A true story, Marika thought. With all the flesh left off the bones. "That's it? That's all you can tell me about eight years of your life?"
"Can you say much more about yours?"
"What were you doing here, Kublin?"
"Driving. That is my job."
A truth that was at least partly a lie, Marika suspected. He was hiding something. And he persisted in using the formal mode with her. Her. When they had been pups, they had used only the informal mode with one another.
"Driving. But driving Serke making an illegal incursion into Reugge territory, Kublin. You and your brethren knowingly violated age-old conventions by becoming directly involved in a silth dispute. Why did you do that?"
"I was told to drive. Those were my orders."
"They were very stupid orders. Weren't they?"
He would not answer.
"This mess could destroy the brethren, Kublin."
He showed a little spirit in answering, "I doubt that. I doubt it very seriously."
"How do you expect the Communities to respond when they hear what brethren have done?"
Kublin shrugged.
"What's so important about the Ponath, that so many must die and so much be risked, Kublin?"
He shrugged again. "I don't know."
That had the ring of truth. And he had given in just enough to have lapsed into the informal mode momentarily.
"Maybe you don't." She was growing a little angry. "I'll tell you this. I'm going to find out."
He shrugged a third time, as though he did not care.
"You put me in a quandary, Kublin. I'm going to go away for a little while. I have to think. Will you be a witness for me? Before the Reugge council?"
"No. I will do nothing for you, silth. Nothing but die."
Marika went away, amazed to find that much spirit in him. And that much hatred of silth. So much that he would not accept her as the littermate he had shared so much with.
Marika squatted beside Grauel. She nodded toward the prisoners. "I don't want anyone else getting near them," she whispered. "Understand?"
"Yes."
Marika found herself a place beside the main fire, crowding in among her surviving novices. She did not pay them any heed.
Kublin! What was she to do? All they had shared as pups ...
She fell asleep squatting there. Despite the emotional storm, she was too exhausted to remain awake.
Marika wakened to the sting of cold-blown snow upon her muzzle and the crackle of small-arms fire. She staggered up, her whole body aching. "What now?"
Snow was falling, a powder driven by the wind. A vague bit of light said it was near sunrise. She could see just well and far enough to discover that yesterday's bodies and wreckage already wore a coat of white. "Dorteka! What is happening?"
"Nomads. There was a band following the Serke force. They stumbled onto the voctors I had going through the vehicles on the far slope."
"How many are there?"
"I do not yet know. Quite a few from the sound of it."
Marika moved out into the open to look across the valley. She was surprised at the effort it took to make her muscles carry out her will. She could see nothing through the falling snow. "I am still worn out. I used up far more of me than I thought yesterday."
"I can handle this, Marika. I have been unable to detect any silth accompanying them."
Marika's head had begun to throb. "Go ahead. I must eat something. I will be with you when I can."
The firing was moving closer. Dorteka hurried off into the falling snow. Marika turned, stiffly returned to the fire where she had slept, snatched at scraps of food. She found a half-finished cup of soup that had gone cold, downed it. That helped some almost immediately.
Stiffly then, she moved on to the prisoners.
Grauel sat watching them, her eyes red with weariness. "What is all the racket, Marika?"
Marika glared at the prisoners. "Nomads. Our friends here had a band trailing them, probably to take the blame." They must have known. "I wondered why the reports mentioned sighting nomads but not vehicles." She paused for half a minute. "What do you think, Grauel? What should I do?"
"I can't make a decision for you, Marika. I recall that you and Kublin were close. Closer than was healthy, some thought. But that was eight years ago. Nearly half your life. You've gone different paths. You're strangers now."
"Yes. There is no precedent. Whatever I do will be wrong, by Degnan law or by Reugge. Get some rest, Grauel. I'll watch them while I'm thinking."
"Rest? While there is fighting going on?"
"Yes. Dorteka says she can handle it."
"If you say so."
"Give me your weapons. In case they get ideas. I don't know if my talents would respond right now."
"Where are your weapons?"
"I left them where I fell asleep last night. Beside the big fire. Go on now."
Grauel surrendered rifle and revolver, tottered away.
Marika stared at the prisoners for a few minutes. They were all alert now, listening to the firing as it moved closer. Marika suspected they would be very careful to give no provocation. They nurtured hopes of rescue, feeble as those hopes might be.
"Kublin. Come here."
He came. There seemed to be no defiance left in him. But that could be for show. He was always a crafty pup.
"What do you have to say this morning?" she asked.
"Get me out of this, Marika. I don't want to die."
So. He knew how much real hope there was for a rescue by the nomads. "Will you stand witness for me?"
"No."
That was an absolute, Marika understood. The brethren had won Kublin's soul.
"I don't want you to die, Kublin. But I don't know how to save you." She wanted to say a lot more, to lecture him about having asked for it, but she refrained. She recalled how well he had listened to lectures as a pup.
He shrugged. "That's easy. Let me run. I overheard your huntresses saying there were two vehicles that weren't damaged. If I could get to one ... "
"That's fine for you. But where would it leave me? How could I explain it?"
"Why would you have to explain anything?"
Marika indicated the other prisoners. "They would know. They would tell when they are interrogated. You see? You put me into a terrible position, Kublin. You face me with a choice I do not want to have to make."
The firing beyond the river rose in pitch. The nomad band seemed to be very large. Dorteka might be having more trouble than she had expected.
"In the confusion that is causing, who is going to miss one prisoner? You could manipulate it, Marika."
She did not like the tone of low cunning that had come into his voice. And she could not shake the feeling that he was not entirely what he seemed.
"My meth aren't stupid, Kublin. You would be missed. And my novices would detect you sneaking toward those vehicles. They would kill you without a thought. They are hungry for blood. Especially for male blood, after what they have learned here."
"Marika, this is Critza. Critza was my home for almost four years. I know this land ... "
"Be quiet." Marika folded in upon herself, going away, opening to the All. It was one of the early silth lessons. Open to intuition when you do not know what to do. Let the All speak to your soul.
The dream returned. The terrible dream with the pain and the fever and the fear and the helplessness. That had been Kublin. Her mind had been in touch with his while he was in his torment. And she had not known and had not been able to help.
Grauel was right. Though he appealed to the memory, this Kublin was not the Kublin with whom she had shared the loft in their dam's loghouse. This was a Kublin who had gone his own way, who had become something ... What had he become?
That horrible dream would not stay away.
Perhaps her mind was not running in appropriate channels. Perhaps her sanity had surrendered briefly to the insanity of the past several dozen hours, to the unending strain. Without conscious decision she captured a ghost, went hunting her novices, touched each of them lightly, striking them unconscious.