The Horsemasters by Joan Wolf Page B

again, her face screwing up with anguish. “She wants you to d-die.”
    “Listen to me, minnow.” He put down his heavy pack, then held out his arms. She flung herself into them. “I cannot take you with me,” he said over the small round head that was pressed into his shoulder. “You are too young. You would only tie me down. I will be safer on my own.”
    “No one would listen to me,” she sobbed into the reindeer fur of his shoulder. “I tried to tell them about Morna, about what she had done before, but no one would listen.”
    “They are afraid of the Mistress,” Ronan said grimly. “They did not want to hear what you had to say.”
    Nel sobbed on, and he held her, wishing that he had not met her like this. Until now his anger had made him strong; he did not want to feel what Nel was making him feel.
    “Come,” he said bracingly, “it will be growing dark soon. I must go.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and pried her away from his chest.
    Nel sobbed on.
    “I will come back for you, minnow,” he heard himself saying. “I promise you I will come back.”
    “You p-promise?”
    “I promise.”
    Valiantly, she tried to smile. She said, “Well, if you won’t take me, Ronan, at least take Nigak.”
    Hope flickered in the bleakness of Ronan’s heart. He looked at the wolf. Nigak’s yellow eyes were fixed on Nel’s face. The hope died. Ronan shook his head and said, “He would never leave you.”
    “For you, he would,” Nel answered. “If I told him to.”
    Ronan swallowed. He wanted desperately to have Nigak. “I couldn’t take him away from you, Nel,” he said. “You love him.”
    “I have Sharan,” she said. “And I would feel better if I knew that he was with you. Please, Ronan, take him.”
    It was not in him to refuse any longer. “All right,” Ronan said, “if he will come.” And he reached once more for his pack.
    “Where will you go?” Nel asked, watching with great tragic eyes as he shouldered the heavy load.
    “To our summer camp for now,” Ronan said. “The caves there are not in use during the winter, and there is yet some game in the area. I can fish through the ice on the river, too, and there are always birds.”
    “That is a good idea.” She brightened. “I know, Ronan! You must search out a place that the Mistress does not know about. Then you can come back and get me, and we will start our own tribe away from them all.”
    He did not smile at her naiveté, but answered gravely, “That is a good idea.” He glanced at the sky. “It is growing late, Nel. I must go.”
    She nodded hard, three times.
    He turned away.
    “Nigak,” he heard Nel saying behind him, “go with Ronan.”
    The wolf whined in protest. Ronan felt his muscles clench.
    “Go with Ronan,” Nel said again.
    Ronan did not look back. Nigak was not going to come. Desolation, so successfully kept at bay all afternoon by anger, swept through his soul. He made himself continue walking, a solitary figure in the growing dusk, his eyes fixed steadily ahead.
    Suddenly, Ronan felt something warm and damp poke into the hollow of his hand, It was Nigak’s nose. Tears slid blindly down Ronan’s face as his fingers closed gently over that precious black gift of love. He and the wolf walked on.

PART TWO
     

The Tribe of the Wolf
     

(Three years later)
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Thorn stood just beyond the shadow of the cliff, enjoying the thin beginning-of-winter sunshine. He and his father should have been at work in the sacred cave hours ago, finishing the new paintings for the Buffalo Tribe’s Winter Ceremony, but Rilik had been called into a meeting with the chief. Haras had summoned the council of nirum to discuss the situation of the three tribal members who had disappeared the night before.
    Fara and Crim were gone, as well as Eken, Fara’s sister. They had taken with them all their clothing, their cooking gear, and their sleeping skins. No one was in any doubt as to why they had gone, or