Fall of Angels (47 page)

  
"Yes, ser. They won't like it, ser."

  
"Rimmur ... do they want to know and be dead, or not know and be alive?"

  
"Ser?"

  
"If no one knows where we're going, whether it's after Ildyrom or the black angels, then our enemies can't plan. If they can't plan, then fewer of our men get killed. So just get them ready. Tell them what I told you."

  
"Yes, ser." Rimmur stands and waits.

  
As Terek and Sillek head up the narrow steps to the upper levels of the tower, the white wizard clears his throat, finally saying, "You never did indicate . .. ser . .."

  
"That's right, Terek. I did not. I do not know what sort of screeing or magic the angels have. So my decision remains unspoken until we leave. That way, Ildyrom and the angels have to guess not only which one I intend to attack, but also when."

  
"As Rimmur said, ser, that makes preparation uncertain."

  
"Terek . . . before this is all over, we'll end up fighting them both. So prepare for both eventualities." Sillek steps out onto the upper landing and turns. "Your preparations won't be wasted."

  
"Yes, ser." Terek inclines his head.

  
"Good." Sillek turns and walks down the corridor to the quarters where Zeldyan waits.

LXI

THE NIGHT WIND whistled outside the tower windows, rattling the shutters on the partitioned - off side so much that small fragments of ice broke off and dropped to the floor inside the sixth level. From the third level below came the faint crying of an infant, Dephnay, but the crying died away, replaced by the faintest of nursing sounds, and gentle words.

  
On the slightly warmer side of the top level of the tower, protected by the thin door, the recently completed partitions and hangings, Ryba and Nylan lay in the darkness.

  
Nylan's legs ached from the skiing, the endless attempts to find and track the smaller rodents he knew were in the forests. His arms and shoulders ached from the drubbings he had taken in his last blade-sparring sessions with Saryn and Ryba in the half darkness of the fifth level of the tower. His lungs were heavy from the cold. His guts grumbled from the continual alternation of too much meat and too few carbohydrates with the periods of too little food at all. His upper cheeks burned from near-continual frostbite, and his fingers ached from holding a smoothing blade or a knife too long.

  
For all his exhaustion, he could not sleep, and his eyes fixed on the patchwork hangings that moved, ever so slightly, to the convection currents between the cold stone walls and the residual warmth of the chimney masonry that ran up the center of the tower.

  
Ryba lay on her back, nearly motionless, eyes closed, the woolen blanket concealing her swelling abdomen.

  
In the darkness through which he could see, Nylan studied her profile, chiseled against the darkness like that of a silver coin against black velvet, a profile almost of the Sybran girl-next-door, lacking the regalness that appeared whenever she was awake.

  
What had made her able to struggle against such odds, going from a steppe nomad child to being one of UFA's top combat commanders and to founding a nation or tradition that seemed almost fated to endure?

  
Would it endure? How long?

  
He stifled a sigh. Did it matter? Ryba was going to do what Ryba was going to do, or what her visions told her to do, and for the moment he had no real choices. Nor did any of them, he supposed, not if they wanted to survive. He tried to close his eyes, but they hurt more closed than open, with a gritty burning.

  
The shutter on the far side of the tower rattled again as the wind forced its way against the tower, and more icicles broke off and shattered across the plank floor. Even the armaglass window creaked and flexed against the storm, although Ayrlyn insisted that, while the storms would be more violent in the eight-days ahead, they represented the warming that was already under way.

  
Nylan hadn't seen any real warming outside, and the snow was still getting deeper, and the game scarcer, and the livestock thinner, and tempers more frayed.

  
He tried to close his eyes again, and this time, this time they stayed closed.

LXII

NYLAN LAY IN his snow-covered burrow, the long thong attached to the weighted net suspended over the concealed rabbit run.

  
Catching even rodents was a pain. First he'd had to put out the nets almost an eight-day before so that the damned frost rabbits would get used to the scent-or that the cold and wind would carry it away. But even when they triggered the net, somehow they never had stayed caught long enough for Nylan to get there.

  
So he'd been reduced to tending his net traps in person.

  
It had taken him all morning to get the one dead hare strapped to his pack, and it was well past mid-afternoon. Now, lying covered in the snow, watching the second rabbit run he had discovered, Nylan could sense the snow hare just below the entrance to the burrow. It had poked its head out several times, but not far enough or long enough for Nylan to drop the net.

  
So the engineer shivered and waited... and shivered and waited.

  
The sun had almost touched the western peaks before the hare finally hopped clear of the burrow.

  
Nylan jerked the thong and the weighted net fell.

  
The rabbit twisted, but the crude net held, and in the end, Nylan carried a small heap of thin flesh and matted fur up through the snow. Now he had two thin, dead snow hares- that was all.

  
He was cold, his trousers half-soaked. The sun was setting, and he had a climb just to get out of the forest, even before the ridge up to Westwind.

  
All that effort, for two small hares. In the future, could they breed them? Except that meant more forage and grain stored, and there was a limit to what they could buy or grow.

  
He waded through the snow that was chest-deep downwind to where his skis were. Once he went into a pothole, with the snow sifting around his neck and face. He slowly dug himself out.

  
His fingers fumbled as he strapped his boots to the skis in the growing purple deeps of twilight. Then he pushed one heavy ski after the other along the slope. When he reached the packed trail the horses used to drag the trees up the ridge, he unfastened the thongs and carried poles and skis up the ridge. By the time he reached the causeway, all the stars were out, and the night air cut at his lungs.

  
From the darkness outside the tower, he stumbled inside into the gloom of the front entry area inside the south door, carrying skis, poles, and hares.

  
The warmth of the great room welled out and surrounded him, and the twin candles on the tables seemed like beacons.

  
Ayrlyn reached him first as he leaned against the steps. "Ryba was worried. It gets cold out there when the sun goes down."

  
"I know. It took a little longer than I thought." He looked toward the guards at the table, his eyes focusing on the cook near the end of the second table. "Kyseen. My humble offerings." Nylan raised the pair of dead hares.

  
The dark-haired cook slipped from the table and hurried across the cold slate floor. "All offerings are welcome these days, ser."

  
Kadran followed her. "If you can bring in a couple more, we can tan the pelts and stitch them together as a coverlet for Ellysia's Dephnay," added the second cook. "This tower's not so warm as it could be for a child ... begging your pardon, ser, knowing you did the best you could, but it's not."

  
"By next winter, it will be warmer." Nylan hoped they would be around for next winter.

  
"You go eat, ser," insisted Kyseen. "I'll dress these quick so they don't spoil, and I'll be back up in an instant."

  
"Have you eaten?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to spoil your meal..."

  
"I've eaten, and you haven't." Kyseen took the two hares and started down the steps.

  
Nylan left the skis and poles by the stairs. He'd put them away after he ate.

  
"Two rabbits? That's all?" asked Gerlich as Nylan walked slowly toward his place at the table.

  
"I'm still learning." As Nylan sat, heavily, ignoring the cold and dampness in his trousers, he asked, "By the way, when did you last bring in any game?"

  
Gerlich flushed. "I brought in a winter deer, not a rabbit."

  
"That was more than two eight-days ago," Ayrlyn said as she reseated herself across from the engineer.

  
"So?" retorted Gerlich. "Everything's scarce these days, and we've probably already killed the stupid ones."

  
"We can't live on stupid game," pointed out the singer.

  
"The hares are another meal." Ryba's voice cut through the argument. "And each meal helps." She smiled for a moment at Nylan, though there was sadness in the expression as well as pleasure and relief.

  
"It's always cold and dark! Always!"

  
Nylan turned his head at the loud words from the lower table, where Istril had laid her hand on Murkassa's shoulder.

  
"The days are getting longer now," pointed out the silver-haired guard. "Before long, it will be getting warmer as well."

  
"It's still too cold and dark." Murkassa's words seemed lower, though Istril patted her shoulder again. "Even the wall stones are cold and dark."

  
Turning back to the trencher before him, Nylan took a slow swallow of the warm tea, not even minding the bitterness. He reached for the chunk of bread left for him.

  
A portion of a mutton stew or soup also remained, only half-warm, but Nylan began to eat, hardly conscious of the coolness of the meat and gravy, or the lumpiness that marked the last of the blue potatoes ... or of the continuing conversation between Istril and Murkassa.

LXIII

"I CAN'T! I can't!"

  
From the corner of the furnace and woodworking room where he smoothed the sideboards of the cradle, Nylan looked toward the stone steps.

  
"NO! I won't. I can't."

 
 
Beside him, Siret dropped the polishing cloth, then awkwardly bent over, trying to reach the scrap of fabric. Nylan retrieved it and handed the cloth back to her. "Here."

  
"Thank you, ser. I feel like I can't do much of anything easily-"

  
"No! It's too white! It's . .. AEEEiiiii..."

  
Across the room, Ayrlyn set down the lutar bridge she had been working on, nodded to Hryessa, and hurried up the stairs. After a momentary hesitation, Nylan lurched to his feet and followed Ayrlyn, not knowing quite why he did, but feeling that he should.

  
By the south door to the tower, Jaseen and Istril held a struggling brown-haired figure-Murkassa-dressed in a heavy jacket.

  
"Too white! It's too white!" Murkassa's flailing arm caught Istril across the cheek, but the silver-haired guard pinned the arm to her anyway, ignoring the red blotch that would be a bruise.

  
Ayrlyn stepped up to Murkassa, whose body was stiff, and whose screams had become incoherent, and touched her forehead. Murkassa jerked away, but Ayrlyn followed the movements, again touching her forehead.

  
After a moment, the dark-haired woman slumped, and the two holding her lowered her to the floor.

  
"Whew!" muttered Jaseen.

  
Istril put a hand to her cheek.

  
Ayrlyn bent down and stroked the woman's forehead. "You'll be all right. . ."

  
Nylan swallowed. Had he felt that unreasoning fear and rage? He studied the figure on the stones. Murkassa's face, though relaxing under the healer's touch, remained drawn. Or was it just thin?

  
Nylan thought for a moment. Wasn't everyone's face thinner? His trousers were looser.

  
"Hut fever," Ayrlyn said wryly, straightening up.

  
"Hut fever?" asked Istril.

  
"She's not built for the cold-not enough body fat when she came here," explained Ayrlyn. "We really don't have warm enough garments-or sufficient food for a good cold-weather diet. She can't stand the cold. She's afraid of it-with reason-but she can't stand being kept confined." Ayrlyn shrugged. "The conflict just got to her."

  
"What do we do?" asked the medtech. "There's nothing in the kits, little enough left anyway, and we're saving that for childbirths."

  
"She'll be all right." Ayrlyn sighed, then sank onto the stairs.

  
Nylan could feel her exhaustion, almost the way he had felt when he had worked hard manipulating the fields for the laser-or the powernet on the Winterlance. The Winterlance seemed a lifetime ago, and, in a way, it was.

  
"Just take her up to her bunk. She'll be all right when she wakes." Ayrlyn's voice was low and hoarse.

  
"You sure?" asked Jaseen.

  
The singer and healer nodded.

  
Jaseen turned and called to Weindre, who stood gaping by the stairs from the lower level. "Give me a hand."

  
"Istril's there."