The Steerswoman's Road (93 page)

Bel was in total confusion. “Looking where?” But Rowan’s
mind was tearing at the words Fletcher had spoken, pulling them apart and
finding the meaning she needed imbedded in his three short sentences.

Schedule: she had reasoned correctly. The heat was a planned
thing, initiated by the wizards.

Routine: it was usual, expected—until it stopped after the
Guidestar fell.

Checking, finding, looking: one could look at a schedule
only if it were written down; could check it, find something on it. But
Fletcher carried no papers.

The magic that warned him when there were enemies nearby
could also show him objects even more distant, or permit him to speak with
someone who had the schedule at hand. He could scry. Scrying was done by means
of an enchanted object. “Fletcher, where is your cross?”

Of itself, his hand went to his breast; the cross was
absent. “I destroyed it.”

“Why?”

The hand dropped. “So Slado couldn’t find me.”

Bel looked to Rowan for explanation; but the steerswoman was
thinking too quickly to stop. “Could he see you even when you weren’t scrying at
that moment?”

“Scrying?”

“Using the cross to find things out.”

He was startled by her comprehension, almost frightened. “Yes.
The link, the cross, it has, it’s like, like a flag, or a beacon.” He stopped
to compose himself, then spoke more calmly. “Anyone who knows how to look, can
find me.”

“But they can’t see you now?”

“No,” he said. “Well, yes, but they can’t tell it’s me. They
can’t tell me from anyone else anymore—there’s no flag.”

Rowan thought of him carrying an invisible banner with an invisible
sigil, declaring to all who had the means to see: Wizard’s Man.

If Slado could see Fletcher, he could see him run, and
perhaps see the tribe run with him. Slado would know that Fletcher knew of the
heat and had told the tribe. Slado would realize that they all knew far more
than they should.

But Fletcher had dropped the banner.

He wanted to help, he had once told her. He had used his
magic to destroy the enemies of the tribe, used it to watch for danger.

Rowan wondered what other abilities Fletcher possessed with
his link destroyed, what unknown powers of attack and protection.

She looked into his familiar face, so clever, so expressive,
and saw it now naked, open, desperate. She read her answer there: he had none.
He was without magic, without even a sword. He had made himself helpless, in
order to help.

Rowan turned to the seyoh. “Kammeryn—”

How much of the conversation Kammeryn had understood she did
not know. But he had understood what mattered to the tribe. “Yes,” he said to
her, then spoke to Fletcher. “Where must we go? And how quickly?”

Fletcher gasped, almost sobbing with relief. “Due east. The
heat will be in a band, north to south. We’re near the eastern edge. It’ll come
three days from now. We can get out, if we hurry.”

“How wide a band?” Rowan asked him. He provided the area,
with longitudes and latitudes of the limits; she had not known he was familiar
with the terms. With this information, she saw that escape was possible.

If the tribe moved now. “Kammeryn, we can’t wait.”

“Yes.” And with three steps he was at the tent entrance,
throwing the flap aside.

His aide and Orranyn were outside, with faces of confusion. “Take
down this tent,” Kammeryn commanded Orranyn as he exited, followed by
Fletcher, the Outskirters, and Rowan. Kammeryn strode into the camp, urgent,
leaving his followers behind. “Reyannie!” he called. An old man hurried up:
the mertutial in charge of breaking camp. Kammeryn turned to him. “How soon
will we be packed?”

“An hour ...” The old man was perplexed.

“Why have you been so slow?”

“We were confused ...”

“Stop being confused.” The seyoh stopped and scanned the
camp, once. “Abandon half the tents.” He walked away, around the fire pit. The
mertutial’s jaw dropped. “Seyoh?”

“We’ll take four warrior’s tents,” Kammeryn announced to the
tribe at large, “and two mertutial’s. That’s all.” He called back. “Orranyn!”

“Seyoh?”

“Forget my tent. Fletcher!”

Fletcher’s head came up, hopeful. “Seyoh?”

For an instant Kammeryn hesitated; then he became decided. “Stay
exactly where you are. Orranyn, I want half your people watching him, with
their swords drawn, and the rest in reserve. You, Berrion! Take your band to
twelve-side; I want four lines of guards ahead of us when we move.”

Orranyn was still standing aghast. “Fletcher is a prisoner?”

“Yes.” Kammeryn turned back toward him, impatient. “Do it
now.” Orranyn assigned the guard, and Fletcher was circled by armed warriors.
Among them: Efraim, stolid and unquestioning; Jaffry, intent; and Jann,
watching Fletcher with eyes of glittering black ice. Rowan said to the seyoh, “You
don’t need guards—”

But Kammeryn was still in motion. “I want Lonn.” Chief
herd-master. Someone was sent for her. “Relay!” One appeared. “New reports?”

“None.”

“How many scouts on duty are within range?”

“Gregaryn, at ten.”

The herdmaster arrived.

“Have your people pull their flocks into a tight formation,”
the seyoh told her. “We’ll be moving quickly. Once we’re moving, if any animal
can’t keep up,
leave
it
behind.”

“I’ll need more people.”

“Take any mertutial. Except Anniss,” he added, naming the
woman in charge of the children. Kammeryn’s movements had brought them to the
cook tent. “Take Chess.”

The cook stopped her packing. “Someone needs to do this.”

“We’re leaving the cook tent.”

“How will we pull the food?” The cook tent converted to a
train.

“Abandon the food. All of it. We’ll slaughter fresh when we
need it. Someone, kill this fire!” The nearby mertutials were leaving with the
herdmaster; Hari and Sithy rushed to obey their seyoh’s command.

Kammeryn spoke to the relay as they continued around the
fire. “This is a forced march. Pass the word outward. Have Gregaryn cross
forward and find Lona at twelve and pass the word to her, then head back toward
ten. Lona will find Amarys at two, and tell him. All of them are to double
their distance from the tribe; other people will be sent to their old
positions. Go.” The relay went.

“Kree.” Kammeryn was once again beside his tent, where
Fletcher stood slack-limbed among the warriors, with Rowan, Bel, and Kree
nearby.

“Seyoh.”

Kammeryn paused, and Rowan thought, A wizard’s man has
served over a year as a warrior in Kree’s band, and Kree has reported nothing
amiss.

But Kammeryn’s tone was reassuring. “I need three of your
people to serve as extra relays. Send the rest as extra scouts, to cover
twelve-side between the outer circle and the regular scouts’ new positions.
Make one of those people Averryl.” Kammeryn wished to keep Fletcher’s closest
friend out of sight, away from any influence the wizard’s minion might effect.

“Yes, seyoh,” Kree replied with relief.

Behind the seyoh, and all around, the camp was partly collapsed,
only those tents to be abandoned still standing. People shouted instructions
to each other, and urgent words. Trains began to appear, and pack carriers.

“Bel, Rowan.”

“Seyoh?” Bel answered.

“Kammeryn?” Rowan found herself waiting for command, as completely
as if she were one of his own.

He gazed at the two a moment. “Stay by me.” Then he strode
off again, Rowan on one side, Bel on the other.

They stopped by the dead fire. “Scouts on hand?” Kammeryn
called.

“Here, seyoh!” Zo approached.

“Quinnan is the only scout on six-side?”

“Yes, seyoh. He’s out of contact.”

“Take enough food for yourself and for him, for six days.”
The scout blinked in thought. “He’s only a day away, seyoh.” Kammeryn nodded. “You
and he go northwest. Find Dane and

Leonie.”

Rowan gasped: she had forgotten the children on walkabout.

Fletcher made a noise, a wild cry of horror. “The children!”
He stood with his arms splayed. “My god, it’s too late, they’ll never get out
in time!” His voice was high, uncontrolled.

Kammeryn ignored him. “From Quinnan’s position, you and he
will have two days to find Dane and Leonie. Travel as fast as possible, by
night as well, if you can. If you don’t find them in that time,” and he put all
the force of his command into the words, “you
will
turn around and
come
back,
Rowan—”

“Seyoh?”

“Tell Zo what to expect.”

The steerswoman provided the information quickly: a concise
desription of the effect, to the extent it was understood, the time factors,
and the distances. Zo listened wide-eyed, nodding sharply at each sentence.
Behind them, Fletcher was speaking, saying over and over, “My god, the children
...” His ring of guards watched silently.

Kree came up, with two of her band. “We’re your relays,
seyoh.”

“Take your positions.”

Rowan felt a bump at her knee and looked down. Hari had
brought her pack and was giving Bel hers. Goats began crossing the camp, escaping
from the new herders driving them inward. Train-draggers and pack-carriers were
ranged about the fire pit, waiting.

“Seyoh,” Hari said, “I’ll pack your things for you.”

“I need nothing.” Kammeryn looked about and signaled; the
signal was caught by the relays and sent outward. The seyoh was already
walking, along with Rowan and Bel. With a surge like a wave, the tribe
followed.

“Kammeryn, I don’t think you need to keep a guard on Fletcher,”
Rowan said.

The seyoh did not reply. Bel sent Rowan a narrow glare, but
said nothing.

“He doesn’t mean us harm, not now. I’m sure of it,” Rowan
continued. “Whatever he did before, whatever his original purpose for being
here at all—it’s changed. He’s helping us.”

“Helping himself,” Bel said.

“He could have run!” Rowan said. “Only he knew, and he could
have simply gathered a few supplies and taken to his heels.”

“And been alone. With no way to replenish his supplies. No
friends to help him fight goblins. He’s using us; we’re just damned lucky that
we can use him back.”

“Now is not the time to discuss this,” Kammeryn said. He
looked at neither woman; his eyes were focused directly ahead, but with a distant
look, as if on an internal vision far more urgent than the real. “Save your
breath for walking.”

And they had been walking, all that cool, bright morning,
traveling eastward, with a south wind rattling the redgrass across the land
before them. High, small clouds chased each other across the sky, and the
breeze carried an iron scent of water from somewhere beyond sight, and the
sweet odor of lichen-towers; and over all, the dusty cinnamon-and-sour-milk
smell of the redgrass itself. A typical morning on the veldt of the Outskirts;
and a tribe, typically, on the move.

But this tribe was fleeing.

As noon approached, Rowan remembered that the tribe had brought
no prepared food. She checked the figures that Fletcher had given her, checked
them again, and was distressed. The time the tribe had in which to escape was
barely sufficient. Preparation of a meal, including the slaughtering of goats,
would lose the tribe some three hours of travel.

But noon arrived, and passed, and no halt was called.

From behind, Rowan heard a slow murmur of conversation,
heard it work its way back toward the last walkers, leaving in its place a
spreading silence.

She glanced back to where Fletcher traveled, still within
his ring of grim guards. The faces of persons nearby had lost their perplexity
at Fletcher’s confinement; Fletcher’s true nature was now known by all, and the
reason for the tribe’s forced march. Rowan tried to catch Fletcher’s eye, to
exchange some recognition or offer some reassurance. But he was looking
elsewhere. She returned to comparing her calculations with the passage of land
behind the tribe.

There was no meal that day. Only one person complained, a
child, who was silenced with a sudden, brutal blow. By that act, the other
children immediately recognized the urgency of the situation. No child of
speaking age complained again for the rest of the march.

Throughout the day, reports were received from the warriors
ahead, the doubled inner and outer circles, the augmented, distant scouts. They
held more information, and more precise, than was usual; and by afternoon Rowan
realized that the reports had evolved to such a degree of precision that they
were now expressed in meters, with every rock and rill and gully described and
located exactly among all other features.

Rowan began to wonder at the necessity of this; but even as
she wondered, her trained instincts began unconsciously to use the information,
constructing for her a mental map of her surroundings. It consisted of a
kilometer-wide band, extending ahead to a distance of fifty kilometers, the
location of the farthest scout. The map shifted as the tribe moved, coming into
existence with the report of the point scout, amended and expanded by the
warriors that followed.

As the map grew clearer in her mind, Rowan became more interested,
and then fascinated, staring blindly ahead. The map was like a living thing,
moving, even breathing, in waves of information. With knowledge of this detail,
she felt she could walk the veldt blindfolded.

She emerged from her absorption to see Kammeryn beside her.
He walked confidently in his usual measured pace, but his eyes looked only
inward. Rowan realized that he was doing the same as she had been, but doing so
completely, with all his attention and concentration. It came to Rowan that
the information, and its detail, were of desperate importance.

When night fell, and darkness ended further reports, she
understood. The tribe slowed slightly, but did not stop.