Wolfwalker - Wolf In Night Part 9

As they reined in, Nori started to slide off the dnu, but realized too late that her legs weren't yet working. NeLivek caught her arm as she sagged, then lowered her easily, holding her weight till she could stand. "I've seen more than one ring-runner run his legs off," he said easily as she managed her thanks.

He dismounted and shook out his own long legs. "Give us a few minutes, and we'll have the gelbug wash warmed up. Hunter or I will give you a rubdown to keep you from cramping up."

A few minutes later, she had settled the sling and pups into a crude nest in the darkest corner of the wayside. Nori hid a smile as Grey Vesh stalked onto the remnants of the s.h.i.+rt. The female glanced at Nori like a disdainful queen. Then the pack mother sniffed her pups, lay down, and waited while the two blind b.a.l.l.s of fur squirmed instantly toward her teats.

Nori stood and tried to ignore the gazes of the Test youths who watched from the corral. She rubbed her throbbing temples. There were too many eyes on her here, and not just from worlags and raiders.

She tried to reach out past the spikes pounding her brain. Payne, she thought, be patient. I'm alright.I'm alrightalright . . .

Rishte slunk to her side, and she opened her eyes. In spite of the headache, she smiled faintly. After barely ten hours, the yearling's voice was an easy grey, as soothing as her humming was to a cat. Vesh's was still salt on gla.s.s, and Helt was a coa.r.s.e file on her thoughts. The other wolves were like pumice on Nori's skin. To them, her voice must be similar, a raw foreignness that made them jittery and defensive.

And they weren't beyond showing it, she realized, as Vesh growled at her from the nest.

She carefully backed away. "Come," she murmured to Rishte.

He slunk a handspan after her into the light, but the sounds from Hunter's group made his ears flick constantly, and his teeth were partly bared.

She stopped and squatted down. She ignored the sense of her leaden limbs as his golden gaze met her violet eyes. Like a waterfall, wolf and human fell mentally toward each other again. They hit, clashed, then meshed out into a smoother weave. Nori reveled in that sense. Rishte was snarling, but it was like a purr, not a threat to her. She was snarling back, but it was a hum of pleasure, not just a projection of need.

He stretched his nose to touch her thigh. Her hand floated at the tips of his ruff. There was still tension.

With the other humans near, the instinct to leap, run, snap at her hand was like tw.a.n.ging a wire. At the same time, there was an eagerness to touch back, to snap and wrestle.

"We are bonding," she breathed in wonder. She kept her voice soft and let it slow into the rough humming that came so naturally. "Easy, grey. Pretty grey." She met the golden gaze, sucked in a breath as his voice became abruptly clear, and let her hand descend toward his fur.

The yearling's growl lowered into an almost continuous sound. There was a sense of fire in her mind, like a blindness of heat and smoke. There were the human smells: sweat-scent, musk, a thick, cloying perfume, soap-scent and lotion, oils and warming food. In the back of her mind, she could hear her own breathing through the wolf's ears. Payne, she thought, you should feel this. Her hand lowered till finally, like the lightest breath of wind, she touched the tips of the fur.

Rishte bristled, but suffered it for the second time that night. Suffered it, and let Nori move her hand along the ruff, smoothing the rising scruff. Suffered the urge to bite and taste blood, and fought that to revel in the pressure of the petting like a two-month pup playing with Pack Mother. "Yes," Nori breathed. "Just like that." She s.h.i.+fted her fingers, and the young wolf lost the battle.

You are mine,Rishte snarled. He twisted to catch Nori's hand gently in his teeth.

Nori almost laughed at the possessiveness. She gripped the Grey One's muzzle, wrestling him until he jerked his head free. The creature snapped at her wrist, and though he didn't break the skin, he marked it clearly with indents.

Nori grinned. "Possessiveness" was too simple a word for what was growing between them. Rishte now clung to the inside of her skull like a tick on the haunch of an eerin. She could not breathe without taking in air from lupine lungs, could not move without feeling lean, ropy muscles flex. Every movement of every leaf near the circle caught her eye so that the entire circle danced. Her brain was too full of vision.

Her mother's words came to her: "It will ease. It will overwhelm you at first, but then you will sort out the grey."

A bare scuff of leather on leather, and she whipped around in a fighting crouch, one hand protecting the vest pocket. Rishte was gone, s.n.a.t.c.hed up by shadow.

"Easy," Hunter said quickly, freezing in place. "It's just me."

Nori slowly dropped her hands and sank back on her heels.

He kept his eyes on her face. "I'll rub down your legs," he offered. "Rocknight Styne's daughter, Lispeth, will help wash the scratches. In the meantime-" He held out a bundle, a carving knife, and a blank message stick.

She nodded her thanks, then slashed a quick message into the soft wood: all well; back after dawn; Black Wolf. She could have written her terse note on paper, but wood was more durable. If the message had to be left in a cairn, better it was wood. Beetles ate paper like candy, but wouldn't touch wood for ninans.

She finished as voices rose behind them, and Hunter glanced back at the Test youths. "They're choosing a rider," he explained dryly.

Nori kept a straight face as she handed back the knife. "A difficult decision."

He snorted. "Three days on the road, and they have yet to do any duty, including care for their own dnu.

I caught them paying a couple of cozar boys to do it for them at the last two camping circles."

Nori's lips twitched. "There is a simple solution to that. Let them go a day on foot in their fancy riding boots."

He chuckled. "Now, that's something I want getting back to my mother, that I made her darlings walk."

"Why you?" she asked. It wasn't as idle a question as it sounded. He was too comfortable with his wealth to be riding guard for a cozar.

"One of them-that one, with the sorry mop of hair-is a cousin of some sort, according to my mother.

The son of my grandmother's half sister's daughter." Or was it her aunt's half sister's cousin? He shook his head. "The others belong to my mother's friends." He wasn't about to leave them unsupervised, not with a shapely cozar girl trying just about every trick he'd ever seen to get up in the saddle behind both Nefsky and Vidon. He'd bless the moons nine times over when they reached Shockton and he could turn them over to the martial masters. Nine more days with those spoiled youths and he'd be ready to kill someone. "You should eat," he said abruptly.

She tapped the stick. "This first, if you're willing."

He nodded. As they approached the argument, he narrowed his green eyes and cut in, "Vidon, Eteli, what's the problem?"

"We rode all day," Vidon returned sharply. "And we're already unsaddled. Besides, she's cozar. One of the cozar should take it."

"They'd be more polite about it," neLivek said mildly from the side where he was currying his own dnu.

Two of the youths flushed, but Vidon gave thechovas a dirty look.

"We're trying to decide how to cast lots," Hunter's cousin explained defensively.

A blond youth had been studying Nori as she approached, and something flickered across his face as he caught his first real look at her. But his voice was diffident as he said, "h.e.l.ls, if it's that much of a burden, I'll do it." He stepped toward the wolfwalker and held out his hand.

Nori looked into his steady blue eyes. She didn't know she'd started to s.h.i.+ft into a fighting stance until Hunter's tanned hand closed over hers. The shock of his warm, callused skin made her jerk back.

Hunter firmly slipped the stick from her grip and handed it to the ring-runner. "Still jumpy?" he murmured into her ear.

The familiarity made her yank away. She stopped, let out her breath, and stepped back more casually, only then realizing her other hand was on the vest pocket again. She dropped it abruptly.

There was a knowing look in the young man's eyes as he lashed the stick onto his belt. "The circle below the Tendan Ridge hub, right?"

"Aye." NeLivek answered for her as he handed up the young man's bow. "You don't want a riding partner?"

The youth grinned as he vaulted onto his dnu. "Don't need one onDeepening Road , and I won't be riding the ridge route. Duty rider will take this on."

"Ride safe, then," neLivek told him.

"With the moons." He spurred out of the circle.

Nori stared after him. NeLivek took the rest of the youths back to the fireside, but a slender man, the one dressed even better than Hunter, gave her a thoughtful look as he caught her expression. "What is it?"

She shook her head, and Hunter paused to study her, too. She said uneasily, "He's not as young as the rest of them."

On her other side, Hunter snorted. "You mean he's not as spoiled."

"You know him, then?"

Hunter gave her a sharp look. "No. My cousin picked him up on the way out of Sidisport. He had no Test chaperone, and my cousin offered him achovas berth."

"And you?" She glanced at the slender man.

The man called Fentris tilted his head to study her. "I am not familiar with his family name." He nodded toward the road. "But he seems to be making himself useful."

Hunter bit back words: Unlike you, fop.

Nori frowned at the hint of derision. She stared down the road for another minute. Then she shook her head at Hunter's silent question and returned to the bundle of clothes.

Fentris left them as they pa.s.sed the fireside while Nori shook out the s.h.i.+rt and jerkin. "My thanks for these," she told Hunter as they returned to the shadowed area outside the firelight. She would have known they were his by the scent alone, but the cloth was another giveaway. They were as finely made and finely dyed as her borrowed vest, not the typical mottled, unbleached blend that she and Payne wore for scout work. She fingered them covetously. The s.h.i.+rt was smooth and tightly woven. The jerkin was beautifully tanned, green and grey. Either one alone probably cost as much as her entire riding outfit. She looked up, caught a thoughtful look on the tall man's face, and said merely, "There was no one smaller?"

The tall man shrugged. The noise suddenly toned down behind them at the fireside, and he glanced back and snorted to himself. Fentris the Fop had spoken. Vidon and the others might push Hunter to the limits of his patience, but none of them had gone so far as to antagonize a man rumored to be a murderer. Even Styne's niece, Civi, was more circ.u.mspect around the fop. Raised with the best the city had to offer, Fentris Shae had given the girl no more than a few mildly amused glances when she tried slipping her blouse off her shoulders to give him a glimpse of her blessings. Now Hunter stifled a laugh as Vidon refused a quiet order. Fentris simply slid two languid fingers along the hilt of his knife. Vidon stiffened and quickly turned back to his dnu. Hunter lost his humor abruptly. The hilt trick had been something Shae had learned from his older brother, the one Shae had supposedly murdered.

Hunter looked back at Nori, then into the shadows. He couldn't see the wolf. It was gone, he realized, as remote as the young woman before him. For she was withdrawing even as he stood there. It irritated him. He'd offered herbande'inna, unconditional aid-a ride, a dnu, a guesting berth, even a full wagon if she needed it-but she seemed to see him as little more than a threat. It only confirmed that she was hiding something serious enough to keep her from accepting more than the barest of her needs. Even now, she hardly glanced at his s.h.i.+rt. She probably didn't even care that it was his; only that it was warm, that it was her due. But he would ride with her tonight back toWillow Road , and with the image of her in his mind, naked inside his clothes mere meters away in the dark.

He brought his attention back as she frowned at him. He nodded at her legs. She hesitated, then sat down and stretched out. He began rubbing one down hard.

Nori grimaced and braced herself against the ground, but made no sound as he stretched and pummeled her tight muscles. He had large hands, she noted, and he knew how to use them. He fairly imprinted his palms into her thighs. She almost asked him why he was heading for Shockton, but when she looked up, he was studying her silently. She looked away, hiding the growl that rose to her lips, and merely thanked him when he was done.

He turned her over to Lispeth, the cozar girl, to help with the gelbug wash, and the girl s.h.i.+elded her as Nori carefully shrugged out of the vest. She couldn't hide the crackling sound the papers made, but Lispeth didn't seem to notice. Instead, the girl pressed the first wash-soaked rag on her back.

Even though Nori was expecting it, the first touch stung enough to make her hiss. It quickly grew to a burning as the girl worked it down her back. Nori didn't complain. Gelbugs were indigenous parasites that bred in open wounds. Once in the flesh, they pa.s.sed blood through their maggotlike bodies the way mining worms did stone. In the indigenous eerin or dnu, it was a cleansing of certain toxins in exchange for a warm breeding ground. In humans, the parasites turned blood into a thickened gel. It was said that a single gelbug could kill a man in two ninans. Nori had seen it more than once. It was an ugly death.

Lispeth started on another welt. "Vidon called you cozar, but you don't look cozar."

Nori smiled. She knew this game. "I'm Randonnen," she returned. "But I was raised in a wagon like yours."

The girl c.o.c.ked her head. "You could be a raider."

Nori's smile widened as she scrubbed at the blood on her arms. "Aye."

"Or a lost miner who's chasing one of the Ancients' metal maps."

"That's true." She injected a note of speculation into her voice, as if she was seriously considering being lost as a career path.

"Or a moonmaid disguised as a ring-runner, come to test ourbande'inna. "

"It's possible," she agreed as she wrung out the rag. She sighed heavily. "But I am only a bead maker, far from home and alone." And carrying raider code, she added to herself. And hiding a knowlege of plague, and pretending she wasn't bound to the wolves. She stopped her thoughts abruptly, s.h.i.+fted, winced at the burning in another gash. She was still bleeding. The wash wouldn't burn so badly if the gashes had fully clotted. Still, the wounds should be closed on the surface by morning. She felt a deep satisfaction at that. Wolfwalkers healed quickly.

When Nori donned Hunter's s.h.i.+rt and tunic, the girl giggled. "It's too big. You should have taken one of Gariala's or Civi's, or one from the other Tamrani."

OtherTamrani? The girl had to mean Shae. The tall, slender man was the only other one with clothes that cost a fortune. Nori looked back at fireside to find him idly watching her. She scowled. One Tamrani at an Ariyen council, perhaps, but two? Something serious had to be up for that. She caught Hunter's gaze in turn as she reached for his discarded vest. Suddenly fearing that she would expose the raider papers, she stilled. Then Lispeth s.h.i.+fted so that she s.h.i.+elded Nori from the fire. The wolfwalker glanced sharply at the girl. Lispeth nodded deliberately at the vest while she kept her hands busy folding the rags. Nori smiled faintly. Quickly she stuffed the papers into a crude packet and tucked that inside the jerkin. She noted with satisfaction that Hunter now was frowning.

Lispeth followed her gaze. "He's been thoughtful since you joined us."

Meaning he'd seen the papers? Or did he realize she'd held something important back when she was explaining her arrival? She studied the cozar girl. "What about Shae?"

"He hasn't been here long, but he watches everything."

"And you?" she asked Lispeth slowly.

The girl straightened as if insulted. "Cozar business is silent business."

Nori hid a smile. "Aye, it is." She hesitated. Her voice was gentle as she asked, "How old are you, Lispeth?"

"I'm of age," Lispeth added. "I know the laws."

Nori touched her hand to the jerkin pocket.

Lispeth raised her chin. "I chose the secret freely, and so choose the silence, too." Then the girl spoiled it by adding, "Besides, they're Tamrani."

Nori grinned faintly at the disgust in her voice. "They are indeed." She folded the now empty vest and handed it to the girl. "My thanks, Lispeth Shepherd Night. I will remember you."

The girl flushed darkly. It was her first rep-name, and it was no insult. Shepherds were small, discreet night dogs that made little sound and kept their nests so well hidden that it was rare to find one in use.

She bobbed her head with embarra.s.sed pleasure at the wolfwalker.

As they returned to the fireside, the girl almost leapt to get Nori a plate. Then she trailed Nori toward the corral as the wolfwalker tried to keep moving to keep her rubber legs stretched. Nori was about to thank her and tell her to tend to her own needs, but at the first bite she stopped and raised her eyebrows.

"Tamrani eat well," she murmured. "Almost as well as they dress."

Lispeth giggled. "They eat like that at every meal. Papa says they'll be too heavy to ride their own dnu by the time we get to Shockton, and their pretty s.h.i.+rts will be rags from splitting at the seams."

"Perhaps I should hire on." Nori tasted a piece of spiced and sauteed pelan, and almost sighed. There was no bitterness, no aftertaste, just sweet juicy meat, as if it had been shelter-grown. "To help use up the extra food, you see, and keep them from splitting their clothes."

Lispeth giggled again.

Rishte growled softly, and Nori looked to the road. This time, she didn't startle at the sense of drumming hooves. She smiled to herself. She was getting used to the lupine alert.

A few minutes later, the ring-runner cantered into the circle. In the shadowed moonlight, his face looked deformed at first. It took her a moment to realize he was as bruised up as she. She knew him, too.

NeLivek wasn't the only one to move quickly to the corral where the messenger reined in.

Lispeth's brother ran past Nori to take the dnu. "Have you needs?" the older boy asked quickly.

Kuwurin swung down. "Water and a quick meal. If you're willing, I've two coppers for a rubdown for my Hermes." He patted the lean neck. "Be quick, though. I'm for Tendan Ridge tonight-" His voice broke off as he caught sight of Nori. He blinked. "Well, h.e.l.ls of the second moon. My first piece of luck tonight."

"Aye, runner," she said softly, using his t.i.tle, not his name.

Kuwurin glanced at the others, then nodded. "Aye, runner."

Hunter c.o.c.ked his head at their tone. They knew each other, it seemed. He nodded at the man's face.

"You look like you could use more than a quick meal." The lanky rider sported racc.o.o.n eyes, a ma.s.sively bruised cheekbone, a sc.r.a.pe on the chin, and what looked like a recently broken nose.