Snowbrother

  "I still say she's dangerous. Don't underestimate them; that one is deep."

  "Ahi-a, that's a 'sheep-bitten wolf. Minztans pine away, or run, but how often do they kill? Most can hardly bring themselves to it while you're coming at them with a saber. We've plenty of them at home; meek enough, with an occasional drubbing. The boy now, he's the type who broods—were he four years older and a quarter heavier, I'd have to tie him before I could mount. The kind who might risk a long week's dying to knife me: I'll watch him."

  "The dam is more cunning."

  "Ia. A Minztan cunning; patient, and not fierce. Look you, she doesn't like me. Belike if she had a hope of escape, she could plot my death easily enough. But she hasn't a means, and without that she'll keep waiting, and hoping for a chance to escape—which will never come. Once we're out on the steppe and she has only me to look to, I'll hand-break her to the bridle. In a brace of years, I'll be able to fly her from the wrist like a hunting bird; she'll become what she pretends to be, without even noticing it. And that will be more useful to me than a smith or bedmate: plenty of those. You'd have me starve and beat out all the qualities that will be of use. And a dead slave's dead meat; beef is much cheaper. Poor thrift, that."

  "Well enough," he grumbled. "You've told me of your schemes. But these Minztan leaders, they're all witches and spritekin. What if she puts an ill-wishing on you? Fucking puts anyone close enough, as often as you do with her. Maybe the shaman was right; I don't carry a lance for the spellsinger, but it is his craft. There are others for your use."

  For a moment Shkai'ra was daunted; she made the warding sign and touched her lucksprite. Then she rallied. Still, it was well that Eh'rik worried. Partly it was concern for her; that was rare among their people, and she valued it. Not that it had made him easier on her when she was in training; he had been even more merciless than the law demanded, out of determination to drive her to her limits. And he wanted her in the high seat someday. Surprising, since he was as conventional as her kinsib Zh'tev, but he said to her once that it was for the warmasters to know the rules, and the Chiefkin to know when to break them.

  "Nia," she said, slapping him affectionately on the back of the neck. "The land-sprites here can't be too strong. They didn't stop us from winning, could they? And the battle's what counts—what good is a spirit that can't aid you in war? The Mek-Kermak's-kin are godsborn; a little lousy woodsmagic is nothing to us. Besides, it may not matter to you prongers whether it's a knothole, a woman or an ewe—different for us."

  He shrugged, forbearing to point out that she was merely born to the Mek-Kermaks, not yet fasted to it. "The Chiefkin wishes," he said formally.

  "Ia. Now, let's go on with the trek."

  Sadhi looked at Maihu with dull indifference as she slipped into the cowbarn. Lame, he was no use to the Kommanz on a journey that would stretch the endurance of even the healthy. She went down on one knee and began whispering in his ear.

  "… and don't act differently!" she finished, as he began to straighten, hope coiling up into the dead pools of his eyes.

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked, turning his face aside into the straw to hide eagerness.

  "Don't tell anybody until the raiders are gone. Then, yes, let them have the hope. The Seeker's people will be here soon, as soon as the Kommanza pull out. Tell them—tell the commander—not to count on It too much. They probably won't have an Initiate among them. I can't exert too much control over it alone, and from a distance. Tell them they'll have to use It, make plans. That's what the Seeker had them trained for, to improvise. But you know how superstitious the horsefolk are. It will frighten them as nothing else could. I'll try to alert some of the prisoners; they all know the ordinary rituals and chants at least. That will be a help."

  Her calm broke. "Tell the Seeker's people to help us!"

  The corridors had a curious, deserted air as Shkai'ra walked them for the last time. Her breath puffed white in rooms left unheated, but more warmth remained than she would have expected. Logs made good insulation, she thought; a pity wood was too scarce on the prairie for such use. And too vulnerable to fire arrows, of course. Her folk built in stone or rammed earth and roofed their buildings with sod or slate. For a moment she was sharply homesick for the crowded brawling winter life of the Keep, and somehow at the same time for the huge emptiness of the snowbound steppe. Whiteness stretching out of sight under a sky that was a bowl, stars hard and clear and bright beyond counting. Leafless aspen thickets, the weight of the hunting bow in her hands, the coughing grunt of snowtiger in the moment before it charged. And the great hearth of Stonefort, folk curled on the floor wrapped against the drafts that fluttered crude bright hangings… Yes, it would be good to be home.

  The room where the Minztan awaited her was small, little more than a cupboard; there were chairs, a table, a rack of books on the wall. Maihu worked silently at strapping together her bundle.

  Shkai'ra took down one of the volumes. It was bound in tooled leather dyed crimson, the title inlaid in gilt in an alphabet strange to her. Not that she had much fluency even in her own, only enough to read a trader's letter if not too complicated. Reading was for shamans, the dhaik'tz, keepers of legends and healers of the sick, technicians and magicians, half feared and half despised by the ruling warriors. Most Kommanza would not touch a book Shkai'ra thought that fearful, and so unworthy. True, there was great magic in writing—but so there was in childbearing, or forging steel, and one dealt with those often enough. With reasonable precautions there was much use and power in books.

  "I heard how you dealt with the unblooded," she said. "That was cunning." The term was Kommanzami: it implied prudent wariness. The steppe-dwellers valued courage, but thought berserker fury wasteful except in the last extremity. "If you'd tried to strike her, I'd have had to beat you bloody for form's sake."

  "Taimi is young and reckless, Chiefkin," she said in a subdued voice. "He'll learn."

  "Or die," Shkai'ra said. "It's hard for him to remember to be afraid." She smiled thinly. "Maybe he'd learn faster bent bare-arse over Eh'rik's saddle …" Her gesture dismissed the matter as unimportant. "Don't worry; teaching fear is a talent we have." She glanced around. "Why so many books? All for one village, and there must be at least twenty here!"

  Maihu blinked, then remembered that literacy was uncommon outside the Haamiyk-an-Minztannis; even in the southlands most peasants were unlettered, and the Kommanz hardly had a written language at all. Of course, her people had the advantage of having neither a government nor a standing army to support; folk were free to use the enforced leisure of winter as they pleased. Most practiced a craft, writing among others.

  "We… find them useful for storing knowledge, Chiefkin," she said.

  The Kommanza looked at her suspiciously. "Witch-knowledge?" she asked warily.

  Maihu replied in haste, fearful the westerner would order the books burned if night terrors were aroused. "Oh, no; we never write our rituals."

  "What's in them, then?"

  "Well … this one is from Raddock. See the script they use?" Shkai'ra nodded recognition; she had beheld that writing before, when the southron traders came to Stonefort. "It tells of a new type of kiln, and how to select the clays to make better ceramics. It also says the knowledge came to Raddock from farther south and east—many tools and weapons are made so there, to save metal."

  She had been helping with experiments along those lines herself. It was infernally difficult to duplicate the results described by the southlander earthsmith; much had been left out. Minztans had never been able to get the strengthening matrix of glassfiber to set right in the ceramic. Perhaps the foreigners used a Wreaking to get it right. A forest Adept would not use her powers so, of course.

  "Ahi-a," Shkai'ra mused. "A pity so many of us feel books harbor evil magic; we might gain much, if we used them more. The dhaik'tz wouldn't like it, of course." She slipped through the volume in her hands, admiring the heavy solid feel of the paper and the brightly colore
d illustrations. "But how do these letters come to look all alike?"

  Maihu tried to explain printing, a difficult task, since she knew only the general principle herself. Minztans had never lost that knowledge, but it was only in recent generations that population and demand had grown enough for it to be really useful. These books had come in trade.

  "Saaaaaaaaaa, like a brand on stock," Shkai'ra said after a brief mental struggle. Maihu was astonished that the concept had been grasped so quickly. "You Minztans are full of clever ways, more than Kh'oytl the Trickster itself. What does this made-by-machine book tell of?"

  "It's a book of tales, Chiefkin, the sort you've had me tell you these past evenings. Old stories. Some of our—" there was a pause while she tried to convey what "scholar" meant—"hunters-of-knowledge collected them. I was told that many of them come from the Before, from the Cities of Folly. There's something about sounds that we don't use anymore; I didn't really understand it myself."

  "You forest runners have arts we lack." A hard amusement. "It makes you useful slaves… What song-story is this?"

  "Ah… Prince Andrei and the Firebird, Chiefkin."

  "So." She handed the book back to the other woman. "Bring it. I like to hear such things; the winter nights get long." She winked and patted Maihu's crotch, before looking over the rest of the bundle. "Fine. Now report to the sled."

  The column had formed up nicely, curling snakelike through village and fields, ready to uncoil into the woods and toward the distant steppe. The snow had settled to a thick steady curtain, gashed by occasional savage gusts of stormwind; visibility was down to twenty meters or less. But the whistle code knit the warband into a smoothly integrated whole, a knot of order in the wild chaos of the woods. Shkai'ra silently acknowledged that she was glad to be riding with the main column. Out on the plains you could be more alone than anywhere on earth, emptiness stretching white and windswept to the blue bowl of the sky; but it was never as sheerly desolate a feeling as the woods could give you. She squinted through stinging whiteness toward the forest; scarf and coif and helmet muffled sound, but through it all she could hear the moaning of the wind through the branches. She spat and brought her horse to a canter with an infinitesimal shift of balance.

  The train flowed past. A full Banner led the way, then the baggage sleds, the slave coffles, more sleds, the remount herd, and last of all the few small ponies and scrub cattle this steading had kept. Those were not many, scrawny and undersized by plains standards, but it would never have occurred to the steppe-dwellers to sack a holding and not lift the stock; the notion would be blasphemous. Also, they could be eaten along the way as they weakened—food that carried itself.

  Bellows and whickers ran under the whistling of the wind; shouts and clatter of harness, cracks and oaths, gray light on lanceheads and helmets and the harsh vivid enamelings on armor. Herding the Minztans was the most challenging task; they were being grouped in double coffles, each file of twelve bound by the wrists to a neighbor, and the couple-links to a central pole. That gave them enough freedom of movement to carry burdens and move without being able to free themselves with any speed or stealth. The work was hindered less by opposition than by sheer clumsiness of folk unused to moving in large groups. The Minztans cried out to their kinmates and children left behind, weeping with shameless openness.

  Shkai'ra noted the spectacle with disgust as she trotted by. If they can't find the courage to end their lives, she thought, at least they might try not to abase themselves so totally as to weep before enemies. Truly, the stuff of slaves. The sight made her queasy.

  The forward position was the least dangerous in a faring like this; it went to the junior Bannerleader. Still, that one was some years older than Shkai'ra, which fact she kept in mind as she rode up the column of twos. The troopers sat their mounts quietly, shoulders hunched against the wind, eyes slitted in the narrow space between helm and scarf. The horses shifted and stamped in a creak and rattle of harness; the Banner was in good order, almost like a parade exercise. Shield on back, lances in scabbards at the right rear of the saddle, elbow through the lance sling and hand gripping the reins.

  "Bannerleader Mh'arutka," she said conversationally. "Snow looks like letting up." Then she leaned closer and spoke quietly. The blond woman shifted her helmet to the crook of her arm and glanced inquiry. "Your Banner is ready for a patrol on the open steppe."

  The officer flushed deeply. Shkai'ra continued: "Those lances are nearly three meters long, Bannerleader. Add another meter and three-quarters for the height to the saddle. How high are the lowest branches on the trees? It's five kylickz to the open river."

  "The Chieikin wishes," the Bannerleader ground out, anger directed at herself rather than the commander, who had at least tried to save her face in front of the troops. Village chieftain, trained officer, and she had to fuck up like this, she thought. As if she was barely old enough to grow braids, and not a blooded warrior with children of her own old enough to walk. She decided to offer a sheep to Glitch as soon as she got back to the homestead; this was the sort of thing he inflicted on you for neglecting him. Also, it was a bad sign that none of the squadleaders had thought to remind her. Unpopular officers were like weak ones, unlikely to live long lives.

  "It does at that," Mh'arutka said gravely, glancing up in turn.

  Shkai'ra kept her own face expressionless, until she had turned and heard the Bannerieader's voice lift behind her: "Turn those lances in to the baggage train, on the double! Then bows out and eyes on the woods. Don't sit there like lumps of nomad shit on a hot day, move!"

  At that, Shkai'ra permitted herself a slight flicker of laughter, less an expression than a light behind the cold gray eyes. The troopers peeled off and trotted back toward the sleds, stolidly indifferent. That was war for you: bust your ass to do something, then hurry up and change it back the way it was in the first place, rest five minutes and do it all over again. Well, a war-faring was one thing and home another; they'd all have a jape to tell, once they were back among the fields and herds, and Mh'arukta could chew her braids if she didn't like what she heard.

  Shkai'ra swept back down along the lines, reins loose, lifting a hand in salute now and then. Yes, there were Maihu and Taimi, sitting at the rear of the travel sled, shackled to the frame. Eh'rik rode up and handed her the horn. It was as long as her forearm, glossy surface carved with skulls and devil-faces, tipped with walrus ivory. She paused for a final check, found all in readiness, raised it to her lips.

  The sound lifted through wind and clamor, a deep wolf baying: Arrrrrrrrrhhhhhaaaoooo! through the tossing trees. The command whistles spoke, a great complex trilling that wove together, wove the band into a single huge organism, thousand-fanged, a delicate tool responsive to her will. Pride swelled in her as the column wound under the great pines.

  That evening, after Shkai'ra slept, Maihu played her flute. Wild, yet with an icy precision, the notes skirled through the warm dark interior of the sled, and outward, through the neat rows of Kommanz campfires on frames above the river ice, on and on into the woods. The last of the storm was fading; the branches tossed and soughed gently under a starless sky. The sound of the flute wove through bone and wood; her body played on, though her eyes were more sightless than mere lack of light could explain. At the last, the notes rilled through the Veil, and her tranced mind tuned them into the fabric of forest and Otherworld. It was an ancient song; it spoke of wholeness, balance, health; of the endless fight of life and death. Of those who were kindred to the Woodspeople, and those who knew not the Harmony.

  Next morning, a scout was missing.

  10

  The Minztan warparty slid their skis cautiously into Newstead, a few scant hours after the rear guard of the raiders pulled out. Narritanni ordered the woods thereabouts scouted carefully before allowing his motley followers into the steading itself. Silent, they poked about among doors scarred by rams; there was a curious feeling of abandonment, as if this were a ruin long untenanted.
br />   The leader and Leafturn walked together through the shattered doors of the Jonnah's-kin hall. The inlaid tables had been hacked with careless dagger slashes, and hangings drooped greasy and tattered along the walls. At the head of the great room was a wall of fine woods, carved in the ancient divided-circle emblem of their people's faith. A double thunderbolt clenched in an eagle's claw had been smashed across it, by a battleax from the look of it: the sigil of Zaik Godlord, Begetter of Victories, Mother of Death. Below in a corner was a blackened hand kicked out of the way and left to lie.

  Narritanni stood for long moments contemplating the hackmarks, lost in certain memories of his own. Then he sought the captives.

  The first storm of tears and babbling had died down; the freed prisoners were oddly quiet. Some wandered back to their shattered homes; he saw them standing hesitant, perhaps lifting and shifting refuse and fragments in a futile parody of repair. He noticed a grizzled Garnetseat hunter trying to get a girl of about ten to drink. She sat rocking herself, ignoring him and all the world with her wide-eyed sightless stare. She made no sound except a low crooning that went on and on, quiet and steady and ceaseless. Leafturn walked behind her and laid a hand on her head. She stiffened, then slumped bonelessly.

  "Sleep," he murmured.

  Narritanni shivered as he looked at the other children. His life and beliefs had made him less squeamish than most of his folk, but such things went beyond cruelty. Obscurely, he felt they must be the sign of some deep primeval wounding in the souls of those who wrought the deeds. A confused grief for all human land overwhelmed him.

  One of his rangers stumbled out the door and was noisily sick. He turned to his second-in-command, who stood steadfast but pale.

  "Make sure everybody gets a look in here," he said. "And at the other prisoners as well."