Wolf Hunting (60 page)

Derian stumbled back, knowing he had crossed some line without even knowing he had been making a choice. His hand touched a garment hanging on a rack near the door—a thick cloak sewn from some spotted fur. His fingers tightened on its softness. He imagined it worn by the milky-skinned woman as she went about her chores.

What had he done? He’d opened the door and let the wolves in on three sleeping women. He’d been angry and revolted, but this quick, efficient slaughter … it seemed worse than what had been done to the yarimaimalom—if those had been yarimaimalom hides he’d seen.

Was it worse? These women had died quickly in their sleep. Only one had even had a suspicion that anything was wrong.

But they’d been human. Did he really want to believe that the yarimaimalom had the right to dispense their form of justice and punishment? Where did that leave him?

It was the doubt as much as anything else that made Derian suddenly sick, his knees so weak he had to grasp the doorframe to turn himself around so he could get out of that room. The wolves were leaving now. Derian felt a peculiar relief. He’d known they’d been kept half-starved. He didn’t know what he would have done if they’d stayed to eat their kill.

He staggered out, gulping the cool night air. Harjeedian appeared beside him, put a hand on his arm.

“Are you all right?”

“No,” Derian said frankly, “but we’d better get out of here, even if there’s no one left to raise an alarm.”

“I took one of the lanterns,” Harjeedian said. “It’s a panel model. We can open only as much as we need to see our way back.”

But even so, Derian needed to lean on the other man’s arm as they headed back to the gate, surrounded by creatures that filled Derian with a deep, soul-twisting fear.

PLIK WAS DREAMING that he was eating shellfish and honey with Powerful Tenderness when some part of his sleeping mind registered that the tapping on the windowpane was not the sound of oyster shells being tossed on the growing heap between him and his friend.

He sat up and saw something large and dark darting outside the window, rapping erratically while performing some peculiar aerial dance. Plik moved to look more closely and the image resolved into a large raven dodging the slow but determined attempts of the blood briar that grew outside his windows to snag it

Climbing onto the window seat, Plik opened the window and the raven flew in. Faithful to its training, the briar remained without, although Plik thought that it continued to rub against the glass longer than was necessary.

To Plik’s amazement, the raven proved to be Lovable.

“We’re here to rescue you,” she said proudly. “All of us. Firekeeper and Blind Seer will be in soon. Firekeeper told me to have you awaken the twins and tell them they are coming with us—whether they want to or not.”

Plik’s still sleepy mind assimilated this torrent of information laboriously. He’d dreamed of rescue before, and most of those dreams made at least as much sense as this.

“Firekeeper and Blind Seer?”

“They are going to take out the guard.”

“Not kill him!” Plik said with concern. The guards, as far as he could tell from his own experience and the twins’ report, were fairly decent fellows. Mostly they were Twice Dead who had limited skills to offer their community beyond size and a certain amount of training with weapons. They served as guards when needed and general laborers when not.

“Probably they won’t kill him,” Lovable said. Plik thought the raven sounded disappointed, but then, given what had been done to Bitter, Lovable probably had little desire for mercy to be shown to any of these singularly bloodthirsty humans.

Plik considered his options.

“I’ll tell the twins,” he said.

To this point, Plik had been given no reason to go into the twins’ cottage, but when he’d awakened that afternoon, he’d gone with Isende when she went to fetch more yarn. From the brief tour she had given him, he had a fair idea where everything lay.

The twins’ cottage was somewhat larger than Plik’s own. It possessed two rooms. One was used as general living quarters, and, at night, as Tiniel’s bedroom. The other, much smaller room, was Isende’s.

The cottage’s front door was not locked. Not wanting to alert the guard in the event that Firekeeper had not yet put him out of action, Plik lifted the latch as quietly as he could and walked in without announcing himself. Lovable strutted in after him with that particularly raven gait that was both bold and alert.

As they entered, Tiniel stirred slightly on his cot near the hearth, but didn’t awaken. Plik stirred up the fire so there would be light for the humans to see by, then shook the young man by one shoulder.

“’Sende?” Tiniel murmured. He moved as if to draw Plik into bed with him. When his hand met fur, it stopped abruptly.

He woke more fully, and opened his eyes.

“Plik?”

“Wake up,” Plik said, keeping his voice in the conversational range, and crossing to Isende’s door. Unlike the outer door, this one was locked. He rapped on it sharply.

“What is it, Tin?” Isende’s sleepy voice called a moment later. “Has Plik taken a turn for the worse?”

“This is Plik. I’ve something important to tell you—and, no, it can’t wait until morning.”

Clad in a long, shapeless robe, Isende emerged almost immediately. Tiniel was sitting up in his cot, staring at Lovable, who had taken a proprietary perch on his blanket-covered foot.

“Don’t make my job more difficult,”
Plik scolded the raven.
“Go tell Firekeeper how things stand”

“What happened to your face?”
the raven asked, getting her first look at the shaven section in the light from the fire.

“Later,”
Plik said.
“Go .report to Firekeeper. Tell her not to kill the guard.”

Lovable chortled and obediently winged off through the door Plik held open. He closed it and immediately began talking.

“My friends have come for us,” he said. “Get dressed and grab anything you need. Knowing Firekeeper, she’s not going to wait for you to pack.”

“Here?” Tiniel said, getting up and beginning to pull on trousers under his nightshirt. “They came through the gate?”

“I assume so,” Plik said. “The season’s all wrong here for this place to be close enough to home for them to have come overland. Further north for one, I’d guess, but maybe the Old World is colder overall. You did tell me this place was in the Old World.”

“Right,” Tiniel said. “Sorry. I think I was still asleep.”

He’d buttoned his trousers and was thrusting his arms into shirt sleeves. Isende had vanished, but her voice came from her bedroom door.

“I don’t understand. How could they figure out how to use the gate without notes? We took everything with us.”

“They’re pretty remarkable people,” Plik said smugly. “My guess is that this is going to be a quick strike. In and out, then back through the gate. It’s quite possible that the Once Dead and their people won’t even know we’re gone until daylight comes and you’re not at the gate waiting for the breakfast tray.”

“Oh!” Isende said, her voice rising with anxiety. “Do you think all of them came?”

“Probably the entire group,” Plik replied, confused. What did this matter? Why didn’t Isende sound happier?

“But don’t you see …” Isende was beginning when the door swung open and Firekeeper came in, Blind Seer beside her.

Almost as if they were still linked, the twins gaped as one, staring at the intruder, expressions filled with mingled wonder and shock.

Plik had forgotten just how remarkable Firekeeper might appear to those who did not know her. He had now been around a sufficient number of humans to realize that Firekeeper didn’t even move like a human. She didn’t move like a wolf—that would have been impossible given that she was both bipedal and had excellent posture—but if a wolf could move like a human, that wolf would have been Firekeeper. Then there were her eyes. They were far, far darker than the amber and gold that glowed from the faces of most wolves, but Firekeeper’s eyes held the same unfocused yet ever focused gaze of the pack predator, aware both of her prey and those with whom she hunted.

Firekeeper padded soundlessly into the center of the room, ran a hand through her already tousled hair, then dropped it onto Blind Seer’s shoulder.

“Guard is out,” Firekeeper said in Liglimosh, evidently pleased with herself. “He still stand, though, and so until relief come should look like is on duty. When relief due?”

Tiniel was gaping at the wolf-woman, but he closed his mouth and managed a question. “Is it past midnight?”

“Think so.”

“Then not until dawn—probably. Might be sooner, though, now that the nights are getting longer.”

“We have time, then,” Firekeeper said. Those dark, dark eyes inspected Plik, and a smile touched them at finding him in one piece, then a frown as he turned his head and she saw the shaven place, but she didn’t ask anything. “Ready to go?”

Isende found her voice. “But don’t you see? You can’t go back to the New World. If you go back, you’ll carry Divine Retribution with you and who knows how many people will die!”

XXIX

TRUTH SAT, tail wrapped around her paws, watching the prisoners. Above their gags, the Once Dead glowered at her in undisguised hatred and resentment. The other two were more relaxed. Truth thought that Verul might even be asleep.

The difference,
she thought,
between believing one has power, and knowing that one does not.

Eshinarvash was standing near the opening to the outdoors.

“I hear sounds from the direction of the menagerie.”

“An alarm?”

“No. Success, I think. Small whimpers and cries of joy. I doubt a human would even hear them.”

“What do you smell?”

The stallion’s nostrils flared. When he angled his head to catch the correct wind, his long mane danced on the currents. He was a beautiful enough beast that Truth could look at him with admiration uncolored by the least trace of hunger.

“Many beasts,” Eshinarvash said. “Some tainted by illness and rot. There is a touch of blood as well. Human, I think. Yes. Human.”

“Well, as long as it doesn’t belong to either of our humans,” Truth said, “that’s all right. I am beginning to understand why the Royal Beasts strove to drive the Old Country rulers from the land. I wonder at the courage our ancestors showed in being willing to make truce with them.”

“Courage,” the horse said, stamping one hoof against the stone, “or necessity. Ah … Here come the first, led by Onion.”

“It will be impossibly crowded if they all come in here,” Truth said, “nor do I think these will have any love for walls. Suggest they remain outside, but remind them to be quiet.”

The Wise Horse raised his tail and deposited a few round droppings on the floor.

“I will do so,” he said with such mildness that Truth was left to ponder whether the defecation had been deliberate insult or not.

“Here come our humans,” Eshinarvash added. He trotted out of the doorway and a few moments later returned with Derian and Harjeedian. Both men were quiet and there was something odd about how Derian shied when Truth came over to greet him.

Harjeedian gave the Wise Jaguar a respectful bow, gathered up the pack of medical supplies he had not carried with him to the menagerie, and, after saying a few inconsequential words to Derian, quickly departed.

Truth lashed her tail. “Derian has never shown so much fear of me before; only healthy respect. Can you find out what happened?”

Eshinarvash snorted. “Maybe if you go outside. Ask the others what happened. Derian seems to take comfort from me. Together we can guard these four and I will see if Derian will talk.”

Truth was glad enough to leave the enclosed building and her glowering prisoners. She leapt lightly over the still steaming horse apples, and padded over to where Onion was supervising Harjeedian’s inspection of a paw-sized sore on a young wolf’s shoulder.

“Derian is edgy,” Truth said. “What happened?”

Onion gave his own shoulder a quick, nervous lick in sympathy for the injured wolf before offering reply.

“We told you some of what was done to us by those who imprisoned us here. We did not wish to be thought whining pups, so we did not tell you everything—all the torments they heaped upon us for no other reason than that it amused them.”

Perhaps,
Truth thought uncharitably,
you didn’t tell us because you feared you would frighten us off and you needed our help
.

When the wolfling made as if to snap at Harjeedian, Onion leaned forward, grabbed the young wolf by the neck scruff, and shook him solidly.

“Be still and silent, pup! This human is helping you.”

The young wolf subsided as wolves always did when chided by their seniors, but his yellow-eyed gaze remained distrustful and unkind.

Onion returned his attention to Truth. “The pup has reason for his fear. We told you that some of us had died here. What we did not tell you was what happened afterwards. Those who called themselves our keepers would skin the dead one, scrape the hide, and prepare it as they do those of Cousin-kin. When the weather grew cooler—and often at night when the winds from the ocean were brisk—they wore garments made of these hides when they tended us. It was mockery and reminder both.

“When young Derian saw some hides still drying, he instantly understood what had been done. Up to that moment, his scent had been filled with honest fear and apprehension—good things when on a hunt so uncertain. After he saw the drying hides, you could not smell the fear for the fury. Derian opened the keepers’ den to us without our asking, and he opened the way into their sleeping lair as well. Only after we had made certain that these cruel ones would ‘keep’ no others did Derian’s scent change. Now he smells sick and uneasy.”

“And Harjeedian?”

“He, too, smelled of anger, but never this sickness. I do not understand.”

“Derian’s people know little of our kind,” Truth said, “while Harjeedian’s have lived side by side with us since Divine Retribution came. Tell this tale to Firekeeper when she returns. She may have words to comfort Derian where Harjeedian would not.”