Assassin's Quest (20 page)

Hunting in these open areas was different, too. Most of the small game was of the burrowing sort that lived in groups, and the larger animals simply outran us over the long flat stretches of land. Time spent in hunting was time not spent traveling. Occasionally I found unguarded henhouses and slipped in quietly to steal eggs from the sleeping birds. I did not scruple to raid plums and cherries from the orchards we passed through. Our most fortuitous kill was an ignorant young haragar, one of the rangy swine that some of the nomadic folk herded as a food beast. Where this one had strayed from, we did not question. Fang and sword, we brought it down. I let Nighteyes gorge to his content that night, and then annoyed him by cutting the rest of the meat into strips and sheets which I dried in the sun over a low fire. It took the better part of a day before I was satisfied the fatty meat was dried enough to keep well, but in the days to follow, we traveled more swiftly for it. When game presented itself, we hunted and killed, but when it did not, we had the smoked haragar to fall back on.

In this manner we followed the Buck River northwest. When we drew close to the substantial trading town of Turlake, we veered wide of it, and for a time steered only by the stars. This was far more to Nighteyes’ liking, taking us over plains carpeted with dry sedgy grasses at this time of year. We frequently saw herds in the distance, of cattle and sheep or goats, and infrequently, haragar. My contact with the nomadic folk who followed those herds was limited to glimpses of them on horseback, or the sight of their fires outlining the conical tents they favored when they settled for a night or so.

We were wolves again for these long trotting nights. I had reverted once more, but I was aware of it and told myself that as long as I was it would do me little harm. In truth, I believe it did me good. Had I been traveling with another human, life would have been complicated. We would have discussed route and supplies and tactics once we arrived in Tradeford. But the wolf and I simply trotted along, night after night, and our existence was as simple as life could be. The comradeship between us grew deeper and deeper.

The words of Black Rolf had sunk deep into me and given me much to think about. In some ways, I had taken Nighteyes and the bond between us for granted. Once he had been a cub, but now he was my equal. And my friend. Some say “a dog” or “a horse” as if every one of them is like every other. I’ve heard a man call a mare he had owned for seven years “it” as if he were speaking of a chair. I’ve never understood that. One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman. Nosy had been a friendly, inquisitive, boyish dog when he was mine. Smithy had been tough and aggressive, inclined to bully anyone who would give way to him, and his sense of humor had had a rough edge to it. Nighteyes was as unlike them as he was unlike Burrich or Chade. It is no disrespect to any of them to say I was closest to him.

He could not count. But I could not read deer scent on the air and tell if it was a buck or doe. If he could not plan ahead to the day after tomorrow, neither was I capable of the fierce concentration he could bring to a stalk. There were differences between us; neither of us claimed superiority. No one issued a command to the other, or expected unquestioning obedience of the other. My hands were useful things for removing porcupine quills and ticks and thorns and for scratching especially itchy and unreachable spots on his back. My height gave me a certain advantage in spotting game and spying out terrain. So even when he pitied me for my “cow’s teeth” and poor vision at night, and a nose he referred to as a numb lump between my eyes, he did not look down on me. We both knew his hunting prowess accounted for most of the meat that we ate. Yet he never begrudged me an equal share. Find that in a man, if you can.

“Sit, hound!” I told him once, jokingly. I was gingerly skinning out a porcupine that I had killed with a club after Nighteyes had insisted on pursuing it. In his eagerness to get at the meat, he was about to get us both full of quills. He settled back with an impatient quivering of haunches.

Why do men speak so?
he asked me as I tugged carefully at the skin’s edge of the prickly hide.

“How?”

Commanding. What gives a man a right to command a dog, if they are not pack?

“Some are pack, or almost,” I said aloud, consideringly. I pulled the hide tight, holding it by a flap of belly fur where there were no quills, and slicing along the exposed integument. The skin made a ripping sound as it peeled back from the fat meat. “Some men think they have the right,” I went on after a moment.

Why?
Nighteyes pressed.

It surprised me that I had never pondered this before. “Some men think they are better than beasts,” I said slowly. “That they have the right to use them or command them in any way they please.”

Do you think this way?

I didn’t answer right away. I worked my blade along the line between the skin and the fat, keeping a constant pull on the hide as I worked up around the shoulder of the animal. I rode a horse, didn’t I, when I had one? Was it because I was better than the horse that I bent it to my will? I’d used dogs to hunt for me, and hawks on occasion. What right had I to command them? There I sat, stripping the hide off a porcupine to eat it. I spoke slowly. “Are we better than this porcupine that we are about to eat? Or is it only that we have bested it today?”

Nighteyes cocked his head, watching my knife and hands bare meat for him.
I think I am always smarter than a porcupine. But not better. Perhaps we kill it and eat it because we can. Just as,
and here he stretched his front paws out before him languorously,
just as I have a well-trained human to skin these prickly things for me, that I may enjoy eating them the better.
He lolled his tongue at me, and we both knew it was only part of the answer to the puzzle. I ran my knife down the porcupine’s spine, and the whole hide was finally free of it.

“I should build a fire and cook off some of this fat before I eat it,” I said consideringly. “Otherwise I shall be ill.”

Just give me mine, and do as you wish with your share,
Nighteyes instructed me grandly. I cut around the hind legs and then popped the joints free and cut them loose. It was more than enough meat for me. I left them on the skin side of the hide as Nighteyes dragged his share away. I kindled a small fire as he was crunching through bones and skewered the legs to cook them. “I don’t think I am better than you,” I said quietly. “I don’t think, truly, that I am better than any beast. Though, as you say, I am smarter than some.”

Porcupines, perhaps,
he observed benignly.
But a wolf? I think not
.

We grew to know every nuance of the other’s behavior. Sometimes we were fiercely competent at our hunting, finding our keenest joy in a stalk and kill, moving purposefully and dangerously through the world. At other times, we tussled like puppies, nudging one another off the beaten trail into bushes, pinching and nipping at each other as we strode along, scaring off the game before we even saw it. Some days we lay drowsing in the late-afternoon hours before we roused to hunt and then travel, the sun warm on our bellies or backs, the insects buzzing a sound like sleep itself. Then the big wolf might roll over on his back like a puppy, begging me to scratch his belly and check his ears for ticks and fleas, or simply scratch thoroughly all around his throat and neck. On chill foggy mornings we curled up close beside one another to find warmth before sleep. Sometimes I would be awakened by a rough poke of a cold nose against mine; when I tried to sit up, I would discover he was deliberately standing on my hair, pinning my head to the earth. At other times I might awaken alone, to see Nighteyes sitting at some distance, looking out over the surrounding countryside. I recall seeing him so, silhouetted against a sunset. The light evening breeze ruffled his coat. His ears were pricked forward and his gaze went far into the distance. I sensed a loneliness in him then that nothing from me could ever remedy. It humbled me, and I let him be, not even questing toward him. In some ways, for him, I was not better than a wolf.

Once we had avoided Turlake and the surrounding towns we swung north again to strike the Vin River. It was as different from the Buck River as a cow is from a stallion. Gray and placid, it slid along between open fields, wallowing back and forth in its wide gravelly channel. On our side of the river, there was a trail that more or less paralleled the water, but most of the traffic on it was goats and cattle. We could always hear when a herd or flock was being moved, and we easily avoided them. The Vin was not as navigable a river as the Buck, being shallower and given to shifting sandbars, but there was some boat trade on it. On the Tilth side of the Vin, there was a well-used road, and frequent villages and even towns. We saw barges being drawn upstream by mule teams along some stretches; I surmised that such cargo would have to be portaged past the shallows. Settlements on our side of the river seemed limited to ferry landings and infrequent trading posts for the nomadic herders. These might offer an inn, a few shops, and a handful of houses clinging to the outskirts, but not much more than that. Nighteyes and I avoided them. The few villages we encountered on our side of the river were deserted at this time of year.

The nomadic herders, tent dwellers during the hotter months, pastured their herds on the central plains now, moving sedately from waterhole to waterhole across the rich grazing lands. Grass grew in the village streets and up the sides of the sod houses. There was a peace to these abandoned towns, and yet the emptiness still reminded me of a raided village. We never lingered close to one.

We both grew leaner and stronger. I wore through my shoes and had to patch them with rawhide. I wore my trousers off at the cuff and hemmed them up about my calves. I grew tired of washing my shirt so often; the blood of the Forged ones and our kills had left the front and the cuffs of it mottled brown. It was as mended and tattered as a beggar’s shirt, and the uneven color made it only more pathetic. I bundled it into my pack one day and went shirtless. The days were mild enough that I did not miss it, and during the cooler nights we were on the move and my body made its own warmth. The sun baked me almost as dark as my wolf. Physically, I felt good. I was not as strong as I had been when I was pulling an oar and fighting, nor as muscled. But I felt healthy and limber and lean. I could trot all night beside a wolf and not be wearied. I was a quick and stealthy animal, and I proved over and over to myself my ability to survive. I regained a great deal of the confidence that Regal had destroyed. Not that my body had forgiven and forgotten all that Regal had done to it, but I had adapted to its twinges and scars. Almost, I had put the dungeon behind me. I did not let my dark goal overshadow those golden days. Nighteyes and I traveled, hunted, slept, and traveled again. It was all so simple and good that I forgot to value it. Until I lost it.

We had come down to the river as evening darkened, intending to drink well before beginning our night’s travel. But as we drew near, Nighteyes had suddenly frozen, dropping his belly to the earth while canting his ears forward. I followed his example, and then even my dull nose caught an unfamiliar scent.
What and where?
I asked him.

I saw them before he could reply. Tiny deer, stepping daintily along on their way down to water. They were not much taller than Nighteyes, and instead of antlers, they had goatlike spiraling horns that shone glossy black in the full moon’s light. I knew of such creatures only from an old bestiary that Chade had, and I could not remember what they were properly called.

Food?
Nighteyes suggested succinctly, and I immediately concurred. The trail they were following would bring them within a leap and a spring of us. Nighteyes and I held our positions, waiting. The deer came closer, a dozen of them, hurrying and careless now as they scented the cool water. We let the one in the lead pass, waiting to spring on the main body of the herd where they were most closely bunched. But just as Nighteyes gathered himself with a quiver to jump, a long wavering howl slid down the night.

Nighteyes sat up, an anxious whine bursting from him. The deer scattered in an explosion of hooves and horns, fleeing us even though we were both too distracted to pursue them. Our meal became suddenly a distant light thunder. I looked after them in dismay, but Nighteyes did not even seem to notice.

Mouth open, Nighteyes made sounds between a howl and a keen, his jaws quivering and working as if he strove to remember how to speak. The jolt I had felt from him at the wolf’s distant howl had made my heart leap in my chest. If my own mother had suddenly called out to me from the night, the shock could not have been greater. Answering howls and barks erupted from a gentle rise to the north of us. The first wolf joined in with them. Nighteyes’ head swiveled back and forth as he whined low in his throat. Abruptly he threw back his head and let out a jagged howl of his own. Sudden stillness followed his declaration, then the pack on the rise gave tongue again, not a hunting cry, but an announcement of themselves.

Nighteyes gave me a quick apologetic look, and left. In disbelief I watched him race off toward the ridge. After an instant of astonishment, I leaped to my feet and followed. He was already a substantial distance ahead of me, but when he became aware of me, he slowed, and then rounded to face me.

I must go alone,
he told me earnestly.
Wait for me here.
He whirled about to resume his journey.

Panic struck me.
Wait! You can’t go alone. They are not pack. We’re intruders, they’ll attack you. Better not to go at all.

I must!
he repeated. There was no mistaking his determination. He trotted off.

I ran after him.
Nighteyes, please!
I was suddenly terrified for him, for what he was charging into so obsessedly.