Wolf Hunting (44 page)

“And why do you think that?” the Meddler asked.

Firekeeper gestured at the two waiting bracken beasts. “These not have hands for turning knobs or lifting latches, but they—and we—can push.”

She hefted a sturdy piece of hardwood. “Truth, you push. I be ready to hit.”

The jaguar agreed, padding between the two bracken beasts, shifting her head from one side to the other, letting her sensitive whiskers test what she found.

Firekeeper watched, waiting for the slightest twitch from either “bear” or “cat,” but they stood as unmoving as the garden sculptures they seemed to be.

Truth gave a satisfied hiss, and then her front end began to vanish through what now looked very much like a curtain printed with the image of a group of trees—though no printed image had ever shifted with the passing wind. When Firekeeper thought that the curtain was sufficiently raised, she gave her promised howl.

“Come,” she called to the others waiting outside, “but carefully. We will need to guide you through.”

Blind Seer came at an all-out run, a ripple in the grass, halting beside Truth. The jaguar gave instructions, and the wolf passed safely under the curtain. He stopped almost immediately, sniffling curiously at the air.

“This place is empty,” he said. “Empty of all but bugs and little things that live in the dirt.”

“I know,” Firekeeper said. “Scout, dear heart, but take great care. I will guide the others through, then send Lovable with a message for Eshinarvash.”

“I can go,” Truth said, “then come in as I did before.”

“Good,” Firekeeper agreed, moving to take Truth’s place holding up the curtain. The sensation was as if thousands of bees walked over her skin, delicate buzzing accompanied by the prickling of tiny feet.

Truth slipped under, gliding away through the tall grass just as Derian arrived.

“What’s with her?”

“She goes to speak with Eshinarvash. Walk beneath the curtain.”

“What curtain?”

Firekeeper immediately grasped that the curtain could not be seen from without. It made sense of a sort—as much as anything was making sense of late.

“You will understand,” she promised. “For now, pretend I have a fine woven curtain held up over my arm. Duck under it, coming close to me so you do not touch cloth.”

This wasn’t easy, for Derian was quite tall and he bore with him a pack of things the humans had thought might be needed. He tossed the pack through first, then bent and went under. Firekeeper smelled him, familiar and comforting, clean man sweat mingled with that of horse.

When Derian was through, Harjeedian followed. He was shorter than Derian, though not a short man, but his passage was more complicated. While Firekeeper and Derian were comfortable with each other, despite all the days he had traveled with them, Harjeedian still kept himself somewhat apart. Nonetheless, he managed to get under without touching the curtain. Lovable strutted under after him. Firekeeper trusted that Truth could make her return as promised and carefully lowered the curtain into place.

The bracken beasts had not yet stirred, so Firekeeper hoped they had run this course undetected. She realized something else. With Truth’s departure, the sense of the Meddler touching her mind had also vanished. Either the Meddler had gone to watch his student, or in his wearied state he needed the jaguar to help him bridge the gap between his spirit existence and this one.

“You’re right,” Derian said, “the entire copse is like a curtain. This part of the estate is nothing like what I expected. It looks deserted.”

Blind Seer came up at that moment.
“Deserted now, but there are signs of past denning
,
and denning since the days when this place was sealed behind the illusion of trees. Come
.
I will show you.”

Firekeeper translated, but she laid a hand on Blind Seer’s shoulder in sign that he should wait.

“First,” Firekeeper said, “we must set rules.”

Derian grinned at her, and she knew why. Usually, she was the one who balked at rules, but she had learned some things when leading her pack on Misheemnekuru, and one was that rules kept pups alive—and in this place, not one of them could be counted less than a pup.

“First, as before, speak Pellish and only that. If any listen, they may know Liglimosh, for Harjeedian’s people are a great pack even in these lands, but they may not know Pellish.

“Second, stay close to each other. No flying high and clever or running fast. Each here has different senses, and we will need them all.

“Third, no courage, only care. Many, many yarimaimalom disappeared in this place. We are no greater than they, and maybe lesser.”

She looked around, but saw no protest, not even in the lines of Truth. The jaguar had flickered into sight as Firekeeper had begun speaking, and had waited with listening patience. Now Truth spoke.

“Eshinarvash knows that we have not found either Plik or the twins as we had hoped. He plans to drive the horses with their packs back to beyond the second of the streams we passed. None of us can recall having seen the briars before that point. Then he will return.”

“The packs will give the horses sores!” Derian protested.

“Eshinarvash knew you would be concerned,” Truth said, “and told me to tell you that he is rather clever with straps and knots. He thinks he can remove the gear if needed.”

Derian looked as if he wished to argue the matter, but knew there were things more important here than a pack horse getting a sore.

Firekeeper resumed. “Blind Seer and Truth will lead. I will take behind. But first one thing … Derian, you have rope?”

“I do.”

“Good.” She gestured back to the watching bracken beasts. “Blind Seer tell me he have looked, and these are only two here. Perhaps we have broken most, and more must grow. I not want to break these. That might alert someone, but I not think we must make easy their coming after us, or after Eshinarvash.”

With Derian’s help and a considerable quantity of rope, they rigged a sort of snare. Should the bracken beasts move, either to go through the curtain or to come deeper into the stronghold, they would trip a line and that line would bring down upon them a sizable chunk of timber.

“If they not move,” Firekeeper said, slapping her hands against her pants legs to remove the worst of the dirt, “they be fine, if they move …”

“They’ll be flattened,” Derian said, looking quite pleased.

“Now,” Firekeeper said, gesturing for Derian to take his place in their loose ranks, “let us go see what this strange place holds.”

XXI

DERIAN COULD NOT HELP being nervous as they moved through the open iron gate and into the Setting Sun estate’s interior. In many ways, the layout was familiar to him. The main house, which could serve as a second fortification as needed; outer buildings, including an outside kitchen, a smokehouse, various workshops, stables, and even a chicken coop.

There was a walled-off area that looked like it had been a garden, containing a well and a small pond. That last might have been ornamental, but Derian would have been willing to bet, based upon its location, that it had been used to keep fish fresh for the table.

They walked around the outside of the main house first, and Blind Seer showed them signs that someone—probably the twins—had camped here. There were burnt areas from old, but not ancient, fires. One of the workshops had clearly been used as a residence, another as a stable. The original stable proved to have a collapsed roof. The wolf’s keen nose even found where a privy had been dug.

Wood had been cut, timbers moved, and vines pulled down. One section of the kitchen garden, after close inspection, proved to have been tended.

“Mints and other hardy herbs,” Harjeedian said. “Either they brought seeds with them, or they found a few surviving plants and cultivated them.”

“There’s every evidence,” Derian said, “that the twins intended to stay. Where are they now?”

“Someone,” Firekeeper reminded him, “took Plik. If not the twins, who?”

“I think,” Derian said, “that the twins camped out here—probably using that shop as temporary quarters—while they worked out how to get into the main house.”

“Not so hard,” Firekeeper said. “Now.”

“But I think it would have been harder then,” Derian said. “If you look at the windows and doors, the upper ones were shuttered, but the lower both shuttered and nailed shut. My guess is that the people who lived here couldn’t take everything with them, and were hoping to keep looters out.”

Harjeedian interrupted, “Truth wants our attention. I believe she has found something.”

What Truth had found was an entrance into the main house. Closer inspection showed that it had apparently been unsealed, then sealed again.

“And this time,” Derian said with mingled satisfaction and frustration, “sealed from the inside rather than out—though they took some care to try and make it look as if the place had not been opened.”

Blind Seer was snuffling around the doorsill.

“Someone has been in and out of here, recently, too,” Firekeeper translated. “It’s a shod foot, which makes judging time a little harder. Male. Extreme fondness for some sort of very smelly herb I don’t recognize. Interesting. There have been others as well, but the herb-eater’s scent dominates.”

Truth was also taking the scent, her mouth hanging slightly open as cats did when trying to gather finer details.

“Blind Seer, go beneath the human spoor,” Firekeeper translated. “There is something older, yet heavy enough that even the season’s turning hasn’t completely eliminated it.”

Blind Seer lowered his head closer to the doorsill; then, to Derian’s complete astonishment, his hackles rose.

Firekeeper, moving to place a comforting hand on her pack mate’s shoulder, nonetheless continued translating.

“Beasts! Frightened. No. Terrified. There’s a reek of blood, too. Someone must have scrubbed to remove the stain, but the scent lingers.”

“Wise Beasts?” Firekeeper asked, and from her intonation, Derian knew she spoke for herself.

Truth’s tail lashed, and Firekeeper translated her response.

“Telling such by scent is not simple, but I think that it takes a mind that can think to generate such absolute terror. What we smell here, Blind Seer and I, is not just fear, but a horrible despair that makes me want to flee—and I am not easily driven away.”

“For the first time,” Firekeeper said, “in all my life, I think I am truly glad to be nose-dead. Still, we must go ahead. Derian, Harjeedian, do your eyes see how this door opens? Truth, do you see anything like the curtain—some thing we should avoid?”

Plik’s being kidnapped,
Derian thought as he stepped forward to inspect the door,
may be the best thing that ever happened to Firekeeper’s
command of spoken language. Being forced to translate has really helped.

But even as he smiled inwardly at his own joke, Derian found himself marveling over the changes in Firekeeper. More must have happened to her during that year spent on Misheemnekuru than he had ever imagined. She was learning to be a leader, rather than an impatient force of nature content to let others do the planning, then follow or not according to her whim.

Is this the
difference
between
a head
wolf
and
merely
a
member of
a
pack?
I
wonder.

Harjeedian had taken the lead in inspecting the door, and now he turned to Derian.

“See how these boards are placed? They look as if they are nailed tightly down, but they are actually quite loose. Most of the nails have been cut off so only the heads show.”

“Probably can be lifted into place from the other side and fastened,” Derian agreed. “We should be able to lever it off.”

He turned to Truth. “Truth, have you found anything?”

Firekeeper held up her hand in signal that they should wait. Her brow furrowed as she listened, her lips shaping distaste.

“Truth say,” she said, “Meddler say, that door is fastened with something like the curtain. It look like the door wood, but is not.”

So much for her Pellish,
Derian thought ruefully.
That Meddler really must make her uncomfortable.

Aloud he said, “We weren’t here when you figured out how to ‘open’ the curtain so we could pass under it. Do you have any ideas?”

Firekeeper moved to join them, making the stoop, broad as it was, a bit crowded. Derian stepped back and looked over her head as she bent and studied the door.

“Other was easier,” she said. “We could look through and see grass. This is wood on wood. Still …”

Harjeedian gave a gasp of pleased astonishment. “That’s very clever, Firekeeper. This is wood on wood, but whoever did it wasn’t completely careful. The boards that were used to seal the door were old and splintered. Look down here, a double image where it doesn’t match.”

He was pointing to a section about waist-level on Firekeeper. Firekeeper looked up, grinning.

“Good. You see good. I step away. You look. Find edge, then peel back. You will feel it on fingers like the song of bees.”

She stepped back, and Harjeedian knelt, studying the door closely, then pointing. “Do you see it, Derian?”

Derian did. In one place, a long splinter could be seen through a sort of mist of undamaged wood. In another, a swirl of “wood grain” didn’t match that which it overlapped.

“Now,” Harjeedian said, “we must find the ultimate edge.”

He placed his fingers very lightly along the edge, and his expression changed.

“It does rather feel like bees buzzing. Shall I lift?”

“Truth say, ‘Do,’” Firekeeper replied. “Carefully, not to bend but to peel back.” She paused, “Like skin from dead prey.”

“Charming,” Harjeedian said. “Gently but firmly. I think I can manage that.”

He did, starting on his knees and slowly rising, his hands firmly closed over something Derian could see, but just barely.