Marika pulled her hat down over her ears and ducked through the windskins before anyone could call her back.
Pohsit sped a look of hatred after her.
The packstead was cold and dark. Only a few of the lesser moons were up, shedding little light. The last of the expedition were slipping into the exit spiral. Other huntresses were on the stockade, shivering and bouncing to keep warm. Most of the huntresses were going out. It must be an important raid.
Marika started climbing the tower. A face loomed above, unrecognizable. She ignored it. Her thoughts turned to the sky. It was clear again tonight. Why had the weather been so good lately? One ice storm and a few flurries. That probably meant the next storm would be especially brutal, charged as it would be with all the energies pent during the good days.
The sentinel proved to be Solfrank. They eyed one another with teeth bared. Then Solfrank backed away from the head of the ladder, unable to face her down. She scrambled into the precarious wicker basket. Out on the snowfields, the huntresses were spreading out and moving northward, dark, silent blotches against trampled white.
"There," Solfrank said, pointing. There was pride in his voice. He must be the cause of all the activity.
There was a glow in the forest in the direction of Machen Cave. A huge glow, as of a fire of epic proportion. A gout of sparks shot skyward, drifted down. Marika was astonished.
It must be some nomad ceremony. One did not build fires that could be seen for miles, and by potential foes, just to keep warm.
"How long has that been going on?"
"Only a little while. I spotted it right after I came on watch. It was just a little glow then. They must be burning half the forest now."
Why, Marika wondered, was Skiljan risking exposing so many huntresses? Hundreds of nomads would be needed to build such a conflagration. Those wild meth could not be so foolish as to presume their fire would not be seen, could they?
She became very worried, certain her dam had made a tactical mistake. It must be a trap. A lure to draw the Degnan into an ambush. She wanted desperately to extend her touch. But she dared not while Solfrank was there to watch her. "How long do you have left?"
"Only a few minutes."
"Do you want me to take over?"
"All right." He went over the side of the basket before she could change her mind.
Solfrank, Marika reflected, was impressed by nothing but himself. That fire out there had no meaning except as a small personal triumph. It would get him some attention. He was possessed of no curiosity whatsoever.
Fine. Good.
The tower stopped shaking to his descent. She watched him scurry toward the warmth of Gerrien's loghouse. The moment he entered, Marika faced north again and tried sensing her dam.
The touch was the strongest ever it had been. It seemed she was riding behind Skiljan's eyes, seeing what she saw, though she could not capture her dam's thoughts. Yet those became apparent enough when she directed the huntresses who accompanied her, for Marika could then see what they did, and even heard what they and her dam said part of the time.
Almost immediately the huntresses scattered to search out any nomad scouts who might be watching the packstead. They found none. They then filtered through the woods toward Machen Cave. They moved with extreme care, lest they alert sentinels.
Those did not materialize either. Marika sensed in her dam a growing contempt for the intelligence of the northerners.
Skiljan did not permit contempt to lessen her guard. She probed ahead carefully, lest she stumble into some trap.
But it was no trap. The nomads simply had not considered the possibility their bonfire might be seen from the Degnan packstead.
The fire lay on the south bank of the creek. It was huge. Marika was awed. Skiljan and her companions crouched in brush and watched as nomads piled more wood upon the blaze. The thunk of axes came from the opposite slope.
They were clearing the hill around the cave.
Hundreds of nomads hugged the fire's warmth.
Skiljan and Gerrien whispered together. Marika eavesdropped.
"What are they doing?" Skiljan asked. Scores labored upon the slopes. One particular nomad moved among them, giving orders that could not be heard. Little could be told of that person at a distance, except that it was someone the nomads considered important.
There were shouts. Boulders rumbled downhill. Nomads scrambled out of their path.
"The cave," Gerrien replied. "They're clearing the mouth of the cave. But why baffles me."
Back of all the other racket were the sounds of log drum and tambor and chanting. The nomad Wise were involved in some sort of ceremony.
"They would not be trying to draw the ghost, would they?" Skiljan asked.
"They might be. A wehrlen ... They just might be. We have to stop that."
"Too many of them."
"They do not know we are here. Maybe we can panic them."'
"We will try." The two separated. During the next several minutes Skiljan whispered to each of the huntresses on her side of the hill. Then she returned to center. Gerrien arrived seconds later.
Skiljan and her companions readied their bows. Marika's dam said, "Shout when you are ready."
Gerrien closed her eyes for half a minute, breathed deeply. Then she opened them, nodded, laid an arrow across her bow, rose. Skiljan rose beside her.
An ululating howl ripped from Gerrien's throat. In an instant it was repeated all across the slope. Arrows stormed downhill. Nomads squealed, shrieked, shouted. Dozens went down.
Skiljan's shafts, Marika noted, all flew toward the nomad Wise. And many found their marks.
Gerrien arced her arrows toward the meth leader on the far slope. It was a long flight in tricky light, and meth with shields had materialized around that one. None of Gerrien's shafts reached their mark.
A wild-eyed meth in bizarre black clothing suddenly materialized a few paces from Skiljan. She pointed something like a short, blunt spear. Skiljan and Gerrien were astonished by the apparition's appearance.
The meth cursed in a strange dialect and glared at the thing in her paws. She hefted it as a club. A pair of poisoned arrows ripped into her chest.
Gerrien then charged downhill. All the huntresses joined her. Javelins arced ahead of them. Nomads ran in circles. Already some were scattering into the darkness up the opposite slope. Only a handful dared counterattack. Their charge was met by huntresses with captured swords, and hurled back.
The panic among the nomads heightened. On the slope opposite, the leader screamed in dialect, trying to stiffen resistance.
Gerrien carried the charge two thirds of the way to the creek, then halted. Sheer numbers of nomads promised to make further going too difficult. After some bloody swordplay, spearplay, and javelin throwing, she loosed another ululating howl and withdrew.
Confused, terrified, the nomads did not press.
The Degnan huntresses loosed their remaining arrows. Every shaft that touched a nomad killed, for each was poisoned.
Once their last arrows flew, the Degnan ran. They left more than a hundred nomads slaughtered. Awe at what they had done would not touch them for some time, for they were too involved with fighting and surviving. But battle and slaughter were not meth customs. There was no precedent for this in the upper Ponath. Fighting in the mass meant holding the stockade against northern raiders, not taking death to the nomads before they struck.
Marika sensed the elation of the huntresses. They had done the nomads great damage while suffering no harm themselves. Perhaps this would compel them to seek easier looting. Now the Degnan needed do nothing but outrun their enemies.
Marika scrambled down the tower, ran to the loghouse. "Pobuda," she gasped. "They are coming back. The nomads are chasing them."
Pobuda asked no questions. Not then. She alerted the rest of the packstead. Everyone capable, males included, hurried to reinforce the palisade.