Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Then the thunder and breaking in huge fountains of white spray, while the soaked soil shook under Baj's muk-boots, vibrated like a drumhead.

Nancy came to stand beside him, looking up as he looked up, and raised her voice to nearly a shout. "It isn't a get-used-to thing!"

"No, it isn't." He saw the making of their centuries of cruel weather, the destruction of ancient Warm-times represented by this magnificent thing – that of course proved no Lord Winter, but matters senseless, and much greater than even a God's deciding.

"Come eat," Nancy spoke into his ear, and they walked hand-in-hand over rubble and freezing drift, though air drafty with blowing mist, heavy with the odors of ice and stone.

… Though Baj's aches and injuries, already much less painful, wouldn't have troubled him after a second evening's bellyful of goose and its grease, roasted over horded dried dung – the Wall's earth-shaking, its crashing sounds, did not permit a night's sleep in more than snatches. So he rose – as they all, and the companies rose – weary in a bitter morning, to their rye-porridge.

It seemed to Baj, despite the night – and present noise – that the glacier's towering front had become slightly more peaceful.

"Probably," Richard said when he mentioned it, "- summer melt's ending, so it'll be a little quieter every day. Already be starting to freeze hard in places along the rim. Let three, four WT weeks go by, you could camp here in almost quiet… And after that, in very quiet, though rivers run beneath it always. – Lord Winter's piss, the Shrikes say."

Errol stood up with porridge on his chin, and pointed over the outwash plain, its ponds and lakes gleaming with night ice. More than a mile away, past a great mounded drumlin-hill, a herd that must have been thousands of caribou was lacing through frozen cirques and melt-leads… Baj could make out swifter, smaller shapes sifting through the herd's edges. Wolves.

"No better hunting," Nancy said, "- than before the Wall." Her breath steamed in the frigid air.

"For white fox, white weasel, white hare, wolf, white bear, musk-ox and caribou." Patience was packing her possibles. "The white bears also hunt us."

Errol, still staring out at the caribou, was jogging in place as if to chase them.

Nancy clapped her hands for his attention. "Come sit!" He turned to her… wandered over.

"What when he's grown," Baj said, "- and won't come when called?"

Errol stared at Baj, head cocked.

Baj smiled at him, though his sewn right cheek felt stiff as he did. "Yes, I'm talking about you – but not in a bad way."

"He knows when we talk about him," Nancy said. She tongue-clicked for his attention, patted a space of hide beside her. "Want to come sit?"

Errol stayed where he was, turned his head to watch the caribou.

"And when he's grown?"

"Baj," Richard smiled, rolling his blanket, "none of us are likely to have much more time to grow."

"Why," Baj said, "do I keep forgetting that?"

"Because you wish to." Patience stood, shrugged on her pack.

"Because you're a fool." Nancy came, crouched, and began to tickle him.

"Don't." Baj tried to get up and get away. "- I'm wounded!" But she tickled anyway.

Richard tugged on his furred muk-boots. "We have company."

Four mounted Persons were galloping toward them – their mooses' splayed hooves making rapid dull thump-thump-thumps over drifts of till.

"The General." Richard stood up. Baj and Nancy as well.

Sylvia Wolf-General rode in among them as she had before, as if to use her saber – it seemed to Baj her accustomed approach – and pulled up hard in the same sliding stop as her troopers followed, her big mount tossing strings of clear slobber.

"You," she said, the harsh wood-saw voice. She pointed a long black-nailed finger at him, "- You have had what sword-play I permit, and cost me a Banner-bearer. Never again, in any camp of mine or near it, whatever the future we go to."

"Understood, ma'am." Baj bowed to her.

"Not good enough, Son-of-great-ghosts." She reined her sidling mare-moose still, and stared down at him.

Looking up into that inhuman – more than human – face, a carnivorous mask with lady's eyes, Baj felt sudden admiration for her, and for the Boston-Talents whose centuries of merciless mind-making and science of so-tiny bits had resulted at last in such savage perfection… And, of course, in his darling Nancy.

"I understand, ma'am – and will obey."

The Wolf-General nodded. "Now, you four and your idiot-boy listen to me. We part here, we to march east along the Wall – and you, to rest the day. Rest, eat your rations, and so be ready to climb with Dolphus-Shrike and his people at first light, tomorrow." Her lip lifted from an eye-tooth. "They are lying Sunshiner barbarians, and certainly treacherous when it suits them. But they are what you have – and you are what they have – so make do." She stilled her restless mount. "… Remember, once you get to Boston's North Gate – you are to wait 'till we reach the south of the city. Only then, when their Constables reinforce south to meet our assault, go in with your Shrikes and do… what must be done."

The Wolf-General sat for a few moments, staring at them. "We will at least divert and keep the Constables busy for you. We will hit them hard, with all our strength. – But I promise, if you fail to free our people's mothers from their lives, I will not fail to free you from yours." She spun the mare-moose rearing, spurred it… and was gone, her troopers after her, back to their busy preparing camp, where trumpets were announcing preparations to march.

"… And Dolphus," Richard said, "- comes right after."

Baj turned and saw the Shrike trotting over icy waste toward them, carrying a heavy pack, his javelins tied in a slender bundle over his shoulder. Seven more savages were coming with him, each in caribou parkies, each burdened, each armed.

"Baj," Patience touched his arm, "- and you, Nancy, both of you guard your tongues with these people. Shrikes are clever, and Dolphus-Shrike speaks very well and has read deeply in Warm-time's copybooks. But a savage he remains – forget it, insult his shade of home ice or his uncle, and he and his men will cut your livers out if feeling kind… or skin your head and let you wander screaming, if not feeling kind."

"Shrikes on the one side," Baj said, "Sylvia Wolf-General on the other."

"- And Boston waiting." Nancy drew her scimitar, and sat with a piece of tallow to tend the blade from icy mist gusting now and then.

"You can joke with the Shrikes," Richard said, "but be sure they know you're joking… We go with them to likely kill a few of their sisters."

"We'll be very courteous." Baj found he was feeling fairly well… no longer as sore, head or shoulder, though the cracked cheekbone was tender, and likely would be for a while.

"Good morning!" Dolphus-Shrike trotted to them.

"Good morning, Chieftain," Baj bowed.

"Ah…" Dolphus blew out frosting breath. "The Champion has been warned not to upset such a collection of ice-dwelling brutes as we are."

"To a point," Baj said.

"Of course. With everyone, it's only to a point before points come out." He gestured his men forward. "Here's Henry… Marcus… Christopher… Paul, and so forth. These last three are too worthless to name." The last three – all like the others, short stocky men with blond or ginger hair, round-faced, light-eyed, and apparently pleasant – grinned file-toothed, and nodded.

Each Shrike was burdened by a bulky pack, weighty rolled hides, and thick coils of greased, braided leather line. They also belted pairs of light adze-hatchets (hatchets for ice, it seemed to Baj, since each narrow head had a curved back-spike), and carried as well, a row of steel hooks, snap-circles, and grapnels clinking along a rawhide bandoleer.