Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  Now the Warden asked him how he knew all this; and he answered that the tribe of White People he had first known had set him to tending such a flock, and it was only when he had proved inept at this that they had decided to pass him on over the Mountains. For, as he confessed in an eager whisper, he had once left a gate unfastened, so that the beasts ran loose and caused much uproar and damage.

  At this, the Captain and Warden exchanged looks, and the Captain said brusquely, “Good. You'll do it again,” before the Warden had time to inquire if he could do it again. But the Exile only asked when he was to do it. And the Captain answered, “Now.”

  This surprised Lethgro slightly; for with a dozen Whites gaping at them within arm's reach, he was sure she had had no chance yet to loosen Broz's bonds. But the Captain thought she was not likely to have that chance without a diversion to busy the Whites; and she thought that she could carry Broz a long way and in a considerable hurry if that was what it took to keep him alive. Besides, she had loosened one knot already.

  Now the Exile suggested meekly that if the others made as if to go back to the long house, he might slip away to the gate of the sheep pen before the Whites noticed him; and this they agreed to do. After that, they would simply try to get away in the disturbance. The Warden was not happy with this, for he feared losing the Exile; but he did not argue, reflecting that there were things more important than bringing back a prisoner to the Councils of Beng and Rotl.

  So they stood up again, Repnomar draping Broz over one shoulder so as to have her good hand ready to seize a weapon if the chance arose. “What will you have for your dinner in Rotl, Lethgro?” she asked loudly, and they began to discuss this with some vigor, turning back toward the door, so as to lead off the Whites’ attention from the Exile.

  But no sooner had the Exile begun to edge away toward the penned beasts than four or five of the White People closed up around him, nudging him back toward the house door, and one of them gripped him by the arm and threatened him with a stone. The Warden's heart sank.

  But the Captain wheeled suddenly, with a whistle that made everyone within yards of her jerk and Broz almost bounce from her shoulder, and waved her free arm with a violent downward motion. Lethgro, not waiting to find out what the result of this behavior might be, turned back and struck the White who held the Exile, a good round-armed blow to the face, and with his other hand snatched the White's thonged stone as it fell.

  Before the Captain's whistle had died away, a flash of blackness burst like a lightning stroke upon the Whites around the Exile. The Exile ducked away; shrill cries went up from the Whites; and the Warden, pausing only to use his stone on a convenient head, leaped to the end wall of the long house and set his back against its door. He looped the thong of the stone around his hand, and prepared to swing it whenever the Whites outside should recover enough to follow him.

  It was one of Repnomar's crows that had plunged to the attack, and clearly it was an uncanny thing to the White People, for they scattered from it, flailing wildly with arms and weapons and shrieking in panic. Repnomar herself took advantage of this diversion to work at Broz's bonds, and got his front legs free quickly enough. But before she could finish with the knot that held his hind legs (not much helped in her work by Broz, for in his impatience he was lunging and scrabbling in the snow) one of the Whites took note of what she was doing and rushed at her, swinging a heavy stone in a net.

  A roar burst from the Warden's throat, and he hurled his stone, thong and all; for he knew that Repnomar, with one bad arm and one bad knee, would be at grave disadvantage in a fight. He was not skilled in the throwing of such weapons, but he had a strong arm and an archer's eye, and his throw was good enough to tangle the White's legs. The Captain lunged forward to wrestle the sprawling White for either or both weapons; but before that contest had lasted long, Broz by much kicking had gotten himself free from the last of his bonds and joined in, so that Repnomar had all she could do to prevent him from killing a third White and so making himself liable to three deaths.

  Meanwhile the Warden was having his own difficulties, for two of the outside Whites had turned their attention to him (unarmed as he now was) and those within were pushing and pounding against the door. He was a good deal bigger than either of his assailants, but the stones they whirled were formidable weapons, and he could not move from the door without letting loose a horde of others. He could only duck and dodge, trying to protect his head and to grab at the whistling thongs. Indeed, nothing saved him but the crow, which left the White it had been chasing to fly in the faces of these two; and that might not have saved him for long, but for the new uproar that now burst out. The Warden lowered his arms and straightened his back against the bulging door. “Not sheep,” he said decidedly.

  The beasts stampeding toward them were not clear to see in the dimness, but it was clear enough that they were like no sheep he knew. These were not docile pack animals but uncouth and dangerous-looking brutes, rearing and bellowing as they came, tossing their pointed horns and showing great broad teeth like carpenter's chisels. One blessing, as the Warden had time to note, was that they were not very big—rather less than the size of packsheep and probably no higher than his knee. Another was that unless they were truly bloodthirsty, they might not pause in their wild rush to attack a large person plastered tightly against the end of a building. With this in mind he called loudly, “Over here, Repnomar!”

  The Captain, with a firm grip on the back of Broz's neck, was already hobbling toward him, for she had had the same thought. The crow, seeming to think it had done its duty, settled with a squawk on her shoulder. Indeed all the Whites within sight had turned to meet the onrushing beasts. “Move over, Lethgro,” the Captain said, “and give me a share of that door.”

  This the Warden was glad to do. The door of the long house—like the rest of it, so far as they could tell—was only a framework between two layers of skins; and under the shoving of the crowd within, not only the door but the whole end wall was bowed and bulging like a sail. They leaned hard against it, bracing their legs (a painful business for the Captain).

  The Whites, who had cowered and fled from a single flapping bird, were less dismayed by a herd of rampaging brutes. Indeed, they went to meet them, hooting loudly and waving their arms. But the beasts hooted more loudly still, and rolled on like a storm, sweeping around the Whites as a storm sweeps around rocks in shoal waters. Broz burst into wild barking, and the Captain raised the stone she had wrested from the White.

  Now the beasts were upon them. One after another, the oncoming brutes feinted at them with their horns and veered away to race along one side or the other of the long house—many to the left and more to the right, so that the house was an island in a river of galloping animals. But a few charged straight at them, aiming their horns maliciously. The Captain swung her weapon; the Warden, taking his cue from the Whites, waved his arms and yelled; Broz dodged and lunged; and the crow flew shrieking above them. Perhaps all this blackness (for in the dim light and the surrounding whiteness, the clothes and faces of Warden and Captain showed very dark) looked dauntingly strange to the beasts. However it was, without exception they swerved at the last possible moment, tossing up their heads with wild hoots, and merged again into the stampede.

  The Whites in the midst of that moving mass were striving to steer it, edging the current of beasts away from the houses. One of them grasped an animal's horns, throwing it down with a twist, and the whole stampede skewed away, farther to the right. But another beast, with larger horns and a crest of long hair between them, gored a White in passing, so that blood ran dark on white fur.

  Now two or three things happened at once. The Warden caught sight of a dark spot on the white field before them, which he recognized as the Exile escaping behind the beasts. The Captain became aware that Whites were emerging from the other end of the long house (though the door at her back still bulged and shook with pummeling and pushing), where they seemed to be turning the tide of
the stampede. And on that, she stepped aside, almost into the path of the beasts, and jerked at the Warden's arm, saying, “Let them out, Lethgro. Quick!”

  Lethgro, with these inducements, did not hesitate. He yanked the door broad open by the thong handle that had been cutting into his back. The door brought with it a furry tumble of Whites, those ahead stumbling or sprawling into the path of the beasts, and those behind rushing into them before they could stop themselves.

  But neither the Warden nor the Captain stayed to witness this confusion. As if with one mind they plunged into the lesser stream of animals on their left, which by now had thinned to a scatter of galloping beasts. There they were able to dodge their way between the horns, spreading confusion of their own, and reach the open snow beyond.

  This was none too soon. The flood of beasts had almost spent itself. The Warden pointed, and they ran with long strides through the snow, circling behind the herd, the Captain cursing silently at every jolt to her knee. Where the animals had run, the snow was trampled hard, and in short time they caught up with the panting Exile.

  There was little need for conversation. Before them, the land rose steeply, mounting ever darker out of sight, while still farther above there was a lightness in the sky—not the redness of sick mountains, but the wholesome light of clouds. Without a word, they set their course upward. In a little while the Exile's foot splashed into a stream, and they followed this gladly, thinking it would bring them by the swiftest route to some nearby pass. But it brought them first into dense thickets of thorny low brush, so that to travel at all they must wade along in the stream.

  From below them in the valley came a distant hubbub—the Whites dealing with their flock. It seemed to the Captain that these people, barbarous though they might be, were not a very savage lot. In the dim whiteness of the valley, the fugitives must have shown like crows on a white sand beach. Stampede or no stampede, some pursuers could surely have followed them. And whatever lead they had, the Captain reflected, was likely to lessen fast. The White People were at home in this country; no doubt they hunted these thickets and streams, and could make better time here than any stranger, let alone a limping one, so that it was some comfort to think that if they had been dead set on punishing Broz, they could have been close on his heels by now.

  The stream brought them presently to the end of the thickets, but only to offer them a worse problem, for it poured here in cold sheets down a sheer cliff face. Now the crow showed itself useful, flying back and forth above the cliff while they groped along its base in the wet, and calling them hastily to an easier slope where another stream ran through a gully. This too was overgrown with brush, by which they helped themselves along in the steepest places, grunting and swearing as they grasped the thorny stems. Between their own noises they heard what seemed like a dainty music, for the mountain tinkled everywhere with the flowing of streams; and from below still came, distant and soft, the cries of the White People and their beasts. A fine rain began, noiseless itself and yet muffling all sounds. They climbed steadily, favoring their wounds as well as they could, until they came out on a saddle of flat rock between heights. The Warden took a deep breath and nodded toward what lay before them. “Home,” he said.

  22

  Down Home

  …was perhaps an exaggeration. But it was clear to the Warden (if to no one else) that from here onward they would be moving down the light side of the Mountains, and in their lightest season. He was so warmed by this knowledge that a great smile spread across his face, and kept bursting out again when he had forced his features into a dignified expression. He had not much considered his dignity in the dark; but now that he had traveled one side of the world and more than half the other, the distance from the top of the Mountains to Sollet Castle seemed scarcely more than a step, and he felt his office about him like a familiar garment.

  Before them, the mountain fell away in dark folds and dimly lit ridges. The rocks where they stood were crusted with mossy growths, some hard and some spongy, and low brush clung to the slopes below. Right and left in front of them, other mountains rose, shutting out the view; but straight ahead they could see into a landscape of misty light. Here in the pass, the rain had changed to soft snow that melted on their faces, and the wind chilled them through; so in a little while they limped down a slope littered with broken rock, in search of shelter. But before they had gone far, a loud squawking stopped them, and the second crow (which they had not seen since before they met the White People in the dark) came with stately steps around a boulder. The Captain greeted it with a whoop of joy, whereupon it turned and paced back the way it had come, still calling.

  So they followed, and the crow (to the Captain's great pride and pleasure) led them to a spot where huge flakes and blocks cracked from the mountain's face lay tumbled together. Three or four of these, leaning heavily against each other, made a shelter large enough for all of them to creep into, with a raised floor that was even dry, though frosty. Here they settled themselves with so many groans that the Captain threw back her head and laughed. “A fine crew we are, Lethgro! I with a bad arm and a bad leg, you with a broken head, and Broz with a hornet's nest of White People after him! But at least the crows are fit enough to keep us on course.”

  Indeed they were a wretched lot, soaked through, shivering with cold, unsteady from their wounds, and weak from hunger. But they took much comfort from the light before them, and some warmth from huddling together in the shelter. And now the Exile brought forth a great chunk of cheese from under his shirt, confessing that he had got it from the White People (though it was not clear whether this was by gift or by theft). So they ate and made merry, and the Captain was only restrained from singing by the reminder that there might be Whites on their trail. This, however, none of them believed likely, so that they agreed to sleep where they were, for they sorely needed rest, and thought they were not likely to find better shelter. But they no longer had any rope with which to bind the Exile, and on this account the Warden would not allow him to stand watch, and insisted that he must be crowded into the back of the shelter, farthest from the entrance.

  The Warden himself took the first turn on guard. He was glad of a little time alone, for he had a trouble he did not want to share with the others. This was the state of his head, which was alarmingly liable to fail him at odd moments. More than once in their climb by the gully he had found himself grasping a thornbush as a drowning swimmer might blindly grasp a stalk of kelp, with no least notion of up or down, left or right, and unsure if he had clung there for an hour or a split second. He counted on the light to steady him; for it seemed to him that he had been dark-sick, as ship passengers were sometimes Soll-sick. But he moved his head very cautiously, trying out different positions, of which some gave him unpleasant pangs; and after a time he leaned his head upon his hands and began to pray very earnestly to the gods of healing.

  Whether it was by the action of gods or of sleep (when his turn came for that) he felt much steadier when he woke again, and glad that he had not confessed his weakness to the others. Now they strengthened themselves with a little more of the cheese (of which enough still remained for two or three more meals if they were frugal) and set about choosing their route through the Mountains. The crows were less useful for this than Repnomar had hoped, for they did not well understand the difficulties of land travelers, and would have led them across chasms and down sheer cliffs. Without a rope, they had to choose their path circumspectly; and without weapons or other hunting gear, their most urgent need was for food. So for the first few watches they made only slow progress, husbanding their cheese and feeling their way from one easy slope to another, backtracking often, but always drinking the light as if it were bodily nourishment. Then in their third traveling watch, the Warden at last found dry tinder, and when they camped he contrived to light a fire at which they warmed themselves luxuriously, and the Exile wept with relief. That same watch they caught fish in a pool, and so feasted.

  No
w the Exile, though grateful for the warmth and the food, grew ever more despondent; and once when the Captain had gone ahead with Broz to scout out the shape of the land, he began to plead frankly with the Warden to let him go. For he claimed that unless he could get back to his lost devices and send a message to his people, the world was in grave danger.

  This made the Warden's head ache painfully; for it confirmed his worst fears and yet left him in cruel uncertainty. It seemed likelier to him that the Exile's message would call down danger upon them from the clouds rather than fend it off; but the little man's ugly, earnest face was so pitiful that it was hard to call him a liar out and out. The Warden told himself that in all his years of experience he had never found there was more profit in listening to wild tales and fancies than in following clear duty and common sense. But he was not easy in his mind, and asked the Exile repeatedly what this danger was. And since the Exile seemed unable or unwilling to explain this, saying often that his people meant no harm to this world but were yet a danger to it, they made little headway.

  All this was heavily on Lethgro's mind when he took his turn on guard at their next camp. He had built his fire in the arrowhead-shaped cleft between two boulders, laying a roof of brush across the top of the cleft for protection against the weather. Repnomar and Broz slept beside him at the broad end, and the Exile in a doleful heap on the other side of the fire.

  It came to the Warden, as he sat brooding, that what he should have asked the Exile was, “What message would you send?” and he stood up suddenly, with those words on his lips.

  When he came to himself, after what seemed a long time of blackness, he felt as if he had drifted back to a past hour, one he would have liked to forget. Nearby he heard a soft gabbling and the growls of Broz; and when he opened one eye he saw white fur, so that he shut it again promptly. But in a few moments he had braced himself, so that he opened both eyes a little way and saw all the worst of what was happening.