“Dator is a hard addiction to break,” Aranur said in the silence that followed that statement.

  “Not so difficult when there's none around for three years. That's how long I was in that stinking cell of a rat hole before Dion gave me a way out.”

  “You said you'd paid your debt.”

  “So I forgot to thank her for the blowpipe lessons.” She turned to the wolf­walker. “Thanks.”

  Dion met his eyes. “Aranur, we cannot send her back there.”

  Though he was put off by Tehena's hard bravado, he had seen her empty pack when she joined the camp for dinner. He knew she had no gear, no food, no extra clothes in the flat saddlebags on her dnu. Hells, but she had probably stolen the dnu and the clothes on her back, as well. What would she do if they left her now? Go back to the drug cult? He glanced at Shilia, and it struck him that he would not have hesitated about his decision if it had been his own sister in Tehena's position.

  Tehena looked around the group and stood up abruptly. “I can leave if you need privacy to make your decision. Or I can just leave, since it's obvious that you've made your minds up already.”

  “There's no need to ride out tonight,” Aranur said finally, hoping he was making the right decision. “We can decide in the morning if anyone has doubts about it.”

  “Suit yourself.” She shrugged as if she did not care, but she sat back down warily and, for an instant, though he could not believe it, looked lost.

  Aranur watched the woman from the corner of his eye. If the moons were still guarding over the group as haphazardly as they had been doing, Tehena might be mixed instead of just bad luck. But one can't tell the future without a direct line to the moons, he told himself.

  In the morning nothing more was said, and as they went through the motions of breakfast and then packing, Tehena remained silent, though it was clear there was a struggle in her to speak. When they were ready to ride, Rhom glanced at Aranur and then, receiving an imperceptible nod, checked Tehena's mount as he had the others, ignoring the way the woman's face tightened as she controlled her emotions.

  Rhom offered her a hand into the saddle, and she stared at it as if it would bite. Finally, he motioned to the dnu. “It's a long way up,” he commented. She gave him a strange look, but allowed him to help her mount.

  “You'll be riding behind Shilia,” Aranur said mildly as he checked the line. “Take one of the extra dnu from Kiyun to lead. They've been getting bunched up too much because of those lazy men in the rear.”

  “Lazy, my foot,” Gamon snorted, winking at Kiyun. “He just wants to keep as much space as possible between us and the girls.”

  Tehena's face tightened further, then relaxed when she re­alized she was being teased.

  “Take this one,” the old man said, handing the reins across to her. “It bucks too much for me.”

  “Thought you said no one bucked too much for you, Ga­mon,” Rhom called back.

  “Get on up there and mind your mouth,” the old man shouted back. “Or I'll teach you some manners.”

  Hishn had already loped up to the road, and Dion urged her dnu after the wolf while the others fell in behind her. Kiyun would be watching the back trail that day, and he had sharp eyes, so she and Hishn could relax for once. But her own eagerness to leave Bilocctar was sensed by the dnu she was riding, and it loped faster and faster till she began to crowd Aranur and was forced to rein in. They would reach the border soon enough without her racing time to get there, she told herself wryly.

  They stopped at noon for lunch, and Dion asked Kiyun to show her some of the moves he had used on her in the fighting ring.

  “Kiyun, you did several things I'm not familiar with,” she said as they cleared a small area of sticks and branches. “One of them looked something like this.” She demonstrated on her brother.

  “The rixti hold,” Aranur said as she helped her twin back up.

  Kiyun nodded, “I used that hold, but you countered with something that threw me off like a hot brand from the hand.” He shook a mock fist at the woman. “I want to know what it was, too.”

  “I'm not sure I remember what move I used, but I think that one was from the Cansi style.” She turned to Aranur. “Aranur knows a lot more about Cansi than I do. You'd better ask him for a demonstration. I'm still sore from the runaround you gave me three days ago.”

  Kiyun grinned at her. “Not that I wouldn't want to tumble with you anytime, Healer.”

  “Let me show you that counter, Kiyun,” Aranur broke in. The Bilocctar man moved into the rixti hold, and instantly Aranur flung him across his hip into the dust.

  Dion stifled a laugh. “Yes, that's the move,” she agreed as Kiyun rolled to his feet and gave Aranur a look as hard as his landing had been. “It was definitely from a Cansi style set.” The Gray One snorted, and Aranur could swear the wolf was laughing at him again.

  A ninan later, they crossed the outer borders of Prent's old rule—the last place where Longear could stop them within Conin's rule. And three days after that, they skirted Sidisport and went on up Wyrenia Valley without mishap. But Aranur, in spite of the relief he should have felt once they entered the valley, felt his restlessness turn to tension. He had promised Shilia that they could stay at inns along the way, but with his irritability increasing every kilometer they rode, he wanted to change his mind.

  “You feel it, too?” Dion asked, noticing the way he kept looking back over his shoulder as they left another small town behind them.

  “I keep telling myself I'm just eager to get home,” he answered. “But it's just been too easy.”

  “I know what you mean. I keep expecting Longear and her raiders to pop out from behind every corner, jump out from behind every bush. And Hishn keeps telling me I'm wrong, that there's no one on the road but us, and I'm still nervous.”

  “Longear has no reason to come after us now,” he said with a frown. “But the raiders have not been called off, and she could still be behind them. I trust your instincts more than mine, Dion. Let me know if you get any other feelings.”

  She looked him in the eye. “About Longear or the raiders?”

  Looking at her, he smiled suddenly. “About anything,” he said.

  But still, nothing happened. Aranur had no excuse not to allow them to stay at inns overnight. They traveled upriver at a leisurely pace, stopping almost every day on the banks of the Phye for lunch and a swim in the river to relieve their saddle-sore muscles. There were dust clouds behind and before them—traders and farm workers traveling along the Phye. Ara­nur was almost surprised to realize that it had been only two months since they had traveled in the other direction looking for their sisters. And they were returning with only one, he thought, suddenly depressed.

  One day, Tyrel reined in beside Dion, a set look on his face, and rode beside her without speaking for several minutes.

  So, she thought, it was time to talk about Namina.

  “It's like a rock in my throat,” Tyrel said suddenly.

  Dion glanced at him sideways. “It can be hard to accept the judgment of the moons, Tyrel, but it has to be done.”

  “It's not the judgment of the moons that worries me,” the boy said bitterly. He pulled Namina's letter from his pocket. “I can't accept what she's written here.” Dion said nothing, and the boy turned on her angrily. “You're a wolf­walker. A healer. And Aranur listens to you. Why didn't you talk to him? Make him stay and fight? How could you let her stay with that— that—”

  “That man, Tyrel,” she supplied steadily. “The man who is now her mate. Legally Promised. Legally bonded. Mated.”

  The boy shook his head. “Did you even talk to her yourself? How could you let her walk into Zentsis's own house as a mate?”

  “It was not my decision to make, Tyrel. Namina reached the age of Promising over three ninans ago, and she said it was what she wanted.”

  “But why? Look at this—” He held out the letter, but Dion did not take it, and Tyrel eventually crumpled it in his hand. “She says she could be happy with—” He struggled with the name and got it out in a rush. “Conin. But Dion, it has to be a lie. The man is Zentsis's son. He can't be trusted to treat her as she deserves.”

  “He seemed honorable to me.”

  “But how do I know she's all right? What do I tell our father when we come back and he sees that we couldn't bring back any of his daughters?” His voice broke. “Both my sisters are dead to me.”

  A shadow fled across Dion's eyes, and when she answered, her voice was heavy. “Tyrel, you have lost only one sister— Ainna—and she is with the moons now. As for your other sister, Namina, she is promised, not lost. Even the miracle of Ovousibas could not bring her back now. What has happened is for me as a healer and Aranur as the leader of your group to explain, not you.”

  The boy looked at the ground. “I'm sorry, Dion,” he said finally. “I have no right to complain.” He took a deep breath. “Namina says she will be happy,” he said, pausing as if to hear the healer reject that and encourage him to return to Bilocctar for her.

  Dion said nothing.

  “She says that this mating might be important for our peo­ple, too.”

  Still, the wolf­walker remained silent.

  “If you accept this—” The boy hesitated, giving Dion one last chance to deny his sister's letter. But Dion nodded instead, and Tyrel looked down at his hands, clenched on the reins. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, the scars from Zentsis's fists whitening as he tried to control his emo­tions. “I will accept it, too, then.”

  “It's not easy to know what the moons want of you, Tyrel,” she said quietly, “but the way you accept the challenges is what will make you a man.”

  The boy nodded without looking at her, but he rode straighter after that.

  Aranur did not want to stay at another tavern. They had already stayed at one each night in the valley, and he felt nervous, as if they were pushing the luck of the moons too far. But Gamon, who seemed to know every innkeeper along Wyrenia Valley, assured them that the next inn up ahead was safe. He had known this particular innkeeper since boyhood.

  When evening finally dropped its shadows over the road, they stopped at the place Gamon had recommended, put their mounts in the corral with the other guests' beasts, and made their way inside. Dion, dismounting, rubbed her tired thighs and accepted a lick from the wolf.

  Do you want to go hunting, Gray One? she asked. There is time.

  Hishn snorted softly. The smells of this place are not pleas­ant. She looked with longing at the dark forest out beyond the inn's barn, but said instead, There is death in the air.

  Dion frowned. What kind of death? Old death. Musty death.

  The wolf­walker shivered and gripped the wolf's fur. Then stay with me, Gray One.

  You could not lose me, Hishn retorted.' She butted Dion on her aching thighs, and the wolf­walker grunted, cuffing the creature lightly to make her stop. She looked around, but Aranur and Gamon were already talking to the innkeeper, a fat man of forty years who looked little like Gamon's description of the man he had expected. She made her way to the door, holding it open for the wolf so that Hishn's tail was not caught as it swung shut.

  Did Gamon sense anything wrong? But the older man was smiling, glancing around the half-filled room, and Dion was sure she was imagining things. “Are the east rooms taken?” Gamon was asking as she joined them.

  The innkeeper smiled widely, his eyes flicking to the wolf at Dion's side and then back to Aranur and Gamon. “You're in luck, sirs, they were vacated just this morning. And that a Gray One honors this house is a blessing from all nine moons. If there's anything I can get for you sirs and ladies—or the Gray One—let me know.”

  Aranur glanced over his shoulder. “Then we'll get our packs. And make sure we're not disturbed, understand? We're tired and want some quiet.”

  “This is a very quiet place,” the innkeeper assured him. “Very quiet.”

  Dion frowned at the innkeeper's tone. She caught Gamon's eye, and the older man nodded, touching Aranur's arm as if by mistake. Aranur motioned for the others to wait inside while he and his uncle went back for their packs; then Dion and Hishn followed them out.

  “It's quiet.” Gamon remarked thoughtfully. “Like the calm before the storm. Wouldn't you agree, Wolf­walker?”

  She shivered. “I don't like that man. There's something wrong with his eyes.”

  Gamon glanced at her sharply. “An odd observation, Heal­er.”

  Aranur glanced back inside. “I thought you knew the inn­keeper, Gamon.”

  “I did.” Gamon chewed his lip thoughtfully.

  The other man nodded slowly. “I see.”

  Dion, who had one hand in Hishn's scruff, said softly, “Did you notice his hands? They were callused like those of a fighter, not a farmer or innkeeper. And he was clumsy with his fingers—not a skill you would want if you handle glass or silver.”

  Aranur scowled. “Could he have just bought the place from the old innkeeper? He could be unused to the work.”

  Gamon grinned without humor. “You know you don't be­lieve that. Besides, old Tecorra, who owned the place, would not willingly have left his inn to someone not of his family. Whoever that is, he did not come by this place legitimately.”

  Hishn growled. “Longear,” Dion said flatly.

  “It makes sense.”

  Aranur thought a moment. “We'll go to bed anyway—let them think we've settled down for the night. We can slip out the windows then and be down the road ten kilometers before he even knows we're gone.”

  “I'll tell Shilia and Tehena,” Dion agreed.

  “Take Rhom along to stay with them while you join us again. What about Hishn?”

  “She stays with me.”

  Aranur nodded. They turned in as expected, but Rhom made his way noiselessly to the women's room, and it was Dion and the wolf who returned in his place.

  “The hall is clear,” she said quietly.

  Gamon nodded, then rolled back the meager carpet that lay in the center of his room.

  “You've been away from home way too long if you have an urge to clean house, Uncle,” Aranur said, eyeing with distaste the dust and debris that had been tucked under the long and faded carpet instead of picked up and thrown out.

  “This inn was built by old Tecorra's great grandfather nearly a hundred and sixty years ago,” Gamon said in a low voice. “He put in an escape tunnel, as many people did then, as protection against the raiders and bandits.”

  Dion looked at him sharply. “I wondered why you asked for specific rooms.”

  Gamon chuckled. “Tecorra's son loved to gamble, and we used to sneak out to the barn to play cards with that little cheat. Our fathers were always in the front room, drinking and pass­ing the evening, so we used the tunnel to get to the barn so they couldn't see us go out the windows. I know all the inns along this river—and how to get into all the betting rooms, too, of course.”

  “I don't doubt it,” Dion retorted.

  The trapdoor was light, made of a dry, sturdy wood that shrank and hardened as it aged. It was a good thing they rolled the carpet all the way back, because the cobwebs and their creepy denizens scattered on the floor as they lifted off the cover. They looked down the dark shaft.

  “Kiyun, take a lantern and see if the tunnel still goes through,” Aranur ordered. “Tyrel, how are you feeling?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Then keep watch out the window. See if any other guests arrive.”

  “The innkeeper may not know of these tunnels,” Gamon said thoughtfully, helping Kiyun down the shaft. “The rugs haven't been moved in ninahs.”

  Aranur looked at the piles of dust on the floor. “If you're right, it's a bonus for us.”

  Ten minutes later, the glow from Kiyun's lantern came back into sight, grew, and then was suddenly cut out as the fighter appeared at the ladder again.

  “It goes through,” he whispered loudly, coming out as gray as the cobwebs he had crawled through. He stifled a sneeze. “It's almost big enough to stand up in the center. There's a sort of room with emergency supplies, but they haven't been touched in a long time. The dust is a centimeter thick, and,” he added, grimly brushing the dust from his pants, “there's a body—torn apart by the rats already, but recent—within a few days recent. It looks as if the man was badly wounded—two broken legs—and crawled into that chamber from the barn entrance to die. The rats would have cleaned the bones off pretty quickly, judging by the amount and size of their trails I found down there.”

  “Could you tell anything about the body?” Gamon asked.

  “It's small, and what's left of the skin looks old, though I didn't get too close. I think it's an old man or woman. I found only a few teeth. The healer would have a better idea of its age than I.”

 

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