"Dion?" Tehena breathed.

"It is nothing," the wolfwalker returned.

Dion threw on her clothes, shifting her sword from one hand to the other.

Then she glided across the floor and was out the door. Tehena was left to stare at the moonlight and listen in the silence.

The hallway was dark; the only light was that cast by the three moons that rode low in the sky. Dion could hear the man now-outside the inn. His breath was controlled, but loud to her sensitive ears, and the dnu from which he slid panted heavily. She waited till his sounds faded, as though he walked the beast toward the stable, then she slipped outside. Her bare feet were silent on the porch.

Like a wolf, she followed the man toward the stable. The stones, set into hard-packed dirt, were cool beneath her feet. She hesitated at the door to the barn, her sword held tightly- ready-but down at her side. She found him waiting for her like a raider.

He eyed her for a long moment. Then quietly, he said, "Dion."

"You could have waited for me."

"I never had much patience."

She studied him. He was leaner, she thought, than when she had left him-

his face was harder somehow. There were shadows under his eyes that even the dim stable light couldn't hide. But she couldn't move toward him, and he didn't shift to touch her.

"Will you come back to me?" His voice was hard.

She couldn't answer.

"I need you."

"I love you," she whispered.

"Then come home."

She didn't remember either one moving, but suddenly, she was in his arms.

His strength engulfed her; his arms crushed her to him. She pounded on his chest, hitting him over and over, crying out, "Damn you, damn you."

Finally, she collapsed against him, half sobbing against his chest. She looked up finally, and their lips met with bruising force.

"Damn you," she whispered.

"I know."

She kissed him urgently, deeply. He lifted her from the floor so that she was pulled completely against him. Their urgency grew into a violence. She snarled low in her throat, and he answered the sound. His gray eyes glinted; her violet eyes flashed with an almost yellow light. He started to lift her into his arms, but she wrenched free.

"No," she half snarled. "Not here."

She backed from the stable, then turned and half ran toward the road- toward the forest. Halfway there, she stopped and looked back.

He didn't hesitate. He reached her in a second. This time when he touched

her, she didn't fight him. Instead, she drew him with her.

In the inn, in the darkness, Tehena watched them meet. Then she turned and

gathered her things. When she moved quietly to the floor in Gamon and Kiyun's room, it was Kiyun who asked softly, "Dion?"

"Aranur," she returned. She rolled to her side and stared at the wall. Sleep

was a long time coming.

XIII.

She swallowed pride, Held out her hands and begged: "I cannot be what you want me to be; I cannot do what you want."

"I know," said the Tiwar.

"That's what makes this so delightful."

-From Wrestling the Moons Previous Top Next Dion rose at dawn. She dressed in silence while the gray voices called in the back of her head and the moonlight gave way to the sun. The warmth of the summer was still caught in the soil, which steamed lightly at the edges of the courtyard. Dion felt as if she saw the wolves in that fog.

Behind her, Aranur murmured, and she turned to watch him sprawled on the bed, one sheet tangled around his leg, his face gaunt in the early light.

He looked frighteningly worn. He murmured again, restlessly, and softly, Dion answered. Her voice, woven into the packsong that touched the back of his mind, calmed him in sleep so that he breathed more easily. Absently, she rubbed her forehead where the circlet pressed on her bones. Then her gaze sharpened.

Below, on the road, two riders raced into the courtyard. Their dnu, sweating, drummed to a halt, and one of the riders leaped down. "I'll see if she's here," the youth called over his shoulder, already sprinting to the inn door. "You ride to the next inn. NeHaber's fever's too high to waste time.

He'll die if we can't find the healer."

Dion cast a glance at Aranur, then took up her pack, slid her sword belt over her shoulder, and quietly slipped out the door. She met the innkeeper on the stairs.

"Healer Dione," the man said in relief as she handed him her healer's pack while she jammed her warcap on her head. "There's been an accident," he continued. 'Two days ago, a worker was burned when one of the glass furnaces blew. Last night his fever shot up. They can't bring it down."

Dion nodded, buckling on her sword belt. She was already moving with

him to the door. "Is my dnu ready to ride?"

"I took the liberty of ordering it to be saddled," he said hurriedly, handing her pack back. "The messenger is outside. He'll take you there. It's the west side of town, on the waterfront. The Raven district."

She nodded again. "Tell Ar- Tell my friends, when they wake, where I've gone. I'll send a ringrunner back telling them how long I'll be, or if I want

them to join me."

The messenger, a well-built youth, was waiting impatiently on his dnu.

Dion barely had time to toss her healer's pack on the back of the saddle before the young man spurred his riding beast out of the courtyard. She mounted as her own dnu began to run. She cast a single glance back at the

inn, but there were no faces in the window. Then she looked ahead to the road.

The morning air was warm. In her head, Dion could hear the wolves

nearby. They had been drawn by her presence last night. She let their senses fill her nose as she urged her dnu up even with the youth's.

"How far?" she called across.

"Thirty minutes. Over the River Phye."

"In Sidisport?"

He nodded.

"What happened?"

"They were working with a steel alloy when one of the glass furnaces blew.

NeHaber was right in front of it."

She studied the rider surreptitiously. He was older than she had at first thought in the shadows of the inn, slender and cleanshaven, brown-haired, brown-eyed-almost boyish. But he rode as if he was born to the dnu.

"How did you know where I was?" she called.

He gave her a wry look from across the saddle. "You really want to know?

As I heard it, a cousin of the man who is courting the mother of the healer's intern was at your inn-he thought- last night. He'd had a bit too much grog to remember exactly which inns he'd been visiting. But he told his

cousin, who told the intern's mother. The intern told his healer. It's the healer who is tending neHaber who requested that you help."

Dion grinned. "I'm sorry I asked. Which healer?"

"Urth neVonner. He's new here, out of Ramaj Eilif."

"I don't know him."

The other rider shrugged. "He knows of you-but then, who doesn't?"