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The sicamar s wild scream rode the gust of wind that brought his scent to the
herd.
Between one breath and the next the grazers were on their feet; a second
scream and they were off.
Two hours later, Hedivy and Adlayr were mounted, each with an extra macai on
lead. They pushed the macs into a long lope and headed west, hoping to be out
of reach before the herders recovered their herd and took a count of their
spare riding stock.
7. The Winter That Didn t Come
The breeze off the Stathvoreen stirring the curtains was the only thing that
made the loft bearable; in
the living quarters at the back of the Longhouse, the smaller rooms were like
ovens. K vestmilly Vos sat slumped on a stool, watching the healwoman Olmena
Oumelic pour water in a basin and wash her hands.
Zasya Myers stood on guard in one corner; &las lay beside the rail across the
open end of the loft, his eyes fixed on the stairway. The meie was silent, so
much a shadow that half the time K vestmilly forgot she was there.
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Olmena was a plump, smiling woman from Calanda, head healer in the clinic
attached to Pan Pen s steel mills. She d come away with Vedouce s wife in the
frantic scramble when Pan. Nov made his move to take the Pevranamist and Mask.
She dried her hands with brisk efficiency, turned to face K vestmilly.
Haven t been doing your exercises, hip?
K vestmilly groaned. I haven t had time. Too much to do, then I m too tired.
It was true enough, as an excuse. She d moved constantly among the fighters
and the Oskland refugees, showing the Mask, letting the women feel her
daughter kick, using the vigor of her unborn child to rekindle hope and give
them the strength to endure the uncertainty and the boredom. She d spent hours
with Heslin, listening to the reports from the spy web in the cities and
out-lands, still more hours with Vedouce working out strategy for retaking
Dander/Calanda. Before she was Marn, she d ridden and hunted, filled her days
with activity and been rail-thin with the energy she d ex-pended. All that
wasn t possible now
Exercise, phah!
She hated those things
Olmena wanted her to do.
Boring.
You re healthy enough and so s the child, but you re soft as butter, Marn. A
twitch of Olmena s long nose, a minatory gleam in her dark blue eyes. The
longer you put off building strength, the tireder you re going to be. Works
that way. And you know it, K vestmilly Vos. So. On your feet. We ll make a
start today. Set a time for tomorrow and to-morrow. Her eyes twinkled. And
I ll be here to see you do what you should.
It s too hot to move.
Bath after. Up.
As she stretched and clenched under Olmena s crit-ical gaze, K vestmilly
listened again to the rumble of voices drifting up from beneath the mat she
lay on, Heslin and Vedouce going over last night s spy re-ports.
... doesn t dare go inside, but Spider One says the Temple glows like it s
burning. Heslin s voice was clear and carrying though he was trying to speak
low enough to keep her from hearing the uglier parts. She smiled as she
sucked in as deep a breath as she could, tensed her abdominal
muscles.
Speech-maker. Habit bad got away from him again.
...
pyre in the court that s kept going, lots of black smoke coming from it.
Rumors. Unconfirmed.
That the new PreOrchmat is sacrificing a dozen women a day on that fire. Only
women. No children, no men. Spider One says she doesn t know why.
Vedouce grunted, said something, but K vestmilly couldn t catch the sense.
Heslin s chair creaked as he shifted. She smiled again, visualizing him
shuffling through page after page of his scrawled script.
Arms still coming in, but only a trickle. Again ru-mor, the treasury s about
empty. Almost no trade, your mills shut down, fires out.
Vedouce clumped away from the table, raised his voice. Heard that before.
Naught I can do about it. Get to the army. How big, how well armed and how
soon s it coming through?
Olmena Oumelic touched K vestmilly s shoulder. Right. That s enough for now
Put this round you.
She helped K vestmilly get to her feet, wrapped a knitted coverlet around her
shoulders, clicking her tongue at her feeble attempt to push it away. Nik,
nik, I know it s hot, but you ve been sweating and I
don t want you catching cold.
After she got K vestmilly Vos seated in the arm-chair, the elbow table beside
it laden with a pot of cha, a plate of crisp wafers and fruit slices, she
moved to the door into the living quarters, stopped and turned. Mann.
Marazi ll be up here in one minute with a glass of my tonic. Now don t scrinch
up like that, you ll get stuck that way. You drink it or I ll come n pour it
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down your face, huh?
K vestmilly watched the healer bustle out. Bad as Bozhka Sekan used to be
with Mother. She pushed the coverlet aside, pried herself from the armchair
and walked heavily toward the window, mouth
twist-ing at the ache in her knees.
Zasya was suddenly there, between her and the casement. Marn, best not.
She looked at the meie for a long minute, then at the fluttering curtains.
Chert! she said finally, her anger packed in that ugly word.
Zasya said nothing.
Zdra zdra, you ve made your point. Now go where I don t have to look at you
and remember why
I can t even lean out my own window. She swung round with something of her
old impetuousness and marched back to the chair, pulling it over so she could
catch the breeze, turning it so her back was to the meie.
The air coming through the windows was as hot as any midsummer wind, though
this was supposed to be winter. It d started to be winter, frost on the trees,
heavy black clouds threatening snow then the sun came up double its usual size
and burned away the clouds, the frost. And the cold winds turned hot.
And the passes stayed open. And an army was forming by the ruins of OskHold,
free to come at them as long as the passes were open. Heslin was worried.
There was no way they could stand up to an attack, not here.
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