Storm runner, p.35
Storm Runner, page 35
How far had they gone? Halfway? More? Dion heard a cry, and she flung herself toward the lip, watching the arrow-pierced body of one of the archers fall to his death. A moment later, the other archer followed, his dark hair streaming back, his arms limp as his body tumbled. He had been dead before he fell. The raiders kicked him off. Dion stared. Sobovi cursed, calmly, steadily. He drew his sword. Then he began to run—down the trail.
“No!” Dion shouted at him.
Sobovi did not listen. The tide of gray was in him, rising with his rage. Death—there was only death in this hunt. He met the raiders head-on. They clashed. One raider slipped and fell from the cliff. Sobovi stumbled. The ringing storm seethed in Dion’s head, and she saw through Gray Yoshi’s eyes. The sword that slashed Sobovi’s ribs tore into her own, and she staggered. “On!” she screamed at Namina. “Go!” She clutched her arm, feeling the shocking break where Sobovi’s bone had been smashed by a sword. She ran. She stumbled. Behind her, Sobovi fell. She threw her head back and howled. Sobovi died.
Namina staggered to a stop, her chest heaving. Longear’s hair was plastered to her forehead by sweat. Tomi crouched on the trail. “Give up, Dione,” Longear croaked. “That other wolf-worm is dead. You have lost again.”
“Of all the—raiders on this—cliff,” Dion snarled between breaths, “you are the one—I swear will not—walk away unscathed.”
Longear began to laugh. “Stupid woman. Don’t you see? The men behind you are mine. The camp below was mine, and will be mine again. The county west—that is mine. And the one to the east, your Ariye, will be mine, as well. The trick you pulled at dawn—I know it now—it was one of the ancient ways of war. I had not thought to use them yet, but now—” She paused grimly. “The next time your precious Ariyens try to fight by numbers, they will go down the same way—in droves.” She pointed with her chin. “You will never take me to the trial block. You cannot even judge me here, when you know who I am and what I do to your precious Ramaj Ariye.” She laughed coldly. “You can kill a man in battle, but you can’t kill in cold blood, Dione. And you,” she taunted Namina, “never even had the guts to speak your name in a quiet room. Nothing you can do here will make a difference. I will be back in my base this evening, and you will all be dead.”
“No,” Dion protested.
Longear snarled. “The raiders on this trail will not let you reach the top of this stupid mountain, Dione. Even if you did reach the top, what then? Do you think to hold off a dozen swords with your healer’s band? You are stupid enough to try to fight them, but so what? You will go down, like the other fools on this trail, and I will be rid of you and the one child who knows I am both Peyel and,” she taunted, “Longear. I will have everything I had before. I will have lost nothing but a few raiders.” She shrugged delicately. “They are easily replaced.”
Dion stared at her.
“Oh,” Longear added as if an afterthought, “and the boy, Dione? Just so you know. I think I will keep him for myself.” A slow grin, like the death smile of a skull, stretched across her face. Tomi shrank back.
Dion could not move in her horror. “This cannot be allowed to continue,” she whispered, agonized.
Namina looked at Dion and blinked. She tightened her grip on Longear’s arm.
Longear looked at her and laughed. “You are worse than nothing, Namina. Dione at least can fight me. You cannot even speak.”
Namina’s blue eyes stared through Longear’s soul. “I had not had a need,” she said. Her soft, hoarse voice was barely a whisper. She stepped forward. Her hand tightened on Longear’s arm. When she stepped from the cliff, it was again in silence.
Dion lunged forward. “No!” she screamed. “Namina!”
The two bodies plunged strangely, one still and spread on the air like a bird, the other twisting, kicking, screaming, as it fell. The only link between them was the hand of Namina on Longear’s arm. The air curdled with Longear’s scream. Then there was silence.
Dion stared after them. The first raider on the trail after them eased around the corner and, seeing the wolfwalker at the drop, surged forward. Tomi shouted. Dion scrambled to her feet, swinging up with her sword and a handful of dust at the same time. The raider yelled in rage. Someone had her arm, urging, pulling her away, and she followed, running blindly after the boy. Wolfwalker, the tide of gray raged. The hunt—the hunt is on the heights. Run with us! Run high!
Dion and Tomi scrambled around another balanced column, rocking it as they grabbed for its support. “Go!” Dion shoved the boy away. She flung herself at the cliff, jamming herself between the face and the stone. The boy stopped, turning back, standing dumbly as she strained. Her lips grimaced; her neck muscles stood out. “Gods!” she screamed. The column rocked forward, swung back—Dion gasped, her legs jammed back against her—then slowly, agonizingly slowly, tipped out.
The column rumbled. Rocks crashed to the trail. The massive piece of stone fell across the trail and began to roll. A man screamed, followed by the grisly fading shriek of another man. Dion and Tomi ran. They did not look back.
Gray storms sweeping the ridge. Wolfwalker! We come!
Gray Ones… She could not close her eyes to the surging tide of strength. It blinded her, and she stumbled, the boy clutching her arm as she fell to her hands and knees. She crawled. The raiders’ curses were loud as they clambered over the stone and followed grimly up the trail.
“Here,” Tomi screamed at Dion, dragging her sideways. A gap in the stone met her groping hands. “Up.” He pushed futilely at her back.
Dion clenched her fists, clearing her eyes. The slit of a cave beckoned just above her head. The raiders would come around that last bend any second. Once the raiders saw her, the dark arrows would drive her and the boy from the trail in a minute. Even if the arrows missed, she and Tomi could not survive the fall. She looked at the slit again, the senses of the wolves drowning her nose in the trail, the crushed leaves, the musky scents of the males, the lepa…
The lepa. She went rigid. The cave was a lepa den. Dion clutched Tomi’s arm. If they disturbed the beast…She glanced at the sky. It was an hour past dawn. One hour. There were no shadows in the sky. Was it sleeping? Or had it roused to hunt? Gods, the raiders would be here any second. She licked her lips, trembling. She put her fist into the crack and drew herself up. Moons of mercy, moons of light, she prayed. Her foot found purchase between the columns. Guide me in the darkest night… Her hands found the lip of the cave. Keep me safe from evil spirit… She pulled herself up.
There was nothing there.
She hauled herself in, twisting and reaching down for the boy. “Quick,” she breathed. He was light as a stick, her strength multiplied by the power of the wolves. His knees banged on the stone and he whimpered, but he made no other sound as she dragged him up, pulling him into her arms and crouching beside him in the cave. The smells choked them both.
No more than half a minute passed. The rasping breaths of the raiders, their muttered curses, filled the air. Scrabbling sounds followed them where their hands searched for support along the trail. They passed. A second later, an arrow shot across the entrance to the cave. Dion flinched. The gray rage in her head made it hard to see, and she edged forward, looking down along the trail. Gods, it was—
“Aranur,” she cried out.
The man leapt forward, reaching up to grasp her hands. “By the moons, you are safe!”
“The raiders—”
“Twenty meters ahead, no more.” He motioned for her to climb down. As she slid over the lip, he stepped back, bracing himself in case she slipped, then steadying her as she landed on the trail. The boy followed, sliding into his arms. Behind Aranur, Gamon glanced up, his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath with difficulty. As Aranur grabbed the boy, Dion stepped back toward Gamon, and the older man wrinkled his nose. The reek of the cave clung to her body. He shivered. Lepa. He looked up again. Did she not know the death she had risked? He glanced at her face, white and sweating in the gray light of dawn. No. She knew.
“Come on,” Aranur snapped. “We can still catch them.”
Dion stopped him. “No,” she said urgently.
“They will gain the top and run for Bilocctar.”
“They will go nowhere.” She looked up at the rim of the cliff, her eyes unfocused. “The wolves are waiting,” she whispered.
Aranur stared at her.
Rage, wolfwalker. Hungry death. Man smell, hot smell, sweat-stink in the wind…
She nodded to herself. Rage. The images shifted, blending and separating so that she saw from a hundred eyes. The dark, lupine shapes crouched on top of the flattened mountain, waiting, listening, lifting noses to the wind. The hum burned in their bones. The first raider reached the top and staggered onto the flat. Wind swept the sweat from his face. He gasped, forcing himself away from the edge. The mountaintop was narrow here. Thirty meters—no more than that. Flat and smooth, the material of the ancient Slot reached across that expanse. The raider’s sword and knife were stuck together, the studs in his leggings gluing the blades to his thigh.
The Gray Ones waited.
The second raider dragged himself up. A third. A fourth. The eighth one laughed, and Dion heard the echo as if the woman’s mouth were in her ear. Nine and ten. Twelve. Fourteen. They crawled away from the edge, regaining their feet, watching the rim warily. Wind whipped dust into their eyes. They held up their hands to guard their faces while their chests heaved and their mouths hung open to suck air into their starving lungs.
The Gray Ones moved.
Unseeing, the raiders staggered toward the path that ran along the top. They stopped.
A tide of gray shadows slunk along the Slot. Hackles rose. Teeth bared. The raiders grabbed at their swords. They could not raise them from the scabbards. The Gray Ones advanced. Waving their arms, the men shouted at the wolves to send them back. The creatures did not hear. Or, hearing, did not care. Their rage ran deep, ran red. They circled in. The raiders backed toward the Slot. One woman came too close to the edge and clutched another man for support. The wolves did not pause. Shouting, the raiders ran at the Gray Ones, fighting the wind to break through that tide of gray. Fangs slashed. A Gray One yelped. Someone screamed. One of the raiders was gone, falling over the edge of the Slot and into the humming channel below.
Howl, Wolfwalker, the gray beasts raged. The hunt is on the heights!
Two raiders went down under the crush of gray; two more fell from the rim. Another faced the fangs at her throat and jumped, clutching the Gray One and taking it with her. The wolves howled, furious. The tide turned to a frenzy.
Then there was silence.
The wind howled across the flat. The Gray Ones slunk away. The mountaintop was bare except for the bodies. Below, in the slot, the sprawled forms were tiny on the smooth tiles of the ancients, a gift from the memory of the wolves. The only movement was the shadow of the lepa hovering over the Slot, circling, circling in the sky.
Epilogue
Aranur and Dion faced each other on the ridge behind their new home. Gamon was there, by Dion’s side. Aranur’s other uncle, the Lloroi, stood beside his nephew. A boy, two youths, the hard-faced woman Tehena, the mate of the Lloroi, and three men waited in the summer wind. A wolfpack stood in the trees on the edge of the meadow that topped the ridge, and their yellow eyes gleamed.
“Let this stone reflect my love,” Aranur said softly. His tunic was pulled away from his chest, as was Dion’s. His long fingers touched the blue gem held lightly to her sternum by the waiting studset. “Let this promise be as enduring. By the wind and”—he smiled faintly—“the wolves; by the nine moons; by the stars; know that my love, my respect, my home, are yours.”
Dion’s soft voice repeated the words, her hand touching his chest as lightly as his had done hers. Their hands dropped and clenched. They gripped each other tightly, staring into each other’s eyes. Gamon and Tehena stepped forward. They nodded to each other, then, at the same instant, pressed the studguns against Aranur and Dion’s bared sternums. The shocks of the studs stunned the two with an instant, fading pain, and the wolves in the treeline threw back their heads and howled.
Gamon grinned in satisfaction. “Let those who hear and those who howl be witness to this mating.”
Tehena nodded curtly. The Lloroi and his mate exchanged a long, smiling look. Aranur pulled Dion’s shirt back over her shoulders, and she did the same for him. Gray eyes met violet ones. They stood for a long moment, feeling the newness of the blue gems set above the purple ones. The studs ached deeply, reaching into their bodies with the coral growth that would bind the gems permanently to their bones. Hidden now, the two stones, one purple, one blue, shone over their hearts and rasped beneath their tunics. A year they had waited for this.
Gamon, Tehena, the Lloroi—those who had gathered turned to walk away. Aranur and Dion did not notice. They were full of each other, standing in the wind, standing above their home, holding each other together.
Tomi stared at them, his eyes dark in the mask of his face. When he turned away, he stumbled. Gamon stretched out a hand to steady him, but he jerked away.
“Tomi,” Gamon said.
The boy halted.
“Where are you going?”
“They are mated,” he said in a low voice. “They are a family now.”
“Yes,” said Gamon simply.
The boy turned away, his eyes blurred, his feet finding the path with difficulty.
“Tomi,” Gamon said softly.
He halted, but did not look back.
“Why are you going?”
“They won’t want me to stay anymore,” he whispered. “And Moira said I have to find a family.”
“You already have.” Gamon pointed at Dion and Aranur. “Give them a ninan, boy. Their home will be ready by then for you too.”
The boy did not respond. But when Gamon held out his hand small fingers felt their way into his grip. He did not speak, only closed his hand about the fingers lightly, and Tomi, his face still wary, walked with the old man, instead of behind him, back to his home.
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Tara K. Harper lives in northwest Oregon, where the mists crawl across the mountains and the rivers run cold and deep. Living between the Coast Range and the Cascades, she is active in outdoor sports, such as hiking, camping, rock climbing, and white-water rafting. She also collects and works with weapons from the modern to the primitive, including swords, three-sectional staves, compound bows, and boomerangs. Spaced between these in her writing room are well-worn instruments ranging from a violin and dulcimer (built by her father) to guitars and keyboards. Geodes, fossils, thundereggs, and shells fill the crannies in her bookshelves. Any remaining wallspace is covered with watercolors, pencil drawings, carved figures, and twisted masks. It is here, surrounded by the tools of reality and imagination, that she turns her dreams and nightmares into stories.
Currently, Ms. Harper works as a technical writer in the state-of-the-art, high-speed test-and-measurement industry. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science, and is active in community service. She reads constantly, avoids health food (to which she has violent allergies), and prefers cold mornings in the mountains to temperate evenings in town. She has long hair, blue eyes, three cats, two dogs, and has recently acquired a husband.
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Tara K. Harper, Storm Runner
