Wolf Hunting (27 page)

“Maybe someday,” Firekeeper said, “the yarimaimalom tell us; for now, does the name and nature of these matter?”

“I suppose not,” Harjeedian agreed. “What does matter is that I have a fairly good idea where we must head next—assuming that we are correct in our assumption that the twins returned to make some effort to reclaim their family estate.”

Firekeeper restrained herself from asking why the aridisdu did not check the omens. She knew he had attempted to do so, and found his deities unequivocally silent on the matter. In any case, her words would be nothing but mockery—and Harjeedian did not deserve such a reward for his labors.

Harjeedian went on to pull out maps and charts.

“These are not the originals, needless to say, but the archives were happy to loan me an apprentice cartographer to make swift copies. Petulia copied salient passages of verbal description while I read ahead.”

He offered Plik, the only other member of the expedition who read Liglimosh fluently, his notes.

“Although this seems to have been a rural holding,” Harjeedian continued, “even when the original owners were in residence, there also appears to have been a regularly traveled route between this city and the Setting Sun holdings. It was not paved or cobbled, nothing like that, but the route was marked with regularly spaced cairns. We should be able to locate these. A hundred years is a long enough time that we may find the road overgrown, but then again, we may not.”

When Harjeedian seemed to be drawing to a conclusion, Firekeeper interrupted before he could start repeating himself.

“No matter how good are these notes and charts,” she said, “it seems a long run—longer as we must bring the packs and horses. Eshinarvash will slow no one, but the other horses may do so.”

She shrugged. “I think is best if we break into groups. I go ahead with some and find what is there. The rest follow more slowly. Eshinarvash will warn you of the night wanderers even as we would have done.”

Bitter squawked,
“Even at your swiftest, wolf, you are slow. Lovable and I should go ahead of the rest. We can fly back and report to you, and even send someone back to inform the slowest goers. Plik can translate.”

“There is good thought in that,” Firekeeper said, and she quickly explained what the raven had suggested.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Derian said. “I mean, it’s not like the twins will expect anyone to follow them, and even if they do, they’re going to be looking for their mother’s kin, not wolves and ravens.”

“Unless,” Plik said, glancing over at the book he had been reading, “the Meddler somehow lets them know.”

Everyone’s gaze drifted momentarily to Truth, but the jaguar only stared at them with cool indifference. No one needed a translator to know she had said, “And how would I know?”

“Then we is decided?” Firekeeper asked. “We can leave nearly at once.”

“It will be dark before long,” Derian reminded her.

“I know,” Firekeeper replied, “tonight we only need to run. We not need to look for cairns. The weather cools, but Blind Seer is still hot in the day. Travel by night would be best, and we are very, very well rested. By when we need to look for landmarks, from what Harjeedian say, we will be where is forest and cooler.”

Derian nodded. “There’s some sense in that.”

Harjeedian inclined his head in solemn agreement. “Yes. I have noticed how Blind Seer has suffered—and admired his tenacity. Will the ravens also leave tonight?”

Lovable bounced. Bitter replied with a tipping forward of his body that Firekeeper was certain was meant to imitate Harjeedian’s solemn nod.

“We will wait until morning,”
Bitter said.
“With our swift flight, we will certainly pass the wolves even with their head start.”

Firekeeper translated, then turned her attention to Truth.

“And you, Truth, do you go with us or remain with the humans?”

“I will remain with the humans,”
Truth said,
“and help Eshinarvash to guard them. Jaguars are not made to travel long distances afoot, chasing after herds as wolves do. We hunt our prey with cleverness, not by roaming all over the landscape.”

Firekeeper let the mild insult go unchallenged, not bothering to include it in the translation she supplied. Plik grinned at her, but didn’t question her choice. Let him think she was practicing tact when in fact Firekeeper, was quite happy with the idea that she would have the next several days alone with Blind Seer. Although they had been gone from Misheemnekuru for only a bit over a moonspan, it seemed much longer.

“Then we are decided?” she asked, rising to her feet.

“I suppose we are,” Derian said. “You will take a canteen with you at least, won’t you?”

“And a hatchet, and rope, and a few other useful things,” Firekeeper promised. “I do not wish to be slowed where tools can help.”

“Let me help you find what you’ll need,” Derian said.

Over where their packs had been stowed, they had some small amount of privacy. Derian rested his hand on Firekeeper’s arm.

“You will be careful,” he said. “Promise?”

“I promise,” Firekeeper replied.

“No running off and forgetting that we need you?”

Firekeeper grinned at him. “Only running off, no forgetting. These twins is my hunt, too, remember.”

She grew grave. “And you be careful, too. Stay near Eshinarvash and look for his signs. Prey creatures—though I not be first to call him so within reach of his teeth—they are even better than hunters at knowing when danger is about.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Derian said. “Tell me. Is Eshinarvash, well, enjoying this trip?”

“He is. He goes where his people have not gone for long years, and sees many things—and he also likes being admired.”

“Who doesn’t?” Derian laughed. “I know I find myself staring at him. Familiarity doesn’t make him any less the finest horse I’ve ever seen.”

“Let him know,” Firekeeper advised. “Horses is herd animals, as wolves need pack. You stand off and stare, but remember, he is lonely some.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Derian admitted. “I’ve been trying so hard not to be less than respectful …”

“You have proved respect,” Firekeeper said. “Now show friendship. Plik, too. He not say, but I think he, too, is some small bit lost.”

Derian looked at her. “You’ve changed, Firekeeper. Once you wouldn’t have said any of this.”

“Have I changed?” Firekeeper replied. “Maybe this world we think we know so well—both you and I—maybe it changed around us and now those things we think truth bend until we are not sure they are truth.”

“Maybe both you
and
what we know have both changed,” Derian said. “One thing is certain, though.”

“What?”

“Your Pellish and your Liglimosh both have gotten better from steady use. Don’t forget how to talk while you’re away.”

Firekeeper grinned at him. “I not.”

While they talked, they had assembled the kit she wanted. Now Blind Seer surged to his feet. Bumping Derian with his head, he turned and padded toward the darkness.

Firekeeper ran eagerly after, but she paused long enough to wave good-bye.

XIII

THE PATTERNS OF THE STARS, the pathway of moon’s pale sliver, the scents in the wind, and a dozen other small things guided Firekeeper and Blind Seer as they ran that night.

When morning came they located one of the cairns of which Harjeedian had spoken. The stones had been mortared together with an angular one set on the top pointing the direction. From the dead bracken—mostly vines—piled at the base, much more than one year’s growth could account for, Firekeeper guessed that the twins, traveling this same route over a year before, had pulled living vines down to make sure of their path.

“Good,” she said to Blind Seer, “the others will find their way better marked than I feared.”

“The young growth has pushed up where the road once ran,” the wolf replied. “Indeed, except where the deer have kept a trail clear, what was once a road is more tangled than the way to either side.”

“Never mind that,” Firekeeper said, hoping Blind Seer was not going to suggest they stop and clear away brush. “With Eshinarvash’s help, Derian can easily get the horses and mules through.”

They continued on, treasuring the coolness and planning to lie up when the sun rose high. Here and there they found a cairn, and pulled the vines free so that the bare stone would reassure their nose-dead human friends that they had passed this way.

A stream with some pretensions to being a river slowed them for a time. What had been marked as a ford would no longer serve, the living water having shifted as water will over time—indeed, as it will from season to season.

They located a place where they could cross without difficulty, and where Firekeeper felt certain that Derian could get the horses across as well. While they were testing this, hoarse cries from overhead announced the passage of Bitter and Lovable heading west.

The ravens did not stop, and from this the wolves knew that the rest of the expedition must be on schedule. Had there been reason to expect delay, the ravens, great gossips that they were, would certainly have dropped down to gossip.

Firekeeper marked the ford as Race Forrester had taught her to do, slicing away a hand-sized swatch of bark from the trunks of a conspicuous tree or two, exposing the whiter wood below. No one had taught her to do what she did next, climbing into the tree boughs and cutting away some small branches to create a gap that would be obvious to those who flew above. She didn’t blame Race for not teaching her this trick. He’d never had to blaze a trail for a bird.

At the next ford, the following day, she did the same, and when she joined Blind Seer she found the wolf a short distance away, snuffling the ground at the base of one of the cairns with audible intensity.

“What have you found?” she asked.

“Human scent,” he replied. “Very faint. It is hard for me to believe that it might belong to those we seek. Were we not told they left Gak over a year ago?”

“So we were told,” Firekeeper agreed, “but who is to say that they have not returned this way again?”

“True,” Blind Seer said, “but I would wonder that any scent, even that of blood, would linger so long.”

“Blood?” Firekeeper asked.

“So I said,” the wolf said, stepping back and shaking, then turning to scrape dirt over the spot with stiff jerks of his paws. It was the action a wolf might take to cover the scent of a rival or invader into his territory, and Firekeeper found it unaccountably unsettling.

“Then there is our answer,” Firekeeper said soothingly, leading the way along the trail. “The twins decided to return to the city, perhaps admitted that they had been impulsive or foolish. One was injured. We are a fair distance from the city, especially at the paces humans travel. Instead of continuing their journey to the city, they returned to their camp. When the injured one had healed …”

“Or died,” Blind Seer muttered.

“They decided to remain, the momentary impulse to cowardice squelched.”

“I suppose,” Blind Seer admitted, “that is a possible explanation.”

“Or,” Firekeeper said, falling into the same game of supposition she so frequently found irritating in her human associates, “one twin wished to return and the other did not wish to return. They fought here, and the one who wished to remain won the battle and took the other back.”

“That also makes sense,” Blind Seer agreed, “but we will not know until we see with our own eyes. Shall we go on?”

Firekeeper nodded, picking up her pace. She was glad she had reassured Blind Seer enough that he was willing to continue forward, but she had to admit she shared his disquiet. There was something not right here, something that she had sensed almost as soon as her feet had touched the soil across the second stream, but for all she cast about, she could not discover what it was that troubled her.

The birds still sang their idiot songs announcing territorial claims or ritual challenge. Insects chirped and chittered their dry, late summer chants. Here, farther south as they had come, autumn was only beginning to make itself felt, and that mostly in cooler nights.

Squirrels could be seen in the tree branches above, darting about, filling their hoards, stopping to chatter impotent rage at the two passing below, secure in squirrelish certainty that nothing so large could reach so high.

Firekeeper thought it beneath her dignity to take out her bow and teach the rodents just how long her reach could be, but the thought amused her.

After fording the first stream, they had begun traveling more by daylight, making certain they did not lose the road. It was not that they needed the road themselves, but Firekeeper was very conscious of her promise to Derian that she would not simply run off, very conscious of her responsibility to scout for the more cumbersome group that followed.

It was as they were lying up during the hottest part of the day that Firekeeper became aware that Blind Seer was only dozing, his head thrown slightly back, his slit blue eyes studying the sky.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Those ravens,” he said. “They should have passed this way on their return. I looked for them yesterday. They are swifter than we are, and can take their meals from almost anything. As I remember the map, we are a day or so’s good running from this estate we seek. The ravens should have cleared the distance, seen what was to be seen, and returned to brag of their knowledge.”

“Could they have missed us?” Firekeeper asked, apprehension twisting her gut most unpleasantly.

“We have kept near the road, dear heart,” Blind Seer replied. “Those bright eyes would not miss us.”

“Perhaps they went back to the others, wanting to fill them in on what they found.”

“And not tell us first?” Blind Seer snorted. “When we will reach this ‘Setting Sun’ before the rest? Besides, ravens are too fond of telling a tale, especially one wherein they feature as the heroes. Lovable would need to tell you, even if only to hint at some pretty she wanted you to get for her. Bitter has too good an opinion of himself not to take the opportunity to share his discoveries with us. I fear something has happened to them.”