Snowbrother (18 page)

All turned to Shkai'ra. She crouched and studied the map. The forerider might be illiterate; so was she, nearly. But that map would be accurate: good judgment for distance and terrain was a survival skill among their people.

"
Ahi-a
," she sighed. "Fourteen days?"

The Caravanmaster nodded confirmation. The horsewarden added: "Chiefkin, don't expect the mounts to be battleworthy at the end of it. Not after riding scoutmesh through wooded country on either side of the track for the whole two weeks."

She rocked back on her heels, eyes closed, considering. Better to take the track the scout had found. The trace they had followed coming in was the summer trade route, and it wound about to follow high, dry ground; that was needful to avoid swamps that were hard-frozen in the cold season. The slaves were more than half the value of the plunder; if many died, it would reflect on her leadership, the more so as there had been scant glory in this ambush of witless barkeaters. She was aware of the shaman's unwinking glare;
he
had his flanks guarded. If she took the slow, safe way her Name would be diminished; if she struck cross-countiy against his advice and ill luck resulted, that would be even worse.

She was aware of his hatred, of course, and undisturbed by it. Most people hated each other, that was the way of things. As the sayings of the Ancestors went, "Let them hate, as long as they
fear
." But there was more in this than the normal ill-wishing. There were only two candidates among the Mek-Kermak's-kin who could be considered for the High Seniorship, in her generation, and the
dhaik'tz
would much prefer her kinsib Zh'tev.

Strong as an ox and twice as witless
, she thought. No, that was unjust; he was a good fighter, and clever in an utterly conventional way. Just the type the shamans loved to manipulate. Leave that for later, she mused; the High Senior was far from dead. Her skin crawled slightly at the memory of her kinmother, who was one of the few human beings she regarded with frank terror.

Her fingers dropped to the chiseled brass eagle-head pommel of her sword. The eagle was the symbol of Zaik Godlord, fierce and all-seeing. For a moment a half-remembered coldness crawled at the back of her brain, then faded instantly, leaving decision.

"Throw the bones," she said to the spellsinger. His pupils narrowed in calculation; she shot out a hand and gripped his. He whitened at the pressure; Shkai'ra had the wrists of one who had swung saber or practice blade every day of her life. They flowed almost smoothly from forearm into hand; a little of that strength made his bones creak.

"Throw for my luck, and the will of the god in this," she said. Walks-with-Demons would not directly falsify, but there were ways and ways of asking.

There was a muted gasp around the circle of officers; their craning forward was more a tension than a physical movement. The shaman swayed, yelped, threw the human fingerbones graven with runes into the air with a practiced flick. They tumbled rattling among the riding boots of the warband's commanders; sweat stood out on their faces as they forced themselves not to move or flinch. Walks-with-Demons traced patterns, muttering.

"The warrior, upright," he said. Danger and accomplishment, no surprise there. But…

the hand of the god, claw of the demon: the herosword. Branching of the ways; a mighty fate, or the beginning of it. He rocked back, then gathered the future-reading bones and dropped them back into the pouch. "As you will, Chiefkin," he said. This was more than he bargained for… yes, only a fool let the pleasure of an internal squabble benefit outlanders.

"We take the direct route," she said firmly. "It'll bring us out on the steppe ferther from home, but we can pick up remounts and supplies and make up the time, and more. We'll have plenty of extra space on the sleds by then." She looked around the circle at her Bannerleaders. "Standard double-diamond scoutmesh. Warn your riders to keep it close—distances are tricky among these accursed-of-Zaik trees, and they'll tend to spread. Have them keep their remounts with the main herd; no sense in tiring them out in unpacked snow. Assign details to bring them out at intervals. Any questions?"

"Game?" someone asked.

"Only if you don't have to stop. Hardtack and jerky will keep us going: at need, we can tap blood from the horses." That was standard emergency procedure.

"Or from the slaves," one officer said, grinning. Everyone snickered.

"Enemy action?"

Shkai'ra flicked her hand at Eh'rik, who brought both palms up in a curled-finger gesture.

"Not enough to bother your killers. Ski is faster than horse, here,
ia
. But we had complete surprise: even with the warning of those skulkers who escaped us, you know Minztans.

They'll sit around buggering trees and talking to ghosts until it's too late. At most a few will come join the outrunners and try to hang on our flanks, like those who chopped at the edge of our scoutmesh. We'll be ready for that."

A ring of carnivore smiles ran among the Kommanz leaders.

"Enough," Shkai'ra said, slapping her breastplate. The fanged-skull emblem of Stonefort grinned redly under her fingers. "Brief your squadleaders and be ready to move at—"

Her hand pointed accurately to where the sun would have shown in two hours, if the sky had been clear. "Standard hostile-country whistle-code. Zailo shield you."

"Zaik lead you, Chiefkin," they chorused in reply.

Maihu and Taimi worked steadily at loading the travel sled, she thoughtful and abstracted, he with increasing sullenness. Pine oil was loaded, several clay bottles of wine, a small cask of the best-quality mead; fresh provisions were secured around the exterior to freeze ready for use, and a bin at the rear held charcoal for warmth. And there were delicacies, toasted nuts, spice sticks, cane-sugar candy…

Around them seethed an ordered chaos, the last minute preparations that could not have been done the day before. Wind and snow hurled savagely between the houses; vision faded into swirling whiteness half a bowshot away, and hearing to less than that. The Kommanza used whistle calls among themselves; gestures, lance-butts, cuffs, and kicks for their captives. Minztans would not have stirred in such weather unless driven by dire need, but nothing stopped a Kommanz warband when its leaders ordered a march.

Indeed, this would be easier than a blizzard on the steppe; the trees did not let the wind build up the killing force it could generate on open prairie. The warriors wound scarves around their faces, bent into the wind, and cursed as they continued about their work.

Coffles were forming up, lines of a dozen Minztans linked neck-and-neck by tethers of wood and iron-hard leather shrunken on. Maihu had been surprised to see the slaves allowed their own winter-travel gear; on reflection, that was merely sense. Valuable livestock would not be allowed to perish from the cold: the Kommanz were cruel but not stupid. The villagers were even being served a last generous hot breakfast of porridge with cheese and honey and dried berries from their own kitchens. After all, she thought mordantly, the Kommanz were stockbreeders, and knew the importance of good feeding. Concentrated foods, high-energy fodder for a drive in cold weather.

Whips cracked; there was an occasional muffled yelp out of the snow curtain as a boot thudded home, but little deliberate brutality. This was business, not sport. Even the villagers judged unsalable were being treated as promised. They had been herded into one building and tied; the raiders would toss in a broken bottle when they left, so that they could free themselves before they froze. And the village itself remained, with enough scraps to keep them barely alive on their trek back to the long-established villages to the east. Maihu had had to bear that word to them, and keep herself shielded from the Inner Eye. Silence had greeted her, and stares that were more sheer bewilderment than accusation, twisting like a knife.

But of course
, she thought to herself,
I feel no guilt. I could scarcely tell them outright what
I plan
. Nor let them sense it, not with the Eater so close. She looked up into the gray sky.

There was something about the storm… She shrugged, returning her mind to more practical matters. With a detached wonder, it came to her that a Kommanza could scarcely have carried on a masquerade such as she had, this past week. Their deepest dread was to be shamed before the folk and the gods: they were less concerned than her folk with inward terrors, and more with appearances. It was strange to think that there could be so much difference in the souls of human folk.

A sharp crack brought her back to the present. The youth assigned to drive their sled was two years younger than Taimi, still bearing the shaven skull with a scalplock that was the sign of a preadult among the Kommanz. She had watched them silently; no Kommanza would labor for another if there was an outlander to hand. Now Taimi's slowness had finally brought action. She had sprung down from her seat, kicked his legs from under him, and begun slashing at him with her whip. He was rolling, trying to escape; perhaps worst to see was the total lack of expression on the young Kommanza's face. That blankness became expected after a while on the warriors, but it was still chilling on a visage not yet past puberty. And what emotion leaked past her shields was more disturbing still.

There was nothing else to be done. The youngling spoke no Minztan, and Maihu was not ready to give up the advantage her own supposed ignorance of Kommanza rendered.

Instead, she threw herself forward over Taimi. Her face ground through the fresh snowfall to the dirty, granular layer beneath. She could smell the mealy scent of it, hear Taimi's shuddering inhalations. And feel that it was pure rage that drove him, as he quivered with the effort it took not to fling himself at the plainsdweller. He tried to throw her off, but she pinned him, clenching her teeth against the impact of the thin braided leather. The first stroke was not too bad; the heavy winter trousers blocked most of it.
He
must control himself, he
must
or he'll die
, she thought in a cold rage of her own. Shkai'ra did not mind—she preferred the boy to fight when she used him, which was their only contact—but defiance anywhere else would leave him bleeding out his life.

The second whipstroke never fell. A lance descended in front of the girl with the whip.

She looked up in surprise, hand raised for another stroke, then bowed and stepped back up to the seat. "Honored eldersib," she said, in the form of address prescribed for speaking to a full adult. "The gakkaz were given under my care. The shoat will not work, and the ewe came between us."

The warrior nodded dryly, his voice coming muffled from behind the windings that covered his face to the eyes. "Of your wisdom, hairless one. But that is the Chiefkin's
pet
gakk. If they can't bounce around enough to please, and tell the Mek Kermak why, who do you think will smart for it?"

The unblooded youngster was speechless with indignation. To think that a
gakk
, a slave, not even born in the Keep, could have a freeborn put in trouble!

The warrior saw her expression, too faint for any but one of their people to detect. The butt of his lance struck out, catching the girl just under the breastbone. She folded off the seat with an
uff
of amazement. That was the last sound she made as the lance descended, the hard ceramic knob smacking down with nicely judged force on sensitive spots.

He stopped, and she glared up at him with silent hatred. That was good. There was a Saying of the Ancestors, that hatred put fire in a warrior's belly. The true killer should hate everything that lived, himself not least.

"Hairless, you were expecting it to be
fair
, weren't you?" he asked genially.

"I admit the fault, honored eldersib," she said through gritted teeth. That was a piece of stupidity she should not have been guilty of, at her age. Not if she expected to survive long enough to grow warrior braids. "My thanks to the eldersib. Of your wisdom, enlighten me."

"Nothing is fair, and only the weak seek justice. Grow strong, and
take
," he recited.

"Lesson over."

She bowed. An unblooded was under perpetual instruction, not only from the war-masters but from any adult who cared to offer it. And she dared not antagonize any of them; soon her half-year would come, when she was turned out to wander and return an adult. Or not to return at all, for no law or custom protected the inbetween. This had been a lesson of value.

The warrior turned to the Minztans and spoke slowly in their language. "Work. Must
work
. Or whip. Understand?"

Maihu bowed deeply, rendering Kommanz titles into her own tongue. "This slave thanks the Great Killer. Of your forbearance, master, I will instruct my kinchild. He will work.

May I now report to the Chiefkin, as ordered?"

He nodded distantly, returning his lance to its rest;
his lips moved slowly as he rendered the words into Kommanza and translated them to the youthful guard.

Meanwhile Maihu seized her kinchild by the scruff of his neck, thrust him into the sled's interior, shook him, and hissed at him.

"Fool of a boy!" she cried with exasperation, and forced herself to lower her voice. "What in the name of every turning of the Circle do you think you're trying to
do
?"

He stared at her. It had been brave to try to shield him, but… "Why should I work?" he asked. "So
she
can be nice and comfortable in here? So she can have lots of fun when she decides to have us, like, like last night? Kinmother, how could—"

"Don't you realize where we're
going
? Or that I'm an Initiate?"

He began to speak, then stopped as his mouth flew open in a comic… O of surprise.

"Right past the Place of Summon—"

She laid a palm across his mouth. "Yes." A nervous glance at the entry slit of the sled.

"But I must have… what is needful. If I have to act, with her, then I'll do it. To do that well enough to fool her, I have to deceive parts of myself as well. And so will you; for your kinparents, and the whole village, and the New Way. I didn't tell you before because I didn't think you could keep the secret well enough, but you forced me.