ranks, to packleader, and assigned as special aide to her ladyship. Inform your previous flankleader of your new posting. Draw a red sash from the quartermaster’s.”
Cutrath’s smile was a leer. “My lord is kind.”
“Huntleader,” Saltaja said, nibbling a roll, “how long can the men you leave behind here defend the pass?”
“Depends on the size of the attacking force, my lady.”
“You have instructed the garrison that they must fight to the last drop of blood?”
Heth nodded, throat suddenly dry.
“Good. Another little pep talk will not hurt, though. Send the packleaders to me now. One at a time.”
ORLAD CELEBRE
so distrusted the grumpy Pathfinder that he borrowed Namberson and Snerfrik back from Guthlag and set them to guarding Hermesk’s canoe. He did not doubt that canoes, like river boats, could launch themselves in the dark.
Far from objecting, the Pathfinder promptly put all three Heroes-and also Waels, who never left Orlad’s side- to work unloading his personal goods and moving them to safekeeping, then requisitioning and loading supplies needed for the journey. He agreed with them when they grumbled that common porters could do such labor, but pointed out that one ballast stone dropped through the canoe’s fragile bark skin would force time-consuming repair. Orlad was in a hurry, wasn’t he?
Yes, he was, and quite prepared to drag people off their sleeping mats and keep them working all night if necessary. At first light the wayfarers were ready to go. With luck they would steal a head start on Saltaja.
Having never experienced farewells, Orlad found the cold predawn parting much sadder than he had expected. The rivals he had defeated in the testing half a year ago had become his team, then his friends, and finally his battle-tested brother warriors. Several of them wept; he had to blink a lot. Benard openly sobbed, that amiable bear who had seemed such a puffball when they first met, yet had turned out to be a man of suicidal courage. How could long-lost brothers have become so close in so little time? Orlad even felt moved just watching the Ucrist taking leave of his foster daughter. The greedy little man would have to find consolation in his farms and houses and his sacks of gold. Fabia was still weeping when she stepped into the canoe. So was Dantio, steeped in the others’ emotions as well as his own.
The canoe was narrow enough for each paddler to work both sides, but not quite long enough for five people and the baggage. Hermesk repeatedly stressed how fragile it was. It must be lifted in and out of the water, he said, never allowed to touch the shore. Tipping it over in the wilds would result in them all freezing, drowning, or starving to death. He put himself in the bow, then Waels, Fabia in the middle-she promised to take a turn with the work if the men wanted her to-followed by Orlad, and finally Dantio in the stern because he had canoed before and could help with the steering.
By the time the sun was fully up, the tyros had stopped soaking everyone with every stroke and Orlad was confident he would enjoy the next few days. Paddling was pleasant exercise. The Milky ran lovat green under the trees and ultramarine under the sky. Strings of noisy birds flew seaward, to lands where the winter would be warmer, if no shorter.
By the time the sun cleared the peak of Mount Varakats he was starting to consider blisters, the uncomfortable bundle he was sitting on, and how cramped his legs were getting-not to mention what a whole day of this was going to do to his arms and shoulders. No one had spoken for some time, except when Hermesk shouted “Change!” and they switched their paddles to the other side. The Pathfinder looked old enough to be a grandfather, but he had been doing this sort of thing all his life. He flapped along like a home-bound crow, never tiring.
It was going to be a long day.
Fabia peered around and said, “?Co sofo lattie par tenziale paludio u Florezou?”
“Huh?”
“Co!” She shrugged. “?Sofo?” She pointed at herself. “Lattie.” She waggled her tongue…
“Can’t you just tell me what the words mean to start with?”
“Nyb!” Head shake. Her eyes gleamed with amusement.
He sighed. “How do I say, ‘Start again!’?”
With both hands busy he could not even seek help in gestures and he must keep paddling in time with the others. It was going to be a very long day.
Soon the forest disappeared. Then the river wound in dizzying loops across bogs and wetlands, among reeds and groves of bulrushes, in and out of ponds. The Pathfinder never hesitated and never had to backtrack. Ahead, the glint of the Ice grew brighter, the sky above it a deeper, darker, richer blue. Mount Varakats swelled larger and closer, but never became impressively high and probably never would. In the thin air of the Edge, another conical blister showed very far away to the north. The Face was flat, after all. It was only because rivers flowed inward to Ocean that people spoke of going “up” to the Edge or the “High” Ice. The sun burned ever hotter, until about noon. After that rain and clouds and wind came to cool the sweating paddlers.
Dantio took over the task of pounding Florengian into Orlad, and Fabia started on Waels. The scrawny old Pathfinder knew some of the jabber, so he insisted on using it too. Orlad learned the Florengian word for “blood” when his hands started bleeding. That was just before Hermesk called for a brief rest, saying that they could go longer next time. Was revenge so sweet, or did he just hate men younger and stronger than himself? He certainly enjoyed giving orders to Werists.
At their second halt, as they sat on rounded boulders to wolf rations and quaff cold, crystal water from a pond-Hermesk had warned that drinking the Milky was a mistake no one ever repeated-Fabia demanded an account of the Nardalborg pass from Orlad.
When he managed to understand her sign language, he said, “Heth always estimates five days to First Ice, five to the Mountain of Skulls, five more-”
She scolded him in Florengian.
“Anconti?” he said. “What’s anconti? Little?… Oh, details? You want details? Well, the Ice isn’t continuous. First Ice is a wall, but when you’ve struggled up that, you still find lots of rock beyond it. There is nothing but rock at the Edge itself. Mountain of Skulls was where Stralg had his first big disaster, a sort of human avalanche. Nowadays there’s a staircase there-part wood, part stonework, part hacked out of the cliff. Another five days gets you to Fist’s Leap, and that’s as far as I’ve been, that I remember. The Edge is about five days beyond that, but all those ‘five days’es are rough guesses and wishful thinking. On the High Ice men can drop dead in their tracks. Storms can blow forever. Heth admits that nobody ever made it from Nardalborg to the Edge in only twenty days. He just likes to keep people hoping. Twenty days coming down is possible, if mammoths are waiting for you at First Ice’.”
Fabia chattered at the Pathfinder. He answered in Vigaelian, more likely because he did not trust his Florengian than out of sympathy for Waels and Orlad. “We’ll reach our closest point in another three days. If we cut across country, we should-if the weather holds and we don’t have any accidents-we should reach First Ice one day after that.”
Fabia said, “So if Saltaja set out this morning, as we did, we should get there about the same time she does?”
“Depends how big an escort she has,” Orlad said. “How many men and how many mammoths. It’s crossing the rivers in relays that takes the time.”
“How big an escort do you expect?” Waels asked.
Dantio said, “Very big. She doesn’t have Therek and Horold lurking in the background to defend her now. She’ll be well guarded.”
“Then we should be able to travel faster than she can.”
“As long as we can stay in front of her to Mountain of Skulls,” Orlad said, “we’ll be fine. There we’ll rip out the stairs. That will slow her. After that we just stay ahead, sleeping in her shelters, eating what we need of her supplies, and burning the rest! We’ll get to Veritano before she does!”
“Sounds good to me,” Waels said. “Maybe we can even tip off the Mutineer’s men that she’s coming.”
