The Steerswoman's Road (63 page)

Bel, rather pointedly, did not offer to help, but ambled
along companionably. “I wanted to ask Kree if she’d decided to use me, but she’s
busy with debriefing.”

“With what?” The wheel froze again, and Rowan dragged the
dead train fully five feet before it loosened.

“It needs grease,” Bel commented. “Debriefing. Someone is
reporting to her, formally. A scout will debrief, or a war band back from
sortie. Or anyone who’s had something happen to him that’s particularly
important.”

“That would be Fletcher,” Rowan told her. “He killed a Face
Person.”

Bell was taken aback. “This far west?”

“Apparently. And it occurs to me: If a Face Person had come
this far west, perhaps he’d been even farther west, and was just now returning.
We almost met a solitary traveler ourselves.”

“You think it was the Face Person following us?”

“What do you think?”

Bel considered. “Whoever it was, he moved well, very crafty.
If it was a Face Person, and the rumors about them are true, he could easily
have been following us for days before I noticed him.”

“Could he have been following us again later, at enough distance
that he crossed Fletcher’s position and was caught unawares?”

“Perhaps,” Bel said. “Yes.”

The train wheel emitted an evil squeal. Bel stepped back and
gave it a shove with her boot.

Rowan changed the subject. “What have you heard about
Fletcher?”

“Next to nothing; I haven’t bothered to ask. Jann and Jaffry
have some grudge against him, but Kree must like him, or she wouldn’t keep him
in her band. And Averryl defended him to Jann, if you remember.”

“Fletcher and Averryl are close friends.” Rowan pulled, and
Bel walked, for a few quiet minutes. “Fletcher is an Inner Lander.”

Bel’s surprise was extreme. “Out here? And in a war band?
Impossible. Who told you that?’

“No one, at first. I heard him speak. He doesn’t have an Outskirter’s
accent. And he knew me as a steerswoman without being told. Later I asked
Chess, the head cook, and she confirmed it. She said he’s been here over a
year.”

Bel considered. “Good,” she said. She was following the same
reasoning that Rowan had. An Inner Lander among Outskirters was a circumstance
strange enough to inspire suspicion; but if Fletcher had been in the Outskirts
for over a year, he could not be connected to the wizards’ recent hunt for
Rowan.

“But it’s odd. I’d like to talk to him.”

“Ha. You’re just tired of the Outskirts, and want to hear
some Inner Lands gossip.”

Rowan laughed. “Perhaps that’s the case.”

They arrived at the camp, where Chess clearly wished to
berate Rowan for slowness but wavered, still uncertain of the steerswoman’s
proper status. She finally relieved her ire with a generalized grumbling
tirade, largely unintelligible, delivered at the threshold of hearing.

Bel waited in the lee of the cook tent as the two women unloaded
the train, after which Chess hesitated, unable to decide whether she ought to
find Rowan another assignment or free her to converse with the warrior. Bel
ostentatiously gave no clue as to preference, loitering nearby, humming a
little tune as she watched the fire tenders at work. Rowan played along,
waiting by the cook’s elbow, wearing a smile so patient that it could not help
but irritate.

The cook’s discomfort was ended by the arrival of Eden, a mertutial
whose chief work seemed to consist of relaying Kammeryn’s requests. “He wants
to see you, both. And Rowan should bring her maps.” Rowan and Bel followed her,
leaving Chess to her muttering.

The sky flaps of Kammeryn’s tent were closed against the intermittent
rain, but one wall had been raised to admit light. The open wall faced away
from the camp’s center, indicating a desire for privacy.

Kree was present, and Fletcher, with the Face Person’s possessions
gathered tidily beside him. Dignified, Kammeryn performed introductions. Line
names were handed down through the female side; Rowan noted without surprise
that the transplanted Inner Lander possessed only two names, and that his
matronymic was an un-Outskirterly “Susannason.”

“Fletcher tells me that you recognized these objects as
belonging to folk called the Face People,” the seyoh said to Rowan. “I would
like to know more about them.”

“I didn’t recognize the equipment,” Rowan replied, “I
reasoned its origins. What I know about the Face People I learned from Bel.”

Bel regarded the objects with her head tilted, then leaned
slightly left, then right, as she often did when organizing her thoughts. “The
Face People,” she began, “live far to the east. The Face is their name for that
part of the Outskirts. I’ve never seen them myself, but I’ve heard of them from
older members of my home tribe. They’re primitive. They don’t have very many
handicrafts, and not very good ones; they don’t make metal, and will steal any
metal they can find. At Rendezvous, if they’re called on to sing, or tell a
tale, they never do.

“They’re said to be smaller than usual. Their men stand
about my height. No one has ever seen their women.”

Rowan interrupted. “There must be women.”

“I only know what I was told.” Bel continued: “They’re
vicious fighters, and they’re very crafty at keeping hidden. They talk little,
and they take offense easily. Once one of their tribes broke truce at
Rendezvous.”

The other Outskirters present were appalled. “What was the
reason?” Kree asked, clearly unable to conceive of such a thing.

“I wasn’t told. And,” Bel finished, “they eat their dead.”

Kree let out a breath through her teeth, disgusted. She
turned to Fletcher. “Does that match the man you killed?”

He twisted his mouth and made a wide gesture of assent. “Looks
like. He was small, sort of scrawny.” Fletcher, when speaking, could not be
immobile; of themselves, his quick hands sketched a shape in the air, an
invisible Face Person. “You could see how his muscles lay on his bones”—he
indicated the imaginary figure thoughtfully—“with nothing between them and the
skin. I’d have said he looked sickly, but he moved like a flash, and one time
he got hold of my arm”—his own arm and hand demonstrated—“and I thought his
fingers would squeeze straight through. He fought like a madman, like he didn’t
care if he lived or died.”

Rowan indicated the equipment. “That looks about the level
of handicraft that Bel mentioned.” She turned to Kammeryn. “Some days ago, Bel
and I discovered that we were being trailed by someone. He fled before we saw
him. We think it was the same man.”

“Then he’s no longer a danger. No other scouts have sighted
strangers; he was alone.”

Fletcher apologetically corrected his seyoh. “I didn’t see
this fellow coming until he was on me. And Bel did say they’re good at hiding.”

“I’ll send word for the scouts to be more wary. But—and
meaning no insult, Fletcher—you are a young warrior. You still have much to
learn. Someone more experienced might have sighted him sooner.”

Fletcher blew out his cheeks. “Well. I might not have seen
him at first, but I saw him in time.”

“You seem to be good at that,” Kree reassured him. Rowan
noted that the reassurance seemed necessary; Fletcher sent Kree a small, wry
glance of gratitude.

Kammeryn leaned back, then nodded at Kree. “Please step outside
and speak to Eden; tell her to have the warning relayed to the outer circle.”

As Kree rose to leave, Fletcher followed; but Kammeryn
stopped him with a gesture. “Bel and the steerswoman are undertaking a journey
to the east. I believe that part of their route will cross the same area you
traveled in your walkabout. I’d like you to tell them about the land they’ll be
going into.”

Fletcher had paused half-risen; he stared at Kammeryn,
mutely, then glanced once after the departing Kree. He looked very much as if
he wished to escape.

Rowan was puzzled. “Anything you tell us might help a great
deal,” she said.

He gazed at her, motionless in his awkward position. Then,
with slow unwillingness, he settled down again and waited. Rowan drew out her
charts, Bel shifting nearer to see.

Fletcher was oddly tentative as he leaned forward to study
the map. He tilted his head to view the notations, as no Outskirter had: he
could read. His gaze and his finger went to one particular feature. “Tournier’s
Fault,” he read aloud. “Dust Ridge. What is it?”

“It’s a cliff, if Bel’s information is correct. And it’s
where we’re going.”

“Why do you have it marked so clear?” His finger swept back
across the blank expanse of the map. “How do you only know about that one
place?”

Rowan briefly explained about having seen a wizard’s map. “I

couldn’t recall all the details, since it was some weeks
after seeing their map that I had any chance to try to make a copy. But since I
was particularly interested in Dust Ridge, I managed to impress that section in
my mind. I’m sure the distance is correct, and its length, and its configuration.
I need to know what lies between there and here.”

Fletcher looked away and sat silent for a long moment, then
reluctantly brought his attention back to the map. He drew a breath.

“More rivers,” he said, and indicated; a small, inexpressive
movement, very different from the wild, wide gestures Rowan had come to expect
of him. “Scores of rivers here.” He did not elaborate, neither by words nor gestures,
but paused again, waiting.

Rowan exchanged a glance with Bel. “Try to re-create the
route you took,” Bel suggested. “That would be easiest.”

He nodded, then proceeded to trace a route across the unmarked
chart, describing the terrain he had encountered, using the fewest possible
words. Rowan notated every landmark he had passed and, using her knowledge of geological
patterns, sketched in likely approximations of surrounding areas.

Kree rejoined them, entering quietly to sit beside Kammeryn.
Fletcher seemed not to notice her.

At one point, the width of the observed area widened. Rowan
asked why. “Went further north on the way back” was his terse reply.

As the trail continued east, Fletcher became even less communicative,
using ever shorter phrases and sometimes single words: “Hills.” Rowan had to
prompt him for expansions and explanations. Bel and the other Outskirters
watched in silence, then patiently, Bel with growing puzzlement.

At last Fletcher ran out of words completely, his finger
resting at a place where Rowan had assumed several small rivers converging.
Fletcher sat as quietly as if he were alone.

“What’s there?” Rowan asked at last, cautiously.

“Swamp.”

“How far does it extend?”

“Fifty kilometers.” His route began to arc north, leaving
the swamp.

“No, hold a moment.” Rowan recalled the demon she and Bel
had heard. “This swamp, was the water fresh?”

He did not wish to reply. “Sour ...”

“Was it like seawater? Have you ever tasted seawater?” As an
Inner Lander, he might have done.

“Different.” His finger wanted to leave the swamp behind.
Rowan surmised some dreadful event having occurred in that location.

But his statement could be considered to correspond with the
wizard Shammer’s description of a demon’s needs, and Rowan was very interested.
“Did you encounter any dangerous creatures in this swamp?”

He did not reply, and only by looking up from the chart did
Rowan realize that he had been reduced to gesture: he nodded.

Kammeryn spoke. “If the steerswoman is going to pass near
there, she will need to know what she might meet.” There was no admonishment
in his words.

After a moment’s hesitation, Fletcher neutrally delivered
straightforward descriptions of a number of unpleasant creatures: round-backed
beetles some three feet high, equipped with pincers, fore and aft; wasplike
swarmers whose sting induced dizziness and temporary blindness, but which ignored
persons unless disturbed; a man-sized soft lizard that dwelt in a lair beneath
the mud in shallow water, springing on its prey by means of a trapdoor, and possessing
huge jaws with a triple row of needle-sharp teeth.

Rowan’s original planned route crossed directly through the
swamp. She amended it.

Fletcher had used more words in his descriptions than he had
spoken during the entire previous hour; the act seemed to release some
internal pressure, and his manner became easier as he traced the rest of his
route, which had swung north past the swamp to end in an arid area. “And then I
turned around,” he finished.

Bel’s perplexity had grown during his descriptions, and now
reached the point of suspicion. “Where were you going, that you traveled so
far from your tribe?”

His answer was again terse. “Walkabout.”

“That’s a long walkabout.” Bel was frankly dubious.

He paused, and Rowan expected him to revert to silence
again; instead, he slipped back into his old manner: an eloquent wince, an
apologetic half smile, a wide gesture made by hands more natural in motion than
in stillness. “Well, I wasn’t all that certain I wanted to come back.”

Kree spoke. “We’re glad you did.” Again, the reassurance.

The steerswoman could resist no longer. “What is ‘walkabout’?”

It took a moment for the Outskirters to decide who was to reply.
“It’s a rite, a tradition,” Bel said. “It’s one of the things you do to become
an adult and a warrior. The candidates go out into the wilderness for six
weeks. You choose a direction, walk in as straight a line as you can, and deal
with whatever you meet.”

“Alone in the Outskirts?” She looked at Fletcher’s route
drawn across the chart; it was far more than six weeks’ travel. Assuming that
the tribe had been located farther west at the time of Fletcher’s journey, the
walkabout might have taken months. “It sounds impossible to survive.”

“Not completely alone,” Bel continued. “Candidates go out in
pairs, but they keep a distance between each other. They’re not allowed to
associate, or communicate.”