Wolf's Bane

by Tara K. Harper

  “No,” he said sharply. “Without the vision to see forward, we don’t just live like near-animals, we become them. Is that what you’d prefer? Would you condemn your own bloodline to poverty and ignorance? Give up your dreams, your hopes, your ethics? The raiders, the venges—they’re just what we face this moment. There will be better years ahead.”

  “But I can’t live with this existence.”

  “You don’t believe in existence, Dion. You believe in life.”

  She made an inarticulate sound. Gamon covered her fist, and she stared at his hand. The gnarled skin was weathered from decades of trail work and fighting, but the aged fingers were lean and strong, and the pressure of his hand on hers was firm.

  “Aranur believed in life, Dion. He knew he might not be able to reach his goal in his own lifetime, but that didn’t mean that he denied that the goal was worthwhile. You know that, too, deep inside. He might be gone, but his dreams live on. You’ll have to face those, Dion—his memories and his dreams, not just his death. You must see that.”

  Gray, grayer, darker, black; the flood of death swept her mind like a badgerbear rushing through night. She heard the river and knew it was before her, but she could no longer see it. Frigid water flashed beneath the summer sun. Clear depths fractured against the black rock on the other bank. She blinked, and realized with vague surprise that it was her mind which was black as night. “I’m blind,” she said quietly. “I cannot see.”

  Gamon looked at her. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was not until Tehena finally moved beside Dion and took her hand that Dion got to her feet. The wolfwalker stood uncertainly, as if she had no balance, and Tehena touched her arm. Then, as if the wolfwalker were a child, Tehena led her away to her dnu.

  Kiyun watched them as the lean woman mounted and took up the reins for Dion’s beast. Tehena looked back and gestured toward the trail; Kiyun nodded silently. Tehena and Dion rode out, leaving the others behind.

  For some time no one spoke. Then Kiyun took a collapsed grappling hook and the rope from his saddle bundle and moved down to the riverbank. Asuli frowned as she watched him, then went after him to the bank.

  Slowly, Gamon got to his feet. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at the gray-slick water. “We’re losing her,” he said.

  Kiyun stood beside him. “Aye,” the man said simply.

  “We have to do something.” Gamon’s voice was hard.

  “Something,” Kiyun agreed. “But what do you think to do? She’s gone too far,” he said, more to himself. “She’s on the blood side of the moons.”

  Gamon had no answer for that.

  Steadily, Kiyun uncoiled the rope and knotted one end to the hook. Then he spun the hook across the water. It was not a wide river; the hook landed well back in the trees. A few minutes, and the hook was set, and the tall man knotted the other end to a thick trunk on the bank.

  Asuli watched his preparations. When he started stripping down to his shorts, she asked sharply, “What are you doing?”

  He peeled off his shirt and dropped it onto his boots. “Diving.”

  “For what?”

  “For what Dion thinks to throw away.”

  “Kiyun, this river comes straight off an ice pack. That water’s freezing.”

  “Aye,” he agreed.

  “The current could have carried those things half a kay already.”

  “Maybe. The circlet fell near the other bank in that eddy, out of the main current. And the sword is heavy. It sank where the water’s deep.”

  “And you can dive that deep?”

  He shrugged.

  “You’re a fool,” Asuli told him sharply. She turned on her heel and went back to her dnu. She looked down the trail, but Tehena and Dion were out of sight; so she sat on a log and stared instead at the ground.

  In the river, Kiyun knotted a safety line around his waist, looped it over the grappling line, and waded into the current. Briefly, he cursed under his breath at the frigid chill. Then he began to dive.

  XVII

  “I wanted to save the world,”

    said the woljwalker.

  The eighth moon smiled faintly.

    “It’s enough to save yourself,” she said.

  —From Night Mares and Wolfwalkers,

  Tafes to Tell Children

  There were days that passed, but Dion didn’t know them: she had turned inward and was deafened by wolves. Twice she disappeared, turning off the trail and riding alone, only to appear again hours later with a wolf pack fading back into the brush behind her. She pushed herself during the day then collapsed, exhausted, at night. She accepted staying in villages only because Gamon insisted. When she did sleep, she cried for Aranur at night, and woke with the names of her sons on her lips. And between the towns, where the forests were thick with wolf packs, she flickered in and out of their campsites like candlelight in the wind.

  Halfway through the second ninan, she returned to camp without her dnu. It was Kiyun who saw her first, standing uncertainly in the dusk shadows at the edge of the small clearing. Quietly, he said her name. She looked at him blankly. He said it again, and this time she shivered. Then she moved into the firelight. She left again the next morning and ran with the wolves on foot.

  They zigzagged through the hills, moving without direction— even backtracking—until they turned vaguely north. By the end of the third ninan they were well into Ramaj Randonnen. The thin line of the river they followed began to grow as more mountain streams enjoined it. The air grew colder with the altitude, and they began to face ice in the mornings, but the sun was still hot at midday, and the air was dry as dust. Only night itself was cold.

  One day, Dion left them when a wolf pack loped past the riders. One moment, she was walking with Kiyun; the next minute, she was gone. Kiyun mounted the dnu he had been leading, and they rode on, following the thin road that occasionally appeared.

  It was barely dusk when Gamon and the others found a clearing in a stand of randerwood trees. They made camp efficiently, dug out a fire pit, and lined it with rocks. One moment, they were snapping the fallen branches for a fire pit; the next, she was at the edge of the clearing, watching them from the trees. It was Kiyun who saw her first again, and he stiffened in spite of himself. Gamon and Tehena looked up sharply. Like a wolf, Dion eyed them warily, and behind her, two of the Gray Ones melted back into the brush.

  “Dion,” Gamon said softly. “Come.”

  She hesitated, but Tehena gestured calmly. Finally, the wolf-walker stepped out of the dusty shadow. They could see her sleeve now, where it was gashed, and the stain of blood along it. Gamon motioned for her to come closer. She shrugged away, half shifting toward the forest. Only when Gamon stopped moving did she halt. Then, gingerly, he motioned instead toward her bedroll, which Kiyun had already spread. She hesitated, then moved to sit on the blankets. She curled up like a wolf beneath them, closed her eyes, and slept.

  “Her arm is gashed,” Asuli said, her voice low.

  “We noticed,” Kiyun said flatly, going back to snapping wood and stacking it in the fire pit.

  “It should be treated. She’ll get jellbugs if she runs around with an open wound like that.”

  The tall man fed the fire. “Dion won’t get jellbugs.”

  Asuli stared at him. “Are you that stupid? It’s summertime— the jellbugs are breeding like flies.”

  “Watch your tongue, Asuli.”

  “Just because she’s a healer doesn’t mean she’s suddenly immune to the dangers to her own body.”

  Kiyun gave her a grimly amused look. “You want to treat her? Go ahead and try.”

  “You’d let her die just because she doesn’t want to be touched right now? What kind of Kum-jan friend are you?”

  Kiyun’s voice was suddenly hard, his face shuttered. “There is no Kum-jan between us. We’re friends, not lovers, Asuli.”

  “You look at her—”

  He cut her off. “No,” he said flatly.
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  “Fine,” she retorted. She stalked to her saddle and pulled her own healing kit from it. But when she squatted down beside Dion, the wolfwalker’s eyes opened, and the snarl that came to Dion’s lips was audible. Deliberately, Asuli reached for Dion’s arm. Then she froze. The blade of a knife lay against her wrist.

  Asuli didn’t move, but her voice had the barest tremor. “It needs the sealing salve. There are jellbugs out here, and parasites that can clog your blood like hair in a water pipe. You, of all people, know that.”

  Dion’s lips moved, but the words were mangled by the pack-song that flooded her thoughts.

  Asuli reached for Dion’s arm again. “You’ve got to put the salve on—” The knife pressed into her skin. She gasped and jerked back. Eyes wide, she stared at the wolfwalker. “You would cut me?”

  “Don’t touch me.” This time Dion’s words were clear.

  “You’ve got to fix that open wound. You’ll die if you don’t close it off.”

  “The wound is closed. There are no jellbugs in it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s your prerogative.” Dion slipped the knife back in its sheath, but Asuli had no doubt that the steel would flash out again should she try to touch the wolfwalker.

  The intern’s lips compressed. “You don’t want me to see the wound because it’s already infected, is that it?”

  “Think what you want.”

  “I think you want to die, Healer, but you haven’t the guts to kill yourself quickly; you’ll let the jellbugs do it for you. It will just be a matter of time.”

  “It’s always a matter of time, Asuli—time to live or die. Time is nothing more than a measure of moments between memories.”

  Asuli stared at her. There was something in Dion’s eyes that caught her attention. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?” she said slowly. “What you did before—in Prandton? Only you’re doing it to yourself now. That’s why you think you can’t get jellbugs.”

  “I’m no longer a healer for you to harass. Go find some other amusement.”

  “Teach me.”

  “You can’t see through your own eyes, Asuli. How can you think to see through mine?”

  “Or through the eyes of the wolves?”

  “The Gray Ones require wolfwalkers with love and empathy, not hatred and aggression.”

  The intern’s face shuttered. Abruptly, she stood up and walked back to her saddle, where she dropped to watch Dion from across the clearing. She could feel her frustration jelling into hard determination. She breathed the words almost silently as she spoke to the air between them. “You might not like me near you, Dione, but no one else ever has either. Your disdain will not be enough to get me off your back. I’ll have my internship, Dione. I’ll take it from you if I have to save you myself to get what I want.”

  As if she somehow heard the words, the wolfwalker eyed the other woman, then turned her back and slept.

  The Gray Ones came for Dion at dawn, and she woke as they slunk up to the camp. Kiyun, on guard, watched them come. They edged around him warily but waited while he handed the wolfwalker one of the ash-baked tubers. Her hands trembled when she took the cooked root. Kiyun hesitated. He could feel the terrible rage that was consuming her from the inside out. “Dion,” he breathed. He touched her hand. She suffered the touch, but barely. When he met her eyes, he felt a chill. Abruptly, he stepped back.

  When Dion slipped silently out of camp, Asuli sat up. The intern eyed Kiyun thoughtfully. “Why don’t you go with her?” she asked.

  “She needs to be alone. I’ll not take that last thing from her.”

  “She’s alone whether she’s with us or not.”

  Kiyun didn’t answer.

  Asuli got up irritably and put her gear together. “We’re barely a day from the Colton villages. When will we buy her another dnu? Or will she simply walk all the way back to Ariye?”

  Kiyun looked down at the fire and stirred the ashes to see if there was a spark. His voice was soft. “She may not go back to Ariye.”

  “She’s Ariyen—at least ever since she mated with Aranur. Where else would she go?”

  “She could stay here. Her heart is still Randonnen.”

  “She has obligations. She can’t just quit her duties. The council wouldn’t let her.”

  Tehena, awakened when Asuli spoke, got up and packed her bedroll. “When Dion speaks, the elders listen. When Dion doesn’t speak, the elders still listen. She’s not part of the council; she’s the voice of the wolves and the wilderness. She’s bound by her sense of duty, nothing else. She can walk away when she wants to.”

  “As she is doing now.”

  Tehena shrugged. “She has that right.”

  “She had no right to abandon the people who rely on her. That’s selfishness, not self-preservation.”

  The other woman spat to the side.

  Asuli eyed her, then packed her gear in silence.

  They reached the Colton villages by late afternoon. It wasn’t a large town, but rather a series of small hubs separated by fields and streams that cut through the small farming valley. There was a commons house, but half of it was a stable, and the other half was being used as storage for bales of fabrics that were being packed for transport to other towns.

  NeCrihu, the stableman, was as tall as Kiyun and broader, if that was possible. Wiping his hands on a lice rag, he met them in the stable courtyard. He didn’t offer to grip arms with them, but it was not an insult. Instead, he looked them over without speaking, his dark brown gaze lingering on Dion’s face and the glint of yellow that clung to her eyes. His steady eyes noted the line of lesser tan on her forehead where she had worn the healer’s circlet, then a warcap. He didn’t smile at the way Tehena shifted almost protectively in front of the wolfwalker; instead, stuffing the lice rag in his pocket, he said calmly, “You’re looking fordnu?”

  “Two trail dnu with staying power,” Tehena said tersely. “That one, there—” She indicated the beast hitched to the currying post. “—is fine. And one more for carrying supplies.”

  “You’re taking the ridge route to Changsong? Or the north marsh route through the valley?”

  Tehena glanced at Dion. “Ridge route,” she said.

  He followed her gaze, but he was already shaking his head. “I’ve no dnu to sell you.”

  “Why?” Tehena’s eyes narrowed. “You think we’re raiders?”

  The dnuman shook his head. “You, perhaps. Not them.”

  Tehena didn’t smile.

  “I’ll not sell to you,” neCrihu repeated. “But I’ll loan you the beasts till you get to Changsong.” He walked to the barn. Taking a message ring from a bin, he wrapped a couple knots in the already prepared stick, cut it with the carving knife hanging by the door, and handed the stick to Gamon. “Give this to neCollen, in Changsong. He’ll sell you something there to ride, and send these back to me.”

  “How much?” Tehena asked.

  He shook his head. “I’ll not take gold from you.”

  “You’d loan them to us, not rent them?”

  NeCrihu glanced meaningfully at Dion. His voice was soft. “Ember Dione is one of ours.”

  “And that’s enough?”

  “Here, yes.”

  Tehena’s lips tightened, but Kiyun touched her arm. Abruptly, she nodded.

  Evening found them out of the valley and back into the mountains. There, the north forests were thick and the old roads rough as the back of a worlag. The next night found them up on a ridge. Clouds gathered one day, then burned away; gathered again the next. A single wagon caravan passed them on the road; the wagoneers stopped, and Gamon and Kiyun spoke with them at length. Then the forest was silent again.

  In the morning, one day out of Changsong, Dion left at dawn when the wolf pack howled from the ridge. But the others had barely finished breakfast when she returned. She melted out of the forest like a ghost; Asuli jumped when the dnu beside her grunted its warning. Dion looked at the intern
, then at Gamon and the others. She was breathing quickly, as if she had run, and her hands were stained with dark patches. But the marks weren’t blood, Kiyun realized; they were sap stains and something else.

  “Stay,” Dion said tersely. She stooped and took his machete from his pack. Then she faded back into the ferns. She was out of sight within seconds.

  Asuli stared after her. “Stay?” she asked Gamon. “What does that mean?”

  The older man rolled his eyes.

  “It means stay,” Kiyun answered for him.

  “Stay and do what?”

  “Wait.” Tehena uncinched the saddle she had just tightened onto her dnu.

  “Wait?”

  The lanky woman dropped the saddle over the log beside Asuli. “Wait patiently.”

  “That’s it? No questions asked? No ’What will you be doing, Dione, while we sit here on our behinds?’”

  Tehena shrugged.

  Asuli seemed to explode. “You’re a bunch of idiots,” she snapped. “What do you think she is? A moonmaid? A god? The wonder healer, the great Dione—”

  Tehena’s open slap struck so blindingly fast that Asuli’s whole body rocked back before she knew she had been hit. The hard-faced woman glared at her like a lepa.

  Asuli pressed one hand hard to her cheek. “You can’t silence the truth,” she managed. “No matter how you strike at it.” She checked her hand for blood. Gingerly, she touched her cheek again.

  Tehena didn’t move. “And what do you see as truth, Asuli?”

  “Dione’s just a woman,” snapped the intern. “And a poor excuse for one, at that. She’s no elder to command you here and there. No venge leader to demand your loyalty. She throws away what she is just because she’s too lazy to look at herself. You ask what the truth is? It’s that Dione is just another weak-willed person who can’t handle life as it is.” She sat down on a log and rubbed at her cheek.

  Kiyun shook his head. “You know nothing, woman. If Dion has our loyalty, it’s because she earned it.”

  Asuli snorted. “When?” she demanded. “How long ago? Five years? Ten years? Twenty?”