Grauel nodded again. She said, "Do not bother our superior witches with it. They know most all there is to know. They must know this, too."
Barlog grunted. "Walk warily tonight. And stay close. Marika, stay alert. If something happens, just get down into the snow. Dive right in and let it bury you if you can."
Marika put another piece of wood onto the fire. She said nothing, and did nothing, till the taller silth came from the shelter, stretched, and surveyed the surrounding land. She came to the fire and checked the cook pot. Her nose wrinkled momentarily. Travel rations were not tasty, even to huntresses accustomed to eating them.
She said, "We will pass the rapids soon after nightfall. We will walk atop the river after that. The going will be easiest there."
Aside, Barlog told Marika, "So we traveled coming east. The river is much easier than the forest, where you never know what lies beneath the snow."
"Will the ice hold?"
"The ice is several feet thick. It will hold anything."
As though the silth were not there, Grauel said, "There are several wide places in the river where we will be very exposed visually. And several narrow places ideal for an ambush." She described what lay ahead in detail, for Marika's benefit.
The silth was irked but said nothing. The older came out of the shelter and asked, "Is that pot ready?"
"Almost," Grauel replied.
Rested, even the older silth was more cooperative. She began moving snow about so that their pause here would be less noticeable after their departure.
Grauel and Barlog exchanged looks, but did not tell her she was wasting her time. "Let them believe what they want to believe," Barlog said.
The taller silth caught that and responded with a puzzled expression. None of the three Degnan told her they thought the effort pointless because the nomads knew where they were already.
Biter rose early that night, full and in headlong flight from Chaser, which was not far behind. The travelers reached the river as that second major moon rose, setting their shadows aspin. Once again the silth wanted to push hard. This time Grauel and Barlog refused to be pushed. They moved at their own pace, weapons in paw, seeming to study every step before they took it. Marika sensed that they were very tense.
The silth sensed it too, and for that reason, perhaps, they did not press, though clearly they thought all the caution wasted.
And wasted it seemed, for as the sun returned to the world it found them unscathed, having made no contact whatsoever with the enemies Grauel and Barlog believed were stalking them.
But the huntresses were not prepared to admit error. They trusted their instincts. Again they set a watch during the day.
Again nothing happened during the day. Except that Marika dreamed.
It was the same, and different. All the closeness, pain, terror, darkness, hunger were there. The smells and damp and cold were there. But this time she was a little more conscious and aware. She was trying to claw her way up something, climbing somewhere, and the mountain in the dark was the tallest mountain in the world. She kept passing out, and crying out, but no one answered, and she seemed to be making no real ground. She had a blazing fever that came and went, and when it was at its pitch she saw things that could not possibly be there. Things like glowing balls, like worms of light, like diaphanous moths the size of loghouses that flew through earth and air with equal ease.
Death's breath was winter on the back of her neck.
If she could just get to the top, to food, to water, to help.
One of her soft cries alerted Grauel, who wakened her gently and scratched her ears till shuddering and panting went away.
The temperature rose a little that day and stayed up during the following night. With the temperature rise came more snow and bitter winds that snarled along the valley of the east fork, flinging pellets of snow into faces. The travelers fashioned themselves masks. Grauel suggested they hole up till the worst was past. The silth refused. The only reason they would halt, storm or no, was to avoid getting lost: There was no chance of that here. If they strayed from the river they would begin climbing uphill. They would run into trees.
Marika wished she could come through by day instead of by night in snow. What little she could see suggested this was impressive country, far grander than any nearer home.
There was no trouble with nomads that night either, nor during the following day. Grauel and Barlog insisted the northerners were still out there, though, tracking the party.
Marika had no dreams. She hoped the horror was over.
The weather persisted foul. The taller silth said, as they huddled in a shelter where they had gone to ground early, "We will be in trouble if this persists. We have food for only one more day. We are yet two from Akard. If we are delayed much more we will get very hungry before we reach home." She glanced at the older silth. The old one had begun showing the strain of the journey.
Neither huntress said a word, though each had suggested pushing too hard meant wasting energy that might be needed later.
Marika asked, "Akard? What is that?"
"It is the name of what you call the packfast, pup."
She was puzzled. Was Akard the name of the silth pack there?
The storm slackened around noon. The travelers clung to their shelter only till shadows began gathering in the river canyon. The sun fell behind the high hills while there were yet hours of daylight left.
The silth wanted to make up lost time. "We go now," the taller said. And the older hoisted herself up, though it was obvious that standing was now an effort for her.
Marika and the huntresses were compelled to admire the old silth's spirit. She did not complain once, did not yield to the infirmity of her flesh.
Again Grauel and Barlog would not be rushed. Both went to the fore, and advanced with arrows across their bows, studying every shadow along the banks. Their noses wriggled as they sniffed the wind. The silth were amused. They said there were no nomads anywhere near. But they humored the huntresses. The old one could not move much faster anyway. The taller one covered the rear.
Marika carried her short steel knife bared. She was not that impressed with silth skills, for all she knew them more intimately than did Grauel or Barlog.
It happened at twilight.
The snow on one bank erupted. Four buried savages charged. The silth were so startled they just stood there.
Grauel and Barlog released their arrows. Two nomads staggered, began flopping as poison spread through their bodies. There was no time for second arrows. Barlog ducked under a javelin thrust and used her bow to tangle a nomad's legs. Grauel smacked another across the back of the neck with her bow.
Marika flung herself onto the back of the huntress Barlog tripped, driving her knife with all her weight. It was a good piece of iron taken from her dead dam's belt. It slid into flesh easily and true.
Barlog saw that nomad down, whirled to help Grauel, dropping her bow to draw her sword.
Javelins rained down. One struck the older silth but did not penetrate her heavy travel apparel. Another wobbled past Marika's nose and she remembered what she had been told to do if they were attacked. She threw herself into the snow and tried to burrow.
A half dozen huntresses streaked toward the stunned silth. Grauel and Barlog floundered toward them. Grauel still held her bow. She managed to get off two killing shafts.
The other four piled onto the silth, not even trying to kill them, just trying to rip their packs off their backs, trying to wrest the iron club away from the taller. Barlog hacked at one with her sword. The blade would not slice through all the layers of clothing the nomad wore.
Marika got herself up again. She started toward the fray.
Javelins intercepted her, drove her back.
There were more nomads on the bank now. At least another half dozen. The cast was long for them, so they seemed intent on keeping her from helping.