Glen Cook - Doomstalker

Grauel agreed. "You are the youngest, and one of the least popular silth. None can dispute that. But your unpopularity is of your own making, Marika. Though you have been trying. You have been trying. Ah. Wait! Listen and reflect. If you apply reason to your present circumstance, you will have to admit there is no one in Akard more suited to this, the rest of the situation aside. You have become skilled in the silth's darkest ways. The deadly ways. You are young and strong. And you endure the cold better than anyone else."

"If one might dare speak freely before a sister," Barlog said again, "you are whining like a disappointed pup. You are shifting blame to others and refusing responsibility yourself. I recall you in your dam's loghouse. You were not that way then. You were a quiet one, and a dreamer, and a pest to all, but mistress of your own actions. You have developed a regressive streak. And it is not at all attractive in one with so much promise."

Marika was so startled by such bold chiding that she held her tongue. And as she marched, pressed by the pace the tradermales set, she reflected upon what the huntresses had said. And in moments when she was honest with herself, she could not deny the truth underlying their accusations.

She had come to pity herself, in a silth sort of way. She had come to think certain things her due without her having to earn them, as the silth seemed to think the world owed them. She had fallen into one of Gorry's snares.

There had been a time when she had vowed that she would not slip into the set of mind she so despised in her instructress. A time when she had believed her packstead background would immunize her. Yet she was beginning to mirror Gorry.

Many miles later, after much introspection, she asked, "What did you mean when you said 'so much promise,' Barlog?"

Barlog gave her a look. "You never tire of being told that you are special, do you?"

When Marika threatened to explode, Grauel laid one hard paw upon her shoulder. Her grip tightened painfully. "Easy, pup."

Barlog said, "One hears things around the packfast, Marika. They often talk about you showing promise of rising high. As you have been told so many times. Now they are saying you may rise higher than anyone originally suspected, if they teach you well at Maksche cloister."

"If?"

"They're definitely going to send you come summer. This is fact. The senior has asked Grauel and I if we wish to accompany you when you go."

There was a chance that had not occurred to Marika. Always she had viewed Maksche with great dread, certain she would have to face a totally alien environment alone.

A hundred yards along, Grauel said, "She is not all ice water and stone heart, this Koenic. She knew we would follow, even if that meant walking all the miles down the Hainlin. Perhaps she recalls her own pack. They say she came as you did, half grown, from an upper Ponath pack, and Braydic with her as punishment for their dam having concealed them from the silth. Their packstead was one of those the nomads destroyed during the second winter. There was much talk of it at the time."

"Oh." Marika marched on, for a long time alone with her thoughts and the moonlight. Three moons were in the sky now. Every riverside tree wore a three-fingered paw of shadow.

She began to feel a subtle wrongness in the night. At first it was just something on the very edge of perception, like an irritating but distant sound mostly ignored. But it would not be ignored. It grew stronger as she trudged along. Finally, she said, "Grauel, go tell that Bagnel to stop. We are headed into something. I need time to look ahead without being distracted by having to watch my feet."

By the time Grauel returned with Bagnel, she knew what it was. The tradermale asked, "You sense trouble, sister?" In the field, working together, he seemed to have an easy way about him. Marika felt almost comfortable in his presence.

"There is a nomad watchpost ahead. Around that bend, up on the slope. I can feel the heat of them."

"You are certain?"

"I have not gone out for a direct look, if that is what you mean. But I am sure here." She smote her heart.

"That is good enough for me. Beckhette." He waved. The tradermale he called Beckhette was what he called his "tactician," a term apparently from the tradermale cult tongue. The male arrived. "Nomad sentries around the next bend. Take them out or sneak past?"

"Depends. They have any silth or wehrlen with them?" The question was addressed to Marika. "Our choice of tactics must hinge on which course allows us the maximum time undiscovered by the horde."

Marika shrugged. "To tell you that I will have to walk the dark."

Both Bagnel and Beckhette nodded as if to say, go ahead.

She slipped down through her loophole, found a ghost, rode it over the slopes, slipping up on the nomads from the far side. She was cautious. The possibility that she might face a wild silth or wehrlen disturbed her.

They were sleepy, those nomad watchers. But there were a dozen of them huddled in a snow shelter, and with them was a male who had the distinctive touch-scent of a wehrlen. And he was alert. Something in the night had wakened him to the possibility of danger.

Marika did not withdraw to confer. She struck, fearing the wehrlen might discover her party before she could go back, talk, and return.

He was strong, but not trained. The struggle lasted only seconds. Pulling away, craft touched her. She squeezed her ghost down to where it could affect the physical world, undermined the shelter, brought tons of snow down upon the nomads before they fully realized they were under attack.

She returned to flesh and reported what she had done.

"Good thinking," Bagnel said. "When they are found it will look like a regrettable accident."

From that point onward Marika did not daydream. She lent all her attention to helping her sisters locate nomad watchers.

The tradermales insisted on taking the last few miles over a mountain. They were convinced they would encounter a strong nomad force if they continued to follow the watercourse. They did not want to waste their silth surprise by springing it in a struggle for the survival of a pawful.

They made that last climb in sunlight, among giant, concealing trees far larger than any Marika had yet seen in any of her wanderings. She was amazed that life could take so many different forms so close to her ancestral home-though she did reflect that she and Grauel and Barlog had wandered more of the world than any of the Degnan since the pack had come north in times almost immemorial.

They smelled smoke before they reached the ridgeline. Some of the huntresses thought it from the hearth fires of Critza, but the tradermales showed a frightened excitement which had nothing to do with an anticipation of arriving home. They hurried as if to an appointment with terrible news.

Terrible news it was.

From the heights they looked down on the hold which had been the traders' headquarters. Somehow, one wall had been broken. Smoke still rose, though no fire could be seen. The snowfields surrounding the packfast were littered with bodies. Marika did not immediately recognize what they were, for they appeared small from her viewpoint.

Bagnel squatted on his hams and studied the disaster. For a long time he said nothing. When he did speak, it was in an emotionless monotone. "At least they did not take it cheaply. And some of ours escaped."

Not knowing why she did so exactly, Marika scratched his ears the way one did when comforting a pup. He had removed his hat to better listen for sounds from below.

He looked at her oddly, which caused her to feel a need to explain. "I saw all this happen at my packstead four years ago. Help came too late then, too."

"But it came."