Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

"And we don't go today?" Patience said.

Dolphus shook his head. "No. A day of rest is in order for ice-virgins such as yourselves – though I know you're familiar, lady. A day of rest, first – and it seemed to me we might as well camp together. Begin to understand each other."

"Fair enough," Baj said.

The Shrike grinned. "I'm so glad you agree. And, Warm-times' 'by-the-bye,' we'll bring more burden for you. Rope lines, seal-jerky and so forth. We cannot carry your everything."

"Again, fair enough," Baj said.

"Now…" Dolphus and his men began to shed their packs and equipment, one tossing chunks of dung on the fire to increase its heat."- Now, I don't know what Sylvia and her people told you of our timing. I wasn't invited to the General's pavilion, being only a Sunriser tribesman… But this is how we'll go. We climb the Wall, which will take," he looked them over, "will take at least six or seven days, with possibly a halt to rest you." He smiled. "- After which, we meet friends, then run the ice certainly more than two WT weeks north and east to Boston Township, killing any unluckies we encounter along the way, to keep our secret."

"More than two weeks?" Baj said. It seemed unfair to have come so far, and still have farther to go. Traveling over the ice…

Dolphus-Shrike nodded. "Oh, yes. – Then, with luck, and after a time snow-buried by the North Gate, we'll find the Guard come up south of the city to join us, slow as always, and with a longer way to go… They'll have marched up the Crease, where the glacier's split open, to leave their mounts and find easy climbing. Then met our freighter-sleds – twelve teamers – to accommodate all their supplies, their armored numbers, their… notions of civilized campaigning."

He turned to look at the Wall, was silent for a moment, then turned back. "In the morning, we will not linger. So, at first light, you'll finish furring; see your blankets are rolled tight and tied where you buckle your packs; strap swords – and that ax, Captain – to your packs to be out of the way, climbing… And you will wear the mittens. They'll be corded to your sleeves, so when you need your hands bare to climb, take them off, then mitten-up right after. If a finger or toe turns black, we cut it off. If a hand or foot – the same. And who slows us too much, we also cut off." A smile. "I hope I don't sound cruel."

One of his men – Marcus – said, "No, no, never cruel," and the other Shrikes grinned. They seemed to Baj a merry group.

"A last few matters," Dolphus said, kicked stones away, and sat by the fire. "We will lend you ice hatchets, two to each, and expect their return. We will also lend you strap-spikes for your muk-boots, and expect those to be returned… And lady," to Patience, "if you can Walk-in-air up the Wall, more power to you; you're with us now, not the Guard." It was the first time Baj had heard that copybook phrase actually used. More power to you…

"And eat," Marcus-Shrike said, settling alongside his chief with the other tribesmen.

"Yes," Dolphus said. "Eat rich while you can; we'll hunt ducks, today."

"Drink water." Marcus.

"Yes, drink a lot of water." Dolphus took something – a piece of seal-blubber – from a parky pocket, held it out to the fire for a moment, then began chewing it. "And now, Tender-ones – rest, doze, nap like babies… Oh, is there one among you who considers him or herself useful at pick-up sticks? Would care, perhaps, to wager?"

"I might," Patience said… And that game had just commenced, when trumpets announced from the camp. Then drums. And as Baj, Nancy, Richard and several Shrikes stood to watch, the leading elements of the Guard swung from their pebble-drift camp, and marched out, unit by unit, splashing through milky run-off on their way.

Scouts were trotting south of east, to come to easier marching along the Wall. Banners came behind them – and among them, Baj could see the Wolf-General quite clearly. She seemed to be laughing at something one of her staff-officers had said.

And behind her, in long columns, the companies marched in step, arms and armor gleaming in morning light. The bloods of infantry – bear and wolf – their drums thumping, were spaced between Supply's pack-moose and two-wheel wagons, and the trotting squadrons of near-Sunriser troopers… whose trumpeters, loping past the ranks, sounded the first notes of "Yanking Tootle" as they rode.

Watching those formations… those solders go – old Sergeant Givens certainly perched on a wagon, with his barrels and baked goods – Baj felt his fathers standing beside him.

Just-before-dawn was announced by an avalanche thundering off the Wall – to startle all of them, even the Shrikes.

"Wall calls," a sleepy tribesman said, and awake, the Shrikes, with Baj and the others, gathered around a fresh-started dung fire to warm themselves a little in freezing silvery air, and eat frost-coated pieces of yesterday's ducks.

Food finished, and all having scattered into the landscape to do the necessary, equipping began of possibles, extra coiled leather line, rolled blankets, fat leather sacks of seal-jerky and strips of frozen blubber. Ice hatchets, cords looped to their handles, were thrust through belts, weapons all strapped firm to back-packs, and full canteens and water-skins swung on cords beneath parkies to keep their water liquid.

"Here…" Dolphus-Shrike distributed leather masks with dangling rawhide ties, each narrowly slit for vision. "Wear them when the sun is out, or the ice will blind the fool who doesn't."

A sad loser of many honor-promises to Patience, playing pickup sticks the evening before, the Shrike-chief seemed a little out of temper. "… Also, since our princeling here," he went to Baj's pack, plucked and tugged to test straps and lashings, "- since he was lightly touched in his so-honorable duel, we will make a morning's allowance for that, and haul him up where he must be hauled. But from this after-noon, Champion, you do your own work."

"Understood."

" 'Understood…'" Dolphus and another Shrike, Christopher, walked behind each, including fellow tribesmen, tightening, yanking at pack-straps and whatever load's rawhide ties.

Finished, they all stood thickly furred, slightly bent under bulky burdens – the Shrikes most encumbered with coils of braided line, and their jingling bandoleers of steel hooks, rings, and little grapnels.

Dolphus-Shrike looked the party over, nodded, then turned to Nancy. "Women have difficulty holding their water, then have to bare butt to lose it. Done your pissing?"

"Fuck you," Nancy said. And at a glance from Patience,"… Just joking."

Dolphus smiled, his first of the morning. "- And no one has packed what is not needed to live?"

"… Little chess set," Richard said. "The Common Prayers of Warm-time Oxford."

The Shrikes were amused.

"We're ready," Baj said.

"Then," Dolphus said, "- catch us if you can." The Shrikes all turned together and trotted away north, where the Wall – a flock of sailing geese only infinite specks across its gleaming front – grumbled awake to a rising sun.

… It took two glass-hours of fast marching across moraine – much of the time skirting streams and a shimmering lake of milk-white melt – to reach the base of the Wall.

The thunder and volley of toppling ice, the seething rapids they hiked beside – the Shrikes moving steadily – echoed to Baj something of the sounds of Warm-times, at least as he'd always imagined them… continuous racket, rushing, roaring, thumping, flushed with color and busy with millions of men and women racing here and there in bright, whining machines – having work adventures and love adventures and crime and war adventures… Of course, there must have been boredom, discontent – those appeared in the copybooks, as well – but surely very little and only among fools, when the whole world was open to them, and warm… warm, so winter for them was only an interesting season's passage.