Part 11 (2/2)

He looked down into a shallow bowl between the hills. A fire of dead lichen burned small at one side, within a ring of blackened stones. The tiny flickering it made was no more than a pinpoint. The bowl brimmed with the light of the aurora and the green star. The Witchfires sparkled against the north. Snow covering the slopes of the bowl sparkled more faintly, and in that shadowless gleaming a score of figures danced to the wild thin music of a reedy pipe.

They danced in a wide circle, moving widders.h.i.+ns round the slopes. They leapt and whirled, and when they did so they laughed and their tatters flew: the height and the lightness of their leaping, and the grace and the swift rus.h.i.+ng joy of it made them seem to take wing upon outstretched arms. Joyousness, Stark thought, was a rare thing anywhere, and he had seen little of it on Skaith. But this was a curious place in which to find it.

There was no set pattern to their dancing, except that they kept the circle. Now and again two or more would join together and go skittering hand in hand, with the laughter spilling out of them in long trills like birdsong, to caper about the piper, who leapt and whirled by himself in the center of the dance. Sometimes he would do a contral-step with them, and sometimes he would do a circle of his own, clockwise against the circle's turning.

After a while it seemed to Stark that there was something more than joy in their frolicking. A certain quality. What was the word Hargoth had used? Demented?

He turned as someone slid softly up beside him. He could see the twin lightning strokes on the mask. Kintoth peered over the ridge and then drew back.

”Outdwellers,” he said.

Stark nodded. ”They seem to know every inch of these hills. Perhaps they know of a way around Thyra.”

”It's worth a try,” said Kintoth, ”but remember, they're an unchancy lot. Don't turn your back on them, even for a moment.” He added, ”And remember, the Wandsmen may have spoken to them about you.”

”That had occurred to me,” Stark said. ”Tell the others to come up and stand along here, where they can be seen. Weapons ready.”

Kintoth hurried away. Stark waited a moment or two. Then he rose and began to walk down the slope.

He could not say who saw him first. But the piping wavered away, and the dancing stilled. The dark figures stood quietly in the beautiful s.h.i.+ning from the sky. They watched him, not speaking, and their tatters ruffled in the wind like feathers.

Stark gave them the formal greeting. ”May Old Sun bring you warmth and life.”

One of the Outdwellers came forward. It was a woman, he thought They were a thin people, with wild locks hanging under curious little caps, and their coverings were not revealing. The coverings, he saw now, were made of many small skins sewed together, and the tatters were the legs and tails flapping free. The woman's face was narrow and pale, with a pointed chin and enormous eyes that slanted upward. There were no whites to the eyes, only irises of lambent green with hugely expanded pupils that seemed to reflect the night entire.

”Old Sun is well enough,” she said carelessly. Her accent was strange, difficult to follow, and her mouth was strange too, with exceedingly sharp protruding teeth, ”We wors.h.i.+p the Dark G.o.ddess. May the night bring you life and joy.”

Stark hoped that it would. He did not count on it. ”Who is your leader here?”

”Leader?” She c.o.c.ked her head on one side. ”We have all sorts. What's your fancy? A leader for singing the clouds and stars, a leader for catching the wind and one for setting it free again, a leader . . .”

”One for the making of trails,” said Stark. ”I wish to pa.s.s by Thyra, unseen.”

”Ah,” she said, and looked past him over his shoulder, to the rim of the bowl. ”You alone? Or with these others I see: Gray Warlocks of the Towers and five persons unknown.”

”All of us.”

”Unseen?”

”Yes.”

”And unheard?”

”Of course.”

”But you are not as fleet as we, nor as light of foot. We can go where a snowflake would be heard, and it falling.”

”Nonetheless,” said Stark, ''We will try.”

She turned to her people. ”The strangers and the Gray Ones would pa.s.s by Thyra in secret. Slaifed?” She sang the name.

A man came to her, laughing, kicking the dry snow. ”I will lead them.” They were a small people, these night-dancers, the tallest of them reaching no higher than Stark's shoulders. Slaifed looked him up and down and across and made a rude sound. ”I can do that, but I can't make your great hoofs be silent. That is up to you.”

”And their weapons,” said the woman. ”Don't forget their weapons.”

”No one forgets weapons,” said Slaifed, and laughed again, a peculiarly lilting sound that somehow sent a s.h.i.+ver across Stark's nerves. Slaifed himself bore no weapons, at least none that Stark could see, except for a knife such as everyone carried for the necessities of daily life.

”Follow me,” said the Outdweller, ”if you can.”

He went gusting away across the snow, seeming to ride the wind. The others of his tribe returned to their dancing, all but the woman, who came with Stark. The thin voice of the pipe was audible for some time, fading slowly with distance.

Hargoth's people and the Irnanese went very quickly, in spite of Slaifed's doubting. They went with their hands on their weapons and their eyes alert The scarecrow figure of the Outdweller flitted ahead. The Witchfires gleamed and glittered under the shaking aurora.

The woman looked up sidelong at Stark. ”You are from the south.”

”Yes.”

”From the south, and not from the south.” She circled him, her small nose lifted. She walked backward, studying the Irnanese. ”They are from the south. They smell of Skaith.” She turned to Stark again. ”Not you. You smell of the dust of heaven and the sacred night.”

Stark was not aware that he smelled of anything except a lack of soap and water. But he did not miss the significance of the remark . . . unless the Outdwellers were clairvoyant. He said, ”You're given to fancies, little sister.” His gaze roved constantly over Slaifed, the trail, the ever-s.h.i.+fting hills. The piping had ceased now, perhaps because it was too far away to be heard. ”How are you called?”

”Slee,” she said. ”Slee-e-e-e . . . like the wind running over a hill.”

”Were you always wanderers, Slee?”

”Since the beginning. Our people have never had roofs to prison them. All this is ours.” Her wide arms touched everything, hills and sky, the Witchfires, the darklands behind them. ”In the time of the Great Wandering we were the free plunderers who fed on the roof-dwellers.”

Stark thought that probably she meant that quite literally. She was proud of it. She danced with pride, going a little ahead of him. Slaifed was even farther ahead. This part of the trail was fairly straight, with a steep hillside on the right and a sharp drop-off to the left, into a ravine with a frozen stream at the bottom. The hillside could be climbed at need, but not easily.

A hundred feet or so on, the trail bent around a jutting shoulder of rock. Suddenly Slaifed began to run.

So did Slee.

So did Stark.

Slee's hands were at her breast when Stark caught her and flung her aside with a swinging slash of his hand, never breaking stride. Slaifed looked back, not believing that anyone but an Outdweller could move so swiftly. He reached into the breast of his tunic, still going like the wind.

Stark caught him halfway round the rock. It was like catching a bird. He sank his fingers into the long thin neck that was all cord and muscle, and set his feet, and did a thing that made Slaifed's body snap upward as one snaps a whip.

Stark saw the Outdweller's absolutely incredulous face, saw a double set of iron talons, only half drawn on over thin fingers, drop to the ground. Then he had flung the body against Slee, turning as she came into his back.

Her iron claws were in place and slas.h.i.+ng. He felt the metal, still warm from her flesh. Then she fell under Slaifed's dead weight and Stark killed her with one blow. She stared up at him from the white ground, the great dark pupils still reflecting the night, though not so brightly.

The column, headed by the Irnanese, had come to a halt. Weapons were rattling along the line. Stark touched the angle of his jaw where Slee's claws had cut him, two shallow grooves just above the neck. The blood was already beginning to freeze. He drew his sword and went on around the rock.

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