"That doomstalker superstition haunts my backtrail still?"
"Forget legend and superstition-though they are valid as ways of interpreting that which we know but do not understand. Consider personality. You are the least selfless silth I have ever encountered. I have yet to discern a genuine shred of devotion in you, to the Community or to the silth ideal. You fake. You pretend. You put on masks. But you walk among those who see through shadows and mists, Marika. You cannot convince anyone that you are some sweet lost pup from the Ponath."
Marika began to pace. She wanted to issue some argument to refute Dorteka and could not think of a one she could wield with conviction.
"You are using the Reugge, Marika."
"The Reugge are using me."
"That is the way of-"
"I do not accept that, Dorteka. Take that back to Gradwohl if you want. Though I am sure she knows."
Grauel witnessed this argument. She grew very tense as it proceeded, fearing it would pass beyond the verbal. Dorteka had been having increasing difficulty maintaining her self-restraint.
Marika had worked hard to bind Grauel and Barlog more closely to her. Again and again she tested them in pinches between loyalties to herself and loyalties to the greater community. They had stuck with her every time. She hoped she was laying the foundations of unshakable habit. A day might come when she would want them to stick with her through extreme circumstances.
For all she had known these two huntresses her entire life, Marika did not know them very well. Had she known them well, she would have realized no doubt of their loyalties ever existed.
Barlog entered the room. "A new report from Akard, Marika."
"It's early, isn't it?
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"Another sighting."
"Another ghost darkship?"
"No. This time it's a possible nomad force coming east on the Morthra Trail. Based on two unconfirmed sightings."
"Well, that is no problem for us."
The Morthra Trail was little more than a game track these days, lost beneath ten feet of snow. At one time it had connected Critza with a tradermale outpost on the Neybhor River, seventy miles to the west. The Neybhor marked the western frontier of Reugge claims in that part of the Ponath.
"Sounds like wishful thinking," Marika said. "Or a drill being sprung on us by the most senior. But I suppose we do have to pass the word. Dorteka, you take the eastern arc. I will take the western." Marika sealed her eyes, went inside, extended a thread of touch till she reached an underling in an outlying blockhouse. She relayed the information.
Two days later touch-word brought the news that Akard had lost contact with several western outposts. Darkships sent to investigate had found the garrisons dead. An aerial search for the culprits had begun.
One of the darkships fell out of touch.
Senior Educan sent out everything she had.
When found, the missing darkship was a tangle of titanium ruin. It had buried itself in the face of a mountain, evidently at high speed. The Mistress of the Ship and her bath appeared to have suffered no wounds before the crash.
"That is silth work," Marika said. "Not nomads at all, but Serke." She shivered. For an instant a premonition gripped her. Grim times were in the offing. Perhaps times that would shift the course of her life. "This must be the desperate move you predicted, Dorteka."
The instructress was frightened. She seemed to have suffered a premonition of her own. "We have to get out of here, Marika."
"Why?"
"They would send their very best. If they would go that far. We cannot withstand that. They will exterminate us, then ambush any help sent from Maksche."
"Panic is not becoming in a silth," Marika said, parroting a maxim learned at Akard. "You are better at the long touch than I am. Get Akard to send me a darkship."
"Why?"
"Do it."
"They will want to know why. If they have lost one already, they will want to hoard the ones that are left."
"Invoke the most senior if you have to."
Sighing, Dorteka started to go into touch.
"Dorteka. Wait. Find out which outposts were silenced. And where that darkship went down."
"Yes, mistress," Dorteka replied.
"Sarcasm does not become you. Hurry. Before those fools panic and run away."
Dorteka went into touch. Her strained, twisting face betrayed her difficulty getting through, then an argument ensuing. Marika told Grauel, "If those fools don't come across, I'll hike down there and take a darkship myself. Why did they put Educan in charge? She is worse that Paustch ever was. She couldn't ... " Dorteka had come out of touch. "What did they say?"
"The darkship is coming. I had to lie, Marika. And I had to invoke Gradwohl. I hope you know what you are doing."
"What state were they in?"
"You can guess."
"Yes. Educan was packing. Grauel. Get my coats, boots, and weapons." On the frontier Marika dressed as one of the huntresses, not as silth.
Dorteka studied a map while Marika dressed. Marika glanced over her shoulder. "A definite progression, yes?"
"It does look like a developing pattern."
"Looks like? They will hit here next, then here, here, and then try Akard. No wonder Educan is in a dither. They will reach the Hainlin before dawn tommorow."
"You have that look in your eye, Marika. What are you going to do?"
No particular thought went into Marika's answer. "Ambush them at Critza." It was the thing that had to be done.
"They would sense our presence."
"Not if we use our novices to keep our body heat concealed."
"Marika ... "
"We will hit them on huntress's terms initially. Not as silth. They will not be looking for that. We will chew them up before they know what is happening."
"Critza is not inside your proper territory."
"If we do not do something, Educan will run off and leave us here. The Serke will not have to come after us. They can leave us to the grauken if they take Akard."
"True. But-"
"Perhaps one of the reasons Gradwohl favors me is that I am not bound by tradition. Not if form's sake means sticking my head into a kirn's den."
"Perhaps."
"Contact the outposts. We will gather everyone. Grauel. Prepare for two days of patrol for the whole force."
III Marika kept the darkship aloft continuously, bringing huntresses to Critza, till she felt the Serke party could be within an hour of her ambush. The western outposts had fallen as she had predicted. Akard was in a panic. The leadership there had so wilted, Marika no longer bothered trying to stay in touch.
A pair of darkships raced over, fleeing south, practically dripping meth and possessions. "That," Marika observed, "is why we silth are so beloved, Dorteka. Educan has saved everthing she owns. But how many huntresses and laborers were aboard?"
Dorteka did not try to defend Educan. She was as outraged as Marika was, if not quite for the same reasons. The Akard senior's flight was indefensible on any grounds.
"Everyone in place?" Marika asked. There were no tracks in the snow, nothing to betray the ambush physically. The huntresses had dropped into their positions from the darkship. "See if you can detect anybody, Dorteka. If you do, get on the novice covering." She could detect nothing with her own less skillful touch.
Fear proved to be a superb motivator. The novices hid everyone well.
"That is it for Chaser," Marika said as the last of the major moons settled behind the opposite ridge. But there was light still. Dawn had begun to break under a rare clear sky. Long shadows of skeletal trees reached across the Hainlin. The endless cold had killed all the less hardy. They were naked of needles. Occasionally the stillness filled with the crash following some elder giant's defeat in its battle with gravity. Farther north, where the winds kept the slopes scoured of snow, whole mountains were scattered with fallen trees, like straw in a grain field after harvest.
A far hum began to build in the hills opposite Critza. "Utter silence now," Marika cautioned. "Total alertness. Nobody move for any reason. And hold your fire till I give the word. Hold your fire." She hoped it would not be much longer. The cold gnawed her bones. They had dared light no fires. The smell of smoke would have betrayed them.