“Taysa will be informed as well.”
Llinolae nodded grimly. She shifted the bow bag a bit further behind her left knee and tightened the tack straps to hold it. A long sword hung to the front of her right leg as well. Light tack had not meant lightly armed. If they were going to get as deep into the Clan’s upper territories as she expected, it would be foolish to leave their defenses solely to the powers of her Sight or to the sandwolves.
“Are we ready?” Gwyn prompted, mounting Cinder with a grace that warmed Llinolae’s heart.
Abruptly distracted, Llinolae glanced upstream towards the camp. She nodded Gwyn towards that canyon’s bend. “Our packmates bring Sparrow.”
Cinder stomped, shifting restlessly, and Gwyn calmed her with a murmur. “Can you See if something is wrong in camp?”
“Nothing with Camdora or her brother, at least.”
Sparrow appeared quickly, skipping from rock to rock as she crossed the stream bed with Ril following in her footsteps. Ty gave the matter less thought and, tongue lolling happily, splashed through the creek bed undaunted.
“Good — I didn’t miss you!” Sparrow reached them. She smiled broadly and extended a small map to Gwyn. “Brit found this in her ‘obscure box.’ Thought it might do you some good. It’s the old boundaries of the original Unseen Wall that the Council had set up around the starcraft port.”
Ty bumped Llinolae’s foot playfully. The Dracoon grinned, teasing the sandwolf’s chin with her booted toe. Since Gwyn’s accident, the two of them had gotten to be fairly close.
“I hope we don’t have to go in quite that far,” Gwyn frowned. She caught Llinolae’s attention and tossed her the map tube to store among the sleeping gear on Calypso’s packs.
“But Brit is right. It will help anyway,” Llinolae allowed. “It will let us estimate how much land and erosion damage has occurred. In short, the more that is outside of that old ‘wall,’ the worse it is.”
“To estimate leagues and timelines…,” Gwyn nodded, seeing the value in that. “Aye, it will help both the Council and the Royal Family in evaluating how much land to deed the Clans in the northern ranges.”
“Brit’s thought exactly,” Sparrow echoed. Then she looked to each of them. Ril pushed under her hand for a farewell pat. “May the Mother ride your winds, my Sisters.”
Llinolae smiled. Gwyn nodded. They were going to need the Mother’s blessings.
◊ ◊ ◊
Gwyn straightened from her crouch, tossing aside the handful of pebbly grit she had been studying. Even in the moons’ dimmed light, the abandoned fields were a pitiful sight. Rocks the size of cobblestones were littered about. The land was craggy and sparsely grassed. There were scattered bracken hedges and twisted skeletons of nearly dead saplings; poor attempts at windbreaks, Gwyn realized.
She brushed her hands off on her breeches and squinted at the abandoned structures on the northern horizons. The wind stirred up and rushed past her, blowing her hair loose from her short braid. Cinder nosed her shoulder with a grunt, black mane whipping back to mesh with Gwyn’s own red silk.
The Amazon leaned into the mare’s warmth, pressing their cheeks together as she scratched the ruddy hide behind an ear. It wasn’t that she was cold. The wind was dry. It smelt faintly of dust. Despite the recent rains, the countryside had the barren feeling of a wasteland.
“Aye,” Ril came to lean into Gwyn’s thigh. The curled coat felt reassuringly real beneath Gwyn’s hand. “This is a coldness of the soul — not the weather that we’re feeling.”
The wind rose with another swirl and passed. The utter stillness its absence left was almost as disturbing.
“Come, it’s time we rejoined Ty and Llinolae,” Gwyn spoke aloud to break the emptiness of the place. “We’ve seen enough to know Camdora spoke only the truth about this wasted land.”
She swung into the saddle and sent Cinder off in a canter, Ril close behind. In truth, they had seen enough.
◊ ◊ ◊
The winds mourned of ghosts and loss as they crossed the Plateau and passed the camp. The three canvas walls had been angled and slanted to resemble something of a truncated pyramid, and they deflected the worst of the wailing forces over or around them. The design left the travelers open to a sky of starry velvet. But within, the sloping walls hid the small group and their fire amazingly well.
And tonight the fire was a welcomed light to circle around. The midnight moon had set, and the darkness amidst these winds seemed to linger endlessly with no hint of dawn.
The mares moved restlessly, shifting to stay close for warmth, but avoiding contact with the chilly tarp wall. On the far side of the fire’s defiant little circle, the sandwolves nestled in between gear, canvas and women. They lay nose to nose, their furry bodies half-curled around Gwyn and Llinolae who sat murmuring in low voices.
None of the small crew were thinking of sleep yet.
“This isn’t working,” Gwyn muttered, struggling to rearrange the blanket she shared and yet stay careful not to pinch a stray paw in her squirming.
“Are you stealing the covers already, n’Athena? At least let me get in closer here…”
Gwyn glanced at her partner with a feeble smile and opened an arm obediently to pull Llinolae in beneath a blanket. She waited then, until they were settled to ask. “Your harmon found the village then — what was there?”
“The fear and desperation Camdora spoke of.” Weariness sang in her sigh as Llinolae leaned a bit against Gwyn’s shoulder. “They have some food and shelter of sorts, but these winds have been as unforgiving to their clay brick and timber structures as it has been to their land. Their milkdeer are the sturdiest stock I have ever seen, with woolly hides wrapped thick from the perpetual chill—”
“Again from these winds,” Gwyn saw quickly.
“And they seemed prepared to eat anything short of petrified wood. All of which might bode well for adapting to the north….”
“But — ?”
“They had but one house in the whole village — perhaps in this whole district! — which had anything remotely resembling a bookshelf. Gardens are scraps of roots and weeds…. Everywhere eyes were dull with need — or bright with fear if the horizon road to the old Base Port swirled dust for a moment.”
“Those Taysa would trust to fetch weapons would probably not be the kindest among the scouts militia,” Gwyn noted.
Llinolae shook her head, sadly agreeing. “And these folks struggle so for such a dismal survival. They’ve a single millstone with bins that store everything from the community’s grains to salted meats. But salt seems to be about the only thing they have got plenty of!”
“Nothing’s safely accessible.”
“As for their farming — I’d always suspected things were bad, Gwyn, but I’d never really grasped the concept of ‘barren’ before this wasteland. These folks have been losing more and more land, faster and faster as they approach the Plateau’s edge.”
“More slope to the ground run-off maybe?” Gwyn bleakly recalled Brit’s maps and notations. “They’ve got only worsening exposures to the weather fronts too.”
“And the wind factor multiplies with each lost league! It will be worse once they begin to drop over the Plateau’s edge.” Llinolae sighed and turned her face into Gwyn’s shoulder. “If they insist on clearing fields and plowing furrows, nothing will ever change. I don’t know if they’ve realized that. I don’t think it much matters if they did… Taysa’s dream is the only one available.”
“It won’t be for much longer,” Gwyn observed grimly.
“Aye, not much at all.” Blue eyes shifted to glance up at her, and a melancholy little half-smile appeared as Llinolae admitted, “I’m afraid I don’t like playing bully, just to force a smaller bully into behaving.”
“But this isn’t some challenge of who is louder or stronger. Neither of us are doing this to be proud of outwitting Taysa.”
“It could easily seem an act of vengeance — in so many ways.�
�
“You’re not here for revenge,” Gwyn reassured her quietly. “I know that, as do Brit and Camdora. We act to protect both Clan and Khirlan from Taysa — or from any other like her. We’re acting on a chance to lessen the pain and misery for hundred of families. Mae n’Pour — your hope is to aid the Clan folk as well as Khirlan’s!”
“I would not do this, if I didn’t believe it could work for both peoples,” Llinolae confessed softly, her insides shrinking at the very possibility. “With the Forest’s amarin eternally reflecting truths — the elusive wisps of abuses and past pain — I would go mad, caught in a web of my own making, if I acted with bitter, raging ambitions.” She huddled into Gwyn, seeking the Niachero’s strength. Her voice dropped even lower as she shuddered. “Because I See through Aggar’s awareness when I use my Blue Gift and not through any single person’s perspective — not even my own when using the out-of-time Sight?”
“I understand the difference,” Gwyn assured her quietly.
“Because of that I can never hide long from my own ambitions or motives. I can’t ever freely ignore the consequences of my actions. If ever I were to do something that caused such harm intentionally — or through negligence allowed circumstances to become abusive, the nightmares would…”
“They’d haunt you for seasons,” Gwyn finished for her.
“Yes.”
They were quiet for a time, Gwyn’s chin atop the soft tousle of those black curls, Llinolae’s ear pressed close against the steady rhythms of that beating heart. Until finally, Gwyn stirred to ask, “Are you afraid we toy unjustly with the Clan’s future in deciding to destroy these fire weapons, Llinolae? Do you fear tomorrow will begin only nightmares?”
“Fears… doubts? Yes, I have them. Churv may have an alternative; the Council may have anticipated and divined another way… I don’t—”
“Stop.” Gwyn pressed her fingers to Llinolae’s lips, then gently they curled beneath her chin to lift her eyes. The two women shifted to sit and face one another a moment, before Gwyn began. “When I left Valley Bay, I had to think very carefully about the rights of the Clan folk, about my duties to the Ramains. As I am a Daughter of the Stars, am I not also an off-worlder’s descendent and hence kin in some sense to the Clan? How can I justify the autonomy of Valley Bay’s settlement and the Council’s endorsement of our own technology, yet in the same breath say I condemn the rulers and technology from the Clan folk?
“The fact is, I haven’t found a clear answer. I don’t like what I’m about to do to the Clan, because I am imposing a personal judgment on them and casting them into exile. I have no inherent rights that put me above being wrong, no irrefutable argument that I act with divine knowledge from the Mother. If we are wrong this will destroy the Clan’s way of life and many of their lives. Even if we are right, their way of life will still be forced to change and the seasons ahead will be struggle. The only difference offered between the two is hope — hope that the northern ranges will eventually yield better shelter and food… and hope that their children can learn to dream again. But with the Changlings as neighbors…?” Gwyn broke off with a shrug.
“Aye… life may grow worse.”
“But I can’t stand by and do nothing. Too many people in Khirlan and Clan are being hurt. To live with the certainty that things could only grow worse, when I had held the opportunity to maybe change that? To me, that would be unbearable. As with you, I find I’m as responsible for the consequences of both my actions and inactions. No, I’d rather live with doubts than know the suffering could only continue and worsen.”
Llinolae sighed in resignation but she nodded. “As Dracoon I am Churv’s appointed guardian of the district people, and of those of the Clan who by treaty may ask for shelter beneath the Royal Family’s care.”
“The Clan militia is not abiding by the treaty.”
“But others of the Clan folk once did. And they would again, if the choice was freely theirs to make. Camdora was proof of that.”
Gwyn couldn’t disagree.
“So ethically I feel some responsibility to protect the Clan folk even as I protect Khirlan’s people from the Clan.”
“Ethical responsibilities forge difficult paths,” Gwyn returned wryly. “But I understand. The principal of lending aid and tolerance first, is fundamental to both Niachero and Marshal.”
“All of which does what? It only leaves me with an ambivalence, similar to your own.” Yet Llinolae’s resolve was as unwavering now as it had been the day she vowed to end strife between Clan and Khirlan. She took Gwyn’s hand in a strong grasp. “I cannot claim Royal enlightenment to endorse my personal decisions.” She smiled without humor. “But people are hurting; that always returns me to the simplest of facts.”
“Which is?”
“I must do this, because I am the only one who can.”
“As I must,” Gwyn affirmed. “Because negligence doesn’t excuse responsibility.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Her head bobbed forward and with a jerk Llinolae pulled herself back to alertness. She had the watch. This was not a time for sleeping.
She rubbed her eyes, set her feet a bit flatter and stiffened her backbone against the stone wall of the ruins. The early moon was high, cloudy fingers veiling some of its light. The wind howled faintly, echoing with a lonesome wail among the old, dilapidated buildings. There was not another human soul for leagues, it seemed. But her Sight had warned them differently.
On the southern edge of the starcraft port, a stone and brick barrack housed three elder Clan folk. Two were obviously well-trained militia, and they worked with a wizened team of basker jackals patrolling the immediate area around the armory. The third was a woman who seemed less occupied with guard duties and more concerned with cooking and household chores. She limped a bit when she walked though, and she always wore a small fire weapon on her hip, so neither Llinolae nor Gwyn harbored any illusions — she obviously could be as lethal an opponent as either of her burly male companions.
Not for the first time, Llinolae Saw only too clearly how invested the Clan’s militia had become in hoarding the power of these fire weapons.
Llinolae’s eyes began to itch again with that dry, bone-deep fatigue which demanded sleep. She sighed, the breath turning into a yawn. There had been too many nights of too little sleep and too many demands on her inner reserves from using her Sight so frequently.
Ty’s head lifted from where she lay next to Gwyn. Llinolae Sensed the movement as well as the sandwolf’s concern for her personal well-being. From the flat of the last bit of rooftop above, Llinolae felt Ril’s nudge question her as well.
They were right. She was no good to any of them like this. A couple hours of sleep would see her stronger, but right now she was more of a liability than a guardian.
Ty rose, careful not to disturb Gwyn’s sleep, and padded quietly across the floor rubble. She nosed Llinolae away from the wall. The sandwolves would take the watch for a while. With bow and quiver in hand, Llinolae conceded to their common sense and went to roll herself in next to Gwyn. The bedding was warm from Ty’s weight. Her lover turned without waking and wrapped an arm about her to spoon them close.
Bow notched with an arrow and within easy reach, hunting knife laid even closer at hand, Llinolae snuggled back into Gwyn to sleep.
◊ ◊ ◊
A whirling mist of gray paled and slowly dissolved in the white fog of an early, damp morning.
Llinolae shivered as the chill crept through the intangible ghost of her harmon. Then cold turned to a deadlier iciness as she made out the building ahead. The whitewash of the small cottage was well tended. The small barn and plowed garden plot seemed miniature replicas beneath the yawning spread of the ancient Forest beyond. Above the cottage door, a circular plaque of red, white, and deep green was tacked to the wall, and Llinolae recognized the sign of her mother’s Clan kin — a simple depiction of bird, fruit, and tree.
Her breath caught, horror rising as other details
became visible. Bodies of adults and children lay strewn across the yard. A handful of Clan scouts were rifling through pockets and bags for valuables.
Across the threshold lay a young woman of dark hair and slender build. The Clan Lead bending over her, a woman, was patiently prying an ornate wooden ring off of her finger. Llinolae felt her stomach retch — that ring she knew only too well. It had been the handfasting token Taysa had gifted to her uncle, a twin to the one her own mother had gifted Mha’del with on her parent’s own wedding.
A thin male scout with an immaculately trimmed beard pushed his way out past the corpse. His Clan Lead straightened, ring safely in hand and glanced down into the open bag he held out for inspection.
The woman turned with him then, barking orders to the rest of the patrol to burn all of the farm’s dead.
Llinolae watched in grim sorrow as that Clan Lead and her favorite scout mounted their horses. She felt cold stone encase her heart while they sat there, satisfaction and confidence in their manner supervising the bonfires.
Looking younger than Llinolae was accustomed to seeing them and dressed as Clan military, she nonetheless recognized the pair — Taysa and her Master at Arms. Taysa glanced at the ring in her hand again, slid it part way down her finger, only to find it too small a fit. She pulled out a small knife to shave the wood a bit thinner, and by the time the rest of the patrol were finished and mounted, the ring was fitting well.
They rode off at a curt word from her, and Llinolae turned back to the ashen smoke of the farmstead, back to the remains of her mother’s half-sister’s family. The woman she knew as Taysa was not Taysa.
Llinolae balked at the realization.
“Soroi?” Gwyn’s gentle voice called to her through the bleakness of that dreamspun vision. “Ti Mae, soroi?”
Llinolae blinked, feeling Gwyn’s warm breath against her ear. The solidness of Gwyn’s hand lay upon her shoulder as the Niachero leaned across her in concern. With a shudder, Llinolae rolled quickly and buried herself in Gwyn’s strong arms.
Fires of Aggar Page 42
