There was no trail. Enough snow had fallen, and had been blown, to bury their southbound trail.
When they were closer and the packfast was more distinct, Marika saw that there had been changes. A long feather of rumpled snow trailed down the face of the bluff below the fortress, like the aftermath of an avalanche. Even as she walked and watched, meth appeared above and dumped a wheelbarrow load of snow, which tumbled down the feather.
The workers had been doing that all winter, keeping the roofs and inner courts clear, but the mound had never been so prominent. It had grown dramatically in five days. Marika was curious.
The workers saw them, too. Moments later something touched Marika. The other silth received touches too. The sisters would be waiting when they arrived, anticipating bad news.
Why else would they have returned so soon?
Marika sensed a distant alien presence as they began the climb from the river. The other silth sensed it, too. “On our trail,” one said.
“No worry,” the other observed. “We are far ahead, and within the protection of our sisters.”
Even so, Marika was nervous. She watched the rivercourse as she climbed, and before long spotted the nomads. There were a score of them. They were traveling fast. Trail had been broken for them. But they never presented any real threat. They turned back after reaching the point where the travelers had begun their climb to the packfast.
The sisters—and many of their dependents—were waiting in the main hall. Many were males. Marika was astonished. She asked Braydic, “What happened? What is this? Males inside the fortress.”
“My truesister decided to bring everyone inside the wall. Nomads were prowling around out there every day while you were gone. In ever greater numbers. Only the workers have been going out. Armed.”
Marika had noted the workers clearing the snow away from the north wall, hoisting it to the wall’s top and barrowing it around to the spill visible from the river.
“They have gotten very bold,” Braydic reported. “My truesister feared they might have good reason. We might even need the males.”
Senior Koenic called for a report from Marika’s party.
Bagnel did the talking. He kept it simple. “They were all slain,” he said. “Everyone in Critza, both brethren and those we gave shelter. Except a pawful who got out on the carriers. The wall was breached with explosives. The nomads took some arms and everything else. They were unable to penetrate the armory. We blew that before we left the ruin. Though I am sufficiently realistic to know you would not, if you were to ask my advice, I would tell you you should ask your seniors to evacuate Akard. The stakes have been raised. The game has sharpened. This is the last stronghold. They will come soon and come strong, and they will make an end of you.”
Marika was both mystified and startled. The former because she did not understand all Bagnel was saying, the latter because Senior Koenic was considering the advice seriously. After reflection, Senior Koenic replied, “All this will be reported. We are in continuous contact with Maksche. I have my hopes, but I do not believe they will take us out. It seems likely the Serke Community is helping the nomads in an effort to push the Reugge out of the Ponath. I expect policy will be to stand fast even in the face of assured disaster. To maintain the Reugge face and claim.”
The tradermale shrugged. He seemed indifferent to the world now that his mission was complete. His home had been destroyed. His folk were all dead. For what did he have to live? Marika understood his feelings all too well.
She worried his remarks about the Serke and evacuation. That baffled her completely. It had something to do with those parts of her education that had been left vague deliberately. She did know that competition between sisterhoods could become quite vigorous, and that there were centuries of bad blood between the Serke and Reugge. But she never imagined that it could become so intense, so deadly, that, as the senior implied, one sisterhood would help creatures like the nomads to attack another.
That meeting did nothing but frighten everyone. Only a few of the older silth, like Gorry, refused to believe that the danger was real. Gorry remained convinced that any nomad assault would see the surrounding countryside littered with savage corpses while leaving Akard entirely unscathed.
Marika was convinced that Gorry was overconfident. But Gorry had not seen Critza….
Even that might not have convinced the old one. She had reached that stage of life where she would believe only what she wished to be true.
II
Marika visited Braydic in the communications center the morning after her return. Even now she became mildly disoriented if she passed too near the tree and dish on top, but her discomfiture was nothing like that experienced by most of the Akard silth. Braydic believed she would conquer it entirely, given time.
Braydic had several communications screens locked into continuous operation. Each showed different far meth at work in very similar chambers. “Is that Maksche we are seeing, Braydic?” Marika asked.
“That one and that one. They are not going to evacuate us. You know that? But they want to keep close watch on what happens here. I believe they hope the nomads do attack.”
“Why would they want that?”
“Maybe so they can find out for sure if the Serke are behind everything. The nomads will not be able to break in against silth without silth help. Though that would not be proof enough in itself. If we take prisoners and questioning reveals a connection, then Reugge policies toward the Serke would harden. So far it has been one of those cases where you know what is happening and who is doing it, but there has been no court-sound proof. No absolute evidence of malice.” Braydic shuddered.
“What?” Marika asked.
“I was thinking of Most Senior Gradwohl. She is a hard, bitter, tough old bitch. Cautious on the outside but secretly a gambler. As we all do, she knows the Reugge are weaker than the Serke. That we stand no chance in any direct confrontation. She might try something bold or bizarre.”
Marika did not understand all this talk of the Serke and whatnot. She did know there was no friendship between the Reugge and Serke communities, and that there seemed to be blood in it. But the rest was out of that knowledge that had been concealed from her for so long. Now the meth spoke as if she were as informed as they.
She was not as naive as she pretended either.
“What might be an example?”
Braydic was more open than the silth, but there were things she never discussed either. Now, in her distraction, she might be vulnerable to the sly question.
Braydic had learned her trade at the cloister in TelleRai, which was one of the great southern cities. In her time she had encountered most of the most senior sisters of the Reugge and other orders. She had been a technician of very high station till her truesister’s error had gotten the pair of them banished to the land of their birth. Marika often wondered what had caused their fall from grace, but never had asked. About that time and that event Braydic was very closed.
“A sudden direct attack upon the Ruhaack cloister springs to mind. An attempt to eliminate the seniors of the Serke Community. Or even something more dire. Darkwar, perhaps. Who knows? Bestrei cannot remain invincible forever.”
“Bestrei? Who is Bestrei? Or what?”
“Who. Bestrei is a Mistress of the Ship. The best there is. And she is the Serke champion, thrice victorious in darkwar.”
“And darkwar? What is that?”
“Nothing about which you need concern yourself, pup. Of faraway meth and faraway doings. We are here in Akard. We would do well to keep our minds upon our own situation.” Braydic eyed a screen spattered with numbers. Marika could now read displays as well as her mentor. This was a reference to a problem with a generator in the powerhouse. “You will have to leave now, pup. I have work to do. We are getting some icing out there, despite the fires.” Braydic called the powerhouse technicians. While she awaited their response she muttered something about the All-be-damned primitive equipme
nt given frontier outposts.
Braydic was not in a communicative mood. Marika decided there was no need pressing for something she could not get. She abandoned the communications center for her place upon the wall.
The wind was in its usual bitter temper. A steady but light snow was falling, confining the world to a circle perhaps a mile across. It was a world without color. White. Gray shadows. The black of a few trees, most of which appeared only as blobbish shapes floating on white. Marika wished for a glimpse of the sun. The sun unseen for months. The peculiar sun that had changed color during the few years she had been in this world, fading slowly through deeper shades of orange.
At long last Braydic had let fall what the winters were about. She said the sun and its gaggle of planetary pups had entered a part of the night that was extremely thick with dust. This dust absorbed some of the sun’s energy. It had hastened a planetary cooling cycle already centuries old. The system would be inside the dust cloud for a long time to come. The world would get very much colder before it passed out. That would not happen in Marika’s time.
She shivered. Much worse before it got better.
Below, workers continued the endless task of carrying snow away from the wall. The restless north wind brought drifts down almost as fast as they could carry it away.
Farther up the headland, other workers were building a plow-shaped snowbreak intended to divert blowing, drifting snow into the valley of the eastern fork of the Hainlin, away from both the wall and the powerhouse on the Husgen side.
Marika spotted Grauel among the huntresses watching over the workers on that project. She raised a paw. Grauel did not see her. She was wasting no attention on the packfast.
Nomad parties had come within touch of the silth twice during the past night. One party had been large. Their movements suggested they were maneuvering according to the plan Bagnel had wrung from a prisoner down at Critza.
Several silth were out with the workers, adding their might to that of the guardian huntresses. Marika was surprised to see Khles Gibany among them. But Gibany never had permitted her handicap to control her life.
She looked very strange bobbing around on crutches specially fitted so she could travel on snow.
Marika went inside herself and found her loophole. She slipped through into the realm of specter. And was startled to find it almost untenanted.
Strange. Disturbingly strange.
There were moments when the population of ghosts numbered more or less than normal, times when finding one appropriate to one’s purpose was difficult, but never had she seen the realm so sparsely occupied. Marika came back out and looked for a sister on watch.
The first she found answered her question without her having to ask. The truth was graven on the silth’s face. She was frightened.
This, if ever there was one, was a time for a nomad attack. The power of the Akard silth would never be weaker.
Marika hurried back to her place, waved at the workers and Grauel.
The news had reached Senior Koenic, Marika saw. The silth of Akard had begun to come to the rampart. Outside, the working parties had begun gathering their tools. Everything seemed quite orderly, indicating preparation beforehand.
Indicating planning not communicated to Marika.
She was irked. They never bothered telling her anything, though she considered herself an important factor in Akard’s life and defense. What was wrong with these silth? Would they never consider her as more than a troublesome pup? Did she not have a great deal to contribute?
Workers already within the walls were being armed. Another facet of planning of which she had been left ignorant. She was surprised to see males mount the walls bearing javelins.
Marika sensed the nomads approaching before the last workers started for the packfast gate. She did not bother reporting. She reached out and touched Khles Gibany. They come. They are close. Hurry up.
Hobbling about, Gibany hurried the workers and formed a screen of huntresses bearing spears and shields. But she allowed no one to become precipitate. Even for silth tools were too precious to abandon.
Marika sensed the enemy in the snow. They were approaching Akard all across the ridge. There were thousands of them. Even now, after so many years of it, Marika could not imagine what force could have drawn so many together, nor what power kept them together. The horde the wehrlen had brought south had been implausible. This was impossible.
The forerunners of the host appeared out of the snow only a few hundred yards beyond Khles Gibany and the workers. They halted awhile, waiting for those behind to come up. Gibany remained cool, releasing no one to return to the fortress unburdened with tools.
Perhaps she was unconcerned because she believed she was safely under the umbrella of protection extended by her silth sisters.
Marika sensed a far presence not unlike that of her sisters. She tried to go down through her loophole to take a look, but when she got down there she could not find a single usable ghost. Without ghosts she could but touch, and there was little chance of touching without her reaching for someone she knew. It was certain she could effect nothing.
She returned to the world to find the forerunner nomads howling toward Gibany’s group. Fear seized her heart. Grauel was out there! Javelins arced through the air. A couple of nomads fell. Then the attackers smashed against huntress’s shields. Spears and swords hacked and slashed. The nomads screeched war cries. The line of huntresses staggered backward under the impact of superior numbers. A few nomads slipped through.
Marika realized that these attackers were the best the nomads had. Their most skilled huntresses. They were trying to effect something sudden. One nomad suddenly shrieked and clasped her chest, fell thrashing in the snow. Then another and another followed. The silth had found something to use against them, though their range seemed limited and the killing was nothing so impressive as other slaughters Marika had witnessed.
The swirl of combat began to separate out. Still forms scattered the snowfield. Not a few were Akard huntresses, though most were nomads. The nomads retreated a hundred yards. The silth seemed unable to reach them there. Marika went down through her loophole and found that it was indeed difficult to reach that far. There were a few ghosts now, but so puny as to be jokes. She retired and watched the nomad huntresses stand watch while the Akard workers and huntresses continued their withdrawal.
Khles Gibany. Where was Gibany? The crippled silth was no longer there to direct the retreat. Marika ducked through her loophole again and went searching.
She could not find a body…. There. Somehow, the nomad huntresses had managed to take Gibany captive. What had they done? The Khles was unable to call upon her talent to help herself. And Marika, though she strained till it ached, could not apply enough force to set her free.
Nomad males with farming tools came forward. Two hundred yards from the snow break they began excavating trenches in the old hard-packed snow. They threw the dugout snow to the Akard side of the trench, used their shovel to beat it into a solid wall.
Marika became aware that someone had joined her. She glanced to her right, saw the tradermale Bagnel. “They learned at Critza,” he said. “Curse them.” He settled down on the icy stone and began assembling a metal contraption he had been carrying since his initial appearance at Akard. Marika saw his two brothers doing likewise elsewhere.
Out on the snow, beyond the trench, nomad workers had driven a tall post deep into the snow. Now they were laying a layer of rock and gravel around it. Others stood by with arms loaded with wood. Marika was puzzled till she saw several huntresses drag Gibany to the post.
They tied the one-legged silth so her foot dangled inches from the surface. They then piled wood around her. Even from where she watched, Marika could sense Gibany’s fear and rage. Rage founded in the fact that she could do nothing to halt them, for all she was one of the most powerful silth of Akard.
“They are taunting us,” Marika snarled. “Showing us we are powerless ag
ainst them.”
Bagnel grunted. He mounted his metal instrument upon a tripod, peered through a tube on top. He began twisting small knobs.
A runner carrying a torch came out of the snowfall, trotted up to where Gibany was bound. Marika slipped through her loophole once more, hearing Bagnel mutter “All right,” as she went.
There was not a ghost to be found. Not a thing she could do for Gibany, unless—as several silth seemed to be doing already—she extended her touch and tried to take away some of the fear and agony soon to come.
Thunder cracked in her right ear.
Marika came back to flesh snarling, in the full grip of a fight-flight reflex. Bagnel looked at her with wide, startled eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you.”
She shook with reaction while watching him fiddle with his knobs. “Right,” he said. And the end of his contraption spat fire and thunder. Far out on the snowscape, the nomad huntress bearing the torch leapt, spun, shrieked, collapsed, did not move again.
Marika gaped.
Facts began to add together. That time in the forest last summer, when she had heard those strange tak-takking noises. The time coming down the east fork with Khles Gibany and Gorry when the nomads attacked…
The instrument roared again. Another nomad flung away from Gibany.
Marika looked at the weapon in awe. “What is it?”
For a moment Bagnel looked at her oddly. Along the wall, his brethren were making similar instruments talk. “Oh,” he murmured. “That is right. You are Tech Two pup.” He swung the instrument slightly, seeking another target. “It is called a rifle. It spits a pellet of metal. The pellet is no bigger than the last joint of your littlest finger, but travels so fast it will punch right through a body.” His weapon spat thunder. So did those of his brethren. “Not much point to this, except to harass them.” Bam! “There are too many of them.”
Below, the last of the workers and huntresses were coming in the gate. Only one of Akard’s meth remained unsafe: Khles Gibany, tied to that post.
The nomad huntresses and workers had thrown themselves into the trench the workers had begun. Now Marika saw another wave hurrying forward from the forest beyond the fields. She could just make that out now. The snowfall was weakening.