Hunters Unlucky Part 43

Moro started to say something, but Treace talked over him. He still felt weak, and his head was spinning from standing too rapidly, but he was the alpha, and he was determined to act like it. "We've been trying to parlay with you for two seasons. We haven't made much progress."

The curb smirked. She sat down. "Rumor has it, you ask for secrets. Secret things come at a price."

"What is your name, curb, and what is your price?"

"My name is Quinyl."

Moro's ears perked. "I've heard of you."

She looked pleased. "I am the leader of the lowland curbs north of the forest."

"And your price?" asked Treace.

Quinyl's ears settled back. "Storm Ela-ferry. He has convinced the telshees to harbor my enemies. They are creating a den on the northern plains. I will not suffer it."

Treace licked his lips. "You want us to kill Storm for you?"

"Yes. He is the only reason telshees would do such a thing. I am certain that we will be able to destroy the last of the highland curbs without his interference."

"And in exchange-" began Moro.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," said Quinyl. "I'll help you kill Arcove."

Chapter 4. The Conference Again.

Storm ran with the highland curbs. He hunted with them and fought alongside them when they encountered other curb packs. On the beach one day, they cornered an adult seal that had been injured, probably from an encounter with a shark. The seal was fiercer than any of the prey the curbs normally hunted, and they circled it, leaping and snapping without making much progress. Finally, Storm managed to catch the creature in the side of the head with a hoof blow. He whipped in before the animal could regain its balance and caught a mouthful of the rubbery flesh of its throat.

Storm set his teeth and jerked back. His mouth filled with blood, and he heard the seal bellow. Its thras.h.i.+ng shook him this way and that, but he held on. As soon as he got an opportunity, he ripped loose a chunk of flesh and then another. The wound widened, and the spurting blood slowed.

Distantly, he heard the curbs calling to him. Finally, Eyal's voice broke through the fog of the hunt. "It's dead, Storm! Dead! You can stop now."

Storm raised his head and blinked blood out of his eyes. He saw that the seal's head was half off. The curbs were staring at him. "We'll have plenty to eat for a few days," Eyal said.

Storm didn't share their meal. He wasn't hungry.

Sauny still didn't want to talk to anyone. She'd left the healing pool and begun to move around the caves. As Storm had feared, her walk was a hopping limp-dragging the injured leg. Shaw had allowed her to visit the Dreaming Sea. Storm didn't know whether Syra-lay had woken enough to talk to her, but Sauny certainly liked spending time snuggled up in his coils. Storm feared that she would fall under the trance of the sleeping telshees' song and drown. Sometimes he thought that was what she wanted.

Valla divided her time between Sauny and the Cave of Histories. She had become fascinated by telshee script. If all Sauny wanted to do was sleep, then all Valla wanted to do was read. She would spend hours staring at the ancient, half eroded symbols, or quizzing Ulya about them. Neither Sauny nor Valla had much use for Storm.

"You should go back to the herd," Valla told him. "I'm sure everyone is wondering whether you're dead...again."

"I doubt they care," muttered Storm. "Besides, they didn't fight. They left Sauny and the rest of us to die. I don't want to be a ferryshaft anymore." He wished he could dispel the hollow sensation that filled his belly when he said those words.

Valla looked past him at the lines of text on the wall above his head. "Then go be a curb, Storm."

He gave a bleak snort. "And will you and Sauny be telshees?"

Valla did not smile. "Maybe."

So Storm ran with the curbs. He tried not to notice when the last of the leaves fell. The wind grew sharp, and his fur thickened. He tried not to notice, but Eyal would not let him forget. One evening, he invited Storm to hunt with the pack in the boulder mazes. They headed south. They pa.s.sed several likely places to look for sheep, but Eyal didn't pause. Around midnight, they were trotting along a lower cliff trail, when Storm glimpsed the silver gleam of the Igby River ahead in the moonlight. Along its banks and among the nearby boulders, he saw irregular shapes darkening the gra.s.s and mazes.

Storm stopped walking. He turned to Eyal with a glare.

The curb looked up at him innocently. "The ferryshaft appear to have completed their winter migration."

Storm scowled. "What a coincidence."

"They just arrived," continued Eyal, "so I doubt they have the energy to attack anyone they might have reason to dislike."

Storm said nothing.

"Perhaps we should go down and look for this...uh...Tollee person."

Storm's scowl deepened. "You've been talking to Valla."

"Or someone named Kelsy?"

"They don't want to see me!" snapped Storm. "I don't want to see them." He took a deep breath. "I just want to be a curb, Eyal. Can't I just be a curb?"

"Of course," said Eyal. He thought for a moment. "In that case, we should go down and look for stragglers. Weak foals, old adults-probably exhausted and sleeping. Excellent hunting down there."

Storm was horrified. "You're not serious."

Eyal looked at him without a trace of guile. "I am. It's what curbs do...unless, of course, our friend is a ferryshaft."

Storm sighed. He looked back down at the herd. "It's the conference," he muttered. "Every year after the migration, Charder meets with Arcove, and I guess...I guess they decide how many of us the creasia will kill that winter. I didn't completely understand before."

"Maybe you still don't," said Eyal.

Storm gave him a withering look.

Eyal refused to be drawn. "My pack will not help you attack a creasia clutter, Storm. Certainly not one with Arcove in it. We'd die. We will help you find out what's become of your friends and make sure your herd doesn't try to kill you...if that's what you want."

"I just told you it isn't what I want," muttered Storm, but his voice carried little conviction.

Eyal turned and started towards the ground. Storm trailed behind. The moon was setting by the time they found their way to the foot of the cliffs, and dawn had erased the stars by the time they reached the outskirts of the herd among the boulders. Most of the ferryshaft were still sleeping, huddled in small groups on the frosty earth and stone. The area around the river was foggy at this time of morning. Storm remembered that. He remembered the excitement of sliding on the ice for the first time. He remembered how Sauny had squealed with delight when he'd shown her how to do it two years later. She'll never be able to do that again.

A ferryshaft loomed out of the mist ahead, only to take one look at the curbs and flee. The same thing happened again a moment later. Storm remembered something. Tollee's parents were killed by curbs. She hadn't responded when he'd told her about the highland curbs that fall. Still... He turned to look at Eyal. "Maybe you should let me do this on my own."

For the first time, Eyal looked uncertain. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Storm. I'm here. I might as well see my mother and tell her that her children are not entirely dead. "I'll meet you back at your den in a day or two." But if you're waiting for me to thank you for pus.h.i.+ng me into this, you'll be waiting a while.

Eyal inclined his head. "As you wish. Any ferryshaft who can tear the head off a seal is able to take care of himself. But if we don't see you in a few days, we'll come looking."

"Do that," muttered Storm. When they were gone, he hopped onto a rock, worked his way to a vantage point, and watched the dawn. He watched the mist melt away and the herd wake. Ferryshaft pa.s.sed beneath his perch without glancing up. He didn't see any of the ones he was looking for, so he said nothing. It took him half the morning, watching the ebb and flow of the herd, occasionally dozing, before he spotted one of the females that had belonged to So-fet's clique. He hopped down and followed her at a distance.

It was near noon when he finally approached his mother in the woods beside the river. So-fet was so overcome when she saw him that, for a moment, she could not speak. Storm felt instantly sorry for his failure to contact her earlier. He hurried forward and looped his neck over hers. "Sauny is alive, but she's crippled." He had not meant to blurt it out that way, but the words came, and he couldn't stop them. "She's with Valla in Syriot...the place with the telshees... She-"

"Shhh..." said his mother, and Storm realized that he was trembling. He felt weak and hated himself for it. "I'm glad you're alive," whispered So-felt. "I'm glad you're both alive. I hoped...but-"

"I should have sent a curb to tell you," said Storm. "I'm sorry, mother."

"A curb?"

"Yes, I've been with the highland curbs...and the telshees."

"I see." So-fet gave him a critical sniff. "You certainly smell like it."

Storm didn't want to talk about that. "My friends-my ferryshaft friends-do you know what's happened to them?"

So-fet spoke carefully. "You mean Kelsy?"

"Kelsy and Tollee." He thought for a moment. "Leep." Although he's one of the ones who didn't fight.

"I heard that Tollee had taken up with Remy," said So-fet. "They're old enough now, and they can both hunt... They'd do better if they joined a female clique, but I think they stand a good chance of surviving the winter even if they don't."

"Remy?" echoed Storm. "Kelsy's Remy?"

"Yes. She and Kelsy had a falling out after Faralee died...and over other things. At least, that's the rumor. These are your friends, Storm, not mine."

Yes, but everyone in the herd knows Kelsy.

"Was Itsa hurt in the fighting?" asked Storm with a new sinking feeling.

"No," said So-felt. "Itsa and Kelsy are still together as far as I know. Remy is carrying his foal, but I don't think she's speaking to him. Tollee..."

"Tollee is carrying Mylo's foal," said Storm dully. He clamped his mouth shut to keep from saying more.

So-fet watched him. "There were rumors that it was...yours."

Storm felt a new kind of guilt. "No," he said softly.

"I offered to help her," said So-fet, "for your sake, but she seemed to be doing well enough."

"Tollee is a survivor." Storm thought for a moment. "Why isn't Remy speaking to Kelsy?"

So-fet looked uncomfortable. "You know that the creasia meet with our leaders at this time every year, don't you? Charder goes, often Pathar, sometimes other elders."

"Yes," said Storm. He had not actually known that Pathar attended these meetings, although it didn't surprise him when he thought about it.

"Well," continued So-fet, "this year, Kelsy went. With Charder, of course, and Pathar, too, I think."

Storm gaped at her. "He...he went to-"

"Arcove met with him after the battle in the fall. The rumor was that they got along pretty well and that Arcove is grooming Kelsy to be the next herd leader. Creasia have been monitoring the herd since the attacks, although there hasn't been any fighting. Kelsy was invol-"

"'Got along pretty well'?" Storm couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Arcove killed Faralee! He maimed Sauny! He sends creasia to slaughter ferryshaft every year-"

So-fet gave a bitter snort. "I'm not sure that's the way Kelsy sees it. But I wouldn't know. I'm just a low-ranking, unmated female, Storm."

Storm felt as though he'd swallowed something vile. I should never have let Eyal talk me into this.

As he turned away, he heard his mother say, almost timidly, "Where will you be sleeping, Storm?"

"I don't know." He glanced over his shoulder. "In Syriot by tomorrow."

So-fet looked stricken, but Storm was too numb to care. "I can't stay with the herd, mother. Not anymore. I'll try to come see you now and then."

He'd expected her to argue with him, but, instead, she said, "Be careful, Storm. We came west in a hurry this year because Pathar and some others thought a Volontaro was coming. Now they've changed their minds, but creasia came from all over Leeshwood to stay in the Great Cave for the storm. They're mostly on the south side of the river right now...but be careful."

Chapter 5. The Calm Before....

Storm's anger carried him away from the river at speed, but he hadn't gone far into the boulders before a sense of bewildered betrayal almost overcame him. He stopped. He couldn't even decide where he was going. Kelsy. How could he? I thought he and Sauny were friends. I thought he and I were friends! Mylo never trusted him. Tollee tried to tell me. I wouldn't listen.

He thought of looking for Tollee, but couldn't bring himself to do it. What if she's got something even worse to tell me? Storm realized suddenly that he'd been awake for most of a day and a night. He could not recall the last time he'd been above ground at noon. The sun seemed to glare down out of a blinding sky, and he felt exposed with no shadows in which to hide.

I should go sleep somewhere. Perhaps, when I wake, I will know what to do.

This stretch of boulders and cliff were among the most familiar to Storm. He went a little distance north-just enough to be beyond the bulk of the herd. Then he selected a sheep trail and walked until he reached a little cave where he'd used to stash game.