The tracker eyed her warily. "What is down there, Wolfwalker? Worlags, bihwadi?"

"Death," she said harshly. "Fire and death. They are already wading through it."

She forced herself back from the cliff. Rishte was growling in her head, clawing at the slitted eyes.

Yellow snapped back at the grey. Her stomach turned. She clenched her fists harder as if that small pain could cut through them both, and the flesh split beneath her nails. Blood began to trickle. She could smell the trees, she could feel the boulders that stubbed her feet, but her human eyes were blind. Nausea rose and choked her. She couldn't see the edge of the cliff anymore. She didn't know her spine stiffened as the slitted gaze cut into her skull. She had never fought back against the creature that claimed her with mother debt, but this time she screamed in her mind.d.a.m.n you, she cried out silently.They were not harming us at that moment. Would it have made us any less their kill?

(Old/new) debt, death-debt and fire . . .

She stumbled and went to her knees, and began vomiting into the moss. A moment later, a strong arm slipped around her body and held her as she retched. Rishte snarled at the Tamrani, but Hunter ignored the wolf. Instead, his other hand pulled her b.l.o.o.d.y hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

He was murmuring something, but she could hear only the tone of his voice. Later, when Payne asked what he'd said, she could only shake her head. All she knew was that Rishte had accepted him. It was the only explanation for the sense of his voice in her head.

Epilogue.

"You've already started your Journey, girl.

You just don't know it yet."

-Shendren, inTracking the Moons, by Vergi Vendo Nori hovered over the village healer like a hungry boy over dinner. "Watch that spot there." She pointed to the st.i.tches on Kettre's scalp. "It was the deeper part of the gash."

The healer hid a sigh. "If you'd step back just a bit, Black Wolf, out of the light?"

"Of course." She did so, by moving to the healer's other shoulder. It was late, and they were lucky the tiny village had a healer to wake. She moved the lantern to bring the light closer.

"How does it look?" Kettre asked the healer. "Will I have to part my hair on the side from now on?"

"Hmm." The grey-haired woman dabbed at the hair that had become clotted into the wound. "It will scar, but lightly. You did a good job," she said absently to Nori. "Not but what I'd expect from the Daughter of Dione."

Nori shrugged and pointed. "There was a lot of dirt in there. You might want to irrigate that before putting the dressing back on."

The healer said mildly, "Aye, I thought the same." The woman reached for the syringe. Nori already had it and handed it across. Kettre almost swatted Nori's hand away when the wolfwalker pointed again.

"There, and there."

The healer bit back an acid comment. Black Wolf had her first bar in healing, and so was essentially an intern, someone to be tolerated and taught as well as possible. The healer understood Nori's worry for her friend, but if the girl didn't step back or go tend some farmer's dnu . . .

Nori couldn't seem to stop herself. "Don't forget the other edge."

The healer held her breath for a moment, then let it out before saying, "It's clean, Black Wolf. There's no sign of infection." She started to reach for a cloth to dab away the fluids.

"Here." Nori handed her a double pad. She was ready with the dressing almost before the healer was done. "She's hard on her head. You'll want to pack it well."

Kettre rolled her eyes, and the healer said sharply, "Black Wolf-" The woman broke off. When she spoke again, she said firmly. "MaDione?"

"Aye, what do you need?" Nori looked quickly down at the tray of instruments and dressings. She thought she'd antic.i.p.ated every move. Perhaps the cotton strips for binding the pad?

"I need for you to wait outside. Now."

Nori looked up. "Outside? But-" Her gaze flew to Kettre's face. The other woman raised one brown, sculpted eyebrow at her, and she stared. "Kettre?"

The woman didn't bother to hide her satisfaction. "Keyo'bye, Black Wolf."

"Outside," the healer repeated firmly. "Now." She took up her tweezers again. "I believe the door is that way, Black Wolf."

Kettre's brown eyes danced. Deliberately, she ignored Nori. "So how does it look?" she asked the healer.

"It's healing well," said the woman. "You might have a headache for a few more days, but that's normal.

Now let me see your ribs."

Nori hesitated at the door with her hand on the k.n.o.b, but the healer looked up and jerked a nod sternly outside. As the door was closing behind her, she heard Kettre say, "One more thing about that gash: just tell me if it's cross-st.i.tch."

Outside, leftover rain dripped from the old woman's gutters, and the sound was like an interminably slow drum. They had been two days in the forest before they reached the village. Nori had spent both nights stalking six of the Harumen's riding beasts, as well as two of their own. She was dragging with exhaustion by the second dawn, but she had come back with eight dnu on a long-line lead, a bag of washed tubers, a small pack of sour early berries, and a handful of limp, dead woodmice to scramble with eight fragile eggs from a pair of palts that had nested too high on the cliff. The rest of the dnu would filter back to the villages or become badgerbear meat.

They'd been more than lucky, Nori acknowledged. Neither Tamrani had been in good shape by the time the rains. .h.i.t hard. Kettre had been wan as bleached-out silk, but the shallow claw marks in Nori's own back had scabbed cleanly, as had Leanna's neck from the Haruman's knife. Wakje's arm was barely gashed, and Payne had only a bruised hip.

She looked across the road. Fentris was limping out of the general store where he'd bribed the storekeep to break into the latest shipment of clothes for a fanciful elder. The garments might be a bit old in their style, but at least they weren't made of chancloth.

Nori paced irritably, tried to sit, and stood again almost immediately. She was waiting only for word of Ki. With a bit more luck of the moons, Payne would come back with news of the ex-raider and his sons within the hour.

Rishte growled softly from the tree line, and she closed her eyes. His voice was clearer, easier to hear.

The fear and tension, the kills by the cliffs-everything had combined to sharpen them for each other.

There was a . . . brilliance to it, she decided. Like water under a harsh sun. It should be hard and grating, but instead she slid into it and simply felt the grey.

Rider closing in on the town.

That would be Payne. She opened her eyes to watch the end of the street. With five of the moons climbing over the steep roofs, there was light enough to see every paving stone, and plenty of light to identify her brother at a distance when he cantered onto the street.

"I've sent the messages for Ki," he told her as he reined in.

"What word on the archers he tracked?"

"They dropped out of sight like three stones in the sea." Payne shook his head. "Either they know a hidey-hole he doesn't, or someone was covering for them and covering well."

She nodded. Wora had all but confirmed for her that there were more in the county.

Payne glanced at the clinic. The doors were conspicuously shut, and Kettre was not in sight. "The healer kicked you out?" he guessed. She scowled, and he hid a grin. "Serves you right for kibitzing."

"I wasn't kibitzing." She made a face. "I was . . . helping."

"You helped yourself right out the door." He looked across at the Tamrani. "I've arranged for a wagon in the morning. Are they finished packing?"

"Soon enough. If Fentris doesn't stop buying fairly quickly, Uncle Wakje will just wait till the Tamrani turns his back, then toss his pack in the waste pit."

Payne chuckled. "Once they're on the wagons, they won't have to worry about it. They can eat like spoiled elders, ride like kings, and sit on their b.u.ms all the way to the road as safe as a cozar at fireside."

He grinned as she snorted. "So, Wolfwalker, are you ready to ride?"

"Aye." And Rishte was more than ready to run. "We're still going on tonight?"

"You think I want to stay? We're a five-day ride out of Shockton, and we have three short days to get there." He wheeled his dnu.

"Then I guess I'll say my ride-safes."

"Be quick, Nori-girl. I'll wait on the road."

She nodded. She wasn't looking forward to this. The papers she'd stolen from Hunter's belt burned in her mind. He had tried to speak to her several times as she led them out of the forest to the village, but their argument on the edge of the cliff stood between them like a worlag.

Hunter saw Payne trot away and raised his hand to catch her attention as he limped aross the street. He frowned as he watched her expression close up when he stepped up on the sidewalk. He hadn't realized how free she had been with her laughter when they were out in the forest. Now she was as stiff and reserved as the day they had met.

For a moment, the two looked at each other. Then Hunter said, "I've been meaning to ask, make baskets from their bones?"

She shrugged, uncomfortable. "I thought it had a nice sound to it."

"Remind me not to get on your bad side."

She looked toward the forest. "All my sides are bad."

"Not from what I've seen." He studied her closed expression. "You know we'll still have to get eight or nine venge riders and go after the Harumen."

"My mother will take care of that."

"Dione?" She couldn't be serious. He'd seen Nori's face when she'd pressed the Haruman on the cliff.

She'd been intent, digging at whatever the man knew, at any signal she could read. That wasn't the act of a woman who could just walk away from trouble. He stared at her. "After all that's happened, all we've learned, you're still handing this off to your mother?"

If it's about plague, yes, she thought silently. There was no other who could survive it. And if there was a way to get those papers back from the bodies of the Harumen and out of the mouth of plague, Dione would find that way. Only after that would the rest be up to Nori. She said finally, simply, "There's no need to hurry to find the Harumen. They never left the forest."

"How do you know that?" he said sharply. "Through the wolves?"

Her lip curled. For a moment, he caught something other than the grey in her violet eyes. The wolf snarled through her throat, and his skin seemed to crawl. Then she blinked, and became just a woman again standing in front of him, turning away for her dnu. He caught her arm. "I need those papers, Black Wolf. I need them for the council. I can get a venge together in a day and head back into the forest."

"No," she said sharply. "No," she said more calmly. "You can't." He hadn't called her anything but Black Wolf or maDione since she had kicked him in his wound, and she bit back another apology. She said finally, "It would be suicide."

"Why?" he demanded.

She shook her head.

"It's suicide, so you send your mother in? And then rush off to Payne's Test?" He caught the guilt in her gaze. "You-" His voice broke off. "You aren't dropping this at all," he realized. "You are going to speak to the council. You're going to tell them about the attacks, the Harumen, the threat to Ariye."

She looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

His green eyes narrowed. "Even the Wolfwalker's Daughter would need some sort of proof to back up a story like this." He caught a flicker in her gaze, and it fell into place for him. "d.a.m.n you, not all my papers were lost. You held some back." He felt the fury build and nodded at the fresh flash of guilt. "You stole some reports, then traded the rest for Kettre."

Silently she nodded.

"How many?" he demanded. "How many did you hold back?"

"Two."

"Which ones?" His voice was too harsh, and he didn't try to soften it.

Her own reply was stiff. "One report and a letter from your sister. There wasn't time to be picky." He glared at her, and she shrugged and started to turn away.

His hand shot out and he gripped her arm hard. "I want them."

She didn't meet his eyes. Instead, she stared after Payne. "They're in your pack," she said softly.

"But you read them." He didn't need her nod. "And you understood what they implied."

Silently, she nodded.

"So you know of the threat to the counties, that the trade routes look to be ready to shift, and that something must happen to cause it. Something big and something deadly. The Houses are already on the edge of war. They'll erupt over something like this. The violence will spill out into Ariye if it isn't already here."

Again, she nodded.

His voice was flat. "You now have a duty, Wolfwalker."

She looked up at him, and he wasn't surprised to see his own anger mirrored in her violet eyes. Her voice was soft. "House Wars, Sidisport, Harumen, and trade. Those are your duty, not mine, Tamrani. I already have a duty, and it reaches farther than any Haruman or House can strike."

"So you will stand before the council."

"Aye." Her voice was quiet. "It's time." He started to grip her arm, but she stepped back. She was still wary around him, even though she could still feel his hands on her waist, the heat and strength when he'd lifted or held her, the timbre of his voice. She looked away. She had to remind herself that they weren't friends. They were barely allies, and he was from Sidisport himself, from one of the greater Houses. He would be approaching the council for his own ends, not to help Ariye.

This time, Nori would be there. She'd have to be. She would not let Hunter-or Fentris, she acknowledged-hide their secrets from the elders when they could harm Ariye. She didn't worry that she might not be believed against two First Sons of the Tamrani. She had worked for her parents for years, taking in information from their contacts and reporting to the Lloroi. Her word had been proven again and again. And she was the Daughter of Dione. Even the elders who didn't know her would listen when she spoke. After that, when the councils broke up for the day, and the doors closed for the inner circle, she would speak again, about plague. Payne might get a solo Journey after all, she thought. With Grey Hishn gone these past two years, Dione would need a partner wolf to heal herself with Ovousibas after exposing herself to plague. She might take Nori and Rishte with her to use their lupine link.

Hunter frowned as she said nothing else. He prodded, "It's time you take up duty, but you still won't ride with me."

She smiled without humor and shook her head. She yearned for Rishte, she pulled the wolf as much as the wolf pulled her, but this Tamrani pulled her, too. This close, he was in her senses until she wanted to touch his skin, feel his hands, taste his breath. She forced herself not to move toward him. With plague and the wolf and the taint in her mind, she couldn't afford another link that could tear her loyalties.

Instead, she slipped off the boardwalk and walked toward her dnu.

He stared after her. "I can't believe you're just walking away."

For a moment, she rested her forehead on the warm neck of her riding beast. Her voice was low, and she breathed into its fur, "I cannot believe you'd let me." She didn't think he would hear her, and she started to mount.

But Hunter dropped onto the street, took two quick steps, and plucked her from the saddle. He spun her around to face him. She didn't fight the movement, nor would she look at him, but when he tilted her chin up, he could see both hunger and fear in her eyes. "What if I said I would not let you go?"

She looked down at his long, tanned fingers. They were scratched from the ride and one bore a long, shallow cut. And they were barely holding her. She could brush him off. She could slip past, even simply step away from him, and she knew that this time he wouldn't try to stop her.