The Horsemasters

by Joan Wolf

  “Changed to what?” a grim-faced Haras asked.

  Ronan glanced up from his hands. “The most effective weapon we have is surprise. Surprise is what won us the victory in the gorge. It is in my heart that we must rely on surprise once more.”

  “How?” said Arika tersely.

  Ronan went back to the contemplation of his fingers. “Even on horseback, they cannot move from the homesite of the Fox to the Greatfish River in one day. They will have to make an overnight camp somewhere along the way, and I am thinking a likely place is that great crescent-shaped meadow that lies below the Greatfish.” He shot a look at the Leopard chief. “Do you know the place I mean, Unwar?”

  Unwar grunted agreement. “It would be a good place for them to make camp. The river is there for water, and the meadow will give them plenty of grass for their horses.”

  “The mountains come right up to the edge of the meadow,” Ronan explained, his gaze going now from one face to the next. “And the mountains are covered with beech and pine trees. We could conceal all our forces in those mountains, and the Horsemasters would never know.”

  “What are you suggesting, Ronan?” Haras asked uneasily.

  “I think we should attack them while they are encamped along the River of Gold,” Ronan said.

  “Attack?” said Haras.

  “You are mad!” said Unwar.

  “Why?” said Arika.

  Matti was silent.

  Haras leaned forward. “Ronan,” he said in measured tones, “think of what you are saying. These Horsemasters are seasoned fighters. They have pillaged and destroyed an untold number of tribes to the north. Now they are coming after us. They seriously outnumber us. The men of the Squirrel have promised assistance; surely you must agree that wisdom tells us to wait until they can reach us before we take action.”

  “Haras speaks true,” Unwar said. “I will agree that your leadership until now has been effective, Ronan, but this proposal of yours is mad! The mountains are our one protection. To descend from the mountains means to be trampled down by the enemy’s horses or cut to pieces by their spears.”

  “And if that happens,” Haras said, “think what it will mean to our women and children.”

  A heavy silence fell as the chiefs contemplated that ugly picture. The summer sun slanted in the cave opening, and a patch of sunlight danced upon the crown of Ronan’s head.

  Once again, Arika asked her son, “Why?”

  “I think it is the way to win,” he answered simply. He narrowed his eyes, “Picture how it will be. We will attack by moonlight, when they are sleeping. The most important part of this plan is that they won’t have a chance to get to their horses, and on foot we are the better fighters. Our spears are heavier and longer, and we have the shields. Our men are in good heart—they remember the victory in the gorge. They have been training hard, and they have confidence in each other.”

  From somewhere outside the cave, a horse’s whinny sounded. Ronan said firmly, “I think our formation will hold together. I think we can win.”

  Matti, his fierce young face lit with joy, spoke his first words of the meeting. “I agree.”

  “I do not. I think we should retreat to the Red Deer summer camp and await the men of the Squirrel,” Unwar growled.

  “Can you tell me what is to prevent the Horsemasters from following on our heels to summer camp?” Ronan asked. “I doubt they will give us enough time for the men of the Squirrel to join with us.”

  Unwar scowled, and Arika said, “Whatever we decide to do, we must do it quickly. It would be fatal for us to be caught here now.”

  The four men all agreed with that.

  Arika looked around the circle of faces. “There are a handful of us, so whatever course of action three of us choose must be the decision of the council.”

  They all looked at Ronan. “I think we should attack while the Horsemasters are still on the River of Gold,” he said, his face set and stern.

  Matti spoke up quickly, “I agree with Ronan.”

  Unwar came next in the circle. “I think we should move to summer camp and wait for the men of the Squirrel.”

  Everyone looked at Haras. “I am sorry, Ronan,” the Buffalo chief said, “but I agree with Unwar.”

  Ronan bowed his head. His hair shone panther black in its small patch of sun. “So then,” he said expressionlessly, “we are two against two.”

  All but Ronan looked at Arika.

  “Mistress,” said Haras with great gravity, “it seems that yours will be the deciding voice in this matter.”

  Arika was staring with trancelike concentration at the top of Ronan’s head and did not seem to realize she had been addressed. “My dream…” she murmured softly. “Dhu, it is just like my dream.”

  The men were silent, not wishing to disturb her trance. Ronan sat like a stone, his head bathed in sunlight.

  Finally, when at last she was seen to take a deep breath, Haras asked quietly, “Did you see something we should know about, Mistress?”

  Arika was clearly shaken. Ronan, who knew the dream was somehow connected to him, raised his head slowly and looked at his mother out of somber eyes.

  Arika met his gaze, then drew another long, uneven breath. But her voice, when finally she spoke, was clear and sharp as an icicle. “What I saw tells me that if we follow Ronan, we shall win,” she said, her eyes still locked with those of her son. “I think we should attack.”

  * * * *

  Siguna and Tyr took Vili to what used to be the women’s cave. Tyr posted a guard, and Siguna went to get her brother something to eat. When she returned, she found Vili sitting inside the cave alone, his young face looking white and strained. He accepted gratefully the hot tea and fruit she handed him.

  Siguna sat in silence and watched while he ate and drank. Vili’s presence brought her father so much nearer, she thought with a twist of pain. They had the same hair, the same eyes, even the same dent in their chins.

  “How is Father?” Siguna asked as soon as Vili showed signs of completing his meal.

  “He is well.” Vili wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and contemplated his sister somberly. “He thinks you are dead, you know.”

  “I told you. I was made captive. There was no way I could send him word.”

  “He grieved for you,” Vili said. “He always favored you, and he grieved sorely at your loss.”

  Siguna heard and recognized the faint note of jealousy in Vili’s voice. Vili was Teala’s son and had heard all his life the tale of how unfairly Fenris favored Siguna. “I am sorry for that,” she said now softly and bowed her head. “I did not want to grieve him.”

  Vili finished his tea. “Perhaps it is just as well that he thinks you dead,” he said calmly. “It would be worse for him to have to think of you being raped by these mountainmen.”

  “No one has raped me!”

  Vili stared at her in open disbelief.

  “It is true,” Siguna said in a more moderate tone. “These people do not treat women the way the men of our tribe do, Here a woman is…respected. Honored, even.”

  “The women of our tribe are respected and honored,” Vili said indignantly. “My mother has ever had the ordering of the kain’s tent in her hands!”

  “What of the women who have been forced into service against their wills?” Siguna countered.

  “Oh, those,” said her brother with a shrug. “They are only captives.”

  The voices of the guards on duty outside the cave drifted in. They were talking casually about a boar hunt they had both been on.

  Siguna said, “Well, I am only a captive, but I have been treated with the same respect that the men of the Kindred give to their own women.”

  Vili’s eyes narrowed. “You sound as if you like living here.”

  Siguna said defiantly, “I do.”

  Vili’s mouth set, and for a moment he looked uncannily like his father, “Then you are in truth dead to us,” he said brutally. He turned his face away
from her. “Get out.”

  Siguna got to her feet, looked once more at her brother’s averted face, and walked out the door.

  * * * *

  Vili spent the rest of the morning waiting for them to come for him. They would want information from him about his father’s intentions, and when they discovered he would not give it, they would kill him. Vili could think of no other reason to account for his still being alive.

  The morning went by. No one came. Nothing happened. There seemed to be a great deal of activity in the camp, and finally Vili went to the opening of the cave and looked out.

  The two men with spears who stood on guard just outside looked at him, said something to each other, and gestured him back a few steps. He backed up obediently, and they let him be, regarding him expressionlessly out of steady, watchful eyes.

  A drill of some sort was going on down by the river. Vili squinted into the sun, trying to make out what it was that the men were holding before them. Was it some new kind of weapon?

  Whatever it was, clearly these mountainmen were intending to fight. That was good news, Vili thought. They had less than half the number of men his father had, and scarcely any horses. Fenris would learn the lay of the land here from Bragi, so there would be no more nasty surprises like the one they had pulled in the gorge.

  A very pretty girl brought Vili his lunch, but even though Vili tried speaking to her in the spattering of her language he had picked up from his father’s captives, she only smiled and shook her head and ducked back out of the cave.

  After he ate, Vili began to pace. This uncertainty was terrible! It had been a mistake to send Siguna away. At least she might have answered some of his questions. He sat down and stared at the empty hearthplace. The guard outside his door was changing every couple of hours, so there was little chance that the men would lose their vigilance. The afternoon advanced, and Vili, who had lain awake all the previous night, went to sleep.

  The sun was hanging low in the sky when Vili finally awoke. The first face he saw when he opened his eyes was Siguna’s, and relief flashed in his eyes. He made a movement to sit up and then saw that she was accompanied by the black-haired man who was their chief. The two were speaking together in the tongue of the Kindred. Vili sent up a prayer to the Thunderer for strength and prepared to meet his fate.

  Siguna noticed that he was awake, “Here is the leader of the mountainmen, Vili,” she said. “He has just been saying to me that if you were not my brother, he would surely kill you.”

  A spark of hope ignited in Vili’s heart and he sat up. “He is not going to kill me?”

  Siguna shook her head. “It is true that we have never been great friends, Vili, but you are my brother. I have asked for your life, and he has given it to me.”

  Vili’s eyes narrowed. “He is your man?”

  “No.”

  A huge wolf walked into the cave. Vili froze. The wolf walked up to the man, who dropped a hand to caress its head. The man said something to Siguna. Vili caught the word for escape.

  “Ronan says that if you try to escape, the wolf will get you,” Siguna relayed to Vili. “The men of the tribe will be leaving this place on the morrow, and the women will keep guard on you.”

  The man called Ronan next said something about dogs.

  “There are also his wife’s two wolfdogs,” Siguna translated.

  Vili slowly got to his feet. Standing, he was not quite as tall as the black-haired chief. Keeping a wary eye on the wolf, he asked Siguna, “Where are they going?”

  “That is none of your concern.”

  Vili’s gray eyes flicked from the wolf to his sister. “Are you one of the women who are to guard me?”

  “No,” Siguna said. “I will neither hold you nor will I free you, brother. But you will remain here until the struggle between your tribe and ours is finished.”

  Vili registered that ours with shock. No matter what he had accused her of, he had never doubted that she would help him if it was within her power. “How can you so betray our father?” he asked incredulously. “He was ever so good to you.”

  Siguna went very pale. The black-haired chief said something to her in a sharp voice. She shot him a very revealing look, then shook her head and said to Vili, “You would not understand.”

  But Vili thought he did understand, and he stared with a mixture of anger and curiosity at the mountainmen’s chief. He had a wife, Siguna had said, and for certain he had borne all the signs of a man who has been busy in bed when he stepped forth from his hut early this morning. But obviously Siguna fancied him. Siguna, who had never shown the least inclination toward any of the men of her own tribe, who had spurned even Bragi, fancied this black-haired, hawk-nosed man who stood beside her now.

  “No one has raped me,” she had said to him this morning. Perhaps not, Vili thought now cynically, but the bastard has most certainly treated her to more than just the respect and honor she was babbling on about earlier.

  The chief was watching him, his eyes narrowed, and the thought came to Vili that he looked fully as dangerous as that wolf at his side. For the first time, Vili felt a pang of doubt about the coming struggle.

  “What were those weapons I saw the men down by the river carrying?” he asked Siguna abruptly.

  “Weapons?” she asked in confusion. “They were spears, Vili.”

  “The other weapons,” he explained. “The ones like this.” And he sketched the shape of a shield in the air.

  “Oh,” said Siguna, and she looked at the chief named Ronan.

  The chief smiled, and a chill ran up and down Vili’s spine. The black head shook in a negative. Siguna said, “That is none of your concern.”

  He would have to get away, Vili thought. He would have to chance the wolf and the dogs and get away. The women didn’t matter. You could put a spear into a woman’s hand, but you couldn’t teach her to throw it.

  “Ronan has sent for the girls of the Red Deer to come and guard you,” his sister said.

  “The girls of the Red Deer?”

  “The Red Deer is a tribe headed by a woman chief,” Siguna said with relish, “and all of the girls are trained in weaponry. Do you remember the fight in the gorge?”

  Vili nodded grimly. He most certainly remembered the fight in the gorge.

  “Many of the arrow shooters that day were girls of the Red Deer,” Siguna said.

  Vili said, “I don’t believe you.”

  Siguna grinned. “Wait,” she said, “and see.”

  * * * *

  Thorn was standing with Vili’s guards when Siguna and Ronan came out of the cave. Ronan shot one look at the boy’s face and excused himself to Siguna, saying he had to go and check his men.

  Siguna stayed where Ronan had left her and watched Thorn as he approached. He still retained the fawnlike look she had remarked when first they met, but since the fight in the gorge, his large, long-lashed eyes had lost some of their innocence. “How is your brother?” he asked as he stopped before her.

  “Relieved, I think,” she replied. “He expected to be killed.”

  Thorn nodded, and side by side, they began to walk in silence toward the camp. At last Thorn said, “I wish there was a place where I could talk to you alone!”

  Siguna regarded him out of the corners of her eyes. She was not unaware of Thorn’s interest in her. And she liked him. She liked him more than any other boy she had ever known. She considered him her friend. But she did not feel for him what she suspected he wanted her to feel.

  He was looking at her wistfully. There was going to be a battle, Siguna thought. Men would die. There would be no harm in giving him a few moments of her time. “We could walk along the river for a little,” she suggested.

  His face lit in reply.

  They made their way along the shore, and once they had rounded the bend and were out of sight of the camp, they stopped. Siguna turned to Thorn and encountered a look on his smooth, youthful face that startled her. It was the same hard, intent look
that she had seen most recently on Ronan’s face, that time they had been alone together in the hills.

  It did not frighten her to see such a look on Thorn’s face, but neither was her breathing coming faster nor her heart hammering in her chest.

  “Siguna,” Thorn said. His own voice sounded decidedly breathless. “I love you.”

  She drew a long, slow, even breath and said nothing.

  “I have been holding my tongue,” he went on. “I know that we have taken away your freedom. I know that your loyalties are torn. I know that I should not be saying this to you now. But…” Here he bit his lip and fell silent, obviously not wanting to pressure her further by stating the obvious: But I might never have the chance again.

  It would be wrong of her to give him false hope, Siguna thought. Best to get all clear between them now. She opened her lips to tell him about her talk with Arika and stopped when she saw a shadow fall across Thorn’s face.

  It was late in the day, and the two of them were standing in the slanting, orange rays of the dying sun. Siguna looked up. The sky was cloudless and there was no sign of a bird. Yet she had distinctly seen a shadow cross Thorn’s face. Fear struck her heart as she realized what it was that she had seen.

  “I won’t press you for an answer now,” Thorn was saying softly. “But when all of this is over, will you think about marrying me?”

  Siguna could not reply.

  “You would love the Valley of the Wolf,” Thorn was going on. “I know you would.” He looked at her anxiously.

  Siguna heard herself answering in an oddly hollow voice, “I will think about it.”

  Thorn’s face blazed with radiance. He raised his right hand and hesitantly ran a caressing finger along her cheek. Siguna stepped closer to him, lifted her mouth, and felt his lips come down on hers. Pain knifed through her at their gentle touch, and she put her arms around his waist and held to him fiercely.