Doomstalker

Chapter Six

I

Morning came. Marika awakened disoriented. Where were the noises of a loghouse beginning its day? The clatter, the chatter, the bickering were absent. The place was as still as death. Marika remembered. Remembered and began to whine.

She heard footsteps. Someone stopped behind her. She remained facing the wall. What a time to spend her first night in huntress's territory!

A paw touched her. "Pup? Marika?"

She rolled, looked into Grauel's face. She did not like Grauel. The huntress from Gerrien's loghouse had no pups of her own. She was very short with others' young. There was something indefinably wrong about her.

But this was a different Grauel, a changed Grauel, a Grauel battered by events. A Grauel shocked into gentleness and concern. "Come, Marika. Get up. It is time to eat. Time to make decisions."

Barlog was doing the cooking. Marika was amazed.

She surveyed her home. It seemed barren without the jostle and snarl. All outsiders surrounding the firepit. How many outsiders had ever eaten here? Very few.

And a huntress cooking. Times were odd, indeed.

The food was what one might expect of a huntress who had cooked only a few times in her life, and then in the field. A simple stew. But Marika's mouth watered anyway. She had not eaten since dawn the day before. Yet she did not gobble what Barlog handed her. She ate slowly, reluctant to get to what must follow. Yet the meal did end. Marika clasped her hands across her full stomach as Grauel said, "We three must decide what we will do now."

Barlog nodded.

Last of the Degnan. Last of the richest pack of the upper Ponath. Some things did not have to be said. They could not wait for summer, then take new males and begin breeding back up. Especially as Grauel could not bear pups. There were no Wise to teach, no males to manage the packstead. Of food and firewood and such there was such a plentitude that that wealth was a handicap in itself.

Times were hard. If the nomads themselves did not come first, some pack left in tight straits by them would discover the wealth here and decide to plunder. Or move in. Two huntresses and a pup could not hold the palisade. Not unless the silth from the packfast stayed. And did so for years.

Marika suspected even a few days were out of the question.

Silently, she cursed the All. She stared into the embers at the bottom of the firepit, thinking of the wealth in iron and stores and furs that would be lost simply because the Degnan could not defend them.

Neighbors or nomads. There were plenty of both who would commit murder gladly now. Winter was ahowl and the grauken was loose in the world.

A few nomads had escaped the massacre yesterday. Marika did not doubt that there were others scattered about the upper Ponath. Were they gathering? Might their scouts be at Stapen Rock, watching, knowing the packstead could be taken easily once the strangers departed?

That was the worst of it. Thinking the nomads might get everything after all.

Grauel was speaking to her. She pricked up her ears. "What? I was thinking."

"I said the sisters offered us a place in their packfast." Loathing under strict control tautened Grauel's voice. These meth were the silth whom Marika's dam and granddam and Pohsit had so hated.

But why?

Grauel continued, "We have no choice if we wish to survive. Barlog agrees. Perhaps we can take new males and begin the line afresh when you have reached mating age."

Marika shook her head slowly. "Let us not lie to ourselves, Grauel. The Degnan are dead. Never will we grow strong enough to recover this packstead from those who claim it."

She had wanted to see the stone packfast inhabited by these meth called silth. But not at this price. "Run to the Laspe, Grauel," she said. "Tell them. For a while, at least, let our wealth aid someone who shares our misery. They will have a better chance of holding it. And they will become indebted, so we would have a place to return one day."

The silth, seated a short distance away, were paying no attention. Indeed, they seemed preoccupied with the male end of the loghouse. They whispered to one another, then did pay attention, as if very much interested in the huntresses' response to Marika's suggestion.

Grauel and Barlog were startled by the notion. It had not occurred to them, and probably could not have. Two packs sharing a stead was not unheard of, but it was rare.

Grauel nodded reluctantly. Barlog said, "She is as smart as her dam was." She rose.

Grauel snapped at her. For a moment they argued over who would carry the message.

Marika realized that both wanted to get away from the packstead and its uncompromising reminders of disaster.

"Both of you go. That will be safer. There are nomads around still."

The huntresses exchanged looks, then donned their coats. They were gone in moments.

For a long time the silth did nothing but sit staring into the firepit, as though trying to read something in the coals. Marika collected the eating utensils. As she cleaned them and stowed them away, the silth kept glancing at her. Occasionally, one whispered to the other. Finally, the tall one said, "It is time. She has not sensed it." She came and got one of the bowls Marika had cleaned, filled it from the pot, carried it to the trap closing the cellar belonging to the loghouse males. She set the bowl down, opened the trap, blew aroma into the darkness below. Then she retreated, looking amused.

Marika stopped working, wondering what was happening.

A wrinkled, meatless, gray old paw appeared. Marika frowned. Not even Horvat ...

A head followed the paw fearfully.

"Pohsit!" Marika said.

Pure venom smoldered in the sagan's eyes. She snatched the bowl and started to retreat into the cellar.

"Stop," the tall silth ordered. "Come out."

Pohsit froze. She retreated no farther, but neither did she do as directed.

"Who is this, pup?"

"Pohsit," Marika replied. "Sagan of this loghouse."

"I see." The silth's tone said more than her words. It said that the feeling the sagan had for those of the packfast was reciprocated. "Come out of there, old fraud. Now."

Shaking, Pohsit came up. But she stopped when her feet cleared the cellar stair. She stared at the silth in stark terror.

For an instant Marika was amused. For the first time in her young life, she saw the sagan at a genuine disadvantage. And yet, there Pohsit stood, even while shaking, with her paw making slow trips from bowl to mouth with spoonfuls of stew.

"That is the male end of the loghouse, is it not, pup?" the taller silth demanded.

"Yes," Marika replied in a small voice. Pohsit was looking at her still, still poisonous with promise.

The sagan staggered. Her bowl and spoon slipped from her paws. Those flew to her temples. She screamed, "No! Get out of my head! You filthy witches. Get out."

The screaming stopped. Pohsit descended like a dropped hide, folding in upon herself. And for a moment Marika gaped. That was the exact rag pile she had seen during the night when she was not sure whether or not she was dreaming.

Had Pohsit been up here then? But the silth seemed surprised by her presence. Seemed to have discovered her only recently.

No sense here ...

But she had seen her dam, too, hadn't she? And Pobuda. And many others who could not have been there because they were all dead. Or was that a dream?

Marika began to shake, afraid that she had begun to lose her grip on reality.

The alternative, that at times she was not quite firmly anchored in the river of time, she pushed out of mind the instant it occurred. That was too frightening even to contemplate.

"Just as I thought," the taller silth said. "Terror. Pure cowardice. She hid down there thinking the savages would not look for her there."

Hatred smoldered in the eyes that peeped out of the skin pile.

Marika sensed an opportunity to repay all the evil Pohsit had tried to do her. She had only to appeal to these meth. But Pohsit was Degnan. Crazy, malicious, poisonous, hateful, but still closer than any outsiders.

Grauel and Barlog would be pleased to learn that one of the Wise, and a sagan at that, had survived.

As though touching her thoughts, the older silth asked, "What shall we do with her, pup?" Marika now knew them for the creatures her elders had muttered against, but still did not know what silth were.

"Do? What do you mean, do?" She wished they would give names, so she could fix them more certainly in mind. But when she asked, they just evaded, saying their names were of no consequence. She got the feeling they were not prepared to trust her with their names. Which made no sense at all. The only other outsiders she had met, the wandering tradermales, insisted on giving you their names the moment they met you.

"We have looked into this one's mind. We know it as we know our own now." A whine escaped Pohsit. "We know how she tormented you. We know she would have claimed your life had she the chance. How would you requite such malice?"

The question truly baffled Marika. She did not want to do anything, and they must understand that. One did not demand vengeance upon the Wise. They were soon enough in the embrace of the All.

The older silth whispered, "She is too set in savage ways." But Marika overheard.

The other shrugged. "Consider the circumstances. Might we not all forgive our enemies in a like situation?"

There was something going on that Marika could not grasp. She was not sure if that was because she was yet too young to understand, or because these silth were too alien to comprehend.

She had been convinced that Pohsit was mad for at least a year. Now the sagan delivered final proof.

Pohsit hurled herself out of the rag pile at Marika. An iron knife flashed, its brightness dulled by traceries of Bhlase's poison. Marika made a feeble squealing sound and tried to crawl out of the way. Her effort was ineffective.

But Pohsit did not strike. She continued forward, bent at the waist, upper body way ahead of her feet. Her legs did not work right. Marika was reminded of a marionette one of the tradermales used to demonstrate at the night fire after the day's business was complete. The sagan had that same goofy, flailing gait.

It carried her the length of the loghouse and into the wall a few feet to one side of the doorway.

Marika watched the old meth rise slowly, a whimper sliding between her teeth. She faced around and met the cold stares of the silth, thinking of trying again. In a moment she put the thought out of mind.

Pohsit's behavior made no more sense than ever.

"What shall we do with her, pup?"

Still Marika would offer the sagan no harm. She shook her head. "Nothing ... I do not understand her. I do not hate her. Yet she hates me."

"That is the way of the false when faced with the true. You know you will not be safe while she lives."

Fear animated Pohsit now, and Marika suddenly knew the silth were right: she had hidden in the male fane out of cowardice. "Pohsit. Pohsit. What do you fear? You are so old death must be a close friend."

A spark of hatred for a moment glimmered through Pohsit's terror. But she did and said nothing more. Marika turned her back. "Let her do what she will. It is all the same to me."

The silth began ignoring Pohsit as studiously as did Marika. After a time the sagan quietly donned a coat-someone else's, way too big for her-and slipped out of the loghouse. Marika saw the tall silth nod slightly to the older.

She did not understand that till much later.

II

The silth questioned Marika about her talent. How had she grown aware that she was unusual? How had her talent manifested itself? They seemed convinced it would have caused her grave troubles had she let it become known.

"Your dam should have brought you to the packfast years ago. You and your littermates. As all pups are to be brought. It is the law."

"I know little about the packfast and the law," Marika replied. "Except that not many meth pay attention to either here in the upper Ponath. I have heard many jests made at the expense of that law. And I have heard our teacher, Saettle, say we came into the Ponath to escape the law."

"No doubt." The taller silth was extremely interested in Machen Cave. She kept returning to that. She asked Marika to be more specific about her experiences. Marika related each in as much detail as she could recall.

"You seem a little uncertain about something. As though there is more that you are afraid to tell."

"There is more," Marika admitted. "I just do not know if you will believe me."

"You might be surprised, pup. We have seen things your packmates would deny can exist." This was the older silth. Marika was not entirely comfortable with that one. In her way, she had a feel very like Pohsit. And she evidently had the power to be as nasty as Pohsit wished she could be.

"The last time I was there I really was not there. If you see what I mean."

The tall silth said, "We do not see. Why do you not just tell it?"

"The other night. When dam and the others went out to raid the nomads. They were up at Machen Cave with a big bonfire and all their Wise doing some kind of ceremony. Anyway, I followed dam through the touch. It was stronger than ever. I could see and hear everything she saw and heard." She choked on her words, eyed the silth oddly.

"You have remembered something."

"Yes. There was one of your kind there. With the nomads ... "

Both silth rose suddenly. The tall one began pacing. The other hovered over Marika, staring down intently.

"Did I say something wrong? Did I offend?"

"Not at all," the tall one said. "We were startled and distressed. A sister like ourselves, you say? Tell us more."

"There is little to tell. Dam and Gerrien attacked the nomads. Most of them panicked and fled. But suddenly this one meth, dressed like you almost, appeared out of nowhere, and-"

"Literally?"

"Excuse me?"

"She materialized? In fact? She did not just step from behind a tree or something?"

"No. I do not think so. She just appeared right in front of dam and Gerrien. She pointed something at them, then cursed it. It seemed like it was supposed to do something and did not. Then she tried to club them with it. Dam and Gerrien killed her. It was a strange weapon. All of metal."

The silth exchanged glances. "All of metal, eh? Where is this Machen Cave? I think we would be very interested in this metal club."

"Machen Cave is north. Several hours. But you do not have to go there. Dam brought the club home."

Excitement sparked between the silth. "Indeed? Where is it now, then?"

"I will have to find it. Dam put it away somewhere. She said she would trade the metal to the tradermales. Or maybe we could fashion tools from it."

"Find it, please."

While she talked Marika had begun setting the inside of the loghouse in order. When she kept paws and mouth busy, she did not have to think about what lay outside the loghouse. She continued distracting herself by searching for Skiljan's trophy. "Here it is."

The tall meth took it. Both sat down, facing one another, the metal club between them. They passed it back and forth, examined it minutely, even argued over a few small writing characters stamped into one side. They did so, though, in a language Marika did not understand. By the cautious way they handled the thing, Marika decided it was a dangerous something they had seen but never before touched.

"It is very important that you recall every detail about this meth you saw. The one who carried this club. It is certain she was our enemy. If we can identify her pack, by her clothing, say, we will be better equipped to protect our own. There should be no silth with the nomads."

"There should be no wehrlen either," said the older silth. "A wehrlen come out of nowhere, with skills as advanced as our own, or nearly so. This is an impossibility."

The taller meth was thoughtful a moment. "That is true." She looked at Marika intently. "Where does this Machen Cave lie again?" And Marika felt something brush her mind, a touch far lighter than that she had experienced the night the far silth had responded to her probing of the packfast. "Ah. So. Yes. Sister, I am going to go there after all. To see if the bodies remain. You learn what you can from the wehrlen."

The older silth nodded. She went out of the loghouse immediately.

The other dallied a moment, looking at Marika, saying nothing. Finally, she too departed, scratching Marika behind the ear lightly as she went. "It will all work out, pup. It will all work out."

Marika did not respond. She sat down and stared into the coals in the firepit. But she found no clues there.

III She straightened the inside of the loghouse a bit more, moving in a daze. When she could find nothing more to preoccupy her there, she donned her coat. She had to go outside sometime and face the truth. No sense putting it off any longer.

It was every bit as terrible as she remembered, and worse. The carrion eaters had gathered. It would be a fat winter for them.

Though it was pointless, she began the thankless task of cleaning the packstead. One by one, straining her small frame to its limits, she dragged the frozen corpses of her packmates into the lean-to sheds. They would be safe from the carrion eaters there. For a time.

Near the doorway to Gerrien's loghouse she came on something that made her stop, stand as still as death for a long time.

Pohsit. Dead. Sprawled, one arm outstretched as if beseeching the loghouse, the other at her heart, her paw a claw. When Marika finally tore her gaze away she saw the elder silth in the mouth of the stockade spiral, watching.

Neither said a word.

Marika bent and caught hold of Pohsit's arm and dragged her into a lean-to with the others. Maybe, just a little, she had begun to understand what "silth" meant, and why her elders cursed and feared them.

Sometimes she could not reach her packmates because they were buried beneath dead nomads. Those she dragged around the spiral to the field outside, where she left them to the mercy of the carrion eaters. The wehrlen, she noted, had been both moved and stripped. The elder silth had searched him thoroughly.

There was no end to the gruesome task. So many bodies ... When her muscles began to protest, she rested by gathering fallen weapons instead, moving them near the doorway of her dam's loghouse, laying them out neatly by type, as if for inventory. She had tried to strip the better furs from the dead, too, but that had proven too difficult. The bodies would have to be thawed first.

Always the carrion eaters surrounded her. They would not learn to remain outside the stockade. They flapped away, squawking, only when she came within kicking distance. She sealed her ears to their bickering over tidbits. Listening might have driven her mad.

She was more than a little mad anyway. She drove herself mercilessly, carrying out a task without point.

After a time the taller silth returned, loping gracefully and easily upon the dirtied snow. She carried a folded garment similar to her own. She joined the other silth, and the two watched Marika, neither speaking, interfering, nor offering to help. They seemed to understand that an exorcism was in progress. Marika ignored them and went on. And went on. And went on till her muscles cried out in torment, till fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. And still she went on.

She passed near the silth often, pretending they did not exist, yet sometimes she could not help overhearing the few words they did exchange. Mostly, they talked about her. The older was becoming concerned. She heard herself called smart, stubborn, and definitely a little insane.

She wondered what the tall silth had learned around Machen Cave. They did not discuss that. But she was not interested enough to ask.

The sun rode across the sky, pursued by the specks of several lesser moons. Marika grew concerned about Grauel and Barlog. They had been gone long enough to reach the Laspe packstead and return. Had they fallen foul of nomad survivors? Finally, she scaled the watchtower, which threatened to topple off its savaged legs. She barely had the energy to complete the climb. She saw nothing when she did and looked toward the neighboring packstead.

She dug around inside herself, seeking her ability to touch, with increasing desperation. It just was not there! She had to reach out and make sure Grauel and Barlog were all right! The All could not claim them too, leaving her alone with these weird silth! But it was hopeless. Either she had lost the ability or it had gone dormant on her in her shock and fatigue.

She told herself there was no point worrying. That worry would do no good, would change nothing. But she worried. She stood there studying the countryside, unconsciously resting, till the wind penetrated her furs and her muscles began to stiffen, then she climbed down and lost herself in labor again.

She did not know, consciously, what she was doing, but she was avoiding grief, because it was a grief too great to bear. Even toughened Grauel and Barlog had needed something to occupy them, to allow some of the pressure to leak off unnoted, to give some meaning to having survived. How much more difficult for a pup not yet taught to keep emotion under tight control.

The silth understood grief. They stayed out of her way, and did nothing to discourage her from working herself into an exhausted stupor.

The shadows were long and the carrion eaters almost too overfed to fly. Marika had dragged most all of her packmates into the lean-tos. Suddenly she realized that she had not found Kublin. Zambi had been there, right where she remembered him falling, but not Kub. Kub should have been one of the first she reached, because she had left him atop one of the heaps of dead. Hadn't she?

Had she dragged him away and not noticed? Or had she forgotten? The more she tried to remember, the more she became confused. She became locked into a lack of movement, in complete indecision, just standing in the square while a rising wind muttered and moaned about her.

The sky above threatened new snow. A few random flakes danced around, dashed in to melt upon her nose or to sting her eyeballs. The several days' break in winter's fury would end soon. The white would come and mask death till spring pulled the shroud aside.

One of the silth came and led her into Skiljan's loghouse, settled her near a freshened fire. The other was building up the fire at the male end of the loghouse and setting out pots and utensils in preparation for a meal far too large for three. Neither spoke.

Grauel and Barlog arrived with the darkness, leading the Laspe survivors. They numbered just a few over three score, and all fit comfortably into the one loghouse. The silth dished up stew silently, watched while the Laspe ate greedily. After a time they prepared an infusion of chaphe and insisted Marika drink it. As she faded away, barely aware of them wrapping her in furs, she murmured, "But I wanted to hear about what you found at Machen Cave."

"Later, little silth. Later. Rest your heart now. Rest your heart."

She wakened once in the deep hours. The fire crackled nearby, sending shadows dancing. The taller silth sat beside the firepit, motionless as stone except when dropping another piece of wood into the flames. Her eyes glowed in the firelight as she stared at Marika.

A touch, gentle as a caress. Startled, Marika recoiled.

Easy, little one. There is nothing to fear. Go back to sleep.

Something enwrapped her in warmth, comfort, reassurance. She fell asleep immediately.

Morning found the packstead blanketed with six inches of new snow. The remaining bodies in the square had become vague lumps seen through slowly falling snowflakes. The air was almost still, the new flakes large, and the morning deceptively warm. It seemed one could go out and run without a coat. Grauel and Barlog rose early and went out to take up where Marika had left off. A few of the Laspe survivors joined them. There was little talk. The snowfall continued, lazy but accumulating quickly. It was a very wet snow.

Noon came. The silth made everyone come inside and eat a huge meal. Marika watched the Laspe Wise cringe away from the two in black, and wondered why. But she did not ask. She did not care enough about anything to ask questions just then.

Marika and Grauel were first to go back outside. Almost the instant they stepped into the snowfall the huntress snapped Marika's collar and yanked her down, clapped a paw over her mouth before she could speak. Holding Marika, she pointed.

Vague figures moved through the snowfall around Gerrien's loghouse. Nomads! And they could not be ignorant of the fact that the packstead was inhabited still, for Skiljan's loghouse was putting out plenty of smoke.

Marika wriggled her way back through the doorway. Grauel slid inside behind her. Once she was certain she would not be heard outside, the huntress announced, "We have company outside. Nomads. I would guess only a few, trying to steal whatever they can under cover of the snow."

The silth laid down their ladles and bowls, closed their eyes. In a moment the taller nodded and said, "There are a dozen of them. Quietly taking food."

Marika listened no more. Barlog had snatched up a bow and was headed for the door, not bothering to don a coat. Marika scampered after her, tried to restrain her. She failed, and in an instant was out in the snow again, still trying to hold the huntress back.

Her judgment was better than Barlog's. As the huntress pushed outside, an arrow ripped past her ear and buried itself in the loghouse wall.

Barlog drew her own arrow to her ear, let fly at a shadow as another arrow streaked out of the falling snow. The latter missed. Barlog's brought a yip of pain.

The door shoved against Marika's back. Grauel pushed outside, cursing Barlog for her folly. She readied her own bow, crouched, sought a target.

Marika flopped onto her belly. Barlog, too, crouched. Arrows whipped overhead, stuck in or bounced off the loghouse. They heard confused shouting in dialect as the nomads debated the advisability of flight. A shaft from Grauel's bow found a shadow. That settled the matter for the nomads. They hefted their wounded and ran. They were not about to stay in a place so well known to death.

Where were the silth? Marika wondered. Why didn't they do something?

Grauel and Barlog made fierce noises and chased after the nomads-making sure they did not catch up. Marika followed, feeling foolish as she yipped around the spiral.

The nomads vanished in the snowfall. Grauel and Barlog showed no inclination to pursue them through that, where an ambush could so easily be laid. Grauel held Marika back. "Enough, pup. They are gone."

During all the excitement Marika never felt a hint of touch. The silth had done nothing.

She challenged them about it the moment she returned to the loghouse.

The taller seemed amused. "One must think beyond the moment if one is to be silth, little one. Go reflect on why it might be useful to allow some raiders to escape."

Marika did as she was told, sullenly. After her nerves settled, she began to see that it might indeed be beneficial if word spread that the Degnan packstead was defended still. Beneficial to the remaining Laspe anyway.

She began to entertain second thoughts about emigrating to the silth packfast.

That afternoon the silth gave her another infusion of chaphe to drink. They made Grauel and Barlog drink of it and rest, too. And when night fell and Biter rose to scatter the world with her silvery rays, the two females said, "It is time to leave."

Between them, Marika, Grauel, and Barlog found a hundred reasons for delaying. The two females in black might have been stone, for all they were moved. They brought forth travel packs which they had assembled while the three Degnan slept. "You will take these with you."

Marika, too stupefied to argue much, went through hers. It contained food, extra clothing, and a few items that might come in handy during the trek. She found a few personal possessions also, gifts from Kublin, Skiljan, and her granddam that had meant much to her once and might again after time banished the pain. She eyed the silth suspiciously. How had they known?

Resigned, Grauel and Barlog began shrugging into the coats. Marika pulled on her otec boots, the best she owned. No sense leaving them for Laspe scavengers.

A thought hit her. "Grauel. Our books. We cannot leave our books."

Grauel exchanged startled glances with Barlog. Barlog nodded. Both huntresses settled down with stubborn expressions upon their faces.

"Books are heavy, pup," the taller silth said. "You will tire of carrying them soon. Then what? Cast them into the river? Better they stay where they will be appreciated and used."

"They are the treasure of the Degnan," Marika insisted, answering the silth but speaking to the huntresses. "We have to take the Chronicle. If we lose the Chronicle, then we really are dead."

Grauel and Barlog agreed with a fervor that startled the silth.

Few wilderness packs had the sense of place in time and history that had marked the Degnan. Few had the Degnan respect for heritage. Many had no more notion of their past than the stories of their oldest Wise, who erroneously told revised versions of tales passed down by their own granddams.

Grauel and Barlog were embarrassed. It shamed them that they had not thought of the Chronicle themselves. So long as it existed and was kept, the Degnan would exist somewhere. They became immovably stubborn. The silth could not intimidate them into motion.

"Very well," the taller said, ignoring the angry mutter of her companion. "Gather your books. But hurry. We are wasting moonlight. The sky may not stay clear long. The north spawns storms in litters."

The two huntresses took torches and left Skiljan's loghouse, made rounds of all the other five. They collected every book of the pack that had not been destroyed. Marika brought out the six from the place where Saettle had kept those of Skiljan's loghouse. When all were gathered, there were ten.

"They are right," she admitted reluctantly. "They are heavy."

They were big, hand-inscribed tomes with massive wood and leather boards and bindings. Some weighed as much as fifteen pounds.

Marika set the three volumes of the Chronicle aside, looked to the huntresses for confirmation. Grauel said, "I could carry two."

Barlog nodded. "I will carry two also."

That made four. Marika said, "I think I could carry two, if they were light ones." She pushed the massive Chronicle volumes toward the huntresses. Grauel took two, Barlog the other. No more than two would be lost if one of them did not reach the packfast.

Three books had to be selected from the remaining seven. Marika asked the huntresses, "Which do you think will be the most useful?"

Grauel thought for a moment. "I do not know. I am not bookish."

"Nor am I," Barlog said. "I hunt. We will have little real use for them. We just want to save what we can."

Marika exposed her teeth in an expression of exasperation.

"You choose," Grauel said. "You are the studious one."

Marika's exasperation became more marked. A decision of her own, a major one, as though she were an adult already. She was not prepared mentally.

On first impulse she was tempted to select those that had belonged to her own loghouse. But Barlog reminded her that Gerrien's loghouse had possessed a book on agriculture that, once its precepts had been accepted, had improved the pack's yields, reducing the labor of survival.

One of the silth said, "You will have no need of a book about farming. You will not be working in the fields. Leave it for those who will have more need."

So. A choice made.

Marika dithered after rejecting only one more book, a collection of old stories read for the pleasure of small pups. There would be no need of that where they were going.

The older silth came around the fire, arrayed the books before Marika after the manner of terrac fortune plaques, which the sagans so often consulted. "Close your eyes, Marika. Empty your mind. Let the All come in and touch you. Then you reach out and touch books. Those shall be the ones you take."

Grauel grumbled, "That is sheer chance."

Barlog added, "Witch's ways," and looked very upset. Just the way the Wise did whenever talk turned to the silth.

They were afraid. Finally, Marika began to realize what lay at the root of all their attitudes toward the silth. Sheer terror.

She did exactly as she was told. Moments later her paw seemed to move of its own accord. She felt leather under her fingers, could not recall which book lay where.

"No," said the older silth. "Keep your eyes closed."

Grauel grumbled something to Barlog.

"You two," the old silth said. "Pack the books as she chooses them. Place the others in the place where books are stored."

Marika's paw jerked to another book. For a moment it seemed something had hold of her wrist. And on the level of the touch, she sensed something with that darkshadow presence she associated with the things she called ghosts.

Again, and done.

The old silth spoke. "Open your eyes, pup. Get your coat. It is time to travel."

Unquestioning, Marika did as she was told. Coat on, she raised her pack and snugged it upon her shoulders the way Pobuda had shown her, finally, coming back from the hunt in Plenthzo Valley. She felt uncomfortable under the unaccustomed weight. Recalling the march to and from the hunt, and the deep, wet snow, she knew she would become far more uncomfortable before she reached the silth packfast.

Maybe she would end up discarding the books.

Maybe the silth had been trying to do her a favor, trying to talk her out of taking the books.

There were no farewells from or for the Laspe, who watched preparations for departure with increasing relief. As they stepped to the windskins, though, Marika heard the Laspe Wise begin a prayer to the All. It wished them a safe journey.

It was something.

As she trudged around the spiral of the stockade, the new snow dragging at her boots, Marika asked the silth ahead, "Why are we leaving now? Could we not travel just as safely in the daytime?"

"We are silth, pup. We travel at night."

The other, from behind Marika, said, "The night is our own. We are the daughters of the night and come and go as we will."

Marika shivered in a cold that had nothing to do with the wind off the Zhotak.

And around her, in the light of many moons, all the world glimmered black and bone.