Snowbrother

by S. M. Stirling

  "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. Remember the Eater! If he even suspects …!

  "Can you do it? Can you act as if you had no hope at all, except to please them?" Her voice had turned gentle.

  He nodded breathlessly. "I'll … try," he said. The shining of his eyes made her heart lurch with fear.

  The shaman lingered after the other officers had departed. For long moments they squatted in silence, the spellsinger fingering his pouch while Shkai'ra ran knotted tally cords through her hands. At last, he spoke.

  "Chiefkin, this storm. Witchstorm, yes."

  "More bogies?" she replied impatiently.

  "No… Chiefkin, of your forbearance, please—for the Folk. The bones—the fall was… strange. Why such mighty signs, for a raid of no importance?"

  Shkai'ra's lips tightened. "You've come late to being helpful," she said. "If this is a spell-raised blizzard…" She paused, considering. "The more reason for haste; if the forestfolk have brought up a band from the east, and a wizard with it, best we get away. No point in taking losses thrashing about in the woods. As for magic—why are you here, then? Or can't you deal with it?"

  That stiffened his back with pride. "Yes, indeed; but little help can I be, if the witch and I must duel along the trail, in the World Beyond the World."

  She nodded impatiently. "Then do it, and leave the blade and the bow to us."

  With the dawn, the wind eased a little, coming in brief savage gusts rather than blowing continuously, but the flakes fell more thickly, and there was a smell of damp in the air. The leaders looked up with foreboding; the cold was less bitter, but dampness was a worse enemy than chill in this season, and the snow would slow them. The warriors finished striking camp with swift efficiency under the pawky-critical gaze of the squadleaders; they were in full war gear now, but experienced officers could sense the infinitesimal signs of slacking tension. The battle was over and they had rich plunder for scant loss. Now they were thinking of home, winter evenings spent in boasting and squandrous gift-giving around the kinhearths. Of the ornaments they would buy, the war gear and horses, and dowries that would see them fasted to the kin of their choice for those still single.

  The commanders saw, cursed, and drove them harder; only time would grind home the lesson that lack of vigilance ended only with death. And even in the afterlife it paid to keep up your guard.

  Shkai'ra spent a few minutes looking over the remount herd; like anything to do with horses, that was accounted among the most important and honorable of tasks. She was looking forward to the trip back, with two personal servants and a Minztan travel sled. She brought her attention back to the horses; they were restive, and left to themselves would have waited out the storm with their tails to the wind. This being winter in forest country, each warrior had brought only two remounts, but those were of the finest: hand-reared from colthood, drilled to respond to voice, knees, balance as well as reins. They were trained to fight snowtiger, human, and the giant steppe wolf, as much a part of their units as their riders. The Kommanz considered their war-horses to be younger siblings, souls on their path to the exalted destiny of Kommanz birth; as such they were treated far more gently than children, who were considered strong enough to take rough handling.

  Shkai'ra ducked through the milling, snorting throng, wishing the seeing was good enough to look them all over at a glance; with training, you could detect the first hints of sickness or injury. There was a touch of nervousness about them, only to be expected with all this fuss; horses were creatures of habit, after all. Still…

  She cupped hands around her mouth and called: "Thunder-Wind-on-Spring-Grass!"

  Out among the dark shapes moving through the dancing white vagueness, a tall horse threw up its head, whickered, trotted over; it was a big roan gelding seventeen hands high, shaggy, rawboned, with long sturdy legs, deep chest, compact withers, and a large squarish head. The Kommanz bred well, for the qualities they valued; this breed might not have the beauty of the fabled Kaina bluegrass stock, but they could take weather and treatment that would leave others windbroken or dead.

  Shkai'ra laughed and buried her face in the long coarse mane as the animal nuzzled at her, lipping her neck and investigating the pouches at her belt. Thunder-Wind-on-Spring-Grass—that was a single word, in Kommanzanu. The steppe tongue had over two hundred terms for describing grass, depending on weather and season; there were nearly as many for horses. It also had over thirty-two separate and distinct forms of the verb "to kill." Of course, it was less specialized in other areas. The nearest a speaker of Kommanzanu could come to saying "sea" was "big salty lake too broad to see across"; "humanitarian altruist" came through roughly as "insane traitor"; "freedom" as "ability to accomplish." And there was no word for "mercy" at all.

  "Ahi-a, greedy beast, plunderer, apple-looter," she murmured, feeding it a handful of dried fruit and planting a wet kiss on its nose. The air steamed with its breath, full of the sweet scent of horse. An attendant brought her gear, and Dh'ingun riding on the high cantle of her saddle. From there he sprang to the withers of the horse, spitting in annoyance when she brushed him off.

  "Bh'utut!" she said: Get off! "I don't keep Thunder-wind to warm your furry toes."

  Unconvinced, the cat sulked as it circled in the snow, flakes dusting its glossy black fur. She saw to the saddling herself, only natural when her life would depend on it. First came the woolen blanket, then a fleecy sheepskin, then the war-saddle itself, with its long stirrups and deep U-shaped seat. Finally she strapped on the overfleece, buckled the breastband with its chest protector, and started to do up the padded girth. Without warning, she whipped a knee straight up into the charger's stomach. Startled, it pig-jumped a handspan into the air with a "whush" of expelled breath. She tightened the girth—before it had a chance to inflate its belly again. Reproachfully, it stared at her over its shoulder as she fastened weapons and saddlebags.

  "Rrrr-up, Dh'ingun!" The cat leaped up, scrambled into a bag, and cu
rled up out of sight in its accustomed refuge, safe from the detested snow. She put a hand in and felt the sharp bite on her gauntlet.

  "Hoi, that horse must have been a southland trader in its last life, to know so many tricks," Eh'rik hailed her. "I'd not have noticed the swell-belly."

  "Ia," she replied. "And wound up riding arse-to-sky the first time you put weight on a stirrup… What do you want, Maihu?"

  The Minztan glanced down. She was dressed in Minztan outdoor gear—brightly colored embroidered deerskin jacket lined with cloth, knitted blue cap, boots; only the hunting knife was missing.

  "Of your pleasure, Chiefkin. you said that I should show you those things of mine I wanted to take along… just a few things; my flute, which I thought you might like to hear me play, and some books."

  She stood smiling wistfully, a short, wiry, blue-eyed woman with the round face and snub nose of her folk, snow hanging thick in her eyelashes and black hair. Tucking a curl back into her cap, she lowered her gaze to the ground once more.

  Shkai'ra nodded indulgently and jerked a thumb at a nearby trooper. "Hoi, Ih'kren, go with her—let her gather what she wants, as long as it isn't weapons. I'll be along later to look it over."

  "Chiefkin…"

  "Something else?"

  "Could I say farewell to my kinmate who's being left here? It would only take an instant, and we're not likely to meet again."

  "Hmmmm. They didn't seem too friendly when I sent you there with a message. Oh, all right: Ih'kren, let her go where the culls are penned—not more than a few words."

  Eh'rik watched them leave with a scowl. "That's a sly one," he said. "Too tame, too soon. Kill her. Belike she's plotting to do you an injury."

  "Her and half Stonefort," Shkai'ra said with a shrug. "Why waste a good slave? I have plans for that one, and she's already trying to curry favor. You're just jealous I won the throw." She grinned and slowly licked her lips. "You should be; not just a fine blacksmith, but a good lay. Ask again when I want her bred and I might let you fill that womb. The boy's not bad either; sullen, but interestingly so."