Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Patience laughed. "Over tundra is deceitful viewing. Try almost twice that."

And as she said it, the changeable frigid winds brought from the west – once… then again – the faintest reedy fluting of pipes, the faintest rumble and boom of kettle-drums… music sounding, then silenced, then sounding again with contrary breezes.

Richard cocked his great head, "The Guard, marching. We are to be met."

"… But that music," Baj said, "- doesn't it warn that they're coming?"

"They don't care whether it warns or not," Nancy said, and spit to the side.

"Still many miles away," Richard said, listening. "Patrolling to meet us along the plain's border – or perhaps only to strike the Fishhawks… what's left of them."

"But marched down from the Shrike campaign, from that fighting." Nancy looking to the western tundra, empty of all but cold wind and distant music "Come as Patience said they would."

"To meet us as friends?"

"As friends, Baj," Nancy said, "- or not."

"Wolf-General decides," Richard said, shrugged under his big pack, and strode off to the west.

"See…?" Nancy looked up, pointed.

High above – higher than she usually now Walked-in-air – Patience wheeled west in a flutter of blue coat-tails… Baj thought he saw her glance down at them, indicate the way with her sheathed scimitar.

… Hiking with Nancy side-by-side, Baj found some reluctance in going with her toward that faint wind-broken music. Holding his hand as they managed awkward tussocks, Nancy seemed changed in the last days, as if a different girl with fox's blood – perhaps a sister – had come to him, golden eyes tart-sweet as honey-lemon candy… And matters seemed to be shifting in Baj, so now-and-never-before ran within him like a summer spring.

… Hints of that music had come to them all through the day's difficult traveling – over bog, where clouds of the season's last mosquitoes rose… then on smooth mossy stretches and ankle-sprain tussocks. But only the wind's hum and whistle sounded through a bitter night under racing moonlit clouds. There was no cover, no shelter on the tundra plain, no makings for a fire. After diminished scraps of cold mutton, there was only the shelter of sleep… Errol huddled against Richard under his blanket, and Baj and Nancy warmed each other, wrapped in wool and discovery.

Fairly at ease in her worn blue coat only, Patience took first watch, and sat in moonlight on a tussock with her scimitar across her lap, her white hair blowing in the icy wind now steady from the Wall. She listened for her baby's breathing in her mind – heard nothing, but still thought, "Coming to you, my darling," just in case… And he might have listened, for she thought she felt – was almost certain she felt the baby's so-dear, dimpled, pudgy hand seize and enclose her left arm, gripping hard for comfort, so her fingertips tingled.

… The morning was still and frosted, the dawn sky just brightening to jeweled blue when Nancy, on last watch, woke them to a definite distant melody, pipes in a cheery wheedling tune.

"'Yanking-tootle,'" Richard said, rising massive from his blanket, yawning Errol spilled aside, "- a copybook song for morning marching. Now we get up…up! Eat, and drink water-pee, and poop. The scouts will find us before mid-day."

After meager bites – the last of the mutton – and hasty gulps of icy water, the party divided. Patience and Nancy, with no shrubs, no tree cover but knee-high dwarf willow, went off to one side while Richard and Baj turned their backs – Baj reaching to turn Errol as well. Then the males went out to the other side of tundra to toilet.

Pissing, Errol looked up, made his clicking noises – and Baj, following his gaze, saw a great herd drifting far to the north. Three… four Warm-time miles away. Drifting north, apparently grazing on the sedge grasses and lichen as they went.

"Caribou."

"Yes," Ricard stood watching them. "Small herd."

"Small herd?"

"Baj, I've seen them take two days and nights up here, to pass. With wolves and grizzled bears following."

Rattling tongue-clicks from Errol. The boy's empty blue eyes filled with attention… longing.

"He loves chasing, and the end of chasing." Finished, Richard shook his odd member, tucked it away. "Speaking of which, better if we go to meet the Guard, than have them come for us like hunters."

"Yes." Baj laced his buckskins. There was a little flutter in his chest at this end to traveling only with friends. Accustomed traveling… Now, Nancy would not be as safe, would not be only with friends. He imagined for a moment (childish imagining) that regiments of the Army-United – come a thousand miles north and east – stood in formation at their backs, with the certain new king, old One-eye Howell Voss, sitting his charger at the van and joking with his officers, complaining about the mess-cooks' breakfast.

An imagining that left no comfort behind.

Baj settled his pack and quiver – paused to kneel and brace his bow – then loosened sword and dagger in their sheaths, and held out his hand as Nancy came to him. "Stay close to me."

She gave him a look. "I have my sword."

"I know. I'm depending on your protection." And received a sharp elbow to the ribs.

A rustle in the air above them as they hiked – the morning wind still very cold under a rising sun. "They're coming," Patience said, swung so low that Baj could have jumped to touch her greatcoat's hem. "- And I see no other Talents Walking-in-air above them."

Baj stared ahead… but saw nothing but tussock grasses combing in the wind. Heard the distant merry tune piping on.

They walked west – spots in the tundra occasionally coldly wet and soft enough so they sank almost to their knees, and had to haul their moccasins sucking out. " A few WT weeks ago," Richard said, marching a little hunched under his big pack, "- warm as it gets so close to the Wall, the mosquitoes would be coming up in numbers to choke you, breathing them in."

Baj said, "Thanks for small blessings, then." And when Errol suddenly stopped and stood staring, glanced past him and saw something running toward them. Coming at a gallop.

"Another one," Nancy said, and pointed to the right. "They're stupid, barely Persons at all…"

Two. Coming at a run and very fast.

For a moment, Baj thought they were deer, only trained somehow to scout. Certainly they were four-legged hooved things. Then he saw that the front legs bent at elbows, and ended in knot-knuckled hands… Small packs and scabbarded light hatchets rode their backs where saddles might have gone. Their skin, mottled brown, seemed hairless… their necks – longer than men's necks – curved up to small heads barely human, with eyes set wide as horses'.

One, galloping up, called, "Whooo?" in tenor very like an owl. The other echoed him. – Her; Baj saw two soft breasts between the long front limbs. Both scouts stood restless, a short bow-shot away.

"Richard from Shrike!" Richard called. "Once, a captain of the Guard!"

"Patience!" Patience called, sweeping down to settle. "Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley. Citizen… in exile."

The closer Scout nodded, intelligent enough to take that in, then turned her head to examine Baj… Nancy.

"Baj!" he called to her, "- who was Bajazet, of Middle-Kingdom."

The Scout stared, and shook her head slightly, as a horse might have. The other stood silent.

Nancy called, "Nancy… from Thrush! And this boy is Errol, once scrubber to H-Company Mess, Second Regiment!"

"I know youuuu," the Scout said, lifted her long, inhuman right arm, and pointed with thick-caloused knuckles.

Nancy said nothing.

"All understood," the Scout hooted – then suddenly wheeled, and galloped away.