The priest made the proper reply, his voice starting out rusty, as if he was remembering how to speak. ?We have to decide what to do, High Seeker,? Graber said carefully.?Should we try to push through to this Nantucket place and wait for the soulless misbelieving sons of the Nephilim? Or should we try to intercept the enemy again??
They?d tried that and failed repeatedly, though by narrow margins. Graber wasn?t particularly disturbed; if you kept trying, eventually you either succeeded or died. He hadn?t died yet. The High Seeker?s head turned to the north, as if his bruised-looking eyes were probing through the substance of the densely wooded hills. ?They may try to take the northern route,? he said.?They will not come up the Ohio, not when we might be waiting for them.?
Graber waited. That was a military judgment, and as such it was his to make. As it happened, he agreed. Catching Artos has been like trying to grab an oiled rattlesnake with his bare hands; nearly impossible, and deadly dangerous when you finally did it. And the others with him were nearly as bad. Not least, they all had a damnable talent for getting locals to fight for them. ?Bring me a prisoner,? Dalan said.
The officer turned his head and barked a command. Soon two of his troopers frog-marched one of the Eater captives between them. He had his hands tied before him, and a sheathed shete thrust through between his elbows and back; they steered him with it. Graber?s nose wrinkled; everyone smelled after a while in the field-this was the first opportunity they?d had to boil water in some time-but the savage was rank even by the standards a soldier learned. Worse than a High Line cowboy in midwinter.
A crude loincloth and the leggings held to it by thongs were his only clothing. For the rest he was an unexceptional man, perhaps in his twenties though looking older with his shaggy hairiness and ground-in dirt; the hair and beard were brown, the eyes a hazel green. Scrawny and not very tall, but that was to be expected.
The High Seeker held up his personal amulet, worn on his left wrist and studded with amethyst, symbol of the Seventh Ray. He murmured something: Graber caught the name of Djwal Khul, a great lord of the Ascending Hierarchy who dealt with communication and knowledge. ?Possibilities increase exponentially,? the High Seeker said… in a normal conversational tone, but as if to himself.?Capacity to affect foam linkages and tap base energy is greater but so is need.?
Good that he is not talking to me, Graber thought. I do not understand and do not wish to. Hail Serapis Bey! I serve the Fourth Ray. The Church also needs those who can deal with the material. ?But amplification and modulation are necessary. Interaction requires perception. Contaminated. So many possibilities.?
He smiled at the prisoner, and the man screeched like some small animal caught in a trapper?s toothed steel. His hands went out to grip either side of the captive?s face, forcing him to meet his eyes, and the troopers stepped away. ?I… see… you… forever,? he said.
The prisoner screamed again, and the guards stepped back farther in involuntary recoil, like men who find themselves clutching something in the dark and feel the wriggling of too many legs. After a moment Dalan screamed back at his victim, in the same pitch of hopeless pain. Graber swallowed as trails of blood started from the corners of the Eater?s eyes, trickling like red tears into the scabrous beard, glittering in the firelight. After a time that seemed to last forever Dalan?s sound became words: ?Bitch! Bitch! Deva, die without dying! You and your he-whore! And the One who sent you!?
He released the prisoner and staggered away, moaning, clenched fists slapping at the sides of his head; yet he was grinning, licking his lips. When the shuddering ceased he straightened. ?They are traveling north. Water. Intention is to the east. I see forests, ice, wolves. Beasts. Beasts. We will pursue. Now it must rest. There is no replacement and it must not be stressed beyond failure point.?
The High Seeker turned and lay down on his bedroll, and closed his eyes. What followed did not look like sleep; it was more as if the adept had been suspended, somehow. The troopers remained shock-still, because the captive was moving now. Not trying to escape; instead he knelt by a stretch of frost-heaved concrete and began to beat his head against it. The tock… tock… tock sound was like a hammer on hard wood, as regular as a carpenter?s. Graber made a gesture with one hand; the man who?d used his shete to control the prisoner stepped forward, set his hand to the hilt and stripped the steel free of the leather. It swung in a brief glinting arc, and there was a final sound-heavier and wetter than bone on stone. ?Get rid of this carrion,? Graber snapped.?Vender, Roberts,? he went on to his two chief surviving lieutenants.?The maps.?
They joined him where he sat on a log; a trooper brought them plates of stew and wheat cakes as they discussed distances and times. ?We?ll need horses,? Roberts said, tracing the length of what had once been Illinois from south to north.?It?s an impossible distance to cover on foot in any useful time.? ?It could be done,? Graber said; though few men from the High West would think so.?But the tribes around here have some mounts and those in the prairies to the north have more. Say a week to accumulate what we need to start with…?
He paused.?What is the date?? ?October first, sir.? ?Ah.? He smiled, an expression that softened the iron slab-and-angle of his face for an instant.
The other two men looked at him, puzzled. He explained briefly: ?My eldest son?s birthday. He will be ten today, in Corwin.?
They nodded.?Old enough to begin training in the House of the Prophetic Guard, as we all did, if he?s found worthy,? Roberts said.
His voice was a little wistful. He had nothing but daughters, and all those were very young. ?He will be. My wives are women of excellent character, and Peter studies hard,? Graber said firmly.?Now, if we can acquire two remounts per man, we can begin. The horses will be of low quality.?
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER ELEVEN
?Getting close,?Ingolf said, rubbing a hand down the neck of his mount.?Soo, Boy, soo,? he said to the horse.?You?ll get a good feed here, even if you were foaled in Nebraska.?
Rudi Mackenzie nodded, tactfully ignoring the slight hoarseness in the other man?s voice, as if he were choking back unexpected tears; Ingolf?s face was an iron mask locked against a surge of feeling.
A Mackenzie-any who were Changelings, at least-would weep, returning home after so long, Rudi thought. But customs differ from land to land, and so do the stamp they set on our souls. Wouldn?t it be a duller world, if they did not, so?
It was a bright fall afternoon, comfortable but with an underlying nip to it. This was farm-and-forest country, but you could tell that the North Woods started not so far away, and that the Wheel of the Year was turning towards the Crone?s dominion, in a land harsher than Oregon Than Montival, he reminded himself; it was growing natural.
As they rode north along the valley of the Kickapoo from the hamlet at Soldier?s Grove the fields had quickly gone back to scrub and saplings, the usual story of more land than the survivors of the Change had means or reason to till when they no longer used machines to feed cities far away. But for the last hour or two the signs of human habitation had grown thicker again, first the chewed look of land used for rough summer grazing, then fields and the odd farmhouse behind its berm and ditch and barbed wire or palisade.
Often there was a wary twinkle of spearheads from the defenses or a fighting platform built atop an old silo, or the sight of livestock being driven up the slope of the land towards the woods; just what you?d expect from sensible folk when scores of armed strangers passed by. That alarm diminished as they went, until men and a few women came out to watch them pass with no more than a little caution… and weapons in their hands.