Warautumn

by Tom Deitz

  The air was clear today—as clear as Merryn had ever seen. Which was probably why she had seen the vultures riding the thermals across the ridge they were approaching—riding them, but using them to spiral down, not up.

  “Something big, I’d say,” Div offered, joining Merryn at the head of the file. Behind them, they heard Strynn and Krynneth slow as well—on one horse, since the women all took turns doubling with Krynneth. Skinny as he was, he weighed no more than they did. “Places like this,” Div went on, “small animals are going to be snapped right up by hawks and eagles and such. Anything that would attract circling vultures would have to be big enough not to be carried away by something else.” A pause, then: “A deer, maybe; we’ve seen plenty of sign.”

  Merryn glanced around in search of the birkit—it was keeping up with them for the nonce, where hanging back or ranging from side to side as if searching was more typical behavior. Its nose was wrinkled, however, which meant it was sifting odors. “It’s alarmed—or anxious,” Div supplied in a tone that brooked no argument. “And I’m not sure, but I think I caught of flash of the way it thinks really loud and hard when it thinks about geens.”

  Merryn tensed. “You think geens—?”

  Div shrugged. “Maybe. But they hunt in packs, generally of four. I’d assume that if they killed a deer, there wouldn’t be enough left for anything else to eat.”

  Merryn returned her attention to the terrain. “I wish I knew more about them,” she sighed. “It just never seemed important to learn. As you said, I know they’re pack hunters, that they prefer to hunt at dusk and dawn, but don’t limit themselves to those times, and that they prefer live meat to carrion. That said—”

  “They haunt places like this,” Strynn broke in, riding up to join them. “Places where grazing animals wander about in the open, while they lurk in the woods until—”

  Merryn suppressed a shiver and scanned the forests warily. “No need to worry,” Div assured her. “The horses would have spooked long before now.”

  “Cold comfort,” Merryn muttered. “Shall we see …?”

  Div was studying the ground. “The tracks we’ve been following lead toward the birds regardless, but caution might be in order.”

  “So I was thinking,” Merryn agreed, loosening her sword in its scabbard and hearing the rattle of Div retrieving her bow and the hiss of Strynn likewise freeing her blade. Krynneth had asked for one, too, but they dared not trust him with one—yet—though his vocabulary was up to fifty words now, and his eyes looked clear more often than otherwise.

  “Nothing learned by staying,” Div chuckled, and gave her horse the heel. Merryn followed at a cautious trot, and a moment later, they crested the ridge.

  An oval vale two shots long and half that wide opened before them, covered with the same grass they had been traversing, and framed with oaks and maples. What they hadn’t expected was the fact that the ridge had hidden a higher sweep of genuine mountains that rose to the northwest—probably too far west to be part of Angen’s Spine. An air of peace rode about that place—broken only by the slow downward spiral of the vultures and, very faintly, the stench of flesh decaying in the pervasive southern heat.

  “Keep watch,” Div told Strynn offhand, not bothering to see if her command was heeded. Merryn smirked at that: a Common Clan woman ordering the Royal Consort about so casually, and the Consort taking no umbrage from it. On the other hand, those roles were tied to Eron and the people they had been there. This was the West, and no one’s country but their own, and in more ways than one they were free.

  “Merryn?” Div prompted, shaking Merryn from her reverie even as she led the way down the slope toward the source of the vale’s disturbance.

  “Holy Eight!” Div spat a moment later, from where she rode a few spans in the van.

  “What?” Merryn called, but by then she had seen as well.

  They all had.

  Not a dead deer, but a geen—lying facedown in the knee-high grass, with all four legs splayed to either side and its tail stretched out behind.

  Merryn went instantly to full alert. The geen was dead without a doubt, but it hadn’t been dead for long—no more than half a day, in spite of the smell of corruption—which was largely a function of the heat. And the only thing that could kill a geen was a man—or—she shuddered—another geen.

  “What—?” Merryn whispered abruptly.

  Div was already off her horse, prowling about—but avoiding the body. “More geen tracks around,” she announced. “At least two sizes, but that doesn’t mean much. Want to help me check the body?”

  Merryn grimaced, but nodded and resheathed her sword. Strynn was dismounting as well, but keeping Krynneth back—which was probably wise. She wasn’t certain how he would react to the sight of geens—or death. “Keep your bow to ready, just in case,” Div called. “Folks who hunt geens usually proceed that way.”

  Holding her breath—for this was as close as Merryn had ever been to a geen, live or dead—she eased around one side of the beast while Div took the other. A trace of smoke scent clung to the air, she noted for the first time, along with, very slightly, the odor of cooked meat. All at once she recognized it, though she kept her silence for the nonce.

  “No sign of blood,” Div pointed out. “Which is odd.”

  “It didn’t die of blood loss,” Merryn replied with absolute conviction. “Help me turn it over.”

  Div eyed her curiously, but acquiesced. They each grabbed a forelimb and twisted the torso enough to flip it.

  “Eight!” Strynn breathed, behind them. “It’s—”

  “Fire,” Merryn finished for her. “Or—more properly—lightning.”

  For the dead geen showed, unmistakably, the same sort of damage all down its scaly torso that the Ixtians had displayed back at the hold. The Ixtians who had been blasted by the Lightning Sword.

  Only this was worse, if only because the smell was worse, and that courtesy of the fact that the blast had ripped the geen’s abdomen open, leaving the organs therein free to rupture in the heat. Merryn had to slap her hand over her mouth to keep from gagging.

  “At least we’re on the right track,” Div gritted, likewise swallowing hard.

  “Yes,” Strynn agreed from farther back, “but do we want to be?”

  “No choice,” Div concluded, sparing a glance at Merryn.

  Merryn started to remount, then paused, gazing back at the dead creature. “If anyone has a stronger stomach than I do, those claws are prized in Ixti. We could do worse.”

  Div grinned wickedly. “Never bypass a resource in the Wild.” Without another word, she wrapped a link of wine-doused sylk across her lower face and spent the next half hand cutting.

  Two days later, and closer to the true mountains than ever, they found a second geen, dead exactly like the first one. And three days after that …

  “Another one!” Merryn cried, pointing to a now-familiar mound of dark reptilian flesh that disrupted the flow of meadow grass around it.

  “Like the others?”

  Div shook her head, “This one’s so fresh the vultures haven’t found it. Two hands at best, I’d say.” She rose from inspecting the burn marks down the beast’s breast and scanned the landscape critically. Merryn followed her example.

  It was late in the day—they would have to make camp soon—and the sky looked as threatening as it had since they had set out, with iron-colored masses of heavy clouds shrouding the entire heavens, broken only when random sunlight colored thin places steel or bronze or copper. Lightning was already fumbling around up there, awakening ominous rolls of thunder. It would rain before dark; there was no doubt about that: another reason they would need to make camp soon.

  Which made the dead geen all the more troubling. Two hands at most, Div had said; which meant the one with the sword could still be very near indeed. She stared at the woods apprehensively.

  They had been lucky so far: The geens’ trail had held steady, almost due northwest. It had
ducked into the woods by night, but most days it had taken the path of least resistance: marching through a steady series of meadows that ornamented the mountains like a string of beads. The only problem was that the beads were getting smaller, and the woods closer, darker, and thicker with every passing hand. Which would mean a number of things, none of them very pleasant.

  Like the fact that they would have less warning of any impending geen attack—unless the horses spooked, or the birkit did.

  Like the fact that their own hunting would likely fare less well. They still had venison from a deer Div had killed two days back, but it was starting to go bad, in spite of a hasty smoking. Unfortunately, the only deer they’d seen hide or hoof print of since then had been species that favored open country. So—unless they found woods-deer, which were impossibly wary—they might soon have to rely on small game and birds, which would be harder to kill in the heavy foliage and uncertain light.

  And the mountains … It looked as though they would never end. Certainly the geens’ trail angled toward yet another ridge, this one fairly wide and running level a good way to either side.

  Beyond it … more mountains and higher, but those were still a fair ways off. There were mountains to the east, too, which she thought might be part of Angen’s Spine, given the way Eron’s eastern coast swooped around in an arc to the west.

  “What do you think?” Div asked, wiping her hands on her thighs and striding back to join Merryn and Strynn while Krynneth relieved himself a few spans down the backtrail.

  Merryn scowled. “I think we need to make camp soon, preferably somewhere with good potential to stay dry. I think we need to set a watch against geen attack and sleep armed and with one eye open even then. I think we’re closer to our quarry than we’ve ever been and in a perfect world with perfect weather, might actually catch up with them today—”

  “It,” Div corrected. “You’ve said yourself that there’s nothing to indicate there’s more than one—the one with the sword—and that they usually hunt in groups of four because they’re born that way. We’ve found three dead ones now: all dead the same way, which makes no sense.”

  “None of this does,” Strynn countered. “There’s no reason for it to use the sword to kill its fellows unless it felt threatened or angry. If they’re as smart as we think they are, the ones without the sword could well be envious that they don’t have one. That could incite anger, which would provoke attack.”

  “What I wonder,” Merryn mused, “is why the thing has kept it all this time. It would have to be carrying it, and the fact that it’s killed with it several times—with lightning, not just the naked blade—implies that there’s been at least sporadic contact between the gem and the geen’s bloodstream—and probably a longer contact than any human has ever endured in the bargain. I keep hoping we’ll just find the sword thrown away, but that seems less likely every moment. Which means—”

  “Which means,” Strynn finished for her, “that when we do catch up with the thing, we may well find ourselves facing the Lightning Sword.”

  “Which we can’t survive.” From Div.

  “Not likely,” Merryn agreed. “Which means we’ll have to resort to stealth in order to retrieve it.”

  Div rolled her eyes. “Optimistic, aren’t you?”

  “Better say fatalistic,” Merryn retorted.

  Strynn shot her a scathing look. “I don’t need that, Merry.”

  Merryn rounded on her. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re talking about me, here, about my agenda, my quest.”

  “Makes a convenient excuse,” Strynn shot back. “But I’m on a quest, too—which supersedes yours.”

  “No,” Merryn gritted, “it does not. Your quest was to retrieve the regalia, which only incidentally requires that you retrieve me. If I were dead, you’d still be obliged. The Kingdom comes first, Strynn.”

  “In that case,” Strynn raged, “what about the child I’m carrying? It’s heir to someone who may even now be dead, but also to the two—when we left—most powerful clans. And Clans outlast Kings, or have you forgotten that, too? And don’t forget—”

  She broke off, mouth agape. “Merry, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me, or why.” All at once she was crying, and Strynn—like Merryn—almost never cried.

  “It’s the pregnancy talking,” Div advised, glaring at both of them. “And in any case, is a discussion for after we find the geens—or geen, as I’m all but convinced there’s only the one.”

  “The most dangerous one that ever lived,” Merryn growled, her eyes bright with tears of her own. “I’m sorry, too, Strynn. And whatever else happens, remember—”

  “Don’t say it,” Strynn murmured. “You don’t have to. I feel the same way. In any case, we have the same goal at the moment. That should be sufficient.”

  Merryn nodded silent assent.

  “Rain!” Krynneth announced abruptly. And at that very moment, Merryn felt the first drop strike her hand.

  “Waited too long,” she sighed.

  “Shelter looks best over there,” Div observed, ever the pragmatist. She used her bow to point to where a copse of evergreens made a darker mass against the pervasive hardwoods. “And I think I see a mass of boulders big enough to provide decent back-shelter and something solid underfoot as well, though we may have to pitch the tent beside it, if we can’t get the pegs in.”

  “Good enough,” Merryn acknowledged and said no more until they were under the arms of the forest.

  She did not remain there long, however—only long enough to confirm Div’s opinions about the mass of boulders, and to see that the tents were well pitched (to one side of an almost flat slab at least two spans square) and a cook fire under way. The rain had proved a false start. “I’m going out again,” Merryn informed them with calculated nonchalance. “Not far, and I promise I won’t do anything careless—but we’re in need of firewood—dry firewood, and there’s not much of that around here. I’m going to see what I can find before it all gets soaked. If I’m not back in a hand, come looking.” And with that, she strode into the woods.

  But firewood was a minor priority, though Merryn hated to lie about it. They were close to the geen, very close indeed—so close she could all but smell it—and now it looked like they were going to lose ground again. If nothing else, the hard rain that was now inevitable would wash away most of the remaining spoor. She was therefore going to track the thing as far as she could in the remaining daylight—or until the rain got so bad that she couldn’t. And if she found it … well, there’d be time then to decide on a course of action.

  And if it found her, there would likely be no decision at all.

  It was rash, it was stupid, it was selfish and careless, but Merryn was tired of waiting.

  The tracks weren’t hard to find, and continued, as they typically did, in a straight line through the center of the meadow. Which took them directly beneath the eaves of the woods on the northwest side—a quarter of the way around the meadow from where they were camped. She hesitated there, for it was getting late and the sky was even more ominous. Yet the tracks led beneath the branches, clear and tantalizing. She glanced at the sky again; saw lightning flash between two clouds. Thunder rolled ominously. Was that an omen? She really was being foolish. But she was close, so close …

  Should she?

  She glanced back the way she had come, saw a flicker of firelight and a trickle of smoke that suddenly spoke all too eloquently of friends, comfort, and home.

  Too much to risk.

  Still …

  It wasn’t raining yet; so she would compromise: She would continue onward for another finger—another fifth of a hand—or until it started to rain in earnest, whichever occurred first. That was probably as much as she could expect, and at that, she would have to endure Strynn’s fury—and probably Div’s—all over again.

  Half a finger farther on she found something that confirmed her course of action at last.

  The land had been r
ising steadily since she had entered the woods, with more and more stone showing among the pines: stone of a kind she identified with fire mountains. Indeed, a whole ridge of it had appeared, crossing her trail at right angles, which also put it at right angles to the slope, as though a section of land two spans high had simply been yanked upward there. The resulting low cliff face was cracked and fissured—and one fissure was more properly a true cave.

  The geen’s tracks ran directly into it.

  And even Merryn was not fool enough to track geens in the dark.

  On the other hand, the cave would limit the creature’s options as well. They had it now—she thought. If they were patient.

  But not in the dark.

  Before she knew it, she had turned and was striding back toward the meadow. The rain caught her there in earnest, but Fate smiled on her enough to present her with the biggest dry log she could still carry, and with that as peace offering, she returned to camp, where she endured reproachful glances but did not reveal what she had seen. Not yet. Not while she was still pondering what to do about a certain geen in a certain cave.

  CHAPTER XV:

  ASSASSINATIONS AND ASSIGNATIONS

  (ERON–TIR-ERON–HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXXXIII–EVENING)

  Tyrill knelt in a tiny, open-sided shrine a dozen shots down North Bank from Tir-Eron’s official southern limit and pretended, with perhaps too much fervor, to be praying. It was a shrine to Life, as it happened: Life, who had risen in favor of late, both because of the sudden pervasiveness of Death in a variety of troublesome guises, and because it was getting on toward First-Harvest, and food—which was rarely a problem when the Kingdom was not engaged in civil war—was suddenly in short supply.

  It therefore made sense for poor clanless women—whose kind would bear the brunt of any shortages that might transpire—to haunt the fanes of that aspect of The Eight whose province was fertility. And of course it was their sons—and daughters, as well—who had borne the brunt of the recent war. And though fatalities had been few and injuries light, still, they were not to be discounted.