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weakness. All of it, gone, swal-
lowed by concentration. I was aware of the great void waiting to take me away,
to clasp me against its breast.
Calmly I welcomed it, even as I was welcomed.
Lir-shape, I told it. / need it.
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It examined me. Tasted me. Spat me out again.
I went on in the guise of a wott.
Sent hardly waited. As I scrambled up the icy bank he went on ahead, streaking
through the trees. I followed his lead, on the track of Strahan's wolf.
The hut. It was mostly a blur as I ran: a smudge of gray stone and the weave
of careful thatching. And lan, standing in front of the door.
He turned. Frowned; he had heard the wolf. From out of the trees the wolf
exploded: a streak of purest white.
Heading for my brother.
Serri warn Tasha
Already done Ahead of me, Serri ran.
lan saw all of us: two white wolves and one of silver-
gray, each running directly at him. He fell back a step toward the hut.
Stopped. Half-drew his knife, but did not finish. His confusion was obvious.
"Niall?" I heard him ask.
Gods, he cannot know which one of us is me!
One-eyed, even in wolf-shape, it was difficult to differentiate shadows,
angles, splashes of sunlight across the brilliance of blinding snow. I had not
yet learned to decipher all the signals. It would take time, too much time and
I had none of it now. So I ran.
I altered my route, moving to dissect the white wolfs path. Even as he
prepared to leap, Serri hit lan, knocked him down, turned to protect him. By
then I was on the wolf.
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Jaws closed on pelt and muscle, locking on his throat.
We tumbled, rolled, were up
Like me he went for the jugular, trying to tear out my throat. It was an
obscene dance of death, a ritualistic courtship. We tore, shook, growled,
tried to throw one another down. One-eyed, I was hampered; two-eyed, he was
not.
lan was up, gone, back. His bow was in his hands; an arrow was nocked and
prepared.
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But I saw his indecision. He could not tell which wolf was brother and which
was not.
Hind daws scored my belly teeth locked in my flesh I
smelled the stench of rotting meat the stink of the chamelhouse the ordure of
the netherworld.
Jaws closed, chewed, tried to tear. I lunged backward, then sideways, trying
to throw him down. Paws scrab-
bled, daws ripping into the winter-hard turf... he growled and gasped and
choked.
Backward again, again, again then I lunged forward and took even more of his
throat into my jaws.
I shook him, I shredded, I ripped. I felt the tearing in his flesh. I heard
the rattle in his chest and tasted the salt-copper flavor of blood.
He tore loose. Stumbled backward. Staggered, bleeding profusely. His tongue
lolled, dragged, dangled. He fell.
Scrabbled briefly. Died.
My head hung low. Blood was a mask on my muzzle, painting me up to my eye. My
tail drooped. I turned, saw lan's arrow aimed at me, realized he could not
know which wolf had won. And then I lost the /ir-shape.
"Niall! Oh gods rujho " He threw down the bow and leaped, catching my
shoulders as I wavered on my feet. "Niall!"
He broke off so abruptly, staring at me in such horror, that at first I could
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not comprehend what had happened to him to cause it. And then I remembered my
face.
I hung onto his arms. "Alive," I gasped. "Thank the gods you are alive "
"Niall what happened? Gods, rujho, what has hap-
pened to you?"
I could not believe I could touch him and know he was alive. "I feared the
plague was always deadly. Gods, but
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I thought you were dead! Serri could no longer reach
Tasha in the link."
The cat was next to lan, leaning against one knee. "I
was not nearly as sick as the others. But Mart- "
I put a trembling hand to my head. It hurt. It hurt so badly. "Strahan," I
said briefly through gritted teeth.
"Strahan sent a hawk."
"Niall, come in and sit down. At once"
"No. No first there is something " I pulled away from him and turned to the
wotf. Tliere was no doubting he was dead; his throat was completely gone. I
could still taste the tang of blood in my mouth. "Bum it," I said
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%20Track%20Of%20The%20White%20Wolf%20(v%20UC).txt hoarsely. "He is the last of
the plague-wolves; Homana will be free."
"I will," he said after a moment. "I will. But come inside. You look near to
collapse."
I was. My head pounded unmercifully; I thought if perhaps I carried it rigidly
on my shoulders, I would not stir further pain, lan took me into Padgett's
dwelling and made me sit down in one of the crooked chairs. The hut was empty.
"Gone for supplies." lan told me as he moved to pour refreshment. Usca, again;
I took the cup he gave me, drank, shut my eye. "He should be back soon. I had
planned to leave today."
"Leave?" I opened my eye as Serri sat down between my knees. "For Mujhara?"
"No." lan frowned. "No, Niall, of course not. I meant to come after you."
I wanted no more of the Steppes liquor and gave it back to him. "I thought
surely you were dead. And you might have been yet Strahan sent that wolf to
carry plague to those Cheysuli who were left."
lan squatted before my chair. He looked a little older;
the plague had scuffed the edges off his youth. "Niall "
"We have to go home at once. The enemy is harbored in the halls of
Homana-Mujhar." I rubbed at my right temple, trying to massage away the pain.
"Gisella serves
Strahan. And Varien is Ihlini. They mean to steal my sons."
"Your sons?"
"He means to use them. To twist them, then place
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them on the thrones of Homana and Solinde. And he could succeed, if Gisella
takes them to him." I grimaced then shut my teeth on the moan I longed to
make. "We have to go now."
"No. In the morning, perhaps. You can go nowhere, now." He rose, put the cups
and usca away, asked me if
I was hungry."
"If I eat anything right now, it will only come up again." I leaned back a
little and shut my eye. "lan do you recall what the old woman said to us? The
old Duini woman?"
"Aye." He moved around the hut behind me; I could not see what he did.
"Well, I begin to think what she said was true. About
Duini and Cheysuli being brother races. . . both children of the Firstborn.
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Taliesin said it also."
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"Taliesin?"
"Dilini," I answered. "Once a bard for Tynstar him-
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