Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 03] - Owlknight

by Mercedes Lackey

  There were more than twenty, perhaps as many as thirty of them; they were more heavily armed and armored than any Northerners that Darian had seen since his last encounter with the fighters of Blood Bear. Most had breastplates of boiled leather, and arm-guards and greaves of hammered bronze. All had bronze helmets and iron swords; they also carried javelins or short spears with iron points, and long daggers. A few were also armed with bows.

  But they were not alone.

  They had taken prisoners: many prisoners. The captives had been divided into three groups—young women, young boys, and girls. The prisoners within each group were strung out in single-file, and the women and girls (though not the boys) were tied together at the waist by a rope that led from one to the next. In addition, the older women were also tied at the wrists. The boys, all under the age of five, were allowed freedom of movement.

  There must have been a hundred prisoners, and by the decorations on their costumes, they were of some fox tribe. Were they allied with Snow Fox—or even related to them?

  Their captors were, without a doubt, of Wolverine. They bore the insignia of their tribe on everything—but they also bore the sign of the eclipse. The sight of that symbol, even though it was through Kuari’s eyes, made his blood run cold, and a sour taste came up the back of his throat. The last time he had seen that symbol, it had been terrifyingly close, on a pendant around the neck of the Blood Bear Shaman—

  But this time there was no sign of the weird half-human creatures that Blood Bear had counted among its warriors. These were “no more than” humans.

  Very well-armed, very large and muscular humans, who seriously outnumbered Darian’s group. And much as he longed to drop down out of the tree, slashing at them with his climbing stick, he knew better. He wouldn’t stand a chance, and from the cowed and beaten look of the women, they wouldn’t even be able to muster the spirit to use his attack as a distraction to make a break for freedom.

  But it was hard to hide in safety and do nothing, when he watched one of the warriors trip one of the women with his spear butt and laugh to see her stumble—then when he saw the fear in the eyes of girl-captives barely into puberty. They knew what their fate would be as soon as they arrived at the Wolverine village.

  Darian had to repeat to himself that there was nothing he or his friends could do, but his hands clenched so tightly on the tree trunk that the bark bit into his palm and his fingernails were white. He felt another’s anger as well, and realized that Kel, circling high above, was also looking through Kuari’s eyes, and was just as enraged as he was. Gryphons had always had an inherent hatred for slavery as a matter of principle, and this was making the gryphon’s hackles rise, and quickly.

  :Kel!: he called immediately. :Don’t attack! This is an order, Silver Gryphon! Stay aloft!:

  He felt Kel’s wordless protest, and from the way that Keisha turned pale and clutched the trunk, so did she. It was the anger-surge of a great predator, immensely larger and more powerful than Kuari, a predator that needed to kill. Kel clamped it down after that first surge, but it left both Darian and Keisha shaking with reaction in the aftermath of the experience.

  Poor Keisha; she’s never “seen” him this way. I have; I know him for what he is. He is a killer with civilization. Kel was the sweetest and most genial creature alive, until his killing instincts were aroused. At that point, there was no creature Darian knew of that was more murderous and less stoppable.

  They clung to the tree, silent, each alone with his thoughts, as Wolverine paraded their captives past them and on to their own village. Darian tried to concentrate on memorizing everything he could about the warriors—and that was when he noticed something odd. The Wolverine raiders were treating the women and girls with casual brutality, but the little boys, who were allowed to run free, were being indulged—even petted and spoiled. Any time that a boy made any kind of overture toward a Wolverine fighter, it was immediately reciprocated with a smile, a pat, a treat. And already a few of the boys were trotting at the heels of some of the men, looking up at them fearlessly.

  Of course—they took these boys to make them into future Wolverine fighters. And the campaign to win their loyalty began the moment they left their own village.

  Brutal they may be, but they are not stupid. Those boys would respond to the petting and spoiling just like any child of that age. In six months, they would be strutting around and imitating the warriors’ contempt for the women, even their own mothers. In a year, they would belong to Wolverine.

  He wondered what the others were thinking, if they had seen what he had, and knew what it meant. This was a harvest—of breeders and future warriors. The women were no more nor less than walking wombs, valued only for what they could produce.

  Whether the Wolverine fighters treated the women of their own tribe any better remained to be seen, but Darian had an idea that they might. Putting their own women higher in the social scheme gave them an extra set of guardians for their captives. Making the captive women the slaves to their own women virtually ensured that every Wolverine woman would regard the slaves as property, rather than as a fellow.

  The only reason we defeated Blood Bear was that they underestimated us. The only reason that Blood Bear is no more is that they made stupid mistakes.

  All the evidence pointed to one thing—Wolverine was of the same ilk as Blood Bear had been, but they had paid attention to all the things that Blood Bear had done wrong.

  And that made them all the more dangerous.

  Kel was doing everything but frothing at the mouth with rage. He paced, he snapped his beak, he mantled his wings, he bristled his crest. “Jussst one!” he hissed, tearing up the sod with his fore-talons. “Let me have jussst one, Darrrrian!”

  Kel had been like this since he landed. He wanted to launch an attack on the raiding party, right now—no planning, no waiting, no thinking about it. He could not bear what he had seen, and wanted to fix it. After all, he was Kelvren, the brave, fierce Silver Gryphon—he should be able to fix all of these things, by shredding those responsible for them!

  Keisha had all of her shields up, and still felt the heat of his anger blazing against them. She just hoped that time and Darian’s soothing would calm him down. Right now no one was arguing with him; they were just letting him vent his emotions, agreeing, when confronted, that it was a horrible situation and should not be allowed to continue.

  Hywel was as angry as Kel, but was handling it better; he was white around the eyes and mouth, but hadn’t said or done much. “Why aren’t you frothing at the mouth?” Keisha asked him quietly.

  “Because it would not do good,” he replied, with a maturity she had not expected. She might have forgotten that he was a native of these parts, but he hadn’t, and he was well aware of the harsh reality of life here in the north. “Darian is right; we are too few to do anything. But—”

  He didn’t complete the thought; he looked back along the trampled underbrush where the party of captives had passed, and anger flitted over his face. Perhaps he was well aware of the harsh realities of life up here, but that didn’t mean he was inured to them. Or this is beyond what even he is used to.

  Shandi had one hand on Karles’ shoulder, and Keisha guessed that she was sharing her thoughts with her Companion. Wintersky and Steelmind were impassive, and Keisha could not guess what was going on behind their masks. These aren’t our people, she reminded herself. I am sure that they care, but we can’t help the captives.

  But she had an idea, and it might take Kel’s mind off his anger—or at least give him an acceptable outlet for it. “Shouldn’t we—” she began.

  Kel stopped tearing the helpless grass, and all eyes turned toward her. She swallowed, looking up into Kel’s golden glare.

  “Shouldn’t we go back that way?” She pointed in the direction from which Wolverine had come. After all, the trail was clear enough. “There may be people where they came from that need help. There may be survivors.”

  They stared
at her in silence for a moment. Then Kel leaped into the air without another word, powering purposefully upward but remaining below the canopy of the mammoth trees so that he could follow the trail.

  There seemed nothing else more appropriate to do, so without further discussion, the rest of the party mounted up and followed in his wake.

  Keisha heaved a sigh of relief, which no one but her dyheli noticed. :A bit difficult for you, are they, Healer?: he asked dryly. :Not the easiest lot to deal with.:

  She snorted; he knew as well as she the kinds of strain all those angry people were putting on her shields. Not that she wasn’t angry, but perhaps because she was a Healer, she’d learned to be pragmatic. You couldn’t save every patient—although you tried; you couldn’t solve every problem—though you did your best. She knew from the moment that she saw all the armed fighters that there was nothing they could do for the prisoners, much as she and everyone else would like to.

  Turning their attention to something they could do something about had been the one thing she could do about the situation. She was just glad that her attempt at redirection had worked for Kel; he needed an outlet, a constructive outlet, before he flew off and did something foolish.

  Now she steeled herself for what they would find at the end of the trail of trampled vegetation. Whatever it was, she knew that it would surely put a different set of stresses on them all.

  It was dusk when they reached the village that they would later learn belonged to the Red Fox tribe, a group that long ago had split from Snow Fox. Kel had gotten there long before, had given them a grim summary of what they would find when they got there, then flew off on a mission of his own—and an important one, second only to the Healing Keisha would be doing when she arrived.

  Kel went hunting, for there was nothing left to eat in the village, and at the moment, no one capable of hunting or gathering. Absolutely nothing edible of any kind had been left—the village had been scoured right down to the spices. Even leather, curing hides and scraped skins had been taken.

  They did not need to follow the trail to find the village; the wailing of women led them there. But there was no heavy scent of smoke, for the raiders had not troubled themselves with burning any of the log houses. It was not their intention to leave the survivors without shelter, because it was not their intention that all of the survivors should die.

  It had been candlemarks since the raiders hit this place; long enough for the women to gather their dead and lay them out for mourning on a single rough pyre, long enough for the wounded to receive the rough tending that was all a tribe without a Shaman could give them. The Shaman—much younger than the Shaman of Snow Fox—had been laid out with the rest of the dead by his wives, who were the source of the wailing. The rest of the women were too numb for anything but silent mourning—and at a single glance, Keisha knew they had their own internalized wounds to deal with. No one had touched the Shaman’s three wives, possibly for fear of a curse, but by the condition of the other women, clothing tom, faces bruised, and the vacant look of someone who has endured too much, they had not shared this protection.

  Forewarned by Kel, Keisha was armored against their pain, emotional and physical, as the group rode into the village. Hywel preceded them afoot, calling to the survivors that help was coming; by the time the rest rode in, it was too dark for the northerners to see what they were riding, which probably spared them the fear that would have come when they saw the unfamiliar mounts. They had already endured too much, and even a little more fear might well push them over the edge of sanity.

  Keisha left the organization of the survivors to the others, and went straight to work on the most seriously wounded, concentrating only on pure Healing with her Gift. Shandi and Karles supported her, lending her new strength and energy when hers faltered—then, when they were exhausted, Darian took their place. It was very, very late when she finished with the last woman; the moon was high overhead, though obscured by thick clouds, and all she wanted to do was eat and sleep—not necessarily in that order. She blessed the darkness that hid the ravaged village; with no fires outside tonight, and all of the inhabitants drugged into a semblance of sleep in their own homes, there was finally a measure of peace in this shattered place.

  Darian led her into a log house, which by the trappings had belonged to the Shaman. When they entered, and all three of the Shaman’s wives descended on them, pressing food rations, venison and a hot herbal drink on her, she was too tired to be surprised, but she was very grateful.

  The women left them at the hearth fire where the others had gathered—including the dyheli, Karles, and Kel, which did surprise Keisha, Kel most of all. “What are you doing here?” she asked, staring at him stupidly.

  “The folk of Rrrred Fox arrre not inclined to trrreat a gift brrringerrr as an enemy,” he replied simply, and left it at that.

  Judging by the fact that all of the party were eating chunks of well-roasted venison, Kel’s gifts had been generous indeed. “What can you tell me?” she asked, knowing by Darian’s rigid expression that he had learned far more than he really wanted to know.

  Darian’s voice was tight with suppressed rage as he answered. “This wasn’t just a raid,” he said. “They hit this place at dawn. They took out all the sentries just before they were going to be replaced by the dawn crew, then hit the village itself. When they had taken the village, they started harvesting.”

  She was startled alert by the odd word. “Harvesting?” she asked, incredulously.

  He nodded, his lips white with anger, a vein in his temple throbbing. “The warriors that survived they crippled—or didn’t you notice all the missing index fingers on their bow-hands? They did the same to the older boys, so they couldn’t possibly grow up to be warriors. Without an index finger, they can’t pull a bow or use a sword.”

  “But—harvesting?” she repeated.

  “You were Healing them—you know the secret wounds they had in common. The invaders did their best to make certain that every woman here would be left pregnant, regardless of her age. The ones that still had husbands were left behind, the ones that had infants were left behind with their babies, and girls too young to breed. The rest were taken, along with the older girls and younger boys, as you saw. They took every scrap of food, and anything that was valuable—but they left the bare essentials, and they left the houses intact.” She actually heard his teeth gritting as he snarled silently. “They intend to come back, Keisha. They intend to come back as soon as these people have started to recover. They’ll take girls old enough to breed, and young boys, and strip the place again. And they’ll keep coming back, as long as there is anything left of Red Fox.”

  “These are not our people, Darian,” Steelmind said, in that slow, deliberate way of his. “We have already done more than they would expect from an ally.”

  She reached for his hand and clasped it, as he controlled his temper. Kel hung his head wearily; the gryphon was just as angry, but they all knew that Steelmind was only telling the truth.

  “We’ve done more than our share,” Shandi added, her voice flat. “Remember why we’re here. It’s not to fight a war with people who don’t even know we exist. It’s to look for danger to Valdemar, and find your parents, Darian. If we take the time to get involved in this, we may never do those things.”

  He didn’t answer; he didn’t have to; Keisha felt his upset even though her shields were up and tight, as a sick feeling in her stomach and a dry lump in her throat.

  No one else said anything; there didn’t seem to be much that anyone could say. Eventually they all went to their sleeping rolls in silence—but Darian held her very tight for a long, long time, and she cradled him, projecting peace, until he relaxed and finally slept.

  But the only reason she slept was because she was too tired not to.

  She was the first to wake the next day, and after a sketchy meal that she ate only because she needed the energy, went straight to her patients. They were doing better than she h
ad any reason to expect; the women had mustered the tattered remains of their courage and were tending to the wounded men. Each man had his own wife taking care of him, and usually at least one other woman as well. It occurred to Keisha that this might be in self-defense. Wolverine had not taken the wives of any man who lived through the raid, so obviously the best way to keep from getting taken was to become someone’s second or third wife.

  But whatever their motives, they were working as hard as the “real” wives, which was giving the wounded men some excellent care.

  The Shaman’s widows had fired the funeral pyre and were chanting and drumming the farewell to the dead—they might not be Wisewomen themselves, but they knew the ceremonies, and no one was going to dispute their right to see that the dead were properly taken care of. All three of them sat on the upwind side, two playing a large drum, the third playing a counterpoint on a smaller drum. Whatever they had built the pyre out of, it had gone up like an oil-soaked torch, and was burning hotly with very little smoke.

  Keisha was very glad that the village was upwind of the pyre; as it was, the unmistakable too-sweet scent of burning flesh made her stomach lurch, and she had to fight her breakfast back down.

  Slowly the tribe of Red Fox was reclaiming its village and its life. A few children had recovered enough spirit to play a counting game quietly together, and the prepubescent girls were restoring order to the open spaces between the log houses by the simple expedient of throwing anything that was of no use into a rubbish pile and dividing the rest among themselves.

  There wasn’t a great deal to divide. Although the raiders hadn’t taken common clothing and domestic utensils, that was about all that they had left. Finished furs and trade goods in the storehouses were gone, as were “show” blankets, weapons, and every bit of dried meat and fish. The women had been too traumatized to go out gathering, and the stocks of perishable foods hidden away was low. Unless the remaining men could recover enough to hunt soon, they would be starving in a matter of weeks.