The Storm Witch (19 page)

His Pod sense was much stronger now, and Parno could hear and follow the buzz of thoughts much more easily than he could when the two ships had come together before the waterspout had struck. Before Dhulyn had been swept away and drowned. Parno took that thought and pushed it deep. He wasn’t going to share that with anyone. Trying to focus outward instead of in, as if he was pushing notes through the chanter of his pipes, Parno found he could make out individual thoughts, as well as individual people such as Darlara and Malfin. He caught a warming glimpse of the great Crayx who had saved him. Behind these surface thoughts was a buzzing, a hum that tickled at his brain, as though he brushed up against a giant purring lion in the dark.

Darlara motioned him to a seat near her, and he nodded his thanks as he took it. It was not her fault that he was alone. She laid her fingertips lightly against his wrist, and he forced himself not to flinch away. Fortunately, at that moment, there was an unmistakable call for attention, and all the Nomads became even more focused and more silent than they had been a moment before, like an audience when the prologue stepped in front of the curtain.

#Three currents flow from this spot# came the clearest thought, giving Parno the impression of great age and size. #First, we can complete the original passage, bearing the Paledyn Parno Lionsmane# here, Parno sensed a picture of himself that was partly visual, partly the sound of piping #to the Mortaxa as we said we would#

#Second, the Treader Pods can abandon that portion of the land entirely, and attempt to establish new spawning grounds, and new trading treaties, perhaps with the landsters of the other side of the Long Ocean in Boravia or the northern continent# There was a feeling of unrest from the greater group, but no one else spoke. #This would be difficult, but it can be done# the first voice acknowledged.

#Finally, we can hold the Mortaxa to account for what they have done, and somehow carry the offensive into their currents#

The hum returned, as arguments and counterarguments crossed, as support for each of the three ideas and suggestions for the final one flowed back and forth through the shared consciousness. Parno stopped paying attention. Regardless of what the Pod decided, he knew which course of action he would follow. Finally, the tension of the buzzing changed, as the argument swelled, pulling Parno out of his own thoughts and back into the collective.

*Not enough to leave the lands of the Mortaxa, we must go farther* This was a human speaking; the thoughts felt younger and smaller. #We could withdraw entirely, leave the land to the landsters#

Demons and perverts,
Parno thought, shaking his head, not caring who could hear him.

#What says the Paledyn Parno Lionsmane#

“Think you heard me,” he said, reinforcing the uncertain power of his Pod sense by speaking the words aloud. “If you’d read any history, any politics, you’d know they’re both filled with the stories of people who were exiled—or who exiled themselves. Withdrawal doesn’t solve this kind of problem, it just postpones it. The Mortaxa won’t leave you be, even if they agree to do it, which they haven’t. They’re not even abiding by the agreements you have with them now.”

#Parno Lionsmane is correct# came the thought from that oldest presence. #When the landsters did not know of, or did not believe in our existence, they hunted us like animals# #We were in great danger from them, and it would be that way again# #In turning away from the land, we turn away from The First Agreement and our troubles will increase rather than decrease#

#Nor is it right and fair to our human parts to turn away entirely from the land# came another thought. #What of our kin in the havens—do we abandon them as well#

Parno felt a wave of bewildered confusion, touched through with despair.

“There’s a current you haven’t thought of,” he said. The right thing to do was so obvious to him he was surprised that no one else had suggested it. From first meeting them in the hold of the
Catseye,
he had found the Nomads ready to fight, and they’d often spoken of their skirmishes and even their wars with the landsters over trade issues. They’d been quick enough to challenge him and Dhulyn in Lesonika, and the Crayx were ready to destroy ships that trespassed on their oceans. But then, that was all defensive thinking, wasn’t it? Perhaps it took a Mercenary Brother to suggest how they could go on the offensive.

“What do you propose?” It was odd to hear Malfin’s voice echo in both his ears and his mind.

“Kill the Storm Witch.”

The beings around him fell silent again.

 

The new discussion continued well into the afternoon and evening, though most of the group had found Parno’s suggestion to their liking. The general feeling seemed to be that once the Witch was removed, their relationship with the Mortaxa would return to what it had been before her coming.

Parno did his best to show them that wouldn’t be true either. “They’re already building ships,” he pointed out. “And thinking about travel and trading on their own accounts. They claim they can produce a lodestone. These are the types of ideas that don’t merely go away.” The fox had been shown the henhouse, and it would be very difficult to make it forget what it knew. But his words went unheard, and eventually he stopped, keeping any further thoughts or suggestions to himself.
What does it matter what they do?
he thought, eyeing the door to his cabin and thinking of his bunk with longing. Truth was, he found it blooded hard to care what the Nomads and the Crayx decided. Or whether this would solve their present problems, or give them entirely new ones to worry about.

Parno Lionsmane had his own reasons for wanting the Storm Witch dead. Reasons that had nothing to do with the Nomads, the Crayx, the Mortaxa,
or
their blooded trading problems. The Storm Witch had killed his Partner, his soul, and for that, she would die.

 

Parno rubbed his face, massaging the crease that formed between his eyebrows while Darlara uncurled the map and adjusted the woven straps that would hold it flat on the table. The Pods had finally decided to accept his idea. And when Malfin and Darlara had suggested he lead them, the assent was close to unanimous.

“Choose someone else,” he’d said, weary beyond thinking. But they had persisted, and finally he’d asked for maps. He’d said neither yes nor no, but the first thing any commander would need was information.

The shutters of the cabin’s two windows were closed against the gusts of wind that threatened to put out the lamps. The parchments Mal was pulling out of the cupboard under the bunks were very old, much older than the charts kept available on the wall shelves. Their inks were faded, and many showed a dark mark along one edge, as if they had at one time been kept next to a store of oil. When Parno had declared the nautical charts useless for his purpose, it had taken Malfin a moment or two, and a nudge from the Crayx, to remember that these seldom-used maps were even on board.

*Does this show the detail you need?* Darlara tapped an area of shoreline marked with green dots. *This is the spawning ground—*

Parno held up one hand, still massaging his eyes with the fingertips of the other. “Can you stop that, please?”

“Don’t want to exclude the Crayx.”

“Not asking you to exclude them.”
Blood, now
I’m
doing it
. “I’m just asking you to exclude me. My head’s banging like a drum. And is there anything to drink in here?”

He felt the other two look at each other before the link connecting them all was abruptly severed. A queer emptiness echoed in his head.

“Didn’t practice this morning,” Darlara said with the air of someone diagnosing a problem. “Nor yesterday.”

Parno gripped the edge of the table with both hands and let his breath out slowly. “My Partner’s dead,” he said, the words falling like lead from his mouth. “Who do you suggest I practice with?”

Darlara opened her mouth, but Parno never learned what her answer would have been. Malfin straightened from digging into the storage cupboards under his bunk and put his hand on his twin’s arm.

“Who’d you practice with before Partnering? Or, say, when a Mercenary Brother’s alone, who’d they practice with?”

Parno shrugged one shoulder and turned his eyes back to the faded lines of the map on the table.

*Lionsmane* As much as he wanted to ignore it, the touch of minds with the twins standing together so close to him was stronger than he could push away.

“Lionsmane, if you grow soft and weak, how will you lead us? How kill the Storm Witch?” Parno looked up to see the two strangely similar faces staring down at him. For a moment, he wasn’t sure which of them had spoken. They were out of his mind again, now that he was paying attention.

“Your plan, isn’t it?
Your
suggestion that all agreed to and follow. Will be of no use to us, or to yourself, if go on this way.”

He went on looking at them, a sour feeling in his belly. He knew they were right. Whatever else had happened, he was still a Mercenary Brother;
that
he had not lost. The Common Rule still held him, still guided him. He looked down at the map again, back up at them, and unclenched his jaw. “I’ll sleep now.” He slid himself out from the table. “Tomorrow, first watch, you get me three fighters.”

He made his way out the door, staggering across the heaving deck to his own cabin, and fell into Dhulyn’s bunk like a dead man.

“N
O.” “But, Dhulyn Wolfshead, this is the only proper way for someone of your status to travel.” Remm Shalyn was so agitated that for an instant Dhulyn considered giving in. Then she remembered that the two sturdy bearers standing next to the sedan chair were slaves and her resolve hardened.

“What is my status, exactly?”

Remm and the Feld House Steward of Keys—it was unclear to Dhulyn whether this man was slave or free—eyed one another, each clearly hoping the other would speak.

“I would say very high, Tara Paledyn,” the Steward finally said. “The Paledyns are Hands of the Slain God, and in the old chronicles sat only under the Tarxin, Light of the Sun, himself.”

Like a Jaldean High Priest,
Dhulyn thought. “If my status is truly as high as this,” she said, “then surely I may do as I please, since you could not be expected to stop me. And I tell you for certain, I will not ride in
that
.” She eyed the sedan chair and its waiting slaves with distaste. She’d already learned that there were no horses available. Not here in House Feld, nor anywhere else this side of the Long Ocean. Oh, the Mortaxa knew what horses were, but there hadn’t been any in these lands since the times of the Caids. Something, some illness or some act of the Slain God had destroyed them all generations before. When attempts had been made to bring horses from Boravia, they would sicken and die within days of arrival—those that survived the trip at all. Dhulyn had let the subject drop.

Remm Shalyn and the Steward were still hovering between her and the chair.

“Remm Shalyn and I will walk,” she said. “It can’t take any longer than being carried.”

The two men remained silent, Remm carefully looking past her and the Steward examining the ground next to her feet.

“What now?” she said. “Surely even the Tarxin—” she paused to allow them time to say “Light of the Sun,” “—occasionally walks?”

“But Tara Paledyn,” the Steward finally choked out. “You must take
some
servants with you. Otherwise, how will you be known for what you are?” His eyes flicked at her Mercenary badge and quickly away. “From a distance, I mean, Tara, of course.”

“He’s right,” Remm said. “Walking you can excuse as an eccentricity, but to be otherwise unaccompanied—” he shook his head. “We’ll be stopped by every guard, to say nothing of every Steward and lesser noble, between here and the city.”

Dhulyn let a heavy sigh escape through her nose. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes to the Sun. “What is the minimum number I must take,” she said, only to spark off another debate between Remm Shalyn and the Steward. At least, with Remm to advise her, Dhulyn was able to limit her entourage to those servants healthy enough to keep pace with her, even with her sore leg.

Finally, Remm judged that they were ready to leave. Besides Remm Shalyn himself there were the two chair men who would now function as load carriers, a young boy to use as page and runner, and two women who could serve her as maids, cook her food, and carry the shade that would protect Dhulyn from the sun.

“No,” she said again. “No sunshade.” They couldn’t possibly carry it and keep up. When she explained to the older of the women what she wanted instead, the younger was sent off and returned with a large square of linen, rather too heavily embroidered for the purpose, but serviceable. With a silk sash Dhulyn knotted and wound, she fashioned the linen square into a draping headdress such as was worn in the Berdanan desert. She touched the embroidery on her tunic where she’d hidden the lockpicks she’d taken from her ruined vest. She’d transfer some into her headdress as soon as she was alone.

When she saw the size of the packs the men were expected to carry, she shook her head again.

“I understand there are no horses, but surely there are other beasts which can be used as pack animals? What about that thing in the courtyard yesterday?”

“True, the kinglera are large enough,” Remm said. “But only the males are both large and strong enough, and unfortunately, as you saw yesterday, they lack the temperament—they can’t be broken to household use. The females are more docile, but they are much smaller and weaker.”

Besides,
Dhulyn thought.
When you have slaves, why should you breed better animals?

Finally, the Steward, after requesting permission, presented her with a small handcart. This, too, would slow them down, but Dhulyn agreed because most of the load the two men and the boy would carry was food. They would bring all they needed with them, since it would be unheard of for them to hunt on what was, after all, private property.