she didn't make them herself, so she had compromised by weaving grass cords to string them on and wove the spells into those.
When she had a dozen, the sun was halfway up the sky; she woke Kaari, and told her to wake her when it had reached the zenith. By then she was so tired, she could scarcely keep her eyes open.
And it seemed as if she had barely closed them when Kaari was shaking her awake again. As she moved, it also seemed as if every muscle stretched and strained by that long night ride had stiffened, and now she hurt twice as much as she had when she had gone to sleep. But she wasn't going to set a bad example to Kaari by complaining; instead, she built a very tiny fire with almost no smoke; they made willow-bark tea to share and toasted some cheese and barley bread. Then they packed, harnessed the deer and resumed the journey.
Now that it was light and they could see, the deer quickened their pace to the ground-eating lope they used when migrating. They had eaten well while the humans slept; now they were ready to move. They were very different in temper and nature from the horses that some folk like the traders used, but the traders only traveled in the snowless months. Annukka was just glad now that she had spent as much time on having them for riding as she had. But until she and Kaari were more used to it, Annukka had no intention of spending an entire day in the saddle. She planned to stop about sunset; if they were lucky, there would be a village where she could barter for supplies, or if there was a Wise Woman in reside once, actually get some help. Ideally, it would be better if they could overnight as much as possible among other people and within four walls. That way, they could save their supplies for when they were in the wilderness with no other choice but to camp. She regretted now that her own small travels had never taken her in this direction. She knew nothing of the lay of the land, nor who was living out this way. She only knew that Veikko had stayed on the road the whole way to finding his Master because he had told her so in letters. And that was another thing she needed to barter for — a map.
Some things, however, were possible. You could tell if there was a village nearby by looking for smoke rising above the trees. Even in Summer, there would be cookfires, baking ovens, pottery kilns. As sunset neared, she scanned the horizon for such signs, and perhaps she spent a little too much of her attention on the horizon and not enough on her surroundings —
Because Kaari gasped, she pulled her attention back to the road and saw a half-dozen rough-looking men blocking their way.
Fear sharpened her vision; they were ragged, dirty, with hair and beards tangled and greasy. Their ill-fitting clothing was stained and torn in places. They were, however, well-armed.
She heard a laugh behind her, and knew without looking that there were at least that many more to the rear.
The reindeer snorted in alarm, and stood there quivering, threatening to bolt. Annukka could feel hers trembling under her legs.
“I would keep a tight hold on those beasts of yours, woman,” said one. Neither young nor old, his blond beard roughly trimmed to just below his chin; his eyes were cold and appraising. “Our arrows can fly faster than they can run.”
Annukka drew herself up. “You are bold, to risk the curses of a Wise Woman,” she said, trying to put menace into her voice, hoping she could bluff her way out of this situation.
But the man shrugged. “Mummery and trickery,” he replied with indifference. “I believe in nothing I cannot see with my own eyes. If you were so Wise, why didn't you know we were here before we surrounded you?” He turned to his men. “Take them,” he ordered.
“Try not to harm the deer — trained ones are rare. And don't touch the women. I'll be having the pretty one for myself. We'll see how useful the old hag is before we decide what to do with her.”
“Offer no resistance,” she had hissed to Kaari, before the men converged on them and seized the halters of the deer. She need not have bothered. Kaari was frozen in her saddle. They were in a tremendous hurry to get off the road, it seemed, for they did not try to pull the two women from their mounts, but instead, loped off in a body with the reindeer in their midst. Annukka feigned the same terror that Kaari was showing, but only so that she could memorize the way back to the road — which turned out to be absurdly easy, as the robbers fled south until they struck a watercourse, then followed it all the way to their camp, leaving a trail a child could follow.
The robbers had not been in these parts for long. They had only a rough camp, fires and bedrolls, some stockpiles of weapons. No tents, nothing near enough to weather out the Winter, which meant they had only two recourses when the weather turned. They could find a steading and take it, or they could find a cave and make it Winter-proof. Either was possible, the former was a risk, the latter took labor.
Annukka rather thought they would try the former. Somehow she couldn't see this lot doing anything that required work. They hadn't even set up latrines or a proper cooking area. She and Kaari were roughly pulled from their saddles, the deer were stripped of tack and packs, and everything was gone through as the leader took possession of Kaari. Annukka wondered if he would rape her there and then, and from her expression, so did Kaari, but instead, he merely hauled her over to a rough seat made of a log, pulled her beside him and began alternately drinking and pawing her. Annukka was tied by the hands to a tree while the rest of the robbers went through their things.
“What's this trash?” one snarled, looking through her bags of herbs. He was about to throw it aside, when another stopped him with a whisper and a glance in Annukka's direction. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he whispered something more. The herbs were set roughly aside. There was some hilarity as they tried on her clothing and Kaari's, none of which fit, and which also was set aside with the herbs. There was fighting over the bedrolls and more fighting over the weapons and anger when they got down to the bottom of the packs and found not even a single copper coin.
“Make dinner, old woman!” the leader shouted, one hand up Kaari's shirt. Kaari was a stone, but Annukka assessed the situation and judged that she was in no danger of rape from the leader, at least. He was too drunk to perform at the point, if she was any judge.
Hmmm.
She held up her tied hands mutely, and with a snarl, the same man that had tied her up now cut her loose. It was clear at that point that none of the robbers intended to lift a finger as long as she was around to do their work for them. So she gathered together everything that looked like a foodstuff or a cooking implement, then she hauled wood and water to the camp. She did her best to leave her own stores intact, although she did use some herbs and juniper berries for flavoring — not because she liked these bastards, but because she wanted to disguise the taste of the meat she found that was starting to turn. If what she was planning didn't work, maybe she could give them all the flux with this stuff.
