She brought the darkship to a violent halt and dropped it into the snow. She and Grauel and Barlog piled off, ran low to the edge of a ravine, flopped.
Below, a dozen rogues were reloading a rocket launcher. The females opened fire with their rifles. Bodies jerked and spun. Two of the males got off shots of their own before they were hit, but did no damage. Some tried to flee. Marika seized a ghost and overtook them. Then she led the huntresses in a wild scramble down into the ravine, snow flying, to finish the wounded.
"This one is faking, Marika," Barlog said, yanking a youngster upright.
"Hold him. We'll take him with us." She examined the others. All dead or soon to die. She kicked the nearest rocket launcher. "A fine piece of machinery."
The first rocket had hit the Reugge cloister only moments before, wrecking the tower Marika customarily occupied. There had been no warning. Marika and her huntresses had been out almost by chance, down with the bath mapping a search sweep of rogue territory northeast of Ruhaack.
She had been airborne before the second rocket arrived.
"They look like the machines made by those aliens," Grauel said.
"Don't they, though? I wonder how much knowledge they spirited out over the years?"
"What shall I do with this pup?" She had the captive cringing at her feet.
"We'll truthsay him. For what that's worth." Marika did not expect to learn much.
She had been back to Ruhaack five days. This was the third attempt upon her life. One she had been unable to trace. She believed silth might have been behind it. The other had been brethren in inspiration, but her search for those behind it had dead-ended. Her enemies were careful to cover their trails these days.
"Here? Now?"
"Here is fine. We can leave him with his friends."
Truthsaying the youngster was easy. He had no resistance. And was almost an empty vessel where knowledge was concerned, though Marika nursed his entire rogue history from him.
"They are pulling them in young, now," she said. "He was barely more than a pup when they enlisted him. That damned Kublin is insane."
Grauel looked at her expectantly.
"We'll backtrack him. At least he knew where he'd been. Somewhere there'll be a rogue who hasn't moved on. We'll grab him and hope he gives us another lead."
"The slow, hard way," Barlog said. "One villain at a time."
"That may be the only way."
"Kill him?" Grauel asked.
"Yes."
Grauel broke his neck. "I'm old," she said. "But the strength remains."
Marika replied, "Yes, you're still strong. But you are old. It's decision time."
"Marika?"
"I will be going back to the alien ship soon. Chances are that it will be many years before I return to the homeworld again. You have often expressed a desire to spend your last days as near the Ponath as can be."
Neither Grauel nor Barlog responded. Marika waited till the gawking bath had returned to the darkship to ask, "Have you nothing to say?"
"Is that what you wish? That we remain behind?"
"You know it isn't. We have been together for a lifetime. I don't know what I would do without you. You're my pack. But I don't want to stand in your way if you are ready to assume the mantle of the Wise. If I had any conscience I would, in fact, urge you to do so. The young voctors at the cloister are in desperate need of firm and intelligent guidance. By staying with me you'll only see more of the same, and probably come to no good end. Half the race wishes me dead, and half that half might try doing something about it."
"We will do as you command, Marika," Barlog said.
"No. No. No. You will do what you want to do. It's your future. Don't you understand?"
"Yes, mistress," Grauel said.
Marika favored her with a scowl. "You are baiting me. You are not as dense as you pretend. Come. We will discuss this later." She stalked toward the darkship.
She took the darkship up and turned out across the snowy wastes, toward the ruins of TelleRai. The rogues had come from there in a ground-effect vehicle still hidden among the dead trees of the woods.
The rogues who had sent them had moved out of their hiding place, but had not moved fast or far enough. Marika overtook them. She captured two, truthsaid them, and continued her hunt.
Before day's end the trail had taken her most of the way to the eastern seaboard. A dozen scatters of defeated rogues lay behind her. She found herself wondering why her sister silth had so much trouble suppressing them. They needed only to invest vigor and determination.
She took the darkship up and let her far touch roam the wilderness. Somewhere in those icy badlands there was a major rogue hiding place, one they had believed could not be traced back through the levels of their organization.
She sensed a place where many meth were gathered, deep beneath the surface. She captured a strong ghost, rode it through a long, twisting tunnel, and found herself inside a weapons manufactory. More than two hundred meth were at work there, including bond females ...
Females!
Marika considered them closely. They were not prisoners. Some even seemed to be supervisors.
Anger seized her. She set the ghost ravening.
The massacre lasted fifteen seconds. A screaming electromagnetic surge severed her connection with the ghost. She suffered a moment of disorientation. The darkship plunged fifty feet before she regained her equilibrium and control.
So. They had adapted a suppressor field so it would shield an entire installation. It was to be anticipated. They had adapted it so it would protect individuals upon the alien starship.
No matter. These meth were dead. Voctors would come to cleanse the place once she reported it.
She took her darkship up high and sent a general far touch roaming that face of the continent. Kublin. The game is about to end. I am coming for you this time.
She expected no response and received none, but was certain Kublin would receive the message if there were as many wehrlen among the rogues as some silth suspected.
She drifted away westward, to continue the hunt elsewhere.
III "How long do you plan to stay this time?" Bel-Keneke asked from what had become her customary seat before the fireplace in Marika's quarters, though now those quarters had been shifted.
"Until I find the rogue I seek," Marika said. "A day or a decade." It had been a month since her return to Ruhaack. A dozen attempts on her life had failed. The cloister had suffered damage on several occasions. "Do not be distressed. Do not be frightened. I wish there were some way I could stem your fear that I intend to wrest the Reugge away from you."
Bel-Keneke was startled. "I do not ... "
"Of course you do. Because your one weakness is insufficient imagination. If I have such wicked intentions, why have I not displaced you already? Do you doubt that I could in a test of strength? Entertain, for the sake of argument, the remote chance that I would not want to endure the responsibilities of being a most senior. Assume that I have a task to complete here and then I shall depart for the Serke starworld. I really would rather spend my time nursing secrets from the alien starship."
Bel-Keneke seemed mildly embarrassed.
"Shall we drop the matter and turn our attention to the rogue problem?"
That problem had become one silth dared not ignore. In the past month the rogues had become violently active, betraying a level of strength and organization unsuspected even by those few silth who had taken them seriously. Their weaponry was a shock, and they had made excellent tactical use of their talent suppressors. A lot of damage had been done and many silth had died.