Glen Cook - Doomstalker

He passed the blades back to Arhdwehr.

Khronen continued, "I know, sister. That is why we are here. Seeking the source. And doing much what you are."

"Which is?"

"Exterminating vermin."

"The last I heard, the upper Ponath was classified a Tech Two Zone."

"Your communications are more reliable than mine, sister. I have no far-toucher. I presume it still is. Is the pup your commer? I would not have guessed it of one of the Degnan."

Marika's ears twitched. Something about the way he said that ... He was lying.

"Dark-walker," Arhdwehr replied. She slipped a paw into a belt pouch, removed something shiny, passed it over. "Those who shatter the law should take care to clean up their back trail."

Khronen fingered the object, grunted, passed it to his right. Both males stared at Marika. Khronen's face became blank. "Dark-sider, eh? So young, and with her dam's temperament. A dangerous combination."

"Impetuous and undisciplined, yes. But let us discuss matters more appropriate to the moment. You will be in communication with Critza after we depart. Remind your seniors that Critza's walls mark the limit of brethren extraterritoriality in the upper Ponath. Only within those limits is overteching permissible. Most Senior Gradwohl is immutably determined on such points."

"We will relay your admonition, if we should discover a male far-toucher hidden in the crowd here. Though I doubt anyone there needs the reminder. How was the hunting, sister?" He did not look at Arhdwehr at all, but continued to stare at Marika. So did the male on his right.

She wondered what was on their minds.

"You would know better than I, I suspect," Arhdwehr replied. "You have eyes that see even where silth cannot."

"Here? In a Tech Two Zone? I fear not, sister. We have had a bit of luck, I admit. We have helped a few hundred savages rejoin the All. But I fear it is like bailing a river with a leaky teacup. They will breed faster than we can manufacture javelins."

Marika had noticed few pups anywhere. The numbers of old and young both were disproportionately small among the nomads she had encountered.

Some sort of fencing was going on between Arhdwehr and the tradermale. But whatever it was about, it was not dangerous. The other males went back to what they had been doing, occasionally glancing her way as though she were some strange beast that talked and behaved with inexcusable manners. She began to feel very young and very ignorant and very self-conscious.

She backed several steps away. "Grauel, there is more going on in this world than we know."

"You are catching on only now?"

"I mean-"

"I know what you mean, pup. And I had thought your innocence was feigned. Perhaps you do not hear as much in silth quarters as we do in ours."

"Silth do not gossip, Grauel."

Barlog said, "Perhaps she does not hear because she does not listen. She sees no one but that communicator creature." Barlog continued to watch Khronen with as much intensity as he watched Marika. "They say you may be in line for a great future, pup. I say you will never see it until you begin to see. And to hear. To look and to listen. Each dust mote has a message and lesson, if you will but heed it."

"Indeed?" Barlog sounded like one of her teachers. "Perhaps you are right. Do you know Khroten, Barlog? Is there something between you two?"

"No."

"He was Laspe. Dam knew him when he was a pup."

Barlog had no comment.

Arhdwehr rose, walked back to where she had left her javelin stuck into the earth. She yanked it free, trotted up the trail along which the hunting party had approached the male camp. The others followed in a ragged file. Baffled, Marika joined them. Grauel trotted ahead of her, Barlog behind. She glanced back before she left the clearing. Khronen was watching her still. As was his companion. They were talking.

Marika wondered if the party ought not to double back after a while-

Arhdwehr kept a steady pace all the way to the place where they had left their packs. Marika fell into the rhythm of the run and spent the time trying to unravel the significance of what had happened during that long and bloody day.

Two nights later the hunting party crossed the east fork of the Hainlin, headed north. The remainder of the season was uneventful. Marika spent most of her time trying to learn the lesson Barlog claimed she needed to learn. And she practiced pretending to be what she was supposed to be. She succeeded well enough. She managed to get back on Arhdwehr's good side. As much as ever anyone could be.

Early snows chased them back to Akard ten days earlier than planned. Marika suspected the upper Ponath was in for a winter more fierce than the past three.

She also felt she had wasted a summer. All that blood and anger had done nothing to weaken the nomads. The great hunt had been but a gesture made to mollify those shrill and mysterious silth who ruled the Reugge from afar. Only one result was certain. Many familiar faces had vanished from among Akard's population.

Marika visited Braydic even before she made her initial courtesy call upon Gorry. She told Braydic all about her summer, hoping the communicator's reactions would illuminate some of what she had seen. But she learned very little.

Braydic understood what she was doing. She was amused. "In time, Marika. In time. When you go to Maksche."

"Maksche?"

"Next summer. A certainty, I think, from hints my truesister has dropped. If we get through this winter."

If.

I

Marika was four years too young to be considered a true silth sister, yet she had exhausted the knowledge of those who taught her. In less than four years she had devoured knowledge others sometimes did not master in a lifetime. The sisters were more frightened of her than ever. They very much wanted to pass her on to the Maksche cloister immediately, but they could not.

It was yet the heart of the fourth winter. Nothing would move for months. The snows lay fifteen to twenty feet deep. In the north, in places, the wind sweeping across the fields had drifted it to the top of the packfast wall. The workers had dug tunnels underneath in order to connect the fortress with the powerhouse. It was essential that the plume water be kept running. If the powerhouse froze up, there would be no communication with the rest of the Reugge sisterhood.

The times were strange in more than the personal way Marika knew. By staying near Braydic whenever she was free, she had begun to catch snatches of messages drifting in from Maksche. Messages that disturbed the older silth more then ever.

For a long time the Reugge Community had been involved in a sort of low-grade, ongoing conflict with the more powerful Serke sisterhood. Lately there had been some strong provocations from the stronger order. There were some who suspected a connection with strange events in the upper Ponath, though no hard accusations were made even in secret. The Akard sisters were afraid there was truth in that, and that the provocation here would escalate.

As near as Marika could tell, it seemed to be packwar on a grand scale. She had never seen packwar, but she had heard. In the upper Ponath that meant a few isolated skirmishes, harassment of another pack's huntresses, a rather quick peak into a confrontation which settled everything. Often the fighting was ritualized and consisted entirely of counting coup, with the big battle ending the moment of the first death.

Unless there was blood in it. Bloodfeud was different. Bloodfeud might be fought till one side fled or boasted no more survivors. But bloodfeud was exceedingly rare. Only a few of the Wise of the Degnan had been able to recall the last time bloodfeud plagued the upper Ponath.

The louder the north wind howled and the more bitter its bite, the more Marika met it in her place upon the wall, and whispered back of the coldness and darkness that had found their homes within her mind. There were moments when she suspected she was at least half what Gorry accused, so savage were some of her hatreds.