Hishn growled. Run toward the second moon. The brush is clear, the path well worn.

  Dion nodded. “Aranur,” she called. “Cut over to the east. The ground should be more clear.”

  She could not tell if he nodded his own answer, but ahead of her he was already cutting to their left, leading the way beneath trees that grew taller with each stride they took. There the shade deepened again, and the brush grew sparse until a dim trail crossed their feet in a fork. One path led north, the other northeast. But at last the air was clear of the cloying scent of the masa, and Aranur spared only a glance at the trees. If there was no danger of masa to the wolves, there should be none to the humans, or Dion would have warned him. He paused and looked back, waiting for the wolf­walker to catch up. He nod­ded at the path.

  “That way,” she said, pointing at the northeast fork and having time to catch her breath only once before he led off at a quicker pace. She glanced back. Hishn was near: she could sense it. Of the masa, there was no sign.

  They could see almost twenty meters through the trees, and Aranur jogged only to the top of the next gully before stopping again. His eyes took in the forest right and left, and he listened carefully, while Dion, coming alongside, again caught her breath. “We can walk,” he said finally. “Hishn?”

  She glanced east, her eyes unfocused for a moment. “A few minutes away,” she said finally. “But the Gray Ones say that the last growth circle of masa is two gullies behind us.”

  “If the masa was this thick here, there might be more along the way, and Gamon probably went on ahead with the others. He might need us.”

  Dion said nothing at the unspoken criticism, but when Ara­nur began to hike, she set her feet in a jog again, and he, with a glance at her face, did the same.

  It took him several minutes to realize they were being shad­owed, but even as he became aware of the hunters, he caught a glimpse of gray fur and realized it was Hishn and another wolf who paralleled them along the hill. A moment later, the second wolf was gone, and Aranur wondered if Dion had sent it away.

  As Hishn drew closer, Dion's eyes took in the wolf's images along with her own. With the wolf in her mind, she saw the trail from two heights and smelled through a nose more sen­sitive than her own. And Hishn, whose yellow eyes sent both memory and speech to the woman, stretched her legs to leap up the steep slope and join Dion.

  The hunger was strong, the gray wolf sent with a memory of the masa. Strong, like the badgerbear who wakes in spring and finds his stomach six months' empty.

  Dion smiled, her teeth clicking together as she jumped off a log that angled its way down the hill. It is behind us now, Hishn. But if there is any more masa between us and the others, let us know now.

  There is more than masa to make my nose curl here.

  Dion glanced behind her, then peered past Aranur through the woods.

  Men, the wolf added, stopping suddenly and sniffing the ground, then turning around and sniffing again. Old tracks— old by days. But tracks of men who run silent. Men who hide their tracks on stone, and stink of stealth, not speed.

  “Aranur,” Dion said. “There have been other men along this path since the last rain. These could be patrols, not just isolated trackers.”

  “If there are patrols here, we have more to worry about than I thought. Stay sharp,” he warned. “We tempt all nine moons by traveling so fast.”

  The game trail went up the hill more steeply, and Aranur finally dropped to a fast stride. His long legs took him over the jutting rocks and brush quickly, but Dion's thighs ached and burned until she was lifting them by rote, not feeling. She stumbled twice, the second time landing on her hip before catching hold of a low branch and pulling herself to the side of the small avalanche of needles and dirt she had started. Hishn, close enough to lose her footing as well, snarled and leapt to the side and then up above the slide path where a log kept more dirt from rolling down.

  Aranur glanced over his shoulder as he realized that Dion was no longer behind him, then hesitated and turned back.

  “Go on,” she muttered. She struggled out of the branches and grabbed a handful of needles to throw over the narrow slide. When the next rain came, the scrape would wash out as erosion. She stepped over the slide path after Hishn, but Ara­nur waited. “You don't have to stop,” she said sharply as she reached the top of the hill.

  But to her surprise, Aranur shook his head. “I'm sorry, Dion,” he said quietly. “I'm pushing too hard.”

  Her burning legs made her want to rub them until they stopped screaming at her, but she stood straight. “It's not as if I'm not used to running the hills, Aranur.”

  He looked her over carefully, noting the shadows of exhaus­tion under her eyes and the lean, almost gaunt way her cheek­bones were pronounced in her clear face. There was only muscle on her long, slender legs, and her tunic hung loosely beneath her stolen leather mail. As she caught her breath, Aranur wondered again at the bond of the wolves. Few could take the strain of scouting as Dion had done for him and his group. Did the Gray Ones give her strength of will as well as the use of their senses? He shook his head and met her eyes. “You've been driving as hard as any of us, Dion. And you've been out scouting with Hishn every night for the last two ninans while the others caught extra sleep. You've had even less rest than I.”

  She took a last deep breath and shifted her sword forward on her hip. “As you said,” she returned, “we're close to the border of Bilocctar. We can't afford to be seen.”

  “You'll be less use to yourself and to us if you're worn out.”

  The wolf­walker flushed slowly. “Is that Aranur the weapons master speaking, or Aranur the man?”

  He gave her a strange look. “Perhaps both.”

  It was Dion who turned away first, the flush fading so that only two high, red spots were left on her cheeks. Hishn, who panted and sniffed the air around them, fell in beside Dion as the woman silently picked up Aranur's pace and followed along the trail.

  Breathe, step, step. Half a kilometer passed. Then another. They had to be getting close to Gamon and the others, though it would take Dion and Aranur longer than Dion had at first thought. Her feet padded quietly on the dirt in their worn boots, but her legs were again numb. The pouches of herbs at her belt made a soft syncopation with her stride until it was thrown off as she clambered over a set of logs. Hishn brushed through the branches like a ghost, and Dion ducked after. Her ankle twisted again. It nearly threw her, but she caught herself like a thought and ignored the shooting pain, knowing that it, like the other aches, would dull in a few moments and disappear.

  Breathe, step, step. Hishn snorted softly and faded into the brush, and the taste of dust clung suddenly to Dion's tongue. The wolf­walker spit to the side, clearing her mouth and mind of Hishn's images. Only the gray thread of their bond held strongly between them.

  She crossed a shallow gully. Her legs burned and her lungs ached for deeper breaths as she forced herself to plod up the other side. She damped her thoughts to the path. Ahead of her, sharp deer prints cut across the trail, and she ran around them to keep them clear; the droppings were scattered and fresh, and there, where one deer had turned suddenly, the whole herd had bolted. Her feet kept a rhythm with the Gray Ones running beside her. There were two voices now. Hishn's voice was strong and clear; the second one a faded gray that crept into her mind as if by mistake.

  Two kilometers. Then three. A wide circle, nearly complete. They had to be close. Dion frowned. Another wolf had joined the other two, and their thoughts were not silent anymore. She could hear them, and then the scent that rose suddenly to Hishn's nose spoke more sharply to the wolf­walker than the snarl that Hishn sent.

  “Aranur,” she whispered urgently. “Get down!”

  He froze, catching himself midstride, and shot a look over his shoulder. Behind him, Dion leapt to a thin log, stepped across to a small rock, and disappeared into a fiat stretch of grass that grew only a few sparse handspans high. Aranur shoved his half-drawn sword back into its sheath, then jumped from the path into a shallow dip behind an upended tree's rootball. Flinging himself down, he pulled a redfern across his chest, then stretched a loose branch over his face.

  Ten meters away, Dion lay flat against the ground. She had pulled her healer's band off, and it lay cool against her warm skin inside her jerkin. The grass, half brown, half yellow, covered her but barely, but her leggings and mail were so worn that they blended in with the dirt. She pulled a clump of short grass from the ground and set it on her hip; it would help hide the space her body made in the clearing. In her mind, she heard Hishn growl again and knew that the wolf had retreated up the hill to stand in shadow. But the scent of men remained, and Dion breathed silently, knowing that the Gray One was right. There were scouts on the path.

  One minute. Two. Would Aranur stay down? At this dis­tance, she could not reach him through the wolf. Even her brother Rhom could not hear the Gray One until he looked into those yellow eyes. But Dion worried. Four minutes passed, and then five. A pair of junko birds flew back to a branch over her head, and a minute later a rabbit crept back to nibble on a half-eaten leaf.

  Gray One, she sent. Do you see them?

  Like clumsy deer, Hishn sent back. Her lips curled back and the bristle on her back was raised. They come.

  The woman sorted out the sounds of the birds, then the sounds of the wind in the leaves, and finally the steady pound­ing of her own heart and lungs. And then the faintest sound of something else reached her ears. She relaxed. She breathed with the earth and stretched her senses like the wolf, listening as each step brought the hunters closer. And then the sound came again, and she knew it for cloth and leather rubbing together.

  The scouts. They would pass Aranur first. Had he left a track on the trail? No, he was as careful as she was. Now she could hear them clearly, and there were at least three. I hear them. Gray One, she told the wolf.

  There are more behind those that you hear now. The image the wolf sent was of three men, one of them carrying a basket, and then the sharp sounds of two more. Dion resisted the temptation to hold her breath. In the first group, one of the men paused, his soft boots losing their rhythm as he scanned the brush, but his eyes passed over the flat meadow and went to the trees and shrubs instead. The wolf­walker did not move. Then the junko birds, scolding at the man on the path, dropped down to a lower branch, and she heard his soft snort of humor before his feet moved on.

  Dion remained still. Another four minutes. Ten. The gnats found her legs and then her face and hovered overhead, but she did not wave them away. As another pair of junkos joined the couple on the branch above, Dion watched them as they watched the trail. A moment later she heard the pair of men padding after the first three. She wished she dared to raise her head to see them, but Hishn warned her again.

  They run with purpose, the gray wolf sent. They run with the others, I can hear the steel against the leather from here.

  Dion hid her smile. Hishn's voice held as much disdain as dislike. Are these the last?

  I hear no more along the trail.

  Dion broke off their silent speech, holding still as the new scouts' footsteps became audible and padded by the clearing. She waited until they had faded to silence before querying the wolf again.

  It is safe, Hishn sent back.

  They do not scout behind them, sent a second wolf, who appeared on the trail as Dion sat up quietly.

  The woman met the strange wolf's eyes. Gray One, she sent softly, you honor me.

  You run with the pack, the other wolf returned. It trotted after the scouts and disappeared.

  Hishn ghosted down from the hill as Dion carefully replaced the clump of grass she had pulled out and made her way back to the path. She glanced around but could only sense Aranur through the Gray Ones; his hiding place was perfect to her. Aranur, seeing that she was up, appeared suddenly from beside the rootball, and she grinned.

  “Another game you learned from your Uncle Gamon?” she asked softly as she returned the healer's band to her forehead and settled her warcap firmly on top of the rest of her loose hair.

  The lean man looked after the scouts. “My uncle has taught me many things,” he returned soberly.

  The look on his face ... the way his hand gripped his sword ... Dion's eyes shadowed, and she turned away from the pain of his memory. One of his girl cousins had died from a raider's sword not three ninans before. And a merchant—another of Aranur's friends—had died that way, as well. Neither the speed of Aranur's sword nor the edge of his will had been able to save them. Nor the healing skill of Dion's hands. She stared at the man, but her eyes did not see. There were ghosts in her past, too, that haunted her skills, souls whose faces were both old and young. She could not carry his ghosts, as well.

  The wolf nudged her hand and whined softly.

  “Come on,” Aranur said harshly. “Let's go.”

  Chapter 2

  Question of the elders at the Test of Abis: If you took Danger And distilled it And drank it, What would it taste like?

  An hour later, Aranur and Dion had found fresh signs of Aranur's uncle, Gamon, and the others. The wolf­walker was leading. With Hishn to send her Gamon's scent, Dion moved quickly, glancing and choosing trails unerringly while the tall man behind her kept a keener watch for scouts. Dion's gaze was distant, as if she were sensing the trails more through the gray wolf than her own eyes, but it sharpened when the sound of a twig snapping brought her up short. It was only a fleeing treecat, and Aranur shrugged wryly. Hishn, who snorted at the two humans' alarm, trotted on ahead, and Dion smiled briefly. The Gray One was getting hungry, and the treecat had been a reminder that hunger was a drive that could not be ignored. The wolf­walker promised Hishn a hunt in half an hour or less. Hishn, looking longingly after the treecat, whined softly and paralleled the healer along the trail.

  A few meters later, Dion paused and chose one of the paths that forked before her. She had been right; Gamon had taken the group along the rocks to hide their prints, then across a clearing and into the forest on the other side. The tips of the grass were still bent back from their passage. Aranur jogged up beside her, and she pointed to one side where they could cross the same expanse without leaving as many marks.

  Hishn, taking the chance to join them and cadge a petting, nudged Dion's hand. The tracks are fresh, she offered. I can smell Gamon's sweat.

  Dion scratched the wolf's ears absently. And I can smell his temper from here. He and Rhom are not going to be happy about carrying our packs this far without us.

  Rhom should not complain. Your pack weighs less than a ninan-old pup.

  It's not my pack I'm thinking of, Dion returned. And it would not be Rhom carrying my pack, but Gamon, since my pack is lighter and Gamon is older. My brother would be carrying Aranur' s pack, and that piece of luggage weighs half as much as you.

  The wolf looked at Aranur and her yellow eyes gleamed, but Dion gave her an admonishing look. Hishn licked her long teeth instead.

  Ten minutes after that, Dion knew they would come upon Gamon and the others any time. The breeze had not even dulled the edges of the footprints of the two younger girls, and Dion carefully crumbled dirt into the prints, then brushed the marks from the trail with a low-hanging branch. If the light wind held, the tracks would be gone within half an hour, and what was left would look as if the wind had brushed the branch across the path by itself. Hishn told her that the Gray Ones would chase some deer across the trail after they had passed, which would hide the faint prints even more, so Dion stepped carefully across the softer spots in the trail and continued. Aranur, who waited silently while she cleared the trail, gauged the sounds in the woods and then followed, cutting his stride to match hers, while the gray wolf loped ahead.

  They had slowed their pace to jog up one last hill when Hishn stopped suddenly. Dion and Aranur froze, then faded back into the brush as Hishn raised her head and sniffed the wind. But it was the image of Dion's brother that the wolf sent to the healer. Smiling, Dion answered silently, and Hishn grinned, disappearing into the brush for her promised hunt.

  Dion smiled faintly. “Up there,” she said softly to Aranur. “It's Rhom.”

  Her brother, as if called by the wolf's warning, got to his feet at the top of the hill. He smiled as they stepped forward, though his glance was sharp as it took in the mud on Aranur's mail. “What took you so long?” he asked, waiting for the two to climb the hill before leading them into a dip that was hidden from below.

  “Masa.” Aranur gestured behind him with his chin. He nodded a greeting to his uncle, Gamon, as he crested the top of the dip, then smiled briefly at his sister and the other two youths.

  “Was it bad?” Rhom asked quietly.

  “Bad enough,” Aranur returned noncommittally, and the blacksmith, with a glance at the others, nodded without ques­tioning further. He would ask Dion later what had happened. If Aranur did not want to mention the masa in front of the girls, he understood. The young cousins had not grown up in the forest like Dion and Rhom. Rhom did not want to add more fear to their dreams than was already there.

 

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