Storm runner, p.20
Storm Runner, page 20
Gamon scowled at him. “Do not be shy, boy. Dion said you fought as well as Aranur could have done.”
The boy flushed more darkly, and then he said furiously, “I did not. She lied. I did not fight at all.”
Dion shook her head at Gamon, kneeling in front of the boy. “I spoke the truth,” she said quietly. “Why do you deny it?”
The boy twisted away from her, and she grabbed his shoulders to stop him and force him to face her. “When we were on the boulders,” Dion said, “you used the knife against the worlags as much as I did my sword. You did not flinch away from them then. I would call that as courageous as any act I have seen.”
“No.” The boy looked up then. “When you fell off the boulder, you called for the knife. You shouted to me to give it to you. I couldn’t. I could see the worlags—I saw them grab you— tear you—You screamed,”—his voice was rising—”and I couldn’t let go of it. You were screaming, and I couldn’t give it up…”
Aranur knelt beside Dion. “But Dion is here, Tomi. Look. She is whole and sound and can still run with the wolves as she is meant to do. And you are here and safe, and you have a knife, and Dion has a knife.” He put his hand under the boy’s chin, forcing Tomi to look at him. “You made a mistake, Tomi, that’s all. You put Dion in danger, yes. But it happens—it can happen often when two people have to trust each other in battle. I make mistakes, too,” he added at the boy’s disbelieving look. “The second time I led a venge against a group of three raiders,” he said, “I walked right into a trap. My first venge had gone so well that I was cocky. Two men were badly injured. I walked away with this—” He pulled up his sleeve to show Tomi the wide white scar where he had taken a sword stroke on his bare arm. “That taught me to think.” He pulled his sleeve down. “Three months later, I led another venge, and I froze when a swordswoman needed me.” His eyes grew hard. “She died. And that,” he said vehemently, “taught me to act. But here”— and he nodded at the wolfwalker—“you are now safe, and Dion is fine.”
Dion smiled wryly. “Don’t blame yourself, Tomi. Like Aranur said, everyone makes mistakes.”
The boy stared at her. Dion was a healer. What mistakes could she make? He did not realize that the question was obvious as his eyes flickered from Dion to the silver circlet on her brow.
“Yes,” she said, her face softening, “me, too. I—I don’t always have the best judgment,” she admitted. “I have risked both Aranur’s and Gamon’s lives more than once by healing others at a bad time or in a poor place. I make mistakes in fighting, too. I did not always have the experience to know what to do and in what order. Once, as with Aranur, a woman died because of my haste.” She stared at her hands, then looked up at the boy. “Being asked to give up your one weapon during a battle is a hard choice. I don’t blame you for what you did.” She touched his arm. “Be sure you do not blame yourself.”
“But you screamed,” he whispered. “You didn’t stop.”
“I was scared,” she said softly. “Like you.”
The boy looked at her unwillingly.
From beside her, Aranur nodded. “It is true. Dion is frightened more of a worlag a hundred meters away than a firespider on her hand. I’ll tell you a secret.” He dropped his voice, leaning close, and Tomi listened intently in spite of himself. “All night long,” he whispered, “Dion wakes me up with her dreams, hitting me as if I was a worlag myself.”
A chuckle escaped Gamon, and Dion made a face at the older man. “Maybe it is the thought that I might have to run trail with the both of you again,” she retorted, “not my dreams of worlags, that make me strike out so.”
Gamon laughed outright. “If you are confusing me with worlags”—he rubbed his grizzled chin where his beard was scruffy as the hair on a beetle-beast’s face—“perhaps I should look to my shaving.”
Tomi looked up at Dion. “I’m sorry I did not help you.”
She smiled faintly. “You do not have to be sorry anymore.”
He hesitated, then nodded jerkily.
Aranur got to his feet. “Now that you are no longer sorry, you can look at the experience objectively and figure out what you learned from it.”
Tomi gave him a puzzled look.
“What you have learned about carrying a knife,” the tall man prompted.
“What I learned?” The boy blinked. He thought for a moment. “To carry two knives,” he said soberly. “Not one.”
Gamon slapped Aranur’s back and made him choke on his chuckle. “Then,” he said finally, “you shall have two knives.” He took one of his long knives from his own belt and handed it to the boy.
Tomi stared at the blade. He frowned, then looked up at the tall gray-eyed man. He belted the knife on carefully, sliding it around next to the other one, and looked down at them for a moment. “If I have two knives,” he said slowly. “I can ride with you tomorrow. Then, when Dion loses her knife again, I can loan her one of mine.”
Dion choked on a laugh. Aranur, finding his own logic turned against him, glanced helplessly at his uncle.
Gamon shrugged. “Would it really hurt to have him with us?” he asked.
Aranur opened his mouth and shut it again. He had not meant to give the boy a reason for coming along—and Gamon did not appreciate how difficult it was to get some privacy in this camp— or out of it. He and Dion would not be able to lag behind the other scouts and elders if this boy shadowed them tomorrow as he had done this entire day. But Dion was looking at Aranur expectantly, and Gamon was grinning slyly, guessing the reason for his discomfiture, and so he said reluctantly, “I guess not.”
Tomi, satisfied, yawned. Dion glanced at him. “Time to sleep,” she suggested.
Gamon nodded. “This way,” the older man said firmly, taking the boy by the shoulders. He pushed him toward the cave, where he would be more comfortable than in one of the musty cabins. The trees sheltered the cabins from the wind, so that the muggy spring weather made the insides damp, holding the wet-mud smell like a sponge. The cave, on the other hand, was warm from the reflected fires, and well-aired where the chimneys cut through the stone and sucked out smoke and odors.
Aranur watched the two head toward the cave, his expression sobering as he took Dion’s arm and led her from the fire. Dion winced, feeling his hand tighten. Here it comes, she thought. He is remembering Tomi’s confession about her fear. Now she would get the what-the-hell-did-you-think-you-were-doing-you-could-have-been-hurt lecture. She steeled herself as they strode toward the shadows of the corral. But the angry words did not come. Instead, Aranur turned her toward him and searched her face with his gray eyes. “You did not tell me about that, Dion,” he whispered. “That you fell off into the pack. That you screamed.”
She shivered. “I was scared,” she admitted in a low voice.
Suddenly she was in his arms, her face ground against his jerkin, and the sharp edge of the gemstone in his sternum rasped against her cheek. “Moons, Dion, I was terrified,” he whispered in her hair.
She looked up, touching his cheek gently, a question in her eyes.
He whispered, as if unwilling to say the words aloud: “Terrified of losing you.”
“You’ve never said that before.”
“I did not have the confidence to say it before.” It was the truth. Not until he had dragged her from under the body of that beetle-beast and found her still alive, crying out for him when she came to, had he known, or truly believed, that he might someday lose her to the forest. Moons, the panic that had hit him when he thought she was dead… He trembled, hiding it in a shiver when Dion looked up with worry. He touched her face, tracing the scratch that marred her cheeks. There was a wildness about this woman that drew him to her and trapped him in her violet gaze like a nightbug drawn to a fire. She moved like a shadow in the forest, gliding between the trees like the wolves with which she ran. She was not even aware of her grace, or the way she caught his gaze when she turned her shoulder just so, or tossed her hair back like that. Gods, but he wanted to steal away into the woods with her right now, take her hair from that braid, and spread its glossy blackness across the whiteferns that shone under the moons… He gritted his teeth. That he had to share her with the wolves—trust them with her safety—he was finally beginning to accept. Dion would never be able to live completely in his town—the pull of the graysong was too strong, taking her from her bed at night sometimes, urging her feet to the ridges where the Gray Ones ran. He could not take that away from her, nor, he realized, did he want to change that any longer. And he had grown used to running the forest with her. Half in town, and half without… He was a weapons master, but there were other options for his skills. Here, with Dion in his arms, it seemed as if there was nothing as important as crushing her to him, smelling the smoke in her hair and tasting the musky scent of the wolves on her skin.
“I’ve learned to live with our bargain,” he said slowly.
She smiled, looking up and rubbing her cheek to his. “I, too,” she admitted.
He pushed her back, surprised. “You had doubts? You were the one who insisted I keep my orders to myself.”
“I meant it.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. “But I also know that it is your job to understand and weigh the risks of any fighting. It is why you are a weapons master even though you are so young that the other fighters think of you as an infant fresh from the cradle,” she teased. She sobered, her voice suddenly quiet. “I knew you would come for me. I knew all I had to do was hold on.”
“I would not have left you to face seven worlags by yourself—”
“Eight.”
He chuckled, and she knew he was teasing her. “—if only because it would hurt my pride.”
“Aranur…”
He shrugged. “You are a wolfwalker. Your life is different from mine. I will never truly understand it, but I can believe in it. And I can believe in you.”
It was much later when they made their way to the cave where their sleeping gear was spread. They unrolled their bags, turning them toward each other so they could touch hands together as they fell asleep. As the warmth of the cave lulled Dion’s thoughts, she heard a faint stirring behind her and rolled drawsily over. It was Tomi again, dragging his bag beside hers, half-asleep as he crawled back in and curled up. Dion smiled faintly, dozing off. Surrounded as she was by so many people, no nightmares would dare disturb her sleep that night.
Chapter 11
Coerce the hunt and speed the feet
Battles rage in distant streets
How to get there—
how to stop it?
Plead to stop the blood from spilling?
Race to stop the raiders’ killing?
Your words alone, could prevent the theft
of life; prevent the death.
When Dion slid out from under the blankets, Aranur grunted, his hand searching for her body before tucking himself in a smaller curl at her absence. He woke some time later, rousing and scrounging breakfast at the fires before looking for her again. When he spotted her, she was in the middle of a knot of people in heated discussion. That alone should warn him, he thought wryly. What task would she be talked into this time? He grabbed an apple from the bin and made his way around the banked fire pit to greet his uncle before joining the group that was now trying to convince Dion of their plan. He smiled wryly. Dion could fight worlags or raiders and not blink an eye, but when it came to denying a half-starved woman or a child with bruised eyes, she could neither speak nor fight her way to the word “no.”
“…a few days, maybe less,” coaxed one of the elders they had rescued yesterday.
Dion shook her head. “I disagree. We should delay at least a ninan, maybe more.” Sobovi, the other wolfwalker, stood beside her, nodding emphatically, his gray hair shaking with the movement.
Moonworms, Aranur thought, she had already agreed to the task. They were now just persuading her of the time frame.
“But we must act now,” one of the men repeated.
Dion waved her arms toward the west, toward the river. “It will take time to scout the area. Time to trace the paths, locate the people to contact. Those of you who crossed the border yesterday”—she gestured at Moira and an older man—“cannot be used as scouts: you are elders. The rest are mere children. Not one of you is strong enough to run trail to the Slot and back.”
“If you used the falls as the crossing instead of the Slot, you would cut two days from the run.”
“And if the raiders began to realize that our tracks appeared and ended at the falls,” Sobovi retorted irritably, “we might as well forget about using it for anyone else who escapes to the border.”
The old man jutted his face forward, silencing the others. “We are not ungrateful for what you have already done,” he said persuasively. “But we cannot just sit and do nothing while more of us die.”
Dion sighed. “Neither can we run in, snatch people, and race back to the border like rabbits scurrying in front of a pack of worlags.” Aranur edged through, catching her eye. She nodded in acknowledgment, her attention on the argument.
One of the other women suggested, “We could at least get food and clothing to them—”
“After they reach Ariye,” Sobovi cut in, “surely. But what about before then? Do you expect Dion and I to cart gear enough for two dozen on our own backs?”
“Sobovi, you saw the condition of those who crossed yesterday. They could barely stagger by the time they reached the Knee. They need the food, the clothing—the hope,” the other woman insisted.
Beside her, a man scowled. “Moira said that the Sky Bridge was free of the raiders sometimes. What about using that crossing instead? Divert the raiders’ attention, bring the refugees across there—it would save seven or eight kilometers of trail. We could afford to send supplies across if we used the Sky Bridge instead.”
Dion made a helpless gesture. “Can you guarantee that the Sky Bridge is clear? And if not, do you want me to lead a group of children straight into the raiders’ hands and, when facing them, say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I must have made a mistake trying this pass. Could you let us cross anyway?’ ”
“But Moira said—”
“I said,” Moira interrupted evenly, “that Peyel told us the way was clear at the Sky Bridge. That she heard it from the raiders in her tavern.”
“But I saw the raiders at the Sky Bridge myself,” Dion protested. “Either the way was never safe to begin with, or they beat you to the crossing.”
The elder standing beside her shrugged, puzzled. “So Peyel might be wrong. Had we run for the bridge, we would be dead by now. Or dying,” he added, the images of dead children clouding his sight. “As usual,” he said, nodding to the tall elder woman, “Moira judged right. We made it to the falls, and now we are here. Safe. But should we now sit here in this safety, eating your food, warmed by your fire, and coveting this haven while our people”—his voice took on a dangerous tone—“the ones left behind, suffer, starve, and die?”
Moira sighed. “Although it is true that the raiders had the Sky Bridge closed off for our escape, it does not mean that others would suffer the same fate. Peyel works closely with our resistance group to help us escape. She helped five other groups flee, and they must have made it free, or we would have seen them dragged back by the raiders and burned to teach us all a lesson.”
Aranur frowned. “Then why,” he asked slowly, “have none of them but one sent word back to you?” His voice was clear above the murmurs, and the group fell silent.
Moira met his eyes steadily. “What courier would risk death to tell us that our friends were finally safe? Had your own messenger not used the wolf to give me the map, he would have been dead himself. As it was, the raiders knew someone had been there—they searched the forest for two days afterwards. They gave up just before we made our break.”
His expression was grim. “Yet you are asking Dion to run the border anyway, knowing that the raiders will be watching for just such a move.”
The healer was safe enough, Moira thought wearily, her frail energy drained by this argument—an argument that had little point. After all, the wolfwalker was protected by the moons. Dion’s words might protest, but her violet eyes gave her away. She was a moonwarrior, and the moons took care of their own.
Rafe, one of the other scouts, gave Aranur a sideways look. “Dion would not be going in alone, Aranur. You could trust her with me.” He nudged Dion in the ribs, and, in spite of her bruises, she grinned at Aranur’s expression. As with most couples, it was a private matter that they were Promised, but the other scout had seen the gemstone in Aranur’s chest during a sparring match, and, watching the two, realized who it was that had captured Aranur’s heart. He had congratulated the weapons master long ago. He also never lost a chance to tease the tall man about it.
Aranur raised his eyebrows. “I can trust her with you, Rafe, but I would not tempt the moons the other way around. Whether you run with her or not,” he said, grinning to reduce the threat in his words, “keep your hands to yourself.”
Dion rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she said sarcastically, “behave.”
“Dion,” Aranur responded sternly, “why do you have to go at all? Rafe is a good enough scout to go alone.”
Moira shook her head. “Rafe is no wolfwalker. Dion can speak to the wolves. She can keep Rafe and herself unseen better than Rafe alone.”
Sobovi ran his hand through his once-black hair, ruffling it in the morning breeze. After a sleepless night trying to keep from tossing and bumping his swollen ankle, he was irritable, and it was difficult to keep his voice from snapping. “There is no argument that we need to know the layout on the other side of the river,” he said finally. “Dion and Rafe will be in less danger together than Rafe or any other scout we could send alone. I would go, but—” He gestured at his ankle. “—it will be a while before I can hike at any useful speed.”
Aranur glanced at him. “Then why not wait till you are better? What harm can come from waiting at least a ninan, like Dion says?”
