Wolf-Speaker

No, the wolf replied as Daine translated. We will do it again.

The girl yawned and nodded. At last she was sleepy. ‘Tomorrow,’ she promised, wriggling down into her bedroll.

Brokefang yawned when she did. Tomorrow, he agreed, as sleepy as she was.

When she woke, it was well past dawn. Numair crouched beside the pond, with Kitten and the pack behind him, watching what he did with interest. Faint black fire dotted with white sparks spilled from his hands to the water’s surface, forming a circle there. At last he sighed. The fire vanished.

‘What was that?’ Daine asked, dressing under the cover of her blankets.

‘There’s an occult net over the valley,’ he said, grimacing as he got to his feet. ‘It’s subtle – I doubt many would even sense it – and it serves to detect the use of magic. It also would block all messages I might send to the king. To anyone, for that matter. And since this valley is hidden beneath the aura cast by the City of the Gods, no one outside can even tell the net is here.’

‘Wonderful,’ she said dryly. ‘So Dunlath is a secret within a secret.’

Numair beamed at her. ‘Precisely. I couldn’t have put it better.’

‘And this net – will it pick up any magic?’ she asked, putting her bed to rights. ‘Will them that set it know you just looked at it?’

‘No. A scrying spell is passive, not active. It shows what exists without influencing it.’

‘What’s here that’s so important?’ Daine asked. ‘Stormwing patrols, two forts, a magical net – what has Fief Dunlath got that needs so much protecting?’

‘We need to find out,’ Numair said. ‘As soon as you’ve had breakfast, I think we should see the northern part of the valley.’

She ate as Numair set the camp in order and saddled Cloud and Spots. Mangle agreed to stay with the pack after Daine convinced them – and him – that he was to be left alone. The girl then offered the carry-sling to Kitten. The young dragon looked at it, then at the still-nervous Mangle. She shook her head and trotted over to the pack horse, clearly choosing to stay and keep him company. With the small dragon by his feet, Mangle relaxed. Daine, who knew Kitten was well able to protect herself, relaxed as well, and mounted Cloud. Brokefang, Fleetfoot, and Short Snout led the way as she and Numair followed.

The group used a trail high on the mountainside, one that was broad enough for the horses, and kept moving all morning, headed north. Daine listened hard for immortals, and called a halt twice as Stormwings passed overhead.

Stop, Brokefang ordered at last. We must leave the trail here.

We will hide, Cloud told her, with Spots’s agreement. Don’t worry about us.

Afoot, Daine and Numair trailed the wolves through a cut in the ground that led up into tumbled rock. Brokefang crawled up to the edge of a cliff, Fleetfoot and Short Snout behind. The two humans kept low and joined them. Lying on their bellies next to their guides, they looked over the edge of the cliff.

Few trees stood in the upper ten miles of the lake’s western edge: most lay in a wood between the fort structure and the river that flowed into the north end of the lake. Much of the ground between that fort and their vantage point was heaped into mounds of dirt and rock, some of them small hills in their own right. The only greenery to speak of was patches of scraggly weed.

Roads were cut into the dirt, leading down to deep pits that lay between the mounds. Men and ogres alike toiled here, dressed in loincloths and little else. Some pulled dirt-filled carts out of the pits. When they returned with empty carts, they vanished into the black, yawning holes of the mines.

Wherever she looked she saw ogres, aqua-skinned beings that varied in size from her own height to ten or twelve feet. Their usually straggly hair was chopped to a rough stubble that went as low as their necks and shoulders. They had pointed ears that swivelled to catch any sound, bulging eyes, and yellowing, peg-like teeth. She was no stranger to their kind, but most of her meetings with them had been fights of one sort or another. This was the first time she had seen any used as beasts of burden, or as slaves. All of them appeared to be at the mercy of the armed humans who patrolled the entire area. One ogre, a sad and skinny creature, slumped to his knees. Three humans came after him, their whips raised.

Daine looked away. On her right was the lake. Barrack-like buildings, some big enough to house ogres, had been erected of raw wood on the near shore. Between them, human and ogre children played under the watchful eye of an ogre female. The fort on the town’s north side was well built and, to judge from the many tiny human figures that came and went, well manned. Boats lay at docks on the lake between town and fort, guarded by men.

She closed her eyes, listening for animals. In the pits she heard only a few rats and mice. Every other animal had fled the zone of destruction, and its fringes were loud with battles fought over every bit of food. In the lake she heard death. Filth lay in the water: garbage from the town and fort, waste dirt from the mines. The fish gasped for air in the lake’s northern waters. Their kinfolk in cleaner water went hungry as food sources died.

Brokefang stuck his cold nose into the girl’s ear. I told you, he said.

‘Those are mines,’ Numair commented, his voice low. He unhooked his spyglass from his belt, opened it, and put it to his eye. ‘But what are they for? The opal mines around here were emptied nearly half a century ago.’

‘What are opals?’ asked Daine.

‘They are used in magic, like other gemstones. Mages will do anything to get opals, particularly black opals.’

Daine was puzzled. Since her arrival in Tortall she had seen all kinds of precious stones, but not those. ‘What do they look like?’

Numair lifted a chain that lay around his neck, under his shirt. From it hung a single oval gem that shimmered with blue, green, orange, and gold fires. ‘Opals are power stones. Black ones like this are the best. They store magic, or you may use the stone to increase the strength of a spell. I saved for years to purchase this. Emperor Ozorne has a collar made of them – six rows, threaded on gold wire. He has a mine somewhere, but he guards the location even more carefully than he guards his power.’ He glared at the mines. ‘Surely we would know if opal dirt were found here once more. Dunlath is a Tortallan fief.’

The ground shook last autumn, Brokefang said. See the raw earth on the mountains, behind the fort? Cliffs fell there. In spring, when the pups were new and still blind, a mage came and exploded holes where the pits are now.

‘Let us speculate,’ Numair said when Daine finished translating. ‘Something of value – opal dirt, for example, or even gold – was seen in the fallen cliffs, after the earthquake. The lord of Dunlath sent for a mage with blasting expertise, doubtless a war mage, on the chance he would uncover more – and he did. It may be the same mage who destroyed the Ninth Riders. But who buys what is taken from the land? It isn’t the king, or he would have told us.’

Daine looked back at the mines. The ogre who had fallen was on his feet again, blue liquid – his blood – coursing down his back in stripes. ‘I don’t care if they are ogres,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s slavery down there, and we aren’t a slave country.’

‘It appears they are expanding, too.’ Numair pointed over Daine’s shoulder. Here, in a direction she had not looked before, humans and ogres with axes were hard at work, cutting down trees and dragging the stumps from the ground.

Now you see why we need you, Brokefang said, baring his teeth as he watched the tree cutting. This must stop. It will stop. Soon there will be no game, and everyone here will starve, even the ones who ordered this.

‘We need to learn more,’ Numair replied. ‘We need to speak with those in charge, in the fief village and the castle. Then I want to get word to King Jonathan. Something is badly amiss.’ He inched back into the cover of the trees, Daine, Fleetfoot, and Short Snout following.

Realizing Brokefang had not come with them, Daine looked back. The chief wolf stood on the cliff, his fur bristling, his ears forwards and his tail up as he growled defiance at the ruin below.

On their return to the campsite, Daine let the others go ahead as she took her crossbow and went hunting. She was in luck, finding and bagging two plump rabbits soon after leaving the trail.

Human friends often exclaimed to see her hunt. They seemed to think, because she shared a bond with animals, that she ought to go meatless.

‘That’s fair daft,’ she had said when Princess Kalasin mentioned it. ‘Some of my best friends are hunters. I’m a hunter. You eat what you’re made to eat. I just make sure I don’t use my power to bring game to me, and I stop listening for animal voices with my magic. I close it all off.’

‘You can do that?’ Kally had asked, eyes wide.

‘I must,’ Daine had replied. ‘Otherwise my hunting would be – dirty. Vile. When I go, I hunt like any other two-legger, looking for tracks and following trails. And I’ll tell you something else. I kill fast and clean, so my game doesn’t suffer. You know I can, too. I almost never miss a shot.’

‘I suppose, if that’s how you do it, it’s all right,’ the girl had said, though she still looked puzzled.

Daine had snorted. ‘Fairer than them that kill an animal for its horns or skin, so they can tack it on their wall. I hunt to eat, and only to eat.’

When she reached the camp, it was nearly dark. The pack had gone, leaving Russet, Numair, and Kitten with the pups and horses. Once Daine appeared, Russet left to hunt for himself. Numair, who had started a pot of rice, smiled when he saw her, but he looked preoccupied. From experience she knew it did no good to talk when something was on his mind, so she let him be.

Once her rabbits were cleaned, spitted, and cooking, she groomed the horses and Cloud, oiled rough patches on Kitten’s hide, and wrestled with the pups. She ate quickly when supper was done, and cleaned up without bothering Numair. He wandered to the opposite side of the pond, where he stretched out on the ground and lay staring at the trees overhead.

Russet came back, grinning. All that was left of a pheasant who had not seen him in the brush was a handful of bright feathers in his fur. He panted as Daine pulled them out, then licked her face.

‘Would you help me do something?’ Daine asked, and explained the badger’s lesson.

It sounds interesting, the young wolf answered. What must I do?

‘Nothing,’ the girl said. ‘I have to come into you.’ Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and let it go. All around she heard familiar noises. Numair had gone to sleep. Cloud drowsed where she stood, dreaming of galloping along an endless plain. Kitten sorted through a collection of pebbles, muttering to herself. Daine closed out everything but Russet’s sounds: his powerful lungs taking air in and letting it go, the twitch of an ear, the pulse of his heart.

She drew closer and closer until his thoughts crept into her mind. On the surface were simple things, like the shred of pheasant caught on a back tooth, the coolness of the packed earth under his body, his enjoyment of being with her. Below that was the powerful sense of Pack that was part of any wolf, the feeling of being one with a group where everything was shared.

The change from her mind to his was gradual this time. It felt as if she were water sinking into earth, becoming part of him in slow bits. When he blinked, vision came in blacks, whites, and greys, and she knew she saw through his eyes. Her ears picked up the tiniest movement, from the scratch of Kitten’s claws on her pebbles to the grubbing of a mouse in the reeds. He inhaled, and a rich bouquet of odours came to her: the individual scents of everyone in the clearing, wet earth, pines, the fire, moss, traces of cooked rabbit and plants.