Snowbrother

by S. M. Stirling

  "You don't think it will daunt them?" she said.

  "No," he said softly. "Not for long." More briskly: "Now, you screen the survivors, then we'll see what information we can get out of those who kept their wits during the sack."

  With a sigh, he sank down to crouch against the wall. Only a few vagrant flakes were falling, although wind whipped icespray from the thick white sheathing on roofs. The cold seemed to have seeped into his bones; he should get up, go seek warmth, get on with the work of the day. He rested his hands on the cross-guard of his sword and bowed his forehead against the hide wrapping of the hilt.

  Leafturn sank down on his haunches before him. For moments he kept silence, then reached out and touched the commander between the eyes with a forefinger. It was… cooling? No, for suddenly the cold seemed to lie outside his skin once more, instead of in his marrow. Refreshing, that was the term. He smiled crookedly. "My thanks, but don't overspend your energy," he said.

  The mage laid his head on one side. "No lifestuff of mine was needed," he said. "You were wasting your own in inner conflict and unwarranted guilt. Do what you can. Then, what must happen, will happen."

  He regarded the other shrewdly. "You're not so hard a man as you think, so don't trouble yourself about it. Come."

  They rose together. "You're right, Enlightened One," Narritanni said. "So many times, I've seen it. So much work and effort and pain, and still…"

  He waved a hand at the village around them. The soot-blackened, smashed windows looked obscenely incongruous against the white purity of the snow; the smell of old smoke and the slow decay of dead meat in winter was there, faint but inescapable.

  "Anger is a wrong turning; but the New Way needs it. The southrons take our land—our best, and it's been part of Minztannis from time out of mind—and clear-cut it and kill any who object, breaking treaty after treaty; the lakelander merchants cheat us without any shame and steal forest for their tree-farms. And the westerners hunt us for sport. So I… use it, as a tool to make the fighters' spirits strong."

  Leaf-turn shrugged. "Don't take so much on yourself. First, the People would see this and be angry whether you showed them or not—even the Seeker couldn't stop that, and you're only one of her officers. Anger has its rightful place. Second, only the totally Harmonious—which neither of us is!—can fight evil without being stained by it."

  His eyes sought the clouds. "Evil is a human problem. And good, which can be as poisonous, in its way. The natural world is neither. Or both." Shivering: "Something outside nature happened here."

  "The Eater?" Narritanni said, alarmed.

  Leafturn shook his head. "No… that I was expecting. But there was a ritual held here; I can feel it lingering. And an answer, not of World or Otherworld."

  The freed captives turned out to be a maddeningly scanty source of information. Untrained in the military arts, they did not know what to look for, or how to describe what they did see. Yet piece by piece, Narritanni and his officers were fitting the picture together. Then the lame man came.

  He was tall, sallow, limping badly on his right foot. Narritanni guessed that the expression of melancholy was long-settled habit rather than acquired recently. The villager bowed his head awkwardly.

  "No need for that," Narritanni said with restrained impatience. "I am just a traveler along the Way, like you. Has your hurt been tended?"

  "Enlightened One? Oh, this." He looked down at his leg. "No, that's old. A tree I was felling broke the wrong way and landed on my foot. I've come to tell you about the raiders."

  "Good! Now perhaps I can make some progress. How many? What were their numbers and losses here?"

  He knitted his brows. "About a hundred and fifty of the warriors," he said. "Maybe two hundred, no more. And twenty youngsters, who drove the sleds and helped with the horses."

  That fell in with the information he already had, but it was bad to hear it just the same.

  "We lost thirty-five dead," the Newsteader was saying. "And… well, they took ten dead and twice as many wounded. Some of the wounded were still able to ride and fight."

  Narritanni winced. It was humiliating, even with the further death that his troops had inflicted.

  "They carried off more than sevenscore of our folk; all the strong adults, and most of the children past their First Change. And all our goods and most of what food we had stored for the winter."

  That was bad, but not irreparable. The neighboring villages to the east would take in the fugitives and help them with tools and seed to make a new start. Of course, many would never succeed in putting together the shattered pieces of their lives again, undone by grief, unable to fast enough new members to keep their kins alive. The children able to forget would be the luckiest, adopted into new families without much trouble; Minztans had less attachment to any one parent than folk with less flexible family systems.

  Newstead itself would have to be abandoned for the present, and that was a harsh blow to the New Way. This steading had been long planned as a barrier to protect the more thickly settled lands to the east, and perhaps to encourage peaceful commerce once the raiders found their sport growing too expensive. Narritanni had always thought that too visionary, believing Kommanza would never make peaceful merchants, but such was policy. Now all that could be salvaged would be a few recruits for the full-time service of the Seeker. There would be little hope of persuading new settlers to move in unless most of the captives were rescued. And that, he thought unhappily, was unlikely. He had barely twice the enemy's numbers, and most of his force was composed of peaceful farmers and artisans with little combat experience and no training. They could use their forestcraft and harry the outriders, free a few of their folk if they were very lucky, but to release all the captives would mean a stand-up fight against an opponent stronger in arms, skill, and weapons.

  Hopeless, he concluded. I will not court more losses trying to abide with a failed plan. Still, they would have to chivy the Kommanz out of Minztan lands. Leaving aside revenge, which he was still Minztan enough to feel wary of, it would help teach them that the forest folk were not deer for their hunting.

  He noticed that the lame man was still there, patiently awaiting the ending of his thoughts. Their people had a great respect for meditation, and would not interrupt it without pressing need.

  "Enlightened One," the villager said, "my name is Sadhi Jonnah's-kin. I am nothing, just a smith and farmer, but my kinmate Maihu was—is—an Initiate."

  That brought him up. It had been beyond hope for the Initiate to survive and have an opportunity to use that power. It was rare even for such matters to be spoken of; at the word, others around them began to move away. That was less a conscious reflex than instinctive reverence.

  "Better we should speak of that under six eyes," he said, drawing the man aside. Leafturn drifted after them; the man seemed reassured to see him there, inconspicuous as a tree, and as comforting.

  "I'm… nothing special," the Newsteader repeated. "Not even as good a smith as Maihu, except for heavy work. And, well, I make the offerings, try to feel the Harmony and travel within the Circle, but my kin-mate, she's traveled really far along the Way.

  "She learned… I mean, the leader of the westerners kept Maihu with her some nights, and she talked. The Kommanz aren't going back the way they came. They're heading straight west through the woods, then down the ice on the Sunfall River. Right past the Place of Summoning."

  Narritanni shaped a silent whistle. "Marvelous," he said with quiet happiness. "The Circle has turned fate for us—"

  "And she said to tell the leader of the Seeker's folk that Snowbrother will aid us, but we'll have to do most of the… work ourselves. And she said that Fear would fight for us too."

  Narritanni conferred with his second, Leafturn, and one of the volunteers; not a leader, but one whose words would be listened to with more than usual respect.

  "This is great good fortune," he said. "The different route, that wouldn't help us of itself. The oppos
ite. It was a good move for the Kommanz: less distance, and more clear space. But with… It"—they all drew the sign of the Circle over their chests—"we can have some chance of cutting through the net of scouts and striking without warning. And it will sap their strength, to know the land fights for us."

  That was how a Minztan would see it. The Kommanz, he knew, would fear black sorcery and soul-eating witchcraft. But the result would be the same.

  "With this stroke of luck, we have a fighting chance to rescue most or all of our folk, perhaps even destroy the war band completely."

  The volunteer tugged at a wisp of her hair, disturbing one of the ribbons braided there. "Do we need to fight at all, then?" she said doubtfully. "Not that I shrink from it—my kinfast's traplines and hunting grounds run near the border, and we've had trouble with the plainsfolk attacking us before." She chuckled. "And now and then some of their stock has, hmmmmm, let's say, strayed into those of us who just happened to be out at the edge of the grasslands. But nobody in his right mind will fight a Kommanza unless necessity drives. If the Circle turns for us—" She looked at the Adept.

  He spread his hands."I'm not a warrior," he said. "It's surprising to me that one who is"—he nodded at Narritanni—"puts as much hope in this as he does." Pausing, he pondered over what to say. This touched on Mystery; not forbidden, exactly, "restricted to protect the ignorant" would be a better way of putting it.

  "The Snowbrothers can be fierce, yes. That was one reason that we made our Pact with them, back in the days right after the Death, to prevent clashes. They have their place in the Harmony, too. And they're very hard to see, if they want to be hidden; partly natural talent, and their intelligence, but also because Wreaking is part of their very being, not a learned skill as it is with humans. So it was they managed to live when humans overran the land and grabbed at every creature's living space. After we became a rare animal again, they flourished. But even if Maihu can tunetalk the Snowbrother, I don't see how it could destroy all the raiders."

  Narritanni had been studying the patterns made on the floor by light filtering through the broken panes of a window. It was a calming exercise; he forced his mind back from overconfidence. His lieutenant muttered a foreign oath she had picked up in the eastern cities and forced reasonableness with an obvious effort. She addressed the volunteer with a sigh.

  "Look, fellow… I mean, Fellow Traveler on the Way… the Wise Man is right; one of them isn't enough to kill four, five Banners, more than a hundred good fighters. And they won't question orders, or find an excuse to slink off at the first—"

  "Fine words you've got for those murdering—"

  "Peace." Leafturn's word was soft, but both found themselves suddenly calmed. They subsided sheepishly, like children who realize that the adults are laughing at their quarrel.

  He inclined his head to Nanitanni.

  The commander smiled. "Maihu Jonnah's-kin had the right of it," he said. "We can't overfall the steppe-dwellers ourselves, and the Snowbrother can't do it for us. And the Initiate couldn't tunetalk it without our Enlightened One here to distract the Eater. But together"—He spread his palms.—"we have a chance. Fear will fight for us, and make the raiders vulnerable. Let's not quarrel, let's make plans. We may not be able to communicate with it, but it won't be hostile to us as it would be to outlanders. That will be the basis of our strategy."

  He used the lakelander term perforce; there was no word for the concept in their tongue. He began to draw a map on the floor. "Here…"

  The Kommanz scout was tired, but not enough to dull her senses. Fatigue was one of the first things the warmasters taught you to conquer; easier than fear or pain, and a good foundation. Often enough before she had shaved her scalplock she had stood for a score of hours balanced on unsteady rocks, brain foggy with the need for sleep, fielding questions and solving tactical riddles with the ever-present thought of the quirt behind her to keep her on the bounce. Or she'd lain out at night with the herds, waiting for the wolves to make up their minds and determined not to let them find her asleep over the watchfire.

  The weather had cleared, and the cold was fierce on her face despite the tallow and the extra scarf she had wound around her face under the helmet. Above, the stars were painfully brilliant through the overhanging boughs; it was nearing the end of her watch, she judged from their position. Hers was the third of the four watches which made up the hours of darkness. Clucking quietly, she moved her horse along at a slow walk, just enough to keep it from stiffening, the snow creaking under the weight of hooves. Utter silence, save for hoofbeats and the occasional branch cracking in the cold. Moonlight filtered through pine needles, through air dead still, every trace of moisture frozen out of it.

  Anxiously, she flexed her bow. Cold this severe could lock the bearings in the pulleys if you let them sit, or even damage the laminations in the stave. Longingly she thought of her skinbag by the fire and a bowl of warm milk. Tomorrow she would be riding in the column and could sleep in the saddle.

  It was the horse that warned her, snorting and dancing sideways, ears up and nostrils spread wide. She trilled out the whistle relay signal as it came by on routine check and looked around more closely. Even well-trained eyes could detect nothing, but her mount was growing more and more restless. Wolf, cougar, tiger, hostile humans: nothing should have made it this skittish. It was a war-horse, trained to fight in team with its rider.

  "Ahi-a, saaaa, saaaa," she soothed it. "What's wrong, Macefoot-Harrow-Heart? Good kinsib."

  The mount began to buck. "Hold still, bastard kinless offspring of a nomad sheepswine!"

  Normally no amount of horse-temper would have unseated her; she had ridden since the age of three. But this was totally unexpected. She had to keep a grip on her bow, and war-saddles were not designed for unbroken horses. A huge convulsive twisting leap sent her flying into a low snowbank with a squawk of surprise and a clatter of armor. By the time she had bounced back to her feet the horse was only a fading pounding of hooves, receding at full gallop, reckless of the uncertain footing. That meant it was frightened enough to run in blind panic, risking its legs on roots and hidden bushes.

  Quietly, she cursed the whole pantheon and the equine race with the Horse Spirit thrown in. How was she going to explain this to her squadleader? Being thrown, of all things! He'd say for sure that she had been sleeping in the saddle. She winced. Punishment detail for the rest of the trip, and a public shaming when the war band split up and returned to the villages. And that meant the rest of the winter doing more than her share of the roughest chores, no hunting, having to shun the feasts or be ridiculed before everybody. The only solution was to find whatever had spooked her mount and prove that it could not have been helped.

  All the time she had been scanning the area, her back to a thick trunk. It suddenly occurred to her that whatever had frightened her horse might find her. And she had only one shaft; the quiver was clipped to her saddlebow. Her mouth turned dry, and her heart beat loud in her ears; the moonlit forest turned alien and hostile, the haunt of Zoweitz-creatures, perhaps even the dreaded demon mhaigz. Fear awoke anger. She started out on a cautious search, without calling for help over the whistle-code net. It was a few minutes until her next call-in when a report in detail would be needful. There was no warning but a deep heavy creaking, as if a great weight were pressing down on the snow, and when she whirled there was nothing there. A flash of movement; she snap-shot, and the shaft went crack into a tree, a centimeter deep in the iron-hard frozen wood.

  Then it let itself be seen, and the bow dropped from her fingers. A hand fumbled at swordhilt, but it was strengthless, Distantly, she was aware of how her sphincter loosened and fouled her. A dim mewing came from her lips. Then there was nothing.

  Maihu woke early and eased herself out from under Shkai'ra's arm. It was hours before the tardy winter dawn; snow hissed at the covering of the sled, driven by winds strong enough to set it swaying on its springs of horn and wood. But she recalled what the Kommanza
had told her of the rule for commanders: last to bed and first to rise. The travel sled was her own, as long and broad-bodied as a three-horse hitch could draw; trade and travel went more briskly in winter, when the crops were in and snow made smooth roads of tracks that would be bone-breaking ruts and bottomless mud in the warm season. The roof was leather stretched across wooden hoops, thickly padded to keep out the cold and lined with bright rugs. The floor held blankets, pillows, and furs; heat came from a tiny ceramic stove, light from an alcohol lantern hung from the center hoop; the ends were laced tight against the chill. It was an oasis of warmth and light in the vast white-black emptiness around them; Shkai'ra had been quite taken with it, for her people had no such luxury.

  The stove could cook as well as heat. She crawled over to it and fed in more charcoal, fuming up the air intake. Water and milled grain had been heating slowly on top overnight; she added maple syrup and nuts to the wheat porridge as it bubbled. She sliced strips of bacon off a slab and set them to grill, then split a small, only slightly stale loaf of bread and hung it above to toast. The smells began to fill the sled. Work done, she sank back against the curved wall of the sled and watched Shkai'ra as she slept. As usual, the Kommanza lay on her face; the fur had slipped back to her waist, and Dh'ingun was curled up on the small of her back, just above the smooth hard curve of the buttocks. Sleeping, her face lost the trace of cold wariness that never left it waking, even at the height of pleasure. The relaxation took years off her age; her mouth had opened slightly, and she nuzzled her cheek into the long soft wool of the blanket.

  Gray eyes flickered open; Maihu felt Shkai'ra's mind spiraling up from the long slow rhythms of sleep. Even with shields clamped down, to one who had the Inner Eye there was a spillover, when you spent so much time in a person's company. Shkai'ra reached out to touch the hilt of her saber, then pushed the cat off her back. They both yawned and stretched, so much alike that Maihu was surprised into a laugh. Shkai'ra looked, saw the resemblance, and let warmth trickle into her eyes. She stretched, arching her back and curling fingers and toes with pleasure.