Lupi 04 - Night Season

wasn’t Cynna, though the air held her scent, too. And blood. Not fresh blood, and not much of it. The other scents…he should know some of them. Horses? Yes, but stranger scents, too…
    He was very hungry.
    Something creaked rhythmically. Someone spoke, but the words meant nothing. Somehow that jolted his memory back in place. Edge. He was in Edge. They’d been attacked…he’d burned so many. So many. He’d smell them burn in his dreams, he thought.
    But bad dreams were an acceptable price to pay. Cynna was okay. His son was okay.
    So was he, for that matter. Cullen opened his eyes.
    The sky was still dark and star-blazoned. Automatically he checked the time, but what his moon-sense told him didn’t add up. He felt disoriented, adrift.
    He was moving. Whatever he lay on, it creaked and bounced over rough ground. He propped himself up on one elbow. He was in a large wooden cart or wagon—narrow with high sides and a gate of sorts at the back. Ruben lay crowded up beside him, apparently asleep. The blood smell came from him. His bandaged, splinted wrist lay outside the rough blanket that covered him, Cullen, and the woman on his other side—Marilyn Wright, still unconscious. She smelled ill.
    He looked at them.
    A green haze overlay Brooks’s magic. The woman, too, wore a gauzy overlay. Healing magic. Cullen held out his arm and checked his own energy.
    Thin, but all his. And wearing a sleeve. He inspected the rest of himself and saw that he was wearing a long dress of rough, undyed wool, rather like a monk’s cassock or an Arab’s thobe, but more narrowly fashioned. It was slit on the sides to permit a full stride. No shoes. No underwear, either, but the lack of shoes was more of a problem.
    He sat up slowly.
    A number of clay-colored people mounted on horses surrounded the wagon, which was pulled by…no, not horses, though the large draft animals would have looked at home pulling the Budweiser wagon. If not for the horns, that is, and the curly hair. The scent reminded him of horse. Also buffalo.
    Fifteen feet ahead was another wagon drawn by a pair of the not-quite-horses. Tash rode there with one of the clay-people. Steve sat in the back of that wagon. Cullen didn’t see McClosky.
    Cynna was in his wagon. She sat on the bench at the front next to Wen, who was driving the wagon. He wanted to touch her. He wanted her to be back here with him. Why wasn’t she?
    Get a grip, Seabourne .
    They were traveling on a road, he saw as he looked around. Packed earth, not paved, and rutted. It wound down from a range of low hills behind them into the grassy plain they were crossing. Ahead, the land seemed to drop off. No snow here, and the temperature was warmer—a blessing, given his lack of footwear. The riders were fanned out around the wagons. He counted sixteen, five of them women. They all looked fairly young, but that didn’t mean much. So did he.
    The women were as hairless as the men, which was a tad disconcerting, but not unattractive. They dressed exactly like the men, too, who all wore the same sort of loincloth Wen favored. Cullen took a moment to appreciate that.
    They controlled their mounts with hackamores—bridles with a padded nose strap and no bit. Their saddles were thick leather pads with wooden stirrups, and their horses were more like ponies, sturdy and shaggy. No horns. They smelled like horses, too.
    His stomach growled. His wolf had no objection to horse. “I need to eat.”
    â€œYou’re awake!” Cynna twisted around to beam at him.
    â€œHow long was I out?”
    â€œAltogether? Eleven hours, if my watch is working. It might not be, given all the stray magic around here.” She bent and dug around under her seat.
    â€œMore like thirteen, I think.”
    Her voice was muffled. “If you know, why did you ask?”
    â€œBecause it’s still dark.”
    â€œUh…yeah.” Cynna straightened and tossed him something. Automatically he caught it. His mouth watered at the scent. Jerky, made from venison, not beef. He ripped off a bite while she went on, “We’re in what they call Night Season. They don’t have day and night the way we do.”
    He chewed, took another bite, and gestured for her to keep talking.
    â€œIt stays dark for three months. Lunar months, I mean—their moon acts like ours, so it’s the basis for their timekeeping. After the Night Season comes the