Wolf-Speaker

Daine relayed this to Numair. ‘She has a point,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought the predator-prey differential would constitute a barrier, but she knows you better than I.’ He watched Daine yawn again, hugely, and smiled. ‘It can wait until tomorrow. Don’t worry about cleanup. I’ll do it.’

‘But it’s my turn,’ she protested. ‘You cooked, so I have to clean.’

‘Go to bed,’ her teacher said quietly. ‘The moon will not stop its monthly journey simply because I cooked and cleaned on the same meal.’

She climbed into her bedroll and was asleep the moment she pulled up the blankets. When the wolves returned much later, she woke just enough to see them group around her. With Kitten curled up on one side and Brokefang sprawled on the other, Daine finished her night’s rest smiling.

It was damp and chilly the next morning, the cold a taste of the months to come. Breakfast was a quiet meal, since neither Daine nor Numair was a morning person. They tidied up together and readied the horses for the day’s journey.

The wolves had gone to finish the previous night’s kill. They were returning when Numair handed Daine a small tube of paper tied with plain ribbon. ‘Can we send this on to the king today?’ he asked.

Daine nodded, and reached with her magic. Not far from their campsite was the nest of a golden eagle named Sunclaw. Daine approached her politely and explained what she wanted. She could have made the bird do as she wished, but that was not the act of a friend. The eagle listened with interest, and agreed. When she came, Daine thanked her, and made sure the instructions for delivering Numair’s report were fixed in Sunclaw’s mind. Numair, who had excellent manners, thanked Sunclaw as well, handing the letter to her with a bow.

Brokefang had watched all of this with great interest. You have changed, he commented when Sunclaw had gone. You know so much more now. You will make the two-leggers stop ruining the valley.

Daine frowned. I don’t know if I can, she told the wolf. Humans aren’t like the People. Animals are sensible. Humans aren’t.

You will help us, Brokefang repeated, his faith in her shining in his eyes. You said that you would. Now, are you and the man ready? It is time to go.

Daine put Kitten atop the packs on Mangle’s back. Numair mounted Spots, and the girl mounted Cloud. ‘Lead on,’ the mage told Brokefang.

The wolves trotted down the trail away from the cave, followed by the horses and their riders. When the path forked, one end leading to the nearby river and the other into the mountains, Brokefang led them uphill.

‘If we follow the river, won’t that take us into the valley?’ Daine called. ‘It won’t be so hard on us.’

Brokefang halted. It is easier, he agreed, as Daine translated for Numair. Humans go that way all the time. So also do soldiers, and men with magic fires. It is best to avoid them. Men kill wolves on sight, remember, pack-sister?

‘Men with magic fires?’ Numair asked, frowning.

Men like you, said Brokefang, with the Light Inside.

‘We call them mages,’ Daine told him. ‘Or sorcerers, or wizards, or witches. What we call them depends on what they do.’

Numair thought for a moment. ‘Lead on,’ he said at last. ‘I prefer to avoid human notice for as long as possible. And thank you for the warning.’

The humans, Kitten, and the horses followed the wolves up along the side of the mountains that rimmed the valley of the Long Lake. By noon they had come to a section of trail that was bare of trees. The wolves didn’t slow, but trotted into the open. Daine halted, listening. Something nasty was tickling at the back of her mind, a familiar sense that had nothing to do with mortal animals. Getting her crossbow, she put an arrow in the notch and fixed it in place with the clip.

Numair took a step forwards, and Cloud grabbed his tunic in her teeth.

‘Stormwings,’ Daine whispered. Numair drew back from the bare ground. Under the tree cover, they watched the sky.

High overhead glided three creatures with human heads and chests, and great, spreading wings and claws. Daine knew from bitter experience that their birdlike limbs were steel, wrought to look like genuine feathers and claws. In sunlight they could angle those feathers to blind their enemies. They were battlefield creatures, living in human legend as monsters who dishonoured the dead. Eyes cold, she aimed at the largest of the three.

Numair put a hand on her arm. ‘Try to keep an open mind, magelet,’ he whispered. ‘They haven’t attacked us.’

‘Yet,’ she hissed.

Brokefang looked back to see what was wrong, and saw what they were looking at. These are harriers, he said. They help the soldiers and the mages.

Daine relayed this to Numair as the wolves moved on, to wait for them in the trees on the other side of the clearing.

‘Stormwings that work in conjunction with humans,’ the man commented softly. ‘That sounds like Emperor Ozorne’s work.’ The emperor of the southern kingdom of Carthak was a mage who seemed to have a special relationship with minor immortals, and with Stormwings in particular. Some, Numair included, thought it was Ozorne’s doing that had freed so many immortals from the Divine Realms in the first place. He had his eye on Tortall’s wealth, and many thought he meant to attack when the country’s defenders were worn out from battling immortals.

‘Now can I shoot them?’ Daine wanted to know.

‘You may not. They still have done nothing to harm us.’

The Stormwings flew off. Vexed with her friend, Daine fumed and waited until she could no longer sense the immortals before leading the way onto the trail once more. They were halfway across the open space when Numair stopped, frowning at a large, blackened crater down the slope from them. ‘That’s not a natural occurrence,’ he remarked, and walked towards it.

‘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 centre. Other things were charred as well: bones, round metal circles that had been shields before the leather covers burned, trees, axeheads, 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 hand 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.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_cc4855b9-1d47-5be0-a1d7-d42204dbe47c)

THE VALLEY OF THE LONG LAKE (#ulink_cc4855b9-1d47-5be0-a1d7-d42204dbe47c)

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 them 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?’