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Hainlin in the east. Basically, they were to wander the eastern half of the
upper Ponath all summer, living off the land and slaughtering invaders.
Marika's would be but one of a score of similar parties.
For a long time very little happened. Once again, as in the summer of the
journey to the Rift, the nomads seemed capable of staying out of their path.
When the hunt passed below the site of the Degnan packstead, Marika, Barlog,
and Grauel gazed up at the decaying stockade and refused to take a closer
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look. The Laspe packstead they did visit, but nothing remained there save
vaguely regular lines on the earth and cellar infalls where loghouses had
stood.
Stirring a midden heap, Marika uncovered a scorched and broken chakota
doll-and nearly lost her composure.
"What troubles you, pup?" Barlog asked.
Throat too tight for speech, she merely held out the broken doll. Barlog was
puzzled.
Marika found her voice. "My earliest memory is of a squabble with Kublin. I
broke his chakota. He got so mad he threw mine into the fire." She had not
thought of, or dreamed of, her littermate for a long time. Recalling him now,
with a chakota in her paw, brought back all the pain redoubled. "The Mourning.
We still owe them their Mourning."
"Someday, pup. Someday. It will come." Barlog scratched her behind the ears,
gently, and she did not shy away, though she was too old for that.
Approaching the Plenthzo Valley, they happened upon a packstead that had been
occupied till only a few hours before. "Some of them have changed their ways,"
Grauel observed.
It was obvious the place had been abandoned hurriedly. "They do know where we
are and what we are doing," Marika said. She frowned at the sky for no reason
she understood. And without consulting Arhdwehr-who was plundering deserted
food stores-she ordered a half dozen huntresses into the surrounding woods to
look for signs of watchers.
Arhdwehr was very angry when she learned what Marika had done. But she
restrained her temper. Though just a week into the venture, she realized
already that the savages with whom she traveled responded far better to the
savage silth pup than they did to her. Too strong a confrontation might not be
wise.
Marika had sent those huntresses that Grauel felt were the best. So she
believed them when they returned and reported that the party was not being
stalked by nomad scouts.
"They must have their own silth with them," she told Grauel and Barlog. "So
they sense us coming in time to scatter."
"That many silth?" Barlog countered. "If there were that many, they would
fight us. Anyway, sheer chance ought to put more of them into our path." The
only encounters thus far had been two with lone huntresses out seeking game.
Those the Akard huntresses had destroyed without difficulty or requiring help
from the silth.
While searching for the best food stores, Arhdwehr made a discovery. She told
the others, "I know how they are doing it. Staying out of our way." But she
would not explain.
Marika poked around. She found nothing. But intuition and Arhdwehr's behavior
made her suspect it came down to something like the devices Braydic used to
communicate with Maksche.
Which might explain how the packstead had been warned. But how had the
reporter known where the hunting party was?
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Ever so gently, so it would seem to be Arhdwehr's idea, Marika suggested that
the party might spend a day or two inside that packstead, resting. It had been
a hard trail up from Akard. Arhdwehr adopted the idea. Her point won, Marika
collected Grauel and Barlog. "Did you find any of the herbs and roots I told
you to watch for?"
"Everything but the grubs," Grauel replied. She was baffled. Almost from her
first contact with them after their arrival at Akard, Marika had had them
gathering odds and ends from the woods whenever they left the fortress.
She replied, "I did not think we would find any of those. It is far too early
yet. And too cold. Even the summers have become so cool that they have become
rare. However... " With a gesture of triumph she produced a small sealed
earthenware jar she had brought from the fortress. "I brought some along. I
found them the summer we went to the Rift. Find me a pot. And something I can
use as a cutting board."
They settled apart from the others-which drew no attention because it was
their custom already-and Marika went to work. "I hope my memory is good. I
only saw this done once, when Bhlase made the poison for our spears and
arrows."
"Poison?" Barlog looked faintly distressed.
"I am not without a certain low, foul cunning," Marika said lightly. "I have
been gathering the ingredients for years, waiting for this chance. Do you
object?"
"Not with the thought," Grauel said. "They deserve no better. They are vermin.
You exterminate vermin." Her hatred spoke strongly. "But poison? That is the
recourse of a treacherous male."
Barlog objected, too. Eyes narrow, she said, "Why do I think you will make
poison here where none will know what you do, and test it on those none will
object to seeing perish, and someday I will find myself wondering at the
unexplainable death of someone back at the packfast?"
Marika did not respond.
The huntresses exchanged looks. They understood, though they did not want to
do so. Barlog could not conceal her disgust. Perhaps, Marika thought, she
would now discover if they were the creatures of the senior.
They continued to object. Poison was not the way of a huntress. Nor even of
the Wise. The way of a stinking silth, maybe. But only the worst of that witch
breed...
They said nothing, though. And Marika ignored their silent censure.
She cooked the poison down with the utmost care. And just before the hunting
party departed the packstead-where everything had been left much as found, at
her insistence-she put three quarters of the poison into those nomad food
stores she thought likely to see use soon.
The hunting party crossed the Plenthzo and continued on eastward for three
nights. Then, after day's camp had been set, Marika told Grauel and Barlog,
"It is time to return and examine our handiwork."
Grauel scowled. Barlog said, "Do not spread the blame upon us, pup. You played
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the male's poison game."
They were very irked, those two, but they did not refuse to accompany her.
They traveled more quickly as a threesome with a specific destination and no
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