Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Somehow the day no longer seemed so bright. And the child who had come running to greet her friend did not return to her picking at once but stood looking after the small train as it entered the town.

“Trouble.” Trusla did not need that warning from Simond. She half expected to see clouds gathering in the sky overhead. They were there right enough, but they were small and as fleece-white as the Dales sheep.

However, it was enough to send them both back themselves, though they kept a slower pace, letting the distance between them and the travelers widen. There were other surprised calls as those three came into the town. By the time they had reached the Trade Master’s headquarters, a number of people, some who had so abruptly left their jobs that they still carried tools in their hands, began to mass there.

Odanki appeared silently out of nowhere and with his bulk and the natural air of a guardsman opened a passage for Trusla and Simond. They found the room already crowded with townspeople—though only the Sulcar drover had come to face the Trade Master.

Neither Inquit nor Frost were there, but the Watcher had a prominent place on the long lounge.

“Alward, his mate, their sons, dead.” The Sulcar newcomer held out his hands in a wide sweep as if to suggest the complete disaster he was mentioning. “Their beasts torn apart as well—and no was-bear alone could kill so. Also this is the season when those seek the heights, not the tundra. And this I swear, by the Ruler of Storms, there was no weapon mark on them that we could find—but their bodies were so ill used…” his face was gray now and he swallowed convulsively twice before he continued, “that we could not be sure. Godard came for me after he found them and we dealt with them as best we could. Their supplies were not looted, but rather bestially defiled. Then, since I had my hearthwoman and my daughter with me, we came back here, for all must know. Perhaps other prospectors such as Alward have also been so slain.

“Trade Master, I was mate on the Thunderer and served at three raidings along the Alizon coast. Yet never have I seen such bloody work as this. Nor were there any true trails.”

“Alward…” the Trade Master repeated as if he could not believe what he heard. His gaze swept for a moment beyond the speaker and lit on Simond.

“Lord Simond, what news had you out of Arvon? Could evil fester up from there?”

“Not at last reporting,” Simond replied. “There are the Mantle-lands as far north as we have recorded and no great trouble reported newly there.”

“From the north.” The Watcher’s dry voice nearly covered his last words. “This comes from the north. Alward spoke of traveling toward the Fangs of Gar this season, did he not? And you, Othor, did you not head in that general direction also?”

“It is so, Watcher,” he agreed. “We left together with our trains, Alward and his sons and my close kin, and did not separate until the third day out. He had some thought of trying the stream before the Fangs, for Hessar has done well there and this year turned to the west where no one else had gone.”

“You say there were no trails,” the Trade Master said. “Yet I know your hunting eye, Othor, and surely you sighted something.”

The man loosened a small bundle fastened to his belt. “Only this, Trade Master.”

The bundle seemed to consist of a great many folds. When finally he lay it open, those about him shrank back as far as they could, for there arose from a small twist of grayish hair he showed a violent stench. Trusla recognized it at once. Once smelled, it could never be forgotten—stinkwolf !

“Not in the tundra,” one of the men near them said in quick denial. “They are of the southern broken lands and do not venture far from their foul dens. ’Tis said that they cannot live apart from close to where they are whelped and that the land itself rises to kill them if they try to do so.”

“Enough!” The Trade Master was waving a hand and Othor quickly rewrapped his bundle, though the smell seemed to linger on.

“It calls.” The Watcher’s face was twisted in an expression of deep distaste. “Dark summons Dark. If trouble moves from the north, then it may well be drawing to it now anything which will aid it—even as a cruising captain may summon other ships to join him in a raid upon wreckers.”

“Trade Master,” Othor demanded, “news must be sent to all the trappers, the prospectors. Our camps are never large and they can be easily picked off, one by one, by whatever creeps upon us now.”

“True.” The Trade Master looked to the Watcher. “Can the Recall be given?”

“If it is not already too late.” There seemed to be no wish in her to be reassuring, and those listening now had dour expressions. There was a murmuring and a stirring.

Trusla slipped out with Simond, determined to find Frost, while Simond himself headed to contact the captain. As she went, she speculated unhappily about what this new threat would mean to them. They had decided to hire a guide and a pack train within a day or two and head out in the direction Hessar had chosen for his season’s labors, for the captain was certain, and both Frost and In-quit appeared willing to back him, that the location of the stream in which the plaque had been found would be the point from which they would start their search.

More than ever she wished that she had talent—to be like the woman in some bard’s song who could summon up from the earth itself dead heroes buried centuries since in order to form an army of the Light. As it was, she was sure that, even with all the inhabitants of End of the World armed and ready, they could not hope to put a full troop in the field. Nor could they mount any of those fighters. She was a passable archer only; her art was but newly learned under Simond’s direction. Sword work was beyond her, she had not the strength to swing a battle blade. But her knife was skilled and she had what Simond called a natural talent for throwing the perfectly balanced blade that was always with her.

She had nothing more—no spells. The sand—the jar of sand? She had used it in Audha’s aid, yes, but as a restorative, not a weapon. Anyway, when and if she ventured forth from this earth-bound town, she intended to take it with her.

There was Frost’s gem and Trusla was duly aware that the witch jewel had such powers as one could hardly speculate upon. What Inquit could summon up she could not guess.

But somehow of this she was sure: their real search had not yet begun and it would not be stopped here by a skirmish with the unknown.

She called her name before the door of the house which had been turned over to Frost and Inquit. A small chirp answered her and the door was edged back, with some effort, by Kankil, who reached up to grab Trusla’s hand and draw her in.

Like any hearthwife, Inquit was busy turning the contents of a skillet at the fire so that the fresh-caught fish on it would be evenly browned. And Frost, her long sleeves well rolled up, was tasting critically the contents of a pot she had just swung away from the greater heat of the inner fire.

To see the two of them busied at homely tasks was oddly reassuring, perhaps more so than if she had come in upon some summoning of Power. They seemed in good accord with each other and secretly she was glad that the sourish Watcher was not here to put them all upon their dignity.

But Frost let the spoon drip most of its contents into the fire, which blazed up in answer.

“There is trouble,” she said. Trusla almost believed she heard the faintest of sighs as if the witch gathered up again, for bearing an ever-present burden.

She waved Trusla to a seat on one of the cushions. Though In-quit did not lay aside her long-handled fork and her fish did not suffer from lack of tending, she, too, was watching the girl.