Storm Rising (33 page)

And they came to me instead of to Sandar Giles or Chief Husbandman Stoen.

“You’ve got people lost in this, outside the walls, right?” he said before they could even open their mouths to explain themselves. “People you sent out with herds? Children?”

The one in front, delegated to be the spokesman most likely, dropped his mouth wide open in surprise. Clearly, that was a correct guess. Tremane seized his arm and led him over to the map table, clearing the surface with an impatient brush of his arm, seizing one particular map from the map stand. Nevis scrambled to pick up the discarded maps while he released the man and spread out the map of the countryside around the town his men had
finished just before the first snow, anchoring it with candlesticks so it wouldn’t roll up. He glanced at the man, who still hadn’t spoken, and who still looked stunned.

“Shake yourself awake, man!” he snapped. “What else could have brought you here? Now show me where these people were
supposed
to be; the sooner we get out there, the better the chance of finding them before the damned boggles do!”

That seemed to bring the man around, although it took him more than a moment to orient himself to the map. Evidently, he’d not seen a map before with symbols on it instead of rough sketches of landmarks.

When he finally did open his mouth, his accent and vocabulary betrayed him as the rough farmer Tremane had assumed he was. “We didn’ send ‘em out too fur, sor,” he said apologetically, “Kep’ em within sight uv walls. We niver thought lettin’ ‘em take sheep out tedday would—”

“Of course not, you wouldn’t have sent them out into danger, I understand, now just show me where they were,” Tremane interrupted. “You can apologize later. Show me where they last were. Frankly, man, as fast as this storm blew up, they could have been within sight of my men on the walls and be lost now. You can’t have known that would happen.”

The farmer stared at the map, his companions peering over his shoulder, and poked a finger hesitantly at the white surface. “Here—there’s three chillern with sheep. Here—Tobe’s eldest with cows. Here—the rest uv the sheep with Racky Loder—”

“That’s five children, in three parties.” Tremane signaled Nevis. “Go to the barracks; explain what’s happened. Call for volunteers to meet me in the armory, then go get kits from the chirurgeons. I’ll lead the party going out the farthest.” That would be the group going after the sheep with the lone boy in charge. He turned to the nervous farmers, who were twisting their woolen hats in their hands. “I’ll want you to go with us; the children might be frightened of strangers and run away from us; they won’t run from you.”

Without waiting for one of his aides to help him, he
dashed into his bedroom and rummaged through his clothing chests to layer on two heavy tunics and pull woolen leggings on over his trews and boots. Then he caught up his heaviest cloak and the belt from his armor stand that held his short sword and long dagger, and belted it on
over
the cloak, holding the fabric against his body. A pair of heavy gauntlets reaching to his elbows completed his preparations, which were accomplished in mere moments.

Despite the bulky clothing, he took the stairs down to the bottom floor two at a time, leaving his visitors to clamber along behind him. He waited for them at the bottom of the staircase, then led the way to the manor armory.

Despite his own expectations, he and the farmers were not to wait long for his volunteers. Men began to straggle in before he had a chance to grow impatient, and soon the armory was full to overflowing with snow-covered volunteers. It soon became obvious that he was going to get far more volunteers than he had thought.

By now Nevis was back with his three rescue kits from the chirurgeons, and with two of the chirurgeons themselves. “Nevis, stay here and send any stragglers to the Great Hall,” he called. “The rest of you—we need more room, let’s go.”

He did not lead them; there were too many men between him and the door. He simply went along with the crowd, and only when they had reached the frigidly-cold Great Hall did he push to the front. Someone brought in lanterns; he took one and climbed up to stand on the table. “Right; we have five lost children. Hopefully the three that were together have stayed together. You, you, and you—” he pointed to three of the farmers. “You go after the three children with the sheep. You and you, go for the boy with the cattle, and you come with me after the last boy. Now,
you
go to that corner,
you
over there, and
you
stand by the table. Men, divide yourselves into three parties and position yourselves with these farmers.”

He watched them separate and distribute themselves
with a critical eye. He redistributed the result a trifle, adding more men to his group, which would be going farthest out. “Right. Weapons—boar-spears, long daggers and short swords. Bows are useless out there. One man is responsible for taking stakes and surveying cord and marking your trail out. When you get to the general area your children are lost in, he stays there with someone to guard, blowing a horn at regular intervals.”

They hadn’t had time to practice moving while roped together; wiser to use some other way to keep track of each other.

“The rest of you spread out in a line, but make sure you’re always in sight of the lantern of the man next to you. If you find anything—kick up a sheep or a cow, for instance, yell for the others. The rest of you—when someone finds something, we all gather on that spot.”

That should work. He continued. “Watch out for boggles; keep your weapons out. This would be prime hunting time for them. When you find the children, yell again; we’ll gather, retrace our steps, and follow the horn back to the stake man. If you get lost, try first to retrace your steps, and remember to listen for the horn. You lot going after the three children, take the west gate, you going for the boy with the cattle take the north. Got that?”

There was no dissent, and the men looked determined, but not grim. “All right, then. Let’s move.”

He led his group out of the manor and into the driving snow, each man carrying a weatherproof lantern. Snow pounded at his face, and the wind tore at his clothing; it wasn’t quite sunset, but you still couldn’t see more than a few paces away; the lantern light reflected from the snow in a globe of chaotic, swirling whiteness. Now he wished devoutly for magic lights that would neither blow out nor be extinguished if they were dropped in the snow. He wished for a mage-rope that would hold the men together without interfering with their movements. He wished—

To hell with wishes. We make do with what we have. Wishes are no good anymore.
The wind and snow came at them from the side, and
he was glad he’d belted his sword on over his cloak; he’d never have been able to hold the fabric closed. He led the entire troop across the practice grounds, and past the hastily-erected warehouses that held the supplies so vital to them. Many of these warehouses were nothing more than tents with reinforced sides and roofs, just enough to keep the snow off; these structures loomed darkly out of the undifferentiated blue-gray of the rest of the world. The walls were first visible as a line of spots of yellow light above a black mass—the lanterns of the men on guard along the top. The men guarding the gate looked startled to see them, but the officer in charge had a good head on his shoulders when he heard where they were going.

“I’ll have my men build a beacon fire above the gate!” he shouted over the howling wind. “If we shelter it on three sides it should stay lit. And if you get lost out there anyway, have your man blow the storm signal, and I’ll have mine answer it.”

Well, the beacon might be invisible at fifty paces and the horn inaudible, but it was another slim help and worth doing. He nodded his agreement, the stake man tied off the end of the survey string to the gate, and out they went.

Every step had to be fought for; despite his swathings of clothing he was still freezing before they had even reached the point where they were to spread out. He and the rest of the men had swathed their faces in scarves, but every exposed bit of skin stung and burned under the pinpricks of driving snow. He frankly didn’t know how the old man leading them knew where he was going, although frequent checks of his own north-needle showed him that the old boy was keeping a straight heading. He’d pulled the hood of his cloak tightly around his head, but his nose and ears were numb in no time. Now he was glad he’d had the foresight to order the men out in pairs, one with his weapon ready and one with a lantern; if there were monsters out here tonight, you’d never know until they were on top of you.

The snow had been about calf-high before the storm began; it was thigh-high now, and drifting with the wind.
There’d be drifts up to the rooftops in some places by morning.

His feet were frozen and aching with cold; his legs burned with the exertion of pushing through all that snow. Convinced that the old man knew where he was going, Tremane finally handed the lantern over to him and took out his sword; the old farmer handled his boar-spear like a pitchfork, and probably hadn’t the least idea how to use it.

Is it his boy we’re looking for, or perhaps a relative?
There was no doubt of the single-minded determination he’d seen on the man’s weathered and leathery face. Now, of course, he couldn’t see much of anything!

Finally, after an eternity, the man stopped. “Here’s the edge of the Grand Common!” he shouted over the wind. “The boy should be somewhere out there—” He waved vaguely in an east-to-west semicircle.

Tremane waited for the rest of the search-party to catch up and gather around. “Stake man, horn man, stay here!” he shouted. “The rest of you, spread out in pairs—and remember what I said about keeping each others’ lanterns in sight! I’ll take farthest left flank, the rest of you fill in.”

He led the old man off to the left, determined to hold down the farthest position so that he could be certain of one flank, at least. He positioned the pairs of men on his side himself, then marched off into the dark with the old man still at his side until the last lantern was a fuzzy circle of light through the curtain of snow. He turned and moved north again, slowly, and the lantern at his right kept pace with him.

He had the uncanny feeling that they were completely alone out here; that the world had ended, and the lantern to his right was nothing more than a phantom to torture him.
When did the last mage-storm hit? Gods, if one comes in while we’re out here—
He’d be helpless, as helpless as a babe. Anyone with mage-power, mage-senses, was completely flattened by the storms. He tried to calculate the times in his head. I
should be all right. It shouldn’t come in until tomorrow or tomorrow night.
But if he was wrong, if it came in and sent him reeling
into that maelstrom of hallucination and disorientation
now
, while he was out here—

Then hopefully the old man would know enough to call for help, or drag him over to the next pair.

If I ever want to punish a man worse than simply executing him, I’ll send him off in a blizzard like this one.
Impossible to tell how long they’d been out here; impossible to tell where they were! There was just the burning of his legs, the burning ache in his side, the knotted shoulders, and the cold, the cold, the everlasting cold and dark and the tiny space of light around their lantern

Then the snow in front of him exploded upward, in his face! It boiled skyward as something hiding beneath it lurched for him.

All discomfort forgotten, he shrieked and floundered back, sword ready, fumbling for his long dagger, his heart pounding.

“Baaaaaaa!”
the snow-monster bawled.
“Baaaaaaa!”

Tremane tripped over something hidden beneath the snow and fell over on his rump as terror turned to relief. He coughed twice, and the coughing turned into helpless laughter as the old man helped him back up to his feet.
And
now the snow all around him was moving, as more of the flock became aware of the presence of humans, humans who must surely represent safety to them in all of this mess. “Swing that lantern and call!” he ordered the old man. “We’ve found the flock, the boy has to be in here somewhere.”

The farmer obeyed him with a will, bellowing like one of his own ewes, and soon more lights came up through the snow as the rest of the men got the message and gathered to this new spot. By now the sheep were pressed up against Tremane like so many friendly puppies, and except for the fact that they kept stepping on his feet, he was rather glad to have them there; their woolly bodies were warming his legs. More sheep came floundering up out of the snowy dark. Once again the men divided up and this time used Tremane as their center point for the search, and it wasn’t long before the boy Racky was found, safe and warm, lying down between
two of the biggest ewes Tremane had ever seen, with the sheepdog lying atop him.

While the old man greeted his nephew—for that was who this boy was—and the men congratulated one another with much backslapping and laughter, Tremane caught his breath and took careful note of the faces of those he could actually see. What he read there made him smile with satisfaction.

They’re mine. By the Hundred Little Gods, Bram was right.

Now, if he could just keep them.

“All right, men—back to town!” he shouted over the howling wind. “I’ll order hot spice-wine for all, and throw a joint on to roast!”

With a cheer, the men formed a long line, with the best tracker in front, the one most likely to read the falling traces of their passage in the snow. Tremane, the old man, the boy and the flock brought up the rear. He hadn’t thought the sheep would be able to keep up, but they plowed valiantly along, spurred on by the sheepdog. And perhaps urgent thoughts of a warm byre and sweet hay, and shelter from the wind and snow moved through those woolly heads as well. They shoved right along beside the last of the men, their bleating barely audible over the wind.

The last traces of their path were obliterated by the wind, but at that point, by listening carefully, some of those with the best hearing made out the sounds of the horn calling out. By spreading out again, they quickly found the men left beside the end of the string-and-stake markers. At that point it was an easy task to make their way back to the gate, and the beacon fire over it was a welcome sight indeed.