Talion Revenant

by Michael A. Stackpole

  A simple economy governed the drill where the novices earned Imperials by performing tasks in their camp, gambling or capturing Sixteens. The novices in on the capture of a Sixteen got to keep a share of his "treasure," and a Sixteen's treasure was created from the ransoms paid, up to a maximum of eight Imperials, by each novice the Sixteen killed. A captured Sixteen would be held with a ransom equal to half of whatever his treasure had been before that final encounter and, while he could escape if the opportunity arose, an unsuccessful escape doubled his ransom.

  Our success or failure in the activity was measured by the number of Imperials we'd earned, though many people acknowledged that keeping score that way just rewarded those who gambled well. I'd always felt just surviving my week hunting Sixteens was enough, but as a Fifteen I got greedy, and that was to make this year's Winter Game very difficult for the Sixteens.

  Marana tapped my shoulder and pointed toward the sky. "It'll snow soon, Nolan, we ought to get to our camp so the storm can cover our tracks."

  I nodded my head and set off up the mountain. We'd been told what our "territory" would be two weeks before the exercise, and Marana and I located several different sites for a camp. We decided the best one was a cave high up on the mountain. It was bound to be very cold, but it was sheltered and one chamber actually twisted around to be out of sight of the cave mouth and remained relatively still despite storms raging outside.

  Wind roared across the broad snowfield spread out below our campsite. We worked across it as quickly as possible and reached the cave mouth just as the snow started falling. I pulled open the white canvas sheet we'd hung over the entrance and Marana slipped in. I knelt once I entered and tied the canvas back down to a stake wedged in a fissure. Though the wind plucked at and battered the canvas, the cloth kept most wind and snow out.

  After ten feet, the four-foot-wide entrance tunnel opened into a large chamber. The large airy chamber had a crack in the roof that let a few flakes of snow drift down in. Below it was a fire-blackened wall and a store of wood. I assumed, when I first saw it, that shepherds used the cave during summer storms, but I found nothing else to indicate this might be the truth.

  Off this large chamber lay a smaller room. Because it would be easier to heat, Marana and I elected to stay in there. The smoke from the small fire we dared risk was drawn out through the natural chimney and the smoke presented little or no threat as long as we kept the fire small. The floor was just stone and somewhat uneven, but every night I'd been too exhausted to notice or care, though I awoke stiff in the mornings. Nothing either one of us had done seemed to make it any better.

  Marana had already shed the white canvas suit she wore over her furs to enable her to blend in with the snow. The suits had little or no value beyond camouflage, but neither one of us considered going out without one.

  I peeled my snowsuit off and then removed my furred jacket. I wore only a cotton tunic beneath the jacket and the sweat I had worked up in the walk to the cave steamed. Marana looked at me and laughed. "You look like a demon."

  "That from a jelkom?"

  She grimaced, twisting her face into a horrible leer. "Boo!"

  I smiled and threw my jacket at her. "I'll be frightened if you really want me to be."

  She wrinkled her nose, then narrowed her eyes in a mock threat. "Just start the fire, or I'll give you something to be scared of."

  I drew the knife from my boot top and whittled slivers of wood from a dry log. Once I had a fair pile of tinder I twisted the knife around and used the top of the blade to strike sparks from a piece of flint I dug from my nearby pack. On the third try I got a spark that ignited the tinder and quickly a yellow flame sprouted up. Little by gently I fed larger and larger twigs and slivers into the fire and soon had a tiny pleasant blaze crackling away.

  "Makes me feel warmer already." I let the fire catch solidly before I got up, filled a small pot with snow at the entrance, and returned. I wedged the pot between two of the stones that surrounded the fire.

  "Be sure to stir it." Marana looked up from where she was skinning the snowshoe hare we'd snared earlier; because it was still frozen, the work was relatively bloodless. "I know, Marana, I won't scorch it like I did the other day." I drew my knife again and swished the melting snow around. On the first morning I'd gone out to get more snow, saw some Thirteens below, and stayed to watch them while the water burned. Marana kidded me because even she knew snow would burn; she was from Temur where, unlike Sinjaria, it never snowed.

  This time the snow melted quickly—without burning—and quite soon I had a pot of boiling water. I rummaged around in my pack and found my cache of tea leaves and tossed some of them into the pot. The water darkened and the springtime aroma of the tea filled the cave.

  "That smells good, Nolan." Marana touched my shoulder and I smiled up at her. She'd removed her furs and steam rose from the cotton clothing she wore beneath.

  I reached over and flipped my bearskin sleeping rug at her. "Get this on or get closer to this fire before you freeze to death."

  She caught it, wrapped it around herself, and sat down beside me. "The rabbit is ready to burn."

  I force a smile. "As I recall it is your turn to 'render inedible' our meal." Worse than burning the water I'd managed to actually cook a rabbit we caught two days before. Marana felt like Jevin about cooking: if the gods intended man to eat thoroughly cooked meat, animals would carry their own firewood. I'd done a very good job of cooking it, and even sacrificed some of the salt I'd smuggled out of Talianna on it, but Marana was not pleased. She ate it, though, because bad food is better than no food at all.

  I leaned over, pulled a wooden bowl from my pack, and poured some tea into it. The tea steamed and I inhaled the sweet warmth. I smiled and sipped gingerly. Despite my caution I burned my tongue.

  I stood and bowed to Marana. "The fire is yours." I walked away toward the larger cavern with steaming bowl in hand. "I'm going to look out at the storm."

  Marana crawled around to where I'd been sitting and vanished from sight as I moved on. The canvas cover tugged at its moorings and snapped, but held firm. I drank more tea, let its warmth spread from my belly up and out, then knelt and unfastened the corner tie.

  Snow swirled and fell like wind-tossed autumn leaves. Already our tracks had been covered by drifts and the storm showed no signs of abating. If we chose not to leave the cave there would be no clue as to our whereabouts. For the time being, anyway, we were safe.

  I retied the canvas in place and sat back. I listened to the wind shrieking outside and I hoped the others had found equally good shelter. Jevin was paired with a blond Sixteen girl named Vedia and I didn't envy him.

  Vedia was Marana's roommate and she decided that if Marana had a lover, so would she. She made a play for me, but I escaped by telling her I'd been betrothed at birth to a girl back in Sinjaria. I don't think she believed me, but soon enough she was chasing after Jevin. I never kidded him about her, because he agonized a great deal about whether or not he would hurt her feelings or how she would take a particular action on his part.

  Lothar suggested he just kill her and be done with it, but Jevin rejected that as a viable plan. He'd managed to avoid her, as much as that was possible when we all trained together, and it looked as if she would give up on him when she was drawn to spend a month alone with him in the wilderness of the Tal Mountains.

  Lothar was, depending upon how you look at it, in a better and worse position than Jevin. When I was drawn to be Marana's partner, Lothar offered to head out alone. His request was not all that uncommon, and there was an uneven number of Sixteens anyway, so he got his freedom. Lothar's mood was subdued before we left Talianna, but he clearly felt he'd do great things during the Winter Game.

  I raised my tea bowl in a silent salute to Jevin and Lothar, then drank the last of the tea. I'd been lucky enough to confiscate it from a Thirteen. Bringing anything in the way of foodstuffs to the Game was strictly forbidden, but we all smuggled things in an
yway. In the hunter camps food could be bartered for Imperials. All the Sixteens, on the other hand, thought of the smuggling as the first test of survival. The Services clerks who searched us before we left, while disapproving of smugglers, were not very good at their jobs.

  Marana poked her head out and called me to dinner. She'd done a very good job roasting the hare. "I hung it so your side would be done to your liking while my half would still be palatable." She split the beast down the middle and plopped my half in my bowl. It still smoked.

  We said little as we ate. This was the first time we'd returned to the cave before dark and had enough energy to actually enjoy the food. My half of the hare was a bit overcooked, but the charred parts made it crunchy and it really did taste good. I told Marana as much, and even shared some salt with her to prove how much I appreciated her cooking.

  After dinner I washed my bowl out with the remnants of the tea and gathered snow for more. Once I'd brewed it up I poured both of us a bowl just in time to let the weariness of the two and a half weeks we'd already endured catch up with us.

  Marana seated herself cross-legged at the edge of her deerskin blanket. She closed her eyes and leaned back. The flickering firelight caressed her throat and shone off her now-unbound long black hair. "Mmmm. After so many hours in the snowbank I thought I'd never be warm again."

  I gulped down a big mouthful of tea. It coursed down my throat and settled in my stomach. The heat radiated down through my thighs and out across my chest. It felt very good. It burned the cold from my muscles, and with it went the numbness. I enjoyed actually feeling again, even when what I felt most were aches and pains.

  "Nolan."

  "Yes?"

  Marana nodded toward the fire. "Look into the flames."

  I did. The flames licked, embraced, and consumed the wood we'd fed them. One log was a fairly aromatic wood and filled the cave with warmth and life. "All right."

  "When I look into the flames I see things. Do you?"

  I mumbled my reply. "Yes." Even after four years such a simple questions locked words in my throat.

  Marana continued without really having heard me. "I see celebrations in Temur. I can see the young warriors dancing the Sworddance. I know I've only seen it performed once at Festival, but this brings it back. See them, the blades flashing as they whirl around each other in mock combat."

  I looked over at her. Though her eyes focused distantly, leagues beyond here and the fire, her face was filled with enthusiasm and joy. She looked far more beautiful than she ever had before. She turned and caught me staring at her. She smiled. "Nolan, what do you see in the fire?"

  I stiffened. "Faces."

  She missed my initial reaction and pressed me. "What kind of faces?"

  I hesitated. "Faces of the dead."

  Even the pain creeping into her expression could not kill her loveliness. She opened her mouth to speak, but her lower jaw just trembled and no words came out.

  Outside my control my voice filled the silence. "My family all died during the war. Only I survived. I could not bury them. I'd been sick so I was not strong enough to dig graves. Since I could not commit their bones to the earth, I made our house into a pyre and I watched to make sure it did its job."

  I pointed my quivering ringer at one guttering flame. "There, that's Arik. He was five years younger than me. He had a clubfoot, but you'd never know he was different. By the gods, he was always so happy. If he couldn't play a sport with me or Hal or Malcolm he'd yell and scream encouragement to us." My throat thickened. "Those bastards rode him down and speared him like a pig."

  I shut my mouth before my cry could escape. I knew the fatigue and feeling of being hunted again brought the images to mind and the tears to my eyes, but I could not stop either. I buried my head in my arms and started to cry. I wanted to choke back the tears but I couldn't. The tears burned hot against frostbitten cheeks and my chest shuddered with sobs. I couldn't get Arik out of my mind. I just kept seeing his happy, smiling face twisted and broken in death.

  I didn't notice Marana until her hug became so tight that I couldn't breathe. I twisted around and sat up to return her hug. She slipped into my arms and felt so small and delicate, yet so full of strength.

  "Nolan, I'm sorry." She squeezed a bit tighter, then drew back just enough to look at me. She knelt there, took my face in her hands, and brushed tears away with her thumbs. "I didn't know. I never would have asked...."

  I half closed my eyes and gently shook my head. "Not your fault. I'm tired, I'm sorry." I tilted my head and kissed the palm of her left hand. "Thank you."

  I relaxed my arms so she could escape, but Marana did not withdraw. I looked up into her eyes and saw the pain receding to be replaced by something else. She lowered her mouth to mine and we kissed.

  The kiss might not have been enough to waken a sleeping princess or turn a frog into a prince, but it unlocked feelings I'd kept hidden away since my family was slain. The part of me that hungered for more emotional support, like that I'd known growing up in Sinjaria, carried Marana straight into my heart. The piece of me I'd ignored in my haste to become a Justice and exact revenge for my family's murder exerted itself and told me this was good and right.

  We made love that night. It was gentle yet playful and full of tenderness I'd not have imagined in either of us when we trained or stalked Fourteens. It left both of us tired but pleasured, and full of nervous energy.

  Marana and I lay in the dying firelight afterward, warm and comfortably entwined in our sleeping skins. I talked to her of many things, shared with her deep dark family secrets, and recounted family stories and jokes. I told her things I'd been forbidden by my grandmother to tell anyone outside our blood kin—with my family dead the confidence seemed not as important as the act of sharing did right then and there.

  I banked the fire so the coals would last until morning. I crawled back between the furs and we talked some more until we both fell asleep.

  And not once, awake or dreaming, did I think of Lothar.

  * * *

  The next three days do not stand out well in my mind. They all flowed into each other because the sky remained overcast, it snowed constantly, and I'd never been so happy in all my life. The giddy joy and excitement kept me emotionally charged all the time, and consequently I acted utterly irrational and made life hell for the Fourteens hunting us.

  When not out harassing the Fourteens with suicidal forays that worked only because of their audacity, Marana and I talked and loved. We interrogated each other and learned the other's most personal secrets. We compared our impressions of things that had happened over the past three years, and laughed or blushed as embarrassments were called to mind again.

  The more we talked, the more I became convinced Marana was the one woman meant for me. We agreed on so much. Looking back, we decided when we'd first been attracted to each other, and recalled all the things we did to hide that fact from each other. At times one of us would answer a question the other had not yet asked, as my mother often did with my father, so I knew what we had was blessed.

  Our happiness bled over into our luck. We survived traps prepared by our pursuers, foiled their ambushes, and even raided them when they stopped to take lunch in a sheltered grove. Again and again we melted into the blizzard pouring snow down over the mountains after devastating a patrol. We even dared and successfully managed to ambush a patrol pursuing Jevin and Vedia.

  Our love made us invincible.

  * * *

  The fourth morning brought a change, both in the weather and our pursuers. I woke and slipped from the furs without waking Marana. Clad only in boots and fur trousers, I walked to the tarp. It hung slack and motionless. I knelt and slipped the knot at the corner. Raising it I walked out and stood in the morning sun. A very clear blue sky arched over me.

  A gust of wind raised goose bumps on my flesh and puckered my nipples. I breathed in through my nose and felt the mucus freeze. My eyes teared and the left one froze shut. I pressed
my rapidly cooling fingers to it and used the last of their warmth to melt the ice.

  Despite the bitter cold I did not retreat, but dropped into a low crouch. There, far below, a line of Fifteens broke from the woods. Working together in a pack of thirty or more, they swept the area looking for tracks. They'd started early and undoubtedly would pick up some Sixteens before the day was through.

  Marana and I were lucky. For the moment we were safe, because the previous night's storm had covered all our tracks in a fresh layer of powder.

  I returned to the side chamber, squatted next to the fire, and woke Marana. "We've got trouble."

  She sat up and sleep evaporated slowly from her face. The furs slipped down around her waist and I silently cursed the Fifteens. She stretched and rubbed sleep from her eyes. An instant later she was awake and the tactician in her was alert and already thinking. "The Fifteens?"

  I nodded and threw her the woolen tunic she'd worn the day before. "It's bright and clear out there and they're hunting in a pack." I growled and poured myself some tea. "The ones who went past here were Lancers, I think. Voices carried enough to hear a comment or two about not having horses."

  She pulled the tunic on. "Typical."

  I frowned and sipped the tea. It was weak, because my supply had run out the night before and I'd scraped the pouch to get as little as I did that morning. "This does not please me."

  I passed the bowl of tea to Marana and shrugged my furred jacket on. "They'll sweep the areas and return, in force, to the places where they don't pick up any Sixteens. With them working together it'll be tough."

  Marana nodded agreement with my assessment of the situation. "That's what you get for bragging."

  "I wasn't bragging, it was one of Erlan's friends." As Fifteens, Jevin and I arranged with Erlan and the Elites to hunt in large packs. Like the Fourteens we'd captured this year, the previous year's hunting had been bad in small groups. When we ran in packs the Sixteens could not attack us. Apparently someone remembered the stories of our success the year before and had decided to use our own plan against us.