Snowbrother

by S. M. Stirling

  Ten warriors squatted nearby in the lee of a building, wearing full armor and holding the reins of their horses linked to their belts. A small fire and the bison-pelt cloaks must be giving them scant warmth, but they sat immobile and uncomplaining for the most part. Some chewed stolidly on iron-hard strips of jerked meat, and one was sharpening an ax. It was a lighter weapon than those the Minztans used, a simple wedge of steel with a slender triangular spike on the reverse, hefted on a limber shaft of laminated wood and horn with a loop for the wrist and a grip of plaited rawhide shrunk on. The metal went wheep-wheep across the hone, steadily and methodically. At last the Kommanza tested the edge on a thumb, grunted satisfaction, and rose to slip on the sheath that covered the edge before hanging the weapon from his saddlebow. There he paused, unhooked a canteen, tilted it to pour a stream of whitish liquid down his throat. One of his companions looked up and snarled something at him when he prepared to take a second drink; Taimi recognized the speaker as an officer from the spray of eagle feathers clipped to his helmet above the nasal. The trooper shrugged and swallowed more of the naikbuzk, fermented mare's milk.

  The officer moved without warning, snatching a burning branch from the fire and swinging around to scythe the offender's feet out from under him. Surprised, he hardly had time to break his fall before the other was on him, swinging hearty full-strength lacks to his midriff and beating him over the head and shoulders with the stick; neither was very serious to someone in full armor, but it was enough to prevent him from rising. Especially since he doggedly refused to let the naikbuzk out of his hand, or even to let a drop spill as he rolled over the packed snow of the lane. The rest of the two squads watched, most with their customary lack of expression, a few with smiles, slight feral barings of the teeth. One of these called out a short sentence, and a rippling chuckle flowed down the line.

  The commander stopped, panting, and spat into the fire. But before he had time to gather momentum for his tirade, a sound came from the woods. To the Minztans it was merely music, hardly loud enough to separate the notes. Hunting-trained ears determined the location as southwest of the village, in an area of scrub wood and thickets. The Kommanz fighters froze, heads turning to the whistle trill. Seconds passed, and they dissolved into movement. The ten by the wall threw themselves into the saddle and kicked their horses into a gallop, thunder and clatter as they pounded over the frozen ground and looped around the horse herd to gain the woods. One of the guards watching the prisoners pulled a horn from her belt and sounded a sharp, raucous blast. Doors burst open and warriors spilled out, lacing up pieces of their armor and running to duty stations. One paused near the Minztans to question the guards.

  "To a-paizu nikkin i'?" Taimi could follow that: What was happening? The reply was too fast and complex for his limited knowledge of Kommanzanu. Tense with excitement, he strained to listen. Could this be the start of a rescue? On second thought, that was unlikely. There had been too little time, and the nearest settlement of his people was far away. But something had happened. He thought of the empty grain sacks and reflected grimly that the steppe people might learn to take his folk less lightly before they returned to their homes.

  "Ia," the first Kommanza said: Yes. "Fy-uzh'buttik a-kot."

  Slowly, he puzzled out the unfamiliar words, struggling to remember what he had learned of the tense system. Get the something dogs, he thought, and saw it confirmed when three huge gray hounds were brought forth, snarling and tugging at their leashes.

  Emboldened, he whispered to the woman next to him: "Some of our people must have come."

  "Ewunnu and Sasimi were out on the Knowing," came the low-voiced reply. "Circle grant that they escape."

  One of the remaining guards turned and slashed the woman across the face with her quirt, slicing deep. She fell back with a cry, holding her cheek. The Kommanza flicked the whip in front of Taimi with a crack; blood spattered on his face and lips, warm and salty.

  "Up," she said, and stared blankly into his eyes for a moment. "In house." The others were roused with kicks.

  Most of the Kommanz trickled back to the village within an hour or so. Taimi was surprised at how many crowded themselves into this one kinhall; their folk were accustomed to close living when they were between walls. The tall-grass prairie of their homeland was wide and empty, but village and ranchhouse and Keep alike huddled densely packed behind defensive walls. Even a day had altered the Jonnah's-kin hall strangely. Broad rooms, tile floors, woodcarvings, and rugs remained the same, but most of the furniture had been cast out or broken up for firewood. The Kommanza did not use chairs, preferring to squat or sit cross-legged in nests of pillows. The air was colder than his mother's kinfast had kept it, to suit the habits of a folk whose lands were poor in fuel and lacking in the skill needed to fashion efficient airtight stoves such as the forest people used. And the smells were strange. A feast was being prepared in the kitchens but underlying that was an odd taint. It was not just uncleanliness, or the scent of leather and oil and horses that seemed a part of the Kommanz essence. The underlying smell of their bodies was different, perhaps a rankness born of a diet heavy in milk and red meat.

  Now that they were out of their armor, it was plain that few were more than a hand of years older than Taimi. That made the lack of such chatter and laughter as Minztans were used to even more obvious. And when they did laugh, it was in a high-pitched breathless giggle that plucked rawly on his nerves. Most sat quietly working on their gear, or simply staring into space with disturbing intensity, leaning their chins on their swordhilts. Others sat over games, dice or chess, or a buffalo hide marked into polygons with a dozen players crowded around it. Edging nearer, he saw a map beneath the lines and scores of carved plaques; the players pushed the miniature units of fighters back and forth, casting dice to determine random factors. An officer with a tally stick supervised, ready to allocate victory or defeat.

  In one of the larger rooms some passed the time with the interminable round of combat practice, drill with double-weighted weapons or unarmed bouts. Fascinated despite himself, Taimi lowered his bucket of water to the floor and watched. One young warrior stood in the center of a circle stripped to the waist. A slight smile was on his face, and the long black braids fell swaying to his shoulders: he was tall even for the western race, slender and long-limbed, muscle moving smoothly under his skin, hard as tile. Two others attacked with ringing shouts. One leaped high to kick for his face. The other threw herself forward feet-first at knee height, legs crooked for a bone-shattering blow. Both attacks looked fast, to Taimi's eyes faster than the tall Kommanza's response.

  That was smooth, almost leisurely, and oddly the attackers seemed to be cooperating. The first found her target gone; the man sprang sideways and landed on crossed forearms. At the same time his body was coiling, legs shooting up to grip her around the waist and add horizontal momentum with a powerful wrenching twist. She began to roll in midair, hit the wall with a crash, slid to the floor, and staggered away on all fours, shaking her head as a trickle of red seeped from her nose. The second flew through the empty space where the defender's knees had been, landed, and began to come erect in a flickering shoulder roll. Before the motion was complete the first man had back-flipped to his feet, using the follow-through of his throw to lever himself up. He flowed forward and caught the second attacker before she could regain stance. A foot sweep sent her down again, a hand fastened in her hair and another whipped down clenched in a fist to halt a millimeter behind her ear.

  The watchers applauded in the Kommanz manner, hissing and snapping their fingers. The victor was sweating lightly, breathing deep and slow. Turning, he saw Taimi watching, giggled, and made a thrusting motion with his hips, giggling again as the Minztan flushed and glanced away.

  That was unfortunate. His eyes fell on Shkai'ra, leaning against a wall. The flush faded to a white pallor, and he began to shake. Water slopped out of the bucket as he stumbled from the room.

  The Kommanz leader undid her
coat and belt, calling out. "Nice kill, Dh'vik," she said.

  Dh'vik's green eyes narrowed to slits. Shkai'ra moved forward easily, light on her feet and keeping her balance centered as they both crouched and circled for advantage. Advancing, she snapped off a series of front kicks. Dh'vik parried easily; the slap of leather on flesh sounded as he deflected the blows with sweeping motions of forearm and shoulder backed by an odd flexing snap of the hips that put power behind the parry. Then he attacked with a looping side kick that brought him whirling around, aiming for the throat.

  Shkai'ra had been standing with knees bent and feet at right angles. Moving, she relaxed the left knee and let her weight move her down and back out of the path of the boot. Calm and detached, her mind calculated the angles and possibilities; on another level, it admired the skill and speed behind the move. With a little more experience, Dh'vik was going to be very formidable, especially with that reach. For the present, he tended to overconfidence, as witness this follow-through, which—

  Even as he settled back into stance she was moving, lunging with arm locked and fingers stiffened into a blade that had the whole mass of her body behind it. The man's hands flashed up, crossed, to catch the strike. Wisely, he made no attempt to oppose the force. Instead he threw himself backward and down, using the combined weight of their bodies to overbalance the chieftain and lashing upward with a foot as they fell. That would have been a killing stroke if it had landed with full force, and if Shkai'ra had stayed to receive it. For she had gone with the movement, throwing herself forward and up and turning in midair in a superb display of gymnastic skill. That brought her a complete one hundred eighty degrees, the immense leverage breaking his hold as her body rotated around the pivot of their joined hands. She landed on her feet, feather-light, turning and lunging in the same instant to land on his back. Her right arm whipped around his throat, locking it in the crook of her elbow. The palm slapped home into the angle of her left arm even as that hand buried itself in his hair—a breaking hold. She wound her legs around his to hold him for the instant needed to pantomime the brief wrench that would crack his neck across.

  They rolled away from each other and to their feet. For seconds he glared at her before they slapped palms.

  "Not bad at all," she said. "But you fell well and true on the handstrike."

  "Ia," he said ruefully.

  Down the corridor Taimi halted, shuddering and gasping. A hand fell on his shoulder, and he jerked convulsively.

  "Easy, kinchild," a familiar voice soothed.

  "Sadhi." he exclaimed. There had been no hope in him that any other of his kinparents had survived.

  "Are—"

  "Dead," Sadhi said bleakly. His eyes turned to the door. "That black-haired one, he killed Jannu. He scalped her before she died, then cut her throat."

  Taimi made a small sound in his throat. "I wish—

  I wish—I wish we were witches, what they say we are! If I could call ghosts out of the woods to eat their souls, I would!"

  "Are you hurt, child?" his kinfather said gently. It was disturbing to hear his kinchild speak so; Minztans had little liking for the merciless superstitions of the steppe. Yet it was a relief to hear too; none of his folk could feel such hatred and rage without guilt, and to see another share it eased the feeling of sin. He put a protective arm around Taimi's shoulders.

  The boy wrenched away fiercely.

  "No… I'm all right. And you?"

  "Nothing worse than the old limp," the man replied.

  Seeing his hurt, Taimi embraced him. "Maihu? Dennai?"

  "All gone, except Maihu and me," Taimi said. He lowered his voice and glanced around. "The leader, she was waiting in the laneway. We were captured, and—"

  He sank down and sobbed. Sadhi tried to comfort him, but sensed the boy's withdrawal. Inwardly he was stunned. The Jonnah's had been a small kinfast, only ten full mates. With two adult survivors the continuity of the kinfast was shattered, the family gone, the sense of all-encompassing belonging that was the core of his life seeping away. Individuals came and went, but the bloodline went on forever; the Jonnah's-kin had endured since the time of the Old Ones, when history faded into legend. He shivered to the knowledge that only three lives stood between it and extinction; and the little ones, but they had not learned the traditions, the essence . . .

  "Taimi," he whispered. The boy looked up through swimming eyes. "We can't stay here talking … they've got me working in the kitcnen. Try to get word to Mai', she'll . . . she'll know what to do. She's the Initiate." His voice went quietly fierce. "And don't you dare die, boy!"

  Taimi wiped a hand across his face as the man limped off. There was a hollow emptiness inside him, as if the bottom of his world were sinking downward and a chill blowing across the back of his neck. The Kommanz turned their children over to the warmasters as soon as they could walk, but the forest people did not believe in forcing adulthood before its time. For all his thirteen years Taimi had been surrounded by a love and caring that came equally from all his ten kinparents. There had been nothing they could not do, no trouble they could not help. How could they, the older and wiser, be as lost as he, as frightened? Turning the emotions over in his mind, he realized that he felt … betrayed. He recoiled at the disloyalty, but the feeling remained, a curdling in the pit of his stomach.

  Mind whirling, he scarcely noticed when Shkai'ra came up behind him and laid proprietorial hands along his flanks. It was the smell that brought back the memories, made him tense and quiver and press back against the wall. The scents of oil and tallow and musk, and the rough long-fingered hands.

  "Good," she said. "I was beginning to think it was your blood I'd been draining." She ruffled his light brown hair and gazed into the hazel eyes. "You look like a fawn caught in a trap." Which, she reflected, was true enough. She gave him a playful swat across the buttocks and continued:

  "Run along. I'll find time for you tomorrow. Today's too soon. Even at your age, males have no staying power."

  5

  It took the Newstead hunters three days to reach Garnetseat; the outlying sentries met them a full day out. No Kommanza could have covered that ground so quickly, or even believed it possible to make such speed on foot through wooded country. Even for those used to long treks on skis, for bodies tempered by a lifetime of such effort, the toil was grim. Little strength was left in the pair by the time the broad clearing came in sight. That land was the best in the eastern reaches of the Haanirylsan-Minztannis, being the bed of an ancient lake and free of stones. Around were wide stretches for hunting, timber, mining. The settlement had prospered in the century since its foundation, and over five hundred souls dwelt there. Yet it also bore the marks of the borderlands: earth rampart, log stockade, blockhouses at the corners, and a ditch planted with sharpened stakes. Many from the heartlands of the deep forest would have winced at that, considered the ways of the frontier folk tainted with the un-Circled customs of the outlanders.

  Yet more than one raiding band had retired baffled from those walls, and a few had left their dead impaled on the stakes or twitching under the high walls. Siegecraft was not an art in which the steppe peoples excelled; they preferred skirmish, ambush, the vast swirling campaigns of the grass sea that ended with the boot-to-boot charge of armored lancers. And this was the main trade route to the east, south of Bemedjaka. Garnetseat stood as a barrier against the Kommanz. Thus it held many adherents of the New Way, and had sheltered the Seeker herself from time to time. And it had contributed in goods and people to the effort that had colonized Newstead.

  The news of the fugitives' arrival brought the folk murmuring into the streets, calling out questions and then falling into silence at the sight of gaunt, shuttered faces. But to Ewennu and Sasimi it was a return to sanity. Seeing the faces of Minztan folk, hearing the singsong lilt of their native tongue, the fearless closeness gave them strength. Still more were their spirits lifted by the sight that awaited them in the central square, before the round meeting hal
l and chapel that was the prime feature of any Minztan garth. The cone-shaped roof stood serene against the bright winter sky, supported by pillars carved and painted in the forms of guardian spirits human and animal and abstract. Before it stood something new.

  In any other land, the twenty young men and women would have been commonplace enough, dressed alike in round helmets and leather back-and-breasts, shortswords and daggers at their belts, crossbows or billhooks in their hands. To a Minztan it was revolutionary to have full-time fighters of their own people, forest folk who had no trade but war and weapons training. The leader was a tall man, lanky, at age thirty older than his troops by a decade. He wore a knee-length chainmail hauberk and steel strips on leather armguards, a plain double-edged sword at his waist. Rare and precious and hideously expensive, the armor marked him as one of the Seeker's elite cadre, one high in the ranks of the New Way. Still more unusual was the weapon he carried, a dart rifle with a six-shot magazine, powered by a coiled spring in the stock. Imported from the fabled eastern realm of Fehinna, on the shores of the Lannic Ocean, it was almost as costly as a firearm would have been.

  Such a display of might and wealth would have been enough to awe Sasimi and Ewunnu; it was the presence of the Adept that brought deep bows. He was plainly dressed, in the mottled coat of a hunter; unarmed, save for a flint knife at his belt. The blood of the First People was stronger in him than was common, showing in the dark skin and flat, high-cheeked face. Laugh lines crinkled beside his eyes as he gravely returned their salutes; he could sense their unease, that a sage should be in the company of armed violence, New Way radicals though they were. Silently, he motioned their attention back to the mail-clad figure. That one smiled, and touched the symbol of the New Way on his chest; it was graven on his followers' armor as well, a circle opened at the top with silver flame leaping through the gap: change and rebirth.