The Dog Master (40 page)

Mal was miserable. All of his childhood friends were cold and hostile toward him, especially Grat and Vinco, who always seemed to be hanging around Lyra, effectively blocking his access to her.

Calli could not bear to tell him that the common wisdom was that the curse of Mal's leg had finally extracted its due from the Kindred, leading Dog and the others into ambush by the Cohort and bringing the harsh winter.

Bellu seemed to have forgotten that it was her decision to linger at summer quarters that brought disaster upon the tribe—she was as eager to ascribe it to Mal's leg as everyone else, telling Mal she did not need him to help with the fires, that she had plenty of assistance from the other children in gathering kindling. No one was particularly grateful that Mal had found the fish that staved off starvation at the Blanc settlement. It was as if no one even remembered.

The day the Kindred arrived at summer quarters, they were dismayed that once again pools of snow were still gathered in the shadowy areas, that the Kindred Stream was swollen with icy water, and that the berries and buds were tiny and green. Bellu was devastated. The days had been just the right length, the sun winning more and more time every morning it rose triumphant in the sky making her sure it was the correct moment to migrate. She collapsed, crying, and could only manage a daily bath, too distraught to help with any other chore.

Everyone was grim faced. What would they eat? And more and more, as they chewed leather and ate any green thing they could find growing, their eyes were hot and accusing when they focused on Mal—“
He Who Brings a Curse upon the Kindred with His Leg and Must Be Put to Death for the Good of All of Us.
”

*   *   *

Silex could remember being a young boy and listening to his father tell of what a thrill it was to approach a wolf pack gathering site. Great care was taken to maintain silence, and the wolves were always observed from a tree and at great distance. Detection might cause the wolves to flee, or to turn aggressive, but the wolves were at their most social in their gathering sites, and much could be learned from them there. When a mating pair's cubs were old enough, the parents would bring the pups to the gathering site to be cared for by the pack.

But this pack was different than the one Silex's father told stories about. The wolves had grown accustomed to the Wolfen presence and to the smell of man on their dominant bitch. They reacted with no alarm and little interest to Silex's scent as he squirmed through the grasses to get a closer look.

“The granddaughter with the white handprint markings has departed to give birth!” Silex exclaimed. “She is again a mother-wolf!” He turned a delightful grin on Denix—but she was not there. He found her twenty paces back, regarding him with a sullen expression on her face. “They are very playful today,” he told her. “You can see them if you just crawl up to that hummock.”

“Are we going to give tribute?” she asked.

“No. The mother-wolf has left to whelp.”

“Then I think we should go back,” Denix declared coldly.

“Denix.” Silex reached out and grabbed her before she could start trotting away.

She spun on him. “Why did you ask me to come with you, Silex?” she demanded, her eyes flaring angrily.

For a moment he hesitated, struck by a memory of Fia, how angry she was when he first pursued her. Finally he shook himself out of it. “I wanted to speak to you alone.”

She crossed her arms. “Then speak.”

“Does it have to be like this? You have avoided me since the end of last summer. Everyone has noticed how you shun me. I do not understand.”

“I agree you do not understand. Is that what you wanted to say, that I have avoided you?”

“No.” Silex sighed. “Brach came to me with a disturbing revelation.”

Denix's hard gaze grew defiant. “Oh,” she said. “That.”

“Is it true you approached him and suggested the two of you might…” Silex could not bring himself to finish the thought.

She watched him fumble with a mocking expression. “He does have a history of such behavior,” she pointed out.

“Why would you do that?”

Denix laughed harshly. “Oh Silex. How can you be so ignorant?”

“Watch what you say to me, Denix,” he warned angrily. “I am not ignorant. I am aware there are no eligible bachelors, but you may not take another woman's husband to your bed. Wolfen mate for life.”

“So what is your plan?” Denix asked, abruptly plaintive. “Am I to wait for someone to die in childbirth, or to be eaten by a bear, and then I take the surviving widower, no matter who he is? I am twenty-eight years old! I will soon be too old to have children!”

“But why Brach?”

“I told you. He has a history.”

“He is my best friend,” Silex protested, anguished.

Denix stared at him. “So the offense is to you, then.”

Silex drew himself up. “The offense is to the Wolfen,” he answered severely. “It is about adultery.”

“Brach is your best friend. Which makes the adultery worse.”

Silex swallowed. “No, of course not.”

“Well then,” Denix continued in reasonable tones. “What about Tok?”

“My son?” Silex responded, horrified.

“Since Cragg married, he is the only single male, and I imagine soon enough he will be ready for a woman's bed,” Denix said deliberately. “Has that not occurred to you? And he is not married. So you do not have any reason to object.”

“He is but half your age!”

“I assure you that if that does not matter to me it will not matter to him.”

Silex was speechless.

“Right? So it is settled.”

“No. Not it is not settled,” Silex fumed.

Denix turned from him and started to run, so he hastened to keep up. “Denix, we are not finished.”

“Yes we are, Silex,” Denix said in mocking tones. “It is settled.
Settled
.”

*   *   *

Lyra was sitting on a rock by the stream, talking to friends, as Mal walked by on the path, and she called to him. He waited stiffly, reading the derision in the girls' faces as they whispered to each other, but Lyra's smile was open and welcoming as she approached him.

“And there you go, ever mysterious, off by yourself,” Lyra told him, her eyes sparkling.

“I just have something I need to do,” he explained tersely. He could not help it—standing close to her, his feelings roiled, an odd mixture of joy and dread. He saw that Lyra was wearing a leather strap around her neck, and that it was looped through one of the largest of the shiny shells the Blanc Tribe once used for trade, one the size of a child's palm. She had fashioned a hole in it somehow, though the shells were delicate and easily fragmented. He pictured her working with a rock, patiently scraping until she had worn through it.

“Let me go with you, Mal.”

No, that was impossible. He could not bear to be with her—he was a boy, so he could never court her, never marry her. “All is good,” he agreed helplessly.

Lyra waved at her friends, who waved and then immediately went back to whispering, their hands over their mouths. Mal scowled at them.

“They laugh that you are wasting your time with the crippled boy,” he said, sounding more curt and unpleasant than he had intended.

Lyra gave him a puzzled look. “Why would you say such a thing?”

He turned and began walking, Lyra easily keeping pace. “I have heard many such sentiments my whole life, Lyra. It is not a concern.”

She touched his arm and it was as if a warm breeze blew through his whole body. “I am sorry. But I promise you, that was not what we were saying when we saw you on the path.”

She was staring at him intently, willing him to look into her face, and when he did his heart raced. Her eyes were shining. He remembered kissing the girl with the missing arm, Ema, and ached to take this woman into his arms.

“Mal, you have a very handsome face,” she told him matter-of-factly. “You remind me very much of your brother.”

Dog. Mal pulled back from her, and did not care when he saw her momentary hurt and confusion. Then realization dawned on her. “Mal, I did not mean…”

He was already marching up the path. “I have something to do, Lyra.”

“Because you resemble your brother does not mean I do not appreciate you. You do know that, Mal.”

“I need to go and I do not want you to accompany me,” Mal responded icily. Something inside enjoyed punishing her even as he regretted it.

Lyra stopped walking. “All is good, then, Mal. You are not using adult reason, so I do not want to accompany you, either. But your brother was a man I admired, just as I admire you!” she called to his retreating back.

Striding away, Mal felt trapped by his decision to be petulant. He wanted to turn around and say something to Lyra, but he had no words to give. She
admired
him, she said. “I love you, Lyra,” he whispered. “I love you.”

*   *   *

Lyra turned and slowly walked away. Soon she encountered Vinco and Grat on the path, heading in the direction from which she had just come.

“Good summer, men of the hunt,” she greeted formally, not wanting to talk. They halted, though, so she did, too.

“They said you were with Mal,” Vinco told her in a tone that sounded almost accusatory.

Lyra drew herself up. “Yes, that is right.”

“Where is he now?” Grat inquired, an odd eagerness in his voice.

She involuntarily glanced over her shoulder in the direction Mal had taken, then looked back at the two men. “What do you want with Mal?”

“Oh,” Grat informed her with a tight grin, “we have something very important to tell him.”

Lyra felt a chill. “I am sure he will return soon,” she said quietly, thinking she needed to slip away and warn Mal to be alert.

“No, we will find him,” Vinco replied. He pushed past her rudely, but Grat stopped and leaned in intimately.

“I have something important to discuss with you, too,” he whispered. Lyra stared at him, trying to read what was going on with his grin and the wild look in his eyes. His tongue was pressed into the gap where he was missing a front tooth—it looked like a worm in a hole, repulsing her. Then he, too, was gone.

When they were half a dozen paces away from her, still following Mal's trail, they broke into a run.

 

FORTY-SEVEN

Mal realized he was being tracked. There was a sound to the forest, a different feel, somehow, that let him know something or someone was back there.

He immediately swung from the path, crossing the stream and wading into the deeper brush.

He felt that he knew who they were and, as soon as he emerged from the thick undergrowth and into a thin pine forest, he was able to confirm his suspicions. Mal stopped. Grat carried a club and Vinco a spear, but Mal had no weapon, only the fire horn slung from the strap around his neck.

“Good summer,” Mal called.

They did not reply.

Mal waved at them, attempting a careless gesture, but his hands were trembling. He turned as if he had no worries, but began walking as quickly as he could. Up ahead, a row of bushes pressed against some large rocks. It was not much, but perhaps if he could make his way there, he might find a place to hide.

He could hear them now. Vinco and Grat were doing what he could not—they were running.

Just as Mal came to the bushes and was preparing to throw himself into them, something astounding happened: the branches shook and then a Frightened burst from the leaves, his face open in terror. He nearly ran into Mal, and then he was past.

Taller, larger, and darker, the Frightened was an imposing figure, but like all of his kind, ran from humans. With a whoop, Vinco and Grat took off in pursuit. The Frightened was faster, but lore had it they were easily tired. It had been many years since any Kindred had even seen one, much less killed one. Mal watched the chase enviously, not for the first time wondering what it would feel like to have both legs working in concert in a headlong dash through the woods.

A small noise attracted his attention. Mal turned to the bushes from which the Frightened had emerged. There was something there. An animal? Mal bent forward, peering into the foliage, gingerly parting it to get a better look.

What he found was a female Frightened and two youngsters. The female's chest was heaving, and her children, both of them under the age of ten, hid behind her, peering at Mal in terror.

The woman held a rock, and she raised it, shaking it at Mal in a clear threat.

“No,” Mal whispered. “I will not hurt you.”

The Frightened did not speak the Language, and she did not appear to comprehend. Mal pantomimed holding his hand over his mouth.
Quiet
.

The woman seemed to understand. Mal held up his empty hands, then cautiously backed away from the family of Frighteneds.

As quickly as he could, Mal headed back toward the Kindred.

He was not quick enough.

*   *   *

Grat and Vinco caught up with him in a clearing. They were panting, making enough noise that Mal had plenty of time to hide, but there really was no place to go at that point—the trees were too far ahead, and there were no boulders, nor even tall grasses, just thin, sandy soil with a little scrub growth clinging to it.

Mal turned to face the danger.

Vinco was breathing hoarsely and looked ready to collapse, but Grat seemed filled with a dark energy. He was grinning at Mal, and his eyes held an unmistakable bloodlust. He had failed to kill a Frightened, but the pursuit had put him in the mood to destroy, to annihilate.

This was not going to be another beating, Mal realized.

This was to be a killing.

Vinco was there to watch. He hung back, letting Grat take the lead. Mal glanced at him and Vinco, his childhood friend, would not meet his eyes.