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. Dion smiled faintly. I wasn t, but I was.Thanks. She swung up onthe new relay beast, feeling the dnu s muscles bunch as it skitteredawkwardly sideways.In the distance, waiting in the shadow, GrayHishn began to move.Dion felt the wolf lope just off the center ofthe road.Barely visible, Hishn touched the edges of shadow andextended them with her lupine shape.The stablewoman caught the unfocused expression on Dion s faceand watched the wolfwalker with interest. This dnu s fast andheadstrong.Don t let him run your arms off, Dione, or the legs off your gray wolf. Dion s gaze sharpened.She looked down at the woman. Considering what s been on the trails in this fog, I might be glad ofhis speed in spite of the ache on my arms tonight. Raider fog, the woman agreed. Ride safe. With the moons, Dion returned.She reined the dnu in a tightcircle and spurred the creature forward.Within seconds, its hoovesstruck a sharp rhythm from the stone road.The sounds doubled,then tripled, as the two other beasts matched its pace.Dion knewwho rode behind her. Ontai is the other way, she shouted over hershoulder. I think you can assume that we know that, Tule called backacross the sound of the hooves. I ve an escort waiting for me in Kitman. And this one to get you there. It s a long ride you re taking, Tule. Aye. She glanced at his face, then back, meaningfully, at the youngman who rode behind them. It ll be a dark dawn for Royce to rideinto. It s time, Tule called back. Time? For him to see dawn for what it is. Dion s eyes flickered to the black horizon.To see dawn for what itwas a bloody sky reflected on land? A morning of death on a worldthat was theirs by birth, but not by breeding? Her lean jawtightened.Aranur might be able to look beyond the dawn to see thestars, but for Dion, whose mind was already filling with the lust ofthe lupine hunt, the morning heralded a bloody dream, not one ofmoons and freedom.Night had progressed, and only four of those moons now rode inthe sky.Their light gave that blue-blackened expanse a purity sheknew was false.In two hours, the chill she felt now would be full ofdawn shadow, and the now-bright moonlight would be a faint skyand gray.There would be wolves in her mind, pushing the hunt,while her human side held herself back, and the mist would clinglike a shroud to the trees where it hid raider swords and death.In the end, she knew, when the steel was still, it would be blood, notrain, that made mud of the ground; and it would be youth that wassacrificed.Swords, she thought bitterly.After starships and skycars and tethers to space, they settled their violence with steel.Andall because of an alien plague that turned the ground into graves.Her fingers tightened spasmodically.By plague, by steel& It didn tmatter.Blood, she thought.Always blood on her hands.And nomoonlight could wash it away.She stiffened the walls of herdarkening heart and braced herself for the dawn.They were early into Kitman.Their dnu had been fast and eagerto run, and the moonlight bright enough to urge them on.But even though the Kitman relay had had hours to prepare forthe riders, the Kitman stables were not ready.Men and womenwere still saddling up as Dion, Tule, and Royce pounded in, andthere was a rush of people back and forth on the street, like amarketplace in the dark.Hishn took one look at the bustle, snarledlike a badgerbear, and fled back into the night.Dion grimaced afterher.Tule s voice was amused. No escape for the wolfwalker? Only thewolf? That s the truth, she returned.She slowed to avoid hitting oneof the running men. What s going on? she called out as she slid offher dnu.Someone grabbed the reins from her hands.At the same time awoman took her arm, pulling her away from the dnu almost beforeshe had time to release the reins to the hostler. Healer Dione thisway, the woman said urgently, propelling Dion before her. They llget your dnu ready for you. The woman s hands were tight onDion s arm. Through here, Healer. Dion knew that tone of voice: the edge of urgency, the carefulcontrol, the unvoiced need to run rather than walk.She didn tresist.Instead, she shouted over the noise, Tule, Royce, make surethere s enough gear for all three of us for at least four days just incase.I ll be a few minutes here. Thank the moons you re early, the woman worried, ignoringDion s shout to Tule and Royce. There s time to see them beforeyou ride out on the venge.No, not that way, Wolfwalker.They re inthe elder s house.We ve got spring fever in the clinic. What happened? Dion asked as she ducked into a small side street. The ringrunner and her escort were riding the black road Imean, they were bringing the message rings in when they wereattacked by bihwadi.Through here, Healer.It happened up on thetrack from the relay tower to town.You know the one? The barrierbushes are still new up there this way, Healer and the line ofshrubs won t be grown in for a decade.Merai she s theringrunner and Pacceli went over the bushes to avoid the bihwadion the trail.The thorns tore them up something awful.Pacceli hetook fierce wounds from the bihwadi, and then the barrier thornscut him more.He s lost too much blood.He doesn t even move.Merai, I think, will be blind. Brye s down with spring fever, isn t he? Aye.He daren t go near Pacceli s open wounds.The clinic nursetreated Merai and Pacceli. Dion nodded, forgetting that, in the dark, the motion was lost onthe woman.But they were already at the door to the elder s home,and the other woman pushed her through the brightly lit corallinedoorway and into another man s grasp before she could answer outloud. This way, the man said to Dion. In here. He let go of her armonly after pushing her into the sickroom.She took no offense.Instead, her gaze went to the beds.One figure lay still, swathed in bandages.The nurse, an olderman, sat beside the youth, holding onto the limp wrist. Pacceli? Dion asked quietly.The man nodded without speaking.On theother bed was the young woman who had been the ringrunner thatnight.Merai clenched her bandaged hands at her sides to keep fromtearing at the bloody cloths that hid her face and eyes.Diontouched her briefly on the arm, then went to the young man wholay still.The nurse moved only reluctantly aside for Dion, but thewolfwalker took his place without comment
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