Rork! (9 page)

A light which might have been that of someone whirling a stick of match-punk.

But it might have only been his imagination, or retinal strain aggravated by peering through the dangerous darkness.

Norna, when it did grow light, said that there was no point to running until they found flatter or at least more gentle ground — free from snow if possible. They might stumble among the rocks and any injury could easily prove fatal … how far could he carry her, or she, him? They might come to regard recapture as a blessing. He commended her common sense, proceeded thereafter at a safer and a less exhausting pace.

It was Norna, too, who had given thought to provisons, had stolen food from the Mister’s scanty larder, and carried a coal of fire in a shell wrapped in mud and moss (from time to time refreshing it with what dry fungus they found on route); it was Norna who pointed out certain shrubs whose wood burned without smoke — it was too soon to pause to build a fire, but the shell, passed from hand to hand, kept their fingers warm. Alone, he realized, he would have stood little chance of making good his escape. It remained to be seen how good their chances were, together.

“Shall we try for the shore?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No path keeps for long there.” Sooner, rather than later, the cliffs would force them back inland. No easy route was open to them. Haggar’s lands were nearest, but Haggar was an open ally of Flinders, had accompanied him on his last raid; they dared not be seen by him or his people. But if they cut across the unoccupied corner of his land they would find themselves on Owelty’s grounds, and close by — for the corner was a narrow one — Nimmai’s territory marched, too. Either Mister was bound to afford them sanctuary, or to conduct them to whatever place would.

“And they doesn’t love Flinders, neither one.”

So she reasoned, and reasoned well enough. But evidently Flinders had reasoned the same, for about mid-morning she cried out. Before he could so much as speak, she had seized his arm and, together, they turned in their tracks and darted back into the woods from which they had just emerged. There, safe for the moment from observation, they gazed at the ridge for which they had been making.

A line of tiny black figures climbed along it in double file.

“Flinders …” Lomar breathed.

“Maybe. Or maybe Haggar. If it’s Haggar, Flinders has alerted him. But I thinks it’s likelier Flinders, for if he asks Haggar to help him, he musts share ransom with him. Flinders wishen’ts to do that, you know, Ranny.”

His hand felt for his farseer, but of course it was not there. The orders that he should not be stripped had protected it, but he had taken it off when he slept, the first night, thrusting it into a niche in the wall when he hoped that Tig was not awake to see. It had remained there, so far as he knew.

So far as he knew!
For if Tig knew, if Tig had revealed it, if any of them had figured out how to work it, then Lomar and Norna were in worse plight than they had thought. So, slowly, he told her. She sighed.

“Let’s hopes they hasn’t got it, or the use of it. But we can’t chance it. We must keeps to the woods, much as we can, even though — ” her voice faltered, and, for the first time, he saw something … fear? … not quite … despair? … not yet…. Dismay.

“Norna? ‘Even though — ’? Tell me.”

She looked directly into his eyes, and said, “Even though it takes us into Rorkland.”

An involuntary, startled
“Oh!”
escaped him. He said to himself that it was the cold which made him shudder. He repeated to himself that the old records must be considered more reputable and authentic than latter-day legends, present Station personnel being too indifferent and both Wild Tocks and Tame too ignorant to be believed. And yet, once again, without his willing it, up from the depths of his mind and soul, came that
“Oh!”
bursting from his stiffened lips.

And again, he shuddered.

Norna said, “It’s luck that Cold Time’s here. The rorks will be changing their skins.”

“Yes, I know,” he muttered, swinging his arms to keep warm. It
was
luck. All agreed that in Cold Time the rork were sluggish, not dangerous…. Or, at any rate, not so dangerous. Didn’t even the Tame Tocks, whose corrupted vocabulary scarcely included the word or concept of “Courage” — didn’t even they venture into Rorkland during Cold Time? Yes, they did. Of course they did.

But they did so in full force, often accompanied by armed Station personnel. They did not do so alone, or au pair, and with no defenses save their own hands and feet and native wit. No….

It was useless for him to pretend that he was unafraid. The rorks were too different, vastly much too different, and the encouraging reports too long ago and the terrifying ones too recent, for him not to fear. Better the devil one knew. He turned to her, to tell her that it was best that they return. And she, still looking directly at him, said, “I won’t be too afraid, because you be with me.”

His open mouth closed upon his counsel of retreat. ‘Tan Carlo Harb, for whatsoever reasons (and Lomar knew that the reasons would be neither all good nor all bad), would certainly give
something
to effect his man’s release, not the things that Flinders wanted, of course, but enough, disguised as “presents for assistance” or some such face-saving device. And Flinders, faced with take-it-or-leave-it, and a boatload of … what? … sulphur, some sulphur could certainly be spared, coarser food (it would be delicate to Flinders), enough scrap metal for a few pair of matchlocks, and clothes worn slightly enough to be allowed him instead of a favored Tame Tock servant, but so slightly that he’d never know the difference … what else? … outmoded furniture, perhaps … Flinders would settle for that, and return Ran Lomar (
Three,
but with an assimilated rating of
seven
) with his head and testicles intact. He would hardly dare do otherwise. Yet.

But what about Norna? The SO’s tastes were not inclined towards women.
They count her as a Tock, damn them,
her father — now stiff and cold in the Mister Flinders’ powder shed — had said. Not even as a half-breed. New blood or not, no, Harb would give nothing at all for her. Certainly not if he heard (as he must) that the Mister Mallardy’s heir-son was willing to ransom her. If he was.

“You don’t fancy Jun, do you?” Lomar asked.

Her face sickened a bit. Perhaps she had followed his train of thought. “He’s always being after me,” she said, low-voiced. “While my old dad was there, I could says No. But he’s be glad to ransom me. And if he pays, he takes me.” She added no further word of elaboration, but her face told her feelings, clear enough.

“Well, he won’t,” said Ran. He took her cold, cold hands in his. “We’ll skirt through Rorkland till we can cut back into friendly soil again. Come on.” She didn’t move. “Come on,” he repeated, giving her arm a tug, “let’s get going.”

He turned once to peer through the covering trees. Had they been discovered? or their location even suspected?

But the last of the double-file of tiny figures was toiling over the crest of the distant ridge, heading away from them. Pursuit seemed lost, for now.

• • •

It did not remain lost forever. Late that afternoon, climbing a wooded hill, he yielded to an impulse several minutes in the growing, and shinned up the mossy sides of a slant tree. Norna said that a hollow place between the ground and the massy roots, made large by the tree’s gradual lean towards one side, would be of good use for a small, smokeless fire of feen-wood. But a sudden hiss from above put an end to her preparations, and brought her quickly up the tree to just below him. He pointed.

At first she could see nothing; then, following his hand, afar off she saw a black dot passing across a clearing in the distance. His hand moved, pointed, moved, pointed, moved …

… pointed. And every place where the index finger indicated showed another black dot. Moving forward steadily, in a thin and drawn-out line. It could only be men. And the men could only be seeking … them.

Down on the ground again, they allowed themselves the small, brief comfort of warming their hands on the tiny and just lighted fire. Then they kicked snow over it, and were off. The pursuers were moving at a diagonal. It was not possible to say just how long the line was, the background landscape was too broken and in places too wooded to allow for that. Nor could they calculate either how many people were following, and extrapolate from that. It could only be certain that more than armed men were involved, for neither Flinders nor Haggar, nor Flinders
and
Haggar, had enough pike or ‘lockmen to account for even the number they had seen.

All that Ran and Norna knew was enough to tell them that if they intended to make as certain as they could of not meeting those who were scouting the snows in that diagonal line which moved athwart their intended path, it was impossible merely to “skirt through Rorkland.” They would have to thrust more deeply into that forbidden region. To go directly ahead was no less impossible than to go directly behind. They would have to move at a diagonal of their own, so plotted, and at such a speed that they would not only not be overtaken but would eventually be able to make an angle and turn the flank of the pursuers’ line. Possibly the purpose of the diagonal was for that line to move in a full circle, like the hand of a clock, and scan every rood and plot within the great circle.

And whether within that circle they found the fugi tives or not, given sufficient time, there they must surely find their spoor.

Ran and Norna faced each other, clasped hands for a moment, and then turned and fled down the long slope of the hill.

Fortunately, Pia Sol had come out from the concealing clouds long enough for them to make a more accurate picture of their location, approximate though it could only be; and hence they were fairly sure of their direction.

All that long afternoon they went on without stopping, and it was when Ran was about to confess his inability to proceed, that she pointed out to him the landmark which was Tiggy’s Hill. No boundary commission had ever demarcated where Wild Tockland left off and South Rorkland began. But Tiggy’s Hill, with its unmistakable double peak and wide col, was without doubt part of the latter. Thoughts of danger, however, were not in his mind. Indeed, it was not his mind at all, but his cold and aching body which now answered her.

“I can’t make it …”

“You gots to!” In her urgency and distress she fell into the deeper Wild Tock dialect which the constant example of her father’s speech had previously kept her from when talking to Lomar. “Ranny! We gots to makes Tiggy’s Hill before it darks! There be’s sorts of houses there, to keep the snows and winds and the freezy mists off us. If we doesn’t gets there, we s’ll die before morning. Ranny!”

She pulled one of his arms around her, and led him off. At a walk, at a stumbling trot, at a plodding gait, they went on. He protested and almost wept when she insisted that they round the foot of the hill and ascend by the farther side to prevent being seen against its often treeless slopes, but she kept them going. By coaxing, by cajolery, by singing songs, by threats, by all of a score of different means, she kept them going. Nor did she forget to change sides at frequent intervals, so that each could thrust a right hand and then a left inside their own clothing to warm it and keep it from frostbite.

Insensibly, it darkened. He lost track of everything except a need to pick a foot up, move it, put it down, pick up the other one, put it down. His face was not quite yet so numb that he did not feel the sting of the snow and rain which, alternately, beat upon it. He heard a voice — somewhere — close — croaking, “Let me alone … alone …” And finally she did. His arm, released, fell heavily, and he fell with it.

Sprawling, he was long in realizing that the ground beneath was dry, that the whip and lash of rain and snow had ceased. Now he observed the sudden flicker of a fire, and all his flesh began to sting. They had made the sanctuary of Tiggy’s Hill, and were, for at least the moment, safe in the rough shelter of the redwing gatherers.

“It’s luck there’s wood,” she said, as much to herself as to him. He couldn’t hear her next words although her lips moved, and then, recalling her father’s grace at meals, realized that she was not speaking to him.

When she had stopped and was feeding another piece of wood to the small fire, he asked, “Isn’t this place used?”

She shrugged. “If nobody was here when we came, nobody’s likely to come before we go … if we doesn’t stay too long.”

Presently they were warmed enough to eat the last of their little store of food, and then, to sleep. He did not know what the time might be when he awoke, stiff, aching, a sharp raw pain somewhere inside of him between his back and his lungs. A dull grey light came in through the doorless opening at the other end of the shelter, and he saw Norna scratching in the dirt with a stick.

“I’m not much use to you,” he said, after a moment She looked up, surprised. There was a streak of char on one side of her face, from brashing her hair back. “I’d be afraid … alone,” she said. Then — “Look.” He sat, cross-legged, beside her, and watched as she explained her drawings. If they were to head back south, almost all of
this
area — she covered it with her palm — was certain to be unsafe. As for the rest —

“As for the rest?” he prompted her, when she fell silent.

Her explanation silenced him, as well. She was no longer certain that, her father dead, any part of Wild Tockland was now safe for her. She could not really be sure that Flinders would not have corrupted the other Misters with offers of a share in Lomar’s ransom, with talk of unity against the interloping Guild.

“But … wouldn’t you be safe at least in Mallardy’s Camp? Your own camp?”

“Least safe, there. You know … Jun …”

He did not know Jun well, but he knew Jun well enough. And the sick look once again on her face as she mentioned his name decided him. He looked at the crude map scratched into the earthen floor.

“Could we live off the land — find enough to eat — if we cut north and try to make it to the Guild Station?”