Wolf Hunting (36 page)

Derian, his excitement at riding Eshinarvash only apparent because his companions could smell it in his sweat, turned to Plik, an easy grin lighting his features.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over these last couple of years it’s that it’s usually worth taking the trouble to check the area out. I’ve rarely felt stupid afterwards when nothing happens—only when something happens that I could have prevented if I’d been more careful.”

He went on to tell a tale from his first trip into New Kelvin, a tale imolving an attack by some very nasty bandits. Plik felt his fur rise as he listened, and he wondered what would have happened to him if he’d been there. Nothing good, of that much he was certain.

Eshinarvash seemed to be having similar thoughts, for his skin kept rippling as if to chase off imaginary flies.

Listening to the tale actually increased their alertness rather than diminishing it. They located the remnants of what Derian said looked like farmsteads. They stopped for lunch in what had obviously been an orchard. However, although they found ample signs of the former human inhabitants, they found none of the other inhabitants who should have been there.

“No large predators,” Eshinarvash said, scenting the wind, his nostrils flared. “No great herds, though these plains are an invitation to browsers and grazers alike. Have you noticed that even the larger birds are not evident ? There are ample songbirds, a few crows, but no hawks, no eagles, no ravens. Where have they gone? What has driven them away?”

Derian, who had been refilling their canteens from a spring, scanned the horizon as if his hazel eyes might see what the horse’s sense of smell had missed.

“I wish I knew,” he said.

“I wonder if you do?”
asked a voice from up in one of the trees.
“I really wonder if you do?”

Derian looked startled, and Plik realized that the human had not heard words, only a drawn-out sound rather like “shiiish.”

However, when Eshinarvash raised his head and snorted, the human reached for the sword he wore at his waist. Plik’s heart skipped a beat in his excitement. What was there? How had they missed it?

“Who’s there?”
he asked.
“We do wish to know We have come searching for those who should be here
.”

The rasping hiss took on a deeper, snoring note.

“But you travel. with a human.
Surely you am not to be trusted.”

“He is a human,”
Plik said.
“That is true. What does that matter?”

“Humans happened here,” came the reply. “Two humans, so battered and insignificant that none worried much about their coming. A few warned us that humans are dangerous. They warned us that bad things would happen, especially when the newcomers began poking around the old buildings, but we did not listen—much to our misfortune.
”

Derian was looking very disturbed now. “Plik, I can tell you and Eshinarvash are talking to someone. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Plik raised both hands to stroke the white line of his eyebrows. “As soon as I know, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

XVII

THE NOISES THAT WERE COMING from the leafy cover of the pear tree under which they had sat to take their lunch made Derian’s skin crawl. They were hoarse and rasping, terse and truncated, and sounded full of barely suppressed anger.

Plik and Eshinarvash seemed more excited than afraid, and Derian soon gathered why. At last they had found one of the missing yarimaimalom.

The creature in question turned out to be what Derian had grown up calling a barn owl, although the creature in question apparently took great offense at the term with its implications that her people depended on humans for nesting areas. She—the creature in question turned out to be female—was a lovely creature. Her facial feathers were pure white, deep-set, and unusually flat, even for an owl. The contrast of this elongated white face to her rusty-brown upper plumage and pale under plumage was striking and oddly unsettling.

She introduced herself with the name Night’s Terror, but she seemed more terrified than terrible. Whenever Derian so much as looked directly at her, she rutched up her feathers and made horrible noises. Eventually, when Plik and Eshinarvash had worked her story from her, Derian didn’t much blame Night’s Terror for her reaction.

Night’s Terror had been born in the forests that bordered this plain and had rarely had reason to leave the area since. She had never even seen a human until the arrival of two who must have been the twins a year or so before. Several of the winged folk who kept a wider range knew what humans were, and explained that they could be dangerous, but other yarimaimalom noted that these two humans looked like a breed that had been typically found to be favorably disposed to the Wise Beasts.

“A few of our kind,” Night’s Terror went on, with Plik translating for Derian, “great arrogant beasts of that type that fear little in any case, went to call upon these newcomers. These self-appointed ambassadors were immediately recognized by the humans as Kind rather than Cousin, and given fair welcome. The humans made clear that they had no intention of harming the current residents, and even made some effort to ascertain which beasts they would be permitted to hunt and which they must avoid.

“To be honest, we rather welcomed these two humans. They were amusing and interesting, something new to gossip about during the dull stretches of winter. The humans experienced some difficulties during the winter, for they were singularly ill adapted to survive, but when there was game to spare the predators dropped something by. Even I dropped off the occasional mouse or vole.”

Derian hid a grin at the thought of how those two humans must have reacted to finding dead mice on their doorstep, but then he recalled the rare times Firekeeper had talked about her childhood. She had spoken about the thin times of winter when even the wolf pack’s assistance had not been enough to keep her from starvation. Perhaps the twins might have appreciated those mice more than Derian had first supposed.

“Something changed soon after the coming of spring,” Night’s Terror went on. “I cannot say what it was, for I was busy with fledglings and had little time or attention for anything else. However, those who had befriended the humans said that they scented strange things in and about the place the two humans had taken for their lair. A few of the keener-nosed claimed they scented other humans, but we all knew this was impossible. No human could have entered this territory without our knowing”

Plik raised a hand and said something he immediately translated for Derian. “Night’s Terror, earlier you said that these strange humans ‘poked around old buildings.’ What old buildings? We have seen nothing that would qualify, only some roofless foundations”

Night’s Terror ruffled her feathers. “You force my tale out of turn. One of the strangest things that happened was when the buildings wherein the two humans had made their nest began to change. The first change was social rather than otherwise. The yarimaimalom who had taken to visiting the pair of humans found themselves no longer invited in past the main entry.

“Next many noticed that the plant growth had become thicker. At first nothing much was thought of this, for those who had visited human lands related how humans had a special art for making plants grow where they desired and often rather more swiftly than one would expect. Later, however, when trees that should have taken several years to grow appeared overnight, then questions were asked, but by then it was too late to ask them.”

Night’s Terror paused and swiveled her head around so that even Derian knew she was waiting to be prompted. Eshinarvash did so with a snort and a stamp of one hoof.

“The two humans had ceased to go abroad,” Night’s Terror went on. “Nor did they speak with the yarimaimalom any longer. Where once there had been a large building in rather better condition than any other building in the area there was now a copse of trees.”

“A copse of trees,” .,Plik repeated. “You mean that strange one to the southwest, nearer to the river?”

“That very one,” Night’s Terror agreed. “You know how curious certain Beasts can be. Where I was willing to leave well enough alone, others had to pry. Some went into that wood. None ever returned.”

“None?” Derian asked in surprise.

Night’s Terror flapped her wings at the sound of his voice, but deigned answer after Plik translated.

“None. I think it was some sort of cat that went in first, though it might have been a bear. The humans had a gift for making sweet things the bears quite liked. In any case, whichever beast it was didn’t come out again, nor was a body found, nor was blood scented by those who claimed they would have known. These foolish first ones had friends, and these risked themselves to try and find their friends. These too vanished.

“Soon after, other bad things began to happen. Briars that seemed to have a taste for living meat started growing at the verges of the forest. Beasts wise and not so became their prey. Then—and I tell you this is true, though I don’t expect you to believe me—there came creatures with the form of beasts, but made of vine and twig.”

Eshinarvash pawed the ground, drawing a trench through the moldering pear leaves with his hoof.

“We have some knowledge of these,” Plik translated faithfully. Derian realized that though there was little reason he should have done so, he had understood the Wise Horse.

“You have?” Night’s Terror asked, and made herself into a feathery oval.

Plik stroked a hand along the white line of his eyebrows and said to Derian, “Wait while I tell her what Firekeeper saw.”

After a time, the maimalodalu resumed translating.

“I thought I saw smoke,” Night’s Terror said, “but those forests have become so unpleasant now that I did not go and check. As long as the smoke remained among the trees, I would be safe, isolated here as I am.”

She smoothed her feathers, preening to calm herself, then resumed. “You do not need to stretch your imagination to realize that soon this had become too dangerous a place for most to reside. The herds left first, Cousins leading the way, for they had no curiosity to keep them, only a strong sense that this was no safe place to raise their fawns and calves. The Wise who often dwell among their Cousin types followed, and soon the predators who relied upon these for their meals also went.”

“But you remained,” Eshinarvash said. “Why?”

“My mate, Golden Feather, strayed into that copse,” Night’s Terror replied. “There was a night of storm and in his eagerness to take refuge he mistook that copse for another. Like all the others, he never emerged. I would have given him up for lost and gone on with the others, but for some reason I could not. Fault me for being irrational, but I could not leave without knowing.”

Plik said, “Not knowing can be worse than knowing. Believe me, I understand that. I think you are very brave.”

“Very foolish,” the owl said. “Very, very foolish. I know this, but for some reason I cannot leave until I know.”

“Are you the only yarimaimalom who remains?” Plik asked.

“Not the only,” Night’s Terror replied “Some others have stayed, but almost all either smaller creatures—littler cats, foxes, I believe a raccoon or so—or those with wings. We keep loose contact with each other, but this is no time in which numbers bring safety.”

“I wonder why we’ve seen no one else?” Eshinarvash asked.

“Because you travel with humans,” Night’s Terror replied bluntly. “Humans brought this wrongness to our land. Those of us who remain will have nothing to do with humans.”

Derian felt very uncomfortable, but he didn’t protest. Quite honestly, he wanted very little to do with those twins himself. What had they done? Had they discovered some old magics and awakened them to life?

As much as Derian dreaded this possibility, this seemed the most likely explanation for what had happened. He wished with all his heart that he and his companions could simply turn away as if they knew nothing of any of this, as if they had never heard of the twins, as if the Meddler had never come to haunt Truth’s dreams. Derian knew, however, that like the owl, he and his companions would not leave until they knew what dwelled there in that impossible copse.

THAT NIGHT, after Derian had reported on his band’s explorations, Firekeeper lay half awake considering what they had learned that day, and feeling a certain dissatisfaction that more of what had been learned had not been the result of her and Blind Seer’s efforts.

Of course, now she knew that the reason none of the local yarimaimalom had approached them was because they had reason to fear humans, but that hardly made Firekeeper feel any better.

Night’s Terror had spoken to Plik and Eshinarvash, even though Derian had been with them. Why had no one taken the chance on her and Blind Seer? Could it simply be that she and Blind Seer had not chanced so close to an active lair, or might it have been that to any who watched they might have been taken for a woman and her dog?

Firekeeper reached over and rubbed Blind Seer behind one ear and was rewarded by the wolf continuing to sleep. Were any other to come so near he would be on his feet in an instant, fangs bared, a growl in his throat, but he trusted her.

And was his reward for that trust to be taken for a dog?

Firekeeper lay there beside the wolf, listening to the night sounds, thinking about what they had learned, wondering just how they were going to get into that copse. Actually, getting in seemed to be fairly easy. Getting out was apparently the problem. Truth said she might be able to supply a solution, but that she was not yet ready to explore the matter further. Even Firekeeper’s dead nose had smelled the acrid tang of the great cat’s uneasiness, and she had not pressed the matter.

Gradually, between breath and breath and breath again, Firekeeper became aware that the night was quieter than it should be. The insect noises had faded away to almost nothing. Only a single obnoxiously persistent cricket continued to court the night. There was an odd feel to the air as well, a stirring where there should not be.