by Andre Norton
What would be the end of her quest? Even if she were able to discover all those Fingers scattered so long ago by the fleeing followers of Lyr, what would she do with them? She had never said. If Dreen had shared more information with Jarth, the commander of the outlaws had not passed it along.
To Kryn now there came an unhappy sense that perhaps this girl, endowed with strange powers as she might be, could meet with disappointment in the end. The longer she believed in what she was doing the harder and deeper that disappointment would be. Yet he also knew that to try and turn her from her path would be useless.
Why should it matter? Her quest had nothing to do with him. Even before the noisome cloud of the worship of the One had overshadowed the land in which he had been born and raised, there had been little enough notice given to gods or powers.
Had it been different before the Dark had riven all the world? Were there indeed beneficent powers known even to those of his blood? He had never heard even the thinnest legend of such. Instead most of the hold kin, except those falling to the One, had had no beliefs in anything more than their own abilities. The hand he had pulled aside from Nosh’s bag curved about the hilt of Bringhope. A fighting man believed in his weapons and his skill to use them. That had brought him this far through life.
Again the girl sighed and turned a little in his half hold. He had been considered too young before he had fled his father’s degradation, to go wenching in the city with those of his caste. And certainly he had had no close meeting with any female since his outlawry— except Nosh. But to him Nosh had never seemed truly one who could be approached as a man approaches a woman. Even now when she lay against him so close that he heard her breathing… no, certain hungers did not rise…
Yet he also knew that just as he was bound to Jarth as his lord now, so was he—and he caught at that thought in astonishment—so was he in a manner bound to Nosh. Though to that there was no future—their ways led far apart.
Only, a part of him denied that—and he crushed down that feeble fraction of his thoughts. Perhaps that effort was the key to the slumber he needed, for he did go to sleep.
Kryn was dimly aware sometime later that a small scaly body crawled across his shoulder close enough for those scales to fret his cheek and then he was completely lost to all around him in a sleep so deep that no dreams could reach.
It was the chill which brought him awake at last. He looked up past the ragged brush into a grey sky. Not that of a well-lit day but one which sent an instant touch of fear. There was a wind howling above them across the level land. And as he sat up he could see the massing of clouds in the north. A season storm!
Nosh was gone but a moment later she slid down into the basin. She had her cloak huddled about her though her pack rested still beside his. There was excitement in her face.
“Kryn!” She caught at his arm. “We must go….” Her other hand disappeared under the edge of the cloak and he guessed that it cupped the side of the Finger bag. “There is one—it calls—out there!” She turned a little to indicate the north.
He tried to think. The plains were not his country but since they had come to Dast he had picked up from all who knew that land any information that he could considering its perils. If those clouds foretold such a storm as he believed, then to be caught in it under the open sky might indeed be death. To stay in this wallow which would fill speedily with the floods from above—that would also be impossible.
Shaking off Nosh and refusing to listen to what she was so foolishly saying, Kryn made his own way to the country above. The wind was growing steadily, blowing from the north. To head into that was folly, was…
Movement by his side: Nosh was back. Her pack was slung again and she paid no attention to him now but headed straight on into that blast.
Kryn shouted and knew his angry order did not reach her. He hurried down to their camp and gathered up his own pack. It was sheer stupidity to do this but somehow he had to catch Nosh and shake some reason into her.
His return for the pack had given her some headway and she was bending over, hunching her shoulders, the flaps of her hood pulled close, already some lengths away, fighting the force of the wind directly into the path of the storm. Short of somehow tripping her and taking her prisoner he did not see how he was going to stop her. But first he had to catch up.
Kryn had thought he knew the worst Nature could send against his kind. However, this icy blast which seemed to push him back with every half step he took forward was far worse than anything he had faced in the Heights. He felt helpless as one in the hands of some giant being who would continue to crush him back and perhaps down until he was ground into the very earth of this wild, open country.
His eyes teared as he tried to see somewhere— anywhere—any protection. But he must not lose Nosh, and somehow she had lengthened the distance between them so that he had to put extra strength into gaining on her.
She was obviously fighting the storm even as he, yet there was a purpose about her going as if she knew exactly where she went. Kryn cursed Lyr, the Hands, and all to do with this, in a steady singsong under his breath and then had to stop to ease breathing at all.
Just as he drew even with the girl, what he had expected broke upon them. The clouds opened to deluge them with rain—and sleet, which put a coating of ice speedily on their cloaks, made them wince and gasp as it struck their faces. Still he could not get close enough to Nosh to stop her and if he did—to what purpose? There was no possible shelter here. If they were to lie on the ground and cover themselves with both cloaks? He doubted if that would lead to their surviving. The cold would eat into their very bones.
The beaten-down grass underfoot grew slick with the ice, so they slipped and slid. While the grey of the day grew darker and darker. They were staggering now, weaving from one side to another. Yet Nosh pushed on as if there were a torch-bearing guide beckoning to her.
Kryn was breathing in gasps. How could the girl continue this way? It was harder and harder for him. Was it the power of those damned Fingers which kept her on her feet and moving—to where?
Then he realized that he was slipping over ground which was not grassy. The bare soil here had been recently turned as if for the planting of some winter crop. So there was some shelter nearby—there had to be!
Even as he realized that, Nosh slipped and went to her knees. He fought to her side and somehow got her up and moving, one of her arms drawn upward about his shoulder so he could support her.
It was as dark as a moonless night now and they came up against a barrier with force. But the cessation of the wind, kept from them now by this barricade, was such a relief as to give Kryn the needed strength to move along that, feeling a rough stone surface with his nearly numb hand while he drew Nosh with him.
Then he sensed a difference in the surface which he had used for a guide and, with hope he was right, ran his hand up, then down. His fingers hit painfully against a bar and then closed on it, working it out of the hooks which held it. Pushing Nosh ahead, Kryn stumbled into a building, and the screaming winds of the storm were reduced to a rumble.
Swinging around he slammed shut the door he had so fortunately found. Then, having parked his hip against it, he pulled forward what seemed to be a bale of hay to brace that shut. Luckily the door was on the side away from the wind’s fury.
From the smells he became aware that they must have taken refuge in a barn. A moment later he heard the lowing of a varge. By all means they must keep away from the beast, which might not take kindly to having its quarters so invaded. He hoped it was stalled but there was no way of telling.
But they needed far more than just a refuge against that wind and sleet; they must have warmth, hot food or drinks, get rid of their soaked clothing. How they were to accomplish that Kryn had no way of telling. He took an unsteady step or two forward, stumbled over a soft mass on the floor, and sprawled across Nosh’s inert body. Nor could he summon up the strength to do more than roll a little away so
that his weight would not crush the slighter girl.
He must get up, stir around, keep moving. To allow the sleep which seemed to be creeping to hold him to the floor to win would probably lead to death.
There was scraping sound and then to his right a burst of light which set him blinking, blinded for a moment. Finally he cleared vision enough to see a hand holding out a lantern. Whoever held it came on through another door, set the lantern on a tall box, and advanced into its full light.
He was looking at a woman bundled up in the coarse smock and pantaloons he had seen on the farm women in the Kasgar market. Her hair was completely hidden by a cap tied under her chin, and her face was scored with the wrinkles of age. She stared down at the two on the floor and then she spoke:
Her words singsonged in a strange way and were given another accent which was not akin to the city speech but somehow he was able to understand.
“Can you walk?”
He was already trying to pull himself up with the aid of a hay bale, so he did not waste breath answering. Kryn had every intention of walking, no matter how difficult that might be.
The woman wasted no more time in speech but stooped and laced her hands into Nosh’s armpits, hoisting the limp weight of the unconscious girl as if she were pitching hay in the harvest field. Kryn lurched closer and was somehow able to steady Nosh on the other side as the woman half pulled, half carried her into a room beyond.
Warmth closed about them and so did light—both from a lamp and from a wide hearth where a roaring fire sent waves of heat out into the room. Flanking this was a settle and on that the woman deposited Nosh while Kryn slumped down beside the girl to keep her from sliding back to the floor.
The woman was gone, back to the stable to reclaim her lantern. Then she returned, standing before him, her work-worn hands planted on her hips while she surveyed the two. She beckoned to Kryn. He lowered Nosh carefully to the settle, though her legs still tended to trail to the floor, and tottered to his feet, having to catch at the back of the settle for support.
His hostess had gone to the other side of the large room and had thrown off the cover of an age-darkened carved chest, was busy pulling out of it piles of what looked like folded clothing. She slammed the chest shut again, dropped one pile on it, added to the top a coarse length of thick cloth which might serve as a towel and told him in as few words as possible—as if she spoke so seldom it was difficult for her to find words:
“Strip, dry yourself, dress—come to the fire. There is soup.”
Few words but enough to cover all which was necessary now, and he did just as he was told. While behind the settle back the woman busied herself with Nosh and he finally heard the girl speak. The relief of that was as warming as would be the soup bubbling in a large kettle over that blessed fire.
CHAPTER 25
It was warm and Nosh had thought that she never would be warm again. There was light— and a fire. Someone moved closer to the whirl of the flames to dip from a pot hanging there into a bowl. Then that half-seen person came to her side. Nosh looked up into a wrinkled face in which the eyes were as blazingly alive as the fire.
“It is hot—but drink—eat—as quick as you can.”
The bowl was lowered into her own two hands. She looked into its thick contents from which the steam arising made her suddenly weak with an overpowering hunger. The woman was no longer in her range of vision. Nosh felt too weak to even turn her head to follow with her sight.
She had been wrapped in a patched but clean robe which smelt of herbs, a square of quilt pulled over the lower part of her body where she lay on a settle.
Looking down beyond the bowl, she saw something else. On the stones of the hearth was stretched a small scaled body, motionless. Dead…? That carrying bag would have been small protection against the assault of the sleet, and the zarks she had known in the Ryft disliked the cold, which made them sluggish. They had disappeared into their deepest burrows when that had come.
Nosh’s eyes filled, she caught her lower lip between her teeth. The bowl shook in her hands and the liquid sloshed from side to side, nearly lapping over. Another had come into the full firelight from around the high back of the settle.
He looked far from the armsman she had always seen. In place of his leathers and mail he wore a coarse smock shirt, much patched, such as any landworker used, but the one who had owned this first had been short of arm, more narrow of shoulder. Kryn’s wrists, thickened by swordplay, protruded into the fireshine and the smock gapped open at his chest, just as the leggings below did not reach his bare ankles.
Now he came to her at once. She pointed with one finger, releasing part hold on the bowl to the zark.
“Is—is it dead?”
Kryn dropped to his knees and touched the small body gently. He, too, must realize how much they owed to the creature which had smoothed their way to escape.
“No—it breathes still. The warmth will aid it.”
Once more the woman appeared, putting into Kryn’s hands a bowl such as the one Nosh held. The girl lifted hers slowly, lest she spill its contents, and set lips to the edge. Hot, yes, but not enough to burn. She sipped and then drank more deeply. The stew was hot and comforting in her throat and that warmth reached her middle.
Out of somewhere—probably the woman had brought it but Nosh in her ravenous hunger was not quite aware of that—appeared a wooden spoon. She had reduced the liquid in the bowl, now she set about filling herself with the more solid contents remaining. But when the spoon scraped at last against the empty container she found the need for sleep so strong that she could not keep her eyes open except by great effort. And her attempts to remember how they came here were mostly defeated.
It was the woman who, with more strength than her supposed years suggested, helped the girl up from the settle and carried more than led her to a dark opening in the far wall where there was a bed place, part of a cupboard. Stretched within that and with the slipped doors shut to a single narrow strip, Nosh fought the needs of her body no longer.
The rage of the storm without was but a murmur of sound which lulled instead of drawing fear. She was only dimly aware later that the zark had found its way also within this place of warmth and soft bedding to curl beside her head on a twist of blanket.
Nosh awoke to a dazed moment of fear. She was imprisoned. Though by her hand was a strip of light. Markus—had he retaken them? Then bits of memory stirred. There had been the call and then the fury of the storm had nearly extinguished that, but enough had remained to lead her here. But where was here?
Warily she sat up, her hand to that lighted crack, and pushed. One of the wooden sides to this strange cell gave way and she could look into the room beyond. There was a fire on the hearth. Yes, she remembered that now, and a pot which had been swung over it. But between her and it stood a table, its top well covered with a number of things, and behind that a woman belabored a round of dough, slapping and punching it with vigor. She seemed entirely intent on her task.
Between the workwoman and the fire was a bundle of coarse blankets in a roll. That stirred even as Nosh sighted it. Kryn struggled up, shaking his head as if to shake out of it some vision or part of dream.
Nosh slid out from her own cocoon of coverings and swung her legs over the edge of the cupboard bed. She was wearing, she discovered, a smock or house robe which fell in voluminous folds. It must have been intended for some much larger woman.
Having dealt firmly with the dough, the woman by the table fitted its well-kneaded substance into a pan which she placed on the blade of a wide wooden shovel. Three steps brought her to the side of the hearth, skirting Kryn. She opened a door in the stone walling of the fireplace and slipped the shovel well within, tipping it with a practiced hand and withdrawing it without the pan.
“Up and about are you?” her harsh voice appeared to greet them both at once.
Nosh slid down from the cupboard, shivering as her bare feet met the stone of the flooring, only too
chill this far from the hearth. Her hand had gone to her breast. Yes, the bulk of the Finger bag was still there. Now the zark leaped from the tumble of covers behind her to land on her shoulder as she moved quickly toward the welcome heat of the fire.
While her borrowed clothing was too large, that which covered Kryn was on the small side, straining about his chest and shoulders. He had gathered up the covers of his makeshift bed to let Nosh closer to the heat.
But the girl halted before the woman: “Landwife, we are deep in your debt. Death rode with that storm last night.”
The woman had half turned away. She dropped on the edge of a bench and was carving off the twisted skin of a large root with a knife which seemed closer to an armsman’s belt dagger than a kitchen tool.
“It is true,” Kryn added to Nosh’s speech. “We were very close to the end—last night.” Was it night or day? The storm darkened so.
Having peeled the root to her satisfaction, the woman was now chopping it into bite-sized pieces to fall one by one into a bowl resting on her knees. She might have been alone in the kitchen.
Now Nosh could see on the other side of the long room (perhaps this whole dwelling consisted only of this one chamber), a rack on which hung clothing she was sure was her own—and Kryn’s. And surely the tangle of his mail, surmounted by the length of Bringhope, rested to one side on a box.
“The old customs are followed here.” There was a slightly different note in the woman’s voice as if at one time, perhaps many seasons past, she had known something besides the language of the field workers. “To the wayfarer at need the door is not barred.”
Nosh fingered the bag. She had not been mistaken, there was a pull here, the Fingers warmed. But she could not see an answering glint from anywhere in the room, though she turned slowly now, more intent on what she sought than anything else.