Part 10 (2/2)
Hargoth inclined his head.
”The Lords Protector,” Stark said. ”What do you know of them?”
”I think they're a lie, told to keep the Wandsmen in power. Or if they ever lived, they've been dead a thousand years. That's why I would call this a fool's errand, except that I know the Wandsmen are real. And if, as you say, they intend to keep us from the stars-”
Apparently he was still not quite convinced. And he continued to glance sidelong at Gerrith from time to time, in a manner that Stark did not care for.
”My lord Darkness, my lady Cold, and their daughter Hunger,” Stark said. ”You wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ddess and she sends her power through you. Yet you also wors.h.i.+p Old Sun?”
”We need him to keep the darker G.o.ds at bay. Otherwise we would die. Besides, the Sun Woman was to be a parting gift.”
Long after Old Sun's setting they went aside from the road and found a secure hollow in the hills. The warriors built tiny fires of what dead mosses and lichens they could find among the wind-scoured stones. They had not expected to be so long away from the Towers and so the rations were short. No one complained. They were all used to hunger.
When it was time to crawl into the skin tents for sleep, Stark said to Gerrith, ”You'll shelter with me. I think Hargoth still has notions.”
She accepted that without protest. Stark saw Halk watching, wise and sneering, as he followed Gerrith into the tent.
Their two bodies crowded the small s.p.a.ce, and Stark realized that this was the first time since that b.l.o.o.d.y day in the square of Irnan that he had been alone with Gerrith. On the way to Izvand there had been the Irnanese and the troop of mercenaries, and not so much as a hand's breadth of privacy. Halk and Breca pleasured themselves as the fancy took them, without embarra.s.sment, but theirs was an old relations.h.i.+p. Stark and Gerrith had no relations.h.i.+p beyond their two roles as Wise Woman and Dark Man, one hardly conducive to intimacy, and he was not at all sure that she wanted any other. Her status as prophetess set her apart, surrounding her with a certain aura of untouchability. Besides, it had been most h.e.l.lishly cold.
Afterward, as Amnir's captives, they had had no opportunity even for conversation, let alone anything else.
Now, in the shelter, with a minuscule lamp for light and each other for warmth, he felt something totally new. He was conscious that they touched, at thigh and hip and shoulder. Their breath mingled in fault clouds of vapor. Animal heat rose from their living flesh. Lying close, he felt her stop s.h.i.+vering, and he put his hand on hers.
”Has your gift told you yet why it was you had to come all this weary way?”
”Let's not talk about it now.” She turned her head and looked at him. ”Let's not talk about anything now.”
He drew her to him. She smiled and did not resist. With his fingertips he traced the outline of her cheek and jaw; thin, he noticed, with the beautiful structure of the bones quite clear beneath the wind-browned skin. Her eyes were enormous, her mouth soft and sweet, welcoming.
He kissed her, a first tentative touching of the lips, and her arms came around him fiercely, and after that nothing was tentative. She was strong and hungry, warm life in that place of cold and death, giving and taking without stint. And Stark knew that this had been going to happen right from the beginning, from the moment when Mordach ripped away the robe and left her clothed in nothing but her magnificent and indestructible pride.
Neither of them spoke of love. Love is for a long future. They slept in each other's arms and were content.
In the black morning they were away again, following the green star. They halted briefly for the ritual greeting of Old Sun at his rising, when Hargoth looked regretfully at Gerrith, who was surrounded by Stark and the Irnanese. At noon they halted a second time to rest and chew their journey rations, hard chunks of edible lichens pressed into cakes and a strong-flavored mixture of fat and meat fibers pounded together with bitter herbs.
Stark discussed strategy with Kintoth.
”You see here,” said the captain, making out a rough map in the snow with his finger. ”This is the road we're on now. It winds about so, and here is Thyra, sitting on a dozen hills. The old city, that is. The new one is dug in and around.” His finger made vague marks on the perimeter.
”How old is the new city?” asked Stark.
”Not as old as ours. No. Say only a thousand years, or so. The People of the Hammer came out of nowhere, the bards tell us, and took up these ancient cities . . .”
”More than one?”
”There are several tribes. The Thyrans are the only ones we have to do with, but it is said that there are more in other places, and that they all have the same G.o.d, Strayer of the Forges.”
”They all have the same madness,” said Hargoth, ”and that madness is for iron and the working of it. They mine the bones of the cities, and the metal is more than wealth to them, it is life.”
”All right.” Stark looked at the map. ”The road. Thyra, old and new. What else?”
Kintoth sketched stylized mountains on the far side of Thyra. ”These are called the Witchfires, for a reason you will understand when you see them. They mark the boundary between the darklands and the high north. Here is the pa.s.s that we must take to cross them, if we ever reach it.”
Thyra stood like a wall before the mouth of the pa.s.s.
”Is there no other way across the mountains?”
Kintoth shrugged. ”There may be a hundred. This is the only one we know, and the Citadel lies somewhere beyond it. Now, on the road, here...” He drew fortifications across the approach to Thyra. ”This post is strongly held. And all around the city are sentry posts.” His finger poked random little holes in the snow. ”I don't know the exact locations. The Thyrans live in and around the edges of the rums, and they're more vulnerable than we in the Towers. They take care to guard their wealth and their precious flesh, lest both be devoured.”
The land seemed totally deserted. Stark asked, ”What enemies have they here?”
”This is the northern edge of the darklands,” said Hargoth. ”We live all our lives in a state of siege. Anyone, anything, may come. Sometimes the great snow-dragons, with the frost white on their wings and their hungry teeth showing. Sometimes a band of Outdwellers who run demented across the world and take whatever they can lay claws on. And there are creatures who wait, hidden just out of sight, smelling the warm food that walks and hoping they can s.n.a.t.c.h it.”
”It doesn't do to show weakness or inattention,” said Kintoth. ”The Ha.r.s.enyi, for instance, might be tempted to attack if they thought they could gain by it. The other tribes of the Hammer might become greedy. And of course, the Thyrans have a bigger worry than most.”
He stabbed his finger at the sketched-in range of the Witchfires. ”They have neighbors here among the mountains. The Children of Skaith-Our-Mother.”
Stark stared at him in the bra.s.sy twilight of the hollow. The wind blew snow in vagrant clouds.
Halk laughed, a harsh and jarring sound.
”Perhaps you will be lucky a second time, Dark Man!” he said, and laughed again.
17.
Shadows lay long across the road, pointing north. Soft-shod, the party moved quietly. Wind scoured, their tracks faded away as soon as they were made.
”What are they like, these Children of Skaith-Our-Mother?”
Hargoth shook his narrow head. ”The Thyrans say they're monsters. They have many tales of them, all horrible.”
”Are they true?”
”Who can say?”
”You have no knowledge yourself? Haven't any of your people gone into the mountains? Through the pa.s.s?”
”In the darklands,” said Hargoth, ”it is difficult enough to stay where one is. One does not travel for any reason other than survival.”
”The Ha.r.s.enyi seem to manage it.”
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