... The morning was still and frosted, the dawn sky just brightening to jeweled blue when Nancy, on last watch, woke them to a definite distant melody, pipes in a cheery wheedling tune.
"'Yanking-tootle,'" Richard said, rising massive from his blanket, yawning Errol spilled aside, "— a copybook song for morning marching. Now we get up...up! Eat, and drink water-pee, and poop. The scouts will find us before mid-day."
After meager bites — the last of the mutton — and hasty gulps of icy water, the party divided. Patience and Nancy, with no shrubs, no tree cover but knee-high dwarf willow, went off to one side while Richard and Baj turned their backs — Baj reaching to turn Errol as well. Then the males went out to the other side of tundra to toilet.
Pissing, Errol looked up, made his clicking noises — and Baj, following his gaze, saw a great herd drifting far to the north. Three .. . four Warm-time miles away. Drifting north, apparently grazing on the sedge grasses and lichen as they went.
"Caribou."
"Yes," Ricard stood watching them. "Small herd."
"Small herd?"
"Baj, I've seen them take two days and nights up here, to pass. With wolves and grizzled bears following."
Rattling tongue-clicks from Errol. The boy's empty blue eyes filled with attention . .. longing.
"He loves chasing, and the end of chasing." Finished, Richard shook his odd member, tucked it away. "Speaking of which, better if we go to meet the Guard, than have them come for us like hunters."
"Yes." Baj laced his buckskins. There was a little flutter in his chest at this end to traveling only with friends. Accustomed traveling.... Now, Nancy would not be as safe, would not be only with friends. He imagined for a moment (childish imagining) that regiments of the Army-United — come a thousand miles north and east — stood in formation at their backs, with the certain new king, old One-eye Howell Voss, sitting his charger at the van and joking with his officers, complaining about the mess-cooks' breakfast.
An imagining that left no comfort behind.
Baj settled his pack and quiver — paused to kneel and brace his bow — then loosened sword and dagger in their sheaths, and held out his hand as Nancy came to him. "Stay close to me."
She gave him a look. "I have my sword."
"I know. I'm depending on your protection." And received a sharp elbow to the ribs.
A rustle in the air above them as they hiked — the morning wind still very cold under a rising sun. "They're coming," Patience said, swung so low that Baj could have jumped to touch her greatcoat's hem. "— And I see no other Talents Walking-in-air above them."
Baj stared ahead... but saw nothing but tussock grasses combing in the wind. Heard the distant merry tune piping on.
They walked west — spots in the tundra occasionally coldly wet and soft enough so they sank almost to their knees, and had to haul their moccasins sucking out. "A few WT weeks ago," Richard said, marching a little hunched under his big pack, "— warm as it gets so close to the Wall, the mosquitoes would be coming up in numbers to choke you, breathing them in."
Baj said, "Thanks for small blessings, then." And when Errol suddenly stopped and stood staring, glanced past him and saw something running toward them. Coming at a gallop.
"Another one," Nancy said, and pointed to the right. "They're stupid, barely Persons at all...."
Two. Coming at a run and very fast.
For a moment, Baj thought they were deer, only trained somehow to scout. Certainly they were four-legged hooved things. Then he saw that the front legs bent at elbows, and ended in knot-knuckled hands.... Small packs and scabbarded light hatchets rode their backs where saddles might have gone. Their skin, mottled brown, seemed hairless... their necks — longer than men's necks — curved up to small heads barely human, with eyes set wide as horses'.
One, galloping up, called, "Whooo?" in tenor very like an owl. The other echoed him. — Her; Baj saw two soft breasts between the long front limbs. Both scouts stood restless, a short bow-shot away.
"Richard from Shrike!" Richard called. "Once, a captain of the Guard!"
"Patience!" Patience called, sweeping down to settle. "Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley. Citizen... in exile."
The closer Scout nodded, intelligent enough to take that in, then turned her head to examine Baj... Nancy.
"Baj!" he called to her, "— who was Bajazet, of Middle-Kingdom."
The Scout stared, and shook her head slightly, as a horse might have. The other stood silent.
Nancy called, "Nancy... from Thrush! And this boy is Errol, once scrubber to H-Company Mess, Second Regiment!"
"I know youuuu," the Scout said, lifted her long, inhuman right arm, and pointed with thick-caloused knuckles.
Nancy said nothing.
"All understood," the Scout hooted — then suddenly wheeled, and galloped away.
The other didn't follow. It turned, prancing a little, bent its head to snatch a bite of tufted sedge, then stood waiting, apparently to accompany them.
"The Wolf-General," Richard called to it, "— Sylvia is with these companies ?"
The Scout stared, but didn't answer.
"She'd better be," Patience said. Then, certainly from a copybook, added, "Or we're screwed."
"Let's go." Richard strode away. Toward silence, now; the distant rise-and-shine music had ended.
They walked the lumpy tussocks, looking west, while the Scout trotted in easy wide circles around them.... Errol, after a while, ran out to chase him, and wouldn't come to calls. But the Scout- — after an initial shying away — seemed not to mind, left his hatchet scabbarded, and he and the boy commenced a chase and be-chased game over the tundra, though Errol was never fast enough to catch him.
"Two more," Richard said, and Baj saw movement.. . then made out two other Scouts galloping toward them. These did not approach closely, only circled once, then again, and ran away west.
Errol, panting in exhaustion, had just come back to them, when Nancy said, "There." And pointed.... What seemed at first animals — from their compactness, their brown fur — gradually became nine... ten... a WT-dozen men trotting toward them in a long extended line.
Sunshiners, it seemed to Baj. True-human tribesmen, by the look of them. Short men, rounded with smooth fat over muscle, and wearing parities and trousers of caribou hide trimmed with fisher fur, the parky hoods tucked back and away from their faces. Each carried two or three light javelins, and an atlatl tucked into a wide belt with a sheathed long-bladed knife.
"Shrikes." Richard stood still, and swung his double-bladed ax off his shoulder.
One of the tribesmen — the man on the left of their line — whistled a single shrill note, and the others slowed and drifted, while he come forward.
A round face, smiling. His teeth were filed to points. As he came, he called, "Captain Richard!" his breath smoking in the icy morning air.
"Dolphus .. .!" Richard spoke softly over his shoulder. "I fought against him on Berkshire ice. He's an Under-chief, important."
"And a relative," Patience said. "Isn't he?"
"Was my mother's cousin," Richard said, and the Shrike chief, hearing, nodded as he walked up to them — stepping neatly, Baj saw, always between the grass tussocks. The furs he wore — the parky, and caribou-hide muk-boots and trousers — were beautifully dressed, decorated with the fisher fur, ermine tails, and little fans of porcupine quills dyed orange and blue.
"His mother — my father's brother's eldest daughter," the Shrike said. He spoke in a humming drone, as if on a single alto note. It was, Baj supposed, where Richard had gotten his thoughtful hum.
The Shrike chief didn't seem fierce; he seemed pleasant. His hair, the color of southern straw (though with gray mixed in it) was plastered with animal fat... drawn into a clubbed pigtail at the back. His green eyes seemed amused.
"Heavens," he said, "— what a bunch." A reader, Baj thought, filed teeth or not, and comfortable with copybook-English.
The Shrike smiled, examining the
m. "A deserter from the Guard, an ex-Boston air-walker, an army whore, an idiot boy, and... someone who was someone, but isn't anymore."
Baj felt Nancy standing still and silent beside him, and anger rose hot, seized his mouth, and spoke. "Enough of a someone," he said, "— to run a steel blade up your fat ass!"
The Shrike widened his eyes in a demonstration of surprise, glanced from Baj to Nancy, then smiled his pleasant filed-tooth smile. "It must be love," he said. "If I offended, Prince, I beg your pardon. — And the lady's." Certainly a literate savage, and unimpressed by threats.
Nancy said nothing.
Richard took a side-step to stand between Baj and the Shrike. "What are you doing with the Guard, Dolphus?"
"I'm doing what you intend doing. Persuaded to try it, in any case. Boston is becoming... tedious."
"And the Guard?"
"I won't say they'll welcome you, Richard — weren't happy to welcome me and my men. But they've admitted a truce with us... for a while. The rest of the Guard companies — fewer — have been sent down to the Coast-Atlantic on dubious, but convenient orders. Orders that might hold just long enough." He shrugged. "It's sad, really, since we were preparing an unpleasant surprise beneath the Wall for your so-clever Sylvia."
"You'd be the first savage to manage it."
"Well," Dolphus-Shrike smiled, "— sooner or later, someone is bound to."
The tribesman spoke the easiest, most authentic book-English that Baj had heard since fleeing Middle-Kingdom. Better, more... relaxed, than even the Wishful-believers had managed. It was as if a man had traveled the centuries from Warm-times, wrapped himself in fur, taken up javelins and atlatl, and filed his teeth.
"Sylvia's with you?"
"Oh, with respect still due, I'd say we're with her."
Baj noticed that the other Shrikes had casually moved to circle them. It would be difficult to defend against javelins hissing in from all directions. He reached back to his quiver, slid an arrow out, and nocked it to his bow-string.... Dolphus-Shrike, noticing past Richard's bulk, winked at him, and said, "In case of difficulties — me first?"
"Who better?" Baj said.
"Then thank heavens we're all to be friends," the Shrike gestured to follow, and walked away, "— as long as we live."
"What of him, Richard?" Patience seemed at ease, though her hand was on her scimitar's hilt.
"Dolphus? He's a shaman, an educated man among the Shrikes."
"But a fighter."
"Oh, yes. He doesn't have to be — but he is. Got bored with copybooks, apparently."
"And the Robins, south, fear those people?" Baj said.
"Robins," Nancy said, "— and the Thrushes and Fish-hawks. The Shrikes are very clever. And cruel."
"If he hurts you again," Baj said, "— with his well-read WT mouth, I'll kill him."
"... I should have told you," Nancy said, and Baj saw tears in golden eyes.
"You came near enough telling me, sweetheart. But it would have made no difference, and makes no difference now." He took her narrow hand as they walked along .. . and tried, as he could see the Shrikes doing, stepping only between tussocks.
"Don't... Baj, don't fight him."
"Not if I can help it. He frightens me."
Nancy laughed, and wiped tears away with her sleeve. "Even for a Sunriser," she said, "— you're odd." She hugged him, so they walked awkwardly, then leaned up to nip his earlobe, so Baj imagined happy years of minor injuries.... Still, there crossed his mind a shadowed scene of Nancy naked in firelight, drunk, laughing, surrounded by a hulking pack.
The thought, the image shamed him... and all the worse since there was no way to beg pardon for that treachery of imagination.
He held her closer, so they stumbled along, awkward as Festival sack-racers. Bent, and kissed her.
... Soon, standards heaved up on the plain, and formations could be seen beneath them, mounted and foot — some shining in steel, some uniformed in furs, and others, it seemed, in multicolored woolens. All marching east — without music, but together, so their ranks swayed slightly to one side then the other, as they came.
"Who is Sylvia," the Shrike chief called to them, smiling, "— that all our swains commend her?" It sounded to Baj like a copybook quote, though he didn't remember it.... Old Lord Peter would have known.
Ahead of them, riders came galloping from serried ranks bright with polished armor under the morning sun. Five... six, coming fast under a green staff-banner rippling to their wind of passage.
Lances. Baj saw lances held socketed easily upright. And, he thought, bows cased beside their saddles.... But it was not horses they rode. And not the great pale Made-things some Boston people shipped to Middle-Kingdom for their mounts. He'd seen those... Mampies. Seen others later, gone wild and murdering.
These mounts coming, were like deer, but black, and much bigger — and had a swift odd ambling pace, fast as a horse, and looking slow to tire.
"What — ?"
"Moose," Nancy said. "Only females, and bred big."
"Female moose," Richard said, "have bad tempers, can break a Person's back with a kick."
"I've ridden one," Nancy said. "They won't let Richard near them."
"My grizzled portion," Richard said. "But I was Infantry, anyway.... Uh-oh." He swung his ax down to the tundra, left its handle leaning against his leg. "Baj, quiver that arrow, and ease your bow. Do it quickly."
"The Wolf-General," Nancy said, reached out for Errol, drew him to her, and held him still as Baj knelt to unstring the bow.
"You know," Patience said, "I've only seen her in Tea-party Parade, with other Guard commanders."
"Be careful," Richard said. "Careful. You're about to meet... she who no one cares to meet."
CHAPTER 19
There was no sound then but the north wind... and the rapid, approaching hoofbeats of the six riders, their dark mounts — big-eared, droop-nosed, humped at the shoulders — galloping with a stilted rocking gait that seemed not troubled by knots of tundra grass.
Baj could make out the rider in front, dressed dark, and sitting knees-high like a racing jockey.... The others glinted in steel armor. One of them — with a furred head, and looking wide as two men — bore the green-banner standard.
They came on as if they were charging to kill.
"Stand," Richard said, "... stand still."
They stood still. Through the hide soles of his moccasin-boots, Baj felt the tundra trembling to hoofbeats.
The first rider came to them — and pulled up hard in a short slide, so the rearing moose's heavy split hooves ripped tussocks, spattered Richard with cold mud.
"My General..." Richard started to raise his right hand.
The rider's voice sounded high and harsh as a woodsman's saw. "If you salute me, Deserter, I'll have your hand off."
Richard put his hand down as the five other riders thundered up, and the Wolf-General laughed. It was a grim laugh to see — a snouted muzzle, barely a mouth, wrinkling away from wolf's fangs, a long red tongue. Then she sat her saddle, silent. .. examining them.
Certainly, it seemed to Baj, the General had much human in her, but it showed only enough for a wolf's head swollen larger for sense, for shorter ears — though furred slate gray — for claws become useful almost-hands, for shoulders enough to swing a sword or ax... and for slanting eyes a woman's deep and lovely blue. She was white-furred at the throat above a breast-and-back cuirass of some dark metal — bronze, Baj thought — shaped down its front to indicate rows of small breasts. She was lightly furred, thigh to stirruped boot and along her arms. Her dark gray hair rose — much as Nancy's — in a crest from her forehead. A bronze pig-nosed helmet swung from her saddle-bow beside a scab-barded heavy straight saber.
Neither she nor her restless mount bore any decoration at all. There was only muscled bulk, bronze, steel, fur, and fangs.... The Person's eyes, though — so gentle and rich a blue as she sat considering them — seemed to Baj decoration enough.
&n
bsp; Of her escort, four — lean riders in steel chain-mail — seemed almost fully human, near-Sunrisers, though with odd bones under scarred and savage faces. The fifth, the banner-bearer, was a Moonriser-certain, short, squat, and wide-shouldered. He was tufted black, with paler undercoat, and had round furred ears. The muzzle was blunt, the small eyes the color of stone.
"General," Patience said "— I've seen you on parade."
The Wolf-woman stared at her. "You will not Walk-in-air, unless by my orders and following my orders." Her voice, harsh with high vibration, was unsettling to listen to. "— Disobey, and I'll send riders to follow until you grow tired. Then they will bring your head to me."
"If I choose the air," Patience said, "and without your orders — you'd better send formidable riders to try to take my head."
"I have no others." The Wolf-General sidled her big mount almost into them, then leaned from her saddle and held out a clawed hand. Patience went to take it.
"Sylvia," the General said, shook Patience's hand WT style, then straightened in her saddle and glanced at Nancy, Errol, then Baj. "You, Sunriser-boy, are supposedly son of the Achieving King?"
"He was my Second-father... ma'am."
"And your first, the Khan Toghrul?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She stared at him. "It's difficult, just the same, to see any greatness in you."
"Difficult for me to feel any greatness."
The General granted, said, "Hello, Nancy," turned her mount, hacked its huge side with bright spurs, and the moose lunged from among them... gathered and paced away into its swift and awkward gallop.
As the five riders reined to follow, the banner-bearing Person said, "Captain, welcome back."
Richard said, "Fuck you, Sergeant." And, as the escort rode away, "Stay clear of that one."
"Might be a good idea," Baj said "— to stay clear of all of them."
"If We didn't need them..." Patience sighed. "I suppose we're to follow?"
"Go!" One of the Shrikes gestured with a javelin.
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