“This is not relevant,” the senior said. “If the tidings you bear are worthy, we will be in your debt. We are not here to trade. Be direct.”
“Very well. Four days ago the nomads attacked Critza again. We drove them off, as we have before, but this time it was a close thing. They have acquired a quantity of modern weapons. They caused us a number of casualties. Their tactics, too, were more refined. Had they been more numerous the fortress would have fallen.”
The senior stirred impatiently, but allowed Bagnel to establish the background. Silth exchanged troubled glances and subdued whispers. Marika felt the fur on her spine stir, though she did not quite understand what was being said.
Bagnel’s gaze strayed her way several times while he spoke. That did nothing to make her more comfortable.
“We took prisoners,” Bagnel continued. “Among them were several huntresses of standing. Upon questioning them we made several interesting discoveries. The most important, from the viewpoint of the sisterhood here, was the unmasking of a plan for an attack upon Akard.”
That caused a stir, and considerable amusement. Attack Akard? Savages? That was a joke. The nomads would be slaughtered in droves.
“One of those prisoners had been in on the planning. We obtained all the details she knew.” Bagnel drew a fat roll of hide from within his coat. He stripped the skin away to reveal a sheaf of papers. “The master directed that a copy of her testimony be given you.” He offered the papers to the senior.
“You appear to take this more seriously than seems warranted,” Senior Koenic said. “Here we are in no danger from savages, come they singly or in all the hordes of the north.”
“That is not true, Senior. And that is why we risked seven fighters sorely needed at Critza. Not only have the nomads acquired modern weapons; they are convinced that they can neutralize most of your power. They have both silth and wehrlen with them and those will participate in the attack. So our informant told us. And she was incapable of invention at the time.”
Bagnel’s gaze strayed to Marika. To her consternation, she found she was unable to meet his eye.
From the reaction of the silth around her, Marika judged that what Bagnel had described was possible. The sisters were very disturbed. She heard the name “Serke” whispered repeatedly, often with a pejorative attached.
Senior Koenic struck the floor three times with the butt of her staff of office. Absolute silence filled the hall. “I will have order here,” the senior said. “Order. Are we rowdy packsteaders?” She began to read the papers the tradermales had given her. Her teeth showed ever more as she proceeded. Black anger smoldered behind her eyes.
She lifted her gaze. “You are correct, tradermale. The thing they propose is hideous, but it is possible — assuming they surprised us. You have blessed us. We owe you a great deal. And the Reugge do not forget their debts.”
Bagnel made gestures of gratitude and obeisance Marika suspected to be more diplomatic than genuine. He said, “If this is the true feeling of the Akard senior, the Critza master would present a small request.”
“Speak.”
“There is equally a master plan for the capture of Critza. And it will work even though we know about it. Unless...”
“Ah. You did not bring us this dark news out of love.” The senior’s voice was edged with a brittle sarcasm.
It did not touch the messenger. “The master suggests that you might find it in the Reugge interest to help sustain at least one other civilized stronghold here in the Ponath.”
“That may be true. It may not be. To the point, trader.”
“As you will, Senior.” Bagnel’s gaze strayed to Marika once again. “The master has asked that two or three sisters, preferably dark-siders, be sent to help Critza repel the expected attack. They would not be at great risk, as the nomads would not expect their presence. The master feels that, should the nomads suffer massive defeats at both fortresses in rapid succession, they will harass us no further. At least for this winter. Their own dead will sustain them through the season.”
Marika shuddered.
The evidence had been undeniable in the packsteads she had seen last summer. The nomads had let the grauken come in and become a working member of their society. Whatever had shattered the old pack structure and driven them into hording up had changed much more than that.
“Your master thinks well. For a male. He may be correct. Presuming these papers carry the whole story.” A hint of a question lurked around the edges of the senior’s remark.
“I participated in the questioning, Senior. I am willing to face a silth truthsaying to attest to their authenticity and completeness.”
Marika was impressed. A truthsaying was a terrible thing to endure.
“Send Marika,” Gorry blurted. “She is perfect for this. And no one will miss her if she were lost.”
“Ought to send you,” someone muttered. “No one would miss you.”
Gorry heard. She scanned the assembly, her expression stricken.
The senior glared at Gorry, angered by the unsolicited suggestion. But then she turned thoughtful.
Marika’s heart fell.
“There is truth in what you say, Gorry,” Senior Koenic said. “Even though you say it from base motives. Thus does the All mock the littleness in our hearts, making us speak the truth in the guise of lies. Very well, tradermale. You shall have your sisters. We will send three of our youngest and strongest — though not necessarily our most skillful — for they face a journey that will be hard. You will not want to lose any along the way.”
Bagnel’s face remained stone.
“So? What say you?”
“Thank you, Senior.”
Senior Koenic clapped paws. “Strohglay.” A sister opened a door and beckoned. A pair of senior workers stepped inside. The senior told them, “Show these males to cells where they may spend the night. Give them of the best food we possess. Tradermale, you will not leave your quarters under any circumstances. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Senior.”
Koenic gestured to the workers. They led the males away.
The senior asked, “Are there any volunteers? No? No one wants to see the inside of the mysterious Critza fortress? Marika? Not even you?”
No. Not Marika. She did not volunteer.
Neither did anyone else.
III
Marika did not volunteer. Nevertheless, she went. There was no arguing with Senior Koenic.
Much of the time they traveled in Biter’s light, upon snow under which, yards below, the waters of the Hainlin ran colder than a wehrlen’s heart. In places that snow was well packed, for the nomads used the rivercourse as their highway through the wilderness, though they traveled only by day.
Braydic said most of the nomads were south of Akard now, harrying the meth who lived down there. She said the stream of invective and impossible instructions from Maksche never ceased. And never did any good. The only way they could enforce their orders was to come north themselves. Which was what Senior Koenic wished to compel.
Marika was miserable and frightened. The stillness of the night was the stillness of death. Its chill was the cold of the grave. Though Biter lingered overhead, she felt the Hainlin canyon was a vast cave, and that cave called up all her old terrors of Machen Cave.
There was something wicked in the night.
“They only sent me because they hope to be rid of me,” she told Grauel and Barlog. Both her packmates had volunteered to come when they heard the call for huntress volunteers and learned that Marika had been assigned to go. Marika wondered if the silth could have kept them back had they wanted.
“Perhaps,” Barlog said. “And perhaps, if one might speak freely before a sister, you attribute the motives of the guilty few to the innocent many.”
Grauel agreed. “You are the youngest, and one of the least popular silth. None can dispute that. But your unpopularity is of your own making, Marika. Though you have been trying. You have been trying
. Ah. Wait! Listen and reflect. If you apply reason to your present circumstance, you will have to admit there is no one in Akard more suited to this, the rest of the situation aside. You have become skilled in the silth’s darkest ways. The deadly ways. You are young and strong. And you endure the cold better than anyone else.”
“If one might dare speak freely before a sister,” Barlog said again, “you are whining like a disappointed pup. You are shifting blame to others and refusing responsibility yourself. I recall you in your dam’s loghouse. You were not that way then. You were a quiet one, and a dreamer, and a pest to all, but mistress of your own actions. You have developed a regressive streak. And it is not at all attractive in one with so much promise.”
Marika was so startled by such bold chiding that she held her tongue. And as she marched, pressed by the pace the tradermales set, she reflected upon what the huntresses had said. And in moments when she was honest with herself, she could not deny the truth underlying their accusations.
She had come to pity herself, in a silth sort of way. She had come to think certain things her due without her having to earn them, as the silth seemed to think the world owed them. She had fallen into one of Gorry’s snares.
There had been a time when she had vowed that she would not slip into the set of mind she so despised in her instructress. A time when she had believed her packstead background would immunize her. Yet she was beginning to mirror Gorry.
Many miles later, after much introspection, she asked, “What did you mean when you said ‘so much promise,’ Barlog?”
Barlog gave her a look. “You never tire of being told that you are special, do you?”
When Marika threatened to explode, Grauel laid one hard paw upon her shoulder. Her grip tightened painfully. “Easy, pup.”
Barlog said, “One hears things around the packfast, Marika. They often talk about you showing promise of rising high. As you have been told so many times. Now they are saying you may rise higher than anyone originally suspected, if they teach you well at Maksche cloister.”
“If?”
“They’re definitely going to send you come summer. This is fact. The senior has asked Grauel and I if we wish to accompany you when you go.”
There was a chance that had not occurred to Marika. Always she had viewed Maksche with great dread, certain she would have to face a totally alien environment alone.
A hundred yards along, Grauel said, “She is not all ice water and stone heart, this Koenic. She knew we would follow, even if that meant walking all the miles down the Hainlin. Perhaps she recalls her own pack. They say she came as you did, half grown, from an upper Ponath pack, and Braydic with her as punishment for their dam having concealed them from the silth. Their packstead was one of those the nomads destroyed during the second winter. There was much talk of it at the time.”
“Oh.” Marika marched on, for a long time alone with her thoughts and the moonlight. Three moons were in the sky now. Every riverside tree wore a three-fingered paw of shadow.
She began to feel a subtle wrongness in the night. At first it was just something on the very edge of perception, like an irritating but distant sound mostly ignored. But it would not be ignored. It grew stronger as she trudged along. Finally, she said, “Grauel, go tell that Bagnel to stop. We are headed into something. I need time to look ahead without being distracted by having to watch my feet.”
By the time Grauel returned with Bagnel, she knew what it was. The tradermale asked, “You sense trouble, sister?” In the field, working together, he seemed to have an easy way about him. Marika felt almost comfortable in his presence.
“There is a nomad watchpost ahead. Around that bend, up on the slope. I can feel the heat of them.”
“You are certain?”
“I have not gone out for a direct look, if that is what you mean. But I am sure here.” She smote her heart.
“That is good enough for me. Beckhette.” He waved. The tradermale he called Beckhette was what he called his “tactician,” a term apparently from the tradermale cult tongue. The male arrived. “Nomad sentries around the next bend. Take them out or sneak past?”
“Depends. They have any silth or wehrlen with them?” The question was addressed to Marika. “Our choice of tactics must hinge on which course allows us the maximum time undiscovered by the horde.”
Marika shrugged. “To tell you that I will have to walk the dark.”
Both Bagnel and Beckhette nodded as if to say, go ahead.
She slipped down through her loophole, found a ghost, rode it over the slopes, slipping up on the nomads from the far side. She was cautious. The possibility that she might face a wild silth or wehrlen disturbed her.
They were sleepy, those nomad watchers. But there were a dozen of them huddled in a snow shelter, and with them was a male who had the distinctive touch-scent of a wehrlen. And he was alert. Something in the night had wakened him to the possibility of danger.
Marika did not withdraw to confer. She struck, fearing the wehrlen might discover her party before she could go back, talk, and return.
He was strong, but not trained. The struggle lasted only seconds. Pulling away, craft touched her. She squeezed her ghost down to where it could affect the physical world, undermined the shelter, brought tons of snow down upon the nomads before they fully realized they were under attack.
She returned to flesh and reported what she had done.
“Good thinking,” Bagnel said. “When they are found it will look like a regrettable accident.”
From that point onward Marika did not daydream. She lent all her attention to helping her sisters locate nomad watchers.
The tradermales insisted on taking the last few miles over a mountain. They were convinced they would encounter a strong nomad force if they continued to follow the watercourse. They did not want to waste their silth surprise by springing it in a struggle for the survival of a pawful.
They made that last climb in sunlight, among giant, concealing trees far larger than any Marika had yet seen in any of her wanderings. She was amazed that life could take so many different forms so close to her ancestral home — though she did reflect that she and Grauel and Barlog had wandered more of the world than any of the Degnan since the pack had come north in times almost immemorial.
They smelled smoke before they reached the ridgeline. Some of the huntresses thought it from the hearth fires of Critza, but the tradermales showed a frightened excitement which had nothing to do with an anticipation of arriving home. They hurried as if to an appointment with terrible news.
Terrible news it was.
From the heights they looked down on the hold which had been the traders’ headquarters. Somehow, one wall had been broken. Smoke still rose, though no fire could be seen. The snowfields surrounding the packfast were littered with bodies. Marika did not immediately recognize what they were, for they appeared small from her viewpoint.
Bagnel squatted on his hams and studied the disaster. For a long time he said nothing. When he did speak, it was in an emotionless monotone. “At least they did not take it cheaply. And some of ours escaped.”
Not knowing why she did so exactly, Marika scratched his ears the way one did when comforting a pup. He had removed his hat to better listen for sounds from below.
He looked at her oddly, which caused her to feel a need to explain. “I saw all this happen at my packstead four years ago. Help came too late then, too.”
“But it came.”
“Yes. As it did here. Seen from an odd angle, you might think me repaying a debt.”
“A small victory here, then. At horrible cost we have gotten the silth to be concerned.” He donned his hat, stood. His iron gaze never left the smoking ruins. “You females stay here. My brothers and I will see what is to be seen.” He and the other two started down the slope. Ten paces along, he stopped, turned to Marika. “If something happens to us, run for Akard. Do not waste a second on us. Save yourselves. It will be your turn soon enough.??
?
Return to Akard? Marika thought. And how do that? They had come south carrying rations for three days, no one having given thought to the chance that they might find Critza destroyed. They had thought there would be food and shelter at the end of the trail, not the necessity to turn about and march right back to Akard.
No matter. She would survive. She had survived the trek to Akard when she was much younger. She would survive again.
She closed her eyes and went into that other place she had come to know so well, that place where she had begun to feel more at home than in the real world. She ducked through her loophole into a horde of ghosts in scarlet and indigo and aquamarine. The scene of the Critza massacre was a riot of color, like a mad drug dream. Why did they gather so? Were they in fact the souls of meth who had died here? She thought not. But she did not know what to think them otherwise.
It did not matter. Silth did not speculate much on the provenance of their power. They sensed ghosts and used them. Marika captured a strong one.
She rode the ghost downhill, floating a few yards behind Bagnel.
He did not much heed the fallen nomads. Marika ignored them, too, but could not help noticing many were ripped and torn like those she had seen at the site of the tradermale ambush last summer. Only a few — and all those inside the shattered wall — bore cut or stab wounds. And she never saw a one with an arrow in his or her corpse.
Odd.
Odder still the fortress, much of which recalled Braydic’s communications center. Though Marika was sure much of what she saw had nothing to do with sending or receiving messages. Strange things. She would have liked to have gone down and laid on paws.
The agony of the tradermales was too painful to watch. Marika withdrew to her flesh. With the others she waited, crouched in the snow, leaning upon her javelin, so motionless winter’s breath might have frozen her at last.
Bagnel spent hours prowling the ruins of Critza while the silth and huntresses shivered on the hillside. When he returned, he and his companions climbed slowly, bearing heavy burdens.
They arrived. Bagnel caught his breath, said, “There is nothing here for any of us now. Let us return and do what we may for Akard.” His voice was as cold as the hillside, edged with hatred. “There is a small cave a few miles along the ridge. Assuming it is not occupied, we can rest there before we start back.” He led off, and said nothing more till Marika asked what he had learned in the ruins.