"Pup," the taller silth said, "there has been a change in you. We would try to understand why overnight you have come to dislike us so."
"This," Marika said curtly.
"This? What does 'this' mean?"
Marika was not possessed of a fear the way the huntresses were. She did not know silth, because no one had told her about them. She said, "You sit there and watch while Grauel and Barlog work not only for their own benefit but yours. At the packstead you contributed. Some. In things that were not entirely of the pack to do." Meaning remove bodies.
The elder silth did not understand. The younger did, but was irked. "We did when there was none else to do. We are silth. Silth do not work with their paws. That is the province of-"
"You have two feet and two paws and are in good health. Better health than we, for you walk us into the earth. You are capable. In our pack you would starve if you did not do your share."
Fire flashed in the older silth's eyes. The taller, after another moment of irritation, seemed amused. "You have much to learn, little one. If we did these things you speak of, we would not be seen as silth anymore."
"Is being silth, then, all arrogance? We had arrogant huntresses in our pack. But they worked like everyone else. Or they went hungry."
"We do our share in other ways, pup."
"Like by protecting the packs who pay tribute? That is the excuse I have always heard for the senior huntresses traveling to the packfast every spring. To pay the tribute which guarantees protection. This winter makes me suspect the protection bought may be from the packfast silth, not from killers from outside the upper Ponath. Your protection certainly has done the packs no good. You have saved three lives. Maybe. While packs all over the upper Ponath have been exterminated. So do not brag to me of the wonderful share you do unless you show me much more than you have."
"Feisty little bitch," the taller silth said, aside to the elder.
The older was at the brink of rage, an inch from explosion. But Marika had stoked her own anger to the point where she did not care, was not afraid. She noted that Grauel and Barlog had stopped pushing snow around and were watching, poised, uncertain, but with paws near weapons.
This was not good. She had best get her temper cooled or there would be difficulties none of them could handle.
Marika turned her back on the silth. She said, "As strength goes." Though this seemed a perversion of that old saw.
She won a point, though. The tall silth began pitching in after, just long enough to make it appear she was not yielding to a mere pup.
"Be careful, Marika," Grauel snapped when they were a distance away, collecting wood. "Silth are not known for patience or understanding."
"Well, they made me mad."
"They make everyone mad, pup. Because they can get away with doing any damned thing they want. They have the power."
"I will watch my tongue."
"I doubt that. You have grown overbold with no one to slap your ears. Come. This is enough wood."
Marika returned to their little encampment wondering at Grauel. And at Barlog. The agony of the Degnan did not, truly, seem to have touched them deeply.
II
Neither Grauel nor Barlog said a word, but the covert looks they cast at the fire made it clear they did not consider it a wise comfort. Smoke, even when not seen, could be smelled for miles.
The silth saw and understood their discomfort. The taller might have agreed with them, once the cooking was finished, but the elder was in a stubborn mood, not about to take advice from anyone.
The fire burned on.
The huntresses had dug a hollow beneath the fallen tree large enough for the five of them, and deep enough to shelter them from the wind entirely. As the sun rose, the silth crept into the shelter and bundled against one another for warmth. Marika was not far behind. Only in sleep would she find surcease from aches both physical and spiritual. Grauel followed her. But Barlog did not.
"Where is Barlog?" Marika asked, half asleep already. It was a morning in which the world was still. There was no sound except the whine of the wind and the crackle of frozen tree branches. When the wind died momentarily, there was, too, a distinct rushing sound, water surging through rapids in the river. Most places, as Marika had seen, the river was entirely frozen over and indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape.
"She will watch," Grauel replied.
The silth had said nothing about setting a watch. Had, in fact, implied that even asleep they could sense the approach of strangers long before the huntresses might.
Marika just nodded and let sleep take her.
She half wakened when Barlog came to trade places with Grauel, and again when Grauel changed with Barlog once more. But she remained completely unaware of anything the next time Barlog came inside. She did not waken because that was when she was ensnarled in the first of the dreams.
A dark place. Stuffy. Fear. Weakness and pain. Fever and thirst and hunger. A musty smell and cold dampness. But most of all pain and hunger and the terror of death.
It was like no dream Marika had ever had, and there was no escaping it.
It was a dream in which nothing ever happened. It was a static state of being, almost the worst she could imagine. Nightmares were supposed to revolve around flight, pursuit, the inexorable approach of something dread, tireless, and without mercy. But this was like being in the mind of someone dying slowly inside a cave. Inside the mind of someone insane, barely aware of continued life.
She wakened to smoke and smells and silence. The wind had ceased blowing. For a while she lay there shuddering, trying to make sense of the dream. The Wise insisted dreams were true, though seldom literal.
But it slipped away too quickly, too soon became nothing more than a state of malaise.
Grauel had a fresh fire blazing and food cooking when Marika finally crawled out of the shelter. The sun was well on its way down. Night would be along soon after they ate, packed, and took care of personal essentials. She settled beside Grauel, took over tending the fire. Barlog joined them a moment later, while the silth were still stretching and grumbling inside the shelter.
"They are out there," Barlog said. Grauel nodded. "Just watching right now. But we will hear from them before we reach the packfast."
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.