"We'll give you complete maps of the caves; we've been stowing what we could in there against some time of need like this one for as long as we've been here. You people can take your choice; you can head either for there or come here to Fortress Pass and go through. We can hold this place against all comers, and it's the only way into Yazkirn for miles about. We'll keep this bunch off your tails if you want to go for sanctuary in Yazkirn or Ancas."
"But—" he gestured helplessly, hat still clutched in one hand. "The plantings—the stock—"
"What won't come willingly, easily, kill and leave behind. Seed can be replaced."
—I hope. Are you listening, gods?
"And stock can be bred back or bought. The land won't run away. The one thing we cannot replace is you, your families, your lives. Listen to me, man. It'll be a hungry winter, but if you take what you can and destroy what you have to, these nomads will have nowhere to go and nothing to raid. Then they'll try the pass—when we scare them off, they'll go home."
—oh you gods, I hope you're hearing me—
"Then you can come back; we'll work together to make your lands bloom again. But we cannot sow a seed that will bring forth your dead; and your wives, your children, and you yourselves will die if you don't run from these horse-warriors while you can!"
She closed her eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on.
Jahvka looked about ready to cry; she didn't much blame him. She was about at that point herself.
"Drink your wine," she said gruffly.
He looked at the mug as if he had forgotten it was there, then, as obediently as a child, picked it up and cautiously sipped it, his eyes never once leaving her face.
"It isn't the end of the world, Jahvka," she said quietly. "I know it seems like it is, but its not. The Order ran farther, faster, and with less than you'll be able to save, and we survived."
He bobbed his head, but his eyes were doubtful in the lantern-glow.
"So tell me; what's your people's choice likely to be? Sanctuary or the caves?"
"What you got in them caves?" he asked bluntly. "What they like?"
"Well, let me think; fodder mostly, there's wild grass all over those hills and we set the novices out for a haying holiday every summer."
And fair bitching I used to hear about it, too. No novices to cook and clean and run errands for four whole weeks. Now maybe my lazy children will understand why I ordered it.
"The upper caves are dryer than this Fortress; there's hay up there ten years old that's still good. Some grain; not as much as I'd like, though, and no good for seed. And some things you folk have no use for, books and the like."
Oh precious blood of our Order, you books. Stay safe.
"If I were to put my people up there, I'd put the stock in the upper caves near the fodder and where they can smell the outside; they won't get so twitchy that way. The middle caves would be best for living; the lower are damp at best. There's a couple underground rivers and a lake, so you'll have good water."
Jahvka took all this in, and nodded. "The caves, then; be hard enough gettin' most of 'em out of sight of their land. Most of 'em likely to see goin' over Fortress Pass as givin' up. And my kind don't give up easy."
She inclined her head with real respect. "I take it, then, that you speak for the whole Vale?"
"Aye. I didn't want it, but I was the only Elder still in the Vale, able t' leave the people with someone else, and fit enough to run up here. Mera's on the Teeth with some of the wilder kids; she reckoned on giving them something to do that'd keep 'em out of bowshot. Other younger ones, they with their people, keepin' 'em calm. Old Thahd's with mine; he got wounded he don't want t'leave, so he's watchin' both our garths. Lenyah an' Beris are too damned old t' be runnin' about in a storm."
"No argument from me."
I trained Mera myself; she's no Watcher, but she's as canny as they come. Same for the other younger ones; and I'd bet on them getting their folks ready to march right now. They knew what my answer was going to be. Wounded—I don't like the sound of that; I'll send somebody on down to see if we can do anything. If only these farmers had horses instead of oxen—if only we had more of them trained.
"Will you have enough able-bodied folks in your two garths to run the alert through the Vale?"
He nodded emphatically. "Guess we got no choice, an' might as well go now. Most seed hasn't been put in yet; likely we can save it. 'F Mera an' the lads can hold the Teeth a bit, might even be able t' save the oxen."
Felaras sighed, and glanced out the window. The storm was almost on top of them; she could hear the low grumble of the thunder even through the thick stone walls. A moment later Kasha slipped back in the door, her hands full of waterproofed map-tubes.
"Right enough." She stood up; he nearly overset the chair in his haste to get to his feet. "Kasha, take Elder Landsman Jahvka down to the Lesser Hall and send a novice out for some food for him. Not even a barbarian horse-nomad is going to make a move in this rain, so see him fed and completely dry before you let him go back down the Pass. Tell Vider I want him to go along; the Elder says they've got some wounded. Then get Zorsha to do a supply inventory—yes, I mean now, I want it on my desk before I go to bed—and have Teokane see if the Library has anything to say about these steppes riders."
Kasha bowed—a little more deeply, this time—and ushered the Elder out with one unobtrusive hand behind his left shoulder blade. She closed the door behind them, and Felaras sank back down into her chair just as the first burst of rain pattered against the glass of the window.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
She reached for the thin pile of reports. No one would believe her three months ago when she'd figured these nomads wouldn't turn back when they reached the River. Half the Order had figured her for crazed, sending out Watchers to try to get information on the barbarians.
Now they'd be on her back to evacuate.
Evacuate to where? The biggest sister-house, the one at Yafir, is right in their path if we fall. The other one at Parda is there on sufferance; in no way are the Yazkirn princes going to let more "wizards" in at their back door.
She skimmed through the hastily written reports one more time, hoping to pry a little more information out of the barely legible scrawls, but didn't learn anything she didn't already know. No ideas as to the size of the "horde"; their habit of having four to six ponies each made them hard to estimate.
Their course was easy enough to follow. They'd cut their way through nominally "civilized" Azgun in a straight run west with Fortress Pass right on the line through Yazkirn; didn't stop for much of anything and seemed to loot only the most portable of goods, mainly the foodstuffs and the horses.
Hm. Wonder why? Usual style is to pillage everything that isn't nailed to the floor, and round up the herds and the kids and women.
She made a mental note to herself to consider that question later, and went on with her gleaning. She chewed absently at her ragged thumbnail as lightning flashed by right outside the window and the stone walls vibrated to the thunder.
The leader was very young, by all accounts; a nomad going by the name of Jegrai. The group was not just a raiding party; their women and children were with them. But not their food herds. Or their family tents and carts. Only their horses. Their riding horses, their packhorses.
Another anomaly. Strange. Very strange.
She came to the end of the reports with nothing more than questions, no answers.