The lanky woman was within meters before Asuli realized there was someone behind her. Abruptly, the intern turned, her belt knife half drawn before she realized that it was Tehena who stared at her.

The lean-boned woman looked at Asuli, then nodded meaningfully back at the trail. Asuli's face shuttered. For a moment, the younger woman looked as though she would resist Tehena, but there was a reason the hard-faced woman was rarely challenged. Tehena's eyes, flat and hard, were empty of empathy, and Asuli had no doubt that Tehena would kill her if she felt she would protect Dion by doing it.

Asuli rose as quietly as she could and followed Tehena back. When they were partway there, she cleared her throat and asked, "What was she doing back there?"

Tehena gave her a cold look. "Carving a message ring."

"On a fallen tree?"

"You can think of something else big enough to hold her grief?"

Asuli shook her head. "She wasn't carving-she was attacking that tree.

Slashing it and spitting at it. I watched her rip branches apart with her bare hands and reach into the core where part of the trunk was hollow. She tore the sapwood out with her fingernails. She screamed at the wood and cursed it. Cut herself and bled all over the bark."

Tehena didn't answer.

"And those wolves... An entire wolf pack was there, digging at the trunk and watching from the bushes."

Tehena shrugged. "They seek Dion as she seeks them."

Asuli chewed on that for a moment. "Why?" she finally asked.

"Because she has nothing else, and they give to her instead of take from

her. Because they speak to her where we can't reach her with our words."

"Any of us could speak to the wolves, couldn't we?"

It was more of a musing than a question, but Tehena answered sharply.

"Not if you want to remain living or sane."

"What do you mean? They say that all you do is look in their eyes-"

The other woman cut her off. "You provoke a wolf that way, Asuli. Just

like with any dog." The intern opened her mouth to protest, but Tehena cut her off again. "Just because some wolves do communicate with humans doesn't mean they all do- they're still wild animals protecting their packs and dens and food. You stare at one and you're challenging it. The Ancients engineered the wolves to communicate, but you learn to do that only by

looking into a Gray One's eyes."

"If it's just a physical challenge, why doesn't the Gray One run away?"

"It would-it's naturally timid. But when you meet its gaze with your own,

you lock it to you through the engineering of the Ancients. The wolf has to stay until you break the contact or it finds a way to break away. You challenge it physically by looking into its eyes, but you challenge it emotionally and psychologically by the human dominance of forcing it to communicate. If the wolf doesn't like it, if it feels trapped enough, it can attack you-with body or mind."

"What do you mean?'

"I mean, a cornered animal will lash out with whatever weapons it has. A wolf trapped in a mental link with a human will lash out against that, too.

The human has only one brain to think with; the wolves can pull the weight of the entire pack-song. You challenge a wolf, you could lose your mind."

"That's not how the storytellers describe it."

Tehena snorted. "How many storytellers are wolfwalkers? I've been with

Dion for thirteen years; I've talked to the wolves myself.""You looked at a wolf-heard its voice in your head?""Once." Tehena motioned for Asuli to go on to the camp, and the intern passed her warily.

"What happened?" Asuli prodded.

"I tried to do what Dion does-look into one's eyes and communicate. I

provoked it instead."

"It bit you?"

Tehena looked at her, then slowly rolled up her sleeves. The ragged scars stretched from elbow to wrist. She motioned for Asuli to stay in camp. Then she went back to tend the fish traps.

Thin ice formed overnight in their pans, and the cold dawn brought them from their sleeping bags quickly to build the campfire up. The evening chill sent them back to their bedrolls as soon as the wind cut through camp. Asuli spent the time cutting and gathering herbs while the others took turns hunting and gathering and building up the camp. Tehena spent long hours away; Dion was not often seen. By the end of the first ninan in the camp it had become a full resting place, with a rude corral, two lean-tos, and a firewood rack. Riders stopped by twice to see what they were setting up, and traded salt and sugar and flour for pelts and Asuli's herbs.

Halfway through the second ninan, they attracted a poolah with the scent of baking tubers. Their first warning was from Dion, who appeared in camp as suddenly as a sharp sound. "Poolah," she said shortly. Smoothly, the others took up their weapons. Asuli looked from one to the other, uncertain what to do. She had a knife, but nothing else, and she realized abruptly that she lived here at the grace of the others. She made a half sound, and Gamon gestured sharply for her to stand closer to the fire.

The sightless head of the low, slinking beast was visible within minutes. Swinging slowly from side to side, the brown-speckled head followed their scent toward the clearing. It seemed to flow forward over the ground, between trees. Then it went still for a moment as it touched its tongue to the trail to check the strength of the scents. Like a shadow, it flowed forward again. It stopped just outside of the camp. Asuli made another small sound, the fear tightening her throat, and the poolah shifted subtly. There was a moment in which nothing moved; the forest itself seemed to hang in

anticipation. Then the beast sprang toward her.

The intern screamed. The arrows from all four archers struck solidly, midair, in the poolah's body. The beast shrieked with Asuli and fell, twisting and jerking, short by meters of the fire. It died hard, leaving the ground torn and the fire-pit rocks scattered. Asuli almost backed into the flames herself while the poolah before her died.

They had meat that night for dinner.

By late evening, the treespits clouded the chill air like day-bats, drawn to

their camp by the scent of the poolah and the radiating warmth of the fire pit. Tehena's watch was filled with snaps and rustlings.

When Gamon rose to take over the watch, Dion rose with him. She squatted

by the fire for a moment, her eyes up, away from the flames. She didn't speak as she let the heat of the ash pit reach her hands, toasting them with warmth. For an instant, a pair of yellow eyes caught light. The wolf blinked, then disappeared. Dion rubbed her temple, then stood, walked to the edge of the clearing, and melted into the night.

Gamon watched her go with a tightened jaw. "By the seventh moon," he muttered. "She's got to stop."

Tehena shook her head. "Who will make her? You? life?"

"One of us has got to."

"If Aranur couldn't convince her to stay in Ariye for his sake-or for the sake of the sons she has left, what do you think we can do here? Not even Olarun stopped her from running."

Gamon pulled on his mustache. "Olarun's part of the problem," he said.

"You saw him before-he wouldn't speak to her, wouldn't look at her.

Aside from Tomi, who is growing his own home now, Dion doesn't think she has a son left."

"Olarun will get over it."

"Like you did?" The older man nodded at Tehena's forearm, where the woman unconsciously rubbed at her scarred skin. "That tattoo you wore chased your family away like the plague. Your family rejected you just as Olarun does Dion. You've never gone back to show them differently.

You've never gotten over their blame of you for getting into drugs. With

Dion, Olarun blames her for Danton's death, and he's chasing her away as surely as if he took a sword and stabbed her."

"He's burying his blame."

"Aye. And burying it so deep it would take the gods themselves to uproot

it."

Tehena laughed without humor. "You want to buck the gods on this? I say, let Dion have her distance, Gamon. She's strong. She's a wolfwalker. She'll

survive." Her voice grew quiet, more for her ears than his. "She has to," she breathed. "I need for her to live."

Gamon didn't answer.

In the faint light of the ash pit, Tehena gave him a sharp look. "What's the

matter?"

His voice was quiet. "Sometimes strength is its own weakness, Tehena.

Dion's problem is not that she's strong, but that she never learned to be weak."

"Old man, you talk like a fool. No one needs to learn to be weak."

"No?" He gave her an amused expression.

"Don't give me that look," she retorted.

"Why not? A bit of what you call weakness would do you a world of good.

Put some softness in your voice once in a while. Strength shouldn't be a shield, woman, but a sword."