The Warding of Witch World

36 The Reading of the Runes

There was no talk of their mission or the immediate past among those gathered there. Most of the conversation concerned a promising run of flat fish which could be harvested with ease as the predators which followed such schools drove them into the shallows.

Once pulled out of the sea, they were quickly prepared and put on smoking frames—a harvest which would help the trading station survive during the winter to come. In addition there was some excitement over a report brought in by a young hunter that some of the great horns had been sighted not too far away.

There were also comments on the possible luck of the back-country trackers, those who mined the ice streams, and those driving the horses to summer pasturage. Trusla had already seen those small beasts which seemed to be the only domesticated animals those of this Border settlement had.

In general appearance they were horses right enough, but far removed from even the hill ponies of the south, being hardly larger then the great hounds some of the Dales lords and noblemen of Karstan kept for boar hunting or to beat off attacks from the vicious Gray Ones. Their coats were shaggy in rough patches, as they were shedding the thick hair which covered them in winter, and they were gaunt. No one larger than Kankil could hope to mount one, and they were used for packing alone.

A woman near Trusla, as she sat to accept a ship biscuit coated with a tart-sweet jam, was discussing with a friend the fact that several of the small beasts had been returned lately with injured hooves, needing special attention, and that she hoped there would not be an epidemic of such to curtail the summer work.

However, Trusla’s attention kept returning to Audha. Though Trusla had tended the girl on shipboard, the wavereader’s eyes had passed over her with no sign of recognition and the Estcarpian sensed that Inquit, too, was disturbed by her aloofness.

Those gathered here—mainly, Trusla believed, to give reports of one or another of the towns activities—began to drift out again. There was no sign of Captain Stymir, but Frost was settled among the cushions a little away from the others. She had smiled and nodded to Trusla, yet about her was an aura of waiting—though if she were truly impatient she kept the signs of that hidden.

Simond appeared in the doorway, gave lordship hand greeting to the Trade Master, and bowed to the others. He was quickly followed by Odanki, the Latt taking a place against the wall, leaning a little on his harpoonlike spear.

The Trade Master clapped his hands. At that signal three more of the people gathered there got to their feet and left. The master of the Sulcar town now held between his knees a small drum, not unlike, Trusla thought, that which she had seen carried for the wisewoman in Korinth.

With the very tips of his big fingers he tapped out a series of small raps and there followed silence. Only Audha turned her head, as if aroused for the first time out of some deep well of thought, to look at him searchingly.

Three times the Trade Master used that signal and as the sound of the last beat died away, the Watcher came. At first Trusla thought she was wearing a mask and then realized that those splashes of color were paint, so arranged as to make the woman’s features no longer human in appearance but rather like some dream thing.

The Trade Master placed the drum on the floor now, and Svan went to her knees before it.

“The moon is not lit.” There was ice in that.

“Neither is your Power hidden by day,” he answered her levelly. “Do you say that you control less in the way of forces than this lady witch or this shaman and dreamer of the Latts?”

There was conflict here; Trusla could feel the tension. No one questioned the abilities of a talented one unless it was in the form of a challenge. Yet this Sulcar was goading his own Watcher.

“So be it.” Svan shrugged slightly. Her head swung slowly so that she eyed each gathered there. “The reading will be of your demanding. Now…” she had slipped out of her sleeve a short, slender knife and held it to the Trade Master.

He applied the needle tip of that to his forefinger and a drop of blood answered. Then he shook his hand so that it spattered down upon the surface of the drum.

“Let those who search now pay,” she said stiffly.

Inquit reached for the knife and followed the Trade Master’s example, squatting forward so her blood drop also landed on the drum top. She passed the blade to Simond.

He shucked off the gauntlets he had been wearing and prepared to draw blood. Trusla half raised her hand. She knew nothing of the nature of the Watchers power. Would this act lock them to the will of the Sulcar wisewoman? Simond had no talent shield to stand between him and such usage.

Svan looked beyond Simond to her, and the heavily painted face seemed to express something which was beyond the girl to understand.

“You are already bound to this mission; for the runes all blood must be read,” she said.

Trusla caught a glimpse of Frost and the witch was nodding encouragingly, so she did not protest Simond’s contribution to the drum and made her own. However, the Watcher did not look to Frost. Perhaps this was a matter of Power so alien that one could cancel out the other—of such she had heard.

But another moved, and before Trusla could return the knife, it was snatched from her hold and Audha stood beside the drum.

“I claim blood debt!” Her voice was high and thick with challenge. “By all the Laws of the Wave, Wind, and Sea, I am now a part of any hunt which will bring down that which has slain kin and shipmates. By the Deep Mother do I swear this.”

And her drop of blood fell to the taut top of the drum. Trusla could almost believe that there had been the faint whisper of sound as it struck and spattered.

The Watcher nodded. “Such is your right, since you alone have come from a life-shedding. May the Lord of Storms use you as you wish.”

Audha subsided once more among the cushions. There was now life in her face, and her eyes were on the Watcher as if she must not miss anything Svan might do.

The Watcher pulled the drum to her. She was sitting cross-legged, the drum midway between her knees. From the front of her robe she brought out a pouch stained a dull black but with a fringe of scarlet feather tips around it.

Loosening its string, she shook out into her hand what Trusla thought were a palmful of rounded pebbles. Four she inspected and dropped back into the pouch, the rest she closed her fist upon, but before she moved again she looked first at Inquit as if she considered her the lesser danger, and then to Frost.

“Still what you hold, Shaman and Witch, this is not a stew in which you have the stirring.”

Having sent each of them a final fierce glance from her paint-rimmed eyes, she tossed the pebbles onto the bloodstained cover of the drum.

There was a loud roll as if the fall of those stones had been instead a heavy beat. And the sound echoed. Trusla felt a tingle of the skin—Power was awake, and here.

Though the drum remained stationary, the pebbles continued to roll. They appeared drawn (in an unpleasant way, Trusla thought) to the blood drops and each moved like a sentient thing until it had touched each of those splotches.

They gathered—like hunters in conference. Then that tight cycle broke and they began each to spin, the whirl taking it away from its fellows. At last they were quiet and Trusla thought she could distinguish something which might be a pattern not unlike the wildly laid-on paint which masked the Watcher.

They waited in silence. Svan displayed no wish to continue to the next part of the ceremony. Almost, Trusla thought, like a sulky child forced to show off some art before strangers.

She herself could see now the pebbles were deeply slashed with markings in most of which blood now drew thin lines. Svan’s hand came up and she waved it with an odd motion as if she mimicked the passing of sea waves over the stones.

One or two pebbles seemed to tremble but did not leave their chosen place. However, something else—something beyond sight and hearing—had awakened.

Svan’s mouth was now near a snarl. She mouthed words. But that feeling of being looked upon continued. It was Frost and In-quit who answered. The shaman swung about on her pillows, Kankil giving a muted cry, plastering herself against the broad breast of the Latt woman. The shaman’s hands raised and moved. One did not need too much imagination to guess that her gestures were those of a tried and trained hunter throwing darts.

Frost cupped her jewel so that no gleam of light moved in the Watcher’s direction, but Trusla could see it was alive and bright as the full midsummer moon.

That which had come unbidden flinched. Trusla could feel it even as if her own body had responded so. Then it was gone.

“North,” Frost said. Inquit nodded. The Watcher’s shoulders seemed to draw together as if she would avoid some blow. She leaned further over the rune stones.

“The Dark awaits,” she said. “It will take such knowledge as all the talent here cannot raise to lay it. But we are left no choice, for that which has been awakened seeks prey—it hungers and would feed. You will go to it, because you are oathed and chosen, but you are but blades of summer grass before the first frost. Death—death and ending—

“Not so!” Frost’s voice rang with authority. “We are but the point of the spear and behind us stands an army. Do not forget that there is greater knowledge now being hunted, hunted by those who know how to use what they can find. By this”—Frost’s fingers caressed her jewel—“can I speak with my sisters, and they in turn have very ancient and powerful knowledge to draw upon. There are many talents, each having its own force. As a smith forges a sword, sometimes choosing pieces of very old and famous weapons of the past to unite with all his skill to the new, so shall we in the end face this blight. It lies to the north…”

That was more statement than question but the Watcher answered, “It lies north in the land where no tracker can go.”

“Yet,” pressed the witch, “you can give us more information than that, Rune Reader.”

“Already the knowledge of the trail is yours. Hunt out Hessar and ask of his ice river. Your captain flourishes that which he names a key for the unlocking of mysteries. Very well, follow that lead and come upon the rightful gate—if you can.”

She was on her feet and stooped to sweep up the pebbles, returning them, still bloodstained, to their pouch. Then she caught up the drum itself before the Trade Master could move—if it were his to reclaim.

“I have read the runes—you will go and there is no turning back. Nor do I believe any return!” Settling the drum on her hip, she swept out of the room.

Simond’s hand closed on Trusla’s arm. “Let us be out of here,” he said in a voice so low as to be hidden under the broken sentences of the other. “It does no good to see the Dark before it comes upon one. I have been at arms practice with the shipmen this morning. Come and let me show you what this land can be with summer upon it.”

She was pleased enough to go. There was no drizzle of rain, but a fair day under the sun. There was the ever-present scent of the sea in short breezes which ruffled her hair and plucked at the collar of her jerkin. But there were other scents also, and she drew a deep breath of wonder and delight.

For the world around them, including the rounded tops of the burrowlike houses, was a vivid green, and that green was broken by patches of flowers like jewels on the feast dress of some Dales lady. The green and flowers reached as far as she could see, broken only here and there by workers.

She saw ground which had certainly been put to the plow, and looked to Simond questioningly, for surely the growing season was too short for any grain.

“It is a kind of root thing they grow,” he explained. “And it serves them well, for it is best eaten when it has been frozen and needs to be dug out. There are berries, too.” He pointed to a number of children, more than she had seen before in the town, who were out in one section of the green land, basket in hand, hunting under the low-growing leaves for the fruit. Most of them, she noted with a smile, already had a chin streaked with juice.

Down a beaten trail of a road came a train of the small horses. They had pack racks on their backs, but the bags were not full, rather looped up. Three drovers accompanied them: a Sulcar, a young woman of the native people, and a half-grown girl who combined features from them both.

One of the pickers arose and came running. “Helgy?” She greeted the girl. “But it is not time for return—is there something wrong?”

Unconsciously Simond and Trusla had drawn closer. The woman glanced at them and then gave a longer look, but the Sulcar snapped his fingers at the fruit picker. “Off with you, Ragan, or you will get the rough side of your aunt’s tongue for a half-full basket.”

He spoke in a pleasant, bantering tone, but there was a shadowed expression on his face which suggested darker thoughts.

Somehow the day no longer seemed so bright. And the child who had come running to greet her friend did not return to her picking at once but stood looking after the small train as it entered the town.

“Trouble.” Trusla did not need that warning from Simond. She half expected to see clouds gathering in the sky overhead. They were there right enough, but they were small and as fleece-white as the Dales sheep.

However, it was enough to send them both back themselves, though they kept a slower pace, letting the distance between them and the travelers widen. There were other surprised calls as those three came into the town. By the time they had reached the Trade Master’s headquarters, a number of people, some who had so abruptly left their jobs that they still carried tools in their hands, began to mass there.

Odanki appeared silently out of nowhere and with his bulk and the natural air of a guardsman opened a passage for Trusla and Simond. They found the room already crowded with townspeople—though only the Sulcar drover had come to face the Trade Master.

Neither Inquit nor Frost were there, but the Watcher had a prominent place on the long lounge.

“Alward, his mate, their sons, dead.” The Sulcar newcomer held out his hands in a wide sweep as if to suggest the complete disaster he was mentioning. “Their beasts torn apart as well—and no was-bear alone could kill so. Also this is the season when those seek the heights, not the tundra. And this I swear, by the Ruler of Storms, there was no weapon mark on them that we could find—but their bodies were so ill used…” his face was gray now and he swallowed convulsively twice before he continued, “that we could not be sure. Godard came for me after he found them and we dealt with them as best we could. Their supplies were not looted, but rather bestially defiled. Then, since I had my hearthwoman and my daughter with me, we came back here, for all must know. Perhaps other prospectors such as Alward have also been so slain.

“Trade Master, I was mate on the Thunderer and served at three raidings along the Alizon coast. Yet never have I seen such bloody work as this. Nor were there any true trails.”

“Alward…” the Trade Master repeated as if he could not believe what he heard. His gaze swept for a moment beyond the speaker and lit on Simond.

“Lord Simond, what news had you out of Arvon? Could evil fester up from there?”

“Not at last reporting,” Simond replied. “There are the Mantle-lands as far north as we have recorded and no great trouble reported newly there.”

“From the north.” The Watcher’s dry voice nearly covered his last words. “This comes from the north. Alward spoke of traveling toward the Fangs of Gar this season, did he not? And you, Othor, did you not head in that general direction also?”

“It is so, Watcher,” he agreed. “We left together with our trains, Alward and his sons and my close kin, and did not separate until the third day out. He had some thought of trying the stream before the Fangs, for Hessar has done well there and this year turned to the west where no one else had gone.”

“You say there were no trails,” the Trade Master said. “Yet I know your hunting eye, Othor, and surely you sighted something.”

The man loosened a small bundle fastened to his belt. “Only this, Trade Master.”

The bundle seemed to consist of a great many folds. When finally he lay it open, those about him shrank back as far as they could, for there arose from a small twist of grayish hair he showed a violent stench. Trusla recognized it at once. Once smelled, it could never be forgotten—stinkwolf !

“Not in the tundra,” one of the men near them said in quick denial. “They are of the southern broken lands and do not venture far from their foul dens. ’Tis said that they cannot live apart from close to where they are whelped and that the land itself rises to kill them if they try to do so.”

“Enough!” The Trade Master was waving a hand and Othor quickly rewrapped his bundle, though the smell seemed to linger on.

“It calls.” The Watcher’s face was twisted in an expression of deep distaste. “Dark summons Dark. If trouble moves from the north, then it may well be drawing to it now anything which will aid it—even as a cruising captain may summon other ships to join him in a raid upon wreckers.”

“Trade Master,” Othor demanded, “news must be sent to all the trappers, the prospectors. Our camps are never large and they can be easily picked off, one by one, by whatever creeps upon us now.”

“True.” The Trade Master looked to the Watcher. “Can the Recall be given?”

“If it is not already too late.” There seemed to be no wish in her to be reassuring, and those listening now had dour expressions. There was a murmuring and a stirring.

Trusla slipped out with Simond, determined to find Frost, while Simond himself headed to contact the captain. As she went, she speculated unhappily about what this new threat would mean to them. They had decided to hire a guide and a pack train within a day or two and head out in the direction Hessar had chosen for his season’s labors, for the captain was certain, and both Frost and In-quit appeared willing to back him, that the location of the stream in which the plaque had been found would be the point from which they would start their search.

More than ever she wished that she had talent—to be like the woman in some bard’s song who could summon up from the earth itself dead heroes buried centuries since in order to form an army of the Light. As it was, she was sure that, even with all the inhabitants of End of the World armed and ready, they could not hope to put a full troop in the field. Nor could they mount any of those fighters. She was a passable archer only; her art was but newly learned under Simond’s direction. Sword work was beyond her, she had not the strength to swing a battle blade. But her knife was skilled and she had what Simond called a natural talent for throwing the perfectly balanced blade that was always with her.

She had nothing more—no spells. The sand—the jar of sand? She had used it in Audha’s aid, yes, but as a restorative, not a weapon. Anyway, when and if she ventured forth from this earth-bound town, she intended to take it with her.

There was Frost’s gem and Trusla was duly aware that the witch jewel had such powers as one could hardly speculate upon. What Inquit could summon up she could not guess.

But somehow of this she was sure: their real search had not yet begun and it would not be stopped here by a skirmish with the unknown.

She called her name before the door of the house which had been turned over to Frost and Inquit. A small chirp answered her and the door was edged back, with some effort, by Kankil, who reached up to grab Trusla’s hand and draw her in.

Like any hearthwife, Inquit was busy turning the contents of a skillet at the fire so that the fresh-caught fish on it would be evenly browned. And Frost, her long sleeves well rolled up, was tasting critically the contents of a pot she had just swung away from the greater heat of the inner fire.

To see the two of them busied at homely tasks was oddly reassuring, perhaps more so than if she had come in upon some summoning of Power. They seemed in good accord with each other and secretly she was glad that the sourish Watcher was not here to put them all upon their dignity.

But Frost let the spoon drip most of its contents into the fire, which blazed up in answer.

“There is trouble,” she said. Trusla almost believed she heard the faintest of sighs as if the witch gathered up again, for bearing an ever-present burden.

She waved Trusla to a seat on one of the cushions. Though In-quit did not lay aside her long-handled fork and her fish did not suffer from lack of tending, she, too, was watching the girl.

“There is trouble,” Trusla confirmed. Swiftly she outlined the events of the morning, the return of Othor and his family and the ill news he brought.

Inquit shrugged. “How else could it be?” she asked apparently of the room itself. “The Watcher is right. If evil stirs, it becomes needful that it draws strength from somewhere—and how better than from summoning those it can command to do its will? These poor folk died hard deaths and that also is the way of evil, for blood is its feasting drink and never can it get enough of it. No, we have been too easy with ourselves. Now we call together those who must venture and lay what plans we can.”