About this time, Stel woke up. He had traveled south about seventeen ayas, searching the west bank for an entering stream large enough to be free of snow. He wanted to move westward. But he wanted no trackers—if he was followed. He knew he was tired, and in no condition to endure any sustained flight. A sullen fatigue had set in, and he moved dully, rehearsing his recent experience of cleaning Dahmen privies at night after drudging all day, of polishing equipment that didn’t need it, washing, cooking, scrubbing, baking, sometimes nearly all night. He had been wronged, misused. He would not go back. Never.
But where was he going? He hadn’t thought that through. Finally he had found a stream, entered it, by midmorning traveling up it some distance, only to have it narrow and grow snowy. Dizzy with fatigue, he had stopped, sat against one cut bank, and chewed dried meat and waybread from his mother’s sack. Then he had dug into the snow of the bank and crawled into his feather-stuffed sleepsack. The day was dull gray, silent except for the piping of an occasional cardinal. Once, as the sun had passed its height, three tanwolves, trotting the crest of the bank, stopped. They watched the slight breath streaming up from the bank. The lead one growled in his throat, his back hair rising in a long ridge. Then the three turned and loped away. Stel never knew it.
When he did awake, he was startled at how much of the day had passed. He was hungry, dirty, unshaven, still aching with fatigue. But his mind was sharp. What had he done? Now he was wholly alone. Why had he done this? He felt blank, motiveless. It was as if he had grown sick and vomited, finally vomiting out his entire life. He felt like a skin full of emptiness. What would Ahroe do? Well, that would have to be her concern. But the shame of it. He heard of the occasional Pelbar outcasts, men who could not, for one reason or another, fit into Pelbar culture and society. He had always thought of them as misfits or disgusting freaks. Now he was one. Had they all gone through this? Had they found themselves standing outside their entire experience looking for another life?
Stel knew that he would have to do that. One doesn’t find a wholly new self instantly. But there were other things to do. He would worry about the new life when he knew he had shed the old one. He would travel westward until he was sure that no one followed. He would go to the limit of his food, then try to survive until spring. He knew that was a vague plan. He would have to think about it, though, as he traveled. Binding on the crude snow sliders he had made from slats of the fishing shed, he started out.
He had curled the tips back by shaving them thin, heating them with boiling tea, and tying them with thongs. The bindings were even more crude, but sturdy. He broke some sticks for poles, to help propel himself, and started out. Almost immediately he fell. He had seen others excel at skill, but he himself was completely new at it. Well, he would have to learn. As afternoon darkened to evening, Stel moved westward into the vast whiteness, for all he knew empty of all human life between himself and Black Bull Island, which he knew to be a camp of Shumai old people on the Issou River, somewhere way out there on the frozen land. Where he didn’t know. It was like striding purposefully into nothingness. But having nothing else to do, he did so.
Before the evening council meeting, Ahroe had decided to bring Stel back. She had prepared her equipment and supplies carefully and secretly, stowing it all in the room she had shared with Stel. She would have to wait until dark, and it was important to know the reaction of the Protector and the council. But her shame so rose that she could barely endure it, and then when the whole Northcouncil stood in a tumult of protest, she slipped out. It was dark. She could go.
As she entered her room, hurrying to be gone, a wave of strangeness went over her. How sweet their life had been, but for so short a time. Stel’s clothing still lay on his shelves. The chest he had built and carved so intricately showed dully in the light of the fish-oil lamp. How much he had added to the room—bent wood hooks on the wall; a recurved bow he had made for her, bound and inlaid; mats of river rushes, woven in diamond patterns. No room had ever seemed so empty. Ahroe took Stel’s razor. At least when she caught up to him, she could get him to shave. And as she left, she caught up his hand fishing line and a small wooden box he seemed never to finish inlaying. They would rest and talk, and that would give him something to do as they made their peace. He wouldn’t have to look at her, nor she at him.
Ahroe didn’t use the main entrance. She eased herself over the south wall with her guardsman’s rope, slid down, shook it loose, and coiled it expertly as she ran down through the shadows, staying in the fringe of trees so the guardsmen on Gagen Tower wouldn’t notice her. She was around the bend, over an ayas south, before she moved out onto the river for easier running.
It was only then that it occurred to her that she would have to cross the channel ice to reach the west bank. Ahroe was furious with her own stupidity. She would have to spend part of the night making her own ice spanner. But that would have to wait until she had traveled farther. The Dahmena might want to bring her back as well. Toward midnight she stopped at the head of an island near the east bank. Thick willows crowded at the north end, and using her short-sword she quickly cut a number of saplings, tying them into a large, loose mat with withes from smaller ones. It was a crude affair. Her bindings kept breaking. Finally she used Stel’s fish line to fasten it together, ruefully cutting it into short lengths. She had watched him painstakingly braid it from thin strips of the inner bark of some tree she didn’t know. It was too bad.
She held her breath as she slid the spanner out onto the dark ice. Cracks ran through it, with sharp, sudden noises, but she slid herself rapidly across, digging her smallknife into the ice for propulsion. It worked. But now that she was on the west side, what was she to do? She couldn’t track at night. If Stel had turned west, she would miss his trail. No. There, in the light snow cover, were footprints. Then she lost them again on the clear'-ice. She moved slowly, beginning to feel her own strain and fatigue.
But she didn’t know what else to do, so she persisted southward, finding no tracks. The night seemed to darken toward morning. Finally she stood, nonplussed, when a slight sound from behind caused her, with guardsman’s instincts, to whirl and draw her short-sword in one quick movement. A figure stood there on the ice.
“Stand off,” she said evenly. “Stel?”
“No, my love. I am Assek.”
“The Shumai. What do you want?”
“To help you. Why do you follow him? I can be anything to you he ever was. And more.”
Ahroe’s short bow was strapped to her backsack. She surged with anger at her carelessness. But she still had the short-sword, and years of "practice with it.
“Get away. I need no help. Least of all from you. Stand off. Come near and I will kill you.”
“We have peace, remember? Is this a Pelbar welcome? You, the peaceful people?”
“I need nothing from you, want nothing, and insist that you leave,” she said, surprised at the flatness and tension in her own voice.
“Well, you have already missed his trail. He turned into a stream over an ayas back. Doesn’t that prove my help?”
“How do I know that? I would have learned it in the morning anyway. Now go.”
“Do you think that twig in your hand could stop me if I wanted to take it away from you?”
“Then take it.”
Assek laughed and made as if to shrug, but lunged for her wrist as he did. Ahroe’s quick stroke with her short-sword caught him on the forearm and cut through his thick leather sleeve into flesh. “Ahhh,” he muttered, trotting back out of reach, then kneeling on the ice holding his arm. “Damn you, Pelbar wench,” he said, expecting a defensive posture from her, but, as he knelt, she had closed on him and stood behind him, catching his braid and holding the sword to his neck.
“Now,” she said. “Will you go?”
Assek was enraged and bewildered, but he had no choice. “Yes, you fish-gutted, useless piece of river d—” He stopped and gasped as she twisted his head around, jammed his fa
ce into the ice, and put her knee against his back, slicing through his belt and removing his short-knife, tossing it aside.
“Now again,” she said into the back of his neck, “will you go?”
Assek felt the sword point slowly bearing in. Fear mingled with his rage. “Yes,” he finally said. Ahroe stepped up and back, holding her short-sword ahead of her.
“Stop at Pelbarigan and they will bandage your arm,” she said.
“You barely scratched it, river dung,” he said. But he held it with the other hand, and blood came from between his fingers.
“Nevertheless, stop there. Now, go.”
“I am going, muck heap. Now keep on south and catch your manchild.” Assek gave a bitter laugh and walked slowly north on the river surface. Ahroe didn’t move, but stood facing him, sword out, until he was lost in the darkness. Then she sheathed the sword, sat on the ice, and cried, trembling with as much misery as she ever could remember experiencing.
If only Stel were here. Even his stupid male presence would have prevented the Shumai from making any move toward her. She could still feel Assek’s quick male urgency, dumb as a beast, revoltingly opposite to Stel’s gentle and playful nudgings toward love. Curse them all. Pell was right about the elaborate need to control the male. She knew, too, that she was not through with Assek. He would follow her, with his eyes that could track at night on ice. He would wait his opportunity, now not only with his desires but with his need to prove himself, his revenge. Had she not enough to worry about? Oh, Aven, what was she to do?
She stood, suddenly, absently dusted off the snow, and turned north to look for the stream Assek had mentioned. It was a chance. If Stel was close, she would find him before Assek could trouble her. As she walked, she unslung her backsack and took off her Pelbar short bow, hooking it on her shoulder strap with four arrows, each tipped with steel, each tip in a small wood-shaving sheath, a gift from Stel.
4
Before dawn a weary Druk awakened the Protector, knocking solicitously on the door. As she slowly came awake, she saw a light behind him, and the guard chiefs shoulder.
“Yes, Druk, come in. What is it? Something about the Dahmens, no doubt. Come in. I can think from bed, surely. And surely I have enough on in this cold.”
Oet shouldered by the startled Druk and said, “Protector, I regret disturbing you. Something has arisen. Someone was seen, a man, crossing the ice spanner a while ago. The guards didn’t think to report it immedi ately, but I am surmising it is one of the Shumai, and Ahroe is out there. He turned and ran southward on the west side. What do you wish us to do?”
“It was not Ahroe?”
“No, Protector. Both towers agreed that even in the darkness they could see that he was too large.”
The Protector sat up slowly, rubbing her face in her hands and sighing. “Send two guardsmen to the Shumai camp and find out. The old one, Hagen, has had tea with me. I believe we can trust him. Find out. At the same time, send two guardsmen across the spanner and south. Let them all be men. Let me know as soon as you learn anything. Wake me if you must. Ah, Ahroe, let us hope that you were shot from a large enough bow to fly far and quickly. But I fear not. And now, Oet, if I can, I will return to sleep.” She turned down and away, settling herself, but Oet didn’t see. She was already past the doorway, glancing at Druk curled on his reed bed in the small anteroom.
Hagen heard the guardsmen coming and was standing outside his log shelter waiting for them, a fur thrown around him, shifting from foot to foot. He held up his hand in the early dawn. “More tracking?” he asked.
The guardsmen panted hard, and one said, “We fear so, Hagen, but we don’t know yet. A man was seen crossing the ice spanner a while ago and turning south. Was he one of your men?”
Hagen ducked his head inside the shelter, then disappeared, reappearing soon afterward. “Assek is not here,” he said. “What concern is there? He will not track your Stel. There is no reason.”
“Ahroe, Stel’s wife, left last night. Will Assek harm her?”
Hagen didn’t reply, but again disappeared into the shelter. The guardsmen heard murmurs, and with astonishing suddenness, Hagen and lean reappeared, dressed and armed with spears and longbows, fur rolls slung over their shoulders.
“I fear he may do some harm,” said Hagen. “He lost his wife last fall. He is a cross between an aspen leaf and a young bull. We will follow him.” He and lean were by the guardsmen and down the trail before the Pelbar could turn.
Stel had improved rapidly on the snow sliders, especially after he tired of falling and stopped to cut rough grooves down the bottoms. He continued all night and into the morning before becoming exhausted and finding a snowbank to rest in. But he had made nearly thirty ayas and was beginning to feel at ease.
Ahroe, meanwhile, had found the stream, entered it, and trotted up the ice until she saw the snow with Stel’s tracks. There he had slept. That must have been last night. She shuddered from her fatigue and the knowledge that he was so far ahead of her. And she had no snow sliders. The snow lay scarcely more than a span deep, but nonetheless, he made better time. In spite of herself, she smiled when she saw where he had fallen and drawn a rough face, with downturned mouth, on the snow. Stel was always Stel. He surmised he would be followed, at least at first. Surely the face was for Ahroe. A complex wash of feeling went over her. How could he love her and run from them all? She kicked the face away and plunged ahead into the snow. The air had turned damp. What if it snowed? She would have to track him all day without stopping. She would have to catch up with him before the Shumai returned.
She continued walking as the day progressed, forcing herself increasingly, especially since the air grew dull and still, and in the third quadrant, slow snowflakes began to drift down, gently thickening as she followed the twin lines of sliding tracks across groves, brakes, and patches of prairie. She didn’t stop to eat, but as she continued chewed on waybread and dried meat, just as Stel was doing.
Dusk came. She could scarcely see the trail. Stopping, she felt a silence fall that was worse than that of the caves beneath the city. A strange calm lay on her. It had warmed somewhat. Bone-weary, she decided she would sleep in a tree, using one of the traveling tricks of the Pelbar from the days before the peace. Selecting just the right one, a moderate-size maple with plenty of sturdy branches, she climbed carefully, working her short-sword into each branch at the base until she was about twenty spans up. Then she carefully cut into both the top and base of four adjacent limbs, leaving them hinged but nearly severed. Climbing farther up, she found a crotch and tied herself into her sleepsack. It was not comfortable, but in her present exhaustion, she didn’t notice, and eventually she slept.
Suddenly, nearly at midnight, Assek was there. The tracks, now mere dents in the falling snow and dim-blue light, stopped at the tree. He smiled to himself, and taking out his second knife, a skinner, began slowly climbing. Yes, there was Ahroe’s dim shape above him. He would cut her ropes and push her out before she could wake. Then, on the ground and injured, she would be his to do with what he willed. For a moment he hesitated. This was mad. It had gone too far. But she had cut him and he would have at least to even that score. He would see. Perhaps that would be enough. But Ahroe had a lovely face, straight-nosed, with thin and delicate nostrils. Her mouth was small and shapely. Her eyes, dark brown, were deep and penetrating. It was a face to be loved, certainly not to be sleeping in a tree in the snow.
Assek amused himself with his dreams as he moved up stealthily, but then, as he slowly shifted his weight, the branch beneath him cracked. He grabbed wildly, only to tear off another, dropping and snapping off four more, slamming into a final larger one and pitching into the snow.
He didn’t move immediately. Snow fell on his face, which smarted from scraping against the tree trunk. He rolled over onto his knees as he heard Ahroe softly drop to the snow. Anger and pain shook him. He struggled to his feet and faced her.
“Are you hurt again?” she aske
d in a thin voice with an edge of mockery in it.
He couldn’t even find his skinning knife. He must have dropped it in the snow. “Witch, river dung, Pelbar garbage, owl eyes, snake belly,” he began, but he was staggering, and she hit him across the face, dropping him to his knees. Looking up, he saw dimly that she had an arrow nocked on her short bow. How could this be? He said nothing more.
“Do you want to die? I can’t keep letting you go.
Sooner or later, you would get me. And I know you wouldn’t let me go—at least until I was worth nothing to myself.” Assek said nothing.
Ahroe drew the bow. “Now, do you want to die?” Assek looked up at her with a bleeding face and a look of calm hatred Ahroe could feel even in the dark. He laughed silently, a bitter, aspirant laugh of pure frustration. “Please yourself. Kill me if you want to,” he said quietly.
Ahroe let the bowstring go slack but kept the arrow nocked. The two confronted each other silently as the snow fell unseen in the night, hissing lightly in the branches and on the white surface of the woods floor. Assek laughed again. “Well?” he asked. “You make no sense. Your husband runs from you, and you follow him, armed to fight, to kill him or force him to return, and then, given two chances, you don’t kill me. You Pelbar like to see people suffer. I saw it in your eyes at the gate back at Pelbarigan. I knew you would follow him. Right? Ahroe, the Dahmen, from the family of tyrants. I have heard of them this winter. The pitiless destroyers of men.” “And what are you doing here? Are you avenging my husband? No. You are a common rapist. Don’t see yourself as anything else, anything worthy. Shumai scum and scruff. You are a disgrace. Why does Hagen stand you?” “Hagen? You know Hagen? He doesn’t stand me. We are fellows. I have always known him. We—”
“Then why isn’t Hagen here with you? Him we know as a man of honor.” Assek took a step toward her, but as he did, Ahroe kicked his legs from under him and whipped a rope end around his arms behind him. He thrashed at first, then cried out and lay still. It was plain she was practiced in what she was doing, and he discovered by the sharpness of the pain in his side that he must have broken a rib in the fall. She stood him up, he cursing her as she did. Pushing him against the tree, she tied him to it. Then she retrieved her bow, wiped it and the arrow carefully and deliberately, and stowed them away. Climbing the tree again, she brought down all her gear and packed it. Assek eyed her silently, head down.
Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02] Page 3