Wolfwalker - Wolf In Night Part 42

Her mother had taken her out with the wolves to teach her about the river. She could still recall the trails, the smell of the dark, wet canyon as they approached it in the morning. The steep cliffs, black water racing and boiling into white froth below . . . She opened her eyes. "The ground will start getting rocky within a kay. The closer you get to the gullies that lead down to the river cliffs, the rockier it will get.

You'll have to cut across some of the ledges. Kettre and I will meet you near the top of the gullies when we cut back down from the ridge."

Hunter frowned. "This is rough country to bushwhack."

Kettre tugged on her running boots. "We only have to bushwhack if Nori can't find the trail."

He glanced at Nori. "And can you find the trail?"

She shrugged. "I've been here before, back in '34, I think. It was the year the Phye flooded at the ten meter level. Dankton was completely under."

" 'Thirty-four?" Fentris raised one elegant eyebrow. "What were you, twelve?"

She frowned, counting back. "Aye, about that."

He couldn't hide his disbelief. "You remember trails from when you were twelve?"

Payne snorted. "She remembers every blade of gra.s.s, every print and every pebble on every trail she's ever run. Don't ever bet on her sense of place or direction. You'll lose more than your s.h.i.+rt." Nori scowled at her brother, and Payne added to Fentris as he took the reins of her dnu, "I bet you remember every copper you spent at the same age."

The Tamrani exchanged a glance. He had a point.

"I know I'm showing my city ignorance again," Fentris said dryly, "but if we need to rest the dnu, why can't we do that here? It's shaded; there's water and gra.s.s. Plenty of s.p.a.ce for the dnu."

Payne merely nodded to Nori. She sighed. "Do you hear that tree sprit?"

The slim man c.o.c.ked his head. "No."

"Or that pair of stingers?"

"What stingers?"

She gave him a lopsided smile. "You wouldn't hear the Harumen, either. Not till they were upon you.

Water deafens your ears, but bounces sound so that others farther away can hear you." She turned to Kettre. "Ready?" The other woman had changed her boots also, but made to remount until Nori shook her head. "Belt packs, on foot," she told her friend. "This side of the ridge is too much of a scramble for dnu."

"By the second h.e.l.l, Nori. If I'd known that, I would have lost the toss."

She slung her own belt pack on. "If your pride wouldn't stop you, you could still give in to the Tamrani."

"I'll think about it, when laceflowers grow in the seventh h.e.l.l."

The wolfwalker grinned.

It took the two women half an hour to jog-walk to the base of the ridge. They didn't speak. Kettre had learned scout signals from Nori when they were young enough to have thought of it as a game. It was one of the reasons she'd been invited to ride on the city venges when they hunted raiders outside the outskirts. Kettre snorted to herself. In the city, Kettre was considered a sharp-eyed scout. Compared to Payne, she was barely adequate. Next to Nori, she might as well be blind and deaf and half crippled on one side.

Nori caught her wry expression and grinned. Between the wolf and the hand signals, their silent conversation, went something like this: This way. Clear. Clear. Hold. Watch: tick nest.

Got it.

Clear. Clear. Clear. Hold. Wait. No, it's okay. Stickbeast.

I see it. Good eye.

Nori raised an eyebrow.

Kettre grinned back.

This way. Clear. Watch this bush. Clear. Clear. Red lily.

Pretty.

Aye, it is. Good thing you're not hungry or there'd be none left after we pa.s.sed.

Kettre made a face, and it was Nori who grinned this time.

This way. Clear, Clear. Loose rock. Clear.

There was a sudden edge in the faint sense of grey. Midstep, Nori flung up her palm and froze. Instantly Kettre stilled.

Hundreds of meters away, Rishte was only a slightly sharper voice in the din of the distant packsong.

Still, his wariness was like a needle to Nori, and she signaled the other woman. Wait. Wait.What is it?

she sent back to the wolf. The mental words were unheard, but the impression of the question, the alertness went through.

Blood-scent. Death-scent.

That she understood. Wait, she told Kettre. Listen. Watch for predators.

Blood-scent, kill-scent . . .Rishte circled, tested the wind.Movement. Hunger. Defend. Above, moving.

Nori closed her eyes. It took almost a minute for her to separate Rishte's thoughts into things she could understand. Movement? On the ground? What was above? Something overhead, something flying. She peered up through the canopy but she'd never be able to see if there were lepa in the sky.What is it? she sent again.

Sharp. Movement, movement.

Death-scent, sharp-that was the smell of old guts, of stomach acid and bile and half-digested gra.s.s rotting in the air. The gut-scent wasn't fresh. If it had been, Rishte would have been more interested, more eager to get near it to help with the last of the kill. This was old enough, hours perhaps, that it made the wolf think of fighting for his share of the carca.s.s, fighting to eat, not taking a creature down.

The movement, the skitterings, she didn't understand, till her brain kicked back into gear. She stiffened.

Rast? Near a den, the ratlike creatures would leap forward, tear out a bite from carca.s.s or intruder and dodge back. What if it was bihwadi? The dirty-seeming, doglike creatures would attack a badgerbear if there were enough of them to pull it down. Rishte was small enough and lone enough to be an easy target.

She could almost feel the sense of movement around him. Skitterings: rast. But the feeling that some of the threat was overhead? Something above the yearling? She felt a chill. Not bihwadi, she realized. Jays.

OldEarth jays were blue and handsome, crested birds, even if they were vicious to smaller creatures.

The Ancients had found similar birds here and named them jays, but where oldEarth jays were small with short beaks, those here were large with wickedly hooked beaks that could tear into any beast. They would flock over a carca.s.s like oldEarth crows.Rishte, she called urgently.Get away.

The sense of hunger made her stomach twist.

Rast. Bihwadi. Jays,she warned.Without the pack, you're not predator, but prey.

The grey wolf felt only the sense of restraint. He growled angrily back.Human. Small nose.

Nori's eyes flew open in shock at the insult.You worm-eared mutt, she breathed.Stay back from the carca.s.s, she said sharply, almost harshly into the grey.You have no one to protect you. Stay. Back.

She didn't know she snarled the words.Back.

Slowly, carefully, Kettre drew an arrow and began to nock her bow. Some part of Nori's brain noticed, but she was too focused on the wolf. Her presence was growing stronger in his mind, and he was still young enough to submit to a strong pack leader, but he was also eager, male and hungry.

She clenched her fists. Her violet eyes were unfocused now, and her lips began to curl back.Rishte, she breathed. She called it into the grey until it echoed like b.a.l.l.s in a rubber room. The grey din seethed and swirled. She could feel the pull between them like a faint tug of war. She centered herself and Called sharply.Rishte.

The sense of resistance faded suddenly, as if he had pulled back to answer her voice. He growled angrily, but she could feel him obeying. She unclenched her fists, but kept her mental voice firm until she was sure he was returning.

"Grey Rishte?" Kettre asked as Nori lost the tension.

"Aye. He's . . . willful, stubborn."

"They say like calls to like."

She gave the other woman a look. "I never ran around by myself all unguarded and unarmed."

"Of course not," Kettre soothed. "That run on Ironjaw Trail was just an accident."

"It was."

"So was the time you took off to collect the hotflowers to pay Davoni back for that prank with the dye-laced tea. And the time you ran off with Grey Hishn and ended up dragging the old wolf back in a travois you made out of your poncho when her arthritis acted up. Oh, and there was the time you wanted to see why the night-beating birds were hooting. That was definitely not on purpose-"

"You're one to talk," the wolfwalker retorted. She grasped one of the boulders and hauled herself up.

"You were the one who started almost every bit of trouble we ever got in."

Kettre watched her move smoothly up the steep slope. "You needed trouble," the woman told Nori's back. "You were too reserved as a child."

Nori grinned down. "And you were far too wild." She fit a fist into a wide crack in the rock and levered herself up. She studied the slope for a moment. "You can come on up. It's a scramble, but it's no real climb."

Kettre eyed the rocks and muttered, "Define 'real.' " But she jumped, got a hold on the top of the boulder, and followed the wolf-walker up.

Like the cliffs close to the River Phye, the west side of the ridge was riddled with ancient caves. They might have been den for lepa once, but they had eroded and fallen in until they were only pockets and shallow depressions. Now they gave the steep path the semblance of a set of giant, eroded stairs. There were signs of wolves, forest cats, eerin, bihwadi, even wild goats along the rocks. Rishte followed a goat trail back until he hung his head over the cliff up above and panted curiously at them down below. Nori couldn't help smiling.

Rock mice and cliff birds had nested among the old rocks so long that the debris had built up like tumors in the rocks. Kettre slipped and stepped on one, and the puff of dust and spore that burst up had her coughing for minutes. Nori climbed back down to see what had happened, and she examined the old nest carefully. At first glance, there seemed to be a faint vein of turquoise behind it, but when she pulled the back of the mat away, the color was nothing but an old stain. She breathed shallowly to avoid the dust from the old nest. "That's odd," she murmured. She ran her finger inside the depression that Kettre's boot had left. "There's swamp fungi in here."

Kettre choked, coughed, and yanked her water bota from her belt. "It's years old, Nori. Why wouldn't there be mold?"

"Because this is a swamp fungus. It only grows this thick where it's been wet for years, like in a stagnant pond or seep. Look at this stuff. It's even stained the stones." She rubbed her finger and thumb lightly together under her nose, but couldn't smell anything but rain-damp detritus. She left the crushed nest finally, and led Kettre on.

Nori had just climbed to the edge of a depression when she halted so abruptly that she actually rocked back on her heels and almost toppled over backward. She c.o.c.ked her head, her nostrils flaring. "There's something . . ." She turned her head from side to side, trying to catch a better scent. She'd smelled this before. Or rather, she hadn't smelled it. The wolves- "Get back," she said sharply. "Go left. Left." She scrambled back and found her heart pounding with sudden fear as Kettre clambered left over the rotten rock. She wiped her mouth and nose as she rejoined the other woman.

"What is it?" Kettre studied her pale face.

She shook her head. She couldn't answer. But the death-scent, the sense of old death had been there in that depression. It wasn't strong, not like the seep that night with the worlags, or the other place Rishte refused to go, but it was definitely here in the packsong. Moonworms, was this what her mother sensed all the time? Memories of death, of kills and fevers and plagues? She had to learn to pull back from that.

Rishte urged her away, and she listened carefully, but kept her mind clear. Now she could hear the echo, or rather, the resonance of other wolves behind him, the ones who had pa.s.sed along that plague sense, and who now strengthened the yearling's growl. She had been around enough wolves to know it was another pack, close enough that the wariness of the other Grey Ones rode on top of Rishte's faint impressions. That, and their sense of hunger was strong. Nori rubbed her ankle absently, then scratched her ear and studied the next stretch of stone before she realized she had once again sunk toward the grey. She drew back again abruptly. But when she started up again, she angled farther left to avoid the places where Rishte's growl was harsh.

It was a scramble, then a climb, then a scramble. By the time they reached the top, they were dusty, dirty, and their faces were streaked with drying mud where they had rubbed at a nose or chin. Nori's ankle throbbed where she'd banged it again on the rocks. Kettre shook out her arms and grinned at the wolfwalker. "Now, that's the Nori I know. Dirty, dusty, and looking as if she'd go again in a flash."

She looked down the cliff. "Go again? You're crazy." Then she grinned back at the other woman.

"Perhaps," she admitted. She closed her eyes and reached out to the wolf. He was above them now, but a hundred meters away. With no threat to sharpen his nose, she had only impressions of the scents of different bushes, the occasional sharp odor of woodrat or vole, and the smell of day-old dung as it dried in the mild spring air. She raised her hand to her nose. She could smell damp dirt as if it was in her own nails. She smiled faintly, and gestured for Kettre to follow.

It was steep enough that they used the trees to pull themselves up. They left small scars in the detritus where their feet dug in, but they didn't worry about the marks. With the brush as dense as winter wool, it was unlikely anyone would see their trail unless they bushwhacked down the same route.

As she clambered up over yet another a boulder, Nori almost stepped onto the ridge path before she realized she'd hit the trail. She barely managed to thrust forward and jump the trail awkwardly to avoid leaving a print. It wasn't a graceful move. She landed on a lumpy root, teetered for a second, waved her arms like a scarecrow, and finally landed on the other side where her footprints wouldn't show.

Immediately she pressed herself against the bole of a silverheart tree.

In the distance, Rishte snapped to attention.

Be silent. Be still,she returned unconsciously.

Kettre had gone still and flat when she'd jumped so abruptly. The other woman now lay against the ridge, waiting for Nori's signal. For several moments, neither moved. Finally, Nori eased up so she could peer around and over the roots. The trail had been almost hidden by the fresh spring gra.s.ses, but the boot print on what she could see was fresh. She could also see the marks of a deer's split hooves flattened beneath the print, and the deer must have gone up right around dawn. Their tracks had disturbed the dewfall. But where the deer prints were slightly fuzzy at the edges, the pressure ridges of the hiker's prints had barely begun to crumble.

Nori listened, then gave a low bird call to Kettre. The other woman poked her head up, saw Nori, and nodded. Neither woman heard anything other than the small sounds of creatures getting used to their presence again. The wolfwalker signaled for Kettre to come forward, pointed out the tracks on the trail, and waited while the other woman stepped over carefully. Then they squatted to study the tracks.

"Is it from a scout?" Kettre breathed in her ear.

"Aye. We're too far out for a solo hiker, especially in worlag country."

"There are deer and eerin hunters."

"Not in spring." She pointed. "Besides, this is no hunter. The animal prints point both ways on that trail."

Kettre waited, then prompted. "So what does that mean?"

Nori glanced at her. The trees were dense enough that the lower branches had died back. Columns of streaked brown trunks rose out of the clumps of brambles and redstick, and new growth covered the ground in billows of soft, pale greens and spotted leaves that offered shelter to woodrast and hare. It was a denning haven for deer and eerin, but those creatures would graze much lower. She gestured at the trail. "A hunter would have seen that this is a well-traveled path both up and down the ridge. He'd have set up near the lower grazing areas, not up here. He wouldn't want to pack the meat all the way back down. No," she said softly. "This man would be no hunter. They've got themselves a tracker."

"One who would come up here?" Kettre pursed her lips.

"Aye, if he knows this country well enough to be comfortable by himself on the ridge. He'd be local, not Harumen," she added. "Probably someone they picked up in Maupin." She studied the ridge. "Some lookout trails are easy to find, but this one can be a bit tricky. You have to know how to get over the rocks to the trailhead, and a cityman wouldn't likely find it."

Kettre hesitated. "Could he have seen us coming up?"

It was a question whose answer Nori dreaded. "If he was still climbing up or down to the lookout point, I'd say probably not. But if he was already on the ledge when we were at the base, then yes. There are places where the trees are thin, and we disturbed enough birds that he'd have noticed that for sure."

Kettre couldn't help asking, "What are the odds he was up on the ledge?"

"If they're close behind us? Fairly good."

Kettre didn't have to ask whothey were.