Children of the Wolves (24 page)

Rufus was silent for a while, before bursting out with, “What kind of makers would imagine this? How can they believe this is what the makers intended?” he demanded.

“Hush,” Michael said, not trying to answer. He had no answer, and he had asked himself the question many times. “Almost there.”

In relief, they turned their horses into the stable yard, looping their reins over low stanchions, then making sure the horses had food and water before heading toward the mud brick building in the center of the training ground.

As they approached on foot, a guard hailed them. He joined them and accompanied them into the building.

“Captain will see you,” the guard said, pushing aside the woven curtain that served as a door.

Michael gritted his teeth as he walked into the room. The fire in the center of the room threw off far more smoke than heat. The Trinitarians, he thought, had never quite understood the concept of chimneys. Many times he wanted to cut a hole in the roof of one of these building to show them. But no doubt they liked the discomfort of their smoke-filled rooms; they would never spend their energy making their life circumstances more pleasant.

Michael's eyes stung but after a few moments adjusted to the environment. His stomach clenched as he saw the figure seated on the cushion on the far side of the room. The captain was missing his right arm and most of the fingers on his left hand. The flesh on his face was pitted with scars. Michael imagined other flesh was missing, beneath clothing and boots. The captain had earned none of these hideous wounds in battle. Instead, he had gladly sacrificed living flesh and blood to assuage the deities before he set out on any battle. He believed those actions had insured his success. Michael believed that anyone willing to mutilate himself in that way was a man to be avoided at all costs — and that was the secret of the man's success.

“Michael, Rufus,” the captain said in his graveled voice. “Welcome. I do not believe we have a training session scheduled?”

“No, we don't,” Michael said.

“What brings you here?” the captain asked pleasantly enough but Michael had the sense that if he gave the wrong answer he and Rufus would end up in that pit just outside the barracks.

He cleared his throat and began his story. “We are looking for a woman …”

• • •

“I see nothing, Michael,” Rufus, rocking back on his heels and shading his eyes as he looked up at his friend. “Not a footprint, not a broken twig; I can discover no sign that they ever came this way.”

“I have to find her,” Michael said, slapping the saddle with impatience.

“How long have we been out here?” Rufus asked reasonably.

“A few weeks.”

“And in that time, have we seen any sign that Jelena came this way? Any indication at all?”

“No,” Michael admitted.

“And when we visited the Trinitarians, had they seen or heard of her?”

“No.”

“We could be out here and year and never find her if there are no signs!” Rufus shouted, throwing a handful of dirt down.

“Why are you angry?”

“Because at first I thought they had hidden their tracks cleverly. Then I thought the rain had washed all the traces away,” he said. “Finally I believed the Trinitarians had found them and sacrificed them. But now I think the old woman sent you scampering in the wrong direction.”

“By all that's good,” Michael said, thinking of his last conversation with Bertha. She was perfectly capable of sending him galloping off in the wrong direction. She'd been furious with him. What a punishment, a rebuke to him this was. “What do you think the penalty would be for wringing her neck?” he asked.

Rufus got to his feet and clapped Michael on the shoulder. “It wouldn't be worth it, whatever it was. I think you should just go back home and say nothing to her. That'll drive her mad.”

Michael smiled though his heart wasn't in it. Home. It was no place he wanted to be, but he wasn't going to find Jelena now. They had lost their chance to track her. Now the only way they'd find her was if they heard a story about her from one of the tribes they traded with. That thought did not cheer him. All he could imagine was an Umluan or Sithan coming across her bones bleaching in the sun and then casually mentioning it to him at the next trade meeting. His hands clenched on the reins.

She would never survive beyond the fence. She was unawakened, unskilled. If only he had spoken to her the night that she'd left his protection. If he could have found a way to say the words, then, none of this would have come to pass.

“Come along,” Rufus coaxed. “Time we headed for home.”

They saw the smoke from the campfires long before they saw the shelters made of buffalo skin stretched over bone. Jelena did not have to tell the group to approach warily. Derek had been all for skirting any sign of civilization, but Jelena had pressed him to follow her lead.

“Alliances,” she'd said at the time. “We must make friends where we can, for surely we will make enemies.”

She was leading Horse, who carried the Alantran they'd rescued. Now she put a hand on the bay's bridle to stop its movement. Yarood, the injured Alantran, started with a jerk when the horse halted. Jelena put a comforting hand on his foot, then handed the reins over to Cat, who would have the sense to stay put or alternatively the sense to climb up on the horse and ride behind Yarood should that seem to be the most appropriate course of action.

Jelena left Derek and his bow behind. She left her own bow with Matilda, whose frightened demeanor had over the days given way to a fierce desire to learn everything she could to make her way in the world. She held the bow ready, her jaw firm, her shoulders square.

Jelena decided to bring Sarah as interpreter as she usually did when they encountered strangers. Despite the danger this presented to Sarah, Sarah never minded the jeopardy. Her bravery was not a façade but a tightly woven aspect of her personality, something Jelena respected even more because her blindness made Sarah more vulnerable.

Sarah had a hand on William's arm and he marched forward, determination in his step and on his face. He didn't need to look so fierce, but Jelena was loath to say anything to him.

As they moved closer to the shelters, Jelena saw that a few adults had ranged themselves in a line, arms held loosely at their sides. She saw the bows and quivers near them but the people made no move to use them.

One of the men stepped forward. Jelena held up her hand and William and Sarah stopped. The man's eyes widened as he looked over her shoulder. Glancing back, Jelena saw that Topaz and Garnet and the other wolves had silently shadowed her progress. Now they sat on their haunches expectantly, just a pace or two from Jelena.

“We are people of the Way,” Jelena said.

The man looked at her, then threw a comment over his shoulder to the other adults, who smiled but did not relax their guards.

“He says, ‘Rather, they are the people of the wolves,'” Sarah said.

Jelena nodded. “Yes, that is well-spoken. We are of the wolves. We are no longer of the Way.”

The man spoke again. “Thou art amongst the people of the buffalo.” Jelena was surprised and gratified that he used the language of the forest tribes, which wouldn't be his natural tongue.

“They're Onaphiles,” Sarah said, moving a little closer to William.

“What does that mean?” Jelena asked.

“It means they follow the spirit of the Wanderer.”

“Rather, One didst,” the man corrected, hearing her. “One did tread in the steps of the spirit of the Wanderer. Then One died of disease. One died of war. One died of hunger. One died of childbirth. One died of madness. Presently One clings perilously to life. One must find salvation or perish.”

As he spoke, the other members of the Onaphile tribe emerged from their shelters, many elderly or ill. Jelena saw no small children among them.

The man seemed to read her mind. “The Jackals prey on One. The Jackals trample One's children beneath the hooves of their horses. The Jackals crush the skulls of One's infants against the stones.”

“The Jackals have not met the people of the wolves,” Jelena said grimly. She meant it the other way; she and her small group had not encountered the tribe of the Jackals. But she thought it sounded better the way she said it. Some small thing she had learned since becoming the leader of this group of outcasts.

“The people of the wolves ask a boon,” she said, holding the man's gaze with her own. “We are few and the dangers many. If One is willing, we would have One join us, that we might all, together, defeat our enemies and find our home.”

“Thou speak in the spirit of the Wanderer,” the man said. He gazed intently at her face, then searched the faces of the others, Sarah and William. What he found must have been acceptable, for he said, “One agrees. One is honored to be found worthy.”

One — that was the only thing Jelena could think to call him — turned to the Onaphiles behind him.

“Behold! The spirit of the Wanderer calls One to find a home!”

“Bless the spirit of the Wanderer,” one of the women said.

“One must gather food,” One said, gesturing at them. “One must gather supplies. One must strike the shelters.”

The Onaphiles nodded and began doing as they were instructed, putting out the campfires, taking the shelters down, storing food in packs that could be carried over their shoulders.

“I count twelve of them,” William muttered to Jelena. “Twelve! Of an entire tribe.” He shook his head. Jelena could see something close to despair in his eyes. “What were the makers thinking?” he said, clenching his hands into fists.

“I almost believe it doesn't matter,” Jelena said gently.

“That's heresy, that is,” William said, but he said it without energy or heat or effort. Presumably, in his heart, he agreed with her.

“Twelve people,” Sarah said. “It doesn't seem that many but it makes us twice as strong as we were. Jelena, I believe you will need to mount Horse and lead us.”

“Yarood is — ”

“He will be able to walk. We can go slowly. Besides, One is ill, One is injured. We
must
go slowly. But I think you must show that you are the leader.”

“Or else One won't became part of us, we will become part of One?”

“Exactly,” Sarah said, and putting her hand on William's arm, started back to where Derek and the others waited to hear their news.

• • •

The night was clear, the full moon low in the sky. Jelena could almost smell the lilac blossoms that surrounded the main hall of the Wudu-faesten. A feeling close to melancholy crept over her, but she couldn't think of that place as home. Home was what she was searching for, now, in the spirit of the Wanderer.

One had begun to unroll their sleeping blankets some ways from the rest of them. Jelena realized they were afraid of the wolves, so she had taken the animals away from the camp, away from the welcome fire, so the two groups could mingle and start to know one another. There was no other way they would survive. They could go their separate ways or they could become one tribe together, but they could not be two tribes traveling in the same direction. Of that she was certain.

She put her hands behind her head and looked up at the stars. The Scimitar and the Rider; the Wolf and the Wolfhunter. She smiled ruefully. She would have to think up a new name for that group of stars. Perhaps the Wolf, and the One Who Walked with the Wolf.

She knew the wolves were out there, curled up just beyond the light of the fire. They would probably join her later; they almost always did, piling in warm heaps around her feet, stretching luxuriously along the length of her body.

The night air was colder than it had been before. She pushed down the stir of fear that accompanied the thought. They needed shelter for the winter. They would find it, she told herself. They would just keep heading north and east and they would find some place where they would be safe.

She'd heard the trader tell stories about the burning sands of the desert that lay far to the west, beyond the mountains, but she wasn't sure his sense of direction — or even his tale — was to be relied upon. She couldn't remember him saying much about what lay to the north and the east.

The camp settled down and someone — William? — quietly fed the fire. They took turns standing — or, rather, sitting — guard, keeping the fire going, keeping an eye out for the unaccustomed shadows of the night. A perilous safety, nothing like they had had in the protection of the trees.

But even then, they had not been safe …

• • •

The cold slice of a knife touched Jelena's neck, her heart thudding her instantly awake. Her eyes flew open. A man bent over her, his stinking breath in her face.

She didn't know how many there were or what they wanted but she sensed movement all around her. She cried out but the man clamped a grimy hand against her mouth. The sound of her fear carried and the stink of the intruders was distasteful to the wolves.

She only knew the animals had heard her when Topaz launched herself at the man with the knife, going for his throat, Garnet following, worrying the man's flank, jaws tearing and claws ripping. The wolves' attack was silent and synchronized, and it was the attacking men who screamed in the night.

Jelena got to her feet, snatched the knife out of the hand of the man who would have harmed her and yelled, “People of the Way! Defend yourselves!” But even as she said it, the attack passed; the attackers fleeing with the five wolves after them.

In moments, Derek was at her side, a burning torch held high.

“Jelena! Are you harmed?”

“No,” she said, and her voice was strong. She nudged the fallen man with the toe of her boot. He flopped over onto his back, his throat crushed.