Moonrise

They had became so close there were no longer quite two of them, and Baj thought not of the rest of his life, but resting his life with hers. And was afraid for her.

'I want Nancy out of this.'

Patience, sitting cross-legged in her warm new coat of colors – it draped almost ankle-length on her – was finishing a bite of seal-meat jerky with effortful chewing. 'Of course you do – even more than I want Nancy, and Richard, and you out of this. Weasel-boy as well.'

'I mean it.'

'So do I,' Patience said, and took another bite. When she'd chewed and swallowed, she said, 'Do you imagine, Baj, that you're the first to come to me with this?'

'I thought so.'

'Nancy, already denied by Richard, came to me the night of our first day with these guardsmen. She wanted you safe and away… I told her what I'll tell you. I've come to care for you all – Errol excepted, and even there, some affection – and, since I've become older and foolish, might even die to save any one of you.' She sniffed at the jerky. 'Seal meat, even dried, doesn't have to be this bad… Yes, might even die to save you, so silly I've become. But I will never let you go.' Her black eyes seemed darker than black.

'- And will certainly do my best to kill you both, if you run. Your life – our lives – balance very poorly against what Boston has done in its hostage taking – crimes I admit perfectly comfortable for me, until they took my son… They fear my darling so, fear the past truths he dreams – fear even more what futures he may find, traveling blood's probable highways. Find, or perhaps someday make come to pass.'

She took another bite of jerky, spoke while chewing. 'I've seen that for Sunrisers or Moonrisers, love is always lost sooner or later, as the man or woman is always lost, to death if nothing else… Learn to live with loss to come, Baj; prepare to fight as your fathers fought – and never come begging to me again.'

CHAPTER 21

Relieved of hope, Baj felt oddly content, and as march followed march, now to the north – and the Wall grew from a white ribbon… to taller, and taller… until it was a wall, stretched across the northern horizon – he kept Nancy close for the pleasure of her closeness, so they walked through the camps' habitual temporary streets a couple, with Errol – wandering, circling, having to be called or hauled back – acting their restless child.

The wind, some days, became bitter with deeper cold, notice sent down from the glacier as if a great messenger-pigeon of crystal ice were bringing word of Lord Winter's awakening. Unless in fur mittens, with parky hood up, Baj's hands and face were numbed by these breezes… In their weeks since Battle-valley, he and the others had traveled the summer away.

After chow, the evening of their sixth day marching, Richard – who had a fine gift for it – settled on a blanket by their small dry-dung fire, with his ax and their knives and swords lying beside him to sharpen. He always began with a coarse small stone from Map-Missouri… then, after the most delicate strokes – his huge hand light, light along the steel – he went to soft Map-Arkansas, both very expensive stones imported through three tribes, Owls to Blue-birds, then across the river to the Thrushes. Last – Richard's secret – he used palm-sized chunks dug out of permafrost, the ice finely powdered with the ground granite of glaciers advancing and retreating centuries ago, to stroke along edges already shaving sharp.

Finished by stropping on moose-hide leathers, then touched with tallow against the damp, Richard's worked edges were keen past testing. Touched even lightly, they cut.

'And still,' he would say, handing over this or that murderous instrument, '- still sharpened at a sensible angle, so no wire-edge, no becoming delicate on armor.'

Richard was bent to this chore – Baj and Patience playing pickup sticks by firelight – when there was the faintest cry out of fallen darkness, from John trench.

It was barely a sound… only the trace of one – but Richard was up with his ax in his hands. Other soldiers near the Lines were standing listening – some sergeant already shouting an order – when Baj said, 'Nancy,' picked his sheathed rapier up from Richard's blanket, and went running.

He jumped fire-shadowed shelter tie-downs as he went out from camp row toward John trench, and heard soldiers coming behind him. The Wall – immense, though still many miles away – gleamed before him under a rising moon.

… The cry again – with strangled fury in it.

Running hard – feeling oddly light, as if he could float along – Baj reached the latrine trench, turned down along it, and saw a Person bent and struggling, his broad back touched by moonlight.

Nancy yelled again.

Baj saw her held beneath, kicking, biting. The Person on her turned a broad head, a blunt-muzzled face to Baj as he came. Nancy's shirt was torn away, her small breasts showing.

Baj gripped his rapier's hilt to draw as the soldier stood with a quick hunch and heave to face him – when a breeze and flutter swept above. 'Baj, don't draw!' Patience swung down through the air beside them. 'Death, to draw steel in camp!'

The Guardsman smiled, teeth glinting in moonlight, huge hands held up and empty. There was blood on the side of his furred face, where he'd been bitten.

The Master's voice sounded in Baj's ear, clear as if reality. 'Never. Never lose your temper in a fight.'

Baj swung the sheathed rapier back – and whipped its limber length whistling across the soldier's face. It struck with a stock-lash's heavy crack, and wiped the smile away.

Baj spun in reverse, brought the blade around, and caught the soldier not quite guarded on that side, so the scabbarded steel struck him across the side of the head, across a small fur-tipped ear.

Either blow would have sent even the strongest human staggering, would have knocked a weaker man down, but the Guardsman still stood, his face now a fanged mask of rage. He came with one swift heavy step – and a Wolf-soldier in half-armor, brass Provost-chain gleaming across the steel breast, stood between them.

'Continue,' the officer said, his grating voice harsh as his general's, '- and die.'

* * *

'I went to piss,' Nancy, bruised, spitting like an angry grain-store cat before their fire, '- and he came and took hold of me. He saw I didn't have my sword!'

'Who is that thing?' Baj said, sitting with his arm around her.

Richard sighed. 'That 'thing' is a sergeant. The general's banner-bearer.'

'Yes,' Baj said, 'it was that one. The Badger-blood. Always staring at her…'

'If you'd drawn on him, Baj,' Patience shook her head, 'they would have executed you.'

'And for attempting a rape?' Baj started to stand, but Nancy tugged him back beside her. 'What does the Guard do for that?'

'For a rape – out of camp and after fighting – no penalty,' Richard said. 'Otherwise, a beating with harness leathers, fifty strokes. Sylvia decides if with the metal buckles, or without.'

'They will not beat George Brock-Robin,' Nancy struck the turf with a small fist. 'That fucked-his-mother will say I was a camp whore and am a camp whore, and felt and tempted him – then changed my price unfairly.'

'And they will let that go…?'

'His word against hers, Baj.' Richard shook his head. 'He's a shit – but a good soldier, fighting.'

'Sad, then, that he'll be missed,' Baj said. 'Now, tell me how I can bring him to my blade.'

'You can't.'

'And you shouldn't,' Patience, sitting cross-legged by the fire, shook her head. 'Nancy was frightened -'

'I was not.'

'- but not hurt. And we are with these companies on a razor's edge.'