The murk worked in their favour when they reached the riverbank. Here thick succulent grasses had sprang up as high as a man’s knee, despite recent frosts, grasses that bowed and shimmered under the pressure of the downpour. There was nothing to be seen as they ran forward except wavering grass, the overburdened clouds, and muddy water the colour of cloud. A fish plopped heavily in the river, sensing an extension of its universe.
The two Borlienian guards, crouching for shelter in their boats, were killed without a struggle; perhaps they thought it better to die than get any wetter. Their bodies were cast into the water. They floated against the boats, and blood spread from their corpses, while the firemaker of the party tried vainly to make fire; the river was shallow at this point, and the bodies would not go away even when struck at by oars. With air trapped under their skins, they drifted just below the rain- pocked surface of the water.
“All right, all right,” Dathka said impatiently. “Leave the firemaking. Break up the boats instead, men.”
“We can use the boats ourselves,” Laintal Ay suggested. “Let’s row them to Oldorando.”
The others stood and watched impassively as the two youths argued.
“What will Aoz Roon say when we return home without meat?”
“We’ll have the boats to show him.”
“Even Aoz Roon doesn’t eat boats.” Laughter greeted the remark.
They climbed into the boats and juggled with the oars. The dead men were left behind. They managed to row themselves slowly back to Oldorando, the rain beating continually in their faces.
Aoz Roon’s reception of his subjects was morose. He glared at Laintal Ay and the other hunters with a silence they found more daunting than words, since he offered them nothing to refute. At last, he turned from them and stood staring out of his open window at the rain.
“We can go hungry. We have gone hungry before. But we have other troubles. Faralin Ferd’s party have returned from foraging in the north. They sighted a party of fuggies in the distance, riding kaidaws and heading this way. They say it looks like a war party.”
The hunters looked at each other.
“How many fuggies?” one asked.
Aoz Roon shrugged his shoulders.
“Were they coming from Dorzin Lake?” Laintal Ay asked.
Aoz Roon merely shrugged his shoulders again, as if he found the question irrelevant.
He swung round on his audience, fixing them with his heavy gaze. “What do you think is the best strategy in the circumstances?”
When there was no reply, he answered his own question. “We’re not cowards. We go out and attack them before they arrive here and try to burn Oldorando down, or whatever is in their thick harneys to do.”
“They won’t attack in this weather,” an older hunter said. “The fuggies hate water. Only extreme madness can drive them into water. It ruins their coats.”
“The times are extreme,” Aoz Roon said, striding restlessly about. “The world will drown under this rain. When’s the eddring snow coming back?”
He dismissed them, and paddled through the mud to see Shay Tal. Vry and her other close friend, Amin Lim, were sitting with her, copying out a design. He sent them packing.
He and Shay Tal looked warily at each other, she at his wet face and his air of having more to say that he could express, he at the wrinkles under her eyes, the first white hairs glinting in her dark locks.
“When will this rain stop?”
“The weather’s getting worse again. I want to plant rye and oats.”
“You’re suppose to be so wise, you and your women—you tell me what will happen.”
“I don’t know. Winter’s setting in. Perhaps it will get colder.”
“Snow? How I’d love the damned snow back, and the rain gone.” He made an angry gesture, raising his fists, then dropping them again.
“If it gets colder, the rain will turn into snow.”
“Wutra’s scumble, what a female answer! Have you no certainty for me, Shay Tal? No certainty in this damned uncertain world?”
“No more than you have for me.”
He turned on his heel, to pause at her door. “If your women don’t work, they won’t eat. We can’t have people idle—you understand that.”
He left her without a word more. She followed him to the door and stood there, frowning. She was vexed that he had not given her a chance to say no to him again; it would have renewed her sense of purpose. But his mind, she realised, had not really been on her at all, but on more important questions.
She hunched her rough garments about her and went to sit on her bed. When Vry returned, she was still in that attitude, but jumped up guiltily at the sight of her young friend.
“We must always be positive,” she said. “If I were a sorceress, I would bring back the snows, for Aoz Roon’s sake.”
“You are a sorceress,” Vry said loyally.
News of the approaching phagors travelled fast. Those who remembered the last raid on the town spoke of nothing else. They talked of it at night as they tumbled, rathel-rich, into their beds; they talked of it at dawn, grinding grain by goose light.
“We can contribute more than talk,” Shay Tal told them. “You have brave hearts, women, as well as quick tongues. We’ll show Aoz Roon what we can do. I want you to listen to my idea.”
They decided that the academy, which must always justify its existence in the eyes of the men, should propose a plan of attack that would spare Oldorando. Choosing suitable ground, the women would reveal themselves at a safe place where the phagors would see them. When the phagors approached, they would be ambushed by the hunters, waiting concealed on either flank to cut them down. The women screamed and cried for blood as they discussed the idea.
When the plan had been discussed to their satisfaction, they chose one of their prettiest girls to act as emissary to Aoz Roon. The girl was almost of an age with Vry; she was Dol Sakil, daughter of the old midwife, Rol Sakil. Oyre escorted Dol to her father’s tower, where the girl was to present Shay Tal’s compliments and to request him to come to the women’s house: there a defensive proposal would be presented to him.
“He won’t take much notice of me, will he?” Dol said. Oyre smiled and pushed her ahead.
The women waited while the rain poured down outside.
It was midmorning when Oyre returned. She was alone, and looking furious. Finally she burst out with the truth. Her father had rejected the invitation—and kept Dol Sakil. He regarded her as a present from the academy. Dol would live with him from now on.
At this news, a high anger overcame Shay Tal. She fell to the floor. She danced with rage. She screamed and tore her hair. She gestured and swore vengeance on all imbecile men. She prophesied that they would all be eaten alive by phagors, while their supposed leader lay in bed copulating with an imbecile child. Many other terrible things she said. Her companions could not calm her and went in fear of her. Vry and Oyre were driven away.
“It is a vexation,” said Rol Sakil, “but it will be nice for Dol.”
Then Shay Tal gathered her clothes about her body and stormed down into the lane, to stand before the big tower where Aoz Roon lived. The rain poured on her face as she cried aloud the scandal of his conduct, daring him to show himself.
Her noise was so great that men of the makers corps and some hunters ran out to listen. They stood against the ruinous buildings for shelter, grinning, with folded arms, while the downpour beat the steam from the geysers close to the ground, and mud bubbled between their boots.
Aoz Roon came to the window of his tower. He looked down and shouted to Shay Tal to go away. She shook her fist at him. She screamed that he was abominable, and his behaviour such that all Embruddock would meet with disaster.