Masques (22 page)

The rest of the camp varied from bad to pathetic. There was a squire’s son who had at one time been quite an archer, but he was old, and his eyesight wasn’t what it had been. One of the farmers could swing a scythe but not a sword. Then there was the big carpenter whose greatest asset as a fighter was his size, which he more than made up for by his gentleness.

“Okay now.” With an effort, Aralorn kept her voice from getting snappy. “Keep your sword a bit lower and watch my eyes to see where I’ll move. Now, in slow motion, I’m going to swing at you. I want you to block overhanded, then underhanded, then thrust.”

The carpenter would have been a lot better off if he could have forgotten she was a woman. The only way that she could get him to strike at her was if she did it in slow motion. But when they sped things up, he wouldn’t use his full strength. She was about to change that if she could.

“Good,” she said when he had completed the maneuvers. “Now at full speed.”

He blocked just fine, but his strike was slow and careful, lacking the power that he should have been able to put behind the blow.

Aralorn stepped into it and inside. With a deft grip and twist she tossed him over her head and into the grass. Before he had a chance to move, she had her knee on his chest and his sword arm twisted so that it would hurt him; maybe enough that he would fight her when she let him up.

There had been a collective gasp from her audience when she tossed the big man on his back. The move looked more impressive than it was, especially since he easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

Stanis, who was watching with his faithful shadow and a couple of other children, said, “I wouldn’t pin ’em that way, Aralorn. Two coughs from a cat, and I’d be out of it if it’d been me you caught.”

Aralorn raised an eyebrow and let her victim up. Stanis, she’d learned, had been born to a group of Traders, traveling clans no better than they should be. It was very possible that he had a few good tricks up his sleeve.

“Right, then. Come on, Stanis,” she invited.

He did. She must have pinned him a dozen times, but he kept slipping out of her grasp. Drawn by the noise, Myr quit his bout to come and watch, too. Soon the whole crowd was cheering for Stanis as he broke away again and again. Aralorn quit finally and raised her hands in surrender.

“You’re using magic to do that,” she said quietly as she shook his hand. No one but Stanis could hear her—she wouldn’t give away his tricks without permission. “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

Stanis shook his head, gave her a wary look, then grinned and nodded. “Most of ’em are easier with magic, but there’s a few tricks that the Clansmen know if ya wanna learn ’em.”

So Stanis took a turn at teaching. He must have been a very good thief, and doubtless there were a few magistrates who were looking for him. They’d have had a hard time keeping him.

When it was time to dig latrines, sew, or hunt, Aralorn watched over the children. It was nice to have a ready audience who believed every word that came out of her mouth—at least until they got to know her better. Keeping the mischievous, magic-toting hellions out of trouble kept her from getting restless while Wolf was away. It also kept her from latrine duty.

The storm struck without warning two nights later. Within moments, the temperature dropped below freezing. Without a tent to cover her, since she was still sleeping in Wolf’s camp, Aralorn woke as the first few flakes fell. Instincts developed from years of camping had her gathering her bedding before she was really awake. Even so, by the time she left Wolf’s chosen spot and made it into the main camp, most of what she carried was already covered with snow.

At the camp, Aralorn found that Myr, efficient as ever, was shuffling people who had occupied inadequate tents to the few that looked like they would hold up in the storm. Seeing her trudge in, Myr motioned her toward his own.

She found it full of frightened people. The storms of the Northlands were rightfully legendary for their fierceness. Although their camp was protected from the brunt of the storm by the steep walls of the valley, the angry howl of the wind was so loud that it made it difficult to hear when someone spoke.

Evaluating the situation, Aralorn casually found a place for her blankets, lay down, and closed her eyes, ignoring the slight dampness left on her bedroll after she had brushed the snow off. Her nonchalance seemed to work because everyone settled down and were mostly asleep when Myr returned to his bed.

By morning the worst of the storm was over. The snow was knee deep everywhere, and in places it had drifted nearly waist high.

Aralorn was helping with the fire when Myr found her and pulled her aside. “I’m no mage, but I do know that this is a freak storm. Feel the air. It’s already getting warm, the snow is starting to melt. The storms come suddenly here, I know—but this is more like the spring storms. The winter storms hit and don’t ease for weeks. Did you notice anything unnatural about it?”

Aralorn shook her head and sneezed—sleeping in damp bedding wasn’t the best thing for one’s health. She wasn’t the only one coughing. “No, I wondered about that myself so I tried to check. I couldn’t find any trace of magic”—human magic, anyway; there was always green magic in a storm—“in the storm, although there was something strange about it, I’ll grant you.” She shrugged. “If the ae’Magi was causing that storm, he was trying to hide it, which is something he could probably do—at least from me. Weather isn’t something that mages like him are generally good with. The trappers who hunt these parts for furs would tell you that it was the Old Man of the Mountains who caused the storm.”

There was a brief silence, then Myr, who was beginning to know her, smiled slowly. “I’ll take my cue, storyteller. Who is the Old Man of the Mountain?”

She grinned cheerfully at him. “The trappers like to tell a lot of stories about him. Sometimes he is a monster who drives men mad and eats them. Other times he is a kindly old man who does things that kindly old men can’t do—like change the weather.”
Maybe he might guide a child to safety,
she thought.
Given that there’s a thread of truth in any story. Sometimes just a piece as big as spider silk.
She’d run it past Wolf when he returned. “The Old Man of the Mountain is invited to every trapper’s wedding or gathering, and a ceremonial place is laid for him when the trapping clans meet in their enclave each year to decide which trapper goes where.”

“Which mountain?” he asked.

Aralorn shrugged. “ ‘The Mountain,’ ” she said. “I don’t know. I’ve met trappers who swear that they have met him. But I’ve never seen the story in any book.”

“Do you think he could be one of the shapeshifters?”

“The Old Man who drives men mad and eats them, certainly,” she said. “But I’ve never met a full-blood shapeshifter who’d help a human find water in the middle of a river.”

“Could one of them have brought the storm?”

Impossible to explain fully how taboo it was for a green mage to mess with the greater weather patterns. Taboo implied ability, and she didn’t want the King of Reth to know that her mother’s kin had that kind of power. Eyes as clear and innocent as she could manage, she said, “Absolutely not.” Truth, but not quite the truth he’d think it.

His curiosity satisfied, Myr changed the subject. “I wish I knew how long this weather was going to last. We need to get more meat, and I can’t send the hunters out in this. They don’t have the skills to hunt in the snow. Only two or three of them have the skills to hunt at all, and none are experienced with northern weather.” As he spoke, he paced back and forth restlessly. “And mud. We’re going to have mud everywhere, then we’ll have ice.”

“Don’t borrow trouble.” Aralorn’s tone was brisk. “If we starve, there is nothing that you can do about it. However, Sheen’s not been getting much exercise lately, and I’m not too bad with a bow. I also know how to set traps if we need to. Keep your hunters home, and I’ll see what I can do for our larder.”

Myr’s face cleared. “Are you sure? This isn’t good riding.”

“Sheen’s no stranger to snow, and he’s big enough to break through this with no trouble.”

She hadn’t intended to leave just then, but the relief on his face kept her from putting it off until afternoon. She recovered her gear from the storage tent, commandeered a pair of boots, and borrowed a crossbow and arrows from one of the erstwhile hunters.

Sheen snorted and danced while she saddled him, and took off at a dead run when she was only half in the saddle; a dramatic departure that was met with ragged cheers and good-natured laughter. When she was able to pull him up and scold, they were already headed up the main trail out of the valley.

It wasn’t as difficult to travel once they were out of the valley as the harsh winds had swept the snow away from many places. As long as she stayed out of the gullies and valleys, the deep snow was usually avoidable.

There were few tracks in the snow. Hunting usually wasn’t her job; she didn’t know the habits of deer after the first good snowfall. She’d have expected them out once the snow started to melt—on the sun-exposed slopes if not the valleys—to eat the revealed greenery before winter came for good. But perhaps they were just staying sheltered. Maybe they knew something about the weather she didn’t.

She stumbled upon tracks that she’d never seen before. The prints were several hours old and smeared hopelessly by the melting snow. Whatever had made them was big—she found a branch as big around as her leg that the animal had snapped off a tree. She looked at the branch a minute and guided her nervous mount away from the thing’s trail.

“Anything that big, Sheen, is bound to be too tough and stringy to make good eating. Besides, it would be a pain to drag the body back to camp.” Sounded like a good excuse to her. The big horse snorted at her and increased his speed.

Several hours later, Aralorn wiped a gloved hand across her nose and squinted against the glare of the sunny snow-covered meadow. The oiled boots that she’d found in Myr’s stockpile worked well to keep out the water. She appreciated them all the more for the fact that all of the rest of her was wet.

The brush was so laden with heavy wet snow that even riding she got drenched. There was a lot of undergrowth on the steep slope behind them. The sun had melted enough of the snow that water ran down everywhere, making the ground muddy and slick. The light sneezes of the morning had turned into a full-blown plaguing cold.

“You know, Sheen”—she patted his glossy neck, also somewhat damp—“I think that I would prefer it if it were really cold. At least that way we would be just chilly and not wet, too.”

She pushed a soggy strand of hair out of her face with a sigh. The sun was starting the trek toward its evening rest, and they hadn’t seen so much as a rabbit. It was unusually bad luck. The camp was far enough off from commonly hunted areas that the game animals were unafraid of people. Just on the walk from the camp to the caves, Aralorn generally saw traces of deer. Today, even the birds were scarce.

Maybe whatever large beastie left its traces for her to find had scared off all of the prey. She hoped not. That would mean that it was probably something that people should be running from, too. She wished Wolf were here to tell her what it was.

A grin caught her lip as she thought about what his response to being viewed as a rescuer of Ladies in distress would be. The picture of herself as a Lady in distress caused her smile to widen a bit. She still wished for his comforting presence.

Absently she looked at the meadow and admired the pristine beauty of the untouched snow that gleamed subtly with all the colors of a rainbow, more startling because of the dark, dense forest surrounding it. She was deciding whether it was worth crossing the meadow to the river that ran on the other side or if she ought to head up the steep and muddy side hill and circle around back to camp when she noticed that there was something odd about the peaceful meadow.

She stiffened at the same time that Sheen noticed them.

“Yawan,”
she whispered.

The filthy word described exactly the way she felt. Stupid, stupid to have missed them when in front of her the whole meadow was moving slowly. The covering of deep snow completely masked their scent, or maybe the cold kept them from rotting. Whatever the case, not two feet in front of her a Uriah rose from its snowy bed. It wasn’t the only one. There must have been at least a hundred of the defiled things, and though none of them was on its feet, their heads were turning toward her. She had never in her life seen so many in one place—or even heard of such a thing.

The path behind was no escape. The slick mud would slow Sheen much more than it would the Uriah. Cold slowed them, but not enough. The best ways to stop them were fire and running water. There were no fires around that she could see, but running water there was aplenty.

All this took less than a second to run through her head. She squeezed Sheen with her knees, and bless his warrior’s heart, he plowed right into the meadow filled with moving mounds of snow. The Uriah howled, and Sheen redoubled his speed, leaping and dodging the creatures. One of them stood up reaching for the reins. Aralorn shot it in the eye with a bolt from the crossbow. It reeled back but recovered enough to catch Aralorn’s stirrup. Desperately she hit it hard with the butt of the crossbow, breaking the arm off the body at the shoulder. Sheen struck it with his hind feet as it fell.