The instrument roared again. Another nomad flung away from Gibany.
Marika looked at the weapon in awe. "What is it?"
For a moment Bagnel looked at her oddly. Along the wall, his brethren were making similar instruments talk. "Oh," he murmured. "That is right. You are Tech Two pup." He swung the instrument slightly, seeking another target. "It is called a rifle. It spits a pellet of metal. The pellet is no bigger than the last joint of your littlest finger, but travels so fast it will punch right through a body." His weapon spat thunder. So did those of his brethren. "Not much point to this, except to harass them." Bam! "There are too many of them."
Below, the last of the workers and huntresses were coming in the gate. Only one of Akard's meth remained unsafe: Khles Gibany, tied to that post.
The nomad huntresses and workers had thrown themselves into the trench the workers had begun. Now Marika saw another wave hurrying forward from the forest beyond the fields. She could just make that out now. The snowfall was weakening.
Pinpoints of light flickered along the advancing nomad line, accompanied by a crackle like that of fat in a frying pan.
"Down, pup!" Bagnel snapped. "They are shooting back."
Something snarled past Marika. It took a bite out of the earflap on her hat. Another something smacked into the wall and whined away. She got down.
Bagnel said, "They have the weapons they captured at Critza, plus whatever else someone gave them." He sighted his weapon again, fired, looked at her with teeth exposed in a snarl of black humor. "Hang on. It is going to get exciting."
Marika rose, looked out. Someone had managed to get the torch into the wood piled round Gibany's foot. Gibany's fear had drawn her ... Once more through the loophole. Once more no ghosts of consequence. She reached with the touch to help Gibany endure. But half the silth on the wall were doing that, almost in a passive acceptance of fate. "No!" Marika said. "They will not do that. You. Bagnel. Show me how to use that thing." She indicated his weapon.
He eyed her a moment, shook his head. "I am not sure what you want to do, pup. But you will not do it with this." He patted the weapon. Snowflakes touching its tube were turning to steam. "It takes years to learn to use it properly."
"Then you will do it. Put one of your deadly pellets into Khles, to free her from agony. We cannot save her. The talent is denied us today. But we can rob the savages of their mockery by sending her to rejoin the All."
Bagnel gaped. "Mistress ... "
Her expression was fierce, demanding.
"I could not, mistress. To raise paw against the silth. No matter the cause ... "
Marika stared across the snow, ignoring the insect sounds swarming past her. Gibany had begun writhing in her bonds. The pain of the fire had torn all reason from her mind. She knew nothing but the agony now.
"Do it," Marika said in a low and intense voice so filled with power the tradermale began looking around as if seeking a place to run. "Do it now. Free her. I will take all responsibility. Do you understand?"
Teeth grinding, Bagnel nodded. Paws shaking, he adjusted knobs. He paused to get a grip on himself.
His weapon barked.
Marika stared at Gibany, defying the nomad snipers.
The Khles bucked against her bonds, sagged. Marika ducked through her loophole, grabbed the best ghost available, went looking.
Gibany was free. She would know no more pain.
Back. "It is done. I am in your debt, tradermale."
Bagnel showed her angry teeth. "You are a strange one, young mistress. And soon to be one joining your elder sister if you do not get yourself down." A steady rain of metal pounded against the wall. Swarms whined past. Marika realized most must be meant for her. She was the only target visible to the nomads.
She sped them a hand gesture of defiance, lowered herself behind a merlon.
One of Bagnel's brethren shouted at him, pointed. Out on the snowfield meth were running forward in tight bunches. Each bunch carried something. Bagnel and his comrades began shooting rapidly, concentrating on those groups. Some of the silth, too, managed to reach them. Marika saw nomads go down in the characteristic throes of silth death-sending. But three groups managed to carry their burdens into the snow trenches, where workers were still digging. Marika now understood why they were heaping the snow the way they were. It would block the paths of the pellets from the tradermales' weapons.
More nomads came from the woods. Some carried heavy packs, some nothing at all. The latter rushed to the burdens their predecessors had dropped, grabbed them up, hustled them forward.
The crackle of nomad rifles continued unabated. Twice Marika heard someone on the wall shriek.
"Get down as flat as you can," Bagnel told her. "And snuggle up tight against the merlon. They are going to start throwing the big stuff."
Puffs of smoke sprouted and blossomed above the nomad trenches, vanished on the wind. Muted crumpings came a moment later, a sort of soft threatening thumping. Where had she heard that before? That time when tradermales ambushed the nomads she and Arhdwehr were chasing ...
"Down," Bagnel said, and yanked at her when she did not move fast enough to suit. He pressed her against the icy stone.
Something moaned softly in a rising pitch. There was a tremendous bang outside the wall, followed by a series of bangs, only one of which occurred behind the wall. That one precipitated a shriek which turned into the steady moan of a badly injured meth.
"They are getting the range," Bagnel explained. "Once they find it the bombs will come steady."
Where were the ghosts? How could silth battle this without their talents?
Why were the ghosts absent just when the savages elected to attack?
A second salvo came. Most fell short, though closer. Several did carry past the wall. They made a lot of noise but did little damage. The packfast was constructed of thick stone. Its builders had meant it to stand forever.
The entire third salvo fell inside the fortress. Marika sensed that that presaged a steady hammering.
A river of meth poured from the woods, burdened with ammunition for the engines throwing the bombs. Workers left their trenches and darted forward, hastily dug shallow holes in which to shelter. They worked their ways toward the snow break. Nomads carrying rifles followed them, only sporadically harassed by Bagnel and his brethren. The crackle of nomad rifle fire never slowed.
Several more packfast meth were hit.
"This is hopeless," Marika whispered. "We cannot fight back." She went down through her loophole again, and again found the ghost world all but barren. But this time she stayed, hoping for the stray chance to strike back. She sensed that many sisters were doing the same, with occasional success. Those who did find a tool spent their fury upon the crews of the bomb-throwing instruments.
Why was the ghost world so naked?
Marika waited with the patience of a hunting herdek, till the ghost she needed happened by. She pounced, seized it, commanded it, rode it out over the snowfields, past the nomads and their strange engines, through woods where thousands more nomads waited to move forward, and on to the very limit of her ability to control that feeble a ghost. And there she found the thing that she had sensed must exist, if only on the dimmest level.
A whole company of silth and wehrlen, gathered in one place, were pulling to them all the strong ghosts of the region. The air surrounding them boiled with color, denser than ever Marika had imagined. She thought the ghosts must be so numerous they would be visible to the eyes of untalented meth.
They were weak, these wild silth and wehrlen. Poorly trained. But in the aggregate they were able to summon the ghosts to them and so deny the Akard sisters access to their most potent defense.
Marika sought a focus, one strong silth controlling the group. Sometimes her Akard sisters linked under the control of the senior to meld into a more powerful whole.