by J. D. Lakey
“So what should we expect, Mother,” Breyden asked, “on this foray?”
Erin looked down at Cheobawn and waited.
Cheobawn cringed under the scrutiny of Breyden and Meshel and found herself repeating the story she had given Vinara.
“Truth be told,” Cheobawn added watching the last of the patrols thunder out of the gate, “I fear we are in more danger from the points of lances than from any animal the mountain might throw at us.”
“The Coven plays their games of secrets and strategies to the detriment of the rest of us,” Breyden grumbled, watching them. “Telling us to watch for a threat that has no name.”
“Spider eggs,” Connor said. “Big, blue balls of ice with giant spider babies frozen inside. That’s what they are looking for.”
Ramhorn, to a man, turned and looked down at him, odd looks on their faces.
“I told you not to mess around,” Breyden said, a threat in his voice.
“The storms have brought them out of the Waste,” Cheobawn said, pulling free of Erin’s embrace to step between Connor and the two tall boys. “They are part of the reason it has been so cold this winter.”
“So what are we supposed to do if we find an egg?” Erin asked.
Connor looked at Cheobawn.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I have no idea. Technically, I think they are already dead, but I think there is a worry that when the eggs thaw out there might be something left inside that could cause harm.”
“So we collect them to burn?” Breyden asked.
Cheobawn looked at Erin.
“I have no sense of the outcome of that idea, do you?” Cheobawn asked.
Erin closed her eyes and then shook her head.
“To be honest,” she said, “the whole idea of giant spider eggs makes my spine quiver. Burning the eggs we find just adds to that fear. I cannot tell if it is a true threat or just my own revulsion that is causing it.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Connor asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Meshel said sourly. “My imagination works just fine. What if the heat thaws them out and a whole mess of really irritated baby spiders crawl out of the flames.”
“Oh, yeah,” Connor said with relish. “Let’s do it! We could keep warm and kill spiders at the same time.”
“You are such a dolt,” Meshel said, trying hard to keep his face from smiling. “I have a better idea. You two come to sparring practice with us tomorrow to work off some of that energy.”
“I bet I could take you,” Connor said, a calculating grin on his face.
“It’s a bet. You clean my weapons for a week if you lose,” Meshel nodded.
“Done,” agreed Connor.
“The cattle will not find themselves, young Fathers,” Gann said as Cloud Eye tried to eat his fur cap.
“Gann is right,” Breyden said. “The animals grow cold just standing. Let’s mount and discuss the nature of spiders when and if we meet them.”
Chapter Thirteen
The small red cows were not hard to find. The long hair of their shaggy coats waved like bright pennants in the swirls and gusts of the wind that had started to whip around the base of the mountains by mid morning. It had just been a matter of following Orchard Trail to the mowed hay fields just north of the fields of yesterday’s foray and then following the fence line until they found the rough line of tracks in the snow. They did not have to open the gates into the field. Packsnow covered everything in the low places, as if the winter wind wished to create a smooth canvas out of a rolling landscape. Cheobawn knew they were close to the place where the small herd had come over the fences when they found the bloody spot where Star had died.
“Goddess,” breathed Breyden, studying the sign, “look at the size of those paws.”
“It seemed so much bigger when it was deciding whether to eat Cheobawn or not,” Erin said, her voice quivering with the unwelcome memory
“What were you thinking, Little Mother,” Breyden asked.
“She was not thinking,” Connor snorted in disgust. “She never does. I will have hair as silver as Zeff’s by the time I reach my majority.”
“I was thinking how beautiful it was,” Cheobawn said, smiling. “Mottled fur and green eyes.”
“You are a strange child, you know that don’t you?” Erin said with a rueful shake of her head.
Cheobawn laughed as she kicked Cloud Eye into motion, setting her nose north to the place in the ambient where a double handful of cattle burned bright in her mind’s eye.
They found them over the next rise. The wind grew stronger with every passing minute, burying needles of cold into the side of anything that was facing that way. The cows did not want to leave their shelter. They had found a low spot in the lee of a great drift that still had the stubble of mown hay poking through the packed snow beneath their hooves on which to nibble. Cheobawn wanted to tell them they had found the worst place to hide in a blizzard, as this drift would continue to grow, burying them as the wind dropped its burden here, but she thought it best to keep out of their ambient to keep them calm. With much shouting and waving of arms, the cows were finally convinced that leaving was better than staying. Out in the open, they remembered the way back to the long houses, trotting back the way they had come without much need to herd them in the right direction.
Problems arose as they approached the destroyed drift the cattle had used to cross the fence line from the lower pasture. Breyden and Connor stood their bennelk in the path of the cows to prevent them from foundering in the broken packsnow over the hedge, but the cows refused to turn towards Orchard Trail because it put their faces into the sharp wind. They determinedly resisted all efforts to convince them to do otherwise. After a few attempts in which the cattle scattered in every direction, Breyden had the team back the cattle off and reform the herd. Then with Erin and her mount pushing them from the back, the rest of the foray arranged their mounts in a loose half circle whose open side pointed west into the wind. After that it became a complicated game of dodge and evade between the bennelk and the stubborn cattle. Cheobawn found she did not have to do more than stay in the saddle, as Cloud Eye knew this game well and was far more agile than the short-legged cows. By the time all the cows gave up and had resigned themselves to discomfort, the bennelk were blowing hard. Worse yet, the wind was full of the fine crystals of ogre snow, a harbinger of worse things to come.
Cheobawn turned in the saddle to look up at the Dragon Spine. A dense and roiling bank of clouds had consumed the tallest peaks. The high elevation winds dragging at tops of those clouds, pulling wisps and feathers out over the lower hills, dropping its burden where they now rode. As she watched, a streak of lightning lit up the dark clouds over the Spine from the inside.
“What kind of storm is this?” Breyden yelled over the sound of the wind, following her eyes, worry deep in his voice. “I have never seen lightning in winter.”
“Do not stop. There is something unnatural in those clouds,” Erin called to them. “We need to get under cover before this thing descends upon our heads.”
Cheobawn said nothing. What could she say that would not cause harm? That the sky was full of ships piloted by humans who were raining man-made lightning down upon the high places. Who among them would sleep soundly after that, knowing there was such a thing and not knowing whether the space faring men thought of the lowly ground dwelling humans as friends or as just disposable vermin.
“The storm is not close. We have time,” Cheobawn yelled to Breyden. “Let’s get them onto Orchard Trail and heading south. If we can get to the deep trail in the orchards we will have a bit of shelter from the worst of the winds.”
The short red cows did not mind plodding down the trail through the orchards but the humans mounted atop the tall bennelk sat higher than the mounds of snow on either side of the road, exposed to wind and blowing snow. By the time they reached the end of the fruit trees and the beginning of the flat, snow covered fields ar
ound the dome, the wind battered at their bodies, forcing the riders to cling low to their saddles to keep from being swept off. Worst of all, it had begun to snow in earnest. Erin held up her mittened fist, bringing them to a halt. The red cows did not need much convincing to stop. The wind was full of white stuff, all of it falling sideways. It was like staring at a wall. Cheobawn peered up towards the place where the line of the dome should have been. It was only half a click away and should have filled half the sky but she could see nothing. Cheobawn reined Cloud Eye around and joined the others at Erin’s side.
“We cannot linger here,” Breyden bellowed over the sound of the wind. “The storm will only grow worse.”
“None of us can see where we are going,” Connor shouted back.
“The bennelk know the way,” Erin yelled.
“The cattle don’t,” Breyden returned. “We could be chasing them in circles for hours.”
Cheobawn understood their concern. It seemed a simple thing. Ride straight until you hit the dome and then turn left, but they had all heard the stories. Zeff liked to tell the story about the wrangler who had gone out in a storm to check the cattle in the long houses, a distance of less than a hundred paces. They had found him dead, curled in ball in the middle of a field in the opposite direction from the long houses. He had walked the path to the long houses a thousand times but, blinded by snow, he had grown confused and walked in circles until the storm sucked his life away.
Cheobawn sighed in resignation and closed her eyes so she could better listen to the ambient. The cattle, the bennelk, and the humans burned brightly around her. She eased Cloud Eye to the front of the herd and looked through the storm. Inside the dome the minds of the humans were shielded and the wards, set in their greater circle, created their own void. It was hard to pin down a place that one could call home. She shook her head, trying not to let her mind be confused by all the psi chatter and stilled her breath that she might listen harder. It was the green things, living and growing inside the dome, the trees and the hanging gardens atop every roof that finally marked the place they needed to go. The warmth and the light of their life-force created a glowing spot in the ambient.
“Listen,” Cheobawn yelled, turning in the saddle to look at Erin. “There is the promise of life hidden in the cold. Choose to see that. It will draw you onward.”
Erin’s eyes looked doubtful inside her mask but she closed them all the same to listen.
“I think I can feel it,” she called back, “like a warm fire.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Cheobawn nodded, pleased that the older girl could hear it too.
“Cheobawn, you lead,” Breyden ordered decisively. “Erin, you take up the rear as driver. The boys will string out downwind and keep the herd on Cheobawn’s tail. Move. I don’t want to be out in this any longer than we have to.”
Cheobawn closed her eyes and urged Cloud Eye into motion.
We should find a place under the trees, Cloud Eye grumbled. Someplace dry to rest my cold belly while the winds fill the sky.
Go where I point you, Cheobawn encouraged her. There will be a warm stall and hot mash when we are done.
The white engulfed them. She could have been back in Oud’s misty room, with no walls or ceiling to give her eyes a sense of depth. It became apparent right from the start that it would be impossible to judge distance. Cheobawn started counting. It helped to distract her from the numbing cold. At a hundred, she sat up, shook the snow out off her parka and looked back. The herd was still there, Connor behind her and then Meshel. Breyden was a smudge of darkness and Erin was no more than a ghost in the ambient. She turned, trusting that Breyden was keeping track of his Ear.
Where were they? She started doing the math in her head. Half a click, a little over 2300 paces. She could walk that distance in half an hour, even with her short legs. Surely the cattle were not going any slower than that. She picked up her count where she left off; stopping at every hundred count to check that the dome was still in front of her. She lost track of how many hundreds had passed a few times, wishing that she had thought to put a counting string on her saddle horn. The drovers used them for counting heads but it surely would have worked for counting time. She counted to 1500 and began to worry that they had not found the dome yet. Surely they were nearly there. She could almost touch the dome in the ambient, but maybe distances worked differently in the realm of her psi. She decided to count to 2000 just to be on the safe side. When Cloud Eye stopped she kicked her in the ribs.
Keep going, Cheobawn said. We need to find the dome.
It is here, Cloud Eye said patently.
Cheobawn sat up and peered before her. She could not see anything clearly but she got a sense of something massive in front of her by the way the currents of air eddied around her. She reined Cloud Eye to the left.
So it is, she said, Thank you, sister.
The wind had begun to howl in earnest by the time they set the last cow down the icy tunnel of snow along the eastern verge of the dome. Inside the protection of the walls, the roar of the wind quieted, giving them the feeling of having gone deaf after the perpetual assault to their ears out in the open.
Cheobawn pulled Cloud Eye to the side and let the lead cow go by her.
“I don’t want to do that again anytime soon,” Connor said as he reined Kite Wing in beside her. “Are you alright?”
“Tired,” Cheobawn said. “Cold. I could use another sauna.”
“Oh, yeah,” Connor said with feeling.
“Move it,” Meshel said as he rode by. “The sooner we get these miserable beasts into the long house, the sooner we can put something hot in our bellies.”
Connor and Cheobawn exchanged good humored glances as they nudge their mounts back into motion. The cattle had paused to rest and needed a bit of encouragement to move on.
They had just begun to relax, thinking the worst was over when Connor’s danger clicks surprised them all. They all turned to see what it was that had alarmed him.
Listen, he signaled, using finger sign.
Cheobawn drew Cloud Eye to a halt and held her breath, straining to hear over the whistle of the wind. Ramhorn Pack drew up and did they same. She heard something strange in the tones of snow and ice hitting the dome. What was that? It was like the soft ting of crystal water glasses as they brushed against each other in their storage box. She looked around, trying to track where the sound was coming from and cursed the acoustic qualities of the tunnel that made the sound seem like it was coming from everywhere.
Meshel clicked. They turned. He was pointing upward. Cheobawn shivered and looked up towards the place where the dome disappeared into the formless whiteness of the storm. The sound grew louder. Whatever it was, it was rapidly approaching.
Cloud Eye chose this moment to go crazy. She squealed as she rose on her hind legs, slashing her antlers at the sky. The other bennelk danced about, equally agitated.
What? Cheobawn asked, burying her hands in the ruff at the base of her mount’s neck.
Ice demons come, Cloud Eye declared.
Something round, pale blue, and twice the size of a human head slid down the panels of the dome, skittered across the frozen ground, and rolled up the curved face of the great snow dune before it rolled back again. Another and then another followed the first.
The bennelk squealed in alarm, dancing away as the balls rolled underfoot and threatened to trip up their four-legged stances.
Cloud Eye was the first to attack. She chased after a translucent ball, ears laid back, tusks extended, while Cheobawn pulled back with all her might on the reins.
No, no, behave, Cheobawn seethed, it is no threat.
Ice demons must die, Cloud Eye screamed, images of tooth and claw heavy on the ambient. She cornered a ball between the dome and a patch of rough ice and rearing up, crushed it under her great clawed feet. The egg shattered with a high, thin sound like ice breaking underfoot.
“Stop, you great idiot,” Cheobawn shouted, reining back h
ard. “You will cut yourself.”
The sound of squealing bennelk and breaking shells echoed in the tunnel as the other animals finished off the eggs. Convinced the danger had passed, Cloud Eye settled and consented to be directed once again.
Stand still, Cheobawn ordered firmly as she threw her leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground. Wrapping her arm around Cloud Eye’s knee, she pounded on the armored shin bone with her fist.
“Lift your foot, you great lummox,” Cheobawn shouted. “Honestly, you have no more sense than a flutterfly.” Cloud Eye hung her head, looking quite abashed, as she shifted her stance and lifted the foot for Cheobawn to inspect. Holding the leg steady against her chest, Cheobawn pulled a mitten off with her teeth and used her fingers to probe the soft places between the toes and the tough pads. She did this for both front feet, muttering imprecations about bennelk mental capacity as she did so. Both paws, though abraded, seemed to be sound.
“You are lucky,” Cheobawn sniffed, mollified. “Vinara would have had my head if I brought you back lame, after all we did yesterday.” She looked around for the discarded mitten. The thin leather of her riding gloves was no barrier against the cold. Already, her fingers were going numb.
I killed it. Now it is dead, the bennelk said petulantly, as if she thought she deserved a reward instead of a scolding.
Did you? Cheobawn asked as she walked over to the broken shell and shifted the pieces with the toe of her boot. A small jumble of clear glass tubes rolled free and unfurled with a sound much like the glass wind chimes hanging over her bed in her old room. Curiosity filled her. She squatted to inspect it more closely. It was really quite beautiful. She wanted to count its legs and inspect the little scarlet beads hidden inside the clear carapace of its body.
“Leave it, Little Mother,” Breyden cautioned from atop his mount. She looked up. Meshel and Erin had gone on, in pursuit of the tail-end of the herd. Connor had finally sorted Kite Wing out and got her pointed in the right direction. He kicked her into motion, coming back to see what his Ear was up to.
