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She woke to fog, dense and wet, beading in the sea lions’ fur. Sitting up, she winced. She felt like one large bruise. Luck had been with her the day before. If she hadn’t been in shallow water, she would have died, smashed by four hundred and fifty pounds of fast-moving sea lion. On top of the bruised ache were new, sharp pains. Peering inside her shirt, she found deep gouges, four on each shoulder—as if a badger had rested his weight there.
The morning fog turned into rain, and Thayet announced they would remain in their present camp. Steeling herself, Daine approached Onua and Numair as breakfast was being served. “Can I talk to you later?” she asked. “Alone?” She swallowed. “There’s something about me you ought to know.”
A few words to Thayet and Buri were all that was needed. Numair and Onua followed her to the south end of the cove, where a rock overhang kept a strip of sand dry. Numair built a fire. Tahoi sprawled between him and Onua, head on Onua’s lap, his belly to the warmth of the flames. Cloud lay down so Daine could lean against her, encouraging the girl silently.
“Is it so hard to begin?” Onua asked.
Daine looked at the high waves, feeling her chin quiver. She gripped the badger’s claw for reassurance. “Oh, yes. Don’t interrupt me. If I’m stopped, I don’t know if I’d have the courage to go on.” Drawing a breath through a chest that had gone all tight, she began, “When the thaw came, end of January, nothing would do for Ma but I go to the next valley over, and visit her friend that married a shepherd there. She heard that Lory—her friend—was coughing a lot, and Ma had a syrup to give her. She made me promise not to come home in the dark, but stay over till morning. Sometimes I wonder if she just knew . . . but prob’ly not. As a foreteller, Ma always made a good cook.
“So, I saddled Cloud and went. Lory was glad to see me. Her ’n’ Rand, her husband, always treat me nice. There was a new baby she let me play with. They’re sweet when they’re that little. And Rand wanted me to take a look at his best ewe. Good thing I did. She was getting set to give him twin lambs, only breech birth, which might’ve killed them and their ma. So I was up late, and Lory let me sleep till noon.
“Coming out of their place, I couldn’t see anything anywhere but fog, couldn’t smell, couldn’t hear. I was clear to our village before I knew.
“They hit around dawn. The mill was burned, the miller dead. They took the wheelwright’s oldest girl and the headman’s wife. Really, they mighta passed my house by, Ma having the Gift, but they remembered she was pretty too, see.
“They fought—all of them. Ma, Grandda, dogs, ponies, horses—even the stupid chickens. Even Ma’s geese. Not the rabbits. They left. Well, they never fight, and you can’t ask them to go against their nature. But the rest fought. They killed some of the bandits.
“The bandits went crazy. They killed everything on the farm and didn’t carry any of it away, Mammoth told me. Mammoth was my boss dog. He said they was too scared of animals who fought like that.
“Mammoth told me what happened, and died.
“So we buried them, me and Cloud, every last one of our family. Cloud’s dam and sire, her brothers are in those graves.
“I straightened up the house, what was left. The raiders had tried to burn it, but only the upper story and the roof were gone. Ma had a bunch of charms against fire in the kitchen, so most of the downstairs was saved.
“It was two days before anyone came to see. After Ma helped them birth their children, and nursed them when they was sick. Two days! She could’ve been alive and hurt all that time! If the bandits had passed us by, Ma would have been at the village with medicines and bandages, making me and Grandda help.
“When I saw them, I just—popped. I said get out. I threw rocks, and they ran. You got to understand, there was all this mad inside me, all this hate and wildness. I couldn’t hold it. My animal friends, they’re the only ones who came right off to see if I was alive. I was going to them when I found the blood trail the bandits left.
“I knew where the pack of wolves was. The boss male and female thought I was smart, for a two-legger. It took explaining—they don’t hunt their own kind. It’s one thing to run another pack off your territory, but to hunt each other like they’re prey, that makes them sick. When I showed them our farm, well, it made them crazy. We picked up the bandit trail and found them, in some caves.
“It was hard, keeping the pack from taking the bandits all at once, but I didn’t want the wolves to get killed. We picked off three shifts of sentries, ’cause nobody was awake or sober enough to remember if the old sentries came back. When the other bandits came out in the morning, we took them. I remembered enough to let the women taken from the village loose, and kept my pack-brothers from killing them too.
“By then I was gone wild entirely. I went to all fours, and me and the pack denned in the bandit caves. I was safe with the pack. Cloud couldn’t even talk to me. It scared her silly, being around the wolves, but I remembered she was family and I wouldn’t let them get her. There was plenty of meat, anyway, from all the bandits stole.
“We heard the humans coming. I told the pack to go to the old den. I waited to see what was what. Maybe I was getting human again, a little.
“I hid in the brush. They sent Hakkon Falconer ahead to talk to me. He used to visit Ma and stay over, before he married again. He’d’ve wed Ma, but I heard her tell him my da wouldn’t like it. She always spoke of my da that way, as if he was just around the corner. Anyway, Hakkon treated me all right, even after he married, because I helped with the birds.
“He said the women we set loose made it home and told what we did. He said I’d best come in now, before I took sick. He said he’d put me up, and I could earn my keep with him. He trained falcons for our lord.
“I came out onto the road. They’d’ve had me, but Cloud snuck up on one of the archers and kicked him. He shot too soon, and I ran.
“Hakkon said I was crazy, it was for my own good. He said I was like the rabid bear. I had to be put down merciful. If I’d come out, it’d be over in a minute—wouldn’t hurt at all. The rest of them were calling me a monster.
“Then they tried to set the dogs on me, but the dogs wouldn’t go. When them with ponies tried to come after me, the ponies threw them and lit out for home. The men should’ve known they couldn’t get their animals to come after me.
“Me and Cloud headed up into the rocks. Trouble was, they were mountain men, fair trackers even without dogs. I wasn’t thinking like a human, so I didn’t remember to hide my trail. The weather didn’t help, either.
“I don’t know how long they hunted me. I think it was most of a week. I got pretty tired and cold and hungry. Cloud saved me. She started to nip and bite my arms. See—this one left a scar, above my elbow. She only left me alone when I got on my hind feet. When I got used to walking like that, I remembered I was human, and I knew I had to get out of Snowsdale. I snuck back home, got the things I had left, and came south.
“That’s why I’ve been scared with the lessons. It never happened before my folks got killed, but now when I go deep in my magic or the meditating, when I’m by myself, I start thinking like the closest group of animals—like a herd of horses, or a pack. I forget I’m human. I forget I’m me.
“I was afraid to tell the truth. You don’t know what it’s like, having them you knew all your life hunt you like you was a deer. Hearing them on your trail and knowing if you don’t start running, your hide’ll get stretched on a frame and the rest of you goes into someone’s stewpot. And I was crazy, running on all fours, hunting with a pack. I wanted to forget all that, if I could. I wanted to be all new here, all normal, just like everyone else.
“Only I guess I can’t. The badger says I have to learn.”
SEVEN
BUZZARD ROCKS
She hadn’t watched them as she talked, and she was afraid to look now. Suddenly Onua hugged her tight. The tears that had stopped coming when she buried her family came again, in a hot and silent flood.
&n
bsp; “What about the badger?” asked Numair, when she was calm again.
Daine shrugged. “He comes in my dreams, sort of.” She described the badger’s visits, showing the silver claw and the marks in her shoulders as evidence. Onua shook her head over the wounds and fetched her medicines.
As she tended Daine’s scratches, Numair thought. Finally he said, “ ‘Time is running out’—‘the storm will be here.’ What time? What storm?” He sighed. “I hate omens. They depend on translation, and I never was good at it. If he tells you anything more solid, let me know.” Daine nodded. “As for the rest . . . I never heard of a human with wild magic losing contact with his essence—the part that tells us we are human.
“On the other hand, I’ve never met anyone with wild magic as powerful as yours. It is conceivable that your bond to animals overwhelms your humanity.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well, that’s easy enough to fix.”
She gaped at him. “It is? All this time I’ve been afraid of joining a herd or a pack or a flock or whatever, and I could’ve fixed it?”
“With help from your humble servant.” He stretched his arms. “Are you up to meditating now? I won’t let you swim off with the sea lions.” He smiled warmly at the girl, and she smiled back.
Onua patted her knee. “I leave you mages to it. I’m going to camp and torture some trainees.” Quietly she added, “Thanks for trusting me, Daine.”
“I wish I’d told before,” Daine replied guiltily. “Only I was scared—”
The K’mir stood and dusted sand off her bottom. “After your village hunting you, I’m surprised you made yourself talk to another human again. Don’t worry about it. And don’t let him work you too hard.” With a wave, she set off down the beach. Tahoi watched her go: he refused to leave the warmth of the fire to be drenched by the rain.
“She’s quite a woman,” said Numair. “You have a good friend in her.”
“I know,” Daine admitted.
