Wolf Hunting (31 page)

Moving very slowly, Firekeeper. strung her bow, fit arrow to string, and aimed at the nearest of these shapes. She longed for a proper wolf’s sense of smell. Try as she could, all she scented were the blended scents of late summer vegetation dominated by the sweet perfume of honeysuckle. There was no rank scent as of the great cats, none of the sweet mustiness of bear, none of the clean, bright smell of wolf.

Yet the shapes that moved in the darkness were of that size. That one seemed almost a bear raised on hind legs, shuffling slowly forward. That one seemed a great cat, a jaguar, perhaps, its head too heavy, body too stocky to be a puma. Surely those three on the far left were wolves, the lean, beloved lines heart-twistingly familiar.

Firekeeper wanted to scream out loud, to howl her fear and frustration to the skies, but she ground her teeth together and swallowed the sound. The only fit reason for howling was when a pack mate might hear. Here she was alone but for two birds, neither of whom would be any help against opponents of such size.

Her own best choice would be to slay one or more of these opponents without warning. Like most wolves, Firekeeper was without false modesty. She knew she was very good with a bow. Even in this light, she could probably take out at least two before the others moved.

Practicality suggested that the wolves would be her best targets. Bear were notoriously hard to kill. She had never hunted great cats. She had never hunted wolves either, but she had grown up among them, wrestled with them, slept beside them, tended them as puppies, and nursed them as injured adults. She knew their vulnerabilities better than those of any other creature—except, possibly, for humans.

Firekeeper stood frozen, bowstring digging into her fingers, the dull ache a reminder that she must either loose or relax the pull. She raised the bow, aimed at the foremost of the three wolf-like shapes, and knew that she could not fire without warning into those so like her kin.

“Hie!” she said, normal speaking tones like a shout against the routine noises of the night. The insects and night birds that to this point had not ceased their chittering fell silent.

“Hie!” Firekeeper said, the sound sharper now, between yap and howl. “Who are you?”

Her only response came from within the stone house.

Lovable squawked, “What is it?” Then she screamed, “Snake!”

Firekeeper’s held arrow loosed as of its own choice, thudding into the throat of the foremost wolf. The creature made no sound, no cry of pain, nor did it fall.

Firekeeper stared a moment longer. Then she fell back. There was confused motion from the right side of the house where she had made the ravens their nest. Lovable was flapping her wings and squalling something about snakes. Firekeeper now trusted the raven’s good sense far too much to think she was hallucinating, living out in dreams some portion of the previous night’s captivity on the tree limb.

Light would be an asset now, light and fire. Firekeeper stumbled back. Dropping her bow, she grabbed one of the many sticks she had set at the edge of the coals, knots of pine that would serve as torches. Her motion dropped loose wood into the coals and they flared. In the brilliant orange-yellow light, Firekeeper saw the face of their enemy.

Except the enemy had no face, nor eyes, only shape.

With the first flare of light, Firekeeper. wheeled to see what Lovable was screaming about. The raven was half-aloft, beating with her wings, tearing with her beak at a shape that did indeed resemble a snake. This snake, however, was made of twisted vines, the blood-drinking briar snaking through ropes of honeysuckle.

Where the head should be was a dense mass of vines, twisted thickly enough to be solid. This swung at Lovable like a club, moving slowly enough that the raven could easily have dodged it, but that she was determined not to leave Bitter’s side.

Bitter remained in the nest Firekeeper. had built for him. His one eye was open, but clearly he was too weak to do any more than watch the horror attacking his mate. He could not even move away from the tendrils of briar that were sliding from the greater mass, sliding wormlike to fasten in his flesh once more.

Unlike a human, Firekeeper did not think about the impossibility of something happening in front of her eyes. Instead she leapt forward, swinging the torch in her hand, smoke stinging her eyes, tears blurring her vision. She contacted hard with the body of the snake. Sparks flew, singeing her skin, landing in her hair.

She did not pause to beat them out, knowing they should gutter on their own, but swung again and again with her torch. The twisted mass of vines turned its questing head from Lovable to Firekeeper, and then Firekeeper gripped it firmly with her free hand.

The thing was more honeysuckle than briar or she might not have been able to grab hold. Even so, the thorns cut into her flesh, and Firekeeper imagined she could feel the vine gaining strength from her blood.

“Eat while you can!” she howled, hauling the mass toward the fire. She thrust it head first into the bed of coals and had the satisfaction of seeing it begin to smoke, then catch fire. She placed a foot upon its back lest it pull out, forcing more and more of its length into the fire.

The stone house was becoming uncomfortably smokey now, and Firekeeper tensed, some buried memory reminding her that smoke could be as dangerous as fire. Moreover, she had not cleared away many years of accumulated leaf litter within the ruined hut. Quite likely the fire would spread to fill the interior. When it did, the remaining roof would not last long.

“Lovable, can you move?”

“Not without Bitter!”

“I’ll carry him,” Firekeeper promised. Bending quickly, she retrieved her bow and threw it over the wall. If she lived, she would find it later. For now she needed the torch more—and a free hand to carry Bitter.

The raven’s one eye held stoic understanding as she scooped him up. Lovable flapped and landed on Firekeeper’s shoulder.

“I cannot fly,” she said, “nor walk fast enough.”

Firekeeper replied by moving, adjusting her balance to her dual burden. Now she thought she understood the lack of scent from those who had stalked the stone house. Like the snake, they must be made from plants. Would the fire and the fate of their comrade have frightened them away?

Wolves do not count on dreams to catch their dinner, so Firekeeper was not dismayed when she saw the shapes remained. As the fire within the stone house consumed the snake, it spread to the gathered wood. Consequently, Firekeeper hardly needed the torch—at least not to see.

The creatures remained, but as seen in brighter light their resemblance to wolves, jaguar, and bear became cloud-shape fantasies. Thickly packed greenery created their forms. The hook-thorned briar was woven throughout, moving frantic tendrils as if urging these odd steeds to greater motion.

The monstrosities did move a bit faster, but even so Firekeeper was swifter. Had it not been for the two ravens, she could have easily outdistanced them.

But then if it were not for Bitter and Lovable, I would not be here. Or perhaps it would have been myself and Blind Seer who were strangled as we slept.

Firekeeper retreated to the spring and set Bitter on a shelf of rock that some human had doubtless made to hold his things clear of the dampness in the ground. Lovable fluttered down to stand beside Bitter, and Firekeeper ran back at the briar beasts.

These were more sophisticated than the snake had been. The bear had paws with which to swipe. These were tipped with claws that resembled curving briar thorns as long as the longest finger on Firekeeper’s hand. The bear’s jaws gaped, but instead of teeth its mouth was lined with briar thorn so tightly packed that Firekeeper was reminded of the teeth of a shark.

The jaguar also had claws and fangs. The wolves had to settle for fangs, but their motion was the smoothest and swiftest of the lot. The bear lumbered in an awkward two-legged gait. The jaguar crept, belly-close to the ground, as if it had forgotten that the time for secrecy was past, but the wolves loped forward, their pace nothing like that of real wolves, but equivalent to that of a walking man.

The lead wolf had an arrow sticking out from its throat, and Firekeeper did not need to look at the fletching to know her shot had gone home.

None of these monstrosities were swift, nor did they seem to have much purpose beyond attacking Firekeeper and her charges, but to this purpose they kept with terrible deliberateness. They advanced on the wolf-woman paws swiping, jaws snapping in a parody of lifelike motion.

Firekeeper held her smouldering torch in one hand, all too aware that it was beginning to gutter, that the fire raging in the stone house would not last much longer.

Then the first of the wolves surprised her by leaping, almost as a real wolf would have done. Firekeeper fell back, her feet going out from under her. She landed hard, kicking up, knowing if she failed, Blind Seer would return to find three tortured bodies drained of blood, and maybe, for plants were very thorough, not even that.

XV

“YOU HAVE CALLED ME ‘MEDDLER,’” the Voice said. “Tell me, is that bad?”

Truth growled. “Is not once a night enough for you to torment me?”

“I left without telling you what I came to ask. I meant to ask you if you wanted to know what has happened to your friends. Now I am back to ask what would you give to have me meddle on their behalf.”

“Give? Their behalf? Riddles!”

“Let me be direct then. Three of your friends are in grave danger. Without assistance, I would wager that one alone may survive to speak with you again.”

“One?”

“The raven called Lovable. Her mate Bitter would surely not survive the night And Firekeeper … She could survive, but she will not leave them undefended.”

“What of Blind Seer?” Truth realized that she felt fear and sorrow that the blue-eyed wolf might be dead. “He would not leave Firekeeper in danger.”

“Nor would they leave you and those with you to come unwarned into danger. Someone had to carry the message. For now Blind Seer runs free and fast You should see him by dawn. By then it will be too late for any of you to help the other three.”

“You said you would meddle on their behalf.”

“I did, but I also asked what you would give me to do so.”

Truth’s ears folded flat to her skull and she snarled, but the memory of what she had felt when she thought Blind Seer already slain was too fresh for her to deny how she would feel if the other three perished and she might have helped.

“What is the price of your meddling?”

“Come with me, half into madness if you must, but take back your heritage—and possibly more.”

“Done. If those three live come morning and if there is evidence to my eyes and ears that you have aided them, then I will let you put a collar about my neck and lead me where otherwise I would not go.”

“Done,” the Meddler replied. “And done. Will you keep your promise, I wonder, or will you try and say I have not proved my aid to your friends sufficiently for your taste?”

“I will keep my promise, never fear, but Firekeeper is very brave and very strong. She might win this battle on her own, and I would not be bound to you if so.”

The Meddler laughed. “That Firekeeper is different, isn’t she? Heart in one world, body in another—rather like a certain jaguar.”

Truth could not deny the truth of this. As she felt the Meddler fading from her dreams she called after him.

“Tell me, now that you have had your meddling with me, would you have acted to save the others without my making a bargain with you?”

“Oh … I might have intervened anyhow. That Firekeeper interests me a great deal. It would be a pity to have her die before I could have opportunity to know her better.”

FIREKEEPER KICKED OUT WITH HER FEET and caught the leaping wolf directly in the belly when it would have landed on her. The briar thorns could not harm her calloused soles, thus the monstrosity received the full force of her blow. She flung the wolf back over her body and had the satisfaction of seeing it fly through the doorway into the stone house. There was a red glow, followed by a whiter flash as the “wolf” fed the inferno within.

Unlike real wolves, which either would have paused to assess the changed situation or rushed to take advantage of a downed opponent, the two remaining “wolves” merely continued their slow movement forward—as did the bear and the jaguar.

Firekeeper retrieved her fallen torch. One end smouldered red and hot. Darting forward and to one side, she thrust it directly into the midsection of the bear. The vines and wood from which it had been crafted were green, but the leaves began to smoke, the smaller twigs to catch fire.

Unfortunately for Firekeeper, the bear did not seem to realize its own danger. It continued shuffling toward her, arms opening and closing as it sought blindly to grasp her in a classic bear hug. As the jaguar and wolves continued their own slow advances, Firekeeper realized she was in grave danger of becoming trapped between the briar creations and the fire-filled stone house.

With the new infusion of fuel, the fire burned hot enough that some of the stones popped and cracked. Heat welled forth, a physical force pushing against Firekeeper’s back. If she were to go much closer, she risked the cotton of her shirt catching fire.

So far she had been lucky. When the roof had caught, it had collapsed inward. The enclosing walls of the stone house were acting like a chimney, sending all but a few licks of flame upward. Were the wind to shift, though, the fire might escape. The four remaining “beasts” would be little enough threat in the midst of a forest fire.

Best then not to feed that fire further, but what could she do? Her Fang could not cut those creatures apart fast enough. Her hatchet still hung at her belt, but it was a little thing, about the length of her forearm—a tool, not a weapon.

“Feeling hedged in?” a sardonic voice asked.

The Voice seemed to come both from somewhere behind her, perhaps a bit to the right, and inside her head. Firekeeper started to turn and the jaguar, passive to this point, reared on its hind legs and struck with a thorn-tipped paw. It caught Firekeeper on the left upper arm, drawing blood.