Wolf-Speaker Read online

  After a short conference, the bats agreed. One of the leaders clambered from her perch on Daine’s boot top to her collar. I am Wisewing, she said, tiny black eyes sparkling. You may try this magic with me.

  “Give me a moment,” she said, tickling the bats chin with a fingertip. “I have to sit.” The other bats clinging to her took flight. Daine went to Maura, who was covering her head with her hands. “I need to go with them,” she told the younger girl. “Why are you doing that?”

  “They’ll get in my hair.”

  Daine planted her fists on her hips. “Odd’s bobs,” she said crossly. The brown eyes that looked pleadingly at her filled. She sighed. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry. But Maura—they got in my hair because I invited them. Bats don’t fly into hair. They never bump into anything they don’t want to.”

  “But everybody says—”

  “Everybody’s wrong. See, they squeak at things, and listen to the squeak.” She pointed to Wisewing’s ears. The long, sensitive flaps wriggled to and fro, hearing every bit of sound in the air. “If the noise comes funny into their ears, they know something’s there, and they fly around it. They don’t smash into glass, or even that barrier, like birds do. Nothing’s invisible to bats.”

  Maura’s hands left her hair. “How can you go with them? You can’t fly. Can you?”

  Daine shook her head. “Just with my magic, inside this lady.” She patted Wisewing. Going to where her packs rested against the wall, she sat, using them as a cushion for her back. “Don’t leave this cave,” she cautioned Maura. “And you’d best go to bed soon. I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” Closing her eyes, she fitted herself into Wisewing instantly.

  Sounds poured into her ears, echoes from the cavern walls, each scratch of Tkaa’s or Kitten’s talons, Cloud’s munching, wind blowing through the caves. Wisewing leaped into the air, reaching forward with her leathery wings and scooping air back with easy grace. They were in flight.

  The voices of the Song Hollow bats rippled ahead of them, a river of sound that Wisewing followed eagerly. Cooler air brushed her face, and they were in the open. Daine could hear the rest of the colony flying along the barrier, heading north, south, and east in waves. Wisewing flew straight ahead, soaring until she skimmed the underside of the barrier’s highest arch.

  Please stop trying to see it, she protested. You’re making my eyes hurt. I don’t use them that much. Listen for it. You can hear it everywhere.

  She was right. The barrier was a constant soft crackle of sound, reflecting the voices of the bats. Wisewing herself struck it constantly with her voice, and the returning echoes not only told her how far off it was, but that its underside was unnaturally smooth, like the inside of a bowl.

  Daine just had time to register a different, softer echo when Wisewing scooped the moth that had caused it into her waiting jaws. The taste reminded Daine of roasted, honey-glazed duck. The bat’s next victim was a tangy mosquito, followed by a moth that tasted more like fish. She’d always known that bats ate insects by the pound on their hunts, but it was one thing to know this in her mind, another to taste flavor after flavor on her tongue.

  I don’t want to slow you down by eating, but the Big Cold is soon, said Wisewing. I must be as fat as possible by then, or I won’t wake up.

  I know, Daine replied. You don’t have to apologize.

  On they flew, the barrier solidly above them. From all around, other bats sang out information, comparing notes about the magic, the insect supply, and the weather. The crispness of the air made Daine feel giddy and silly.

  Then she heard something unpleasant in the distance. The bat’s voices came to their ears from something big, something with leathery wings and claws. Her bat darted at the giant, squeaking at it from all angles, building a picture of the great creature in her mind. She had filled in little more than the huge wings and four sets of talons when Daine guessed what it was.

  Hurrok, she said nervously. We don’t need to hear more. Please let’s go!

  —Little squeaker, get away from me.—The immortals voice was much deeper than the chorus of bat voices surrounding him.—I don’t like squeakers.—

  Wisewing dove in, settling between the hurrok’s wings. Chittering across the immortars withers, mane, and ears, she picked up the sound of metal. It hummed with a sound the bat recognized as that of human magic. Interested in this new object, Wisewing fluttered across the immortal’s chest, to find that a metal band or collar went all the way around the hurrok’s throat.

  I would have to pick a nosy bat, Daine thought, sick with nerves.

  —It’s a slave collar, squeaker,—the hurrok said.—It means I must obey a human, a mortal wizard whose power makes it burn into my flesh with only a word. And do you know what that pain, and that knowing, and this collar, do to me? They make me feel like tearing up every living creature I see.—

  She heard a roar of air as something large snapped right over her head: the hurrok had tried to catch them in its teeth. Please Goddess, prayed Daine, let me get through this without losing my life and I will be good forever.

  Scolding, Wisewing dropped down, letting the hurrok go its way. Don’t let it scare you, she told Daine. It’s much too big and slow to catch us. An owl, now—an owl is dangerous. You want to stay away from them, particularly barn owls.

  I shall keep that in mind, Daine replied.

  See that you do, the bat said firmly, and scooped up a fly.

  She didn’t know how long she flew with the bats, but it must have been for hours. When she opened her own, human eyes and lurched to the cave’s entrance, false dawn had turned the eastern horizon pearly gray. She still heard the Song Hollow bats as they returned to their home, greeting her as they flew by. Her mind full of Wisewing’s memories, she identified each by his or her particular squeak: Singwing, Chitter, Eatsmoths, Whistle, Flutter. Reunited in the cave where they roosted, they sang their news. From their combined voices Daine built a picture of the barrier’s shape. By true dawn her worst fears were confirmed. The wizards’ barrier sealed off the entire valley, with no crack or cranny left for a determined girl to wriggle through.

  Mission done and bellies full, the bats went to sleep. Daine stayed at the entrance, listening to the shift of hooves on stone as Cloud changed position in her sleep, a soft munch that was Tkaa as he nibbled on a piece of rock, the bustle of voles in the grass. Her ears were tired and sore, the muscles around them cramped from use. Reaching up to rub them, Daine touched a long flap of leathery skin that flicked to and fro, catching each quiver of sound in the air.

  Her hand shook. Slowly, praying to the Goddess, the Horse Lords, Mithros, and any other god who might be listening, she felt the other ear. It too was long, and twitching independently of its mate, gathering every sound from that side of her head. She knew without looking that the stone of the cave entrance was six and a half inches behind her, that Kitten lapped water from the spring, and that a raccoon on the mountainside twelve feet and eight inches above her head was finishing a latenight supper of something crunchy, probably acorns.

  What is this? she thought, her skin prickling. Why is my body changing? It’s staying right where I left it. I don’t change when I do this, I just send my mind someplace else. So how could I have bats’ ears?

  Unless I’m just imagining that part of me changes. If I am, it means I’m going mad after all, she thought, strangely calm. Surely someone would have told me that it’s possible to change part of yourself into something else.

  If I ignore these ears, they’ll go away, or my mind will let go of them, or whatever. Maybe if I sleep, I’ll wake up and be normal again.

  That seemed like a good idea. Returning to the large cave, she found her bedroll. When I wake up, the ears will be gone, and I won’t be crazy, she told herself firmly as she slid into her blankets. She pulled the covers over her head, just in case. If the ears were still there, she didn’t want Maura to wake her with a scream.

  SIX

 
; REBELLION

  She awoke slowly, leaving dreams in which she clung to the cavern with the other Song Hollow bats, becoming her normal self in the cave that she shared with her motley group of friends. For a moment she thought she was deaf, the sounds she heard were so few and so dim. She clapped a hand to one ear and found a small, curved shell where the long, ribbed flap had been. Feeling relief mixed with sadness, she knew she was not deaf. Her ears were human once more.

  “You’re up,” said Maura. “I wanted to wake you for breakfast—I was afraid you’d sleep all day—but Tkaa said leave you be.” She came over with a steaming mug and set it on the ground as Daine sat up. “I hope you don’t mind me’n Kitten getting in your things. I didn’t bring any food, and we were starving. I found your tea, and the wolves found a beehive, so me’n Kitten had honey for our porridge, and I made tea with honey for you.”

  “Thanks.” Half-awake, Daine asked the first question that came to mind, the one she ought to have asked more firmly the day before. “Why’d you run off?”

  The younger girl looked down. “I can’t say.”

  Daine sniffed her tea: it smelled wonderful. “You must. If you had a spat with Yolane, or if you think it’s fun to live out in the woods like me, that’s no good. You’ll have to go home.”

  “What if she wants to send me to school to be a lady, and I want to go to court and be a knight?”

  Under Daine’s sharp look the girl reddened. “You’ve heard too many tales about the King’s Champion. I’m not here for fun, Maura, and it’s wrong to run off for fun. Leaving home’s serious.” Remembering the wreck of her own home, she added, “You’re lucky to have a place that’s yours. You don’t just throw that away.” She grinned. “And I doubt you’d have any luck as a knight. You screech whenever you see something odd.”

  Maura smiled, then looked at her hands. “I have to see the king. I can’t say why. I know girls my age aren’t supposed to know important stuff, but I do, and he has to know.”

  “If it’s that Tristan is making trouble for Tortall, you’re behind the fair,” Daine replied. “We know he’s in the Carthaki emperor’s service. Numair went out of the valley so he could report to the king and get help. As soon as he does, he’ll be back.”

  Maura looked at Daine with a frown. “Is that all you know? About Tristan?”

  “I know for a fact he brought Tkaa here.”

  “For which I am grateful,” a whispery voice said from the entrance.

  Daine squeaked and lunged for her crossbow. Maura rescued the endangered mug of tea. When Daine brought the cocked and loaded bow to bear on the entrance, she saw only Tkaa and Kitten. “Who said that?” she demanded.

  The basilisk stared at her. “I told you my people speak all tongues.” The whispery voice did come from his mouth. “The only reason I did not address Lady Maura in this wise from the first was that my skills were rusty. In the Divine Realms and with you it is easier to speak mind-to-mind.”

  “Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith,” Daine breathed. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then say nothing,” advised Tkaa as he put Kitten down. “That is best.”

  Still unnerved by hearing him speak human, Daine got clothing out of her packs and took it into her bedroll to dress. As she did, wriggling under the covers, she heard Maura tell the basilisk, “We need to think about laundry and supplies. I can’t eat all Daine’s food.”

  If Tkaa answered, his voice was drowned out by a sound. Once Daine had heard a great bell, its sides as thick as her hand, clang as it was struck with a mallet. This noise was similar, but so loud it made her teeth and ears ache. Hundreds of yards away, cushioned from the outer air by tons of rock, the Song Hollow bats heard it and were startled into flight. Cloud neighed in protest outside; Kitten dived into Daine’s blankets, pulling them over her tender ears. Tkaa clapped his forepaws over his earholes and shut his eyes in pain.

  “What was that?” cried Maura.

  It came again, so loud it pressed on Daine’s eardrums. Where? she asked the bats, knowing they could pinpoint it. Confused and frightened, they sent an image of the western pass as it would appear to them, painted in sound at night.

  She grabbed her crossbow and quiver. Barefoot, shirt half-tucked into her breeches, she ran outside. Cloud followed at a gallop, and when she drew alongside, Daine leaped onto the pony’s back in a trick learned from the Riders. As the mare raced for the barrier, Daine counted the bolts in her quiver with her fingers: ten. She hoped that would be enough if Stormwings caught her in the open.

  When they reached the barrier, they saw no one. Daine could hear a marmot scolding on the other side of the magical wall. “If you see any danger, nip me or something,” she ordered her mare, and sat down. Closing her eyes, she listened for the marmot.

  She found her quarry instantly. The marmot, a female, was on the sloping ground that was the southern wall of the pass, guarding the entrance to the burrow she shared with her large family.

  Shocked, frightened, and irate, she was calling the man below names that Daine hadn’t thought a marmot would use.

  You must have learned that from squirrels, she commented. None of the marmots I know ever said such things.

  They weren’t scared out of their wits, retorted the chubby rodent. I was minding my own business, standing watch, and the two-legger made that noise. He scared me out of a month’s fat! I’ll have to eat twice as much now to be ready for the Big Cold and—Look at him! He’s going to do it again!

  If you do I will bite you! she screamed at the man. I don’t care if you kill me, I will take a big chunk out of you before I’m dead!

  May I? asked Daine, and slipped into the marmot so she could see with her hostess’s eyes. At the spot where the barrier closed the way into the pass stood two horses and a tall, lanky human. He was raising his hands again. Sweat trickled down his face as black fire gathered around his palms. He shouted something and hurled the fire at the barricade.

  The noise was so loud that Daine was jolted back into her own body. “Tkaa!” she called.

  —I am here.—The basilisk had caught up with her while Daine was speaking with the marmot. He looked a bit odd: someone, probably Maura, had wrapped cloth around his head to protect his earholes.

  “It’s Numair—my teacher.”

  —A mortal is doing that?—

  “Would you cross and tell him to stop? Oh, wait—perhaps he’s doing it to break down the barrier. If he is, would you ask him how long it will take, so I can warn my friends? I suppose he’ll want to know about the Coldfang, and you should tell him Maura’s with us.”

  —Let me go,—said Tkaa, sounding faintly amused.—You may think of other things for me to tell him while I am gone.—He walked over to the barrier and was halfway through when Daine remembered something else.

  “Tkaa, wait!”

  He looked at her.—Quickly, if you please. This is not comfortable.—

  “If you can go through, Stormwings can go through. Warn him, please. They might be on their way now, if Tristan heard all this racket.”

  The basilisk walked through the barrier. Daine looked at Cloud. “I need my writing kit. Tkaa doesn’t know all I’ve learned, and Numair has to be warned.” She stopped. In her mind she heard approaching Stormwings. “We’ve got trouble,” she said, and mounted the pony. “What did Tkaa call them? Flappers?”

  Just what we need, replied the mare.

  In the distance she heard Maura say pleadingly, “Go away! Please!”

  Cloud picked up her pace, and they rounded a bend. Maura stood where the trail to the caves met the pass road. Above her was a flock of Stormwings.

  “Maura, get down!” shouted Daine. Cloud stopped as she brought the crossbow to bear on one of the monsters.

  “No!” Maura lunged at Daine, grabbing for the bow. Her weight dragged Daine’s arm down. For one perilous moment the crossbow was aimed point-blank at the ten-year-old’s chest. Cloud reared. Maura lost her grip on the bow, and Dain
e swung it away from her. She was trembling in fear and anger.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” she cried. “I could have killed you!”

  “I’m sorry,” Maura said, looking down. “But I couldn’t let you hurt them.”

  Stormwings were landing on the ground in front of them. Three moved out of Daine’s sight. Turning, she saw them settle on the road behind her, cutting off any escape. Coldly she leveled her weapon at the nearest Stormwing, a male who wore a collection of bones braided into his long blond hair.

  He stared back at her, contempt in his eyes, then looked at the younger girl. “Tell her we mean you no harm, Lady Maura.”

  “You’re on speaking terms with them?” Daine asked.

  Maura shrugged. “They visit Yolane and Belden a lot. He is Lord Rikash.”

  “And she is a Stormwing killer,” barked the snarl-haired brunette who had spoken to Tkaa the day before. “She slew one of our queens last year!”

  “She tried to kill me,” Daine snapped. “It was a fair fight—a lot fairer than she deserved.”

  Rikash hopped around Maura and stopped near Cloud, looking her and her rider over with chilly green eyes. The mare had seen his kind before. While their scent of rotten meat and bad death hurt her nose, she had learned to stand fast when they were near. She eyed Rikash, small ears flat against her skull. Daine knew what was in the pony’s mind: one more hop and he’d be in range for a bite.

  Don’t hit the feathers, warned Daine silently. They’ll cut your mouth.

  Don’t teach your dam to nurse a foal, Cloud retorted.

  “You are quick to judge us, Stormwing killer,” Rikash snarled. “Too quick, for a human. You come from a race that spends more time murdering your own kind than do all the immortals put together, yet you insist you are better than us.” He spat on the ground, and looked at Maura. “You cannot leave Dunlath, and you must not stay here. Come home. Yolane doesn’t need to know you were away.”