Doomstalker

by Glen Cook

  Out on the snow, beyond the trench, nomad workers had driven a tall post deep into the snow. Now they were laying a layer of rock and gravel around it. Others stood by with arms loaded with wood. Marika was puzzled till she saw several huntresses drag Gibany to the post.

  They tied the one-legged silth so her foot dangled inches from the surface. They they piled wood around her. Even from where she watched Marika could sense Gibany’s fear and rage. Rage founded in the fact that she could do nothing to halt them, for all she was one of the most powerful silth of Akard.

  “They are taunting us,” Marika snarled. “Showing us we are powerless against them.”

  Bagnel grunted. He mounted his metal instrument upon a tripod, peered through a tube on top. He began twisting small knobs.

  A runner carrying a torch came out of the snowfall, trotted up to where Gibany was bound. Marika slipped through her loophole once more, hearing Bagnel mutter “All right,” as she went.

  There was not a ghost to be found. Not a thing she could do for Gibany, unless — as several silth seemed to be doing already — she extended her touch and tried to take away some of the fear and agony soon to come.

  Thunder cracked in her right ear.

  Marika came back to flesh snarling, in the full grip of a fight-flight reflex. Bagnel looked at her with wide, startled eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you.”

  She shook with reaction while watching him fiddle with his knobs. “Right,” he said. And the end of his contraption spat fire and thunder. Far out on the snowscape, the nomad huntress bearing the torch leapt, spun, shrieked, collapsed, did not move again.

  Marika gaped.

  Facts began to add together. That time in the forest last summer, when she had heard those strange tak-takking noises. The time coming down the east fork with Khles Gibany and Gorry when the nomads attacked...

  The instrument roared again. Another nomad flung away from Gibany.

  Marika looked at the weapon in awe. “What is it?”

  For a moment Bagnel looked at her oddly. Along the wall, his brethren were making similar instruments talk. “Oh,” he murmured. “That is right. You are Tech Two pup.” He swung the instrument slightly, seeking another target. “It is called a rifle. It spits a pellet of metal. The pellet is no bigger than the last joint of your littlest finger, but travels so fast it will punch right through a body.” His weapon spat thunder. So did those of his brethren. “Not much point to this, except to harass them.” Bam! “There are too many of them.”

  Below, the last of the workers and huntresses were coming in the gate. Only one of Akard’s meth remained unsafe: Khles Gibany, tied to that post.

  The nomad huntresses and workers had thrown themselves into the trench the workers had begun. Now Marika saw another wave hurrying forward from the forest beyond the fields. She could just make that out now. The snowfall was weakening.

  Pinpoints of light flickered along the advancing nomad line, accompanied by a crackle like that of fat in a frying pan.

  “Down, pup!” Bagnel snapped. “They are shooting back.”

  Something snarled past Marika. It took a bite out of the earflap on her hat. Another something smacked into the wall and whined away. She got down.

  Bagnel said, “They have the weapons they captured at Critza, plus whatever else someone gave them.” He sighted his weapon again, fired, looked at her with teeth exposed in a snarl of black humor. “Hang on. It is going to get exciting.”

  Marika rose, looked out. Someone had managed to get the torch into the wood piled round Gibany’s foot. Gibany’s fear had drawn her... Once more through the loophole. Once more no ghosts of consequence. She reached with the touch to help Gibany endure. But half the silth on the wall were doing that, almost in a passive acceptance of fate. “No!” Marika said. “They will not do that. You. Bagnel. Show me how to use that thing.” She indicated his weapon.

  He eyed her a moment, shook his head. “I am not sure what you want to do, pup. But you will not do it with this.” He patted the weapon. Snowflakes touching its tube were turning to steam. “It takes years to learn to use it properly.”

  “Then you will do it. Put one of your deadly pellets into Khles, to free her from agony. We cannot save her. The talent is denied us today. But we can rob the savages of their mockery by sending her to rejoin the All.”

  Bagnel gaped. “Mistress...”

  Her expression was fierce, demanding.

  “I could not, mistress. To raise paw against the silth. No matter the cause...”

  Marika stared across the snow, ignoring the insect sounds swarming past her. Gibany had begun writhing in her bonds. The pain of the fire had torn all reason from her mind. She knew nothing but the agony now.

  “Do it,” Marika said in a low and intense voice so filled with power the tradermale began looking around as if seeking a place to run. “Do it now. Free her. I will take all responsibility. Do you understand?”

  Teeth grinding, Bagnel nodded. Paws shaking, he adjusted knobs. He paused to get a grip on himself.

  His weapon barked.

  Marika stared at Gibany, defying the nomad snipers.

  The Khles bucked against her bonds, sagged. Marika ducked through her loophole, grabbed the best ghost available, went looking.

  Gibany was free. She would know no more pain.

  Back. “It is done. I am in your debt, tradermale.”

  Bagnel showed her angry teeth. “You are a strange one, young mistress. And soon to be one joining your elder sister if you do not get yourself down.” A steady rain of metal pounded against the wall. Swarms whined past. Marika realized most must be meant for her. She was the only target visible to the nomads.

  She sped them a hand gesture of defiance, lowered herself behind a merlon.

  One of Bagnel’s brethren shouted at him, pointed. Out on the snowfield meth were running forward in tight bunches. Each bunch carried something. Bagnel and his comrades began shooting rapidly, concentrating on those groups. Some of the silth, too, managed to reach them. Marika saw nomads go down in the characteristic throes of silth death-sending. But three groups managed to carry their burdens into the snow trenches, where workers were still digging. Marika now understood why they were heaping the snow the way they were. It would block the paths of the pellets from the tradermales’ weapons.

  More nomads came from the woods. Some carried heavy packs, some nothing at all. The latter rushed to the burdens their predecessors had dropped, grabbed them up, hustled them forward.

  The crackle of nomad rifles continued unabated. Twice Marika heard someone on the wall shriek.

  “Get down as flat as you can,” Bagnel told her. “And snuggle up tight against the merlon. They are going to start throwing the big stuff.”

  Puffs of smoke sprouted and blossomed above the nomad trenches, vanished on the wind. Muted crumpings came a moment later, a sort of soft threatening thumping. Where had she heard that before? That time when tradermales ambushed the nomads she and Arhdwehr were chasing...

  “Down,” Bagnel said, and yanked at her when she did not move fast enough to suit. He pressed her against the icy stone.

  Something moaned softly in a rising pitch. There was a tremendous bang outside the wall, followed by a series of bangs, only one of which occurred behind the wall. That one precipitated a shriek which turned into the steady moan of a badly injured meth.

  “They are getting the range,” Bagnel explained. “Once they find it the bombs will come steady.”

  Where were the ghosts? How could silth battle this without their talents?

  Why were the ghosts absent just when the savages elected to attack?

  A second salvo came. Most fell short, though closer. Several did carry past the wall. They made a lot of noise but did little damage. The packfast was constructed of thick stone. Its builders had meant it to stand forever.

  The entire third salvo fell inside the fortress. Marika sensed that that presaged a steady hammering.<
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  A river of meth poured from the woods, burdened with ammunition for the engines throwing the bombs. Workers left their trenches and darted forward, hastily dug shallow holes in which to shelter. They worked their ways toward the snow break. Nomads carrying rifles followed them, only sporadically harassed by Bagnel and his brethren. The crackle of nomad rifle fire never slowed.

  Several more packfast meth were hit.

  “This is hopeless,” Marika whispered. “We cannot fight back.” She went down through her loophole again, and again found the ghost world all but barren. But this time she stayed, hoping for the stray chance to strike back. She sensed that many sisters were doing the same, with occasional success. Those who did find a tool spent their fury upon the crews of the bomb-throwing instruments.

  Why was the ghost world so naked?

  Marika waited with the patience of a hunting herdek, till the ghost she needed happened by. She pounced, seized it, commanded it, rode it out over the snowfields, past the nomads and their strange engines, through woods where thousands more nomads waited to move forward, and on to the very limit of her ability to control that feeble a ghost. And there she found the thing that she had sensed must exist, if only on the dimmest level.

  A whole company of silth and wehrlen, gathered in one place, were pulling to them all the strong ghosts of the region. The air surrounding them boiled with color, denser than ever Marika had imagined. She thought the ghosts must be so numerous they would be visible to the eyes of untalented meth.

  They were weak, these wild silth and wehrlen. Poorly trained. But in the aggregate they were able to summon the ghosts to them and so deny the Akard sisters access to their most potent defense.

  Marika sought a focus, one strong silth controlling the group. Sometimes her Akard sisters linked under the control of the senior to meld into a more powerful whole.

  A greater whole there was here, but not under any immediately evident central direction.

  Straining her ghost, Marika picked a female and plucked at her heart.

  The distance was too extreme. She was able to injure the wild silth but not to kill her.

  Might that not be enough?

  She moved among the nomads rapidly, stinging, and for a moment they lost control. A moment was enough. The ghosts scattered, driven by some mad pressure.

  Marika felt her hold on her self growing tenuous. She had strained it too much. She hurried back to Akard. She was a moment slow getting though her loophole, and nearly panicked. There were stories about silth who did not get back. Terrible stories. Some might be true.

  It took a moment to get oriented in her flesh.

  She opened her eyes to discover the nomad rifle fire grown ragged, to the sight of nomads fleeing toward the woods, and many not making it.

  This was the slaughter Gorry had prophesied and insisted would be visited upon the savage.

  Feebly, Marika attained her feet and made her way toward Senior Koenic. The senior was out of body when she arrived. She waited till her elder came back from the place of ghosts. When the senior’s eyes focused Marika reported all that she had seen and done.

  “You are a strong one, pup,” Koenic said while a nearby Gorry scowled at such praise. “I sensed them out there myself, but I did not have the strength to reach them. Will you be able to do it again?”

  “I am not certain, mistress. Not right away. It is an exhausting thing to do.” She was shaking with fatigue.

  Senior Koenic stared out across the snowfields. “Already they begin to gather those-who-dwell to them again. Soon they will resume their attack. In an hour, perhaps. Marika, go down into the deepest cells, where their weapons cannot reach you. Rest. Do not come back up, for you are our final weapon and you must not be risked. When you are ready, scourge them again.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Gorry glowered, angered because her pupil should receive so much direct and positive attention. A glance told Marika that her instructress was scheming to take advantage of the day. She would have to watch her back. The moment the danger receded...

  Senior Koenic mused, “Those of us who can will seize what you give us and punish the savages. They may take Akard from the Reugge, but they will pay dearly for the theft.”

  Marika was surprised at such negativity in the senior. It frightened her.

  Grauel appeared from somewhere unseen. Marika felt pleased, restored, knowing her packmate was watching over her. The huntress followed her down into the courtyard, where bombs had destroyed everything not constructed of the most massive stone. In a strained, flat tone, Grauel said, “We had four years, Marika. Four more than seemed likely when last the nomad threatened us.”

  “Yes? You, too? Even you have surrendered to despair?” She could think of nothing else to say. “Express my regards to Barlog.”

  “I will. She will not be far away.”

  Marika passed through the great hall. It was a shambles. The overhead windows had been shattered by bombs. Its interior had been damaged badly. Though there had never been much in that chamber not made of stone, a few small fires burned there, being fought by worker pups too young to make a stand upon the wall. Marika paused to watch.

  The word seemed to have run ahead. The pups looked at her in awe and fear and hope. She shook her head, afraid that too many meth, for whatever reason, had suddenly invested all their hopes in her.

  It did not follow logically in her mind that because she had aborted the savage strategy once she should become the heartpiece of the packfast’s defense.

  While she stood there she thought of going to the communications center to see what news Braydic had, in hopes there would be a hope from Maksche, but she decided she would be drained too much by the electromagnetic fog. If she was to be the great champion of Akard — foolish as that seemed to her — then she must conserve herself.

  She went down to her own cell, not as deep inside the fortress as Senior Koenic might have liked, but deep enough to be safe from bombs, and psychologically more comfortable than anyplace but her retreat upon the wall.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I

  Jiana! You have brought this upon Akard and the Reugge.

  Marika started out of her resting trance, shaken by the touch. What?...

  Someone scratched at her cell door. She sat up. “Enter.”

  Barlog came in. She carried a tray laden with hot, high-energy food. “You’d better eat, Marika. I hear the silth need much energy to work their witchery.”

  The smell of food made Marika realize how hungry she was, how depleted her energies were. “Yes. You are wise, Barlog. I had not thought of it.”

  “What is the trouble, pup? You seem distracted.”

  She was. It was that touch. She took the tray without answering, dug in. Barlog stationed herself beside the door, beaming approval like a fussy old male.

  Another scratch. Barlog met Marika’s eye. Marika nodded. Barlog opened the door.

  Grauel stepped inside, apparently relieved to see Barlog there. She carried a whole arsenal of weapons: shield, sword, knives, heavy spear, javelins, even a bow and arrows, which would be useless inside the fortress’s tight corridors. Amused, Marika asked, “What are you supposed to be?”

  “Your guardian.”

  “Yes?”

  Grauel understood. “The old one. Gorry. She is saying wicked things about you.”

  “Such as?”

  “She is walking the walls calling you doomstalker. She is telling everyone that the nomads have come down upon Akard because of you. She is telling everyone that you are accursed. She is saying that to end the threat the packfast must rid itself of the Jiana.”

  “Indeed?” That was a change from moments ago. “I thought that the senior had designated me Akard’s great hope.”

  “There is that school of thought, too. Among the younger silth and huntresses. Especially those who have shared the hunt with you. Arhdwehr follows her around, giving the lie to all she says. But there are those amo
ng the oldest silth who live in myth and mystery and hear only the magic in Gorry’s claims. One savage packstead pup is a cheap price to pay for salvation.”

  “It is sad,” Marika said. “We have ten thousand enemies howling outside the walls, so we divide against ourselves.”

  Grauel said, “I know huntresses who have served the Reugge elsewhere. They say it is ever thus among silth. Always at one another’s throats — from safely behind the back. This time could be dangerous. There is much anxiety and much fear and a great desire for a cheap, magical solution. I will stand guard.”

  “I, too,” Barlog said.

  “As you will. Though I think you two would be of more value upon the wall.”

  Neither huntress said a word. Each had a stubborn look that said no command would return them to the wall while they fancied Marika threatened. Barlog took weapons from Grauel. After a last look at their charge, the two stepped outside.

  Marika wondered if a bomb would blast them away from her door.

  She did feel more secure, knowing they were there.

  She ate, and returned to her resting trance.

  Jiana. Your time is coming,

  Angrily, Marika flung back, Someone’s time is near. The grauken is about to snap at someone’s tail. She felt Gorry reel under the impact of the unexpected response. She felt Gorry’s terror.

  She was pleased.

  Yes. Someone’s time was near, be it hers or that of the mad old instructress.

  For a time Marika had difficulty resting. Memories of kagbeasts and other surprise horrors kept creeping into her mind.

  II

  She felt the bombs falling in the far distance, sending muted vibrations running through Akard’s roots. The nomads were back. Their silth had recovered control of the ghost realm. She ignored the sounds, remained calm, waited till she had regained her full strength. Then she probed out through the cold stone, searching for a suitable ghost.

  The hunt took much longer this time. In time she captured a weaker one and rode it farther afield in her search. And it was while she hunted that she witnessed the disaster on the Husgen.