The group came closer. He recognized the livery on some of the men, but couldn't really bring himself to think about it, because his attention quickly became fixed on the animals.
They were like cats, but they were the size of bears. And their shoulders were too broad, giving them shallow flat chests. Their hind legs also seemed overlong, crooked up more than one might have expected to aid their walking. They moved quickly and fluidly, though.
But their faces... they had huge, radiant eyes, whiskers and tall nervous ears. Their snouts were long, and fanged, but from the cheekbones up the structure of their skull was almost human. One even had a mane of white hair like a woman's tresses draped across its shoulders. As they halted four meters away he saw that their pelts were short and fine, and white as snow.
The human riders did not dismount. Indeed, they stared directly ahead, as if they had nothing to say. They were of a comparatively minor House, and he was certain they would not have had the temerity to bother him, on their own.
Lavin cleared his throat. "To whom am I to address myself?"
He was looking at the rider in the lead when he said this, and so it took him a moment to notice the smallest of the animals rising to its hind feet. Lavin turned his attention to it, and gasped.
Standing, the beast had become human—or nearly so. Its mobile joints accommodated both the running posture of a cat and the upright stance of a man. It was difficult to tell gender, but he would have sworn the thing had breasts. Cascades of white hair flowed past its shoulders. It stood easily, as if born to do so, and now he saw it wore a narrow leather sword belt with an epee and some daggers sheathed there.
It blinked its huge eyes at him, and said in a woman's voice, "Address yourself to this one."
§
Vertigo and exhaustion combined to make the next events seem more like a dream than real. Lavin had a parlay table and chairs brought; the white Wind twitched its tail aside and sat down opposite him. It smelled faintly of heather and fur. The hands it laid on the table top had solid, calloused heels, and the fingers seemed naturally clenched. It had to splay them in a stretch to make them limber.
"Why have you come?" asked Lavin. Everything he said seemed obtuse; he was off-balance and knew it, but there was nothing he could do about that.
"We have come to command," said the Wind. Lavin's heart sank.
"We seek the pathology that calls itself Armiger. You will assist us in this."
Armiger is with the queen. "I don't see how we can—"
"Your army will march where we direct. We will provide daylight for as long as necessary. You will begin your march immediately. In addition, this one will take a force of cavalry to range ahead. We must locate the pathology. It is a threat."
"Yes, your..." Lavin had no idea how to address this thing. "Your Honour." That sounded wrong, but he was damned if he would call it your highness.
Something about what the thing had just said—"Are you proposing that we march nonstop? Day and night?"
"Yes. That is why we have provided you sunlight for the journey."
"We can't do that! We're not prepared for a forced march. The men will suffer—"
"That is not our concern. We need your army in place in case the pathology compromises the local mecha. Also because of where it is headed."
"Where?" His own scouts had reported that a small party had vanished in the desert to the southwest. There were caravan routes that Galas might know of that led across the sands to the mountains of the coast.
"Provide a map," ordered the thing. Lavin snapped his fingers, and one was brought.
The white Wind glanced over the vellum appraisingly, then darted a clawed finger at a familiar landmark. "We are here. The pathology departed in this direction... It may be headed here. We cannot permit it to arrive, and compromise the mecha or desals there."
Lavin looked at the name under the Wind's pointing claw. The Titan's Gates.
"That's a thousand kilometers from here! We don't have the resources for a march like that! If we march into the desert now, we won't reach the Gates. Marching without break, without water or food, we'll all be dead in a week." He sat back and folded his arms. "Kill us all now. I won't command my men to march themselves to death."
The Wind hissed. "You will not die. We will provide sustenance along the way. And we will move parts of your army in relay. We cannot move all, so some must march."
"Move my army? In relays?" Lavin shook his head—a mistake. As the world spun, he said, "What madness are you talking about?"
The Wind bunched its hand into a fist, shredding the map. "Look! Do not disbelieve this one! That is how we will relay your men. That is how you will be fed." It stood, knocking its chair over, and pointed at the sky.
Six horizontal crescents, their tops lit by the square sun far above, hung outside the pyramid of blue sky. He hadn't noticed the vagabond moons before, what with everything else going on. He swore under his breath.
"Part of your army will rest as it is carried ahead. At the drop point you will meet it, and supplies will also be provided. Some of those who have marched will then embark for the next leg. In this way you will march from here to the Titan's Gates without stopping."
In one day. One endless day. Lavin slumped back, stunned.
"Our own army will meet you there."
"Your army?" With every word it spoke, the Wind became more terrifying.
"The pathology has already begun to infect the mecha and geosphere. If it conquers the desalination nexus it will have an almost impregnable fortress."
The Wind stepped away from the table. "That is all. You have your orders."
"I understand. And we will obey. But..."
"What?" Its tail twitched as it rounded on him. Lavin shrank back despite himself.
What will you do with Galas? But it would not even understand the question if he asked it.
Lavin watched it walk away, his mind a blank. The impossible was happening, and what was worse, he knew that the next days would so far exceed what had just occurred, that in future times he might not even remember this one conversation.
The Wind gestured at its mounted comrades and they all turned to leave.
Hesty was saying something. Lavin couldn't make out the words, but the man was pointing at the sky, where one of the vagabond moons had begun to loom large, a lozenge of its surface now in direct sunlight.
The white Wind had been frightening, but also oddly familiar. Lavin stared after her as she and the others departed, wracking his brains to find a memory. He had heard her voice before, and recently... No, it was gone.
He sighed, and turned to Hesty. "I see it, man. Go prepare your men. Tell them the Winds have brought the moons here at my request. There is one adventure left for us, it seems."
39
It was a joy simply to stretch out an arm, and feel the dry winter grass slide past her fur. The sky was lovely to look at; she would have liked to have rolled on her back, purring, to gaze at the new sun the swans had made, just to absorb the wonderful gradations of color that canopied it.
The hunt was even more enjoyable. For the moment, that was where the white Wind kept her attention focussed. It was hard, though, with all the wonderful distractions...
She prowled up the side of a rock-strewn hill, whose top sported some scraggly, wind-sculpted trees. The land had changed from desert to stony scrubland. A few human shepherds brought their flocks here in summer, simply because there was nowhere else for them to go, but nothing agricultural would grow in this soil.
That meant there would be no human witnesses, no one to interfere with the capture.
She lifted her muzzle and sniffed at the wind. She could smell horses—of course, they were obvious kilometers away. Now, though, she could also smell fresh-washed humans. Two women and a man.
There was the faintest possibility that these were not the ones she was looking for. She would have to risk a peek over the top of the hill, and hope they didn't see
her silhouetted against the bruised horizon.
The white Wind was very good. They wouldn't see her. She crept the last meter with her belly to the cold ground, infinitesimally slow in her movements, and finally laid her chin on a flat rock next to some torpid ants. A few stalks of grass made a screen here through which she could see the valley.
It wasn't much of a valley; more as if a single huge boulder, the size of a whole suburb of houses, had split open and crumbled. Three horses were tethered in the shelter made by the split. There was a half-cave there, on the other side where the ground humped up and then up again before rising straight up to the same height as the white Wind. This meant there were two entrances to the little valley, unless one flew. The Wind's forces were all on the western side. She would have to send some of the men and basts around to block the other exit before they closed the trap.
A man walked around from behind one of the horses. He was talking to a woman in peasant garb who trailed after him, waving her hands in agitation. He didn't recognize the woman, but the man was clearly Armiger. That was all she needed to know.
The white Wind eased back two meters, then spun, delighting in the balance of her tail, and raced down the scraggly hillside.
It's good to run run run run, she hymned as she went. The Wind felt like bursting into song, and were it not for the presence of the prey so close, she would have. The swans would never begrudge such a display—they sang all the time. The whole world sang, a revelation that filled the white Wind's breast with joy every time she thought of it. In quiet times, she could curl up around an interesting stone or sweet-smelling plant, and hear the faint music—thinking music—that welled up around her.
To think she had once believed it to be mindless chatter! She allowed herself a laugh as she reached the bottom of the hill. Her sinuous body wove between boulders and thorn bushes as she made for some trees that had made a brave stand several kilometers from where Armiger had camped. She was following the exact route she had taken to get here, and made a game out of stepping in her own pawprints as she went. One-to-four, one-to-four, whoops missed, one-to-four...
These last few days had been a blessing. When she was released to run down a long ramp onto the cold desert sands, the white Wind had rolled over four times in the dirt and howled her joy at the sky. She had wanted to run to the horizon and back just so she could say she'd looked over it, but the swans had other plans. Someone to find. When they told her who, she had rolled over again, laughing.
This was fun; still, she longed to be finished, so she could take off on her own and explore this beautiful world. She felt exactly like Ariel in that old play, so as she raced into the camp her servants had made, she sang,
Where the bee sucks there suck I,
In a cowslip's bell I lie.
On a bat's back I do fly
...forgetting that none of these people knew that old language.
One of the human soldiers stepped forward and bowed gravely to her. "Are they there, Lady May?" he asked. She could hear the well-disguised fear in his voice.
She ran a circle around him. Merrily merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs from the bow, she thought, but she only said, "Yes."
Her chief servant approached, distaste and fear written on his face as he watched her sit up on her hindquarters and pant. "Then shall we fetch them now?" asked the sergeant.
"No, not yet." She explained the tactical situation. They would have to split their force and come at the sheltered declivity from two sides. "It's open country," she finished. "There's a good chance of being spotted if they have a sentry out, so you'll make the pincer at full gallop."
As he slumped toward his men, issuing orders irritably, the white Wind turned a cartwheel and ran to her own people, the basts who prowled restlessly at the edge of the camp. They chattered laughter at her approach. "Little woman-bast," one called out. "Why are you so happy?"
She stopped and cocked a paw to one ear. "Because I hear it!" she replied. "I hear it rising all around us."
They nodded. They knew what she meant.
§
Megan had originally intended to hunt for berries. She had found a handful or two, but halfway back in her circuit of the hill above the cave, she had stumbled on a little flat area screened by bushes. It was invisible from below, but she could see the whole camp. The temptation was irresistible, and so she had hunkered down to spy on her man.
You're terrible, she told herself, even as she parted the bushes to look almost straight down the rock face. She could hear Armiger and the queen bickering. Galas looked silly in Megan's dress; it was far too big for her. But she refused to wear any of the perfectly good clothing they had salvaged from the razed town. Megan had thought her a tragic figure before. In the past few days her patience had worn thin, and she was beginning to think of Galas as merely spoiled.
Megan had dressed herself in some boy's clothes. It was practical, but unfeminine. Yesterday she hadn't minded that, but now, watching Armiger and Galas alone, she wondered. There was nothing overt going on between them, no ardent words or glances. They weren't holding hands. Still, she knew a strong bond had developed between them—one based on commonality that Megan could never share. They were both rulers, of the highest possible caste. She was a peasant. Even if (foolish dream!) Armiger married her, Megan would remain a peasant. She could never be comfortable with the nobles and ladies of the Court. Even if he became king of the world, as he planned, she would blush and look down if she had to greet the great people of other lands. She had thought about these things. She knew she would rather serve them than look them in the eye.
So shall I leave? she thought sadly. Armiger shrugged at something Galas had said, and twitched his long hair back over his shoulder. She knew that gesture so well, she could almost hear him saying, "We will decide later." Her heart ached.
She herself had told him that you can never hold onto anything. The harder you try, the more precious things slip through your fingers. The secret to life, she had said, was to find the little things, the unimportant ones that would nonetheless always remind you of the precious things they accompanied—and hold onto them. Like the fine furniture her husband had carved for her, seemingly centuries ago.
Galas was weeping again. Megan sighed. Had the rain found a way through her roof while she was away? Was the fine wood of the bed and wardrobe ruined now? Had someone moved into her house? Or would she find it exactly as she had left it, if she returned now?
Kiss her, she mentally commanded Armiger. Make it easy for me to leave. He did not, although he enfolded her in his arms and rested a hand on her head as she cried. His expression was distant, as it often was, as he rocked the queen gently.
Megan sat back, chewing her lip. She blinked at the strong sunlight—daylight in the middle of the night. It was unnerving, more so since she knew it meant the Winds were closing in on them. She shaded her eyes with one hand and gazed out over the dry plain, in case there were some army approaching.
She had only been half-serious about looking, so for a second or so she couldn't believe it when she saw the cloud of dust raised by a band of horses approaching their hiding place. There must be at least fifty. Maybe Armiger could take on that many. Maybe not.
Megan's heart sank when she saw what they were doing. The groups split in two as they approached. They mean to block both ways out.
They were approaching from the west. One group would have to ride the long way around to reach the eastern entrance of the vale. The other group would wait until some preordained signal then move in.
It is the queen they want, she thought. Had it been Winds, they would have arrived from the sky, as swans or Hooks. Or popped out of the earth as morphs. No, these riders must be from Parliament's army, come to bring Galas home for trial.
For herself and Armiger to live, the sensible thing would be to send Galas out to them. The queen was in such a state she would probably be glad to go. But Armiger would never permit it, and M
egan doubted she had the hardness of heart to do it either. They could all ride out the eastern exit now, but then the whole group would pursue them.
No: if they gave them what they wanted, Galas would be tried and executed. If they ran, they would be chased down and the end would be the same, only Armiger and Megan would likely be killed in the fight.
But if they captured someone they thought was the queen, and found out she was not only hours or days from now...
Megan scattered the berries in her haste to scramble down the hillside.
§
Armiger heard the commotion, but at first didn't turn. Galas was telling him about her relationship with Lavin, and he didn't want to seem distracted. Then the queen, who was seated on a rock, looked past him and said, "What is she doing?"
He turned in time to see a flash of Megan's naked body, before she pulled down the robe she was donning. It was the queen's robe, the one she had worn when they escaped the palace. And now Megan was cinching her horse's saddle...
"Megan!" He started toward her, but she hopped nimbly into the saddle and flicked the reins.
"What are you doing?"
"Ride east! Ride east, love, if you love me!" She waved a hand over her head as she galloped; then she was through the gateway made by two huge boulders at the western side of the vale, and vanished in a cloud of dust.
It took precious seconds for him to bridle his own mount, and while he did that Galas ran after Megan. She too vanished in the swirl of hoof-drawn dust, then raced back.
"Riders!" she shouted. "There are riders coming! They've seen her, they're trying to head her off!"
Ventus Page 55
