Seer King - The Seer King Part 18

"I felt nothing," the seer said, and a bit of fear showed on his face. "My magic should have worked ...

but it did not. I don't know why."

I felt a flash of anger, then common sense prevailed. Why should Tenedos's craft have done any better than a soldier's?

*Both were but men, and their skills imperfect. I wondered what child had greater prescience than any of us, but never found who had screamed.

We collected the bodies, and prepared them for burial. The ground was frozen hard, so I ordered well-guarded parties out to gather the rocks we'd use to build tombs.

We built the fires up, and made more tea. Once again, I saw Jacoba, b.u.t.tering bits of hard bread. She set her knife down and walked over.

"I never had the chance to thank you," she said.

"It's not necessary."

She was silent for a moment "Just now... whenthey came, I was dreaming of you," she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

I'm afraid I colored, although she could not have seen it in the dark.

"I, uh, well... I had a dream of you, as well," I finally managed.

"We were in a boat," she said dreamily. "Just the two of us. It was on a lake. Perhaps it was one of the houseboats I've read about, in Urey." She fell silent. I said nothing, amazed. There was a long silence.

Then she looked up at me.

"Perhaps... perhaps, if we live..." She turned away, suddenly, and went back to her task.

The next morning the storm was worse. The icy walls of Sulem Pa.s.s closed about us, and the wind blew hard from the north.

We were struck four times that day by hillmen. Two or three men would rush out of biding, seize the person or goods they wanted, and disappear. We could not post a soldier every five feet, so we made no kills.

The column was straggling, no matter how hard Troop Guide Bikaner and Three Column at the rear eluded or threatened. I rode up and down the long line, trying to encourage, and when someone was obviously exhausted let them ride Lucan for a spell while I walked alongside. Rabbit and our other spare mounts were already carrying the sick, lame, or old-and there were still too many of the helpless afoot. Each time bandits attacked, we'd take casualties, and the wounded would go into the wagons, further displacing someone who should not be walking.

I learned another lesson that day. I'd disparaged the camp followers the KLI had brought with them as no more than wh.o.r.es. But it was they who nursed the wounded and sick, bringing a bit of mercy and softness to someone's last hour.

We halted an hour before noon, and it took another hour for the last laggard to stumble into camp.

I could have broken up the infantry and sent them into the civilian column to help, but then I'd have lost half my fighting men, and would have no coherent unit to support the middle of the line.

The best I could do was order Two and Four Columns to dismount and use their horses to carry more of the helpless. If we were attacked, they were to help the people out of the saddle, then mount and form up. It was stupid-the time wasted would be more than enough for the Men of the Hills to escape-but I could not watch people in my charge just die.

Laish Tenedos had said little that morning, and now I found him at the front of the column, seemingly unaware of the gale, the snow, or his always-present companion, Karjan. He became aware of me, and turned. His nose and cheeks were beginning to pale with frostbite.

"Snow," he said musingly, and I thought he was in shock from the cold, "Damastes, we need more snow."

I knew he'd gone mad.

"Come. I think I've derived a spell that can help us, if only briefly and slightly."

He hurried to the wagon that held his magical gear, and took out various bits of paraphernalia. I helped him lug the materials back to where I'd found him. He paced ten steps out into the undisturbed snow.

"Best I cast this where man has not walked," he said. He used four small candlesticks, each ending in a spike, to make a square on the ground about two feet on each side. Into them he put four small candles, one green, one white, one black, one red.

In the center, he put a small brazier set on a tripod that brought it almost to waist level.

Awkwardly he sprinkled herbs onto the brazier, s.h.i.+elding it with one hand to keep the wind from scattering his material.

Then he prayed, first to our G.o.ddess of the earth, then to the G.o.d whose realm was water "Jacini, hear We are your children We are the earth Varum take heed I seek now a boon I seek now a loan.

"Grant me this favor Grant me this wish."

He touched a finger to each candle, and they spurted fire, a high, narrow flame three times the candles'

height.

He held a finger, without burning it, in each of those flames, his lips moving in an incantation, then touched it to the herbs in the brazier. He raised his voice: "There is peace There is calm All is still All is frozen.

"Time will stop Time must stop You will hear You will heed."

The herbs began smoldering, and then I saw something truly marvelous. The snowflakes swirling in the s.p.a.ce defined by die four candles froze, as if they'd been cast in an invisible amber, a cube two feet on all sides.

"Good," Tenedos said. "Someone... G.o.dornot... approves my wish. Now for the hard part"

His hands moved in a strange series of gestures, and something was born in that brazier. It was dark, speckled with light, and had form, yet no form, and my eyes hurt trying to make it out and I looked away.

Again, Tenedos chanted: "I have a need You owe a debt I did a boon Now you must serve."

The dark shadow, or cloud or form, s.h.i.+vered, as if taken by the wind. There was a humming.

"Thak?" Tenedos said. "He is not of your realm, nor do I wish to strike against him. You will obey me."

The shadow hummed once more.

"I said youwill obey." Tenedos's fingers moved in quick gestures, and the humming came once more, and I oddly thought it a groan of pain. The shadow bent, as if bowing in obedience.

"Very well." Once more Tenedos touched the brazier.

"There are those beyond They are filled with hate They would do us harm They must be turned away."

The shadow grew tall, taller than a man. Tenedos continued his chant: r*"Varum gave me water This shall be our tool It shall be your weapon It shall not be seen.

"Snow that blinds Snow that hides Cloud the mind Cloud the eyes.

"They shall not see They shall not know We shall pa.s.s We shall pa.s.s."

The magical square was empty.

"Now take your weapons and go," Tenedos said, then resumed the chant: "I bid you once I bid you twice I bid you thrice You must obey You will obey."

Now it was the shadow's turn to vanish. Tenedos motioned, and the four candles smoked and went out.

"Now we shall see what we shall see," he said. "If that spell works, it should act as a fog to those robbers. They'll somehowknow we're not on them yet, even though we're in front of them, or elseknow that we pa.s.sed hours ago. They'llknow we left the road and seek us up side tracks, or else comb the villages,knowing we took shelter from the storm.

"If the spell works."

"What was that shadow?" I asked. I'd been fascinated, completely oblivious of the cold and storm.

"Something from ... somewhere else," Tenedos said, Sfi deliberately vague. "Something I performed a service for once." I knew he'd tell me no more, but I had one final question.

"Is Thak more powerful than that being?"

"Who knows?" Tenedos said. "My wraith is a lazy one, and hardly gifted with what we mortals call courage. But I'd suppose he is less powerful than the Tovieti's demon."

"Will Thak attack us, as he did in the cavern?"

"I don't know," Tenedos said. "I've been preparing some spells if he does ... but have no notion if they will work. I don't think they will. I need something more."

"Such as?"

"No, Damastes. That I cannot, must not, tell you. Not now, not ever."

That was the first moment I touched on what was the Seer Tenedos's great secret, the secret that would bring him an empire. When I reveal it, it shall be obvious, but it never was to Tenedos's friends, tribunes, army, or his enemies until far too late.

"Now, let us travel on," he said.

After we'd reformed for the march I saw there were still four people huddled in the snow. I went to the first. It was one of my cavalrymen. His mustache and eyebrows were thick with frost, and his eyes were glazed.

"On your feet, Lance."

He stared up, without seeing, rocking back and forth. I pulled him up, but it was as if he were boneless.

He sagged back to the ground.

Troop Guide Bikaner ran up, and yanked the soldier to his feet, as I'd done. Once more the man fell.

"Son of a mother-stabbing b.i.t.c.h," he swore. "Th' shortc.o.c.k's given up!"

And so it was.

"Shall we leave 'im?"

I thought about it. The Lancers never abandon their dead or wounded except in the last resort, and this man, someone with a weak spirit, was as much a casualty as if he'd been slashed by a hillman's sword.

"No," I said. "Find a place for him on one of the wagons. Ask Captain Mellet to put one more civilian into his saddle."

I went on to the next huddled figure. It was an old man, and he was quite dead, frozen as he sat. So were the other two. One was an equally aged woman, the other a boy in his teens. I was startled.

"Don't be s'prised, sir," Bikaner told me. "There's some-thin' at I've learned, an' that's th' young don't cling t'life that hard. d.a.m.ned if I know why, but they'll lay down in their tracks long afore a mean old b.a.s.t.a.r.d like me's even feelin' puny. Mebbe they're so fresh from th' Wheel they don't mind returnin'."

We moved on without burying the dead-we had no time to gather rocks for their tombs. I muttered a short prayer as we rode away.

The road climbed, not steeply enough so a traveler in normal times might even notice, but it was like a mountain to some of us. Now men and women started dropping, falling off to the sides of the column.

Soldiers would kick, curse, help them, but too often to no use. Sometimes these people, desperate to be left alone, desperate for some final peace, would just wander off the track and be lost in the storm.

A KLI warrant, already staggering, trying to shepherd two young boys, told me he thought he'd seen someone stumble away a few minutes ago, a woman he'd tried to help before.

I rode back, and found a path leading to the side. I dismounted, and saw footprints, rapidly being filled as the snow drove down. Leading Lucan, I went after them.

I allowed myself a count of before I must turn back, or chance losing my own way.

I'd reached seventy-five when I heard the snarls, and Lucan whinnied in terror and tried to pull away.

Four wolves growled around the sprawled figure of the woman. There was blood on the snow. They saw me, and bared their fangs.

I dropped from the saddle, drew my sword, and started forward, perhaps unwisely, but I could no longer, must no longer, be helpless.

The wolves waited until I was about five feet away, then yapped, turned, and bounded off.

I knelt beside the woman. Her throat was ripped out, but her eyes were closed and there was a peaceful smile on her lips. I lifted her across Lucan's saddle, vowing I'd not leave her for the beasts, and made my way back to the column. We found a place for the corpse, lashed to a wagon's tongue.

The wagons were full, now, and we began mounting people double. At least the horses were strong and well fed, although I knew the strain would drive them under in just a few days.

So it went that day, and halfway through the next. The road wound on and on, never offering any respite. Sometimes the storm clouds blew away, but all they showed us was gray, wet rock, snow, and ice. Tenedos's spell seemed to be working- we had no more encounters with the hill tribes.

None of us looked like soldiers. We were unshaven, with dark circles under our eyes. We'd tied rags around our heads and pulled our helmets down over them, and those of us who had the shabby sheepskin coats we'd used to disguise ourselves as Kaiti wore them over our armor and thanked trisu for their warmth. I'd given mine to one of the civilians on the second day of the march, and secretly hoped he might fall dead and I'd stumble on his corpse and recover my coat I noted a cruel irony. Someone who was weak, unable to walk, would be moved to one of the wagons. But riding produced no warmth, and the storm cut through the rugs and blankets. At each halt there'd be frozen corpses to lift off the wagons, but there'd always be new riders trying for a place to sit One wagon was set aside for the dead, and they would be cremated at our noon halt. We had forty soldiers and about seventy civilians as casualties of one sort or another, more than half of them dead.

There was no time, no energy, to bury them, but we could not just abandon the bodies or we might as well be beasts. Tenedos produced a spell. The corpses were piled, words said, and they burned without smoke, without smell, without any*more of a flame save a low blue one that looked like the one produced when brandy is ignited.

We had been traveling now for-and it took some thought-eight, no, nine days, and I knew my hoped-for pace of ten miles a day was a joke. But all we could do was push on, push on.

About an hour after the midday meal of the tenth, Tenedos sent down the column for me. I'd been walking with Captain Mellet, and we'd been trying to think if there were some unnecessary baggage aboard the wagons to dump, so even more could ride.

Allori had been riding Lucan, and listening to our conversation intently. Without being bid, she slipped out of the saddle and I mounted, and sent Lucan at a slow trot to the head of the train, just as it was stumbling to a halt.

"It seems the spell is working better, if a little differently than I thought," Tenedos said without preamble. "My little friend appeared a few moments ago, and said that there were enemies ahead, waiting. He'd not been able to blind them with the sorcerous snow, but owed me the duty of a warning.