Wolf Hunting (52 page)

“And you?”

Verul grunted. “It is as Skea says. I am Twice Dead.”

The interchange had meant little enough to Derian, but Lachen was clearly enraged.

“A small wound and you would betray these ones?” he said. “Such courage. No wonder you died twice.”

Skea curled back his lips from teeth that were very large and white. He spoke deliberately in his odd Liglimosh, as if challenging Lachen with his new alliance—no matter how tenuous it might be.

“You heard this Harjeedian. If we do not tell, then we suffer and the next to come through the gate will view our tortured bodies.”

His gaze dropped, and Derian realized that Skea, at least, had not missed the significance of the knife set edge to the hot coals.

Firekeeper spoke from behind them, her voice rough. “And others may tell … Speak quickly, for I do not like when my pack is broken.”

She leaned against her unstrung bow, Lovable perched on one shoulder. Somehow Firekeeper seemed more dangerous for having put the weapon by. The posture said without words, “I am not afraid of you. Fear me.”

Skea and Verul, perhaps because of their training, had the good sense to do so. Lachen and Ynamynet sat in thin-lipped silence.

Harjeedian looked at the bodyguards. “You show very good sense. I respect that. Verul, how deep has the arrow gone?”

“Into the muscle, not into the bone. The armor stopped much. The angle is bad, or I would pull it out myself.”

“Is it barbed?” Skea asked.

Firekeeper spat. “No. I do not need such.”

Harjeedian looked thoughtful. “Skea, pull out the arrow.”

Skea began to raise his right arm, but let it drop.

“I … My shoulder …”

Firekeeper laughed softly. “Hold you both. I pull.”

Derian wondered if she was being wise, walking in so close to where the prisoners might try and take her prisoner in turn. Perhaps Bitter, perched now on a heap of camping gear, shared this thought, for he croaked hoarsely. Firekeeper only smiled, and motioned for Lovable to take wing as she leaned her bow against the wall and padded forward.

Lachen and Ynamynet shifted nervously, but Skea and Verul held perfectly still as if afraid any motion on their part might be taken as a threat.

Firekeeper grasped the arrow firmly. As she gave a single sharp pull that brought the arrow out she said conversationally, “No barbs. I hit what I hit, how I hit.”

Verul seemed transfixed by the words, only noticing the arrow was out when fresh blood coursed beneath his armor down his arm. Skea helped him undo the straps that held the bracer in place, stanching the wound with a loose edge of Verul’s tunic.

Harjeedian spoke. “There is boiled water, and I have powders that will stay infection.”

“I know enough field medicine to treat this,” Skea said curtly. “Something to stanch the bleeding …”

Harjeedian pulled a bandage from his kit, poured boiled water into a cup, and passed it over to Skea. All through the process, he, like Firekeeper, seemingly ignored the Once Dead. Derian, however, kept a sharp eye on them, and saw their growing anger. They were not accustomed to being ignored. Moreover, enough time had passed that they were realizing how well and truly caught they were.

Blind Seer returned at this moment. Firekeeper had stepped back to the archway that led into the closed courtyard and now leaned against the stone. The great grey wolf sat beside her, and Derian did not doubt he was telling her whatever had been learned from the two captive wolves.

Lovable had returned to the boughs of the apple tree, so even if the strangers did not yet realize it, the gate was being watched. If the silver glow returned, warning would be issued with the first glimmer.

Harjeedian returned his attention to the Once Dead.

“Your companions have indicated they will tell us what we will find on the other side. From Skea’s words we know, too, that Plik lives. Now, will you let us through before we are separated much longer, or will you force us to make you an example to those who will come looking to see the reason for your failure?”

Derian thought it was that single word, “failure,” that melted through the remaining resistance.

“What good would our dying do?” Ynamynet said to Lachen. “Or our pain? Blood is to be shed for use, not to stain stone.”

Lachen bent, head in hands.

“I suppose,” he said, “we have no choice.”

“Then you will teach us how to open the gate?” Harjeedian said, triumph ringing in his voice.

“Teach you,” Lachen said, his words muffled for he did not raise his head. “Teach you, and even open the gate for you. It is not easily done.”

“Good,” Harjeedian said. “We will begin almost at once. First, I will make some arrangements to ensure that you and your associates do not trick us.”

Lachen started, and Derian thought Harjeedian had been right to be careful.

Harjeedian looked to where the wolf-woman stood viewing the captives, her expression quizzical.

“Firekeeper, I wish these four separated, so I may question each privately and then compare their answers. Will you and the yarimaimalom guard them so none escapes or creates some sort of mischief?”

Firekeeper nodded. “There are many rooms here we can use to hold them. The stranger wolves are safe kept in other places.”

“I will begin with Lachen,” Harjeedian said.

Derian assisted with removing the other three to separate quarters in the crumbling stronghold. Bitter took Lovable’s post in the apple tree, so Lovable might summon Truth and Eshinarvash.

After the three prisoners were secured, alone with their thoughts and very little else, for Firekeeper had insisted on searching each one to make sure there were no concealed weapons or other tools, Derian drew her and Blind Seer aside.

“It was too easy,” he said to them. “Harjeedian is terribly pleased with his success. He’s doing his best to make sure we don’t get led down the garden path, but I can’t help but feel it was too easy to get those four to surrender.”

Firekeeper and Blind Seer both cocked their heads to one side, so natural that only seeing it in duplicate made the gesture look at all odd.

“Maybe yes,” Firekeeper said. “Blind Seer and Truth have speaked with the other wolves. These have a tale to tell. From it, I think that maybe this taking is not too easy. Maybe what is waiting on the other side will be very hard to fight.”

XXV

TRUTH LICKED BLOOD from between her claws and watched with a certain appreciation as the two stranger wolves tore into the rats they had cornered and killed within one of the cellars of the stronghold. They must be hungry indeed to eat such poor game with such enthusiasm.

Her bearing said as much. The slightly larger of the two wolves, one who had introduced himself as “Onion,” looked up from his feeding, licking messy gobbets of flesh and fur from his muzzle.

“They fed us very little there,” Onion said, “only enough to keep breath in body—and sometimes not enough to do that. Never was what we were given full of life’s heat and strength.”

Blind Seer, who had participated in the hunt but had not joined in the meal that followed, thumped behind one ear with a hind leg. He’d been shedding rather badly of late, probably because his body thought it should be putting on its winter coat, but the warmer southern temperatures were creating conflicting signals.

“So they captured you but did not kill you,” Blind Seer said. “That is very odd.”

“But fortunate for us,” said the smaller of the wolves. He was called Half-Ear, and indeed part of his right ear—if not precisely half—was missing.

“But fortunate,” Blind Seer agreed. “I do not mean to sound rude. These same people have stolen away one of our pack, a strange creature called Plik. We have acted on the belief that they would not have stolen him merely to kill him; learning you were also kept alive gives us hope.”

“I don’t recall anyone who called himself Plik,” Half-Ear said, licking a bit of viscera from the ground. “You called him a ‘strange creature,’ so he was not also a wolf?”

“He was more like a raccoon,” Blind Seer said, “but with a bit of the human about him. As I said, an odd creature.”

“Very,” Onion said. “I certainly never saw him.”

“Nor I,” Half-Ear agreed. “Nor scented that strange mixture.”

“Are you sure?” Blind Seer asked. “He smells more like a raccoon than otherwise.”

“There were a few raccoons among those yarimaimalom who were taken, but not many,” Onion said. “They do not have family feeling as wolves do. A few investigated the copse out of curiosity. When they did not return … I suspect their fellows were among those who had the sense to flee when things got bad.”

Truth said, “We have heard something of this from an owl who still haunts the vicinity. However, she knows nothing of what happened to those who went into the copse.”

“It’s simple enough,” Half-Ear said. “Do you know how some of us made pets of the human pair that came here?”

“We do,” Blind Seer said.

“Well, when the twins vanished and that strange copse appeared, some of us went looking for our humans. What met us were tangles of a strange briar …”

“We have seen these,” Truth said.

“And the bracken beasts,” Onion asked. “Have you seen these, too?”

“We have.”

“Then you know how we were captured. These did the battling. Humans did the binding. They took us through that silver wall—the gate—and we found ourselves in a place … How would you describe it, Half-Ear?”

Half-Ear considered. “It is not easy to describe. For one, mostly we are kept in one area, a series of pens no bigger than that over there.”

He indicated a closet with a toss of his nose.

“One beast to a section. Exercise once daily in a sort of long loop. No contact between us but by howls and other cries—and what we could say by scents left for the next one to come to the exercise area.”

“Those who kept us liked our sounds little enough,” Onion added, “that they would withhold food and water if we were not quiet. Scents actually worked better. They did not think of scent, but there is little enough one can say in pee.”

Blind Seer said carefully, “You two are lean, yes, but not starved.”

“They feed us enough to keep spirit in body,” Onion said. “Nor do I think they feed us always the same amount. Some days ago, my portion was increased.”

“Mine, too,” Half-Ear said. “They do that when they think they will have use for you.”

“Use?” Truth asked.

Half-Ear shook as if he could physically separate the thought from his mind. “Do you know what they are?”

Truth said calmly, “We believe they are descendants of the Old World sorcerers.”

“Cats are truly mad, great cats madder than most,” Onion said, but the words were so evidently a proverb that Truth took no offense. “Your belief is correct. The ones that call themselves the Once Dead are able to do magic still, and the magic that they find easiest uses blood … preferably, someone else’s blood.”

“Those bracken beasts,” Half-Ear said, beginning to pant in fear, “they are kin to the blood briars, but they are far worse … . I don’t know how it is done, but the sorcerers have discovered how to …”

He was panting hard now. Onion licked his friend’s unmangled ear and took over the recitation.

“It is worse for him. He has had it done. I have only heard.”

“Heard what?” Truth didn’t even growl. The wolves’ fear was too obvious, too real, for impatience. She thought it was a wonder they could discuss this at all.

“They do something that takes your self and puts it within that frame of branches. You cannot hear or smell, but you can see after a fashion. Those who have had this done to them say the images are flat, like a reflection in a puddle broken by ripples, but good enough to navigate by.”

“And not only are you there in the thing they have made,” Half-Ear said, crouching as if he could protect himself from horrible memories by protecting his belly, “something else, one of them, is in the thing with you. It has the will. It feels like thorns in your eyes. It makes you be the thing, the bracken beast, but it chooses what the bracken beast will do.”

Blind Seer froze as if he had spotted a herd of elk when the hunting was winter lean.

“And this is what they were going to do with you here, isn’t it? They were going to use you to feed the next set of bracken beasts they left to guard the copse.”

“After they had hunted you down and killed you,” Onion agreed. “They learned soon enough—quite probably from the twins, but possibly from their own legends of the New World—that the yarimaimalom have more sense than do Cousins. They liked that very much, and they took to using those of us who could be made to act out of fear for our fellows. Wolves are easy to manipulate that way, but over time even bears and great cats—creatures who are not pack creatures—fell into their power. You see, there in the holding area, we became a tight community in our suffering. That closeness was used against us.”

“Then that is why you fought us when you came through the gate?” Blind Seer asked. “Have they threatened your pack mates?”

“They have,” Half-Ear said. “We have little pride left, but I can say with confidence that not one of us would let another be tortured to spare himself. To do otherwise is to be finally left alone, and still subject to torment.”

“What happens,” Truth said, trying to keep ears or tail from betraying how important this was, “to one who is eyes and skill for a bracken beast when that beast is broken?”

Onion swished his tail in a wolfish wag. “We know you and yours have broken many bracken beasts. Fear not that we will hold this against you. Indeed, we honor you for it.”

“But what happens?” Truth asked. “Have we been killing yarimaimalom unknowing?”

“A few,” Half-Ear said. “A puma, two wolves, a bear. Most, however, were merely freed from the webwork and their sense returned to their bodies. Believe me, as one who has been in that trap, those who perished died grateful for their freedom.”

“Did you fight us?” Blind Seer asked.

“No,” Half-Ear said. “My torment was some time ago, back when the Once Dead were hunting the yarimaimalom from these forests. They feared the yarimaimalom, you see, feared we would carry rumors away.”