Wolf-speaker (14 page)

“How's the soup?” she asked Maura hastily,
before the tall immortal could make her feel even younger and sillier than she did just then.

“Ungerfoll” Maura swallowed her mouthful of noodles, coughed, and said, “It's really good. And clever, how you had most of it in that cloth ball.”

“The Riders use them for trail rations” Daine said, hearing voices in search of her. She put her bowl aside and got up facing the rear entrances to the cave. The wolves gathered near her, ears pointed in the same direction.

The bats streamed in from the lower caves to whirl around Daine in a dance of welcome. She laughed as the leaders came to rest on her clothes and hair, landing with the precision they used to find roosting spots among hundreds of comrades. These were little brown bats, an inch and a half to two inches from crown to paw, with a wingspan of three to four inches. Clinging to her, they looked like brown cotton bolls. Though the whole colony, nearly three thousand animals, had come to greet her, most hung overhead rather than chance a welcome from Daine's other companions.

They greeted her in high, chittering voices, introducing themselves as the Song Hollow Colony of bats. She asked if they minded that she and her friends were in their home.

They didn't mind at all, they replied. All they asked was that her friends not try to make a meal of them.

“I think I can promise that,” she assured them with a smile.

But what if they taste good? asked Short Snout wistfully. It's true, one wouldn't be more than a mouthful, but there are plenty of them here—

“He's
joking
,” Daine said when the bats screeched in alarm, their voices sending jolts of pain through her teeth.

Not about food, retorted Short Snout. Meals aren't funny.

Daine pointed to the entrance. “Out,” she commanded.

I probably wouldn't eat
many
, he said as he obeyed. It would be too much like work to catch them, anyway.

Brokefang stretched. We go to hunt, he told Daine. Tonight, the pups come, too. It is time, he added as the young wolves, deliriously happy, frolicked around him. Whatever we see, we will tell you.

“Good hunting,” Daine called.

—
Good hunting
,—added Tkaa.

Startled by the basilisk's remark, Brokefang asked, Do you wish to come?

—
I thank you, but no
,—Tkaa replied. Daine heard pleasure at the offer in his voice.—
I will remain with Skysong and the small two-legger
.—

If Tkaa was willing to keep an eye on Maura, that left her free to try something. “Would you do me a favor?” Daine asked the bats. “You prob'ly
know, from my sending before, that the pass is cut off by some kind of barrier.”

We had heard, one of the leaders replied.

“As you hunt, would you explore the barrier and find its limits? You're the best ones to do it. You won't hit it, and if you all go, you can map the whole thing before dawn. And may I ride along with one of you?”

After a short conference, the bats agreed. One of the leaders clambered from her perch on Daine's boot top to her collar. I am Wisewing, she said, tiny black eyes sparkling. You may try this magic with me.

“Give me a moment,” she said, tickling the bats chin with a fingertip. “I have to sit.” The other bats clinging to her took flight. Daine went to Maura, who was covering her head with her hands. “I need to go with them,” she told the younger girl. “Why are you doing that?”

“They'll get in my hair.”

Daine planted her fists on her hips. “Odd's bobs,” she said crossly. The brown eyes that looked pleadingly at her filled. She sighed. “Don't cry. I'm sorry. But Maura—they got in
my
hair because I
invited
them. Bats don't fly into hair. They never bump into anything they don't want to.”

“But everybody says—”

“
Everybody
's wrong. See, they squeak at things,
and listen to the squeak.” She pointed to Wisewing's ears. The long, sensitive flaps wriggled to and fro, hearing every bit of sound in the air. “If the noise comes funny into their ears, they know something's there, and they fly around it. They don't smash into glass, or even that barrier, like birds do. Nothing's invisible to bats.”

Maura's hands left her hair. “How can you go with them? You can't fly. Can you?”

Daine shook her head. “Just with my magic, inside this lady.” She patted Wisewing. Going to where her packs rested against the wall, she sat, using them as a cushion for her back. “Don't leave this cave,” she cautioned Maura. “And you'd best go to bed soon. I have a feeling tomorrow's going to be a long day.” Closing her eyes, she fitted herself into Wisewing instantly.

Sounds poured into her ears, echoes from the cavern walls, each scratch of Tkaa's or Kitten's talons, Cloud's munching, wind blowing through the caves. Wisewing leaped into the air, reaching forward with her leathery wings and scooping air back with easy grace. They were in flight.

The voices of the Song Hollow bats rippled ahead of them, a river of sound that Wisewing followed eagerly. Cooler air brushed her face, and they were in the open. Daine could hear the rest of the colony flying along the barrier, heading north,
south, and east in waves. Wisewing flew straight ahead, soaring until she skimmed the underside of the barrier's highest arch.

Please stop trying to see it, she protested. You're making my eyes hurt. I don't use them that much.
Listen
for it. You can hear it everywhere.

She was right. The barrier was a constant soft crackle of sound, reflecting the voices of the bats. Wisewing herself struck it constantly with her voice, and the returning echoes not only told her how far off it was, but that its underside was unnaturally smooth, like the inside of a bowl.

Daine just had time to register a different, softer echo when Wisewing scooped the moth that had caused it into her waiting jaws. The taste reminded Daine of roasted, honey-glazed duck. The bat's next victim was a tangy mosquito, followed by a moth that tasted more like fish. She'd always known that bats ate insects by the pound on their hunts, but it was one thing to know this in her mind, another to taste flavor after flavor on her tongue.

I don't want to slow you down by eating, but the Big Cold is soon, said Wisewing. I must be as fat as possible by then, or I won't wake up.

I know, Daine replied. You don't have to apologize.

On they flew, the barrier solidly above them. From all around, other bats sang out information,
comparing notes about the magic, the insect supply, and the weather. The crispness of the air made Daine feel giddy and silly.

Then she heard something unpleasant in the distance. The bat's voices came to their ears from something big, something with leathery wings and claws. Her bat darted at the giant, squeaking at it from all angles, building a picture of the great creature in her mind. She had filled in little more than the huge wings and four sets of talons when Daine guessed what it was.

Hurrok, she said nervously. We don't need to hear more. Please let's go!

—
Little squeaker, get away from me
.—The immortals voice was much deeper than the chorus of bat voices surrounding him.—
I don't
like
squeakers
.—

Wisewing dove in, settling between the hurrok's wings. Chittering across the immortars withers, mane, and ears, she picked up the sound of metal. It hummed with a sound the bat recognized as that of human magic. Interested in this new object, Wisewing fluttered across the immortal's chest, to find that a metal band or collar went all the way around the hurrok's throat.

I would have to pick a nosy bat, Daine thought, sick with nerves.

—
It's a slave collar, squeaker
,—the hurrok said.—
It means I must obey a
human,
a mortal wizard whose power makes it burn into my flesh with only a word. And do you
know what that pain, and that knowing, and this collar, do to me? They make me feel like tearing up every living creature I see
.—

She heard a roar of air as something large snapped right over her head: the hurrok had tried to catch them in its teeth. Please Goddess, prayed Daine, let me get through this without losing my life and I will be good forever.

Scolding, Wisewing dropped down, letting the hurrok go its way. Don't let it scare you, she told Daine. It's much too big and slow to catch us. An
owl
, now—an owl is dangerous. You want to stay away from them, particularly barn owls.

I shall keep that in mind, Daine replied.

See that you do, the bat said firmly, and scooped up a fly.

She didn't know how long she flew with the bats, but it must have been for hours. When she opened her own, human eyes and lurched to the cave's entrance, false dawn had turned the eastern horizon pearly gray. She still heard the Song Hollow bats as they returned to their home, greeting her as they flew by. Her mind full of Wisewing's memories, she identified each by his or her particular squeak: Singwing, Chitter, Eatsmoths, Whistle, Flutter. Reunited in the cave where they roosted, they sang their news. From their combined voices Daine built a picture of the barrier's shape. By true dawn her worst fears were confirmed. The wizards'
barrier sealed off the entire valley, with no crack or cranny left for a determined girl to wriggle through.

Mission done and bellies full, the bats went to sleep. Daine stayed at the entrance, listening to the shift of hooves on stone as Cloud changed position in her sleep, a soft munch that was Tkaa as he nibbled on a piece of rock, the bustle of voles in the grass. Her ears were tired and sore, the muscles around them cramped from use. Reaching up to rub them, Daine touched a long flap of leathery skin that flicked to and fro, catching each quiver of sound in the air.

Her hand shook. Slowly, praying to the Goddess, the Horse Lords, Mithros, and any other god who might be listening, she felt the other ear. It too was long, and twitching independently of its mate, gathering every sound from that side of her head. She knew without looking that the stone of the cave entrance was six and a half inches behind her, that Kitten lapped water from the spring, and that a raccoon on the mountainside twelve feet and eight inches above her head was finishing a latenight supper of something crunchy, probably acorns.

What
is
this? she thought, her skin prickling. Why is my body changing? It's staying right where I left it.
I
don't change when I do this, I just send my mind someplace else. So how could I have bats' ears?

Unless I'm just imagining that part of me
changes. If I am, it means I'm going mad after all, she thought, strangely calm. Surely someone would have told me that it's possible to change part of yourself into something else.

If I ignore these ears, they'll go away, or my mind will let go of them, or whatever. Maybe if I sleep, I'll wake up and be normal again.

That seemed like a good idea. Returning to the large cave, she found her bedroll. When I wake up, the ears will be gone, and I won't be crazy, she told herself firmly as she slid into her blankets. She pulled the covers over her head, just in case. If the ears were still there, she didn't want Maura to wake her with a scream.

SIX

REBELLION

She awoke slowly, leaving dreams in which she clung to the cavern with the other Song Hollow bats, becoming her normal self in the cave that she shared with her motley group of friends. For a moment she thought she was deaf, the sounds she heard were so few and so dim. She clapped a hand to one ear and found a small, curved shell where the long, ribbed flap had been. Feeling relief mixed with sadness, she knew she was not deaf. Her ears were human once more.