Ashaun stepped into the narrow neck of the trail twenty paces ahead of the boulder, planting her boots wide and angling her translucent stone left forearm across her chest like a shield. Her right hand rested on the grip of the bell dagger without drawing it.
“That’s far enough, handler,” she called down the slope.
The tall man stopped at once. He did not reach for his belt or whistle his animals forward. He simply lifted one booted foot, set it flat on a dry shelf of shale, and let his shoulders drop as if he had been carrying a pack frame since dawn.
“Kiv,” Sister Osha said softly behind Ysabet. She craned her neck over the rock. “There’s no squad with him. Look at the wolves’ collars—he hasn’t got their lead chains on.”
Ysabet looked down the dusk-shadowed trail. Three living iron wolves stood around the handler’s knees. The largest and oldest stood slightly ahead on the left, his broad muzzle worn nearly smooth of hair from years of pushing through brush and cold ash on scent trails. The second wolf, leaner in the flank with a nick in one dark ear, watched Ashaun’s stone arm with steady yellow eyes. The third, slightly smaller and pale grey around the throat like dust on a windowpane, sat down on her haunches and licked a split pad on her forepaw.
