They were on the forest side of the castle yard, between the old and new walls. Johanna could see a patch of green hillside, drizzly clouds hanging low. About a hundred meters away was the old wall. In fact this was the same stretch of stone where Scriber had been killed. Even if the damn cannon didn’t blow up, no one had any idea how far the shot would go. Johanna was betting it wouldn’t even get to the wall.
Scrupilo was on this side of the gun now, trying to light a long wooden firing wand. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Johanna knew this couldn’t work. They were all fools and amateurs, she as much as they. And this poor guy is going to get killed for nothing.
Johanna came to her feet. Gotta stop it. Something grabbed her belt and pulled her down. It was one of Woodcarver’s members, one of the fat ones that couldn’t walk quite right. “We have to try,” the pack said softly.
Scrupilo had the wand alight now. Suddenly he stopped talking. All of him but the white-headed one ran for the protection of the berm. For an instant it seemed like strange cowardice, and then Johanna understood: A human playing with something explosive would also try to shield his body -except for the hand that held the match. Scrupilo was risking a maiming, but not death.
The white-headed one looked across the trampled heather to the rest of Scrupilo. It didn’t seem upset so much as attentively listening. At this distance it couldn’t be part of Scrupilo’s mind, but the creature was probably smarter than any dog—and apparently it was getting some kind of directions from the rest.
White-head turned and walked toward the cannon. It belly-crawled the last meter, taking what cover there was in the dirt behind the gun cart. It held the wand so the flame at its tip came slowly down on the fire hole. Johanna ducked behind the berm…
The explosion was a sharp snapping sound. Woodcarver shuddered against her, and whistles of pain came from all around the tent. Poor Scrupilo! Johanna felt tears starting. I have to look; I’m partly responsible. Slowly she stood and forced herself to look across the field to where a minute ago the cannon had been—and still is! Thick smoke floated from both ends, but the tube was intact. And more, White-head was wobbling dazedly around the cart, his white fur now covered with soot.
The rest of Scrupilo raced out to White-head. The five of him ran round and round the cannon, bounding over each other in triumph. For a long moment, the rest of the audience just stared. The gun was in one piece. The gunner had survived. And, almost as a side effect… Johanna looked over the gun, up the hillside: There was a meter-wide notch in the top of the old wall, where none had been before. Vendacious would have a hard time disguising that from enemy inspection!
Dumb silence gave way to the noisiest affair Johanna had seen yet. There was the usual gobbling, and other sounds—hissing that hovered right at the edge of sensibility. On the other side of the tent, two Tines she didn’t know ran into each other: for a moment of mindless jubilation, they were an enormous pack of nine or ten members.
We’ll get the ship back yet! Johanna turned to hug Woodcarver. But the Queen was not shouting with the others. She huddled with her heads close together, shivering. “Woodcarver?” She petted the neck of one of the big, fat ones. It jerked away, its body spasming.
Stroke? Heart attack? The names of oldenday killers popped into her mind. Just how would they apply to a pack? Something was terribly wrong, and nobody else had noticed. Johanna bounced back to her feet. “Pilgrim!” she screamed.
Five minutes later, they had Woodcarver out of the tent. The place was still a madhouse, but gone deathly quiet to Johanna’s ears. She’d helped the Queen onto her carriage, but after that no one would let her near. Even Pilgrim, so eager to translate everything the day before, brushed her aside. “It will be okay,” was all he said as he ran to the front of the carriage and grabbed the reins of the shaggy Whatsits. The carriage pulled out, surrounded by several packs of guards. For an instant, the weirdness of the Tines world came crashing back on Johanna. This was a obviously a great emergency. A person might be dying. People were rushing this way and that. And yet… The packs drew into themselves. No one crowded close. No one could touch another.
The instant passed, and Johanna was running out of the tent after the carriage. She tried to keep to the heather along the muddy path, and almost caught up. Everything was wet and chill, gunmetal gray. Everyone had been so intent on the test—could this be more Flenser treachery? Johanna stumbled, went down on her knees in the mud. The carriage turned a corner, onto cobblestones. Now it was lost to sight. She got up and slogged on through the wet, but a little slower now. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could do. She had made friends with Scriber, and Scriber had been killed. She had made friends with Woodcarver, and now…
She walked along the cobbled alley between the castle’s storehouses. The carriage was out of sight, but she could hear its clatter on ahead. Vendacious’ security packs ran in both directions past her, stopping briefly in side niches to allow opposing traffic by. Nobody answered her questions—probably none of them even spoke Samnorsk.
Johanna almost got lost. She could hear the carriage, but it had turned somewhere. She heard it again behind her. They were taking Woodcarver to Johanna’s place! She went back, and a few minutes later was climbing the path to the two-storey cabin she had shared with Woodcarver these last weeks. Johanna was too pooped to run anymore. She walked slowly up the hillside, vaguely aware of her wet and muddy state. The carriage was stopped about five meters short of the door. Guard packs were strung out along the hill, but their bows weren’t nocked.
The afternoon sunlight found a break in the western clouds and shone for a moment on the damp heather and glistening timbers, lighting them bright against dark sky above the hills. It was a combination of light and dark that had always seemed especially beautiful to Johanna. Please let her be okay.
The guards let her pass. Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing around the entrance, three of him watching her approach. The fourth, Scarbutt, had its long neck stuck through the doorway, watching whatever was inside. “She wanted to be back here when it happened,” he said.
“What h-happened?” said Johanna.
Pilgrim made the equivalent of a shrug. “It was the shock of that cannon going off. But almost anything could have done it.” There was something odd about the way his heads were bobbing around. With a shock Johanna realized the pack was smiling, full of glee.
“I want to see her!” Scarbutt backed hastily away as she started for the door.
Inside there was only the light from the door and the high window slits. It took a second for Johanna’s eyes to adjust. Something smelled… wet. Woodcarver was lying in a circle on the quilted mattress she used every evening. She crossed the room and went to her knees beside the pack. The pack edged nervously away from her touch. There was blood, and what looked like a pile of guts, in the middle of the mattress. Johanna felt vomit rising in her. “W-Woodcarver?” she said very softly.
One of the Queen moved back toward Johanna and put its muzzle in the girl’s hand. “Hello, Johanna. It’s… so strange… to have someone next to me at a time like this.”
“You’re bleeding. What’s the matter?”
Soft, human-sounding laughter. “I’m hurt, but it’s good… See.” The blind one was holding something small and wet in its jaws. One of the others was licking it. Whatever it was, it was wiggling, alive. And Johanna remembered how strangely plump and awkward parts of Woodcarver had become.
“A baby?”
“Yes. And I’m going to have another in a day or two.”
Johanna sat back on the floor timbers, and covered her face with her hands. She was going to start crying again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Woodcarver didn’t say anything for a moment. She licked the little one all around, then set it against the tummy of the member that must be its mother. The newborn snuggled close, nuzzling into the belly fur. It didn’t make any noise that Johanna could hear. Finally the Queen said, “I… don’t know if I can make you understand. This has been very hard for me.”
“Having babies?” Johanna’s hands were sticky with the blood on the quilt. Obviously this had been hard, but that’s how all lives must start on a world like this. It was pain that needed the support of friends, pain that led to joy.
“No. Having the babies isn’t it. I’ve borne more than a hundred in my memory’s time. But these two… are the ending of me. How can you understand? You humans don’t even have the choice to keep on living; your
