The Sword of the Lady (54 page)

″Wendigo weather,″ Pierre Walks Quiet said, after they′d all spent a little time in song and tale-telling. ″The colder it is, the more they walk.″

Rudi nodded. It made sense that a spirit of hunger would grow stronger in this season when the body′s demands were so great.

They′d agreed that the ones who′d fought the bear would be spared guard-watch duty for the night; the sled dogs helped with that, too. Sleeping out in the snow was no hardship for them, though they preferred a spot by the fire when they could get it. Matti finished her evening devotions, slipped off her boots and eeled into her sleeping bag. Rudi did the same, making sure his boots and sword belt were ready to hand. She cuddled against his back, a pleasant solidity even through the double thickness of bags and clothes.

″Nice,″ she murmured sleepily.

″That it is,″ he replied.

And I′m being
entirely
truthful the now, which shows just how tired I am,
mo chroi!

The fire died down, skillfully banked. He let himself fall into the soft dark . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

He woke with a little start. Something told him it was hours later, deep night, the hours when the blood ran sluggish. The dream faded, becoming fragments that spun into drowsy nothingness. Somewhere a little ways away a woman′s voice spoke, gasping softly:

Rudi grinned in the dark. Somehow he didn′t think the Histories included quite that use of the Elvish words for
have me, darling!
but he supposed it marked it as a living language once more. And you couldn′t begrudge newlyweds.

 

 

 

Major Graber looked down grimly at the rent and bloody carcass of the Bekwa sentry. Teeth grinned back at him where the face had been stripped away, and even in the cold there was a slight rusty-iron smell of death, and something musky beneath it.

″Tiger or bear,″ he said. ″Possibly a catamount. Not much eaten.″

Though there was a great deal
spattered
, bits of flesh and hair up ten or twelve feet on the neighboring red spruces. One of his lieutenants bent over a patch of snow, fingers moving with steady delicacy. More was sifting down, but you could separate layers if you were skillful.

″Bear, Major,″ he said.

″That′s the third one this week,″ Graber said. ″It′s delaying us. We′re not going to catch them at this rate. Especially if it keeps
snowing
.″

He glared at the High Seeker for an instant, before self-control reasserted itself. The Bekwa dogsleds were far faster than he′d thought they would be, but snowshoes just weren′t as good as skis when you tried to make speed, and their scavenged horses were losing what condition they′d had. Soon they′d have to start eating them, which would slow them further.

Dalan looked at him, then up at the low clouds, then to the north and east. Two of the savages′ shamans were behind him. Their movements followed his exactly, as if they and his shadow were all linked by invisible cords. One of them was weeping from an expressionless face, tears freezing on the skin.

″We can gain on them if we go
that
way,″ he said, and pointed. ″We cut the cord of their arc. And . . . if we miss them there, another Seeker was sent this way last year. He will await us with supplies and help. On the river the ancients called
Lawrence
, near the ruined city of Royal Mount.″

Graber nodded; he was well schooled in mathematics, which were one of the languages of the Ascended Masters, and useful besides, and in maps.

″As you command, High Seeker,″ he said.

The wind howled counterpoint as he gave his orders. He shivered a little; not with the cold, but with the gray sameness of it. Had there ever been anything but pursuit and fight and endless trudging? Had he ever ridden in the flower fields of spring, with the wind blowing keen pine-scented sweetness from the slopes of the Tetons? Or sat of an evening after dinner and watched his son take his first steps, laughing as he waved chubby arms?

No weakness!
he told himself sternly.
The Prophet gave you this task himself, and you knew death in a foreign land was the most likely outcome.

 

 

 

″Bad, Chief,″ Edain said succinctly. ″They got hit less than a week ago, I′d say. More than a day. Hard to tell closer, in this icebox of a land.″

Rudi looked over the little steading. Four or five families had dwelt there, in two long houses. They′d had a fishing boat for use on the northernmost of the great inland seas. That stretched northwards, frozen now, towards a little rocky islet half a mile away. The only remarkable thing in sight was the bow of a broken ship of the ancient world, towering in crumbling rust-eaten majesty where some storm had driven it on the rocks and broken its back.

The shore bore some scratched-out fields in the rocky earth, with low pine and birch and aspen elsewhere. Shaggy stretches of bush marked ground which would be bog in the warm season, rich in berries and grass. The dwellers had probably hunted a good deal—the travelers had taken several deer they found in a winter yard not long ago themselves—and mined the wreck for metal to work up and trade elsewhere. A modest rectangular barn hinted at livestock, and a substantial smithy near it had two fieldstone chimneys. From the look of things he′d have guessed that the whole had been put up after the Change, but mostly of old-world materials salvaged from nearby.

There was no smell of woodsmoke, and the cold was bitter. It had more moisture in it than usual, too, and that made it cut harder and sap the strength more.

″All dead,″ Pete said, and spat. ″I knew these people here. They were clean. My folks lived a bit east and south, and we traded with ′em. Whoever hit here, they call the Wendigo to themselves on purpose.″

Edain nodded. ″Parts of them are . . . gone. Like it was a rite.″

He looked indignant at that, at the profanation of sacred things as much as the cruelty.

″They′re pinned to the walls, what′s left of them. It went hard for them, even the little ones.″

The younger Mackenzie spat, to show what an honorable warrior thought of such dealings. He also held out a broken bit of arrow, just enough to show the black fletching and neatly made horn nock.

″This was in one of the bodies outside, where they tried to fight.″

Rudi rolled it between his fingers, then made a gesture that brought the core of his questers gathered around him.

″Any fodder left?″ he asked.

″No grain,″ Edain said. ″That was cleared out—oats and rye, it was, from the few kernels left, and spuds. Plenty of hay still, to be sure. No clover in it, looks like marsh grass, but lots of it and well cured.″

″Good. We′ll let the horses gorge; and we′ll have shelter.″

Edain shook his head violently. ″I′ll not be sleeping under
that
roof, Chief.″

Rudi smiled mirthlessly. ″I wouldn′t either. No, the houses we′ll burn, to make Earth clean of it. The barn will do for us and our beasts as well.″

″That′ll draw them,″ Ritva warned. ″It′ll tell them exactly where we are.″

″Sister of mine, I′m counting on it. Pete, what′s the ice like out there?″

″Thicker than it should be. More like Christmas, or even
Janvier
, maybe. But it′s spotty and don′t go too far out. Still too thin to carry any weight in some places, foot or better thick in others, so you could drive a sled or even ride horses over it.″

Ingolf nodded. ″Some places hard as rock, and then you hear a crackle. Seemed to me it′s thicker eastwards. Piled up by the current, maybe. Snow′s wind-packed on the surface, not too deep except drifts here and there. Like Pete says, it′s way, way ahead of time.″

Rudi looked out over the lake, out to where white ice faded into the white-gray sky without a perceptible horizon. The surface wasn′t table smooth, as he′d imagined it would be; it was more as if waves themselves had frozen, with lumps like congealed porridge here and there, and it was covered with hard-packed snow driven by the wind into rippled patterns. The rocky islet was visible on the edge of sight, topped by a few twisted pines; only the shipwreck made it easy to spot now. Wisps of snow or ice crystal scudded over the surface, gusting up man-high now and then, ankle deep most of the time.

He thought for a moment longer, then held up the stub of arrow: ″I think this was done by our un-friends,″ he said. ″Not just the Sword of the Prophet—say what you like of the Cutters, they aren′t Eaters. They′ve picked up local allies, such as our friend Walks Quiet warned they might have.″

Everyone nodded. The Indian′s hand fell unconsciously to the hilt of his bowie knife with its beaded sheath.

″And it′s also my thought that they′ve gotten ahead of us and are planning on an ambush, the creatures.″

Jake sunna Jake grunted. ″Bad,″ he said succinctly. ″Don′t like trap-inside.″ Then he grinned. ″Like when you and the Archer see us first, eh, Rudi-man?″

Everyone nodded. Fred said thoughtfully:

″Dad always said that you should force a fight when the enemy′s got the jump on you and can make you give battle anyway. Force it on your own terms.″

Victoria pursed her lips thoughtfully. ″
My
Dad always said if you know it′s a trap, it′s still a trap—for the other guy. You can bust it from the inside. He wrecked the Cutters good a couple of times that way, ′fore they wore us Powder River folks down.″

Rudi nodded respectfully. ″That′s my thought exactly. The enemy will outnumber us, so we need to seize advantage. This will require careful scouting, but we have that heavy little surprise in the last sled of the four—″

 

 

 

The pillar of smoke on the horizon turned to a tiny thread as Major Graber lowered his binoculars.

″That is the hamlet the Bekwa destroyed,″ he said, his voice freighted with disgust. ″Allowing that was . . . unwise. Bad tactics.″

″They are savages,″ Dalan said, with a shrug. ″Besides, it matters little what happens to the bodies of the soulless. They are as animals anyway.″

Graber grunted noncommittally. That was perilously close to making apologies for abomination; the Dictations were clear that the
form
of humanity was sacred, even among the merely physical who lacked true men′s
atman
and who it was fully lawful to
kill
. In any case . . .

″It gave us away,″ he said.

What was that ancient saying? Worse than a crime, a
mistake
.

″We cannot wait for them, then, if they are likely to be too wary,″ Dalan said. ″There are less than forty of them in all. Your troopers of the Sword of the Prophet alone outnumber them, and we have more than a hundred of the Bekwa and their allies.″

Reluctantly, Graber nodded.

I do not like to give battle when an enemy invites it,
he thought.
Even when I have the advantage of numbers. Especially with this enemy. Still, we
do
have the numbers, and there are no extraneous factors here. It′s a flat plain, in effect; hell for quartermasters, but a tactician′s paradise. I need only hit them with a hammer heavier than any they can lift.

A brief brightness:
And then . . . home?

″They′re coming in straight from the east,″ Ritva panted. ″About forty mounted men, the rest on foot.″

″How many of those?″

″Better than one hundred of them, less than two.″

″Ready, then,″ Rudi said; he ignored the arrow standing in the cantle of her saddle, as did she. ″Fall in.″

Now, let′s either all get killed, or do something I′d be calling truly spectacular
, he thought with a taut grin.
Lady Morrigú, cover me with Your wings. Lugh of the Many Skills, be with me now!

The little island and its wreck were not far to their rear; the shore was a line of gray and dark green off to the left. It had begun to snow again, a slow light drift of large fluffy flakes. He suppressed an impulse to catch one on his tongue, as he′d liked to do as a child. He′d been praying for a little extra snow, not too much, just enough to cover everything better than careful brushwork could do. And there were worse things to do than catch a snowflake, on what might be your last day in this turn of the Wheel of Life . . .

Instead he looked behind himself and made sure that the guide marks were plainly visible but inconspicuous; he′d made himself unpopular by taking everyone through it over and over again. Even though they′d all known that more likely than not the plan would go south, or change unpredictably. A few crows went by overhead from the shore woods to the island, or perhaps ravens. Somehow they always knew when men were about to lay a feast for them.

″Forward, my friends,″ he said quietly. ″The Lord and Lady keep Their hand over you.″

The seven of them sent their horses to the east; besides Rudi, there were Ignatius, Odard, Fred, Victoria and the twins. Most of the rest of their party were spread out on the rear slope of a long low dune, standing in scooped-out firing positions that left only head and shoulders visible, with spare arrows sticking in the hard snow point down by their hands. It all looked like the best possible disposition of an inferior force.