Doomstalker (30 page)

They were weak, these wild silth and wehrlen. Poorly trained. But in the aggregate they were able to summon the ghosts to them and so deny the Akard sisters access to their most potent defense.

Marika sought a focus, one strong silth controlling the group. Sometimes her Akard sisters linked under the control of the senior to meld into a more powerful whole.

A greater whole there was here, but not under any immediately evident central direction.

Straining her ghost, Marika picked a female and plucked at her heart.

The distance was too extreme. She was able to injure the wild silth but not to kill her.

Might that not be enough?

She moved among the nomads rapidly, stinging, and for a moment they lost control. A moment was enough. The ghosts scattered, driven by some mad pressure.

Marika felt her hold on her self growing tenuous. She had strained it too much. She hurried back to Akard. She was a moment slow getting though her loophole, and nearly panicked. There were stories about silth who did not get back. Terrible stories. Some might be true.

It took a moment to get oriented in her flesh.

She opened her eyes to discover the nomad rifle fire grown ragged, to the sight of nomads fleeing toward the woods, and many not making it.

This was the slaughter Gorry had prophesied and insisted would be visited upon the savage.

Feebly, Marika attained her feet and made her way toward Senior Koenic. The senior was out of body when she arrived. She waited till her elder came back from the place of ghosts. When the senior’s eyes focused Marika reported all that she had seen and done.

“You are a strong one, pup,” Koenic said while a nearby Gorry scowled at such praise. “I sensed them out there myself, but I did not have the strength to reach them. Will you be able to do it again?”

“I am not certain, mistress. Not right away. It is an exhausting thing to do.” She was shaking with fatigue.

Senior Koenic stared out across the snowfields. “Already they begin to gather those-who-dwell to them again. Soon they will resume their attack. In an hour, perhaps. Marika, go down into the deepest cells, where their weapons cannot reach you. Rest. Do not come back up, for you are our final weapon and you must not be risked. When you are ready, scourge them again.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Gorry glowered, angered because her pupil should receive so much direct and positive attention. A glance told Marika that her instructress was scheming to take advantage of the day. She would have to watch her back. The moment the danger receded...

Senior Koenic mused, “Those of us who can will seize what you give us and punish the savages. They may take Akard from the Reugge, but they will pay dearly for the theft.”

Marika was surprised at such negativity in the senior. It frightened her.

Grauel appeared from somewhere unseen. Marika felt pleased, restored, knowing her packmate was watching over her. The huntress followed her down into the courtyard, where bombs had destroyed everything not constructed of the most massive stone. In a strained, flat tone, Grauel said, “We had four years, Marika. Four more than seemed likely when last the nomad threatened us.”

“Yes? You, too? Even you have surrendered to despair?” She could think of nothing else to say. “Express my regards to Barlog.”

“I will. She will not be far away.”

Marika passed through the great hall. It was a shambles. The overhead windows had been shattered by bombs. Its interior had been damaged badly. Though there had never been much in that chamber not made of stone, a few small fires burned there, being fought by worker pups too young to make a stand upon the wall. Marika paused to watch.

The word seemed to have run ahead. The pups looked at her in awe and fear and hope. She shook her head, afraid that too many meth, for whatever reason, had suddenly invested all their hopes in her.

It did not follow logically in her mind that because she had aborted the savage strategy once she should become the heartpiece of the packfast’s defense.

While she stood there she thought of going to the communications center to see what news Braydic had, in hopes there would be a hope from Maksche, but she decided she would be drained too much by the electromagnetic fog. If she was to be the great champion of Akard — foolish as that seemed to her — then she must conserve herself.

She went down to her own cell, not as deep inside the fortress as Senior Koenic might have liked, but deep enough to be safe from bombs, and psychologically more comfortable than anyplace but her retreat upon the wall.

Chapter Fourteen

I

Jiana! You have brought this upon Akard and the Reugge.

Marika started out of her resting trance, shaken by the touch. What?...

Someone scratched at her cell door. She sat up. “Enter.”

Barlog came in. She carried a tray laden with hot, high-energy food. “You’d better eat, Marika. I hear the silth need much energy to work their witchery.”

The smell of food made Marika realize how hungry she was, how depleted her energies were. “Yes. You are wise, Barlog. I had not thought of it.”

“What is the trouble, pup? You seem distracted.”

She was. It was that touch. She took the tray without answering, dug in. Barlog stationed herself beside the door, beaming approval like a fussy old male.

Another scratch. Barlog met Marika’s eye. Marika nodded. Barlog opened the door.

Grauel stepped inside, apparently relieved to see Barlog there. She carried a whole arsenal of weapons: shield, sword, knives, heavy spear, javelins, even a bow and arrows, which would be useless inside the fortress’s tight corridors. Amused, Marika asked, “What are you supposed to be?”

“Your guardian.”

“Yes?”

Grauel understood. “The old one. Gorry. She is saying wicked things about you.”

“Such as?”

“She is walking the walls calling you doomstalker. She is telling everyone that the nomads have come down upon Akard because of you. She is telling everyone that you are accursed. She is saying that to end the threat the packfast must rid itself of the Jiana.”

“Indeed?” That was a change from moments ago. “I thought that the senior had designated me Akard’s great hope.”

“There is that school of thought, too. Among the younger silth and huntresses. Especially those who have shared the hunt with you. Arhdwehr follows her around, giving the lie to all she says. But there are those among the oldest silth who live in myth and mystery and hear only the magic in Gorry’s claims. One savage packstead pup is a cheap price to pay for salvation.”

“It is sad,” Marika said. “We have ten thousand enemies howling outside the walls, so we divide against ourselves.”

Grauel said, “I know huntresses who have served the Reugge elsewhere. They say it is ever thus among silth. Always at one another’s throats — from safely behind the back. This time could be dangerous. There is much anxiety and much fear and a great desire for a cheap, magical solution. I will stand guard.”

“I, too,” Barlog said.

“As you will. Though I think you two would be of more value upon the wall.”

Neither huntress said a word. Each had a stubborn look that said no command would return them to the wall while they fancied Marika threatened. Barlog took weapons from Grauel. After a last look at their charge, the two stepped outside.

Marika wondered if a bomb would blast them away from her door.

She did feel more secure, knowing they were there.

She ate, and returned to her resting trance.

Jiana. Your time is coming,

Angrily, Marika flung back, Someone’s time is near. The grauken is about to snap at someone’s tail. She felt Gorry reel under the impact of the unexpected response. She felt Gorry’s terror.

She was pleased.

Yes. Someone’s time was near, be it hers or that of the mad old instructress.

For a time Marika had difficulty resting. Memories of kagbeasts and other surprise horrors kept creeping into her mind.

II

She felt the bombs falling in the far distance, sending muted vibrations running through Akard’s roots. The nomads were back. Their silth had recovered control of the ghost realm. She ignored the sounds, remained calm, waited till she had regained her full strength. Then she probed out through the cold stone, searching for a suitable ghost.

The hunt took much longer this time. In time she captured a weaker one and rode it farther afield in her search. And it was while she hunted that she witnessed the disaster on the Husgen.

The third dam, the far dam, up the Husgen several miles, erupted suddenly. A wild volcano of ice and snow went charging down the river, driven by the reservoir water. So mighty was its charge that it smashed through the ice upon the middle lake, poured over the face of the middle dam, gnawed at its foundations where it abutted the canyon walls, and broke it, too. The combined volume of two lakes rushed toward the final dam.

The disaster seemed to occur in slowed motion because of its scale. Marika had ample time to grow angry.

Her anger, perhaps, allowed her to scale another barrier, as she had done during the attack upon the Degnan packstead. She found she was able to detect the presence of a far, strong ghost. She called it to her, mounted it, took it under control as the fury in the canyon reached the third dam, broke it, swamped the powerhouse, and bit deep into the face of the bluff on which Akard stood, so that great pillars of stone collapsed into the flood, taking a section of fortress wall with them. Several score huntresses, silth, and dependents tumbled down with the wall.

Whipped by rage, Marika drove her ghost steed out to the gathering of nomad silth. She hit them the way a kagbeast hit a herd of banger, slaughtering everything in reach. There would be time to savor and linger over the kill later.

Once again the nomad silth lost their concentration. And once again Marika’s strength expired and she had to race back to her self, past the second rout of the besiegers, who were scourged much more terribly this time.

This time, as she parted from the wild silth gathering, Marika did sense the presence of a central control, a trained silth. But this control was stationed far from the main gathering, directing them from both safety and anonymity in the eyes of the sisters of Akard.

A trained silth, yes, certainly. And a powerful one. Perhaps the Serke guiding influence the senior suspected, and. so wanted to capture.

Perhaps she was the key, Marika thought.

Marika slipped into her own flesh and lay there gasping.

“Are you ill, pup?”

Grauel was bending over her, face taut with concern.

“No. It is hard work, making the silth magic. Bring me some sweetened tea. A lot of sweetened tea.” Her head was pounding. “Make it one cup of goyin to begin.” She tried to sit up. Grauel had to help her. “I stopped them, Grauel. For a while. But they destroyed the dams.”

She wondered what Braydic was doing now she could get no more power from the powerhouse. What would they be thinking down in Maksche? Would loss of contact force them to move finally? When it was too late?

Grauel went for the teas while Barlog stood in the doorway, heavy spear in one paw, sword in the other. When Marika gave her a querying look, she said only, “Gorry has found a new slander to spread. She is accusing you of murdering Khles Gibany, and of trafficking with males.”

An accusation that would be hard to deny, Marika realized. Anyone who had been trying to help Gibany weather the agony of burning would have realized a tradermale projectile had ended her trial.

Senior Koenic came down soon after Grauel returned with the teas. It seemed an age since she had come back to flesh, but it could not have been more than fifteen minutes. “You did very well this time, pup.” There was a light in the senior’s eyes that baffled Marika. Mixed fear and respect, she supposed.

“Senior... Senior, I think I touched a true silth that time. She was beyond the nomads, hiding, but I am sure she was fully trained and exceptionally strong. And there was an alien flavor about her.”

“Ah! Good news and dark. We may not die in vain. I must relay this to Maksche immediately, before Braydic’s reserve power fails. It is not proof, but it is one more hint that the Serke are moving against us.” She vanished in a swish of dark clothing.

Marika allowed the goyin free run and lay back to sleep. Many hours passed while her body recovered from the drain she had placed upon it. When she finally awakened, she was instantly aware that there was fighting inside the packfast proper. Panicky, she dove through her loophole and explored.

Nomad huntresses had gotten inside, coming around the end of the wall where it had collapsed. More were coming all the time, despite the arrows of Akard’s huntresses and the rifles of the tradermales. Two thousand nomads lay dead upon the snowfields, but still they came, and still they died. They were a force as unstoppable as winter itself.

It was insanity. It was nothing any meth of the upper Ponath could have imagined in her worst nightmare. It was blood-soaked reality.

Most of the day had passed. It was late. If she could turn the attack once more, Akard would have the night to recuperate, to counterattack, to something. Night was the world of the silth...

Grauel and Barlog heard her stirring. They looked in. “Finally coming around?” Barlog asked.

“Yes. You look awful. You need some rest.”

“No. We have to guard this door.” And there was that in Barlog’s stance which said that the guardianship had been tested, though the huntress appeared unwilling to say how.

Grauel said, “There are those now willing to appease the All with the sacrifice of a doomstalker.”

“Oh.”

Just the slightest hint of fear edged Barlog’s voice as she asked, “Is there anything you can do to stop the nomads, Marika? They are inside the packfast now.”

“I was about to do what I can. Try to have me some tea and food here when I come back.”

“It will be here,” Grauel promised.

Marika slipped through her loophole. Desperately, she hunted for an appropriate ghost. And the thing she finally found was a monster, discovered hovering high above the packfast. It never had occurred to her to seek upward before. A set of mind she realized was shared by all the silth she knew. All were surface oriented.