Exile's Children (67 page)

“A column of twenty,” Motsos said. “All on those things they ride, those … 
creatures
. We could smell their stink and hear their howling, coming arrow-true across the plains. I think their horde cannot be far behind.”

“No,” Racharran agreed. “But where?”

“You know that river where the breaks are?” Motsos said. “All flat before, and then a wood? And then the jumbles?”

Racharran nodded.

“They chased us to the gulleys.” Motsos drank the hot tiswin as if it were some elixir. “I left them there. That's only three days' ride in good weather, but those beasts they ride.” He sipped more tiswin, his homely features thoughtful. “I think they'd travel faster than any horse.”

Racharran nodded, his face grim. “And were they the outriders of the horde …”

He left the sentence unfinished. Motsos said, “Our scouts ride five days ahead, even seven.”

“Yes.
Our
scouts.” Racharran smiled darkly. “But these people are not like us.”

“Even so.” Motsos shrugged. “That great horde we saw—surely it cannot travel so fast.”

“Perhaps.” Racharran found a twig and broke it. The snapping rang loud in the silence. “Say they travel faster than we can, say those you saw could reach this canyon in three days. Say they ride—what?—five days before the rest. Then it might take them no more than eleven days to take word back.” He paused, calculating; when he spoke again, his voice was low and grim. “Their entire force could be on us as the Rain Moon rises.”

Motsos raised his cup to his lips and found it empty. Lhyn reached to fill it and he downed the liquor in a single gulp, so alarmed he forgot to even thank her. When he remembered and murmured the words, she shook her head. Her eyes were fixed firm on her husband, and in them Motsos thought he saw a fear that must surely mirror his own. He stared at Racharran, waiting.

The twig Racharran held was in splinters now. He threw the pieces into the fire. “We must prepare to fight,” he decided.

“Perhaps they'll not find us.” Lhyn's voice was soft, as if she feared to say it aloud lest she betray them.

“The Maker willing, no,” Racharran said. “But I think we'd best prepare. Surely they look for us. Likely they look for all the clans.”

“Can they fight all the People?” Lhyn's eyes were large with wondering horror.

“Were there enough of them.” His mouth curved in parody of a smile. “Eh, Motsos?”

Motsos nodded, wishing he might find argument; knowing he could not.

“Could we not move on? Flee them?” Lhyn asked.

Racharran barked laughter like an angry dog. “And go where? Here, we've at least the canyon's walls at our back. I'd sooner not fight, but we may have no choice; and I'd sooner not wait to find out but be ready. So …” He threw back his head a moment, as if he shook off doubt, and when he looked again at Lhyn and Motsos, his face was all stern purpose. “We prepare to fight. Meanwhile, I'd see how Bylas fares. And”—this softer—“how close these invaders are.”

“I'll take you back,” Motsos said.

“There's no need.” Racharran shook his head. “I can find the place you decribed.”

Motsos said, “I'd also know how Bylas fares.”

Racharran smiled more warmly then and ducked his head. “So be it. But rest this night, eh? We'll go out at dawn.”

Perico wished he were not charged with Juh's message: it was an honor he could easily have done without.

The Frozen Grass Moon was no time for traveling, and worse in this unusually harsh winter. He had sooner spend his time warm in his lodge with his young wife than out on the open snow with the air so cold that each breath struck his lungs like a lance and dusted his horse's mane with ice; so cold it was a danger to touch metal for fear he leave skin behind.

And worse for all he saw along the way.

He scarce dared build a fire for the fear it betray his position, and had it not been a surety that he freeze in the night, he would have slept without. But that was surely death, and so he sought out hidden places, where trees or rocks should hide the light and smoke, and even then slept restless, waking through the nights in fear of invaders.

He had seen them.

Oh, by the Maker, he had seen them! And they filled him with such dread as stirred his bowels and urged him go back save that should earn him Juh's punishment and mark him a coward. So he went on, frightened, and by day and night prayed to the Maker that he come safe through to the Commacht, and that they send him back with an escort.
Preferably a hundred or so warriors, for he doubted he could face those creatures with less.

They were such things as nightmare spawned, and he wished Juh had listened earlier to Racharran and heeded the Commacht akaman who was, he decided, a wise and foresighted man.

Had Juh only listened, then he would not be here alone, hiding from creatures that surely blasphemed the Maker with their very existence.

“You're sure Juh said that?”

Kanseah nodded, concealing the affront he felt. Surely it was hard enough that Tahdase sent him out in such foul weather without the Naiche akaman questioning the word he brought back. He let his eyes wander sidelong to Isten's face, and found it set in a frown that matched Tahdase's.

“He told me—himself!—that he sends a rider to the Commacht to ask what Racharran does.”

“And?” Tahdase asked.

“That was all,” Kanseah said. “He sends a rider. I think …”

He hesitated, not wishing to put words in the mouth of an akaman.

“What do you think?” Isten asked, his voice soft so that Kanseah felt a little mollified. “I'd hear what you think Juh will do.”

“I think,” Kanseah said, “that Juh will listen to Racharran's words and likely heed them.” Almost, he added, “This time,” but he held that thought back and said only, “That was my feeling.”

Isten looked at Tahdase and said, “I think the time has come to do the same.”

Tahdase studied the fire awhile, then ducked his head. “Yes. We shall send a rider to the Commacht.”

Silently, Kanseah asked the Maker fervently that it not be he.

“They slew one, at least.”

Racharran angled his lance in the direction of the horrid body sprawled frozen in the snow. It was pin-pricked with arrows and its blood was a shadow over the white. A broken lance protruded from the chest. Not far beyond lay an invader, arrows in the bright armor and the marks of hatchet blows on the helm. Farther down the break lay a Commacht, his left arm near sundered from the shoulder, his furs divided by a sword's cut. Farther still lay his horse, dead from its wounds.

Motsos said, “Bylas took them away from the Wintering Ground, as he said he would.”

“Yes, he was brave.” Racharran nodded. “Now let's find him, eh?”

It was not difficult: the winding pathways of the breaks were all marked with blood and bodies. Horses lay clawed and gutted and the Commacht warriors were cold in the snow, their weapons clutched in frozen fingers and the armored corpses of the invaders strewn around them. Their courage made Racharran proud, but even so … For all the Commacht dead, there were only three invaders slain, and two beasts.

Bylas was the last.

His horse lay under the body of an invader's mount, whose jaws were closed around the lance driven deep into its throat. Some way beyond, where the break twisted back on itself in a direction opposite to the Commacht's Wintering Ground, Bylas lay locked in the embrace of a figure armored in sunny yellow. His hatchet was buried in the invader's helm, his knife between the joindure of breastplate and tasset.

Racharran said, “He died well.”

Motsos grunted sorry agreement and asked, “Shall we gather them for burial?”

“No. There were twenty of them, you said, no? Three are slain, so the rest go running back. I'd know where; and where the horde is now.”

“They deserve honorable burial,” Mostsos said.

“Surely they do,” Racharran agreed. “But we've not the time, are we to defend the clan.”

For a while Motsos stared at him as if he'd argue, but then he shrugged and said, “Yes, I suppose it must be. But the Maker knows, I do not like this—to leave brave men unburied?”

“Think you I do?” Racharran answered.

He waited until Motsos shook his head then said, “So we go on; and see what danger comes against the clans.”

Hadduth said, “We must play this careful. Racharran will be slow to trust your word, I think.”

“Yes.” Chakthi nodded, his newly wound braids falling about a face scrubbed clean of mourning white but dark with contained anger, and ugly anticipation.

“You cannot go,” Hadduth said, “nor I.”

“No.” Chakthi smiled, which was like the snarl of a cornered beast. “But who shall we send?”

“Who might they trust?” Hadduth mused. “Amongst all our people, who would they believe?”

Chakthi thought a moment, and his feral smile stretched wider.
“There's one,” he said, “who's aided them in the past. They'd trust him, no?”

“Dohnse?” Hadduth matched his akaman's smile with his own.

“Twice now he's met the Commacht wakanisha and let him go,” Chakthi said. “Surely they'd trust him.”

“Yes!” Hadduth chuckled. “Let it be Dohnse.”

“Is it much farther?” Morrhyn studied the bleak white plain ahead. Nothing moved there save skirling snow, tossed by the wind: it was as if they were the only living things in all Ket-Ta-Witko. Had he not known better, he might have believed the Breakers were already come and gone, and the People left slaughtered behind. But that surely could not be. The Maker could not be so unkind and no army had passed them, nor had they come on scenes of battle—he did not count the sad corpses they'd found where warriors had skirmished and died. Had the true slaughter begun, there would have been more, far more: he shivered at the thought and turned toward Rannach.

The younger man shrugged. “It was long ago—I was a boy. But …” Like Morrhyn, he stared at the empty plain. “I think it cannot be far.”

“I pray not,” Morrhyn said, and drew his furs tighter, his face lost under the shadow of the hood. And silently, for he'd not let Rannach hear his doubts, I pray we be in time.

He turned his face toward the sky. Its blue was like ice on a river, the sun a watery eye that sank too rapidly westward. The Frozen Grass Moon rose in the east, narrowed almost to disappearing. Soon the Rain Moon would be up, but he doubted it should deliver its promise. This awful winter had too strong a hold, as if it locked white fingers on the land and would not let go.

“So, onward.” Rannach heeled the stallion out from the trees. Morrhyn followed, staring glumly at the horse ahead. It was mightily thinned, ribs visible and head bowed down. Arrhyna's mare was in no better condition, and he added to his prayers the hope the animals lasted. Without them there was no hope at all.

“Should we become separated, it is as before.” Racharran fixed each man with a commanding stare. “We leave the fallen.”

He waited until they had all given reluctant agreement. They liked the order not at all, nor he any better—but the word they carried outweighed the importance of any one life.

“One of us at least must get back,” he said, “and tell the clan what we've seen.”

“And then?” Motsos asked. “And what if you are … ?”

He paused, unwilling to speak his fear. Racharran voiced it for him. “If I am slain,” he said, “then as many of you as can must get back, to warn the clan. We'll need brave warriors, if …”

Like Motsos, he let his voice trail off, eyes shifting to the sheltering timber, his mind carrying his sight past the trees to the horde encamped on the snow beyond the forest. Even did that great mass advance slowly, still it must come down on the Commacht soon after the Rain Moon rose. Did it move swift—he pushed the thought away. Surely it could not: surely so vast a horde must come slow, seeking food along the way. They were not such warriors as he knew, but still they must eat—as must their horrid beasts—and the need to provide for such an army must surely govern its pace … surely?

He forced a smile. “Do they find the Wintering Ground, we must be ready.”

Motsos said, “Perhaps they'll not.” But his voice was low and his face expressed no belief in his own words.

Racharran said, “The Maker willing. But best we prepare, eh?”

Motsos nodded and showed his teeth in an answering smile that was patently false.

“So let's ride.” Racharran stood. “I'd be home fast as we can.”

Though what good speed should do them, he did not know; save they get back to die amongst their loved ones. Even did that horde divide to attack the clans one by one, there were still enough to overwhelm the Commacht and the clan die like animals cornered in their lair. He spoke of defending the canyon, but that could be only a brief defense against such numbers, against the savagery of the invaders. The canyon was as much trap as refuge, but he could think of no other course—this snow was no battleground for the warriors of the People, who fought from horseback, running and raiding. This snow—this Maker-cursed winter—favored only the invaders. He wished Morrhyn were there to advise him; he wished his fellow akamans had listened to his wakanisha. But wishes were no more tangible than the wind and he must face the grim reality that before long he should likely see his people all slain, and the best he dared hope was that they give a good account of themselves and take no few of the invaders with them into the spirit world. It seemed a sorry hope, and he could not dismiss the anger he felt that Juh and the rest had chosen to ignore his warnings and had sat back complacent as the invaders came through the mountains into Ket-Ta-Witko.

But that, like ephemeral wishes, was pointless: they
had,
and now it seemed they would pay the price. He wondered if the Maker truly turned his face from the People, for all that had happened that last year. Did he consign his creations to destruction for the breaking of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko? Were Morrhyn there, he might explain it; but he was not, and Racharran could not. All he could do was lead his people in such war as he knew they could not survive.