Women of War (10 page)

Skalet pulled her hand from inside her coat, using both to remove her goggles. Instantly the cold hit her eyes and lashes, freezing them shut. She rubbed away the beads of ice to peer into the darkness, flinching at needles of hard, dry snow.

There.
Skalet threw herself at that dimmest of glows, refusing to believe it was anything but the rim of the door she'd left hours earlier. Seconds later, she was moving down the ramp, waist-deep in new snow but out of the wind at last. The door. Her fingers wouldn't work anymore. Sobbing with fury, tears freezing to her cheeks, Skalet fought this betrayal as she tried to open the latches.

They opened of their own accord, a figure mummified in fur blocking the light from within. With an incoherent cry, the figure caught Skalet in gloved hands and drew her inside.

The warmth, near the freezing point, was an exquisite agony. Skalet shuddered on the iced floor, gulping air that didn't burn her lungs. The figure pulled off hood and goggles, becoming Maven-ro.

She crouched beside Skalet. “So the Icicle can freeze after all,” she shook her head. “Give your report then get to medical. Scan's gone down at the worst possible time. I'm off to see what I can do about it.”

“No ... no point,” Skalet wasn't vain about her voice as a Human, but even she was shocked by its reed-thin sound. She got to her knees, wheezing: “The array ... it's collapsed ... the storm. Guide line's ripped loose ...”

Maven-ro's face paled beneath its tattoo, but her mouth formed a firm line. “It is our privilege to serve. The fleet relies on us, S'kal-ru.” She stood, replacing her goggles and hood. “I must see what can be done.”

With her better hand, Skalet found and held the other's sleeve, used it to pull herself to her feet. What she hoped were feet—she couldn't feel them. She didn't understand why she felt compelled to stop the Kraal; a flaw in this form, perhaps. “There's duty and there's being a fool. You told me that, Maven-ro.” She staggered and Maven-ro was forced to steady her. “Dare you think I would give up and return if there was any hope of restoring the array?”

Maven-ro lowered her head. She dragged off her goggles with one hand, keeping the other firm on Skalet's belt. “Forgive me, S'kal-ru. There are none braver—” Her fingers flattened protectively over the tattoo on her cheek; her eyes, haunted, lifted to meet Skalet's. “But now I fear the worst.”

Hands and feet bandaged with dermal regenerators, which with typical Kraal sensibility did nothing to relieve pain, Skalet was in no mood for company. But her visitor that outpost night wasn't one she could refuse, however dangerous.

The courier waved the med tech from the tiny clinic. “Have you heard, S'kal-ru?”

The surprise attack, the ragged desperate signals, and incoming casualty lists had silenced the domes. Kraal walked in a daze, huddled in anguished groups, worried about their future, their affiliations. Except this one. “You brought down your own House,” Skalet observed, curious. Under the blanket, her bandaged fingers gripped a knife.

The courier smiled. Her age-spotted fingers lifted to the mask of tattoos on her face, selected one. “With you as my poison, I have cleaned it of those who would have destroyed it. Bryll will rise to prominence once more.”

“I don't doubt it.”

“But you doubt your own future.”

Skalet smiled thinly. “I'm a realist. With what I know, I should prepare to disappear.” Which, given transport and a moment unobserved with some living mass, S'kal-ru the Kraal would do.

The old woman's eyes narrowed to slits. “Let go the knife. You are of more value than risk to me.”

A figure of speech? Then again, a noble who aged in this society would be no fool at all. Skalet brought her empty hand above the blanket.

“Good. I have another future for you to consider, S'kalru. I warn you. It means none of the comforts of homeworld or hearth. No lineages sprung from your flesh.”

“I don't seek such things.”

“No. No, I believe you don't. Yet you embody all that Kraal aspires to be, which is why I won't see you wasted.” As Skalet twitched, the tattoos around the other's lips writhed. A smile, perhaps. “Hear me out.”

“I'm at your command, Your Eminence.”

“The Noble Houses must communicate, one to the other, even in times of distrust and blood debt. To this end exist such as I, individuals of such clear honor we are given extraordinary latitude without hesitation. There are no watches on our comings and goings. No impediments to our actions; no constraint beyond affiliation. We are few, but we are crucial to the survival of our civilization, as you have seen. I would have you train as my successor, S'kal-ru.” The old Kraal moved her hand slowly, carefully, toward Skalet's cheek. Involuntarily, Skalet reared her head back and away. Then, for no reason save self-preservation, she froze to permit the touch. Cold, dry fingers traced the fake tattoo once, lightly. “This might pass muster here, but never on a Kraal world. If you permit me, I will make it real. A ninth-level affiliation through me to House Bract, today's power. What do you say, Icicle?”

To be secretive yet a decision-maker, to be needed for her abilities, not just as another collector of dry facts and genetic information.

Skalet found a way to bow gracefully, even lying down.

“I take it you finished.” Ersh tumbled to where I stood staring out the window. Picco's orange reflection cast shadows the color of drying blood. I found it singularly appropriate.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “It's called seduction, isn't it? When you are brought to desire something until it's impossible to refuse it.”

“Apt enough.” A chime that might have been pleasure. Or impatience. The tones were regrettably similar. “Skalet might not have grown so—attached—to this culture, had she not been taught to thrive in it.”

“Thrive?” I growled. “She's responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

“That's what war is, Youngest,” Ersh agreed. “A uniquely ephemeral conceit, to settle disputes by ending life.”

“Then why? Why do you let Skalet continue? Why not send Ansky or the others?”

“Why tolerate insolence?” I acknowledged the rebuke by lifting my ears, which had plastered themselves to my skull in threat when I wasn't paying attention. Ersh touched a fingertip to the stone sill of the window and the bell-like sound echoed from the corners of the room.
Apology accepted.
“Skalet's mission to the Kraal outpost was her first successful interaction with another species. It has been her only success. She can spy on any species, glean information from a host of cultures, but fails every time to get closer. Except with the Kraal. So you see, Youngling, it is not always simple to decide which of your Web-kin goes where. It matters where they feel they can belong.”

I had to assume Ersh was telling me something important, but it made no sense. “Skalet wants to belong to the Kraal?”

Ersh didn't often laugh as a Tumbler. The species was prone to a more taciturn outlook. But now she tinkled like a rush of wind through icicles. “Esen-alit-Quar. You have so much to learn. Skalet may be obsessed with the Kraal and this form, but she is one of us above all else. She would never forge true bonds outside our Web.”

I shuddered at the thought, heretical and yet attractive, in the way sharp edges attract fingertips. There was a trap I would avoid at all costs. Along with war.

Like many young beings, I would have to wait for the future to prove me wrong.

THE LATE SUMMER SUN shone down on the fruit-laden orchards of Armagh, dappling the flanks of the hound pack racing through the trees in otherworldly silence; not hunting but simply running for the sheer joy of laying paws to earth. In the lead, Fothran and Pepitain, the alpha male and female hounds of Goll mac Morna, Sub-Captain of the Fianna of Ulaidh, ran as effortlessly as the wind, their ruddy pelts flashing in the sun like fire. Behind them, Sarrack, long-legged hound of Cunnaun, ran beside Garra's huge, tan-pelted Camlan and spotted Droga of the Bard Daighre—old and gray-muzzled, but still fast and strong. Making up the bulk of the pack behind came the hounds of the Ulaidh Fianna: siblings Farran and Daol always together, black-pelted Derkame and Deealath, golden-flanked Gloss, and tangle-coated Fooam with her whelp of the same name, leading a dozen more of every size, shape; and description. In their midst, the enchanted children of Diardin, members of the Fianna all, white pelts and red-tipped ears betraying their Sidhe blood, ran together with their own mortal hounds close behind.

Keeping pace beside her older siblings Isien and Tierney, Brae Diardin ran as if nothing in the world existed beyond the wind whistling through her ears and the rich scent of sun-warmed earth and flowers mingling with the heady odors of the dog pack all around her. She wanted to bark and howl and jump high in the air with the thrill of it. With a double skip, she suddenly veered sideways, leaping straight over her younger brother Cullen—just fifteen and newly accepted into the Fianna—then put on a burst of speed and danced away as he snapped at her flank. She could have run for days but all too soon Goll's high, piercing whistle called them back to camp. Fothran and Pepitain turned in a wide arc and, behind them, the pack flowed through the trees like so many streams of fur and flashing collars of gold and silver.

They reached the outskirts of the Fianna's summer encampment within minutes, the children of Diardin and their hounds breaking off at the edge of the orchards. One moment four white and four brindle-colored dogs milled about; the next, four long-legged, copper-haired youths sprawled on the ground, laughing and panting with their hounds dancing about beside them. Ever practical Isien immediately made for the place they'd hidden their clothes while Tierney aimed a punch at Cullen. The younger brother avoided it neatly, then tripped over a small hillock and went straight over backward. Laughing, Brae walked a few paces away, enjoying the feel of the wind on her skin and the last of the scents of field and woods that slowly faded from her mortal senses.

She noticed the heavy-set man standing in the nearby copse of ash trees long before he tossed her a tunic with a disapproving snort.

She grinned widely at him. “Thanks, Cunnaun, it's Tierney's.” She threw the tunic at her older brother, ignoring the egregious frown of her battalion's Sub-Captain with practiced ease. “Are you looking for Sarrack?”

He glowered at her. “I was looking for you and the rest of your irresponsible kindred,” he growled, then grunted as his own hound stuffed her nose into his groin. “Yes, and you too, you fickle little wretch.” He fondled the dog's ears before turning a new scowl on the children of Diardin. “And have been for the past hour,” he continued. “Put some clothes on, for Anu's sake; I need to talk to you.”

Accepting the tunic Isien held out to her, Brae cocked her head to one side. “Is there word from Tara?”

He shook his head. “From Glencolumbkille in Donegal. A vast company of strange, martial creatures were seen rising from the sea two days ago.”

“Creatures?” Isien asked.

He nodded as Tierney and Cullen ambled over to join them. “Some were like men but thin and twisted like blighted branches; others were the size of trees and as broad across.”

“Giants?”

“Could be. Apparently they had green beards and long, flowing hair, like strands of kelp.”

“
Sea
giants.”

“Again, could be. The messenger didn't see them herself; she just has the word of a terrified villager from Stranoran. Goll wants a scouting party sent to check it out. One that's fast and silent. Naturally I thought of you.” He glanced over at the four youths, noting with a frown that the two brothers were now attacking each other with rolled up tunics. “For the fast, anyway. You're to leave at once and be back by dusk tomorrow at the very latest. I need two minimum,” he said, holding up two large, scarred fingers.

“I'll go,” Brae offered at once. “We've been here too long already and I'm bored.”

“Count me in. I'm bored too,” Tierney added, catching Cullen's head in the crook of one arm.

“You're not leaving me behind,” his brother warned in a muffled voice.

Cunnaun cast an expectant glance at Isien, who stretched languidly before raising a copper-colored eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Only three eager volunteers among Diardin's heirs?” he asked in a sarcastic voice.

She glanced over at her siblings, who gave her three equally wide grins, then sighed. “I suppose. I
had
wanted a bath and a nap. And what are you doing?” she demanded as Brae began to pull her tunic off again.

The younger woman blinked at her. “If we go in hound form we can run on four feet the whole way,” she answered. “It's faster.”

“And spy on the enemy without weapons or clothing,” Isien replied caustically. “It's stupider.”

Tierney threw one arm over his birth-mate's shoulder. “Ah, c'mon, Sis, you know it's ... funner.”