It rose. Smoothly and easily, it rose, amazing her. This was easy! She turned it, drove it toward Critza, brought it down a little roughly just a few feet from its original hiding place.
The wounded bath died moments later, drained of all her strength. The other passed out. Marika had drawn upon them too heavily.
Marika had nothing left herself. Darkness swam before her eyes as she croaked, “Dorteka! What is the situation?”
“They have gotten dug in. There are too many of them, and they still have a few silth left. Enough to block our dark-side attacks. We dare not assault them. They would cut us apart. I am hoping the mortars will give us the needed edge. You killed the leader?”
“Yes. It was a close thing, too. I had to trick her, then shoot her. Keep using the mortars to pin them down till I recover. No heroics. Hear?”
Dorteka gave her a look that said she was a fool if she expected heroics from her teacher.
Marika drained her canteen, ate ravenously, rested. Weapons continued to crackle and boom, but she noticed them not at all.
The Serke huntresses had gotten out of their transport with nothing but small arms. Thank the All for that. Thank the All that she had been able to think quickly aboard the darkship. Else she would be dead now and the Serke would soon be victorious.
The moment she felt sufficiently strong, she ducked through her loophole, found a monster of a ghost, flung it toward where the surviving Serke silth cowered, arguing about whether or not they should try to retreat to the two unharmed vehicles and flee.
They were terrified. They were ready to abandon their followers to their fates. The one thing that held them in place was their certain knowledge of what defeat would mean to their Community.
Marika sent, Surrender and you shall live.
One of them tried to strike at her. She brushed the thrust aside.
She killed them. She touched their huntresses and told them to surrender, too, then slaughtered those who persevered till she had no more strength. She returned to flesh. “The day is yours, Dorteka. Finish it. Round up the survivors.”
When it was all done neither Marika nor Dorteka had strength enough to touch Akard and let the garrison there know that the threat had been averted.
Grauel started fires and began gathering the dead, injured, and prisoners inside the ruins of Critza. She came to Marika. “All rounded up now.”
“Many surrender?”
“Only a few huntresses.” Her expression was one of contempt for those. “And five males. Tradermales. They were operating those vehicles.”
“Guard them well. They mean the end of the threat against the Reugge. I will examine them after I have rested.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I
The moons were up, sprawling skeletal shadows upon the mountainsides. As Marika wakened, it seemed she could still hear the echoes of shots murmuring off the river valley walls. “What is it?” Barlog had shaken her gently. The huntress wore a grim expression.
“Come. You will have to see. No explanation will do.” She offered a helping paw.
Marika looked at Grauel, who shrugged. “I’ve been here watching over you.”
Barlog said, “I moved the prisoners over here, where I thought we could control them better. I did not notice, though, till one of the males asked if they could have their own fire. I spotted him when the flames came up. Before that it was like he was somebody else.”
“What are you talking about?” Marika demanded.
“I want you to see. I want to know if I am wrong.”
Marika eased between fallen building stones, paused. “Well?”
Barlog pointed. “There. Look closely.”
Marika looked.
The astonishment was more punishing than a physical blow. “Kublin!” she gasped.
The tradermale jerked around, eyes widening for a moment.
Kublin. But that was impossible. Her littermate had died eight years ago, during the nomad raid that destroyed the Degnan packstead.
Grauel rested a paw upon Marika’s shoulder, squeezed till it hurt. “It is. Marika, it is. How could that be? Why did I not recognize him earlier?”
“We do not look for ghosts among the living,” Marika murmured. She moved a couple steps closer. All the prisoners watched, their sullenness and despair for a moment forgotten.
The tradermale began shaking, terrified.
“Kublin,” Marika murmured. “How?… Grauel. Barlog. Keep everybody away. Don’t say a word to anyone. On your lives.” Her tone brooked no argument. The huntresses moved.
Marika stood there staring, remembering, for a long time. Then she moved nearer the fire. The prisoners crept back, away. They knew it was she who had brought them to this despair.
She settled onto a stone vacated by a Serke huntress. “Kublin. Come here. Sit with me.”
He came, sat on cold stone, facing away from the other prisoners, who pretended not to watch. Witnesses. Something would have to be done….
Was she mad?
She studied her littermate. He was small still, and appeared no stronger than he had been, physically or in his will. He would not meet her eye.
Yet there was an odor here. A mystery more than that surrounding his survival. Something odd about him. Perhaps it was something in the way the other males eyed him beneath their lowered brows. Was he in command? That seemed so unlikely she discarded the notion immediately.
“Tell me, Kublin. Why are you alive? I saw you cut down by the nomads. I killed them…” But when the fighting ended, she recalled, she had been unable to find his body. “Tell me what happened.”
He said nothing. He turned slightly, stared into the fire. The other males came somewhat more alert.
“You’d better talk to me, Kublin. I’m the only hope you have here.”
He spat something derogatory about silth, using the dialect they had spoken in their packstead. He mumbled, and Marika no longer used the dialect even with Grauel and Barlog. She did not catch it all. But it was not flattering.
She patted his arm. “Very brave, Kublin. But think. Many of my huntresses died here today. Those who survived are not in a good temper. They have designs on you prisoners. Especially you males. You have broken all the codes and covenants. So tell me.”
He shrugged. “All right.”
He was never strong with her, Marika reflected. Only that time he tried to murder Pohsit.
“I crawled into Gerrien’s loghouse after dark. There was still a fire going in the male end. I tried to get to it, but I fell into the cellar. I passed out. I do not remember very much after that. I kept trying to get out again, I think. I hurt a lot. There was a fever. The Laspe found me several days later. I was out of my mind, they said. Fever and hunger.”
Marika drew one long, slow, deep breath, exhaled as slowly. Behind closed eyes she slowly played back the nightmare that had haunted her for so long. Being trapped in a dank, dark place, badly hurt, trying to climb a stair that would not permit climbing….
“The Laspe nursed me back to health, out of obligation. I must have been out of my head a long time. My first clear memories are of the Laspe three or four weeks after the nomads came. They were not pleased to have me around. Next summer, when tradermales came through, I went away with Khronen. He took me to Critza. I lived there till the nomads came and breached the walls. When it became obvious help from Akard would not arrive in time, the master put all the pups aboard the escape vehicles and helped us shoot our way out. We were sent someplace in the south. When I became old enough, I was given a job as a driver. My orders eventually brought me here.”
A true story, Marika thought. With all the flesh left off the bones. “That’s it? That’s all you can tell me about eight years of your life?”
“Can you say much more about yours?”
“What were you doing here, Kublin?”
“Driving. That is my job.”
A truth that was at least partly a lie, Marika suspected. He was hiding
something. And he persisted in using the formal mode with her. Her. When they had been pups, they had used only the informal mode with one another.
“Driving. But driving Serke making an illegal incursion into Reugge territory, Kublin. You and your brethren knowingly violated age-old conventions by becoming directly involved in a silth dispute. Why did you do that?”
“I was told to drive. Those were my orders.”
“They were very stupid orders. Weren’t they?”
He would not answer.
“This mess could destroy the brethren, Kublin.”
He showed a little spirit in answering, “I doubt that. I doubt it very seriously.”
“How do you expect the Communities to respond when they hear what brethren have done?”
Kublin shrugged.
“What’s so important about the Ponath, that so many must die and so much be risked, Kublin?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”
That had the ring of truth. And he had given in just enough to have lapsed into the informal mode momentarily.
“Maybe you don’t.” She was growing a little angry. “I’ll tell you this. I’m going to find out.”
He shrugged a third time, as though he did not care.
“You put me in a quandary, Kublin. I’m going to go away for a little while. I have to think. Will you be a witness for me? Before the Reugge council?”
“No. I will do nothing for you, silth. Nothing but die.”
Marika went away, amazed to find that much spirit in him. And that much hatred of silth. So much that he would not accept her as the littermate he had shared so much with.
Marika squatted beside Grauel. She nodded toward the prisoners. “I don’t want anyone else getting near them,” she whispered. “Understand?”
“Yes.”
Marika found herself a place beside the main fire, crowding in among her surviving novices. She did not pay them any heed.
Kublin! What was she to do? All they had shared as pups….
She fell asleep squatting there. Despite the emotional storm, she was too exhausted to remain awake.
Marika wakened to the sting of cold-blown snow upon her muzzle and the crackle of small-arms fire. She staggered up, her whole body aching. “What now?”
Snow was falling, a powder driven by the wind. A vague bit of light said it was near sunrise. She could see just well and far enough to discover that yesterday’s bodies and wreckage already wore a coat of white. “Dorteka! What is happening?”
“Nomads. There was a band following the Serke force. They stumbled onto the voctors I had going through the vehicles on the far slope.”
“How many are there?”
“I do not yet know. Quite a few from the sound of it.”
Marika moved out into the open to look across the valley. She was surprised at the effort it took to make her muscles carry out her will. She could see nothing through the falling snow. “I am still worn out. I used up far more of me than I thought yesterday.”
“I can handle this, Marika. I have been unable to detect any silth accompanying them.”
Marika’s head had begun to throb. “Go ahead. I must eat something. I will be with you when I can.”
The firing was moving closer. Dorteka hurried off into the falling snow. Marika turned, stiffly returned to the fire where she had slept, snatched at scraps of food. She found a half-finished cup of soup that had gone cold, downed it. That helped some almost immediately.
Stiffly then, she moved on to the prisoners.
Grauel sat watching them, her eyes red with weariness. “What is all the racket, Marika?”
Marika glared at the prisoners. “Nomads. Our friends here had a band trailing them, probably to take the blame.” They must have known. “I wondered why the reports mentioned sighting nomads but not vehicles.” She paused for half a minute. “What do you think, Grauel? What should I do?”
“I can’t make a decision for you, Marika. I recall that you and Kublin were close. Closer than was healthy, some thought. But that was eight years ago. Nearly half your life. You’ve gone different paths. You’re strangers now.”
“Yes. There is no precedent. Whatever I do will be wrong, by Degnan law or by Reugge. Get some rest, Grauel. I’ll watch them while I’m thinking.”
“Rest? While there is fighting going on?”
“Yes. Dorteka says she can handle it.”
“If you say so.”
“Give me your weapons. In case they get ideas. I don’t know if my talents would respond right now.”
“Where are your weapons?”
“I left them where I fell asleep last night. Beside the big fire. Go on now.”
Grauel surrendered rifle and revolver, tottered away.
Marika stared at the prisoners for a few minutes. They were all alert now, listening to the firing as it moved closer. Marika suspected they would be very careful to give no provocation. They nurtured hopes of rescue, feeble as those hopes might be.
“Kublin. Come here.”
He came. There seemed to be no defiance left in him. But that could be for show. He was always a crafty pup.
“What do you have to say this morning?” she asked.
“Get me out of this, Marika. I don’t want to die.”
So. He knew how much real hope there was for a rescue by the nomads. “Will you stand witness for me?”
“No.”
That was an absolute, Marika understood. The brethren had won Kublin’s soul.
“I don’t want you to die, Kublin. But I don’t know how to save you.” She wanted to say a lot more, to lecture him about having asked for it, but she refrained. She recalled how well he had listened to lectures as a pup.
He shrugged. “That’s easy. Let me run. I overheard your huntresses saying there were two vehicles that weren’t damaged. If I could get to one….”
“That’s fine for you. But where would it leave me? How could I explain it?”
“Why would you have to explain anything?”
Marika indicated the other prisoners. “They would know. They would tell when they are interrogated. You see? You put me into a terrible position, Kublin. You face me with a choice I do not want to have to make.”
The firing beyond the river rose in pitch. The nomad band seemed to be very large. Dorteka might be having more trouble than she had expected.
“In the confusion that is causing, who is going to miss one prisoner? You could manipulate it, Marika.”
She did not like the tone of low cunning that had come into his voice. And she could not shake the feeling that he was not entirely what he seemed.
“My meth aren’t stupid, Kublin. You would be missed. And my novices would detect you sneaking toward those vehicles. They would kill you without a thought. They are hungry for blood. Especially for male blood, after what they have learned here.”
“Marika, this is Critza. Critza was my home for almost four years. I know this land….”
“Be quiet.” Marika folded in upon herself, going away, opening to the All. It was one of the early silth lessons. Open to intuition when you do not know what to do. Let the All speak to your soul.
The dream returned. The terrible dream with the pain and the fever and the fear and the helplessness. That had been Kublin. Her mind had been in touch with his while he was in his torment. And she had not known and had not been able to help.
Grauel was right. Though he appealed to the memory, this Kublin was not the Kublin with whom she had shared the loft in their dam’s loghouse. This was a Kublin who had gone his own way, who had become something…. What had he become?
That horrible dream would not stay away.
Perhaps her mind was not running in appropriate channels. Perhaps her sanity had surrendered briefly to the insanity of the past several dozen hours, to the unending strain. Without conscious decision she captured a ghost, went hunting her novices, touched each of them lightly, striking them unconscious.
Dorteka, though, resisted for a moment before going under.
She returned to flesh. “All right, Kublin. Now. Start running. Go. Take one of your vehicles and get out of here. This may cost me. Don’t slow down for anything. Get away. I can’t cover you for long.”
“Marika….”
“Go. And you’d better never cross my path again, in any circumstances. I’m risking everything I’ve become for your sake.”
“Marika….”
“You damned fool, shut up and get out of here!” She almost shrieked it. The pain of it had begun gnawing at her already.
Kublin ran.
The other prisoners watched him go, a few of the males rising, taking a pace or two as if to follow, then freezing when they saw the look in Marika’s eye. Their mouths opened to protest as, slowly, as if of its own volition, Grauel’s rifle turned in her paws and began to bark.
They tried to scatter. She emptied the rifle. Then she drew the pistol and finished it.
Grauel and the surviving bath sister rushed out of the snowfall. “What happened?” Grauel demanded.
“They tried to run away. I started to nod off and they tried to run away.”
Grauel did not believe her. Already she had counted bodies. But she did not say anything. The bath looked studiedly blank. Marika asked her, “How do you feel this morning? Able to help me move ship?”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Good. We’ll start toward Akard as soon as Dorteka finishes with the nomads.”
The firing was rolling toward the river quickly, Marika realized.
Then she gasped, suddenly aware of what she had done. By knocking out the novices so Kublin could slip away, she had robbed her huntresses of their major advantage in the fight. They had no silth to support them. She plunged into the hollowness inside herself, reached out, found a ghost, flogged it across the river.
She had done it for sure. The huntresses were in retreat from a nomad party that had to number more than two hundred. Most of the novices had been found and slain where she had left them unconscious.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
She captured a stronger ghost. With it she hit the nomads hard, decimating them. They remained unaware of what was happening because so few could see one another through the snowfall. They came on, and they kept overtaking Marika’s huntresses.