“My word, this is a strange country,” said Fawn, looking around.
“Where did all the trees go? There wasn’t blight here, was there, Dag? ”
The woods had opened out, with only a few tall red oaks, their bark laced with black scars, growing out of a riot of green scrub. “No, forest fire,” said Dag. “There was a big summer drought in this valley a few years ago. It’s all coming back real good, looks like.”
Fawn peered under the flat of her hand at the new growth climbing the valley walls. “That must have been quite some fire.”
Whit squinted ahead into the hazy distance. “Huh. Funny-lookin’ fellow, there, wanderin’ our way. Hey—is he naked?”
Dag followed his glance, opening his half-closed groundsense. A big, shaggy-haired man with oddly mottled skin was limping southward down the middle of the road. Dag’s breath drew in, his back straightened, and his feet sought his stirrups as his mind burst in twenty directions at once, like a covey of startled quail.
“Blight, it’s a mud-man!”
Dag stood in his saddle and bellowed over his shoulder, “Barr! Remo! We got us a mud-man! Fetch out the boar spears! Sumac—”
Blight, where was Sumac? And Arkady? They weren’t in his groundsense range. If a live mud-man was here on this road, its malice master could not be far off. Not nearly far enough. But Dag, straining, couldn’t sense it yet. It came to him—gods, where had his wits gone?—that they hadn’t been passed by any southward-bound traffic all morning. All the night before? How long?
“Fawn”—panic was making Dag’s world turn red—“drop back to the wagons, make ’em stop, get all the farmers together, and stay there.”
One flying wit at least dropped a feather—“Explain to the ignorant ones what’s going on.”
Fawn had her reins tightened up while Whit was still closing his gaping mouth. “Right,” she said simply, and yanked Magpie around.
Dag wheeled in the opposite direction, wrapped his reins around his hook, drew his steel knife, and clapped his heels to his gelding’s sides.
Copperhead bolted forward into the breathless light.
17
By the time Fawn reached the Basswoods’ wagon, which was first in line, every patroller in the company was streaming past her in aid of Dag, weapons brandished. Barr and Remo had reacted the quickest, but Neeta, Tavia, and Rase weren’t much behind.
Vio Basswood stood up on her wagon box, gripping the curved canvas roof and staring in horror as Grouse sawed the reins and brought them to a creaking halt. Her face draining, she screamed, “He’s killed him! Ye gods, he just rode that poor man down and killed him!”
Fawn turned in her saddle and craned her neck. In the heat-hazed distance, Dag was pivoting Copperhead around the fallen mud-man.
She abruptly realized what Vio thought she was seeing: Fawn’s grim, hook-handed Lakewalker husband suddenly running mad and brutally attacking, without reason, an innocent, unarmed—not to mention unclothed—traveler.
“No!” cried Fawn. “That wasn’t a man! It wasn’t human, it was a mud-man!”
“A mud what? ” said Grouse, glaring and scrambling for his spear.
“Malices make them up out of animals and mud by groundwork— magic. I’ve seen the holes they come out of. They make them up into human form to be their slaves and soldiers, and they’re horribly dangerous. You can’t reason with them or anything, even though the malice gives them speech. They lose all their wits when their malice is slain— oh, never mind!” Grouse had his spear out, but was aiming it in the wrong direction, at Fawn, and at Berry who had ridden up panting.
Fawn had thought Whit was behind her, but instead he’d turned again and followed the patrollers, if at a cautious trot. Inside the wagon, the toddler burst into wails at all the shouting.
“Mud-men eat children,” Fawn put in desperately. “The shambles are dreadful, after.” Did Vio need to know this? Maybe. She didn’t need to be made more afraid—she seemed close to fainting—but she needed to be afraid of the right things.
Rase and Neeta came galloping back.
“Is it dead? Are there any more? ” Fawn called.
Rase checked just long enough to gasp out, “That one’s dealt with. No more within groundsense range, so far. Dag sent us to find Sumac and Arkady.” He spurred on.
That pair had fallen behind more than once, lately, and Fawn hadn’t given them a thought—at least, not about their safety. Between them, Sumac and Arkady were clearly proof against any predator these hills harbored—wolf, bear, catamount, or rattlesnake. A gang of mud-men was a different proposition.
All the other farmers in the company came up to cluster in the road, goggle, and demand repeated explanations. Pressed, Fawn finally said, “Look, I don’t think I can explain mud-men to you.” Not and be believed.
“Just come look at the evil thing, why don’t you? ”
She turned and led them, wagons and all, up the road to the site of the gory slaughter. Dag and Whit had dismounted. Dag released Copperhead’s reins and prodded the body with his foot; Whit looked as if he was working up the nerve to do the same. “Blight it,” Dag was saying, “this area is supposed to be well patrolled!” He glanced up. “Fawn, I told you to keep back!”
“No, Dag,” she said firmly. “These folks have to see, just like your young patrollers.”
“Oh.” He scrubbed his hand—was it shaking?—over his face.
“Yeah.”
Fawn slid from her mare, took the reluctant Vio by the hand, and dragged her forward; the mob trailed. “Look at it, see? Look at its jaw, practically a muzzle, and those furry ears, and all that coarse hair—it likely started out as a bear, wouldn’t you say, Dag? ” She tried not to look at its bloodied throat, torn out in one slash of Dag’s reaching war knife, with all the power of his arm and Copperhead’s stride behind it.
“Black bear, oh yes,” Dag agreed absently.
“He’s . . . it’s naked,” said Calla hesitantly.
“Naked is good,” said Dag. “Means it hasn’t killed folks and stolen their clothes yet.”
Fawn realized from their openmouthed staring that this was the first mud-man, alive or dead, that most of the young patrollers had ever seen, too. Dag pointed out a few more distinguishing features, still with the toe of his boot, then glanced up at his whole mixed audience. “This one is so crude and bearlike because it’s the work of a malice in its first molt. The malice might even still be sessile, which would be good news for us. As a malice goes through molts and gets stronger and smarter, its making gets better, till you can’t hardly tell a mud-man from a real human by eye. Lakewalker groundsense can tell at once, though. Their grounds are . . . their grounds are just not right.”
All the young men jostled forward for a closer look, with the enthusiastic Hawthorn pushing through to the front; Fawn let Vio shrink back. Vio was trembling and teary from seeing, and smelling, the welter of blood, and her little girl, who came out from the wagon and grabbed her skirts, burst into tears in sheer contagion. The toddler tied in the wagon just howled on general principles. Grouse, clutching his spear and looking frantically fearful, his world suddenly full of new dangers but with no clear target to attack, turned on his wife and snarled, “Shut them up!”
It seemed mean, but Fawn had to admit Vio did get a better hold on herself, controlling her snivels and shuffling off to manage her children.
A respite of sorts. Vio was beginning to learn something, Fawn thought, if only that the world was not what she’d imagined. Bo hadn’t pushed forward, and he didn’t look much surprised, but his seamed face screwed up in a dubious scowl. His glance of dismay was not at his Lakewalker companions, though, but at the surrounding ridges.
Dag, too, backed out of the crowd and stared up and down the road, gold eyes slitted. Reaching with his groundsense? A little relief lightened his features, and he muttered, “Ah, good, there’s Arkady.” Truly, in a couple of minutes the strays rode up.
Sumac jumped d
own and strode to him. “Sorry we fell behind, there. We were just talking.”
From their un-disheveled looks, Fawn thought this was likely true.
Though they both had the weights of character to appear unruffled even when half undone.
Arkady, eyes wide, dismounted and approached the corpse. His hand sought his belly, and his face worked as he swallowed. “That’s . . . the most grotesque making I’ve ever seen.”
“Yep,” said Dag. “Try to imagine the power of the groundwork that can turn a bear into . . . well, this, inside of two weeks.”
Intrigue fought the nausea in Arkady’s face. “Can I dissect it? ”
“Now? Are you mad? ”
“No, of course not now! Later.”
“We’ll see,” said Dag.
“With any luck, you can have your pick of the litter,” said Sumac.
“I’ll bring you all the mud-men your heart desires.”
“I’m not sure my heart desires any,” Arkady admitted. “But it’s . . . absent gods, but that thing’s so wrong.”
“Do you eat them? ” asked Ash, hunkering down in fascination.
This won gagging noises from all the patrollers present, except Dag, who said only, “No. The flesh is tainted.”
“Lakewalkers do skin them sometimes,” said Fawn, remembering a certain bride gift.
“Not to use the leather,” said Dag. “Just . . . in special cases.”
When the pain was too great, and mere victory wasn’t revenge enough, Fawn suspected.
Dag looked at Sumac, who looked back. Sizing each other up?
Sumac cut across the moment, saying simply, “Well, what next, patrol leader? ”
Fawn thought she could see the weight of responsibility descend like a hundred-pound sack of grain on Dag’s shoulders. He sighed. “Scout, I reckon. North, wouldn’t you say? ”
Sumac’s lips pursed. “That thing could have been running for home. But we haven’t felt any blight sign, south of here. We don’t have enough patrollers to split up and run a proper pattern.”
“We haven’t seen any traffic from the north all day,” said Dag.
“Nor from the south,” Sumac pointed out, “but I agree, north seems the best bet. Should we send a courier for help? Closest camp to here would be Laurel Gap, I reckon.” She turned her head, and called, “Anyone else here ever been to Laurel Gap Camp? ”
The other patrollers returned negative mumbles. Sumac muttered, “Blight. I don’t want it to be me. But it might have to.”
“Not yet, leastways,” said Dag. “Right now we’re in the middle of nowhere, knowing nothing, which doesn’t make much to report.”
Sumac’s eyes glinted. “Indeed.”
“Open your ground to me.”
Her brows went up; a faint flush tinged her high-boned copper cheeks. But she evidently complied.
Dag looked her up and down, nodded without expression. “Pick a partner and ride up the road a piece. No more than five miles. See if you find any blight sign. I’ll try to organize”—Dag’s eye swept the company—“these,” he sighed.
“Right.” Sumac swung aboard her horse, looked over not the patrollers but their mounts, evidently judged Barr’s the swiftest, and said, “Barr, follow me!”
Arkady’s hand lifted as she wheeled away, but fell back unseen.
The two scouts loped off up the road, mud spinning from their horses’ hooves.
Fawn puzzled over that last exchange between uncle and niece. Oh.
Of course. Dag had been checking to be sure Sumac hadn’t conceived, before sending her out. It wasn’t just his general protectiveness; pregnant women, as Fawn had painful reason to know, were preferred prey to a malice on the verge of a molt. The women’s natural making made them beacons, walking bait. Their new ground shields might presently be protecting Fawn and Berry—she touched the walnut at her throat—but what of Vio or Calla? The Lakewalkers would know even if the women didn’t, yet, she reassured herself. They’d take precautions. Children were a malice’s next most favored morsels—she glanced uneasily at the Basswoods’ wagon, where the crying had died down.
“All right,” said Dag, raising his voice to carry, “everyone move up to that next little ford.” He pointed toward a shallow creek crossing the road a hundred paces farther along. “We better grab the chance to water the animals. We have to make ready to run sudden.”
That it shifted everyone farther from the disturbing sight and smell of the dead mud-man was just a bonus, Fawn figured. Setting an example, she retrieved Magpie’s reins and marched along briskly.
———
A quarter hour later, Dag found himself saying to Sage, “No, you can’t take your anvil!” He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. “If a malice is close, our best chance of escape is to abandon the wagons and run mounted. If you farmers get caught within range of its ground powers, it could seize your minds, and then you wouldn’t believe how ugly things can get. You rescue each other first, then weapons and animals, then food if there’s time. But no more. Absent gods, every Lakewalker child is taught this by age five!”
“The wagons are all we have!” cried Grouse.
“You can’t stop to defend things.”
“But my anvil!” said Sage. “It’s everything to me.”
Dag fixed him with a stern eye. “More than Calla? ”
“Er . . .” Sage fell silent.
“If it doesn’t fit in your saddlebags, leave it.”
“Chances are,” said Fawn, “we can circle back later and collect our gear again. If we live. And if we don’t live, we won’t need it anyway, right? ”
Sage still looked torn.
Whit put in helpfully, “Sage, your anvil would be the last thing thieves would run off with. It takes two fellows just to lift it!”
“Not if it’s still in the wagon. They can just take the whole rig.”
“We’ll have the mules,” said Fawn. Cleverly not suggesting that a malice could just chain up its mud-men slaves to haul it all off, good girl.
Dag gave her a grateful nod.
Sage wavered, then resigned himself to unhitching his team, Indigo helping. Dag hurried to greet Remo and Neeta, returning on foot from scouting up toward either ridge.
“Nothing up on my side within groundsense range,” reported Remo.
“Mine either,” said Neeta. “No physical signs, either. Just animal tracks and old travelers’ camps.”
Dag eyed the high ground overlooking them with disfavor; that there was no hostile eye up there spying on them now didn’t mean there hadn’t been an hour ago, or any time this morning.
“Should we feed folks while we can? ” asked Fawn.
She was thinking, as always. Dag said, “Hand snacks only. Don’t light a fire.”
Everything waited on Sumac and Barr. The company was actually closer to the next big settlement riding forward than back, and the passes were about the same climb in either direction. At least the road behind was known to the farmers now. But until they actually located the malice, it was a guess which direction was truly safer. If the malice proved sessile he’d go after it with a quarter patrol without hesitation, Dag decided, but if it was more advanced, sense demanded they go neither south nor north, but cut across country west to Laurel Gap Camp and the nearest reinforcements. Or did it? Dag imagined dragging this whole gaggle of farmers over fifty miles of broken terrain, mud-men in pursuit, and bit his lip. He would certainly have to send a pair of patroller couriers swiftly on ahead. Reducing the farmer youngsters’
Lakewalker guardians by two . . . He turned to more immediate calculations.
“Rase, let me see your sharing knife.”
The boy already had it out of his saddlebags and slung around his neck, good. He pulled it out on its thong and displayed it; Dag ran his hand lightly over the sheath. A good making. “Seems sound,” he said aloud. “If we take on a sessile, you’ll be the centerpiece of the attack. This is the experience you came north to get
; it just came on a little sooner than you expected, is all.”
Rase’s nostril’s flared, in pride and fear. “Yes, sir.”
“Whose heart’s death is in there? ”
“My great-grandfather’s. About two years back.”
“I see.” Dag touched his forehead in respectful salute. “How’s your ground veiling? Have you been keeping up your drills? ” With Sumac as his patrol leader, Rase surely ought to have been.
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. I carry a primed knife, too, but I’ll hold mine in reserve.”
“It’s lucky we have two knives in this patrol,” said Rase.
“That wasn’t luck, that was preparation. Know the difference. Preparation, you can control.” He gave the young patroller an encouraging grip on the shoulder, which made Rase flash an earnest smile.
Reminded, Dag turned away to rummage through his own saddlebags.
His new bonded knife came to hand first, and he slipped its strong braided cord over his neck and tucked the dark sheath into his shirt.
Next, sifted farther down, he found his primed knife—dodgy, first, and unsupervised making that it was. The sheathed bone itself lay lightly on his chest, but the weight of ugly memories it held dragged like Sage’s anvil. Well, if the renegade Crane’s cruel deeds had any redemption, this was it.
He turned to find Fawn watching him, her dark eyes grave. Her lips moved as if to speak, then pressed closed; she gestured down the stream instead. “So, uh . . . what’s the matter with Arkady? ”
The maker sat on the creek bank in the midst of a patch of green horsetails, his head bowed to his knees.
“The mud-man, likely. The trained sensitivity that makes good makers also unfits them for patrol. Malice spoor hits them too hard.”
Fawn frowned at him. “You’ve been doing sensitivity drills with Arkady for the past two, three months. What’s that going to do to you? ”
Dag sighed. “I’m not real anxious to test it. We’ll just have to see.”
She came nearer; her little hand rose to trace the walnut-stained knife sheath hidden under his shirt. “I suppose you have to wear this. Just don’t . . . don’t do anything stupid with it, all right? Remember what you promised.”