Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Nor did she turn her head to look at them, but marched steadily up the gangplank, Odanki a step or so behind, the creature still held in her arm. Trusla eyed that warily. Sharing a cabin with another woman was one thing, but that the shaman had brought a pet with her…

However, they stood a little away from her as the ship cast off moorings and they began their journey to the open sea—luck cheers from those thronging the walk rising even above the cries of their wisewoman and her followers.

Trusla hesitated for a moment and then made her way to the shaman. “Wise One, our cabin lies this way.”

Those dark, oblique eyes fastened on her and the woman nodded. Now that she was close enough, the girl could better see the creature in the wisewoman’s arms. At first she thought it a child bundled so heavily in furs that only a section of its reddish face and two large eyes were visible.

Then the shaman set it carefully down. Though it stood on its hind feet, this was no child. It was entirely covered, except for the palms of its quite humanlike hands and face, with thick dark hair over which lay an outer sheen of silver as if every tip bore frost. With one of those hands it held tightly to the shaman’s bead-twisted legging-boots; the other was at its mouth as it stared over its fists at Trusla.

“The little one?” she ventured. ,No child, nor pet—she had heard at Lormt and Estcarp of some workers of Power who augmented their strength by energies drawn from nonhuman beings. Was this one such?

The Latt woman was smiling, her hand dropping to the round furred head which she smoothed soothingly.

“This be Kankil, who has chosen my tent as her home. Such seldom trust our kind, but when they do, then those so chosen are greatly blessed. Yes, she serves in the Power.”

Trusla had not been aware of any mind-reading touch, but perhaps this reading of her question had been only a guess on the other’s part.

“Now.” The Latt came forward a step or so and held out her other hand, Kankil coming with her. “The naming of names is given only among friends—do you also have that custom?”

“Some of us.” Trusla nodded, her attention divided between the shaman and her small companion. “I am Trusla, as the Lord Mangus named me—my true name. So also is it with Simond, who is my dear lord.”

“And in our tents I am Inquit. For between us there lies no shadow of the Dark. But you are not of these sea people, these Sulcars, blessed as they are for the helping hands they reached to us.”

“No, I come from a southern land—Tor Marsh. And my lord also bears a portion of such blood, for he is son to Koris of Gorm, also of Tor Marsh breed and now Lord Marshal of Estcarp.”

Kankil suddenly loosed her hold of Inquit’s legging and skipped to Trusla. No one could see in this mite any danger. The girl dared greatly and smoothed the small head turned up toward her, feeling fur softer than spider silk beneath her fingers.

“It is well. Now we share tent.” Inquit laughed. “Though I do not think it will be as large as those within my tribe’s holding.”

Trusla felt soft furred fingers steal into her hand and she grasped them gently, turning to lead the way to their cabin. She felt a queer touch of shame as if she regretted she had no better to offer. Some of Simond’s gear was still piled in a corner, for they had no other place to put it and the interior was in Trusla’s eye woefully crowded. Inquit’s tribesman had dropped her pack by the door and she pulled it in while Kankil leaped out of the way onto the bunk.

“One always learns from journeying,” Inquit observed. “The Sulcars live mainly on their ships—it is good that they are so large, for then their quarters can better serve such as we are.”

Trusla had pulled open one of the cupboards below the bunk, and then indicated the pegs on the wall, on one of which already swung her fishskin storm coat. She must get another for Inquit also.

The Latt shaman was already busy with her pack and Trusla edged past her beyond the door to give her full room to arrange her belongings as best she could.

Already she herself felt a little unsteady at the rise and fall of the ship; they must be nearing where the canal gave upon the sea. She hoped she would not disgrace herself as she had the first three days of this voyage when her stomach had rebelled against her.

The boat rocked perilously and chunks of ice sometimes nudged against the sides. A skin boat, not even honest wood, and how long would it be before the sea had her?

Audha huddled in upon herself. Rogar had stopped moaning long ago in this piece of the Netherworld which had caught them fast. She hoped dully his torment was over now, as the end had come to Lothar Longsword and Tortain Staymir earlier. If she were a true battleman of Skitter’s line, as she had always believed she was—false, false pride—she would rock this miserable excuse for a boat and bring an end to torment.

Sooner or later the sea would have them all, dead and alive, but some small core within her kept her from bringing it all to a quick finish. A Sulcar endured to the end, unless, like the great Osberic, he could die taking with him the enemy in force.

What she had seen in the past few days made her believe that the Light had indeed forsaken this world. Could icebergs sail with a direct purpose, herd a ship? She would have said that that was a story to frighten a boastful child. Yet—by the Ruler of Storms, this she had seen, had suffered with all others of the Flying Crossbeak .

They had been bound farther north than usual, Captain Harsson having had good trade the previous season with End of the World, that post which clung to the very edge of the unknown. She was a wavereader and this had been only her second voyage as such without a mistress waver to oversee her reports.

Audha bit down savagely on the ice-rusted edge of her frozen sea cloak. She would take blood oath before the very inner altar that she had not erred. Their voyage had been easy—in the beginning.

It seemed then the bergs had been spewed forth out of the night itself like harpoons of the flipper hunters. By morning’s light there had been a shifting wall of giant drifting ice before them. One no prudent captain would dare to think of threading.

And it centered on them! By the Ruler of Storms—the stuff had centered. Though they changed course, so did the bergs. Men who had spent nearly all their lives in the northern trade had watched unbelievingly. And the waves—she had watched until her eyes had nearly frozen solid, but the patterns made no sense.

Instead, out of nowhere, had come a current, seeming to spread from the bergs to catch upon them. They fought to come about, to retreat before what they could not understand—using every trick of seamanship countless generations had passed along.

But always the ship had been driven westward, though they fought fiercely to gain the open sea they could sight in the east. There had been no wind; the frosted sails gave them no aid. At length the captain had ordered the longboat to be put over with rowers to see whether, as a last resort, they could break free of the path of the bergs.

Audha shuddered—her mind kept going back always over the past. If they had done this, or tried that… But there had been no real choice. For then, out of nowhere, had come the fog, and the boat was swallowed up by it. It almost seemed that they had a chance in spite of veering blindly.

Until… until—oh, Blessed Mother in the Deeps—they had heard those shrieks and cries, and moments later, before they could stand to arms, the demons had been upon them, clambering over the sides of the Flying Crossbeak in a filthy wave.

The fog had served those well, covering their attack from their small skin boats which crowded around the ship like maggots on a poor dying thing.