Griffin turned to assess the battle and realized that in those few minutes it had ended. The metal spider had collapsed, the body held at an angle above the turf by the few legs on its right side that had not been broken. Fire was licking from its edges. Adara and Bruin were dousing the flames with buckets of water fetched from the public fountain by the miller and a few other men who had emerged from the houses to help.
The black horse was down. Griffin hadn’t consciously realized that it had continued to scream—the horrible noises seemed so in keeping with the situation—until the screams fell silent. Helena the Equestrian stood up, a bloody knife in one hand, tears streaming down her face. Without another look at the dead animal, she strode across the green toward the group clustered around Terrell.
Here, at least, Griffin thought he might help. “Terrell’s alive, ma’am.”
Helena gave him a stiff nod, but her expression held something like hatred.
As if I was the one who attacked him, rather than the one who saved him, Griffin thought in dismay. His inner voice replied promptly, You may have attacked him, Griffin Dane. Didn’t Adara tell you there have been no machines active since the slaughter of the seegnur? Is it a coincidence that you appear and a working war machine activates so soon after?
Griffin stood staring, thinking how the metal spider had attacked no one or nothing until the gate had been closed between him and it, how it had entered the green and quested about, then headed directly for him.
Have I done this? he thought in horror and dismay. Could I be responsible?
* * *
Despite a dive into the icy waters of the river, Adara’s hair still smelled of both the evil-smelling steam that had come off the spider and burned horseflesh. At least the cold water gave her an excuse for the shivers that took her whenever she let herself remember that horrible battle.
Talked out and exhausted, Adara, Bruin, and Griffin now sat in front of the fire, each lost in his or her own thoughts. When a knock sounded at the front door, Griffin stared unmoving into the flames, the resident mouser curled on his lap. When Adara would have gone to answer the door, Bruin waved her back.
“That’ll be Mistress Cheesemaker. I know that rap. She’ll want me.”
Adara nodded understanding. Shepherd’s Call was too small to have a mayor but, if there had been one, it would have been Mistress Cheesemaker. Her arrival at the front door meant she was calling in her “official” capacity. Bruin, however, hadn’t said that Adara couldn’t listen, and he knew that her sense of hearing was excellent.
“I’ve come,” Mistress Cheesemaker began without preamble, “to tell you how Terrell the Factotum is doing.”
“Will you come inside?” Bruin asked. “I’ve just brewed a fresh pot of tea or I could mull a bit of my cherry cider.”
“No, thank you.”
Adara was surprised to hear Mistress Cheesemaker refuse. Normally, the woman liked little better than a chance to rest by someone else’s fire—she allowed herself so little quiet by her own.
“I’ve a few other things to tell you, then I must be back to the green. Ronbert Smith is supervising the destruction of that spider. I’ve promised to drop over at the forge and check on the results.”
Bruin made a low, noncommittal noise, the same he used—as Adara knew all too well—to encourage his students to talk.
“Even if the forge’s fire isn’t hot enough to completely soften the metal,” Mistress Cheesemaker said, “I doubt the thing will walk when it’s been beaten by the smith’s hammer.”
“About Terrell the Factotum?” Bruin prompted.
Mistress Cheesemaker’s voice brightened. “Ah! He’s less severely injured than any dared hope. No broken bones, for a wonder, though he’s one solid bruise along his side and back where he hit the ground. There’s some blistering on his exposed skin, but poor Coal caught the brunt of the flames.”
There was a respectful pause in memory of the gallant stallion.
“Bruin,” Mistress Cheesemaker’s voice dropped, but Adara could still hear easily enough, “you fought there on the green. Even so, those of us who watched from safety may have seen something you missed.”
“And that is?”
There was a longer pause than Adara would have thought possible for the usually gossipy matron, then Mistress Cheesemaker went on.
“That thing—spider machine—it wasn’t spraying fire at random. I’ve heard the same from a dozen people, all unprompted, including some shepherd lads who watched from the hilltops. That spider machine came for one person and one person alone. It came for your Griffin Dane.”
Bruin made his “I’m listening” noise and Mistress Cheesemaker continued.
“Griffin Dane is an odd name. Nor did any see him arrive. Some say Adara brought him back with her from the mountains. Is this so?”
Adara held her breath, wondering how much Bruin would offer.
“Adara did. She found him in the mountains, lost and very confused. Not knowing what to make of her strange catch, she brought him to me.”
“A wise choice,” Mistress Cheesemaker said, approval in her voice, “but I’m thinking Adara was right that she had no idea what she had found. I’m thinking she found more than she realized.”
“Do you know, then?” Bruin asked. “Do you know something about this Griffin Dane?”
“I do not, but some days ago many villagers saw a shooting star in broad daylight. It may have hit near where Adara and Sand Shadow hunted. There may be no connection, yet I fear from the depths of my soul when I think what manner of man brings spider machines trailing after him. We were fortunate that all we lost was Coal.”
“And…”
“Bruin, we of Shepherd’s Call have always welcomed your students, even the adapted. We welcomed you when you came here first, courting Mary Greengrass. We were glad you stayed on with us when death took Mary from you. We welcomed you, even though some of our neighbors said we were fools for bringing a bear among the lambs. But how can we welcome this Griffin Dane when such things follow him?”
“Rest assured,” Bruin said, “you will not need to do so. Griffin Dane will be moving on. Adara had thought they might join the caravan to Blue Meadow for safety on the road…”
Mistress Cheesemaker’s snort was eloquent.
“… But now I think they will need to move at a faster pace than the caravan could manage.”
“So Griffin Dane will leave here soon?”
“Within a few days,” Bruin promised. “Meanwhile, we shall keep watch.”
“That’s already done. The miller has donated seasoned wood for a new gate, though much good a gate did us against what that spider spit. I wonder if even a stone wall would have kept that thing from our midst.”
“I cannot say,” Bruin replied. “However, I can assure you of this. I believe that Griffin Dane is such a man that if another spider machine descended from the foothills, he would run toward it rather than see a single one of us scorched.”
Mistress Cheesemaker laughed, but not unkindly. Indeed, Adara heard sorrow among the notes.
“I believe you. I saw Griffin Dane pull Terrell to safety. Very well. Griffin would sacrifice himself rather than see even an old dog come to harm, nonetheless I would rather he left so that the need not arise.”
“So I would prefer also,” Bruin agreed. “So would we all.”
Interlude: TVC1500
Lick away flames, hot and fierce.
Heat can transform metal to liquid.
No heat can burn away purpose.
No flame can char passion to ash.
Lick away flames.
Passion shall lick even thee.
8
The Hanged Man
Griffin listened intently as Bruin explained the reason behind Mistress Cheesemaker’s call.
“The lady may be right,” Griffin admitted. “I had similar thoughts. The spider machine may be some old warbot left from the slaughter of the seegnur. I hadn’t thought the
attackers brought any with them, since such would have been susceptible to the nanobots. Still, technology was so different then. Of course, there’s another possibility.”
“Oh?” Bruin asked.
“I told Adara I had brought with me the means to counter the machine-killing nanobots. Some of this could have been released when my shuttle crashed. The chance of my countermeasure finding a warbot so easily boggles the mind, but it’s not impossible.”
“How,” Adara asked, “would such a ‘warbot’ know to target you?”
“I think I worked that out. If the commandos who attacked Artemis did bring warbots with them, then they would have programmed the warbots’ sensors to target only those you call the ‘seegnur.’ There’s ample evidence, both in your own lore and in the tales I encountered in my research, that an effort was made to preserve the residents of Artemis.”
“Could a machine tell one sort of human from another?” Adara asked.
“Easily,” Griffin replied. “There are ample indications that the people of Artemis—even those who were not adapted—came from genetically engineered stock. They would have possessed a distinct signature that the warbots could have been told to ignore unless offered direct threat.”
Griffin held his breath, hoping neither Adara nor Bruin would ask for more details. Some of the material he had come across had indicated that the natives of Artemis had been modified in various ways. It had hinted they had been created to be receptive to commands. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’d also been modified to have a birth rate sensitive to population density, as did many animals. After all, those who had invested in the planet would not have wished to face either a free-thinking population or an overpopulated planet.
It’s rather unsettling, Griffin thought, to consider this now that I’ve met some of those who were subjected to such dramatic modification without their consent. Of course, on Sierra, some genetic modification is routine. Genetic combinations that would lead to a variety of defects are suppressed. Certainly, here on Artemis, as at home, there would have been beneficial modifications. Adara is amazingly tough. When we were talking, she didn’t seem to know what I meant when I said I was worried we might catch cold or flu after we got both frozen and soaked after the avalanche. She didn’t seem to know what cancer was. My impression is that even infections are rare.
The Artemisians weren’t immune to injury, but seemed to heal well and cleanly. Bruin’s wife, the late Mary Greengrass, had been injured in a fall. Broken ribs had punctured her lungs so that they had collapsed. Adara—who had viewed the woman as a second mother—had spoken of Mary’s death with genuine grief, tinged with shock that such things could happen to a woman still relatively young.
“Certainly,” Griffin continued, dragging his wandering thoughts back to the subject under discussion, “our meeting up with an ancient warbot seems unlikely, but the thing wasn’t in very good shape. Probably it had been considered broken beyond repair and so wasn’t hauled off when the planet was abandoned.”
“Then you think it unlikely that Shepherd’s Call is in further danger?” Bruin asked.
“Unlikely,” Griffin said, “but not impossible. Certainly, I need to leave here as soon as is possible. I can completely understand if Adara doesn’t want to escort me…”
Adara cut him off. “I’m going. I dragged you out of that wreck, so in some sense I’m as responsible as you are—if any responsibility can be assigned to us that is not shared equally by warlords half a millennium passed. Count me and Sand Shadow in.”
The puma, who had been napping after the fashion of all cats presented with a fire and an idle moment, yawned agreement.
“I think I will go, too,” Bruin said. “One of my students—the boy who shows signs of being adapted—was supposed to have arrived by now. Indeed, one of the reasons Adara was away training—although I could have used her help in setting up for the arriving students—was so that I would have the opportunity to gain Kipper’s confidence in relative privacy. I will go with you at least as far as Blue Meadow and ask after him.”
Griffin was too relieved to argue. “Thank you both very much. I would have taken a map and hoped that one man alone wouldn’t attract bandits, but I admit that I will be glad to have you with me.”
“Well, then,” Bruin said, hauling himself to his feet with a grunt, “all that is left is for us to decide what we’re having for dinner tonight. I believe there was some chicken left from lunch. Let me see what else I can find in the larder.”
* * *
Even though Adara was now as impatient to depart as earlier she had been reluctant, they couldn’t leave immediately. Bruin needed to make arrangements for someone to care for the domestic animals and newly planted garden. Since he was popular in Shepherd’s Call, this would not prove difficult. However, the soon-to-arrive students were another matter. Bruin needed to track down one of his more senior past-students, one who could begin the lessons if Bruin was delayed in his return.
To Adara was given the more difficult task of convincing Helena the Equestrian to make them a loan of horses who would not shy from the puma and the bear.
Helena was not an unreasonable woman, but in her long years of association with horses, she had soaked up some of their distrust for hunting creatures. Moreover, Adara knew Helena resented the loss of Coal and the injury to her resident student.
The day after the metal spider had so dramatically interrupted Griffin’s introduction to the residents of Shepherd’s Call, Adara gathered up her courage and went to call on Terrell. She would have rather gone up the mountain to see if she could backtrack the spider, but rain the night before had probably removed any spore her human eyes could find—and Sand Shadow was better equipped to find whatever might be left.
Helena the Equestrian’s stables were on the same side of Shepherd’s Call as Bruin’s holding, so Adara comforted herself that at least her visit would not draw the attention of the gossipy village maidens. As it turned out, she could not have been more wrong. Apparently, every young woman in the village had decided to call on Terrell. Those who already had been to see the invalid lingered nearby to chatter with their friends.
When Adara, neatly dressed in a fresh set of hunting leathers, a stoneware bottle of Bruin’s famous cherry cider dangling from her right hand, turned up the path that led to Helena’s front door, the feminine chatter stopped in one breath. Long-lashed eyes of various hues narrowed in assessment. Adara received the distinct impression that the assembled maidens blamed her for Terrell’s injuries.
Laura, daughter of Mistress Cheesemaker, a village belle who (so rumor said) had only failed to marry young because none of her beaus could get up the courage to face her formidable mother, was the only one to speak to Adara.
“Come to see Terrell?”
“That’s right,” Adara replied, trying—and failing, she knew—not to sound cold.
“Helena has made a bed for him in the front room. Before she left to bring supplies up to Bert at the sheepfold, she told us we could go in if we wished. I suppose the same invitation applies to you.”
Adara wasn’t so certain, but she nodded thanks.
“Terrell isn’t asleep, is he?”
Laura gave a fluting laugh. “Well, if he is, then Nancy, Brittany, and Sashi are all watching over his dreams.”
Adara swallowed a sigh. The girls in question were sisters. The youngest, Sashi, could hardly be considered of courting age, but Brittany was well known to be among Terrell’s most ardent suitors. Before Terrell’s coming, Brittany hadn’t found a man who could measure up to a horse in either strength or grace. When Terrell arrived, she had declared him perfection. Only the fact that she had been barely twelve at the time had kept her from proposing then and there. Now she was said to be counting down to her fifteenth birthday with indecent avidity—especially since she could hardly claim the ability to support a partner and family that was legally required before a formal proposal could be offered by either side in the matc
h.
Adara reminded herself that she’d faced down a war machine that spat fire. Surely she could face three rather silly girls. With that thought, she gave a casual wave to Laura and the others, then continued toward the front door.
A note tacked to the door said that visitors should let themselves in to spare Terrell getting up, so she knocked to announce herself, then lifted the latch and eased the door open.
Terrell was half reclined against a heap of pillows on a narrow bed set near the main hearth. He wore a loose shirt made from pearl-pale lamb’s wool and was quite literally surrounded by gifts brought by his admirers.
There’s cookies, loaves, and muffins to keep him for a week, Adara thought. Not to mention jars of jam, small cheeses, and enough flowers to blanket him from head to foot.
Little Sashi sat on the floor, the line of jam on her upper lip showing that Terrell had been sharing his bounty. Nancy sat on a chair near the head of the bed. Brittany had somehow managed to find room to perch near Terrell’s feet. All three girls had apparently been talking at once, but they fell to glowering silence when Adara entered.
“How are you feeling?” Adara asked awkwardly.
“Bruised and battered,” Terrell replied with a chuckle that made light of his injuries, “but well enough to be up and about if Helena hadn’t promised to hand me my head if I moved. How are you? That spider was flinging you about pretty hard.”
Adara noticed that Brittany’s eyes had narrowed at this reminder of how Adara had shared Terrell’s peril.
“Well enough. I wrenched my left shoulder. Annie Greengrass sent something along that’s eased it. I expect I got off light.”
Nancy and Brittany both looked as if they wanted to agree. Terrell indicated the jug that Adara carried.
“That wouldn’t be some of Bruin’s cherry cider, would it?”
“It would. Not the hard stuff. Annie Greengrass advised against that, but some that’s nicely aged. Would you like a mug full?”
Terrell agreed he would and indicated a tray that held a pitcher and several clean mugs. When he had his drink in hand, he gave the three sisters a winning smile.
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