The doors had been roughly repaired and strongly braced, but they rattled and sent sprays of snow and cold at him through the slits and gaps and the blanket-covered gap where sentries went in and out.
The sleds were arranged to shelter the ramp and tightly lashed together; the dogs were staked out on a line, sleeping easily beneath the snow but ready to wake at clues a human could never sense. Most of the gear was inside, along with as much firewood as all thirty-odd of them had been able to drag before the weather got too thick. On the other side of the entranceway to the building was a dark nook where they?d put the head of the bear, and buried the rent hide and such of the body as hadn?t gone to feed the folk or the sled dogs. Though Edain had kept the claws, to give to friends of his whose sept totem was Bear, when he got home.
Rudi paused there on his way back and made reverence, clapping his palms twice and then pressing them together with his thumbs on his chin and fingers touching brow as he bowed from the waist. For a long moment he went down on one knee and stared into the dead eyes; shadows from the fires made them seem almost alive, coals in a mask of snarling ferocity.
Then he spoke softly:?Horned Lord of the Beasts, witness that we killed from need, not wantonness; to protect ourselves and for food. This we do knowing that for us also the Hour of the Huntsman will come; for Earth must be fed and our bodies are but borrowed from Her for a little while. Brother Bear, fellow warrior, we praise the brave fight you made, and we thank you for your gift of life. Go in peace to the honey-meads beyond the Western Gate, where no evil comes and all hurts are healed. Speak well of us to the Guardians, and be reborn through Her who is Mother-of-All.?
He thought for a moment, then drew the Invoking Pentacle and continued:?And You strong spirit of the forest, Father of Bears, if wrong was done to Your child, know that we are guiltless of it. We have given Your son his honor and seemly rites. My blood father was called the Bear Lord, and though my totem is Raven, we are kin, You and I. Let Your just wrath fall on those who broke the laws laid on humankind in their dealings with the other kindreds. So mote it be!?
When he came back to the main fire the frozen blueberry turnovers were ready and sending out a toasty-sweet smell. He bit into one, relishing the buttery taste of the envelope and the tang of the filling. It took several before he felt replete, despite pounds of bears? flesh and potatoes and hard twice-baked rye bread. He?d always been a hearty eater; he was a big man, and his lean height was active beyond the common run even when he didn?t have to be, but this style of winter voyaging and the demands it made were something new to him. ?Wendigo weather,? Pierre Walks Quiet said, after they?d all spent a little time in song and tale-telling.?The colder it is, the more they walk.?
Rudi nodded. It made sense that a spirit of hunger would grow stronger in this season when the body?s demands were so great.
They?d agreed that the ones who?d fought the bear would be spared guard-watch duty for the night; the sled dogs helped with that, too. Sleeping out in the snow was no hardship for them, though they preferred a spot by the fire when they could get it. Matti finished her evening devotions, slipped off her boots and eeled into her sleeping bag. Rudi did the same, making sure his boots and sword belt were ready to hand. She cuddled against his back, a pleasant solidity even through the double thickness of bags and clothes. ?Nice,? she murmured sleepily. ?That it is,? he replied.
And I?m being entirely truthful the now, which shows just how tired I am, mo chroi!
The fire died down, skillfully banked. He let himself fall into the soft dark…
… and the cave was deep and darker still. Red eyes moved within it, and a gathering wrath that prickled his skin like a summer thunderstorm, and a rank harsh scent and carnivore breath. An earthquake-deep growl spoke to him. A black wet nose explored his face; it was his own height or more, a bear but not quite a bear, longer-limbed and shorter of face and much, much larger than any he knew. The hairy bulk pushed past him, and he heard its feet falling heavy on the rocky floor…
He woke with a little start. Something told him it was hours later, deep night, the hours when the blood ran sluggish. The dream faded, becoming fragments that spun into drowsy nothingness. Somewhere a little ways away a woman?s voice spoke, gasping softly: ?Garo nin, bar melindo, garo nin!?
Rudi grinned in the dark. Somehow he didn?t think the Histories included quite that use of the Elvish words for have me, darling! but he supposed it marked it as a living language once more. And you couldn?t begrudge newlyweds.
Let them have what pleasure they can. I suspect this is going to be a grim journey, and no mistake.
Major Graber looked down grimly at the rent and bloody carcass of the Bekwa sentry. Teeth grinned back at him where the face had been stripped away, and even in the cold there was a slight rusty-iron smell of death, and something musky beneath it. ?Tiger or bear,? he said.?Possibly a catamount. Not much eaten.?
Though there was a great deal spattered, bits of flesh and hair up ten or twelve feet on the neighboring red spruces. One of his lieutenants bent over a patch of snow, fingers moving with steady delicacy. More was sifting down, but you could separate layers if you were skillful. ?Bear, Major,? he said. ?That?s the third one this week,? Graber said.?It?s delaying us. We?re not going to catch them at this rate. Especially if it keeps snowing.?
He glared at the High Seeker for an instant, before self-control reasserted itself. The Bekwa dogsleds were far faster than he?d thought they would be, but snowshoes just weren?t as good as skis when you tried to make speed, and their scavenged horses were losing what condition they?d had. Soon they?d have to start eating them, which would slow them further.
Dalan looked at him, then up at the low clouds, then to the north and east. Two of the savages? shamans were behind him. Their movements followed his exactly, as if they and his shadow were all linked by invisible cords. One of them was weeping from an expressionless face, tears freezing on the skin. ?We can gain on them if we go that way,? he said, and pointed.?We cut the cord of their arc. And… if we miss them there, another Seeker was sent this way last year. He will await us with supplies and help. On the river the ancients called Lawrence, near the ruined city of Royal Mount.?
Graber nodded; he was well schooled in mathematics, which were one of the languages of the Ascended Masters, and useful besides, and in maps. ?As you command, High Seeker,? he said.
The wind howled counterpoint as he gave his orders. He shivered a little; not with the cold, but with the gray sameness of it. Had there ever been anything but pursuit and fight and endless trudging? Had he ever ridden in the flower fields of spring, with the wind blowing keen pine-scented sweetness from the slopes of the Tetons? Or sat of an evening after dinner and watched his son take his first steps, laughing as he waved chubby arms?
No weakness! he told himself sternly. The Prophet gave you this task himself, and you knew death in a foreign land was the most likely outcome. ?Bad, Chief,? Edain said succinctly.?They got hit less than a week ago, I?d say. More than a day. Hard to tell closer, in this icebox of a land.?
Rudi looked over the little steading. Four or five families had dwelt there, in two long houses. They?d had a fishing boat for use on the northernmost of the great inland seas. That stretched northwards, frozen now, towards a little rocky islet half a mile away. The only remarkable thing in sight was the bow of a broken ship of the ancient world, towering in crumbling rust-eaten majesty where some storm had driven it on the rocks and broken its back.
The shore bore some scratched-out fields in the rocky earth, with low pine and birch and aspen elsewhere. Shaggy stretches of bush marked ground which would be bog in the warm season, rich in berries and grass. The dwellers had probably hunted a good deal-the travelers had taken several deer they found in a winter yard not long ago themselves-and mined the wreck for metal to work up and trade elsewhere. A modest rectangular barn hinted at livestock, and a substantial smithy near it had two fieldstone chimneys. From the look of things he?d have guessed that the whole had been put up after the Change, but mostly of old-world materials salvaged from nearby.