“This isn’t the time to explore!” Daine hissed. If he heard, he gave no sign of it. With a sigh the girl told the horses to move on. “The wolves won’t touch you,” she said when Spots wavered. “Now go!”
Follow me, Cloud told the horses; they obeyed. Daine, with Kitten peering wide-eyed over her shoulder, followed Numair.
Blackened earth sprayed from the crater’s center. Other things were charred as well: bones, round metal circles that had been shields before the leather covers burned, trees, axheads, arrowheads, swords. The heat that had done this must have been intense. The clay of the mountainside had glazed in spots, coating the ground with a hard surface that captured what was left of this battle scene.
Numair bent over a blackened lump and pulled it apart. Daine looked at a mass of bone close to her, and saw it was a pony’s skeleton. Metal pieces from the dead mount’s tack had fallen in among the bones. Looking around, she counted other dead mounts. The smaller bone heaps belonged to human beings.
Grimly Numair faced her and held up his find. Blackened, half-burned, in tatters, it was a piece of cloth with a red horse rearing on a gold-brown field. “Now we know what happened to the Ninth Rider Group.”
Daine’s hands trembled with fury. She had a great many ties to the Queen’s Riders, and the sight of that charred flag was enough to break her heart. “And you stopped me from shooting those Stormwings.”
“They don’t kill with blasting fire like this,” Numair replied. “This is battle magic. I have yet to hear of a Stormwing being a war mage.”
“I bet they knew about this, though.”
Numair put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re too young to be so closed-minded,” he told her. “A little tolerance wouldn’t come amiss.” Folding the remains of the flag, he climbed back up to the trail.
TWO
THE VALLEY OF THE LONG LAKE
Three days after leaving the cave, the wolf pack led the humans and their ponies through a gap in the mountains. At its deepest point they found a spring, where they ate lunch; from there they followed a stream downhill, until Brokefang stopped.
You must look at something, he told Daine. Leave the horses by that rock—they will be safe there, with the rest of the pack to guard them.
Daine, with Kitten on her back in a sling, and Numair followed him up a long tumble of rock slabs. When they came to the top, they could see for miles. Far below was the Long Lake. Daine noticed a village where a small river—part of the stream they had followed—met the lake. Not far offshore, linked to the village by a bridge, was an island capped by a large, well-built castle.
Numair drew his spyglass from its case. Stretching it to full length, he put it to his eye and surveyed the valley.
What is that? asked the wolf, watching him.
“It’s a glass in a tube,” Daine replied. “It makes things that are far away seem closer.”
“This is Fief Dunlath, without a doubt.” Numair offered the spyglass to Daine. “I can’t see the northern reaches of the lake from here. Is that where the damage is being done? The holes and the tree cutting?”
Most of it, Brokefang replied. That and dens for the soldiers, like those they have at the south gate.
“Soldiers at the northern and southern ends of the valley?” asked Daine. “Then why not here, if they want to put watchdogs at the passes?”
Most two-leggers follow the river in and out, answered Brokefang. Few come here as we did. When they do, usually the harriers catch them outside, as they did those Riders you spoke of.
Numair listened as Daine translated. “This is not good,” he muttered, squinting at Dunlath Castle. “There is no reason for this fief to be heavily guarded. Under law they’re only entitled to a force of forty men-at-arms….May I see that again?” He held out a hand, and Daine returned the glass.
They continued to examine the valley until Brokefang said, Come. We have a way to go still. Let us find the meeting place, and my mate.
Daine and Numair followed the wolf back to the spot where they had left the horses. A strange wolf had joined the others, a gray-and-white female with a boldly marked face. Brokefang raced to meet her, tail erect and wagging gaily.
“Well, he’s glad to see this one,” Numair remarked as they followed more slowly. “Who’s the stranger?”
“His mate, Frostfur. The boss female.”
Where were you? Frostfur was demanding of Brokefang. What took so long? You said you were going only to the other side of the mountain and you have been gone four nights.
Daine sighed. She’d forgotten how much she disliked Frostfur. During her time with the pack, Rattail had been Brokefang’s mate. A sweeter, gentler wolf Daine had never met. After her death, Brokefang had chosen her sister. The new female pack leader was a cross, fidgety animal who had never accepted Daine.
We were traveling with two-leggers and horses, Brokefang told his mate. They can’t run as fast as we can.
The only two-legger you need is her. Why didn’t you leave those others behind? We can hunt if we are hungry. We don’t need food brought to us, like the humans’ dogs.
At this Cloud, who stood between Frostfur and the horses, laid back her ears. Kitten reared up in her sling, bracing her forepaws on Daine’s shoulder, and screeched at the she-wolf. Daine was shocked to hear her friend voice something that sounded so rude. Frostfur looked at them and bared her teeth.
“Enough!” the girl ordered. “We’re friends. That means you, Frostfur, and these horses. If you disobey, you’ll be sorry.”
Frostfur met her eyes, then looked away. You are different, the wolf said. You and the pony both. I suppose you don’t even realize it. The pack never was the same after you left it. How much will you change us this time?
Brokefang nuzzled his mate. It will be good, he told Frostfur. You’ll see. Take us to the pups. You’ll feel better when the pack is one again.
Without reply, Frostfur ran down a trail that led north. The wolves and their guests followed. The path took them on a line that ran parallel to the lake. For a game trail it was wide and, if the tracks and marks on the trees and shrubs were to be believed, used by many animals, not only wolves.
“Mountain sheep,” Daine commented, showing Numair a tuft of white fur that had caught on a bramble. “A wolverine, too—keep an eye out for that one. They’re nasty when they’re crossed.” Looking up the trail, she saw each of the wolves stop to lift a leg on a pile of meat. Even the females did so, which was odd. Marking territory was normally done only by males. “Graveyard Hag, what are they doing?” she asked, naming one of Numair’s gods. She trotted to the head of the line. “What is this?” she asked. “What’s wrong with the meat?”
Brokefang replied, One of the two-leggers is a hunter of wolves. He leaves poisoned meat on our trails. We are telling him what we think of this. When he comes to check the meat, he will curse and throw things. It is fun to watch.
Daine laughed, and went to explain it to Numair.
They made several stops to express such opinions: twice at snares, once at a trap, and once at a pit covered with leaves and branches. Each time the wolves marked the spot with urine and dung, leaving a smelly mess for the hunter. At the last two stops, the horses and Cloud also left tokens of contempt.
“That should really confuse him,” Daine told Numair and Kitten. “He’ll never figure out how horses came to mark a wolf scent post.”
A lesser trail split from the one they walked; the wolves followed it into a cuplike valley set deep in the mountainside, hidden by tangles of rock. There the woods opened onto a clearing around a pond. At the water’s edge trails crossed and recrossed, and large, flattened areas in the brush marked wolf beds.
A challenge-bark came from a bunch of reeds, and five half-grown wolves, their colors ranging from brown to frosted gray, tumbled out. They still bore remnants of soft baby fur, and were in the process of trading milk teeth for meat teeth. Eyeing the strangers, they whined and growled nervously, until the pack s
urrounded them and shut the new-comers off from view.
Another grown wolf, a black, gray, and brown male, pranced over to say hello. “He’s Longwind,” Daine informed Numair. “He was baby-sitting.” To the wolf she said, “Say hello to my friends. Cloud you know.” As Longwind obeyed, the girl walked up to the pack. The moment the pups noticed her they backed away.
Frostfur said with grim satisfaction, I knew bringing strangers was a mistake. Brokefang nuzzled his mate, trying to sweeten her temper.
Fleetfoot stuck her nose under the belly of one of the male pups and scooted him forward. We know this isn’t what you’re used to, she told him, but you may as well learn now as later.
Russet gripped a female pup by the scruff of the neck and dragged her to the girl, adding, Daine is Pack, and if she is Pack, so are these others.
The female was the one to walk forward, still clumsy on her feet, to sniff Daine’s palm. She is Leaper, Russet said, and Leaper wagged her tail. The male pup trotted over. He is Chaser, commented Russet. These others are too silly to have names. At that the remaining three pups approached timidly, whining.
Daine introduced the young wolves to her friends. The pups came to accept Numair, the horses, and Cloud, but nothing could make them like the young dragon. When she went near them, they would run to hide behind an adult wolf. At last Kitten turned gray, the color that meant she was sulking, and waddled over to the pond. There she played with stones, pretending to ignore everyone.
Why is she sad? asked Russet. They are pups. They don’t know any better.
“She’s no more than a pup herself,” Daine replied. “I can’t even talk to her as I could to her ma. She looks big, but as dragons go she’s a baby.”
I see. Getting up, the red-coated wolf trotted over to the dragon and began to paw at her rocks. Soon they were playing, and Kittens’s scales regained their normal, gold-tinged blue color.
Daine was wrestling a stick out of the jaws of a pup she had decided to call Silly when Brokefang came to say, We hunt. Since the pups accept you and Numair and the horses, will you guard them?
“We’ll be honored to guard your pups,” Daine told him.
The pack left, and Numair began to cook as Daine groomed the horses. The smell of frying bacon called the pups to the fire, their noses twitching. The new scent canceled some of their fear of Kitten: as long as she kept to one side of the fire and they to the other, the young wolves didn’t object. When the first pan of bacon was done, Numair gave in to the pleading in five pairs of brown eyes and one pair of slit-pupiled blue, and doled it out to his audience.
After Numair, the pups, and the horses went to bed, Daine lay awake, listening to the chatter of owls and bats. At the fringe of her magic she felt immortals pass overhead. They weren’t Stormwings, or griffins, or any of the others she had met before. She sensed she would not like these if they did meet. There was a nasty undertone to them in her mind, like the taint of old blood.
The pack returned not long after the creatures’ presence faded in her mind. Was it good hunting? she asked Brokefang silently, so she wouldn’t disturb Numair.
He came to sit with her. An old and stringy elk. He gave us a good run, though, he replied Cloud says you are trying to fit into her skull. It sounds like an interesting thing.
I tried it once, said Daine. Cloud thinks I might do better with wolves. I would have asked before, but I needed to rest first.
Are you rested now? he wanted to know. I would like you to try it with me.
She smiled and said, All right. And thank you.
Must I do anything in particular?
No. Just wait.
She closed her eyes, took a breath, let it out. Sounds pressed on her: Numair’s snore, Short Snout’s moan as he dreamed of rabbits, the pups chewing, Battle washing a paw. Beyond those noises she heard others belonging to the forest and air around them.
She concentrated on Brokefang until she heard fleas moving in his pelt. He yawned, so close that it felt as if he yawned inside her ears. She listened for his thoughts and found them: the odor of blood from his kill, the drip of water from the trees overhead, the joy of being one with the pack. Brokefang sighed—
Daine was sleepy; her belly was overly full and rumbling as it broke the elk meat down. She could see young Silly from where she lay; he was asleep on his back with his paws in the air. She crinkled her whiskers in a silent laugh.
The smells, the sounds. She had never been so aware of them in her life. There was the wind through pine needles, singing of rocks and open sky. Below, a mole was digging. Her nostrils flared. Here was wolf musk, the perfume of her pack-mates. There was the hay-and-hide scent of the horses-who-are-not-prey, enticing but untouchable. A whiff of flowers, animal musk, and cotton was the girl-who-is-Pack. She looked at the girl, and realized she looked at herself.
It was a jolt to see her own face from the outside, one that sent her back into herself. Daine opened her eyes. “I did it!”
Numair stirred as the pack got up. “You did what?” he asked sleepily.
Brokefang washed Daine’s ear as she explained, “I was Brokefang. I mean, we were both in Brokefang’s mind. We were wolves—I was a wolf. It was only for a few minutes, but it happened!”
The man sat up, hugging his knees. “Good. Next time you can do it longer.” He looked at Brokefang. “Did it hurt you the way it hurt Cloud?”
No, the wolf replied as Daine translated. We will do it again.
The girl yawned and nodded. At last she was sleepy. “Tomorrow,” she promised, wriggling down into her bedroll.
Brokefang yawned when she did. Tomorrow, he agreed, as sleepy as she was.
When she woke, it was well past dawn. Numair crouched beside the pond, with Kitten and the pack behind him, watching what he did with interest. Faint black fire dotted with white sparks spilled from his hands to the water’s surface, forming a circle there. At last he sighed. The fire vanished.
“What was that?” Daine asked, dressing under the cover of her blankets.
“There’s an occult net over the valley,” he said, grimacing as he got to his feet. “It’s subtle—I doubt many would even sense it—and it serves to detect the use of magic. It also would block all messages I might send to the king. To anyone, for that matter. And since this valley is hidden beneath the aura cast by the City of the Gods, no one outside can even tell the net is here.”
“Wonderful” she said dryly, “So Dunlath is a secret within a secret.”
Numair beamed at her. “Precisely. I couldn’t have put it better”
“And this net—will it pick up any magic?” she asked, putting her bed to rights. “Will them that set it know you just looked at it?”
“No. A scrying spell is passive, not active. It shows what exists without influencing it.”
“What’s here that’s so important?” Daine asked. “Stormwing patrols, two forts, a magical net—what has Fief Dunlath got that needs so much protecting?”
“We need to find out,” Numair said. “As soon as you’ve had breakfast, I think we should see the northern part of the valley.”
She ate as Numair set the camp in order and saddled Cloud and Spots. Mangle agreed to stay with the pack after Daine convinced them—and him—that he was to be left alone. The girl then offered the carry-sling to Kitten. The young dragon looked at it, then at the still-nervous Mangle. She shook her head and trotted over to the packhorse, clearly choosing to stay and keep him company. With the small dragon by his feet, Mangle relaxed. Daine, who knew Kitten was well able to protect herself, relaxed as well, and mounted Cloud. Brokefang, Fleetfoot, and Short Snout led the way as she and Numair followed.
The group used a trail high on the mountainside, one that was broad enough for the horses, and kept moving all morning, headed north. Daine listened hard for immortals, and called a halt twice as Stormwings passed overhead.
Stop, Brokefang ordered at last. We must leave the trail here.
We will hide, Cloud told
her, with Spots’s agreement. Don’t worry about us.
Afoot, Daine and Numair trailed the wolves through a cut in the ground that led up into tumbled rock. Brokefang crawled up to the edge of a cliff, Fleetfoot and Short Snout behind. The two humans kept low and joined them. Lying on their bellies next to their guides, they looked over the edge of the cliff.
Few trees stood in the upper ten miles of the lake’s western edge: most lay in a wood between the fort structure and the river that flowed into the north end of the lake. Much of the ground between that fort and their vantage point was heaped into mounds of dirt and rock, some of them small hills in their own right. The only greenery to speak of was patches of scraggly weed.
Roads were cut into the dirt, leading down to deep pits that lay between the mounds. Men and ogres alike toiled here, dressed in loincloths and little else. Some pulled dirt-filled carts out of the pits. When they returned with empty carts, they vanished into the black, yawning holes of the mines.
Wherever she looked she saw ogres, aqua-skinned beings that varied in size from her own height to ten or twelve feet. Their usually straggly hair was chopped to a rough stubble that went as low as their necks and shoulders. They had pointed ears that swiveled to catch any sound, bulging eyes, and yellowing, peglike teeth. She was no stranger to their kind, but most of her meetings with them had been fights of one sort or another. This was the first time she had seen any used as beasts of burden, or as slaves. All of them appeared to be at the mercy of the armed humans who patrolled the entire area. One ogre, a sad and skinny creature, slumped to his knees. Three humans came after him, their whips raised.
Daine looked away. On her right was the lake. Barracklike buildings, some big enough to house ogres, had been erected of raw wood on the near shore. Between them, human and ogre children played under the watchful eye of an ogre female. The fort on the town’s north side was well built and, to judge from the many tiny human figures that came and went, well manned. Boats lay at docks on the lake between town and fort, guarded by men.