Storm Runner - Wolfwalker 03 - Harper, Tara K
STORM RUNNER
Tara K. Harper
Tales of the Wolves 03


Storm Runner-Wolfwalker 03-Harper, Tara K
Published by Ballantine Books:
TALES OF THE WOLVES
Wolfwalker
Shadow Leader
Storm Runner
LIGHTWING
A Del Rey Book BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this
book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as '
'unsold or destroyed'' and neither the author nor the publisher may
have received payment for it.
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1993 by Tara K. Harper
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America
by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada
Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-90176
ISBN 0-345-37162-3

Storm Runner-Wolfwalker 03-Harper, Tara K
To Mom and Dad, with love

Storm Runner - Wolfwalker 03 - Harper, Tara K

Chapter 1
The intriguing of a voice,
sung in shadow;
pierced with a breath that
caught
in her throat...
Dion eased forward another meter. The smell of damp earth between the
new, spring grass caught in her nose. The gritty edges of the old, stiff leaves
sawed on her wrists while brittle weeds brushed against her ear. One of the
hollow stalks slipped up inside her warcap, poking her temple sharply until
she shifted forward again. Quietly, slowly, one knee, then an elbow, then
her body another length. Her heart pounded, but she knew the raiders could
not hear it; she had learned her stealth from the wolves themselves. Across
the river, watching from the edge of the forest, Hishn's yellow eyes
gleamed. Separated by the canyon, they were linked with their senses. The
Gray One breathed through Dion's lungs and saw through her eyes, while
the wolf-walker's slow stalking filled Hishn's lupine mind with the lust of
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Storm Runner-Wolfwalker 03-Harper, Tara K
the hunt. When the gray wolf growled low in her throat, Dion froze. The
scent of the raiders' camp was faint, then stronger as the wind brought it to
the wolfwalker's nose. When the breeze rose again, shifting the weeds in
ragged waves, Dion dug her toes into the ground and crawled forward again.
Behind her, Yagly moved softly in the late afternoon shadows. The shifting
stripes were his guide, stretching out and hiding his lurking figure in the
long black fingers of the trees. To the raiders' eyes, he and Dion were
ghosts in the grass. Three days earlier, Yagly had gotten within ten meters
of the raiders' guard-post. Watchful as they were, the raiders looked to the
boulders and shrubs for their enemies-they did not expect a scout to slither
across a near-flat stretch of ground.
Yagly's faded brown eyes flickered from the raiders' camp to the bridge
they guarded. The raiders were wary. They were right to be: for a year,
Yagly and the other Ariyens had been sneaking across the river, stealing
back their people, and trying to drive the raiders on. The dark-haired man
grinned. The bridges might not be open to cross, but he and Dion did not
use those high, stone roads: they forded the river below, then climbed one
of the canyon chimneys to reach the raiders' land. The raiders were not of
the mountains; they did not think to watch the cliffs either.
In front of the other scout, Dion edged between the root clumps of two
shrubs, and Yagly's gaze followed her with approval. The wolfwalker was
as silent as a thought in the brash. Her black hair blended with the shadows
as if it were part of the dark itself, and her lithe body wriggled from shadow
to shadow as if she were made of supple rope, not lanky bones. Behind her,
she left only a faint worm's trail where the grass did not spring back before
Yagly bent it down again.
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Storm Runner-Wolfwalker 03-Harper, Tara K
With one hand on the hilt of her sword, Dion drew her blade forward beside
her, hiding its long length beneath her body when she stopped. A stone
gouged her knee and she shifted around it silently. She eased sideways for
the other scout to join her, and a moment later, Yagly's long body lay next