But as they came around the hill, Kiyun, in the lead, signaled for them to pull up rather than ride on. “Smoke,” he said quietly, pointing through the trees. The bare wisp of gray was battered apart by the slight wind, but not before it made a faint, but distinctive streak.
Automatically, Dion sent Hishn into the woods. The gray wolf snarled at her, and Dion felt the pull of the pack as Hishn tried to get her to fade back in the forest with the wolf. Dion resisted. Her toes clenched in her boots as Hishn’s mind sucked at hers.
Enough, Gray One, Dion sent sharply.
Come with me, sent the wolf. Come home to the pack. You have no need to hunt here.
If the hunt finds me, who am I to fight it?
Hishn glared at her balefully, then faded back so that she disappeared.
Beside Dion, Gamon squinted at the dull morning sky. For the last day and a half, the clouds had gathered into a gray pallor relieved only
by the near-hidden passage of the moons. “That’s Prandton,” he said softly. “We’re close enough to the last raider strike that this town could have been hit on the same run.”
Automatically, Dion touched her healer’s circlet, then pulled her warcap down to make sure it covered the silver. Her finger caught for a moment on the seam that was concealed in the design of the silver. The hidden blade was like a needle in her mind, reminding her that even the silver symbol of healing she wore hid unbalanced death within it. Abruptly, she dropped her hand. She didn’t notice that it fell to the hilt of her sword as she closed up in a knot with the others.
The riders slowed as they rounded the last bend before entering the village hub. It was summer, but instead of being filled with activity, the clumps of houses were shuttered against the gray, humid daylight. Two homes and their shared stable were gutted and smoking, and a third home around one of the commons was still smoldering with glowing coals. Tools were discarded, and woodpiles scattered between the clustered homes. And there were two bodies in the street, surrounded by rocks and chunks of wood.
In the distance, a woman stepped out, caught sight of them, and ducked hastily back into her house. A flash of paleness from another structure showed where someone had peeked from a window.
As if their moves were choreographed, Kiyun and Tehena spurred their dnu ahead of Dion so that she fell behind with Gamon. A moment later, they skirted the bodies in the street. Both dead men had been brutally beaten. Soberly, Kiyun dismounted. The others remained warily on their dnu, their weapons resting but ready on their saddles and thighs.
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