Moonrise

first?'

'Who better?' Baj said.

'Then thank heavens we're all to be friends,' the Shrike gestured to follow, and walked away, '- as long as we live.'

'What of him, Richard?' Patience seemed at ease, though her hand was on her scimitar's hilt.

'Dolphus? He's a shaman, an educated man among the Shrikes.'

'But a fighter.'

'Oh, yes. He doesn't have to be – but he is. Got bored with copybooks, apparently.'

'And the Robins, south, fear those people?' Baj said.

'Robins,' Nancy said, '- and the Thrushes and Fish-hawks. The Shrikes are very clever. And cruel.'

'If he hurts you again,' Baj said, '- with his well-read WT mouth, I'll kill him.'

'… I should have told you,' Nancy said, and Baj saw tears in golden eyes.

'You came near enough telling me, sweetheart. But it would have made no difference, and makes no difference now.' He took her narrow hand as they walked along… and tried, as he could see the Shrikes doing, stepping only between tussocks.

'Don't… Baj, don't fight him.'

'Not if I can help it. He frightens me.'

Nancy laughed, and wiped tears away with her sleeve. 'Even for a Sunriser,' she said, '- you're odd.' She hugged him, so they walked awkwardly, then leaned up to nip his earlobe, so Baj imagined happy years of minor injuries… Still, there crossed his mind a shadowed scene of Nancy naked in firelight, drunk, laughing, surrounded by a hulking pack.

The thought, the image shamed him… and all the worse since there was no way to beg pardon for that treachery of imagination.

He held her closer, so they stumbled along, awkward as Festival sack-racers. Bent, and kissed her.

… Soon, standards heaved up on the plain, and formations could be seen beneath them, mounted and foot – some shining in steel, some uniformed in furs, and others, it seemed, in multicolored woolens. All marching east – without music, but together, so their ranks swayed slightly to one side then the other, as they came.

'Who is Sylvia,' the Shrike chief called to them, smiling, '- that all our swains commend her?' It sounded to Baj like a copybook quote, though he didn't remember it… Old Lord Peter would have known.

Ahead of them, riders came galloping from serried ranks bright with polished armor under the morning sun. Five… six, coming fast under a green staff-banner rippling to their wind of passage.

Lances. Baj saw lances held socketed easily upright. And, he thought, bows cased beside their saddles… But it was not horses they rode. And not the great pale Made-things some Boston people shipped to Middle-Kingdom for their mounts. He'd seen those… Mampies. Seen others later, gone wild and murdering.

These mounts coming, were like deer, but black, and much bigger – and had a swift odd ambling pace, fast as a horse, and looking slow to tire.

'What -?'

'Moose,' Nancy said. 'Only females, and bred big.'

'Female moose,' Richard said, 'have bad tempers, can break a Person's back with a kick.'

'I've ridden one,' Nancy said. 'They won't let Richard near them.'

'My grizzled portion,' Richard said. 'But I was Infantry, anyway… Uh-oh.' He swung his ax down to the tundra, left its handle leaning against his leg. 'Baj, quiver that arrow, and ease your bow. Do it quickly.'

'The Wolf-General,' Nancy said, reached out for Errol, drew him to her, and held him still as Baj knelt to unstring the bow.

'You know,' Patience said, 'I've only seen her in Tea-party Parade, with other Guard commanders.'

'Be careful,' Richard said. 'Careful. You're about to meet… she who no one cares to meet.'

CHAPTER 19

There was no sound then but the north wind… and the rapid, approaching hoofbeats of the six riders, their dark mounts – big-eared, droop-nosed, humped at the shoulders – galloping with a stilted rocking gait that seemed not troubled by knots of tundra grass.

Baj could make out the rider in front, dressed dark, and sitting knees-high like a racing jockey… The others glinted in steel armor. One of them – with a furred head, and looking wide as two men – bore the green-banner standard.

They came on as if they were charging to kill.

'Stand,' Richard said, '… stand still.'

They stood still. Through the hide soles of his moccasin-boots, Baj felt the tundra trembling to hoofbeats.

The first rider came to them – and pulled up hard in a short slide, so the rearing moose's heavy split hooves ripped tussocks, spattered Richard with cold mud.

'My General…' Richard started to raise his right hand.

The rider's voice sounded high and harsh as a woodsman's saw. 'If you salute me, Deserter, I'll have your hand off.'

Richard put his hand down as the five other riders thundered up, and the Wolf-General laughed. It was a grim laugh to see – a snouted muzzle, barely a mouth, wrinkling away from wolf's fangs, a long red tongue. Then she sat her saddle, silent… examining them.

Certainly, it seemed to Baj, the General had much human in her, but it showed only enough for a wolf's head swollen larger for sense, for shorter ears – though furred slate gray – for claws become useful almost-hands, for shoulders enough to swing a sword or ax… and for slanting eyes a woman's deep and lovely blue. She was white- furred at the throat above a breast-and-back cuirass of some dark metal – bronze, Baj thought – shaped down its front to indicate rows of small breasts. She was lightly furred, thigh to stirruped boot and along her arms. Her dark gray hair rose – much as Nancy's – in a crest from her forehead. A bronze pig-nosed helmet swung from her saddle-bow beside a scab-barded heavy straight saber.

Neither she nor her restless mount bore any decoration at all. There was only muscled bulk, bronze, steel, fur, and fangs… The Person's eyes, though – so gentle and rich a blue as she sat considering them – seemed to Baj decoration enough.

Of her escort, four – lean riders in steel chain-mail – seemed almost fully human, near-Sunrisers, though with odd bones under scarred and savage faces. The fifth, the banner-bearer, was a Moonriser-certain, short, squat, and wide-shouldered. He was tufted black, with paler undercoat, and had round furred ears. The muzzle was blunt, the small eyes the color of stone.

'General,' Patience said '- I've seen you on parade.'

The Wolf-woman stared at her. 'You will not Walk-in-air, unless by my orders and following my orders.' Her voice, harsh with high vibration, was unsettling to listen to. '- Disobey, and I'll send riders to follow until you grow tired. Then they will bring your head to me.'

'If I choose the air,' Patience said, 'and without your orders – you'd better send formidable riders to try to take my head.'

'I have no others.' The Wolf-General sidled her big mount almost into them, then leaned from her saddle and held out a clawed hand. Patience went to take it.

'Sylvia,' the General said, shook Patience's hand WT style, then straightened in her saddle and glanced at Nancy, Errol, then Baj. 'You, Sunriser-boy, are supposedly son of the Achieving King?'

'He was my Second-father… ma'am.'

'And your first, the Khan Toghrul?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

She stared at him. 'It's difficult, just the same, to see any greatness in you.'

'Difficult for me to feel any greatness.'