"No. I do not think so. She just appeared right in front of dam and Gerrien. She pointed something at them, then cursed it. It seemed like it was supposed to do something and did not. Then she tried to club them with it. Dam and Gerrien killed her. It was a strange weapon. All of metal."
The silth exchanged glances. "All of metal, eh? Where is this Machen Cave? I think we would be very interested in this metal club."
"Machen Cave is north. Several hours. But you do not have to go there. Dam brought the club home."
Excitement sparked between the silth. "Indeed? Where is it now, then?"
"I will have to find it. Dam put it away somewhere. She said she would trade the metal to the tradermales. Or maybe we could fashion tools from it."
"Find it, please."
While she talked Marika had begun setting the inside of the loghouse in order. When she kept paws and mouth busy, she did not have to think about what lay outside the loghouse. She continued distracting herself by searching for Skiljan's trophy. "Here it is."
The tall meth took it. Both sat down, facing one another, the metal club between them. They passed it back and forth, examined it minutely, even argued over a few small writing characters stamped into one side. They did so, though, in a language Marika did not understand. By the cautious way they handled the thing, Marika decided it was a dangerous something they had seen but never before touched.
"It is very important that you recall every detail about this meth you saw. The one who carried this club. It is certain she was our enemy. If we can identify her pack, by her clothing, say, we will be better equipped to protect our own. There should be no silth with the nomads."
"There should be no wehrlen either," said the older silth. "A wehrlen come out of nowhere, with skills as advanced as our own, or nearly so. This is an impossibility."
The taller meth was thoughtful a moment. "That is true." She looked at Marika intently. "Where does this Machen Cave lie again?" And Marika felt something brush her mind, a touch far lighter than that she had experienced the night the far silth had responded to her probing of the packfast. "Ah. So. Yes. Sister, I am going to go there after all. To see if the bodies remain. You learn what you can from the wehrlen."
The older silth nodded. She went out of the loghouse immediately.
The other dallied a moment, looking at Marika, saying nothing. Finally, she too departed, scratching Marika behind the ear lightly as she went. "It will all work out, pup. It will all work out."
Marika did not respond. She sat down and stared into the coals in the firepit. But she found no clues there.
III She straightened the inside of the loghouse a bit more, moving in a daze. When she could find nothing more to preoccupy her there, she donned her coat. She had to go outside sometime and face the truth. No sense putting it off any longer.
It was every bit as terrible as she remembered, and worse. The carrion eaters had gathered. It would be a fat winter for them.
Though it was pointless, she began the thankless task of cleaning the packstead. One by one, straining her small frame to its limits, she dragged the frozen corpses of her packmates into the lean-to sheds. They would be safe from the carrion eaters there. For a time.
Near the doorway to Gerrien's loghouse she came on something that made her stop, stand as still as death for a long time.
Pohsit. Dead. Sprawled, one arm outstretched as if beseeching the loghouse, the other at her heart, her paw a claw. When Marika finally tore her gaze away she saw the elder silth in the mouth of the stockade spiral, watching.
Neither said a word.
Marika bent and caught hold of Pohsit's arm and dragged her into a lean-to with the others. Maybe, just a little, she had begun to understand what "silth" meant, and why her elders cursed and feared them.
Sometimes she could not reach her packmates because they were buried beneath dead nomads. Those she dragged around the spiral to the field outside, where she left them to the mercy of the carrion eaters. The wehrlen, she noted, had been both moved and stripped. The elder silth had searched him thoroughly.
There was no end to the gruesome task. So many bodies ... When her muscles began to protest, she rested by gathering fallen weapons instead, moving them near the doorway of her dam's loghouse, laying them out neatly by type, as if for inventory. She had tried to strip the better furs from the dead, too, but that had proven too difficult. The bodies would have to be thawed first.
Always the carrion eaters surrounded her. They would not learn to remain outside the stockade. They flapped away, squawking, only when she came within kicking distance. She sealed her ears to their bickering over tidbits. Listening might have driven her mad.
She was more than a little mad anyway. She drove herself mercilessly, carrying out a task without point.
After a time the taller silth returned, loping gracefully and easily upon the dirtied snow. She carried a folded garment similar to her own. She joined the other silth, and the two watched Marika, neither speaking, interfering, nor offering to help. They seemed to understand that an exorcism was in progress. Marika ignored them and went on. And went on. And went on till her muscles cried out in torment, till fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. And still she went on.
She passed near the silth often, pretending they did not exist, yet sometimes she could not help overhearing the few words they did exchange. Mostly, they talked about her. The older was becoming concerned. She heard herself called smart, stubborn, and definitely a little insane.
She wondered what the tall silth had learned around Machen Cave. They did not discuss that. But she was not interested enough to ask.
The sun rode across the sky, pursued by the specks of several lesser moons. Marika grew concerned about Grauel and Barlog. They had been gone long enough to reach the Laspe packstead and return. Had they fallen foul of nomad survivors? Finally, she scaled the watchtower, which threatened to topple off its savaged legs. She barely had the energy to complete the climb. She saw nothing when she did and looked toward the neighboring packstead.
She dug around inside herself, seeking her ability to touch, with increasing desperation. It just was not there! She had to reach out and make sure Grauel and Barlog were all right! The All could not claim them too, leaving her alone with these weird silth! But it was hopeless. Either she had lost the ability or it had gone dormant on her in her shock and fatigue.
She told herself there was no point worrying. That worry would do no good, would change nothing. But she worried. She stood there studying the countryside, unconsciously resting, till the wind penetrated her furs and her muscles began to stiffen, then she climbed down and lost herself in labor again.
She did not know, consciously, what she was doing, but she was avoiding grief, because it was a grief too great to bear. Even toughened Grauel and Barlog had needed something to occupy them, to allow some of the pressure to leak off unnoted, to give some meaning to having survived. How much more difficult for a pup not yet taught to keep emotion under tight control.
The silth understood grief. They stayed out of her way, and did nothing to discourage her from working herself into an exhausted stupor.
The shadows were long and the carrion eaters almost too overfed to fly. Marika had dragged most all of her packmates into the lean-tos. Suddenly she realized that she had not found Kublin. Zambi had been there, right where she remembered him falling, but not Kub. Kub should have been one of the first she reached, because she had left him atop one of the heaps of dead. Hadn't she?
Had she dragged him away and not noticed? Or had she forgotten? The more she tried to remember, the more she became confused. She became locked into a lack of movement, in complete indecision, just standing in the square while a rising wind muttered and moaned about her.