The Horsemasters (34 page)

“None of the other tribes seems to have felt such a necessity,” Ronan said dryly.

Nel said to Tyr, “Where is Morna?”

The smile abruptly left Tyr’s face. “At home,” he said. “She is with child. I think the Mistress thought her condition a good excuse to keep her separated from Ronan.”

Nel felt as if a hand had closed painfully upon her heart. Morna was with child. Nel said nothing, just concentrated on keeping her face expressionless, on not giving herself away.

“With child?” Ronan said. “Does this mean she is back in favor with the Mistress?”

Tyr shrugged. “I can tell you this. The tribe still thinks of Nel.”

A small silence fell. “If that is the case,” Ronan said at last, “then I am surprised indeed that Arika agreed to accept me as leader.”

Tyr made an impatient gesture with his hand. “The Mistress saw what everyone else saw, with the exception of course of Haras and Unwar. You are the only man who can do it. You were the one who thought to set a watch on this tribe. You were the one who had the idea to train your own horses. You are the one who suggested we form a federation. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that you are the only man for the leadership.”

There was the sound of a step, and then a deep voice said, “Ronan.” It was Neihle.

Nel pushed her own pain to the back of her heart and stepped closer to her husband. She felt his hand upon the nape of her neck.

“Neihle.” Ronan’s voice was cool, but Nel could feel the tension in his fingers. This was the man who had been the only father he had ever known. In some ways, Neihle’s betrayal had wounded him even more deeply than Arika’s.

“I am glad to see you, sister’s son,” Neihle said. He had made a motion as if to lift his hands and then had dropped them to his sides again. There was a shadowy look on his face, and Nel knew that this meeting was not easy for Neihle either.

Ronan merely nodded, his lips taut. Nel helped them both by remarking pleasantly, “We were surprised to find the Tribe of the Red Deer to be our allies.”

“Sa.” The shadowy look under Neihle’s eyes had darkened further when he realized that Ronan was not going to give him the traditional tribal greeting. “We had actually come to the same conclusions as you, although we did not have the imagination to try to tame our own horses.”

“It is not going to be a simple fight,” Ronan answered, and Nel was relieved to hear that his voice sounded more normal. She had known it would be easier for him to talk if the subject was the Horsemasters. “We will have to use our knowledge of the mountains against them. To try to fight them face-to-face would be disastrous.”

“I have seen them,” Neihle said grimly. “I agree.”

“I will need to know what numbers of men you have, their ages and their skills.”

Neihle nodded. “You will have it.”

“Who is to lead the Red Deer men, Uncle?” Ronan asked, the uncle coming with reassuring naturalness. “Erek?” “Not Erek,” said Neihle. “Me.”

* * * *

The guards on the horses changed, and the camp settled down for the night. The moon was bright when Ronan sought Nel among the women and said, “Come outside for a little.” He added sternly to Leir and Sintra, who had leaped up, panting, tails wagging, ready for a walk, “Not you.”

Nel fell into step beside him, and they walked along the great echoing tunnel, past the camp of the men of the Leopard, and out into the cold air. The night was as clear as crystal and very still. Nel shivered inside her fur tunic, and Ronan slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close against his side. From the distance came the howl of a wolf, a hunting howl, endlessly drawn-out and eerie.

“Where is Nigak?” Nel asked.

“Hunting,” he replied. “Perhaps we just heard him.”

They began to walk along the river, listening to the dark water as it rushed restlessly through the quiet, moonlit night. Their bodies moved together in complex unity, his longer stride accommodating to hers with the ease of long practice. She could feel the excitement, the coiled tension of the meeting still in him. For certain he was not yet ready to sleep.

“It is almost impossible to get you to myself these days,” he complained.

Nel smiled. It was true that they had had no privacy while moving the tribe from the valley.

“Could you believe Arika?” he asked now. “She supported me!”

“Tyr had the right of it,” Nel answered. “She saw that there was no hope of success with either Haras or Unwar as chief.”

“But to say that she would fight!” He laughed. “She shamed the men.”

“Sa,” agreed Nel. “She was certainly a surprise.”

“You were right to insist that the women had to come to this meeting. It was Berta who swayed the Mistress, not me.”

“I said nothing about the women coming,” Nel murmured. “It was Berta.”

“You said nothing to me,” Ronan corrected, his voice full of amusement. “I am certain you said plenty to Berta.”

Nel shot him a look. “You think you are so clever.”

“Sa. I do.” He kicked at a small moon-silvered stone in his path. “However, now that I have brought all of our women and children out of the valley, I must find a safe place to shelter them. Or have you already thought of that?”

Nel said, “It is not only our own women and children, but those of the Leopard and the Red Deer for whom we must find shelter, They cannot be left where they are now, in the path of the Horsemasters.”

“I know.” All of the amusement had left his voice.

“The Great Cave is large enough,” Nel said.

“Why did I think you would say that?”

“Because you were thinking of the Great Cave too,” she retorted.

He laughed, put his hands on both of her shoulders, and swung her around to face him. They were standing now at a little height above the roaring river. “We can see into each other’s minds, minnow,” he said, bent his head, and kissed her.

Nel pressed against him, her arms sliding around his waist to hold him tight. “I have missed this,” he murmured huskily, his lips moving to her temples and then to her hair.

“Ronan,” Nel said. “I am afraid.”

Still holding her, he backed up a few steps so he could lean his shoulders against a tree. “So am I,” he answered soberly.

Nel buried her face in his shoulder and knew that they were speaking of different things. He feared for the tribes; she feared for him.

“These Horsemasters,” he was going on, “they make everything I once thought so important seem trivial. When I was cast out of the Tribe of the Red Deer, all I wanted was revenge. I vowed that I would show Arika. I determined that I would be exactly what she thought I was, that I would take the tribe away from her. Now”—Nel felt his shoulder move in a shrug under her cheek—”when the survival of us all is at stake, I see such thoughts for what they were. Small.”

The reindeer fur under Nel’s cheek was rough and cold, but the arms that held her were warm and strong. She asked, more easily than she had ever thought possible, “Was that why you married me, Ronan? Because through me you hoped to gain control of the Red Deer?”

She felt him stiffen. “Is that what you think?”

She said honestly, “I have always wondered why you stayed away so long.”

“Minnow, I don’t know why.” She shivered and he held her away from him, fumbling for a moment with the front of his tunic until he got it open. Then he drew her against him once more, folding his tunic around the two of them. “Better?” he asked.

She snuggled close. His buckskins were beautifully warm. He was beautifully warm. “Sa,” she said.

“I think I did not want to find you changed,” he said musingly, “I think I was afraid that a grown-up Nel would no longer be Nel.”

Nel tilted her head until her lips found the smooth bare skin of his throat. She tightened her arms about his waist.

He said with a breathless laugh, “If you had not agreed to come away with me, I would have kidnapped you, the way the chief of the Horse kidnapped Alin all those years ago.”

“Would you?” Nel murmured. In answer, he bent his head and once more sought her mouth.

A little while later he said huskily, “We can’t. It is too cold for you out here.”

“Mmm? You were not thinking that way when you made the poor dogs stay home.”

He snorted with amusement. “Did I not say you could see into my mind?” He straightened away from the tree. “Let us do this—you keep your tunic on, and I will spread mine on the ground for us.”

“All right,” Nel said.

The moon watched with pale, detached serenity as he drew her down to lie on the fur-softened earth. Nel could feel the rhythm of his lifeblood beating in his kisses, and she answered with a wildness born of her earlier fear, rejoicing fiercely in the feel of him there within her grasp, so strong, so potent, so filled with life.

The tension and the triumph of the meeting in the cave had awakened Ronan’s blood, and now Nel’s response ignited the fire of pure desire. He felt he would go mad if he could not have her. She was reaching for him, helping him. He drove, they were together, and the moonlit world dissolved into the oneness of love.

* * * *

“This is how these invaders fight,” Ronan said. “First they gallop their horses into the camp of their victims, spreading fear and confusion. Then they dismount and use their spears on the men, overwhelming the now-scattered defense with their superior numbers and organization. When all of the men are dead, they collect the women and children, and their chief gives them out to his followers.”

Horrified murmurs came from Unwar and Haras. Arika merely nodded, but she looked very pale. The four chiefs, with their seconds-in-command, had gathered in the early morning air to discuss their course of action.

“I think it is clear, then, that in order to turn back these invaders we must show them that we are as good fighters as they are and that they will gain nothing of value here in these mountains,” Ronan said. Grim nods came from all the others around the fire.

“I think we should send once more to the tribes on the Atata,” Haras said. “The more men who join with us, the better chance we will have.”

“I agree,” Ronan said. “And I also think that it would be more effective if some men of the Leopard and the Red Deer went as messengers this time.”

Unwar turned his heavy-lidded eyes toward Arika and said, “That can be done easily enough.”

Arika nodded agreement.

“The next thing we must do,” Ronan continued, “is to secure the safety of those of our people who cannot fight: the women, the children, and the old.”

“They can shelter at the caves of the Buffalo,” Haras said. “If the Horsemasters are coming down the River of Gold, then the territory of the Buffalo will be safe.”

“That is a generous offer,” Ronan said gravely. “In fact, under the circumstances, it is generous of the Tribe of the Buffalo to be joining with us at all.”

Haras lifted his head. “From what I am hearing about the Horsemasters, Ronan, no tribe can count itself safe from them.”

Jessl, the shaman, grunted his agreement. “The tribe spoke of this last night.” He added proudly, “We can do no more than the Tribe of the Wolf, who are as safely situated as we, and who have chosen to fight.”

Ronan gave both of the Buffalo men a look of intense approval, and Haras and Jessl sat a notch taller.

Nel said, “I do not like the idea of leaving our most vulnerable members so defenseless. What if the Horsemasters should decide to send a party of men down the Atata? If all of our fighters are on this side of the pass, there will be no one to protect the women and children except the old men.”

Haras rumbled something indistinguishable, and Arika said crisply, “I agree with Nel. Let the nonfighters shelter here at the Great Cave under the protection of the fighting force. If it looks as if the cave is endangered, we can move them.”

“The women and children of the Buffalo also?” Haras asked.

“Unless you feel comfortable leaving them at home,” Ronan replied.

Haras grunted.

“First, then,” Ronan said, “we send for all the people of our tribes to gather here at the Great Cave, and we separate out those who can fight from those who cannot.”

“Unless we get reinforcements from the other tribes, the number of their men will still be considerably greater than the number of ours,” said Neihle.

“You may count on the women of the Red Deer to fight with the men,” Arika remarked.

“What!” cried Unwar and Haras together.

Arika looked faintly amused. “Not the mothers of young children, of course,” she went on, “but our young initiated girls, and those of our women whose children are older. They will be glad to fight.” Arika’s coldly beautiful face lit with a smile, and for the first time ever Nel saw in the Mistress’s face a resemblance to her son. “The women of the Red Deer can handle their weapons,” she informed her male counterparts with great satisfaction.

“I have hunted enough times with the girls of the Red Deer to know that that is true,” Ronan agreed, his face studiously grave.

“The women of the Wolf can handle their weapons also,” Nel put in loyally.

“All of your women appear to be either bearing or nursing children,” Arika pointed out. Her voice was calm. “Except you, of course, Nel.”

Nel froze still as a deer who is trying to hide its presence from a predator. Ronan did not look at her, but he lifted his hand to give a gentle, comforting tug on her braid. He said to the still-horrified chiefs, “You need not ask your women to fight if you do not choose to.”

“Certainly not!” Unwar bristled.

“Our women are not like yours,” Haras said to Arika with great courtesy.

“All women are the same,” Arika remarked. “It is the chief who makes the difference.”

Unwar made a gobbling sound, and Haras frowned into his splendid beard.

“Once we have the tribes assembled,” Ronan said calmly, “we will begin to make arrows. Many many arrows. Even the women and the old can help with that.”

“Sa.” Haras surfaced from his beard. “Arrows.”

Hamer, shaman of the Leopard, said, “Arrows are not so deadly as a spear.”

“That is true,” Ronan replied. “But neither are they so deadly for the user.”