Stormrider (5 page)

“But a star-crossed bounty hunter! I’m the best they have. I trained for this. Now, they believe I have failed and they send in a moon-blessed bounty hunter? Surely other Janissaries could have been dispatched to take up the thread . . .”

“Surely . . . then again maybe they thought since you failed, you being the best, doing it the nice way, the honorable way, it was time to get down and dirty . . . to do it my way,” Raptor offered with a quirky grin and sparkling brown-gold eyes. “I am, after all, expendable. If I don’t succeed nothing will be lost, at least not according to the way they see it.” He shrugged. “I, of course, see it differently. I have no intention of failing.”

Tanith lifted eyebrows staring at him from eyes the color of spring grasses. “You have done a magnificent job so far, haven’t you?”

She tossed him a scornful look, which said everything that needed to be said about his crippled condition. Then felt immediately guilty. He didn’t deserve that. Experience had taught her only too well of the unpredictability of a mission. There were risks. In that regard there was no difference between herself and this bounty hunter, she admitted grudgingly.

“Yea — well . . .”

“I started this and I’ll finish it—myself. I know the path the Amulet has traveled. Retrieving it will not be simple, but I will do what must be done—when it must be done.”

“Time is not a limitless commodity,” Raptor observed.

“Your present condition is not such to expedite matters, is it?”

Strongheart dropped, with a grunt and a sigh, between them. Littlefoot shifted her sleek body so that she could tip her head and stare up into Tanith’s angry countenance.

He is somewhat battered, but he will heal.
Littlefoot dropped the comment into the exchange between Janissary and bounty hunter.

Tanith glanced sharply at the she-wolf. For once she addressed Littlefoot without benefit of words.
You’re intimating I will need the assistance of this . . . man?

Littlefoot yawned broadly, giving off a little squeak at its end.
Am I? Will you?

Tanith gave Raptor a quick glance feeling his eyes hard upon her and the presence of the wolves scattered at her feet. He was aware of her sudden silence, a puzzled look on his face. What, she wondered, was he thinking?

Tanith to Littlefoot, determined to end this odd exchange.
He won’t be worth much to me for a while and I think it would be better if we could go back to the way it was between us when we just sought food together and exchanged pleasantries. Do you think we could do that?

Amused. Strongheart.
Doubtful.

Littlefoot, a note of hurt in her tone.
Concern for pack members extends to all areas.

Raptor stared at the wolves and Tanith. What was going on there? That she was not pleased with his arrival he could understand. That she had managed to save his hide he did not yet understand, but was working on it. This thing with the wolves could well be beyond him.

He had seen many strange things in his travels among numerous strange cultures, but he did not appreciate where his mind was leading him on this one. They were not merely pets or companions. Their intelligence was well above that of normal animals. That he had seen demonstrated. But some sort of communication between them? Not impossible, so he wouldn’t fall into the trap of disbelief, but that assumption almost beyond acceptance.

Damn if the woman didn’t toss him a glance that hinted she could read his mind. There was nothing about any such ability in her file!

He decided to take up the conversation as if it had not been interrupted. “I’ll have my strength back soon enough. I heal fast,” he grumbled, “occupational necessity.” He hesitated, then plunged in carelessly tossing caution aside. “I would seem to be slowed down for a while, but you haven’t told me why, with your background and abilities, and knowing where the Amulet is, you haven’t yet succeeded in your mission? Why it is taking so long that the Council has assumed you dead and sent me to finish your mission?”

Tanith tensed. Green eyes flashed. “I owe you no explanation and I have not been able to communicate with the High Council since losing my ship upon my arrival here.”

“You have no ship?”

Tanith inclined her head, once, sharply. Then she gracefully stripped down to her day leathers of a simple, supple belted tunic with long sleeves, and soft, tan leggings. She needed no more in the swiftly rising warmth of the day.

The temperature of Nashira spiked rapidly with the advent of the sun. Other parts of the planet became blistering hot within minutes of sunrise, but at these latitudes it leveled off at a pleasant temperature, remaining there pretty much through the day except for the occasional coming of a storm, then plummeting again with nightfall. Tanith noted Raptor pushing some of his coverings aside.

Raptor frowned. “If you have no ship how did you plan to complete your mission?”

“My mission,” Tanith said between clenched teeth was—
is
—to retrieve the Amulet of The Suonetar. Once that is accomplished there will be solutions to other problems.”

“Sort of like magic, huh?” he shifted, now easing the blanket from his shoulders, obviously pleased with the balmy warmth rising to replace the biting cold of the night past.

“Not magic,” Tanith snapped back. “I am a trained Janissary, protector of the people and the Circle. There are, after all, the slavers. They possess ships. There are few I could not fly.”

“And few of those you could get away from the slavers,” Raptor observed.

Tanith calmly raised one slender, golden eyebrow. “I will manage. How I accomplish my goal is no concern of yours, that is, unless you lied to me about being a bounty hunter and are a slaver instead.”

Strongheart stood up, walked over to Raptor Simic and stared intently into his face a few moments before returning to Tanith’s side.

He is baiting you. He is no enemy. Why do you rise to it?

Forgetting herself, Tanith went down on one knee to meet Strongheart on a level common to them both and with some impatience said, “I don’t doubt your knowledge in such areas and he may well not be an enemy, but I warned you before he was undoubtedly something I would have preferred never setting my eyes on and already he has proved what I’ve said. You think he’s baiting me and I can’t answer your question, but I’ll repeat I already know I regret having set eyes on him.”

I think you will reconsider.
This from Littlefoot.

Tanith tossed a look of disgust at Littlefoot.
Doubtful.

“I am in need of the Amulet, not a wounded man,” Tanith lowered her voice on the last syllables and glanced in Raptor’s direction, catching his eyes fastened on her with studied skepticism.

Raptor glanced from wolf to wolf, eyes coming to rest at last on One Eye. “Doesn’t he have anything to add? You are talking to the wolves are you not? I did see, then, what I had believed was not possible. Together you killed the bear who was attacking me, didn’t you?”

“Yes I am talking to them and yes we did kill the bear.”
 

“You didn’t have a weapon.”

“I had a knife,” Tanith returned staunchly, then glanced Strongheart’s direction and mentally tossed the comment,
A very dull knife.

Strongheart lolled a wolf grin.
It was sharp enough.

Raptor Simic licked his lips and glanced between the wolves and the woman. “They are communicating with you . . . they are more than wolves.”

Tanith shook her head. “They communicate with me, but they are wolves. Wolves of Nashira. Very special wolves.”

“Then they obey you.”

Tanith shook her head again. “We are a pack. It is the way of Nashira, the way of The People born of this place. In very special cases there is a link with the animals—some animals—people to the animals, the animals to each other. One at a time these wolves came to me, forming the pack.”

“Then you are leader . . . why quibble over words.”

“Because I am not leader, Strongheart is.”

That brought him up short, fox eyes glittering in the morning sunlight. “I read nothing of the pack in the file the Circle of Nine put in my hands.”

“The pack, as it is now, did not exist then and, as I have told you, I have not been able to communicate with the High council since I lost my ship so they have not been informed. Also, you did not read closely enough. There was small mention of the bonding in the biographical material of Nashira. It was undoubtedly not prominent since the High Council did not realize they would be sending a native to Nashira. And, this bonding is a rare thing. I did not consider it would happen to me since I have not lived in Nashira since I was a child.”

“And that was so long ago,” Simic dropped a bit of sarcasm, shrugged, giving a lop-sided non-apologetic grin. His eyes fixed on her intently. “Much of the material given me by the High Council I did not read.” He let the last statement hang in the air between them.

Tanith frowned. Was he trying to tell her something? Was he actually attempting to put her more at ease by letting her know he didn’t know as much about her life as she feared he did? But if he didn’t know, why would he think she would care?

“You made a mistake. That material was made available to you to help you complete your mission—my mission. That is why the policy was adopted long ago, so other Janissaries would . . .”

With a dry laugh, Raptor cut her off. “But you forget, I am not a Janissary, I am a bounty hunter. I do things my way.”

“Information is a weapon,” Tanith said coolly.

“Then I am well enough armed.”

Tanith stared at him appraisingly. What in the name of the Circle of Nine was he talking about? Tanith drew herself up, watching as he wrestled with his inability to gain his feet, then settled for an erect posture and returned her stare despite being forced to crane his neck to do so.

This was getting them nowhere. “Your ship survived your arrival?” Tanith altered the direction of their exchange. She did not like the feeling of loss of control she experienced with regularity around Raptor.

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Because of the Dinh Dinh who attacked me, it has problems, but I will probably be able to fix it.”

“And the ship the Dinh Dinh was piloting, what of it?”

“I am afraid I destroyed it.”

“Good planning.”

With a shrug, Raptor said, “I could not allow him to leave Nashira and I am a resourceful man. It should pose few problems when we are ready to leave here.”

Tanith brushed his last remark aside. She didn’t understand why, but the thought of leaving Nashira gave her a peculiar twinge. Of course she was leaving. One way or another. She was a Janissary, there would be other assignments, she just resented Raptor’s easy assumption that it would be together. That was the source of the discomfort, nothing more.

“There are things I must do. You can rest here.”

She glanced at Strongheart. “Will you remain here, with him?”

The big silver wolf stood and shook himself.
It is better if I go with you. One Eye and Littlefoot will stay.

Tanith rose, retreating to her cave.

Raptor watched the great silver wolf as the animal paused to scratch himself like a laconic house pet, then turned wise and knowing eyes on Raptor in what, if Raptor wasn’t mistaken, was an aloof statement of rank. The wolf’s was superior. At the moment it would be hard to argue the position.

Raptor relaxed a little with Tanith out of his immediate vicinity, leaning on one outstretched arm, feeling the pull and itch of mutilated flesh across his back. He wondered what it looked like. What was holding it all together? In a straying of thoughts to other, more important areas, he wondered what was going on in the wolf’s mind. What stirred behind the scrying-mirror eyes of the great silver wolf?

“What are you?” Raptor put the question to the wolf, not really expecting an answer and receiving none, at least none he could hear.

Strongheart regarded the man from steady dark eyes.
I am as you are—a creature alive upon the face of this world and I do what I must.

“He thinks the two of you are a lot alike,” Tanith relayed Strongheart’s message as she strolled up, wide, green eyes flicking between wolf and man. “Maybe you confuse him since you are dressed in buckskins as one of The People.”

Strongheart gave a loud snort and tossed his head, straying from his usual eloquence.

Tanith ignored him. She turned her hard-eyed gaze instead toward Strongheart’s proclaimed non-enemy, Raptor Simic. His golden fox-eyes held hers steadily and she began to see, in that slightly shifty gaze of his, where he had gleaned his reputation. He no doubt had other attributes of the fox besides his golden brown eyes. He no doubt could be crafty, and perhaps at times, wise. The revelation surprised her.

“I’ll return soon.”

Her weapons tucked in her belt and her boot, Tanith felt infinitely more confident than when she had answered Strongheart’s call of the night past.

She could almost feel the warmth of Raptor’s gaze sweeping over her, hesitating a moment here and there, touching the weaponry she carried. Raising an eyebrow at the bow slung over one shoulder, long and gracefully made; eyes widening at the stun gun strapped to her waist; dark brows diving together in dark thought at the sight of the hilt of an obviously very large knife tucked in the top of one soft boot.