Snowbrother (2 page)

The Kommanza rode at wolf-pace, walk-trot-canter-trot-walk. Soon enough they saw patrols, then the outlying fields of Stonefort's home village, stubble alternating with blocks of potatoes and beets and alfalfa. They passed wagons and pack trains headed in to the Mustering Fair. Dust hazed the eastern horizon, and their lances threw long slender shadows as they rode into the close-cropped area about the castle itself.

Shkai'ra kept her eyes ahead as befitted a noble while she rode through the Mustering Fair, although it was an effort; her concession to curiosity was to clip her helmet to her belt. Noise beat at her. Nothing but a hall-feast or a battle was as loud as a fair; there must be a ten of hundreds of people here. Keep servants and warmasters were setting up the balks and targets for tomorrow's games; mounted archery and lance-work while riding obstacle courses, and there would be unarmed combat and target shooting, too.

Booths and tents with wonderful things; shining tools of ceramic or metal, colored cloth—some of real cotton or silk—fine weapons and tooled saddles, things your hands itched to touch. Hawkers dodged near, holding up delicacies; skewers of grilled buffalo-hump and onion, lamb ribs, southland wine or coffee, then dropped back when they were ignored.

The crowds parted before her and her kinsib, like prairie grass before their horses. She swung a fist up in salute and ducked her head as she passed one of her kinfathers buying stock from a dealer. Slaves this time, six fine females and an equal number of strong young males, for the Great Sacrifice at the end of the fair: human, horse, cattle and dog.

Then they drew near the dais and its circle of space.

Shkai'ra reached back for the lance in its holster behind her right thigh, pulled it free and stabbed the point into the dirt in token of respect. Zte'vf and she vaulted to the ground together, went to their knees, and pressed their foreheads to the ground between their palms.

"Obedience to you, givers of our blood," the young nobles said.

Zhy'da grunted. "Up, puppies," she said. "Closer."

They knee-walked to the edge of the mound. Four of the ruling generation of Mek Kermak's-kin were there, a few of their senior advisors, and the great shaman Walks-With-Demons. He tapped at the drums slung to his belt, and the circle of emptiness around the dais grew larger.

"I have a task for one of you, punishment and reward," Zhy'da said; the shaman giggled slightly, and she frowned sidelong at him. "The Keep needs new wealth. Wealth that we can use to fee the southron traders for new goods. At least five tens of fingerweights of silver-value, in goods a caravan could take south."

Shkai'ra felt her breath catch behind the impassive mask of her face.
War
, she thought.

That was the only way to get goods of great value and low weight quickly.

"Plan a raid to the east, to be carried out before next spring," she said. "Both of you, separately, a plan. You have a week; a raid taking two tens and a ten of warriors, with gear suitable, but no more than one ten of our household fighters. Consult who you will, but if any word of this goes abroad, you both spend another week naked in the stonebox."

Both the younger Mek Kermaks clenched their teeth slightly; that was not a light punishment.

"A good plan, mind; daring but not reckless. Objective, means, supply, tactics, withdrawal, minimal risk. The maker of the best plan commands the raid, reward. The begetter of the worst stays here for their week in the stonebox, punishment."

Or more than that
, Shkai'ra knew. It was nearly time for the next generation of the Mek Kermak kinfast to many and pass on the sacred godborn blood. Lake most folk, Kommanza forbade sibs of the same gender to wed, fearing weak offspring. Customs differed; in most lands some or all of the next generation's sisters married together, and then sought out male mates; among others, it was the brothers who wed. Among Kommanza of the
ofzar
class the elders chose, by appointing one child senior.

She looked sidelong at her sib; their glances met, out of the corners of their eyes. He was blue-eyed to her gray, and the ponytail and braids that marked him a warrior adult were butter-yellow to her red-blond; otherwise they were alike enough to be twins. Might well be of the same dam and sire; it was rare to know who your seedfather was. Zhy'da was probably wombmother to them both, but children were swaddled at birth and often passed among whoever of the kinmothers was nursing…

Zte'vf frowned. "Bemedjaka is peaceholy until second snowfall—" he began, then shut his mouth with a snap.

Shkai'ra's face might have been carved from wood, but her mind grinned like a wolf.
He
thinks quickly, but too straight
, she chuckled to herself.

Stonefort lay west of the Red River. The Kommanz of Granfor of which it was a part stretched eastward beyond the stream to the beginnings of the Great Woods, two hundred kilometers eastward. Beyond that was Minztannis, the forest-folk country, although few dwelt too near the edge of the grassland; the woodsrunners were no great warriors, and preferred to stay out of reach of raiders from the steppes. But they were rich in metals and great craftsfolk and makers, almost as craft-wise as the southron city-dwellers. Bemedjaka was the nearest large settlement of them. Minztans lived even more scattered than Kommanza; Bemedjaka
was almost a city, two thousand or more, not counting the woodsrunners living around it. A great prize, too great to loot; there was a treaty, the Minztans of Bemedjaka traded metals and tools and the services of their smiths for grain, meat, wool, and flax.

The
Kommand'ahan
would never let us sack Bemedjaka
, she thought; that was a cow better milked than slaughtered.
There must be a new village within raiding-reach. But the
treaty applies
—
ah, until second snowfall
.

WINTER, 4962 A.D.

It was quiet under the great pines. The cold cut like crystal, through fur and leather and the quilted padding under armor. Woodsmoke drifted on the air and mingled with the clean musky smell of horses and resin tang from the forest, yet each scent was leached to a ghost by the unmerciful chill of predawn. Yesterday's powder snow hung feathery from branch and trunk, blue-white on black, drinking every sound of wind and wood, muffling the clatter and stamp of sixty riders.

The Kommanz warriors sat their horses in stolid silence, long used to worse in the driving blizzards of their native prairie far to the west. All were plains-bred: tall, fair-skinned under tan and windburn, mostly hawk-faced and high in the cheekbones. Long, light hair was braided under helms; pale eyes were slitted in the perpetual half-squint of plainsdwellers. With combat to await, they had shed bison-pelt cloaks for the western battle panoply: round shields of layered bullhide, blunt, conical steel helmets, long-skirted hauberks built up of fiberglass, lacquered leather, and silk cord. Their weapons were lance, wheelbow, curved sword, dagger, and lariat; many added strings
of scalps, and all had jagged gaudy designs swirling over shield and breastplate, showing kinfast and Keep.

One outlander was among them: a Minztan forester, sitting his horse with no trace of the westerners' ingrained skill. The marks of fire and blade showed on his body and bound hands. He was the last of the dozen they had captured; the scalps of the others dangled fresh from saddlehoms and belts.

Shkai'ra Mek Kermak's-kin reached across and gripped him by the hair.

"Newstead here?" she asked. Like many of her folk she had learned the forest speech, enough for trade and war.

The Minztan nodded blearily, shuddering with the cold. Shkai'ra released him and raised a hand. One of the troopers behind him tossed her lance up to the overhand grip and reversed it, planting the bone butt knob between his shoulders. She pushed, and the Minztan tumbled to the snow with a grunt of pain.

He floundered to his feet, shivering and drawing back from the figure that crouched before the horses. Alone of the Kommanza that one was unarmored and unarmed, carrying no trace of metal. Blue eyes stared sightlessly from a face made unreadable by looping ovals and tines of scar tissue, scars that had been rubbed with soot while they healed to leave their patterns ink-black against his flesh. On his head was a covering of hide and feathers and bison horns, and the fingers of his left hand tapped ceaselessly at the drum slung to his belt; on one side of it was the sigil of the spirit called
Blood Drinker
, on the other
Flesh Eater
. Before him was a knotted cord spread in a circle; within it was a dried eagle's claw, an ear cut from the Minztan with a flint Knife, a scattering of objects Shkai'ra could not have named.

"Well?" she barked, using the superior-to-subject inflection.

The shaman grinned at her with filed and rotten teeth. "Yes, oh, yes," he said in a soft, even voice. He nodded through the screen of trees toward the clearing two kilometers ahead. "I hold, hold their minds within mine." His hand darted out over the circle of cord; he gasped, yelped, chanted words. "Strong witches, much power within those walls. Soon they know I hold them: better you kill, yes. I will eat their hearts, brew magic from their blood, gain their power."

From a pouch he pulled a piece of dried fungus and chewed with bitter pleasure. Then he turned, hand snaking out to touch the Minztan on the throat. The forester stilled, only his chest moving as he breathed, and the frantic motion of his eyes hunted for escape.

The shaman drew a stone knife from under his jacket and slashed twice under the angle of the Minztan's jaw. Blood spurted, and still the victim stood, motionless except for shivering. The shaman's head darted forward, mouth fastening on the rivulet of blood, slurping noisily; when he withdrew the body dropped like an emptied sack.

He leaped into the middle of his cord circle, beating again on his belt-drum. Turning swiftly he spat a fine spray of blood to the north, south, east, west.

"Now," he gasped, then began a shuffling dance, chanting:

"
Hey-ya-ye-ye-ye-KIAKIA-yipye-he-he-he-ya
—"

Shkai'ra turned and gave a clenched-fist salute to the warband. No few grinned back, raising lances in salute; the free yeoman-farmers of Stonefort had an easy, unservile respect for their chiefs. Familiar faces from hunts and childhood training were shadowed to a gleam of eyes and teeth under the low brims of the helmets. Many had painted their faces for war, slashing designs of scarlet and black and green in the patterns of their clans; her own Red Hawks from the villages near the Keep, lesser numbers of Gold Dogs, Real Tigers, Running Bison. Shkai'ra wore only the Eagle on her forehead and the thunderbolts on her cheeks, her right as a scion of the
ofzar
class; the mark of Zaik Godlord, Begetter of Victoiy, Mother of Death.

She felt the band's coiled eagerness as she turned back to her officers. They were mostly older than her nineteen summers, sent along to steady a troop of unblooded youths.
My
first raid
.

"No other sentries," she said. That brought a snort of incredulous contempt from the Kommanz officers; hard to believe even Minztan tree rabbits were that careless. "The shaman did his work well. Nothing left now but fighting; well be in their village and looting, drinking and fucking before Sun Retreat. Dismiss."

The village in the clearing ahead was not large as Minztan steadings went: a dozen long log kinhalls with their barns, smokehouses, forges, saunas, enough for two hundred adults and as many children. There was a stockade of pointed logs, half-finished; more attention had been paid to clearing the fields. Other clearings would have been made hereabouts, wherever the thin glacial soil would yield oats and potatoes, or hay along the streams.

The Minztans had not come this close to the edge of the steppe for farming; there was plenty of forest farther east, in the huge empty wastes that swept north from the city-lands through swamp, lake, and wood to the tundra. Trapping and hunting were good here too, but they would likely have planted near ore worth mining. Metals were rare everywhere and always precious; the Ancients had taken so much. Travelers' tales told of great circular lakes five kilometers across that marked the sites of their plundering. But Minztans were expert at finding old leavings, or ores too lean for the Ancestors to have bothered with.

"Should be easy," Shkai'ra said to the man beside her. "Here, take the farlookers." She handed him a pair of binoculars from a case clipped to her saddlebow.

"We're not here to butcher sheep," he replied dryly. Thirty years of raid and ambush had left Warmaster Eh'rik Davzin-kin with a wealth of sour pessimism and no illusions at all.

Methodically he ran through a final check of the lacings on his armor and the positions of sword, dagger, bow, and lance. Taking the glasses for a careful sweep, he pushed his helmet back by the nasal to reveal a saturnine, seamed face with a tuft of grizzled chinbeard: balding, he had chosen a shaved skull rather than warrior braids.

"Old croaker," Shkai'ra said affectionately. "Even sheep with horns make mutton."

Sent along to restrain a warband where few but the Banner-leaders were over twenty-five, the Warmaster replied with a folk proverb: "There's a plowing time, a harvest time: boast at the funeral feast of your friend's deeds, for anytime is a time to die.

Wait until we ride under Stonefort gate with the loot before you celebrate, Chiefkin."

Loot. Well-wrought tools, fine cloth, metals, luxuries from the southlands, products traded from the cityfolk manufactories. Lenses for farlookers, paper, drugs, glassfiber for armor, secrets handed down from before the Godwar and the Year Without Sun. There was no knowing what they might find in those squared-log halls. And there would be captives to sell in the spring to the Valley traders; the forest folk were always in demand, being good with their hands and docile.

Fame and glory and booty; success would bring her
the beginnings of a Name, make warriors eager to follow and share the fruits of cunning and gods-favored luck; and in the end there would be tablets and offerings for her ghost, to bring her before the gods and win fortunate rebirth.