Doomstalker

  Grauel and Barlog agreed with a fervor that startled the silth.

  Few wilderness packs had the sense of place in time and history that had marked the Degnan. Few had the Degnan respect for heritage. Many had no more notion of their past than the stories of their oldest Wise, who erroneously told revised versions of tales passed down by their own granddams.

  Grauel and Barlog were embarrassed. It shamed them that they had not thought of the Chronicle themselves. So long as it existed and was kept, the Degnan would exist somewhere. They became immovably stubborn. The silth could not intimidate them into motion.

  “Very well,” the taller said, ignoring the angry mutter of her companion. “Gather your books. But hurry. We are wasting moonlight. The sky may not stay clear long. The north spawns storms in litters.”

  The two huntresses took torches and left Skiljan’s loghouse, made rounds of all the other five. They collected every book of the pack that had not been destroyed. Marika brought out the six from the place where Saettle had kept those of Skiljan’s loghouse. When all were gathered, there were ten.

  “They are right,” she admitted reluctantly. “They are heavy.”

  They were big, hand-inscribed tomes with massive wood and leather boards and bindings. Some weighed as much as fifteen pounds.

  Marika set the three volumes of the Chronicle aside, looked to the huntresses for confirmation. Grauel said, “I could carry two.”

  Barlog nodded. “I will carry two also.”

  That made four. Marika said, “I think I could carry two, if they were light ones.” She pushed the massive Chronicle volumes toward the huntresses. Grauel took two, Barlog the other. No more than two would be lost if one of them did not reach the packfast.

  Three books had to be selected from the remaining seven. Marika asked the huntresses, “Which do you think will be the most useful?”

  Grauel thought for a moment. “I do not know. I am not bookish.”

  “Nor am I,” Barlog said. “I hunt. We will have little real use for them. We just want to save what we can.”

  Marika exposed her teeth in an expression of exasperation.

  “You choose,” Grauel said. “You are the studious one.”

  Marika’s exasperation became more marked. A decision of her own, a major one, as though she were an adult already. She was not prepared mentally.

  On first impulse she was tempted to select those that had belonged to her own loghouse. But Barlog reminded her that Gerrien’s loghouse had possessed a book on agriculture that, once its precepts had been accepted, had improved the pack’s yields, reducing the labor of survival.

  One of the silth said, “You will have no need of a book about farming. You will not be working in the fields. Leave it for those who will have more need.”

  So. A choice made.

  Marika dithered after rejecting only one more book, a collection of old stories read for the pleasure of small pups. There would be no need of that where they were going.

  The older silth came around the fire, arrayed the books before Marika after the manner of terrac fortune plaques, which the sagans so often consulted. “Close your eyes, Marika. Empty your mind. Let the All come in and touch you. Then you reach out and touch books. Those shall be the ones you take.”

  Grauel grumbled, “That is sheer chance.”

  Barlog added, “Witch’s ways,” and looked very upset. Just the way the Wise did whenever talk turned to the silth.

  They were afraid. Finally, Marika began to realize what lay at the root of all their attitudes toward the silth. Sheer terror.

  She did exactly as she was told. Moments later her paw seemed to move of its own accord. She felt leather under her fingers, could not recall which book lay where.

  “No,” said the older silth. “Keep your eyes closed.”

  Grauel grumbled something to Barlog.

  “You two,” the old silth said. “Pack the books as she chooses them. Place the others in the place where books are stored.”

  Marika’s paw jerked to another book. For a moment it seemed something had hold of her wrist. And on the level of the touch, she sensed something with that darkshadow presence she associated with the things she called ghosts.

  Again, and done.

  The old silth spoke. “Open your eyes, pup. Get your coat. It is time to travel.”

  Unquestioning, Marika did as she was told. Coat on, she raised her pack and snugged it upon her shoulders the way Pobuda had shown her, finally, coming back from the hunt in Plenthzo Valley. She felt uncomfortable under the unaccustomed weight. Recalling the march to and from the hunt, and the deep, wet snow, she knew she would become far more uncomfortable before she reached the silth packfast.

  Maybe she would end up discarding the books.

  Maybe the silth had been trying to do her a favor, trying to talk her out of taking the books.

  There were no farewells from or for the Laspe, who watched preparations for departure with increasing relief. As they stepped to the windskins, though, Marika heard the Laspe Wise begin a prayer to the All. It wished them a safe journey.

  It was something.

  As she trudged around the spiral of the stockade, the new snow dragging at her boots, Marika asked the silth ahead, “Why are we leaving now? Could we not travel just as safely in the daytime?”

  “We are silth, pup. We travel at night.”

  The other, from behind Marika, said, “The night is our own. We are the daughters of the night and come and go as we will.”

  Marika shivered in a cold that had nothing to do with the wind off the Zhotak.

  And around her, in the light of many moons, all the world glimmered black and bone.

  BOOK TWO: AKARD

  Chapter Seven

  I

  There was nothing to compare with it in Marika’s brief experience of life. Never had she been so totally, utterly miserable, so cold, so punished. And the first night of travel was only hours old.

  She knew how Kublin must feel — must have felt, she reminded herself with a wince of emotion — when trying to keep up with Zambi and his friends.

  The new, wet snow was a quicksand that dragged at her boots every step, though they had placed her next to last in the file, with only Barlog behind her to guard their backs. Her pack was an immense dead weight that, she was sure, would crush her right down into the earth’s white shroud and leave her unable, ever, to rise to the surface again. The wind off the Zhotak had risen, flinging tatters of gray cloud across the faces of the moons, gnawing at her right cheek till she was sure she would lose half her face to frostbite. The temperature dropped steadily.

  That was a positive sign only in that if it fell enough they could be reasonably sure they would not face another blizzard soon.

  All that backbreaking labor, trying to clear the packstead of bodies, came back to haunt her. She ached everywhere. Her muscles never quite loosened up.

  Grauel was breaking trail. She tried to keep the pace down. But the silth pressed, and it was hard for the huntress to slack off when the older of the two could keep a more rigorous pace.

  Once, during the first brief rest halt, Grauel and the taller silth fell into whispered argument. Grauel wanted to go more slowly. She said, “We are in enemy territory, sister. It would be wiser to move cautiously, staying alert. We do not want to stumble into nomads in our haste.”

  “It is the night. The night is ours, huntress. And we can watch where you cannot.”

  Grauel admitted that possibility. But she said, “They have their witchcrafts, too. As they have demonstrated. It would not be smart to put all our trust into a single —”

  “Enough. We will not argue. We are not accustomed to argument. That is a lesson you will learn hard if you do not learn it in the course of this journey.”

  Marika stared at the snow between her feet and tried to imagine how far they had yet to travel. As she recalled her geography, the packfast lay sixty miles west of the packstead. They had come, at most
, five miles so far. At this pace they would be three or four nights making the journey. In summer it could be done in two days.

  Grauel did not argue further. Even so, her posture made it obvious she was in internal revolt, that she was awed by and frightened of the silth, yet held them in a certain contempt. Her body language was not overlooked by the silth either. Sometime after the journey resumed Marika caught snatches of an exchange between the two. They were not pleased with Grauel.

  The elder said, “But what can you expect of a savage? She was not raised with a proper respect.”

  A hint of a snarl stretched Marika’s lips. A proper respect? Where was the proper respect of the silth for a huntress of Grauel’s ability? Where was a proper respect for Grauel’s experience and knowledge? Grauel had not been arguing for the sake of argument, like some bored Wise meth with time to kill.

  It did not look that promising a future, this going into exile at the packfast. No one would be pleased with anyone else’s ways.

  She was not some male to bend the neck, Marika thought. If the silth thought so, they would find they had more trouble than they bargained for.

  But defiance was soon forgotten in the pain and weariness of the trek. One boot in front of the other and, worse, the mind always free to remember. Always open to invasion from the past.

  The real pain, the heart pain, began then.

  More than once Barlog nearly trampled her, coming forward in her own foggy plod to find Marika stopped, lost within herself.

  The exasperation of the silth grew by the hour.

  They were weary of the wilderness. They were anxious to return home. They had very little patience left for indulging Degnan survivors.

  That being the case, Marika wondered why they did not just go on at their own pace. They had no obligation to the Degnan, it would seem, in their own minds from the way they talked. As though the infeudation to which Skiljan and Gerrien had appealed for protection was at best a story with which the silth of the packfast justified their robberies to packs supposedly beholden to them. As though the rights and obligations were all one-sided, no matter what was promised.

  Marika began to develop her own keen contempt for the silth. In her agony and aching, it nurtured well. Before the silth ordered a day camp set in a windbreak in the lee of a monstrous fallen tree, Marika’s feeling had grown so strong the silth could read it. And they were baffled, for they had found her more open and unprejudiced than the older Degnan. They squattted together and spoke about it while Grauel and Barlog dug a better shelter into the snow drifted beneath the tree.

  The taller silth beckoned Marika. For all her exhaustion, the pup had been trying to help the huntresses, mainly by gathering firewood. They had reached a stretch where tall trees flanked the river, climbing the sides of steep hills. Oddly, the land became more rugged as the river ran west, though from the plateau where the Degnan packstead lay it did not seem so, for the general tendency of the land was slowly downward.

  “Pup,” the taller silth said, “there has been a change in you. We would try to understand why overnight you have come to dislike us so.”

  “This,” Marika said curtly.

  “This? What does ‘this’ mean?”

  Marika was not possessed of a fear the way the huntresses were. She did not know silth, because no one had told her about them. She said, “You sit there and watch while Grauel and Barlog work not only for their own benefit but yours. At the packstead you contributed. Some. In things that were not entirely of the pack to do.” Meaning remove bodies.

  The elder silth did not understand. The younger did, but was irked. “We did when there was none else to do. We are silth. Silth do not work with their paws. That is the province of —”

  “You have two feet and two paws and are in good health. Better health than we, for you walk us into the earth. You are capable. In our pack you would starve if you did not do your share.”

  Fire flashed in the older silth’s eyes. The taller, after another moment of irritation, seemed amused. “You have much to learn, little one. If we did these things you speak of, we would not be seen as silth anymore.”

  “Is being silth, then, all arrogance? We had arrogant huntresses in our pack. But they worked like everyone else. Or they went hungry.”

  “We do our share in other ways, pup.”

  “Like by protecting the packs who pay tribute? That is the excuse I have always heard for the senior huntresses traveling to the packfast every spring. To pay the tribute which guarantees protection. This winter makes me suspect the protection bought may be from the packfast silth, not from killers from outside the upper Ponath. Your protection certainly has done the packs no good. You have saved three lives. Maybe. While packs all over the upper Ponath have been exterminated. So do not brag to me of the wonderful share you do unless you show me much more than you have.”

  “Feisty little bitch,” the taller silth said, aside to the elder.

  The older was at the brink of rage, an inch from explosion. But Marika had stoked her own anger to the point where she did not care, was not afraid. She noted that Grauel and Barlog had stopped pushing snow around and were watching, poised, uncertain, but with paws near weapons.

  This was not good. She had best get her temper cooled or there would be difficulties none of them could handle.

  Marika turned her back on the silth. She said, “As strength goes.” Though this seemed a perversion of that old saw.

  She won a point, though. The tall silth began pitching in after, just long enough to make it appear she was not yielding to a mere pup.

  “Be careful, Marika,” Grauel snapped when they were a distance away, collecting wood. “Silth are not known for patience or understanding.”

  “Well, they made me mad.”

  “They make everyone mad, pup. Because they can get away with doing any damned thing they want. They have the power.”

  “I will watch my tongue.”

  “I doubt that. You have grown overbold with no one to slap your ears. Come. This is enough wood.”

  Marika returned to their little encampment wondering at Grauel. And at Barlog. The agony of the Degnan did not, truly, seem to have touched them deeply.

  II

  Neither Grauel nor Barlog said a word, but the covert looks they cast at the fire made it clear they did not consider it a wise comfort. Smoke, even when not seen, could be smelled for miles.

  The silth saw and understood their discomfort. The taller might have agreed with them, once the cooking was finished, but the elder was in a stubborn mood, not about to take advice from anyone.

  The fire burned on.

  The huntresses had dug a hollow beneath the fallen tree large enough for the five of them, and deep enough to shelter them from the wind entirely. As the sun rose, the silth crept into the shelter and bundled against one another for warmth. Marika was not far behind. Only in sleep would she find surcease from aches both physical and spiritual. Grauel followed her. But Barlog did not.

  “Where is Barlog?” Marika asked, half asleep already. It was a morning in which the world was still. There was no sound except the whine of the wind and the crackle of frozen tree branches. When the wind died momentarily, there was, too, a distinct rushing sound, water surging through rapids in the river. Most places, as Marika had seen, the river was entirely frozen over and indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape.

  “She will watch,” Grauel replied.

  The silth had said nothing about setting a watch. Had, in fact, implied that even asleep they could sense the approach of strangers long before the huntresses might.

  Marika just nodded and let sleep take her.

  She half wakened when Barlog came to trade places with Grauel, and again when Grauel changed with Barlog once more. But she remained completely unaware of anything the next time Barlog came inside. She did not waken because that was when she was ensnarled in the first of the dreams.

  A dark place. Stuffy. Fear. Weakness and pa
in. Fever and thirst and hunger. A musty smell and cold dampness. But most of all pain and hunger and the terror of death.

  It was like no dream Marika had ever had, and there was no escaping it.

  It was a dream in which nothing ever happened. It was a static state of being, almost the worst she could imagine. Nightmares were supposed to revolve around flight, pursuit, the inexorable approach of something dread, tireless, and without mercy. But this was like being in the mind of someone dying slowly inside a cave. Inside the mind of someone insane, barely aware of continued life.

  She wakened to smoke and smells and silence. The wind had ceased blowing. For a while she lay there shuddering, trying to make sense of the dream. The Wise insisted dreams were true, though seldom literal.

  But it slipped away too quickly, too soon became nothing more than a state of malaise.

  Grauel had a fresh fire blazing and food cooking when Marika finally crawled out of the shelter. The sun was well on its way down. Night would be along soon after they ate, packed, and took care of personal essentials. She settled beside Grauel, took over tending the fire. Barlog joined them a moment later, while the silth were still stretching and grumbling inside the shelter.

  “They are out there,” Barlog said. Grauel nodded. “Just watching right now. But we will hear from them before we reach the packfast.”

  Grauel nodded again. She said, “Do not bother our superior witches with it. They know most all there is to know. They must know this, too.”

  Barlog grunted. “Walk warily tonight. And stay close. Marika, stay alert. If something happens, just get down into the snow. Dive right in and let it bury you if you can.”

  Marika put another piece of wood onto the fire. She said nothing, and did nothing, till the taller silth came from the shelter, stretched, and surveyed the surrounding land. She came to the fire and checked the cook pot. Her nose wrinkled momentarily. Travel rations were not tasty, even to huntresses accustomed to eating them.

  She said, “We will pass the rapids soon after nightfall. We will walk atop the river after that. The going will be easiest there.”