Farmer to a Lakewalker didn’t mean someone who grew crops; it meant anyone who wasn’t a Lakewalker. Townsmen, rivermen, miners, millers—bandits—evidently they were all farmers in Dag’s eyes. She wondered at the implications. She’d heard a story about a girl from over to Coshoton who had been seduced by a passing Lakewalker, a trading man, it was said. She had run away north three times to Lakewalker country after him, and been brought back by his people, then hanged herself in the woods. A cautionary tale, that. Fawn wondered what lesson you were supposed to draw from it. Well, Girls should stay away from Lakewalkers was the one obviously intended, but maybe the real one was, If something doesn’t work once, don’t just repeat it twice more, try something else, or Don’t give up so soon. Or Stay out of the woods.
The nameless girl had died for thwarted love, it was whispered, but Fawn wondered if it hadn’t been for thwarted rage, instead. She had, she admitted to herself, had some such thoughts after that awful talk with Stupid Sunny, but it wasn’t that she’d wanted to die, it was that she’d wanted to make him feel as bad as he’d made her feel. And it had been rather flattening to reflect that she’d not be alive to properly enjoy her revenge, and even more flattening to suspect he’d get over any guilt pretty quick. Long before she’d get over being dead, in any case. And she’d done nothing that night after all, and by the next day, she’d had other ideas. So maybe the real lesson was, Wait till morning, after breakfast.
She wondered if the hanged girl had been pregnant too. Then she wondered anew how the tall man had known, seemingly just by looking at her with those eyes, their shimmering gold by sudden turns cold as metal or warm as summer. Sorcerers, huh. Dag didn’t look like a sorcerer. (And what did sorcerers look like anyhow?) He looked like a very tired hunter who had been too long away from home. Hunting things that hunted him back.
A girl baby. Maybe he was just guessing. Fifty percent odds weren’t half-bad, for appearing right, later. Still, it was an encouraging thought. Girls she knew. A little boy, however innocent, might have reminded her too much of Sunny. She hadn’t meant to be a mother so soon in her life at all, but if she was going to be stuck with it, she would very well try to be a good one. She rubbed absently at her belly. I will not betray you. A bold promise. How was she to keep a child safe when she couldn’t even save herself? Also, from now on, I will be more careful. Anyone could make a mistake. The trick was not to make the same one twice.
She eventually ran out of ripped fabric, patience to brood, and the will to stay awake. Her bruised face was throbbing. She hauled the repaired ticks back inside and piled them four deep in a corner of the kitchen, because the next room was still a disheartening mess and she hadn’t the energy left to tackle it. She fell gratefully onto the pile. She had barely time to register the musty scent of them, and reflect that they were overdue for an airing anyhow, when her leaden eyes closed.
Fawn woke to the sound of steps on the wooden porch. Dag back already? It was still light. How long had she slept? Blearily, she pushed up, eager to show him the overlooked treasures in the cellar and to hear what he’d found. Only then did it register that there were too many heavy steps out there.
She should have been overlooked in the cellar—I could have thrown a couple of those mattresses down there—She had just time to think What good is it to not to make the same mistakes twice when your new ones’ll kill you all the same? before the three mud-men burst open the door.
Chapter 4
When the faint path he was following up into the hills turned into something more resembling a beaten trail, Dag decided it was time to get off it. Groundsense or common sense or sheer nerves, he could not tell, but he dismounted and led his horse aside into the woods to a small glade well out of sight and hearing of the track. He hardly needed to lay on suggestions of not-wandering-away; even Copperhead, with his rawhide endurance and his temper, was so tired as to be stumbling. But then, so was Dag. Feeling guilty, he tied the reins up out of the way of front hooves, but left the saddle on. He hated to leave his mount so ill tended, but if he came back in a tearing hurry, there might be no time to fool with gear. Or to hesitate to ride the beast to death, if needs drove hard enough. Tomorrow, or the day after, we shall all take a better rest. One way or another.
He did not return to the trail itself but shadowed the track a dozen paces off in the undergrowth. It was slow work, ghosting like a deer, each footfall carefully laid, constantly alert. Not a mile farther on he was glad of his prudence, freezing in a tangle of deadfall and wild grapevines as two figures came thumping openly along the path.
Mud-men. A fox and a rabbit, at a guess, and he hardly needed his inner senses to tell; they were crude, perhaps early efforts, and marks of their animal origin still showed on their hides, their ears, their misshapen faces and noses. It was highly tempting to try to do something with that combination, awaken them to their true selves and let nature take its course, but the attempt would cost him his cover, perhaps open him to their master beyond. This was no time for games. Regretfully, he let them pass by, grateful that their clumsy new forms included human limitations on their sense of smell in trade for human advantages of hands and speech.
He first knew he was drawing close to the lair by the absence of birds. This is a day for absences. He drew his groundsense in even more tightly as the first yellowing, dying weeds began to rustle underfoot. I wasn’t expecting this till miles farther in. The lair was much closer to the straight road than he’d thought it could possibly be. It was shockingly clever, in a malice so—supposedly—young, for it to send its first human gulls to take prey so far from its initial bastion. How did we overlook this?
He knew how. We are too few, with too much ground to cover and never time enough. Widen the teeth of the sweeps, speed the search, and risk clues slipping past unobserved. Go slow and close, and risk not getting to all the critical places in time. Well, we found this one. This is a success, not a failure.
Maybe.
By the time he reached a vantage he was crawling like a snail, nearly on his belly, scarcely daring to breathe. Every herb and weed around him was dead and brittle, the soil beneath his knees was achingly sterile, and his tightly furled groundsense shivered in the dry shock of the malice’s draining aura. Indeed, it’s here.
At the bottom of a rocky ravine, a creek wound from his right, ran straight below him, and curled away on his left. Not one living plant graced the cleft for as far as he could see in either direction, although the dead bones of a few trees still stood up like sentinels. A camp, of sorts, lay along the creek side: three or four black campfire pits, currently cold, piles of stolen supplies scattered haphazardly about. On the far side of the creek, a couple of uneasy horses stood tied to dead trees. Real, natural horses, as far as Dag could tell. Ill kept, of course.
The space below might accommodate twenty-five or fifty men, but it was nearly deserted at the moment. Exactly one mud-man was asleep on a pile of rags like a nest. Dag wondered if any of the absent company might be men his patrol had captured last night. Which implied that the patrol might well arrive on its own at any time, pleasant thought. He did not allow himself to dwell on the hope.
Partway up the other side of the ravine a shelf of overhanging rock created a cave, perhaps sixty feet long and shielded in front by a smooth gray outcrop of stone pushing up almost to meet the overhang. No telling from here how far back in it went. Paths ran out either end, down to the creek and up over the rise behind.
The malice was inside, at the moment. So was it mobile yet, or still sessile? And if mobile, had it undergone its first molt? And if it hadn’t, how frantic would it be to gather the necessary human materials to achieve that? A malice’s initial hatching body was even clumsier and cruder than a mud-man’s, which generally seemed to irritate it.
Dag opened his shirt and felt for his sharing knives. He pulled the strap over his head and stared a moment at the twin sheaths. The stitched leather was slick with wear and dark with old sweat. He ran o
ne finger over the thread-wound hilts, one blue, one green, drew and contemplated six inches of polished bone blade. Touched it to his lips. It hummed with old mortality.
Is this the day your death is redeemed, Kauneo my love? I have borne it around my neck for so long. As you willed, so I do. This was a vicious malice, big and getting bigger fast. It would nearly be worthy of her, Dag thought. Nearly.
He drew the second, empty bone blade and laid the two back to back. They come in pairs, oh yes. One for you and one for me. He slipped them away again.
Mari too bore sharing knives, and so did Utau and Chato, gifts of mortality from patrollers before them. Mari’s current set was a legacy from one of her sons, he knew, and as dear to her as these to Dag. The patrol was well supplied. Who used theirs on a malice was not normally a matter of drawing straws, or heroics, or honor. Whoever first could, did. Any way they could. As efficiently as possible. It wasn’t as though there wouldn’t be another chance later.
Dag’s ground was quivering at the drain from the malice’s presence, an effect that would bleed over into his body if he lingered here much longer. Sensitive young patrollers were often so disturbed by their first encounter with a malice’s aura, it took them weeks to recover. Dag had been one such. Once.
Now: go. Back to the horse, and gallop like a madman to the rendezvous point.
Yet… there were so few creatures in the camp. The opportunity beckoned for a, so to speak, single-handed attempt. Down the ravine side, fly across the creek, up into that cave… it could all be over in minutes. In the time it took to bring the patrol up, the malice too might draw in its reinforcements (and where were they now, doing what mischief?), turning the attack into a potentially costly fight just to regain a proximity he had right now. Dag thought of Saun. Had he lived the night?
But with his groundsense thwarted, Dag couldn’t see how many men or mud-men might be hidden in the cave with the malice. If he went charging in there only to present his head to the enemy, the difficulties his patrol must then face would grow vastly worse. Also, I would be dead. In a way, he was glad that last prospect still had the power to disturb him. At least some.
He lowered his face, fought for control of his hastened breathing, and prepared to withdraw. His lips twisted. Mari will be so proud of me.
He started to push back from the edge of the ravine, but then froze again. Down a path on the other side, three mud-men appeared. Was that first one a—where had this malice found a wolf in these parts? Dag had thought the farmers had reduced wolf numbers in this region, but then, this range of rugged unplowable hills was a reservoir for all sorts of things. As we see. His eyes widened as he recognized the second in line, the escaped raccoon-man from this morning. The third, huger still, must once have been a black bear. A flash of familiar dull blue fabric over the giant bear-man’s shoulder stopped his breath.
Little Spark. They found Little Spark. How… ?
A more or less straight line over the hills to the valley farm from here was the short leg of a triangle, he realized. He had run two long legs, to get from the farm back to where he’d first lost the raccoon-man’s traces, then work his way here.
They found her because they went looking, I bet. It accounted for the rest of this malice’s absent company; like the two he’d passed on the trail, they had doubtless all been dispatched to comb the hills for the escaped prize. And the malice and its mud-men already knew about the valley farm if they’d recently raided it. Must have known for a long time; his respect for this one’s wits notched up yet again, for it to leave such a nearby tempting target alone, unmolested and unalarmed, for so long. How much strength had it gained, to dare to move openly now? Or had the arrival of Chato’s patrol stampeded it?
The blue-clad figure, hanging head down, twitched and struggled. Beat the back of her captor with hard little fists, to no visible effect, except that the bear-man shrugged her hips higher over his shoulder and took a firmer grip on her thighs.
She was alive. Conscious. Undoubtedly terrified.
Not terrified enough. But Dag could make it up for her. His mouth opened, to silence his own speeding breathing, and his heart hammered. Now the malice had just what it needed for its next molt. Dag had only to deliver to it a Lakewalker patroller—and one so experienced, too—for its dessert, and its powers would be complete.
He wasn’t sure if he was shivering with indecision or just fear. Fear, he decided. Yes, he could run back to the patrol and bring them on in force, by the tested rules, be sure. Because the Lakewalkers had to win, every time. But Fawn might be dead by the time they got back.
Or in minutes. The three mud-men vanished behind the occluding rock wall. So, at least three in there. Of there could be ten.
To get in and out of that cave… No. He only had to get in.
He didn’t know why his brain was still madly trying to calculate risks, because his hand was already moving. Dropping bow and quiver and excess gear. Positioning his sharing-knife sheaths. Swapping out the spring-hook on his wooden wrist cap for the steel knife. Testing the draw of his war knife.
He rose and dropped down over the side of the ravine, sliding from rock to rill as silently as a serpent.
It had all happened so fast…
Fawn hung head down, dizzy and nauseated. She wondered if the blow she’d taken on the other side of her face would bruise to match the first. The mud-man’s broad shoulder seemed to punch her stomach as it jogged along endlessly, without stopping even when she’d been violently sick down its back. Twice.
When Dag came back to the valley farm—if Dag came back to the valley farm—would he be able to read the events from the mess her fight had left in the kitchen? He was a tracker, surely he’d have to notice the footprints in plum jam she had forced her captors to smear across the floor as they’d lunged after her. But it seemed far too much to expect the man to rescue her twice in one day, downright embarrassing, even. Imagining the indignity, she tried one more time to break from the huge mud-man’s clutch, beating its back with her fists. She might have been pounding sand for all the difference it made.
She should save her strength for a better chance.
What strength? What chance?
The hot, level sunlight of the summer evening gave way abruptly to gray shadow and the cool smell of dirt and rock. As her captor swung her down and upright, she had a giddy impression of a cave or hollow half-filled with piles of trash. Or war supplies, it was hard to tell. She fought back the black shadows that swarmed over her vision and stood upright, blinking.
Two more of the animal-men rose as if to greet her three escorts. She wondered if they were all about to fall on her and tear her up like a pack of dogs devouring a rabbit. Although she wasn’t entirely sure but what that shorter one on the end might have been a rabbit, once.
The Voice said, “Bring her here.”
The words were more clearly spoken than the mud-men’s mumblings, but the undertones made her bones feel as though they were melting. She suddenly could not force her trembling face to turn toward the source of that appalling sound. It seemed to flay the wits right out of her mind. Please let me go please let me go let me go letmego…
The bear-man clutched her shoulders and half dragged, half lifted her to the back of the cave, a long shallow gouge in the hillside. And turned her face-to-face with the source of the Voice.
It might have been a mud-man, if bigger, taller, broader. Its shape was human enough, a head with two eyes, nose, mouth, ears—broad torso, two arms, two legs. But its skin was not even like an animal’s, let alone a human’s. It made her think of lizards and insects and rock dust plastered together with bird lime. It was hairless. The naked skull was faintly crested. It was quite unclothed, and seemingly unconscious of the fact; the strange lumps at its crotch didn’t look like a man’s genitals, or a woman’s either. It didn’t move right, as though it were a child’s bad clay sculpture given motion and not a breathing creature of bone and sinew and muscle.
The mud-men had animal eyes in human faces, and seemed unspeakably dangerous. This… had human eyes in the face of a nightmare. No, no nightmare she had ever dreamed or imagined—one of Dag’s, maybe. Trapped. Tormented. And yet, for all its pain, as devoid of mercy as a stone. Or a rockslide.
It clutched her shirt, lifted her up to its face, and stared at her for a long, long moment. She was crying now, in fear beyond shame. She would deal with Dag’s rescue, yes, or anybody’s at all. She would trade back for her bandit-ravisher. She would deal with any god listening, make any promise… letmegoletmego...
With a slow, deliberate motion, the malice lifted her skirt with its other hand, twitched her drawers down to her hips, and drew its claws up her belly.
The pain was so intense, Fawn thought for a moment that she had been gutted. Her knees came up in an involuntary spasm, and she screamed. The sound came so tightly out of her raw throat that it turned into near silence, a rasping hiss. She lowered her face, expecting to see blood spewing, her insides coming out. Only four faint red lines marked the pale unbroken skin of her belly.
“Drop her!” a hoarse voice roared from her right.
The malice’s face turned, its eyes blinking slowly; Fawn turned too. The sudden release of pressure from her shirt took her utterly by surprise, and she fell to the cave floor, dirt and stones scraping her palms, then scrambled up.
Dag was in the shadows, struggling with three, no, all five of the mud-men. One reeled backward with a slashed throat, and another closed in. Dag nearly disappeared under the grunting pile of creatures. A shuffle, a rip, Dag’s yell, and a mess of straps and wood and a flash of metal thudded violently against the cave wall. A mud-man had just torn off his arm contraption. The mud-man twisted the arm around behind Dag’s back as though trying to rip it off too.
He met her eyes. Shoved his big steel knife into the nearest mud-man as though wedging it into a tree for safekeeping, and ripped a leather pouch from around his neck, its strap snapping. “Spark! Watch this!”