Storm runner, p.34
Storm Runner, page 34
Smoke shifted, and Dion saw Aranur. He was leading a group between the wagons, circling and cutting off a smaller band of raiders against the burning walls. He cut, he lunged, and she held her breath. Gamon was beside him—she could not mistake his whirling blade. She clenched her fingers on her arrow, but there were no clear shots for her to take. Two, then three raiders fell before Gamon and a swordswoman. The ground was split between bodies and running men. Aranur tumbled. Blades flashed. Then he leapt away, motioning silently as he left another body behind. The others chased after.
“Look!” Tomi pointed.
“What?” Dion followed his finger, but could see only raiders in the camp.
“Peyel!”
“Peyel?” Dion searched the grounds for the figure to which he pointed. The woman from the tavern? The woman who had told Moira to take her children to the Sky Bridge?
“The raiders—” His voice was urgent. “They have her.”
“Where?” Dion scanned the action quickly. Between the gusts, she could shoot into those who held the woman, freeing her to run back to the resistance group if she was not wounded.
“There—no!” Tomi shouted gleefully. “She is free of them.”
Dion stared. Dark hair, small figure—that was no resistance fighter. That was—
“Longear,” she whispered. “Longear!” she shouted, blinded by her rage.
The woman below did not hear her, but Dion was already moving. “Stay here,” she snapped at the boy. She scrambled down the path, passing the other three archers. They looked up, startled, but she did not pause to explain. Intent only on reaching the melee below, she jumped the gaps in the columns and landed like a goat, ignoring the pain that shot through her weakened ankle. Longear. It was like a chant in her blood. The children taken and killed… the wolves whipped and beaten. She slipped and slid along a dusty spot, keeping her body on the trail only by jamming her fist into a crack and swinging violently around to fetch up hard against a column. Her eyes blacked out for an instant with the force. She pushed herself upright and leapt on. Longear. If any of the raiders reached the trial block, she swore it would be that one. There was no way in all the nine hells that Dion would give Longear a chance to cross the river with the others. She flung herself down the trail. In her mind, the gray echo swelled. Hishn cried out for her to run. Gray strength flooded her senses, making her dodge the strike of a startled night snake before she knew it was there. Her nose choked in the smoke and smells of blood. Her feet danced on the edges of the blackened columns, leaping from one to the next before her balance caught up with her and swayed her forward.
She vaulted the last boulder, refusing to lose the seconds it would take to circle. Landing hard, she glared forward, her eyes locked on Longear’s slight form. She pulled her sword. Stab to the left. Block. Duck under a raider’s arm and run forward again. Longear still did not see her. Halfway to the resistance group, Dion was halfway to her. Longear did not look back. The woman dodged the raiders, and Dion followed. No one cut at Longear— the resistance fighters and raiders both knew her for one of their own. Someone tumbled out of the dark and caught Dion a blind blow on the ribs. She tumbled, rolled, and came up with dust in her eyes. She shook her head and scrambled for her sword, ignoring the struggling forms and continuing her chase with deadly, single-minded intent. Longear paused, glancing back, but a raider blocked her view, and she did not see Dion jam her sword into the heavy man’s gut, only to wrench it free and leap around to catch up to her in seconds.
Bloodlust, bared fangs… Hishn’s thoughts were caught up in Dion’s emotions. Tear the flesh and drive down the prey…
Dion lunged and grabbed Longear by the hair. “Longear!” she screamed, dragging the woman down into the dirt.
Longear reacted instantly. Kicking, striking, she fought like a watercat. Dion ignored her blows. She slammed her elbow into Longear’s sternum, then her gut. The woman doubled over. Gasping, she kicked at Dion’s knees, and the wolfwalker drew back, spinning an ax kick into the other woman’s neck. Longear dropped like a stone.
Dion grabbed her by the hair and rolled her over. It took an instant to bind the woman’s hands, one more to heave her up and over Dion’s shoulder. Light as Longear was, Dion staggered with the weight. Sobovi was suddenly beside her, and Dion glanced up.
“Go,” he shouted, his eyes unfocused. “I will guard you.”
A raider lunged, but Sobovi felt him coming and crouched suddenly, slicing across the raider’s calves. The man screamed, and Sobovi whirled, slicing across the man’s hamstrings as he hobbled, then crashed to the ground in agony, clutching his legs. Dion ran on.
The hunt, the wolves sent. The hunger grows…
Dion staggered to the first of the boulders. Sobovi was at her side. He passed her, hauled himself up the first broken column, then reached back down for Longear. Around them, an evil shaft splintered stone and Dion stiffened. Sobovi flung himself back. “Drop her!” he shouted.
“No!” Dion refused. She shoved Longear up. He cursed, then grabbed the woman by her arms and dragged her up. Dion scrambled behind. Longear was beginning to come around, and she struggled against Sobovi’s grip. “Hurry,” he snapped.
Dion looked back. Someone—a woman—was running toward them from the resistance group, but another arrow smashed into stone, and there was no time to wait for the woman to arrive.
“Go,” Sobovi said. “I’ll help her.”
Dion did not argue. She grabbed Longear’s arm and dragged her over the boulders. The smaller woman cursed as her shins banged against the stones. Dion dug her fingers into a pressure hold on Longear’s elbow, and the woman writhed. “Get your legs under you or lose them,” Dion snarled.
From behind, the other figure reached the boulders. Sobovi hauled the woman up urgently. Dion was already up on the next set of columns. Longear staggered in Dion’s wake, her balance jerked with Dion’s stride. Dion was not gentle, and the other woman’s knee was wrenched in a crack as she slipped. “Damn you, Dione,” Longear swore. “I’ll burn every finger from your hands for this.”
“You’ll burn in hell,” Dion snapped back. “Now go!”
Up, they scrambled. Dion’s chest heaved with the steepness of the climb. It had taken seconds to run down; it was a dozen times that long to go back up. In the back of her mind, the gray echo grew, and she closed it off abruptly.
The cliff dropped away where the hot springs down below ate into the wall. Longear hugged the face, slowing deliberately. Dion jerked her forward. Longear looked back. Raiders were running for the cliff trail now, and she laughed softly, watching them come. Dion’s jaw tightened. She slammed Longear against the cliff face and ground one of her hands into the stone. Longear screamed, and Dion hauled her up. “Move!”
From below, a roar rose up, and a mass of raiders surged onto the columns. From above, Dion’s archers shot carefully, then fell back, their bolts piercing leather and flesh alike, but the curve of the cliff blocked them from the trailhead, and over a dozen raiders reached the first broken column within seconds. Dion no longer dared to look back; Longear eyed the edge of the trail with calculation. “Don’t even think about it,” Dion snapped.
“Why not?” Longear growled. “You can’t keep them from your back forever. They will advance, and you will fall back, and in the end, they will catch you, you will die, and I will win as I always have.”
Dion ground her fingers into Longear’s elbow, hauling her forward again, but this time, the other woman grinned, the strain of the expression showing only in the sweat that beaded on her forehead. “Have you forgotten that I always win, Dione?” she taunted. “It was what, a year ago we last met?”
A year ago, Longear’s whips had burned their way into Dion’s back. Dion tightened her jaw. A year ago, Longear had set a boy to die in the fighting rings. A year ago… She stared at Longear, her jaw trembling from the force with which she ground her teeth. Longear laughed. Dion took a step forward, dragging her unwillingly on, then paused, turned swiftly, and jammed her elbow back into Longear’s gut again. The woman gasped, and Dion pulled her forward unresisting.
They reached the archers’ position, and Dion hauled Longear past them to safety. Tomi jumped up, staring at the two. Dion ignored him, slamming Longear into a hole in the columns, her chest heaving, her eyes dark with fury.
“Peyel?” the boy asked hesitantly.
“Stupid child,” the woman muttered, her dark eyes glittering at him like a snake.
The boy stared at her.
“She is no friend of yours,” Dion said harshly. “That is Longear, leader of the raiders.”
Someone moved behind her, and Dion glanced back. “Longear,” the soft, hoarse voice whispered.
Dion turned and froze. “Namina?” she whispered, stunned.
Longear, staring at the newcomer, struggled to her feet. “You—” she snarled.
Namina stared at her, drinking in her figure. The three healed scars in her cheek pulsed red.
“Siker,” Longear hissed.
Dion looked from one to the other. The puncture marks. Siker. Namina. The raiders’ bodies with their throats slashed… Longear’s nemesis. Namina?
Tomi edged away from the three women. Longear glanced at him, then back to the other, silent woman. “Namina, mate to the late Lloroi,” she mocked. “You surprise me. I will have to be more thorough next time.” She looked at the wolfwalker. “Want to know what I’ll do to her this time, Dione? Or to the child? Just because of you?”
Dion’s hand snaked out involuntarily and slapped her.
Longear laughed, softly, evilly. “See how easy it is to hit someone whose hands are bound? Fills you with a sense of power, doesn’t it?”
Dion felt sick. From below, Rodt shot at the raiders on the trail, falling back toward her. “Dion, get going—up the trail,” he yelled. “We cannot hold them off.”
“No,” Longear said gleefully. “You cannot keep them back, can you?”
“Shut up,” Dion snarled.
“Dione, you haven’t the guts to shut me up now or ever.”
Dion clenched her fists, then grabbed Longear by the arm and dragged her along the path. Tomi scrambled after her, and Namina followed the boy like a ghost, silent and determined.
Someone screamed from below, and Dion half turned, only to whirl back as she felt Longear tense. Longear subsided, leering at her sudden fear, and Dion cursed under her breath. Aranur, she begged in her mind, look up…
Wolfwalker! The howl was long in her mind, and Dion’s lips curled back. We hunger…
Longear looked at Dion and grinned at her unfocused eyes. Just a meter forward, there was a narrow spot in the path…
Dion stumbled. Longear shoved. Namina threw herself forward—
“Damn you,” Dion swore. She crawled up on the trail, out of Longear’s reach. Longear raised her eyebrow. Namina’s left hand was clamped on the woman’s arm, her right hand on the hilt of her knife. Dion got to her feet. “Can you keep hold of her?” she asked Namina. The blue-eyed woman did not nod, but her eyes burned her acknowledgment. “Then go.” Dion pointed up the path. “I’ll follow with the boy.”
Someone else screamed, and then Rodt was running up the trail, Sobovi and two archers hard on his heels. “ Go!” he yelled urgently, waving them past as he halted and turned back for the last archer. The last woman in the line whirled and set an arrow to her bow, barely pulling back before the shaft flew away. The dull thud of its strike was hidden by a cry, and she whirled and raced after the others. She covered only a few meters when she went rigid. She staggered forward, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Rodt leaped forward. She fell lengthwise in the trail. Rodt grabbed her shoulders, turning her, staring into her eyes until she began to kick. “Moons make your passage safe and sure,” he choked. He did not wait for the death rattle to finish before he took her half-full quiver, cursing his clumsiness, and finally put an arrow to his bow. He drew back and waited a bare second before the first raider rushed around the bend. The running man took the bolt deep in his chest. The raider on his heels fell back with a curse. Rodt sent another shaft after him, then turned and fled up the trail.
From below, Aranur watched the line of fighters race and stop, crouch, and jerk their way up the cliff trail. Rodt had had only three archers with him besides Dion. Two were already down, their bodies shoved off the trail by the raiders. Sobovi— he had seen the wolfwalker run to help Dion—was up with the boy, and there were now two other figures on the trail. Dawn folded their shadows onto the face of the cliff as he watched, and he cursed while he ran toward the trail. There were almost two dozen raiders following them up the wall. The three or four who had already died hardly dented the number that were chasing Dion. He risked a look around the edge of a cabin, throwing himself back as a raider swung his sword in a short, vicious arc. The blade bit wood where Aranur’s chest had been. Aranur lunged, rushing him. Ducking and slashing, Aranur stabbed his blade through the other man’s guts, wrenching the blade up to disembowel him. Gamon, beside him, beat aside another sword, following the blow with an elbow to the second raider’s head. They drove the raiders back, forcing them to the river while the camp blazed behind them. The crackling of the fire was punctuated by the crash of timbers inside the collapsing cabins. Smoke stung Gamon’s eyes and leached the air from his lungs until he staggered to keep up with Aranur. Just a little farther, and the trailhead up the cliff would be clear. Someone shouted Gamon’s name, and Aranur threw a glance over his shoulder. It was Tehena, the skinny woman directing a group of swordsmen toward the trail after them. She halted, waiting for Aranur and Gamon, and they dodged past a clump of fighters to join her.
“They’re halfway up.” She pointed. “If we don’t go now, the raiders will have us in their sights before we get to the first boulder.”
Aranur nodded, forcing his way to the front. “I’ll lead,” he said tersely. The others fell back. He jumped up on the boulder, hauling himself up the next broken column until he reached the smooth part of the trail. Then, sword out, he ran.
Far ahead on the trail, Rodt shoved Sobovi onward. “I’ll hold them here,” he snapped. “Take the healer and run for the top.”
“No,” Dion resisted stubbornly. “We’ll stay with you.”
“Just leave me your arrows, Healer. This pocket is well-protected.”
Sobovi gave him a long look, then unslung his quiver and handed it over. Dion stared at him, then shut her mouth. If she stayed with Rodt, Tomi and Namina would be in even greater danger. She unslung her quiver without a word, handing it over. She touched Rodt quickly on his chest, and he returned the gesture gently. “See you at the top,” he said with a lopsided grin. Dion turned and was gone. Sobovi followed without a word.
Rodt glanced after them, the sweat beading on his brow. He looked inside his jerkin. The red stain was beginning to discolor the leather behind the small hole. “See you,” he whispered, “on the path to the moons, Healer.”
Above, Namina propelled Longear on. Longear’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at Dion and Sobovi, noting that the archer was no longer with them. “He’s hit, isn’t he?” she said with satisfaction.
Dion gave her a grim look, but did not answer.
“You might as well give up now, Dione,” the dark-haired woman suggested. “You haven’t the brains to outthink me, nor the guts to do me in. My raiders are on their way up—don’t think your one pitiful archer is going to stop them.”
Dion cursed under her breath, and Longear laughed. “They won’t let me go, Dione,” she taunted. “I am their bread and butter, their power, their wealth. Without me, they are nothing, and they know it. They will follow you to the ends of this world to get me back.”
Tomi stared at her, and Dion touched his shoulders gently. “She was never Peyel as you saw her. She was always Longear,” she said softly.
“She is Peyel,” he said stubbornly. “She told the others when to escape.”
Longear’s eyes glittered. “I told them when to run,” she admitted with evil glee, “and told my raiders where to find them when they did.” She grinned, the expression stretching the evil across her face. “They trusted me so easily,” she said, shaking her head at her own disbelief of their naïveté. “To them, I am Peyel, a woman who grew up on the border with them—a cousin to some of those fools.” She laughed. “Did you never wonder how I knew the terrain so well, Dione? I ran those trails when you were wasting away becoming a healer.” She made the word an insult, and Dion clenched her fists. “Go ahead. Hit me.” Longear laughed again.
Dion glared, her breath burning in her lungs. Gray rage. Blood in my fangs. Wind in my teeth, and the hunger growing in my belly. Rage at the raiders who laid their fire across my back… She struggled to control the images that rose in her head, managing only to motion Namina on. Namina did not let up on Longear’s arm, but gripped her more tightly as she dragged her along.
They staggered past another broken-out column, stepping around it, then over a split in the cliff. The last two archers paused. They crouched, waiting behind the column. Sobovi and Dion hauled themselves on. Wolfwalkers! the Gray Ones called across the ridge. Dion’s eyes unfocused. The trail grew wide, then narrow, as she forced the images from her mind. She pressed her hands to her sides, gasping for breath. Ahead of them, Tomi trailed doggedly after Namina.
