The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  Thorn, who had been sitting beside his father listening to this tale, now asked quietly, “What of the Tribe of the Fox? Did anyone who escaped try to get south to warn them?”

  “I had my wife and child to see to,” Altin returned, but he looked a little ashamed. “Perhaps some of the other men set out to give a warning.”

  To do them justice, it turned out that two of the men of the Bear had indeed attempted to sound the alarm to the Tribe of the Fox. But the men of the Bear were on foot, and they arrived too late.

  This the men of the Federation learned from the survivors of the Tribe of the Fox massacre, who also found their way to the Red Deer campsite.

  Ronan sent the women on to the Great Cave to be dealt with by Nel. Then, a week later, when he was certain that all the survivors had made it into camp, Ronan called a meeting of the chiefs.

  “What fools they were,” said Unwar, chief of the Leopard tribe, as the four of them met in the men’s cave to discuss what to do about the refugees.

  “Less than three handfuls of men of the Bear escaped.

  and even fewer from the Tribe of the Fox,” Haras’s voice and face were heavy with genuine sorrow.

  “Scarcely any women and children got free,” Arika remarked coldly.

  Unwar turned his heavy-lidded eyes toward the Mistress. “At least the women and children are not dead,” he pointed out. “The men are.”

  In the hazy glow of light from the cave opening, the Mistress’s face managed to look both austere and ruthless, “Rape is an ugly thing,” she said. “Some of the women may well have preferred death.”

  Haras said, “I do not doubt you, Arika.”

  A shadow flitted through the hazy sunshine; it was Nigak, searching for Ronan. Ronan waited until the wolf had snapped playfully at his nose and settled down at his side before he said, “This chief of the Horsemasters is a very clever man. One of the reasons I called this meeting is to consider what he is likely to do next.”

  “What would a wolf do next?” Haras asked ironically.

  Arika said, “What would you do next, Ronan, if you were the chief of the Horsemasters?”

  Ronan looked at his mother thoughtfully, but then he answered, “The first thing I would do would be to bring up the rest of my tribe. There is good summer grazing in the high pastures of the Tribe of the Fox. The game is abundant and there is plenty of grass for the horse-herd. It is an ideal location for a summer camp.”

  “Sa?” Haras prompted. “And then what would you do?”

  “Before leaf fall,” Ronan said, “I would plan to destroy my enemies.”

  Two ravens circled overhead, and Unwar made a sign to ward off evil with his thumb and his forefinger. “How would you do it?” he grunted.

  “I’d return to the Greatfish. We are obviously sheltering to the south and the east of the River of Gold.”

  “You think they will come down the Greatfish?” said Haras.

  “Sa,” said Ronan. “I do.”

  Silence.

  “I think you are right,” Haras said at last.

  Arika nodded in agreement.

  Unwar’s flat features looked even more forbidding than usual. “Well then,” he said, “they will find us ready for them.”

  “They still outnumber us badly,” Haras said. “I am thinking it is time to send again to the Tribe of the Squirrel, Perhaps now they will comprehend their danger.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Ronan agreed. “Perhaps you might send two of your nirum, Haras. The words of men of the Buffalo will carry weight with the Tribe of the Squirrel, I think.”

  Haras nodded agreement. “I will send Megar,” he said, “Megar’s sister’s daughter is married to a son of the chief of the Tribe of the Squirrel.”

  Everyone nodded their approval of this arrangement.

  Ronan put his hand upon Nigak’s head. “Now, what of the men of the Fox and the Bear?” he asked. “With whom shall they fight?”

  In all of their training drills, Ronan had been scrupulous about keeping the men of each tribe together. In this way, neighbor would be fighting next to neighbor, and friend next to friend, giving each warrior the greatest incentive to be faithful and do his best.

  “You have the smallest number of men in your tribe, Ronan,” Haras said generously. “Let them fight with the men of the Wolf.”

  Unwar and Arika nodded their agreement.

  Ronan said slowly, “You are right in that it makes sense to combine the refugees with the men of the Wolf for fighting purposes. But I am thinking that we should allow them to choose a leader of their own, to sit on the chiefs council with us.”

  This suggestion was not popular with Unwar. “These men are lucky they had a place to run to,” he growled. “I see no reason to give them a voice in our councils.”

  Haras said curiously, “Why should you want to do this, Ronan?”

  “They are broken men,” Ronan replied. “They need to feel that they are not just hangers-on, that they are truly part of the Federation. Letting them name a leader, and I mean only one leader to represent both tribes, will give them a sense of…” He broke off as if searching for a word.

  “Worth,” Haras said quietly.

  “Sa.” Ronan gave Haras an approving smile. “Worth.”

  The chief of the Buffalo looked pleased with himself and turned his leonine head toward Unwar. “I think Ronan is right,” he said.

  “Oh, very well,” the Leopard chief agreed ungraciously. “What does it matter to me, after all?”

  Arika said nothing, but she waited in the cave until the two other chiefs had departed to return to their men. Ronan looked at her as he turned from the cave opening, where he had been exchanging a last word with Haras, and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Whom do you think the men of the Fox and the Bear will name to be their chief?” Arika asked her son.

  Ronan shrugged. “I do not know, Mistress.”

  “Matti, I would guess,” Arika said.

  Below the arched bridge of his nose, Ronan’s narrow nostrils flared just slightly. Arika smiled.

  “Perhaps,” Ronan said.

  Matti was the eldest son of the chief of the Tribe of the Fox, and it had become known in the last few days that he had urged his father to join the Federation. The only reason Matti had not died in the fighting was that he had not been there; he had been hunting with a few of his agemates in the mountains.

  “An ardent youngster like Matti will be inclined to agree with anything you suggest,” Arika said.

  Ronan’s face became very still. He said nothing.

  “You are a very clever young man,” Arika said softly. She began to walk toward the doorway. “I have always thought so.” She went right by Ronan, the top of her head passing just below his nose, and serenely walked away.

  * * * *

  Ronan had been right when he had said that Fenris would send for the remainder of his tribe, that the homesite of the Tribe of the Fox, nestled in the foothills of the Altas, was a perfect summer camp for the Horsemasters. The women and children, the horses and sledges, and the herd of mares and foals came down the River of Gold at a much slower pace than the warriors had and settled into the comfortable valley that had once been home to the Tribe of the Fox.

  The women and children of the tribes of the Bear and the Fox took their places in the tents of the Horsemasters.

  “Why don’t you rebel?” Mira, a daughter of the chief of the Fox, asked one of the women of the Kindred who had dwelled for a year in the kain’s tent, “There are many women in this camp, more women than men. If the women rose up in rebellion, what could the men do against us?”

  “Kill our children” came the simple, devastating answer.

  Mira’s eyes dilated until they were almost purely black. “They would not do such a thing.”

  “They would. They did. There was a woman once who took up a spear against the man to whom she had been given. She killed him. In answer, the men of the tribe killed
her, her sisters, and all of their children. They wiped her blood from the face of the earth.”

  Mira was horrified. “Fenris did this?” she asked hoarsely.

  Kara shook her head. “It was before Fenris became the kain. It was his father who ordered the killing.”

  “Dhu,” Mira breathed, making a sign with her fingers. “They are evil evil men.” She shuddered. “And he has forced you to sleep with him?”

  Kara flushed. “Fenris is not an evil man,” she said. “It is hard to explain this, I know, considering the terrible things that he has done. But I do not think he is an evil man.”

  Mira was looking at her as if she were mad.

  “He follows a savage god,” Kara said slowly. “It is the god who tells him to do these terrible things.”

  “Every time I look at him,” Mira said coldly, “I see the dead bodies of my father and my brothers.”

  “I understand. I used to see that also,” Kara said.

  “But now you do not?”

  “I am alive, Mira, as you are alive. We must make the best of what we have been given.”

  Mira’s breath was coming short and hard. “I think you are as bad as he is,” she said bitterly, turned, walked to the edge of the large tent, and sat with her back turned to Kara.

  Kara slowly went to the tent door and ducked out. Her eyes searched the large campsite until they found the figure she had been looking for, and then they stopped.

  She told herself that she did not blame Mira for what she was thinking. Sometimes Kara even thought the same things about herself. But it was not so simple as that, she thought now. Fenris was not so simple as that.

  He was standing in a circle of men, watching two of the younger men wrestle in the center. There was a great deal of laughing and shouting going on. As Kara watched, one of Fenris’s many children came running up to him and tugged on his hand. The kain laughed and bent to swing the little boy up onto his shoulder so he could watch the wrestling.

  Kara looked at the broad shoulder upon which the child sat with such security, looked at the big hand protectively encircling the fragile childish arm, looked at the back of the shapely blond head.

  Surely, she thought, surely such a man would never be able to order the death of a woman and all her children.

  But she was afraid that he could.

  She had long since forgotten what her first husband looked like, had long since forgotten the unpleasant and painful invasion of her body that had been their mating. All of that had been buried irrevocably by the new sensations she had learned in the arms of Fenris.

  He could be so tender. That was the thing that had caught her, that under all the brutality there could be such heart-stopping tenderness. She would catch him looking at her sometimes with such warmth in his gray eyes that her whole body would flush with the desire to be with him. In these last heady months, when only she had been summoned to share his sleeping place, she had almost managed to forget what he was.

  But then there had been this new massacre, with the men of the Bear and the Fox lying dead, and their widows and orphans forced into the tents and beds of the murderers.

  Mira was right, Kara thought. She was a traitor to her race and to her gods.

  The wrestling match was over, and Fenris was turning away. He swung the little boy down from his shoulder and turned to say something to Surtur, who was, as always, by his side. His face flashed open into a smile.

  Kara heaved a ragged sigh, turned, and went back into the tent.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  It took Nel a day and a half to get the sledges from the Great Cave to the men’s campsite on the Greatfish River. She used the mares that Siguna told her had been trained to pull, and Siguna showed her exactly how to fashion and attach the harness that attached the sledge to the horse.

  Three of the sledges contained the shields that the women had been working on for weeks, and one sledge contained baskets of fruits and berries the women had gathered to supplement the diet of meat which their menfolk, left to themselves, would primarily exist upon. Nel and Siguna and Beki and Yoli led the mares for most of the way, and the sledges were followed by a number of other women who wished to visit their husbands.

  Ronan had kept men continually stationed at the Great Cave to bring in meat for the women, periodically changing them to give as many men as possible time with their wives. It was those wives whose husbands had not yet had hunting duty that Nel had designated to accompany the sledges on this particular journey.

  Nel herself had not seen Ronan since he had moved the men away from the Great Cave over a moon ago. He had sent her messages by the revolving hunters, but he himself had not felt able to leave the campsite on the Greatfish. So it was with an eager heart that Nel led her sweet-faced brown mare along the path that she knew would open any moment into the homesite of the Red Deer.

  Here was the last turn, she thought. The mare, seeming to sense Nel’s excitement, walked more quickly. Around this curve. Now!

  Dhu. Nel stopped in her tracks, and the train of people and horses behind her stopped as abruptly to keep from running into her sledge.

  Advancing toward Nel and her supply train was a moving wall of spears.

  The men in the front line saw her first and checked, still retaining their line formation. With well-drilled balance and discipline, the men behind adjusted their steps and halted also.

  A familiar voice, edged with a familiar temper, snapped, “Why are you stopping?”

  “It’s Nel,” a man shouted. “Ronan, Nel is here with the shields!”

  * * * *

  The men whose wives had not accompanied Nel vacated the huts and tents for the night and left them to the more fortunate husbands, who wasted no time in making up for too long a separation.

  “It is a good thing the weather is pleasant,” Ronan murmured to Nel as they lay together in his sleeping skins in the tent that he usually shared with Bror and Crim. “If it had been raining, the men might not have been so accommodating about sleeping outside.”

  “The weather is always pleasant in summer,” Nel returned tranquilly, her head comfortably pillowed on Ronan’s shoulder. “And the wives I brought with me belong to the men who have not yet had a turn on hunting duty. Fair is fair, after all.”

  “I am not complaining, minnow,” Ronan said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Believe me, I am not complaining.”

  One of the dogs, both of whom were sleeping in the doorway, yipped in his sleep. “In fact,” Ronan said, “it was far easier to get rid of Bror and Crim than it is to get rid of these dogs of yours!”

  “They don’t go hunting at night, like Nigak does.”

  “That doesn’t mean they have to insist on sleeping with you!”

  “They keep me company when you are gone.”

  Ronan sighed.

  Nel asked, “The shields are all right?”

  “The shields are all right.”

  “No further news about the Horsemasters?”

  “So far as I know, they are still at the homesite of the Tribe of the Fox. I have men watching them, of course.”

  “And what of the Tribe of the Squirrel?”

  “There is good news from the Tribe of the Squirrel. These last two attacks apparently convinced them that no place is safe. They will join with us.”

  “Ronan! That is wonderful news. The Tribe of the Squirrel is quite large, is it not? That should mean many more fighting men for you.”

  She felt his chest rise and fall with a deep, controlled breath. “It should, but there is a problem. They hold one of their most sacred yearly ceremonies at the full of the moon, and they will not march to join us until after the ceremony is completed.”

  The moon was not yet halfway to its first quarter. “Oh,” said Nel, dismayed. “That is stupid.”

  “Very stupid.” Ronan’s voice was bitter. “But there is nothing I can do about it. When the first two messengers came back with that news, I sent more men to try to co
nvince the chief to change his mind. No use. The Tribe of the Squirrel won’t move until after its ceremony.”

  “It probably won’t matter,” Nel said, “It sounds as if the Horsemasters are very comfortable where they are. They probably won’t move themselves until after the summer weather is finished and the higher altitudes start to grow cold.”

  “I hope so, Nel. Dhu, I hope so.”

  “I have missed you so much,” she murmured, deftly changing the subject to one more pleasing to both of them. She raised herself to rain feather-light kisses all along his smoothly shaven cheek and jawbone. She had taken her hair out of its braid earlier, and it streamed forward over his throat and bare shoulders, a mantle of palest brown.

  He lay motionless on his back and let her kiss him. The single stone lamp on the floor behind his head threw its muted light upward, illuminating Nel’s face, and he said softly, “You are very beautiful, Nel. Motherhood becomes you.”

  She stilled. Their faces were very close, and they looked gravely into each other’s eyes. Except for a perfunctory initial inquiry, it was the first time he had mentioned the baby.

  “Always in my heart there has been this one empty place,” she said to those familiar, those beloved dark eyes. “Now it is empty no longer.”

  “I am glad.” His face was very serious. “I have been thinking about this, Nel.” A flash of humor came and went in his grave eyes. “That is, when I have not been thinking about the Horsemasters.” He reached up and closed his fingers around her wrist. “And I know that I can be a father to Culen. It may take me a little time to grow accustomed to him, but it will be all right. You don’t have to worry anymore.” He moved his thumb up and down on her wrist. “It will be all right.”

  The eyes looking back into his were very green. “I won’t cry,” she said at last in an unsteady voice, “because I know how you hate it. But I want to.”

  “Nel,” he said, “you can do better things for me than cry.” And he levered her downward until she was once more lying beside him on the furs.