by Angus Wells
“Why not send them to both?” Isten asked.
“No.” Tahdase shook his head. “First to Juh. Then, when we’ve word of what he thinks, to the Commacht.”
“Are you sure?” Isten asked.
“This is my decision,” Tahdase said.
Isten nodded. “You are akaman of the Naiche: it shall be as you wish.”
They crossed the valley and topped the wall beyond. From there, looking out from behind the screen of pines that hid them, they could see the broken country stretching away to the width of the icebound river that curved slow and lazy across the flat. The river was too broad that ice had locked it yet, and the farther bank devolved onto a wide beach that ran smooth to the stands of hemlock, beech, and maple that scratched at the cold sky with naked branches.
Rannach turned to Morrhyn and pursed his lips. The wakanisha looked, if anything, worse than that first day in the valley. Strands of white hair straggled from the hood of his cape, and his cheeks were sunk in, the bones prominent as a dead man’s. His lips were thinned and cracked by the cold, moving as his teeth chattered. Had he not known better, Rannach might have thought him a ghost, a revenant spirit come back to haunt him for his sins. In all of Morrhyn’s face, only his eyes seemed alive, and they burned with such awful determination, Rannach could not look long at them for fear they’d suck out his soul and bind him forever to the Dreamer’s purpose.
Save, he thought, he was already bound.
The Maker knew, but he felt no choice but to deliver Morrhyn safe to his father who—being the man he was—might likely execute the sentence agreed by the Council should his son return from banishment. “Just” was a word people applied to Racharran; “hard” was what came to Rannach’s mind. He thought it not impossible his father thank him for bringing Morrhyn back and then order his execution: justly.
But he had given Morrhyn his promise and he would not renege on that, no matter the cost.
“I see no danger,” he said. “There’s neither smoke nor any other sign. Nothing moves out there.”
“Even so.” Morrhyn leant against a pine, an arm around the trunk as if without that prop he must fall down.
“Even so?” Rannach queried.
“It’s there,” Morrhyn said, the syllables distorted by his jangling teeth. “Small, but even so …”
“We can follow this ridge,” Rannach offered. “It shall delay us—the next ford is three days distant—but if you say we must …”
“Three days?” Morrhyn frowned, which contorted his face horribly. “And after?”
Rannach stabbed a finger in the direction of the river. “Do we cross here, then we’re in line for the Wintering Ground. Five more days?”
“And that way?” Morrhyn waved a glove at the ridgetop.
Rannach said, “Three days to the ford, then a stretch of river breaks that shall likely take us three more. After that, perhaps nine or ten. The horses are wearying, remember.”
Morrhyn nodded. Rannach thought, And also you. Can you last so long? Can you even last five days?
“There’s not the time.” Morrhyn spoke into the gnarled bark of the tree. “O Maker, there’s not the time.” He pushed away from the tree, shuffling across the snow to where the paint mare waited. “We must risk it. But listen, eh?”
Rannach nodded as he heaved the Dreamer astride the mare. He no longer asked if Morrhyn needed help: it was too obvious, and he only gave it.
“There’s danger down there.” Morrhyn raised a hand to point in the direction of the breaks. “No great force, but … something. I cannot dream it clearer.”
“And if we ride around this danger?” Rannach asked.
“Then we shall come too late,” Morrhyn said. “Oh, Rannach! The Maker forgive me, but I lead you into peril.”
Rannach smiled. “My life’s forfeit, no? Every step I take into Ket-Ta-Witko I’m in peril. So what more is this?”
Morrhyn smiled back. “You’ve courage,” he said. “And you grow wiser. But listen, I think that what we face cannot be met with honest lance. Your bow should be the better weapon.”
“Then I’ll ready my bow.” Rannach mounted his stallion and heeled his lance in the saddle sheath, drew his bow from the quiver and nocked a shaft. “Do we go on?”
“Yes.” Morrhyn nodded. “But carefully, eh?”
Bylas heeled his horse to speed for all the animal was already running fast as it could. He could hear the baying of the lion creatures behind him. They sounded close, but he had sooner not look back: better to fasten his eyes on the broken country ahead, where he might lose them. Better not to see them at all.
He turned his face in Motsos’s direction and shouted, “When we reach the gulleys, you turn off and ride for the canyon.”
Motsos waved a hand in acknowledgment. Bylas breathed a hasty prayer to the Maker that they all survive. He doubted they would. But Maker, he asked, let Motsos at least live to take word back.
They came in amongst the ridges and galloped hard along the widest draw. Then, deliberately, waving Motsos on, Bylas slowed his horse and motioned the others up around him. In a group they followed after Motsos until he turned away in the direction of the canyon. They followed awhile, until Motsos split off and the snow lay all churned behind him so that pursuit must surely be difficult.
Then Bylas shouted over the pounding of the desperate hooves and the roaring of the lion-things behind, “We fight! For the Commacht, eh? And all the People!”
“We should have wintered with the Commacht.” Yazte loosed a string of curses that elicited a reproachful glance from his wife. “Together, we might be strong enough.”
“ ‘Might’ is a loose bridle,” Kahteney said. “And from all Motsos and Bishi told us, two clans alone should not be enough.”
“No.” Yazte shook his head, reaching for the tiswin. “But had we listened, looked to persuade the others—”
“We did not and they did not,” Kahteney interrupted. “And now it’s too late.”
“I know.” Yazte grunted, like some hibernating bear disturbed out of winter slumber. “I know all the things we should have done and did not; what I want to know now is what we should do now.”
Kahteney looked him in the eye and gave bleak answer: “I don’t know.”
“Ach, you’re my wakanisha,” Yazte grumbled. “You’re supposed to advise me.”
Kahteney chuckled softly, the sound as grim as his worried face. “I’ve no dreams to guide me,” he murmured, “nor much advice to offer. Save what hindsight grants.”
“Hindsight!” Yazte gestured irritably, splashing tiswin unnoticed over his breeches. “Hindsight’s no use to me. I’ve a clan looking to me for guidance—I must look ahead.”
Kahteney nodded. “Those we’ve sighted are surely scouts. Scouts go ahead of a war band—”
Now it was Yazte who interrupted: “And therefore that horde Racharran sent warning of comes into Ket-Ta-Witko. Yes! I know this, and that even the scouts are formidable. I know that if they find our Wintering Ground and bring that horde against us, we’ve little chance. Oh, by the Maker, I know this! But what am I to do?”
Did he expect a response, he got none. He continued: “Shall I tell my Lakanti we must strike our lodges and quit the Wintering Ground? To go where? To the Commacht? Would they welcome a whole clan in that canyon? What should we all eat? And if these strangeling invaders find the canyon? In the Maker’s name, Kahteney, I tell you I don’t see any answers. Not save we wait here and pray; and likely die.”
Softly, Kahteney said, “Perhaps that’s the Maker’s wish.”
Yazte said bitterly, “Then he’s unkind.”
“Or just,” Kahteney said no louder, “and delivers the People to punishment for the breaking of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko.”
“All of us?” Yazte drained his cup, refilled the vessel. “That’s a hard judgment, no? Should he not limit his ire to those closer concerned?”
Kahteney shrugged, offering no answer.
“
I’d not,” Yazte said sullenly, “just sit here and wait for death. But the Maker help me, I cannot think of what else to do.”
“Perhaps …” Kahteney hesitated. “Perhaps you should send a messenger to Racharran.”
“To what end?” asked Yazte. “If anything, the Commacht are worse off than we. Morrhyn’s gone away, no? And the Commacht suffered all summer from Chakthi’s raids.”
Kahteney shrugged again. “I can offer no better advice.”
“Ach!” Yazte emptied another cup. “He’s hard, our Maker.”
“But just,” Kahteney said. “Perhaps he’ll offer us a chance to survive. I cannot believe he’d destroy all of the People for the sins of the few.”
“Think you so?” Yazte sighed hugely. “I see little chance for any of us. I think perhaps we are all doomed.”
“Perhaps we should pray,” Kahteney suggested.
“You’ve not already?” Yazte pantomimed surprise.
Kahteney knew his akaman too well to take offense, so he only nodded and said, “I have. But perhaps we should hold a Prayer Ceremony.”
Yazte sniffed. “If you think it might do some good. But meanwhile I think I’ll take your other advice.”
“Which?” Kahteney asked.
“The messenger,” Yazte answered. “I shall send a rider to the Commacht to find out what Racharran does.”
They came down off the ridgetop cautious as wolves with man-scent on the wind. Rannach took the lead, guiding the stallion with knees alone, his hands on bow and shaft, his eyes alert for sign of promised danger. Morrhyn followed behind, one hand holding the mare’s rein, the other locked in her mane. He feared he’d otherwise fall, and cursed his weakness. A bow and arrows hung quivered on his saddle, but he doubted he had the strength to flight a shaft. If what he dreaded did wait below, then it should be Rannach’s fight alone, and he like some invalid, one of the helpless ones. He prayed his dream was wrong and knew it could not be. Had he any power now, it was oneiric, prophetic. Something awaited them.
He clung to the mare as she plunged through the snow drifted amongst the breaks. Perhaps, he thought, the danger lay in the river. Even with the ford, that must be perilous to cross. Frozen along its banks, the water was snow-gorged, running cold and swift, with sizable chunks of ice racing on the flood. It should be easy for a horse to lose footing there, or panic at the onrush of floes. He shuddered at the thought of finding himself unhorsed in midstream, doubting he could hold his seat if the mare bucked; sure that he must die if he fell into the icy water.
He turned a head that ached with the cold toward the walls of the break they descended. Snow glittered there, under a hard blue sky, the sun watery above. Ahead, its rays layered veins of gold on the black water of the river, the floating ice all gemlike—silver and blue. Ahead, Rannach’s stallion snorted and began to plunge against the rein.
Rannach came out of the saddle in a single fluid movement, leaving the stallion to wade back to Morrhyn.
“He scents something.” As he spoke, his eyes moved across the terrain below. “Hold him and wait here. Keep them both quiet if you can.”
Morrhyn nodded and urged the mare closer to the nervous stallion. “Be careful, eh?” He took the stallion’s rein. The horse snapped yellow teeth and he wondered if he could hold both animals: the mare sensed her companion’s unease and began herself to shift under him. He wound both reins in his left hand and promised himself that if he should be unseated, he would lie in the snow and hold them until Rannach came back.
If Rannach came back.
The younger man was already scrambling up the side of the break, his head bared now so that the warrior’s braids flung loose. Pale sunlight shone on the fastening brooches. Morrhyn remembered they were Arrhyna’s gifts, and how proud Rannach was to wear them.
Then Rannach was gone, cresting the break’s wall to find cover behind a snow-clad boulder. It was a vantage point that afforded him a large view across the surrounding network of ravines and washes. They angled down like the scratchings of some gigantic beast to the river, all dips and hollows that radiated from off the ridge. He tested the wind—it blew from off the river to his right, but when he chanced rising enough that he could scan the banks for some distance in both directions, he saw nothing.
So, whatever scent the stallion had caught came from the right, but not along the river. Therefore, from one of the dips and gulches in that direction. He eased his bowstring down and began to crawl on his belly across the crest.
The depression on the farther side was empty: he slithered down and worked his way on cautious feet to the riverside end, then slunk along the descending slope to the next break.
Fox-wary, he eased around the wall, and saw what had frightened his horse.
It frightened him.
He had seen the Breakers at a distance, from a safe position, but now he looked close on one, and on the creature the Breaker rode. He knew he must kill them both, for they must surely sight him and Morrhyn at the ford and come after them. And he knew they could not outrun that great thing, with its massive, clawed paws and hugely muscled legs, not even were his stallion unweary. And Morrhyn would likely fall off Arrhyna’s mare, or both horses panic. And there was the river to ford, and Morrhyn said there was no time to waste.
So …
He drew his bowstring tight and sighted down the shaft, trying hard not to think of Arrhyna or the child she carried, for such thoughts urged him to turn and flee, go back to them and leave Ket-Ta-Witko and the People to their fate. But he had made a promise: he could not flee. He swallowed a breath that would be released with his shaft, and hesitated as the beast coughed out a sullen grumble and raised one great paw, licking at the pads for all the world like some enormous cat worrying at a splinter or a cut.
So that was why the Breaker and his beast were alone: the creature was hurt. Rannach might have smiled had he truly believed that afforded him some advantage, but he did not think it did. Even wounded, that thing could slay him. And did he slay the beast, then he must surely face the other, whose armor shone rose-pink as a summer flower and seemed to shift and shimmer so that his eyes could not properly follow its outlines.
But he had made a promise, and he was a warrior. He drew the bowstring until fletchings brushed his cheek, and stepped around the break’s concealing wall to loose his shaft.
The lion-thing roared loud enough to wake the dead as the arrow pierced its eye. Its head lurched back, jaws spread wide so that Rannach saw all the dreadful panoply of its fangs even as he drew a second arrow and nocked it to the string. He bent the bow and let fly again.
The shaft drove into the throat and over the furred scales there, blood darkening the pale flesh. The creature dropped its hurt paw and fell as it clawed at the missiles embedded in its eye and neck.
Rannach drew and fired three more shafts as the awful howling filled up the break and echoed off the walls. He had always been good with a bow, and each arrow struck where he aimed: one drove into the belly, another lanced the remaining eye, the third went in between the jaws.
Then he dropped the bow as the Breaker closed on him.
The invader came fast across the snow, leaving him no time to use that weapon again, so that he let the curved bone drop and snatched hatchet and knife from their scabbards.
Good Grannach steel those blades, the ax mounted on a pole of firetempered hickory wrapped round with soaked leather that had hardened like a second skin. Nor less the knife, its haft secure in his left hand, the blade half an arm’s length of pointed metal honed sharp on both its sides.
He ducked under the longer blade the Breaker swung and took the reversing stroke with the hatchet, turning to drive the knife against his opponent’s ribs. Had he fought one of the People, his counter would have driven the blade deep through hide and flesh, and hurt and weakened enough he might turn his hatchet and stove in the skull. But the Breaker was armored, and he felt his arm jarred by the impact, a hard metallic elbow slammed against his
cheek. He staggered, retreating as the sword reversed and came threatening toward his chest.
He danced back, hampered by the snow, grateful it was not drifted and deep but stamped down by the paws of the screaming beast he prayed was dying, else he was surely lost.
The Breaker’s blade glittered, darting in sweeping arcs at his head and chest. It was not such a combat as he was accustomed to, and he sprang farther back, wary as he gauged the reach of his enemy. The sword was twice the length and more of his knife, and he saw the Breaker held it in a double-handed grip and knew that one blow must cut him down, or take off his head.
And then he saw that each sweep turned the Breaker a little to the side. Not long, for the man was very fast and the sword came hurling back even before he exposed his armored ribs—but there was a moment. No more than an instant, an eye’s blink of time, but perhaps enough.
Rannach wondered how far away were the Breaker’s companions. He thought this solitary beastrider must be one of some scouting party, separated from the rest when the lion-thing went lame. He wondered how far those agonized screams carried, how long before the rest heard them and came back.
“No time,” Morrhyn had said: he could not delay.
Once, he had slain a Tachyn raider with a thrown hatchet. He doubted even Grannach steel, thrown, would pierce the armor the Breaker wore. But close, could he get past that scything blade …
He feigned a stumble, feinted under a vicious, sweeping cut, and dove forward, rolling headlong over the trampled snow to rise inside the Breaker’s reach, his hatchet rising and falling even as his knife drove up.
The hatchet hammered against the Breaker’s concealing helm; the knife found flesh between the helmet and the armor’s collar. Rannach turned the knife, twisting the blade even as he thrust it deeper, even as he smashed the hatchet against the helm.
He felt warmth on his knife hand and knew it was the heat of blood spilling out. He felt the Breaker’s arms close around him and the man’s weight fold against him, dragging him down onto his knees. Still he pounded the helmet with his ax, and saw the helm buckle and split. For an instant, through the concealing faceplate, he saw blue eyes staring at him in naked surprise. Then the light went out of them and the Breaker gusted a sigh that sounded weary, and was only deadweight.
