The three dark figures halted. The one in the middle raised both paws and pointed forefingers at the palisade.
Marika saw nothing. It was nothing physical. But her mind reeled away from an impact as strong as the wehrlen’s counterattack. And nomads began screaming and falling off the stockade, clawing at their chests just the way Kublin’s attackers had.
The screaming ended. A deep silence filled the packstead. Nomads looked at nomads suddenly dead. The male below the tower dropped his axe. Mouths opened but nothing came forth.
Then an excited babble did break out. More nomads mounted the stockade.
This time all three dark meth raised their arms, and every nomad on the palisade fell, shrieking and clawing their chests.
Nomads boiled through the spiral, clambered over the stockade, all rushing the three, murder in their hearts and eyes. A handful besieged the wehrlen, who seemed to have halted to regain his breath. Marika could not guess what confused tale he heard, but did see him shudder and, as if by pure will, pull himself together.
Those nomads who chose to attack the meth in black died by the score. Not one got closer than a dozen feet.
The meth in black began circling round the stockade, toward the mouth of the spiral.
The wehrlen watched them come into view. He did something. One of the three mouthed a faint cry and dropped. The others halted. The taller did something with her fingers. The wehrlen stiffened. Marika felt his surprise. Rigid as old death, he fell slowly forward.
Nomad witnesses howled in despair. They ran. It did them no good. The fastest and last to fall covered no more than twenty yards.
The two in black knelt over the third. Marika saw the tall one’s head shake. They rose and walked the spiral into the packfast. A few dozen nomads remained inside. They scaled the stockade, trying to flee.
It was all very baffling to Marika.
The two entered the packstead’s interior. A last few nomads died before they could hurl spears. Of the scores and scores of fallen, not one showed any sort of wound.
The dark two strode to the heart of the square, stepping over but otherwise ignoring the dead. There they halted, turned slowly, surveyed the carnage. They seemed aware of Marika but indifferent to her presence in the tower. The taller said something. The shorter went to the door of Logusz’s loghouse. A moment later, inside, nomads began screaming. She moved across to Foehse’s loghouse. Screams again. She then seemed satisfied.
Marika finally shook her knotted muscles into motion. Terror had left her so shaky she nearly fell twice getting down. She grabbed the axe from the male who had been chopping the tower leg, rushed toward the place where she had seen Kublin last.
Kublin was the only one of her blood who might still be living.
She had to dig him out from under a heap of nomads. He was breathing still, and bleeding still. She held him close and wept, believing, though she had neither healer’s knowledge nor skill, that nothing could be done.
Somehow it all became concentrated in Kublin. All the grief and loss. The blackness welled within her. She saw ghosts all around her thickly, as though the spirits of the dead were reluctant to leave the place of battle. She looked inside Kublin, through Kublin, as though he were transparent. She saw the depth of his bruises and wounds. Angrily, she willed him health instead of death.
Kublin’s eyes opened momentarily. “Marika?”
“Yes, Kublin. I’m here, Kublin. Kublin, you were so brave today.”
“You were in the tower, Marika. How did you get down?”
“Help came, Kub. We won. They’re all dead. All the nomads. The messengers came back in time.” A lie. In time for what? Of all the Degnan other than the messengers themselves, only she and Kublin remained alive. And he was about to die.
Well, at least he could go into the arms of the All thinking something had been accomplished.
“Brave,” Kublin echoed. “When it was time. When it counted. It was easier than I thought, Marika. Because I didn’t have to worry.”
“Yes, Kublin. You were a hero. You were as great as any of the huntresses today.”
He rewarded her with that big winning look he got that made her love him above all her other siblings, then he relaxed. When she finally decided that he had stopped living, she wept.
Seldom, seldom did a meth female shed tears, unless in ritual. The two who wore black turned to stare at her, but neither made any move to approach her. They exchanged the occasional word or two while they watched.
The messengers came into the packstead. At last. Numb from shock, they surveyed the carnage. Grauel let out one prolonged, pained howl of torment. Barlog came to Marika, gently scratched the top of her head, as one did with infants in pain or distress. Marika wondered what had become of her hat. Why hadn’t she felt the cold nipping at her ears?
Having collected herself, Grauel joined the two meth who wore black.
III
They sheltered the night in Skiljan’s loghouse, which, having held the longest, had been damaged least. Marika could not get the stench of roast pup out of her nostrils. She kept shaking and hugging herself and slinking into shadows, where she closed into herself and watched ghosts bob through the loghouse walls. For a long time she was not very sane. Sometimes she saw meth who were not there and spoke with them as though they were. And then she saw one meth who might have been there, and she did not believe what she saw.
The messengers forced her to drink an infusion of chaphe, which finally pushed her down into a deep, long, dreamless sleep.
Nevertheless, in the deep hours of the night, she either wakened partially or dreamed she overheard the two in black. Grauel and Barlog and a tumble of ragged skins that might have contained a third body were scattered around one firepit. The outsiders sat by the other.
The taller said, “She is the one who touched us at Akard. Also the one who struck twice during the fighting. A strong one, well-favored by the All.”
The rag-skin pile stirred.
“But untrained,” the second outsider countered. “These ones who find themselves on their own are difficult to discipline. They never really fit in.”
This meth was very old, Marika realized. She had not noticed before. She had not looked at these intruders closely at all. This one had to be older than her granddam. Yet she remained spry enough to have made a long journey in a forced march, traveling without rest, and then had had energy left to help drive away or kill hundreds of nomads. What manner of meth was she? What sort of creatures were these meth of the packfast?
“Silth bitches,” she heard her dam murmur, as though she were still alive and crouching before the firepit, muttering about all the things she hated in her world. But at least Marika did not see her crouching there. Her mind was beginning to recover.
“We must take her back. That was, after all, the purpose of the expedition. To find the source of that touch.”
“Of course. Like it or not. Fear it or not. Khles, I have a foreboding about this one. A name comes to me again and again unbidden, and I cannot shake it. Jiana. Nothing good will come of her. She has that air of doom about her. Do you not sense it?”
The other shrugged. “Perhaps I am not sufficiently Wise. What of the others?”
“The old one is useless. And mad. But the huntresses we will take, too. While they remain in shock, unready yet to race into the wilds to avenge their pack and get themselves killed in the avenging. We never have enough help, and they have no other pack to turn to. Myself, I foresee them becoming far more useful than the pup.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps. Labor does have its value. Ho! Look there. See the little eyes glow in the firelight. She is a strong one, pushing back the chaphe sleep. Sleep, little silth. Sleep.”
Behind the two strange meth the pile of rag skins stirred once again. Almost seethed, Marika thought.
The taller outsider extended a paw toward Marika. Fingers danced. Moments later sleep came, though she fought it with all her will, terrified. And when
she wakened she remembered, but could not decide if what she recalled had been dream or fact.
The Wise made little distinction anyway. So what did it matter? She would accept all that as fact, though what she had heard made no sense.
CHAPTER SIX
I
Morning came. Marika awakened disoriented. Where were the noises of a loghouse beginning its day? The clatter, the chatter, the bickering were absent. The place was as still as death. Marika remembered. Remembered and began to whine.
She heard footsteps. Someone stopped behind her. She remained facing the wall. What a time to spend her first night in huntress’s territory!
A paw touched her. “Pup? Marika?”
She rolled, looked into Grauel’s face. She did not like Grauel. The huntress from Gerrien’s loghouse had no pups of her own. She was very short with others’ young. There was something indefinably wrong about her.
But this was a different Grauel, a changed Grauel, a Grauel battered by events. A Grauel shocked into gentleness and concern. “Come, Marika. Get up. It is time to eat. Time to make decisions.”
Barlog was doing the cooking. Marika was amazed.
She surveyed her home. It seemed barren without the jostle and snarl. All outsiders surrounding the firepit. How many outsiders had ever eaten here? Very few.
And a huntress cooking. Times were odd, indeed.
The food was what one might expect of a huntress who had cooked only a few times in her life, and then in the field. A simple stew. But Marika’s mouth watered anyway. She had not eaten since dawn the day before. Yet she did not gobble what Barlog handed her. She ate slowly, reluctant to get to what must follow. Yet the meal did end. Marika clasped her hands across her full stomach as Grauel said, “We three must decide what we will do now.”
Barlog nodded.
Last of the Degnan. Last of the richest pack of the upper Ponath. Some things did not have to be said. They could not wait for summer, then take new males and begin breeding back up. Especially as Grauel could not bear pups. There were no Wise to teach, no males to manage the packstead. Of food and firewood and such there was such a plentitude that that wealth was a handicap in itself.
Times were hard. If the nomads themselves did not come first, some pack left in tight straits by them would discover the wealth here and decide to plunder. Or move in. Two huntresses and a pup could not hold the palisade. Not unless the silth from the packfast stayed. And did so for years.
Marika suspected even a few days were out of the question.
Silently, she cursed the All. She stared into the embers at the bottom of the firepit, thinking of the wealth in iron and stores and furs that would be lost simply because the Degnan could not defend them.
Neighbors or nomads. There were plenty of both who would commit murder gladly now. Winter was ahowl and the grauken was loose in the world.
A few nomads had escaped the massacre yesterday. Marika did not doubt that there were others scattered about the upper Ponath. Were they gathering? Might their scouts be at Stapen Rock, watching, knowing the packstead could be taken easily once the strangers departed?
That was the worst of it. Thinking the nomads might get everything after all.
Grauel was speaking to her. She pricked up her ears. “What? I was thinking.”
“I said the sisters offered us a place in their packfast.” Loathing under strict control tautened Grauel’s voice. These meth were the silth whom Marika’s dam and granddam and Pohsit had so hated.
But why?
Grauel continued, “We have no choice if we wish to survive. Barlog agrees. Perhaps we can take new males and begin the line afresh when you have reached mating age.”
Marika shook her head slowly. “Let us not lie to ourselves, Grauel. The Degnan are dead. Never will we grow strong enough to recover this packstead from those who claim it.”
She had wanted to see the stone packfast inhabited by these meth called silth. But not at this price. “Run to the Laspe, Grauel,” she said. “Tell them. For a while, at least, let our wealth aid someone who shares our misery. They will have a better chance of holding it. And they will become indebted, so we would have a place to return one day.”
The silth, seated a short distance away, were paying no attention. Indeed, they seemed preoccupied with the male end of the loghouse. They whispered to one another, then did pay attention, as if very much interested in the huntresses’ response to Marika’s suggestion.
Grauel and Barlog were startled by the notion. It had not occurred to them, and probably could not have. Two packs sharing a stead was not unheard of, but it was rare.
Grauel nodded reluctantly. Barlog said, “She is as smart as her dam was.” She rose.
Grauel snapped at her. For a moment they argued over who would carry the message.
Marika realized that both wanted to get away from the packstead and its uncompromising reminders of disaster.
“Both of you go. That will be safer. There are nomads around still.”
The huntresses exchanged looks, then donned their coats. They were gone in moments.
For a long time the silth did nothing but sit staring into the firepit, as though trying to read something in the coals. Marika collected the eating utensils. As she cleaned them and stowed them away, the silth kept glancing at her. Occasionally, one whispered to the other. Finally, the tall one said, “It is time. She has not sensed it.” She came and got one of the bowls Marika had cleaned, filled it from the pot, carried it to the trap closing the cellar belonging to the loghouse males. She set the bowl down, opened the trap, blew aroma into the darkness below. Then she retreated, looking amused.
Marika stopped working, wondering what was happening.
A wrinkled, meatless, gray old paw appeared. Marika frowned. Not even Horvat…
A head followed the paw fearfully.
“Pohsit!” Marika said.
Pure venom smoldered in the sagan’s eyes. She snatched the bowl and started to retreat into the cellar.
“Stop,” the tall silth ordered. “Come out.”
Pohsit froze. She retreated no farther, but neither did she do as directed.
“Who is this, pup?”
“Pohsit,” Marika replied. “Sagan of this loghouse.”
“I see.” The silth’s tone said more than her words. It said that the feeling the sagan had for those of the packfast was reciprocated. “Come out of there, old fraud. Now.”
Shaking, Pohsit came up. But she stopped when her feet cleared the cellar stair. She stared at the silth in stark terror.
For an instant Marika was amused. For the first time in her young life, she saw the sagan at a genuine disadvantage. And yet, there Pohsit stood, even while shaking, with her paw making slow trips from bowl to mouth with spoonfuls of stew.
“That is the male end of the loghouse, is it not, pup?” the taller silth demanded.
“Yes,” Marika replied in a small voice. Pohsit was looking at her still, still poisonous with promise.
The sagan staggered. Her bowl and spoon slipped from her paws. Those flew to her temples. She screamed, “No! Get out of my head! You filthy witches. Get out.”
The screaming stopped. Pohsit descended like a dropped hide, folding in upon herself. And for a moment Marika gaped. That was the exact rag pile she had seen during the night when she was not sure whether or not she was dreaming.
Had Pohsit been up here then? But the silth seemed surprised by her presence. Seemed to have discovered her only recently.
No sense here….
But she had seen her dam, too, hadn’t she? And Pobuda. And many others who could not have been there because they were all dead. Or was that a dream?
Marika began to shake, afraid that she had begun to lose her grip on reality.
The alternative, that at times she was not quite firmly anchored in the river of time, she pushed out of mind the instant it occurred. That was too frightening even to contemplate.
“Just as I thought,??
? the taller silth said. “Terror. Pure cowardice. She hid down there thinking the savages would not look for her there.”
Hatred smoldered in the eyes that peeped out of the skin pile.
Marika sensed an opportunity to repay all the evil Pohsit had tried to do her. She had only to appeal to these meth. But Pohsit was Degnan. Crazy, malicious, poisonous, hateful, but still closer than any outsiders.
Grauel and Barlog would be pleased to learn that one of the Wise, and a sagan at that, had survived.
As though touching her thoughts, the older silth asked, “What shall we do with her, pup?” Marika now knew them for the creatures her elders had muttered against, but still did not know what silth were.
“Do? What do you mean, do?” She wished they would give names, so she could fix them more certainly in mind. But when she asked, they just evaded, saying their names were of no consequence. She got the feeling they were not prepared to trust her with their names. Which made no sense at all. The only other outsiders she had met, the wandering tradermales, insisted on giving you their names the moment they met you.
“We have looked into this one’s mind. We know it as we know our own now.” A whine escaped Pohsit. “We know how she tormented you. We know she would have claimed your life had she the chance. How would you requite such malice?”
The question truly baffled Marika. She did not want to do anything, and they must understand that. One did not demand vengeance upon the Wise. They were soon enough in the embrace of the All.
The older silth whispered, “She is too set in savage ways.” But Marika overheard.
The other shrugged. “Consider the circumstances. Might we not all forgive our enemies in a like situation?”
There was something going on that Marika could not grasp. She was not sure if that was because she was yet too young to understand, or because these silth were too alien to comprehend.
She had been convinced that Pohsit was mad for at least a year. Now the sagan delivered final proof.
Pohsit hurled herself out of the rag pile at Marika. An iron knife flashed, its brightness dulled by traceries of Bhlase’s poison. Marika made a feeble squealing sound and tried to crawl out of the way. Her effort was ineffective.