The Outskirter's Secret (17 page)

It was a lie. From Averryl's description of
his war band's deployment, and its likely rearrangement after his
disappearance, the nearest warrior should arrive from the opposite
side. Rowan quashed a brief rise of anger; this woman knew nothing
of the Steerswomen's traditions, nor could she recognize Rowan as a
member of the order. Lies told under such circumstances carried no
ban. Instead, Rowan took the ruse as confirmation of her own
understanding of the war band's configuration.

"He was sheltering in a stone field not far
from the stream southwest of here." Rowan wanted to turn to point,
but decided that it would not be wise. "He awoke to find a troop of
goblin jills settled nearby, between his position and the next
point. He decided to work away from them, back to the previous
point, and spent the day trying to slip through the approaching
jacks without being noticed. By nightfall he found another troop of
jills, and realized he was in the middle of a forming mating mob.
He set a fire, hoping to distract them, and to focus their numbers,
so that he might escape."

"That's a dangerous move." And extremely
unlikely, the warrior's attitude implied.

"So it seems. It almost didn't work; the fire
caught too quickly, and the goblins converged too rapidly. He was
trapped. My companion and I were nearby and saw the light. We came
to help."

The woman considered the information with a
show of suspicion so extreme that it was obviously fabricated for
effect. "It's too late in the year for mating mobs." She had
straight black brows, large eyes, and a wide mouth. On such a face,
emotions showed easily and were easily feigned.

"Perhaps that's true; I wouldn't know." Rowan
grew annoyed again; providing Averryl's names ought to have
constituted her own credentials. "But I have been told that the
weather is much warmer this season than has been the case in
previous years."

The suspicion grew further, into a parody of
itself. "You're no Outskirter."

"No." The fact was obvious; but admitting to
being an Inner Lander might amount to requesting to be victimized.
"But my companion is. She's traveling more slowly, with Averryl,
perhaps a day or so behind me."

"Because of his wounds." Disbelief dripped
from her voice.

"Yes. As I told you." Averryl's guide might
be called upon to fight for two people; Bel had decided that Rowan
was the better choice to send alone for help. The steerswoman
dropped her attempt to control her emotions. "And he told me that
you yourself would be working this position. You're Jann,
Linsdotter, Alace, and the man probably now sneaking up on my left
should be Merryk, Karinson, Gena. Unless he's switched with the man
at the inner point, who, I believe, is your own son Jaffry." She
stood looking up at the woman, her feet broadly planted and her
chin uptilted. She realized that, unarmed as she was, her pose made
a proper Outskirterly show of defiance.

Jann broke her act with a lopsided grin. "Ha!
Sneaking up on your left, is he? Ho, Merryk!" She called across the
distance. "Stop sneaking up, there's a good fellow! We've found
Averryl!" She added wide-gestured signals to clarify the
information.

"About time," came the shouted reply. An
Outskirter seemed to emerge from the ground and began working his
way toward the pair. Although he was not tall, he was the broadest
person Rowan had ever seen, and seemed to carry more weapons than
he might reasonably be expected to use in one lifetime. As he
approached he added, "He was probably sleeping. I've tried to break
him of the habit, but it's just no good. He backslides. Generally
at night." Arriving, he studied Rowan a moment. "Good
disguise."

Jann thumped him on the stomach. "That's his
rescuer. And he fell asleep, true enough, in the middle of a mating
mob." She recounted Rowan's story for his benefit, as all irony
dropped from his attitude.

At the end, he nodded decisively. "Good.
Jann, you work your way inward, and pass the word for a
reinforcement for my point. And have them double the middle line in
this quarter. There might be a good number of loose goblins
wandering around that never reached the fire."

"That's an excellent plan, except for the
personnel," Jann told him. "You work inward and have Orranyn send a
replacement for my position, and—" She turned back to Rowan. "In
what direction did you leave them?"

"Southwest."

"And for Jaffry's point as well," Jann said
to Merryk, "and double word out to him to intercept us."

"Now, Jann, a sortie dragging train is bull
work. I'd do better—"

"That's wrong. If we're going out to meet the
odd goblin with a wounded man in tow, we need people who are fast,
and that's me and Jaffry. And if any of the beasts try to break to
center, we need someone solid working this point, and that's you.
Nothing gets past you."

Merryk rocked on his heels musingly. "That's
true."

"And it's four for one if we should need to
drag train. Do we?" This to Rowan.

Rowan was following the conversation with a
great deal of difficulty. "I'm sorry, but you're using words I
don't understand. Or using them differently than I do."

"Can Averryl walk?"

"Yes, but not easily, nor for long. He's lost
a good deal of blood, and I believe he's in more pain than he
admits to."

"We'll manage." Jann sheathed her sword and,
with a jerk of her chin, directed Rowan to recover her own weapon.
Merryk set off at a flat run to the northwest and vanished
instantly among the little dells.

"Lead on," Jann instructed. Rowan complied,
the warrior falling in on her left, one half step behind, Bel's
position in the Inner Lands. It made Rowan feel a bit odd, as if
the days had unrolled back to the time when she had been the
leader, and the answerer of questions, in the Inner Lands. Her boot
slogged into a puddle of goat muck, and the illusion vanished.

They traveled some time in silence. The
whistling wind across the denuded hilltops was a sound so constant
that it vanished from her awareness, even as it covered the sounds
of their footsteps. Rowan found that she missed the sound and sight
of standing redgrass; she had learned to depend on the information
it communicated. But a tribe had passed through here, and tribes
laid behind them a trail of desolation.

For the sake of conversation, Rowan tried to
frame a question for Jann, one that might not be taken as a threat
to her tribe's security. She was about to ask when a male voice
spoke.

"Fletcher," it said in a venomous tone, and
Rowan could not tell if the word was a name or a curse.

She just prevented herself from stopping
short and turning to face the newcomer, suspecting that it would
merely advertise her inexperience. This was Jaffry, she realized,
Jann's son, come to join them as planned. How long he had been
walking in their company, she had no idea.

Jann replied. "If Averryl dies, we'll make it
a blood duel." She was answered by a surly grunt, and Rowan took a
moment to glance back.

Jaffry was a subdued young man just past
boyhood, with his mother's dark features and a long, angular body.
He had fastened his cloak down the front, transforming himself into
a loping piebald pillar with a human head. Taking the opposite
approach from Merryk, his only visible weapon was an Outskirter
sword, its hilt above his right shoulder, and he carried no pack or
supplies that Rowan could see. He had assumed a complementary
position to Jann's: on Rowan's right, two paces behind. The three
of them made a lopsided flying wedge, defending against no seen
enemy.

"Shall I make the challenge, or do you want
it?" Jann continued.

Her son was slow in replying. "Me. He's
beneath you. There'd be no contest."

"Ha." Jann grinned broadly. "A boy should be
proud of his mother. And you could use that sword of his. Now this
one," she said, indicating the steerswoman, "she's got a good
sword, too. I'll tell you now"—this to Rowan—"if you stay around
very long, I'll win it from you. Just to give you fair
warning."

Rowan silently thanked Bel for the practice
sessions. "I think," she said with a degree of pride and
confidence, "that I'll keep it." A black pit marked a burnt-out
stand of tanglebrush, one of Rowan's chosen landmarks, and she
adjusted her course. They trudged on across the rolling
landscape.

Somewhat later, Jann spoke again. "Perhaps,"
she said to her son cheerfully, "the goblins got to Fletcher, as
well."

Jaffry's reply was inarticulate, but seemed
to contain a hopeful note.

"
A
nd where was
Fletcher in all this?"

Averryl was sitting propped against Bel's
pack, scooping handfuls of gruel to his mouth from a wooden bowl
with his good hand, Bel holding the bowl off the ground before him.
She eyed Jann at the question, then with a glance warned Rowan to
keep her curiosity to herself.

Rowan was annoyed. Bel had managed to impress
upon her that a stranger asking too many questions about details of
a tribe's defense might be taken as a raid scout, and Rowan had
successfully controlled her instincts while traveling with Jann and
Jaffry. But as much as she disliked not asking questions, she liked
less being constantly reminded of the necessity.

"I don't know. We relayed at sunset. The
goblins were between us, so I tried to work toward Garvin's
position when I found myself surrounded." He studied the bowl as if
it required all of his concentration to do so. "What is this?"

"I don't know," Bel said.

"Maize," Rowan provided. "It grows in the
Inner Lands. A tall greengrass with edible seeds. You grind the
seeds and boil them in water for this kind of gruel."

He followed the explanation with pain-bleared
difficulty. "It's good," he said.

Jann seemed about to make peevish protest to
his changing the subject, then stopped herself and began again,
patiently. "You didn't find Garvin."

"There was no sign of him. Here's something."
He indicated Rowan. "That one." He was slightly feverish, rambling.
"Bel told me. If you ask her a question, she has to answer. Has to.
It's a rule."

Jann spared Rowan a glance of perplexity.
"That's stupid," she said, and with no more consideration dismissed
the steerswoman. "Fletcher," she began again. "Fletcher and Garvin
both should have seen your fire from their positions. They should
have come to help you."

"Then they're dead. Fletcher's in heaven and
Garvin's in hell. Can't help me from there." Rowan had never heard
Outskirters use Christer religious terms; it struck her as odd.
Apparently it had the same effect on Averryl. "Funny way to think
of it," he said. He closed his eyes and leaned back against Bel's
pack, abandoning the rest of the gruel. "I'm going to rest now," he
declared.

Jann made an exasperated sound, but laid one
hand on his good shoulder sympathetically. "You do that." She
checked the sun's position. "We'll stay here for another two
hours," she told the others, and rose. "We can try to move after
that. The tribe may move to meet us, but we can't count on it. We
could be on our own for a week." She took in Rowan, Bel, and Jaffry
in a sweeping glance of confident leadership. "How are our
supplies?"

"Rowan and I have some dry food from the
Inner Lands, like that maize flour, and powdered beef. About twenty
sticks of bread from the last tribe we met . . ."

"Some goat strips and a bit of rabbit that's
rancid by now," Rowan added.

Jann jerked her chin questioningly at Jaffry,
who paused, grinned a shy grin, and then from somewhere about his
person extracted half a smoked goat leg.

Jann showed mock admonishment. "Where did you
get that?"

"Had it for days."

She beamed. "What a clever boy."

They settled in, Bel feeding the fire with
lopsided squares of peat. The remainder of the gruel was passed to
Jann and Jaffry. The youth's eyes widened at the unfamiliar taste,
and showed regret when the last of it was gone.

When the meal was finished, Jann bundled her
cloak into a cushion for her back and settled against her pack to
doze. Bel caught Rowan's eye, then leaned over and tapped the sole
of Jann's boot to get her attention. "When we reach your tribe,
we're going to claim shelter."

Jann sat up quickly, her dark brows knit. "I
don't know about that."

"It's not for you to decide. Unless your
tribe has taken to sending its seyoh to work the outer circle."

Jaffry was seated facing away from the group,
watching the horizon. He turned to give his mother a sidelong look
of amusement, then turned away. Jann said to Bel, "I can't promise
anything . . ."

"We don't need promises from you. We saved
your man. And we were wounded, as well. Show her your back,
Rowan."

The deep scratches itched madly. Rowan made
to comply, with some embarrassment, but Jann waved dismissal.

"I believe you," she said to Bel. "Well, you
know your code, I suppose. I didn't think so, from her." She jerked
her head in Rowan's direction. "She looks a bit out of place. It's
odd to see someone like you travel with her."

Rowan disliked being referred to in the third
person. "We work well together," she said. "And I've learned a few
things in the last month. Enough, for example, to eliminate more
goblins than I could count at the time."

Jann studied Rowan with a gaze that doubted
her every statement. "Well," the warrior said reluctantly, "it's a
sure thing you'll be given shelter, so as far as I'm concerned,
you're part of us. So I'll ask you—" She became intent. "Didn't you
see any sign of other warriors when you found Averryl?"

Bel shook her head. "Averryl and the goblins,
that was all."

"According to Averryl," Rowan put in, "the
nearest man was due east of him, with another south by southwest.
From the course your tribe was following, if the goblins were as
spread as Averryl described, the man to the east must have met them
first."