Horizon

17

By the time Fawn reached the Basswoods’ wagon, which was first in line, every patroller in the company was streaming past her in aid of Dag, weapons brandished. Barr and Remo had reacted the quickest, but Neeta, Tavia, and Rase weren’t much behind.

Vio Basswood stood up on her wagon box, gripping the curved canvas roof and staring in horror as Grouse sawed the reins and brought them to a creaking halt. Her face draining, she screamed, “He’s killed him! Ye gods, he just rode that poor man down and killed him!”

Fawn turned in her saddle and craned her neck. In the heat-hazed distance, Dag was pivoting Copperhead around the fallen mud-man.

She abruptly realized what Vio thought she was seeing: Fawn’s grim, hook-handed Lakewalker husband suddenly running mad and brutally attacking, without reason, an innocent, unarmed-not to mention unclothed-traveler.

“No!” cried Fawn. “That wasn’t a man! It wasn’t human, it was a mud-man!”

“A mud what? ” said Grouse, glaring and scrambling for his spear.

“Malices make them up out of animals and mud by groundwork- magic. I’ve seen the holes they come out of. They make them up into human form to be their slaves and soldiers, and they’re horribly dangerous. You can’t reason with them or anything, even though the malice gives them speech. They lose all their wits when their malice is slain- oh, never mind!” Grouse had his spear out, but was aiming it in the wrong direction, at Fawn, and at Berry who had ridden up panting.

Fawn had thought Whit was behind her, but instead he’d turned again and followed the patrollers, if at a cautious trot. Inside the wagon, the toddler burst into wails at all the shouting.

“Mud-men eat children,” Fawn put in desperately. “The shambles are dreadful, after.” Did Vio need to know this? Maybe. She didn’t need to be made more afraid-she seemed close to fainting-but she needed to be afraid of the right things.

Rase and Neeta came galloping back.

“Is it dead? Are there any more? ” Fawn called.

Rase checked just long enough to gasp out, “That one’s dealt with. No more within groundsense range, so far. Dag sent us to find Sumac and Arkady.” He spurred on.

That pair had fallen behind more than once, lately, and Fawn hadn’t given them a thought-at least, not about their safety. Between them, Sumac and Arkady were clearly proof against any predator these hills harbored-wolf, bear, catamount, or rattlesnake. A gang of mud-men was a different proposition.

All the other farmers in the company came up to cluster in the road, goggle, and demand repeated explanations. Pressed, Fawn finally said, “Look, I don’t think I can explain mud-men to you.” Not and be believed.

“Just come look at the evil thing, why don’t you? ”

She turned and led them, wagons and all, up the road to the site of the gory slaughter. Dag and Whit had dismounted. Dag released Copperhead’s reins and prodded the body with his foot; Whit looked as if he was working up the nerve to do the same. “Blight it,” Dag was saying, “this area is supposed to be well patrolled!” He glanced up. “Fawn, I told you to keep back!”

“No, Dag,” she said firmly. “These folks have to see, just like your young patrollers.”

“Oh.” He scrubbed his hand-was it shaking?-over his face.

“Yeah.”

Fawn slid from her mare, took the reluctant Vio by the hand, and dragged her forward; the mob trailed. “Look at it, see? Look at its jaw, practically a muzzle, and those furry ears, and all that coarse hair-it likely started out as a bear, wouldn’t you say, Dag? ” She tried not to look at its bloodied throat, torn out in one slash of Dag’s reaching war knife, with all the power of his arm and Copperhead’s stride behind it.

“Black bear, oh yes,” Dag agreed absently.

“He’s… it’s naked,” said Calla hesitantly.

“Naked is good,” said Dag. “Means it hasn’t killed folks and stolen their clothes yet.”

Fawn realized from their openmouthed staring that this was the first mud-man, alive or dead, that most of the young patrollers had ever seen, too. Dag pointed out a few more distinguishing features, still with the toe of his boot, then glanced up at his whole mixed audience. “This one is so crude and bearlike because it’s the work of a malice in its first molt. The malice might even still be sessile, which would be good news for us. As a malice goes through molts and gets stronger and smarter, its making gets better, till you can’t hardly tell a mud-man from a real human by eye. Lakewalker groundsense can tell at once, though. Their grounds are… their grounds are just not right.”

All the young men jostled forward for a closer look, with the enthusiastic Hawthorn pushing through to the front; Fawn let Vio shrink back. Vio was trembling and teary from seeing, and smelling, the welter of blood, and her little girl, who came out from the wagon and grabbed her skirts, burst into tears in sheer contagion. The toddler tied in the wagon just howled on general principles. Grouse, clutching his spear and looking frantically fearful, his world suddenly full of new dangers but with no clear target to attack, turned on his wife and snarled, “Shut them up!”

It seemed mean, but Fawn had to admit Vio did get a better hold on herself, controlling her snivels and shuffling off to manage her children.

A respite of sorts. Vio was beginning to learn something, Fawn thought, if only that the world was not what she’d imagined. Bo hadn’t pushed forward, and he didn’t look much surprised, but his seamed face screwed up in a dubious scowl. His glance of dismay was not at his Lakewalker companions, though, but at the surrounding ridges.

Dag, too, backed out of the crowd and stared up and down the road, gold eyes slitted. Reaching with his groundsense? A little relief lightened his features, and he muttered, “Ah, good, there’s Arkady.” Truly, in a couple of minutes the strays rode up.

Sumac jumped down and strode to him. “Sorry we fell behind, there. We were just talking.”

From their un-disheveled looks, Fawn thought this was likely true.

Though they both had the weights of character to appear unruffled even when half undone.

Arkady, eyes wide, dismounted and approached the corpse. His hand sought his belly, and his face worked as he swallowed. “That’s… the most grotesque making I’ve ever seen.”

“Yep,” said Dag. “Try to imagine the power of the groundwork that can turn a bear into… well, this, inside of two weeks.”

Intrigue fought the nausea in Arkady’s face. “Can I dissect it? ”

“Now? Are you mad? ”

“No, of course not now! Later.”

“We’ll see,” said Dag.

“With any luck, you can have your pick of the litter,” said Sumac.

“I’ll bring you all the mud-men your heart desires.”

“I’m not sure my heart desires any,” Arkady admitted. “But it’s… absent gods, but that thing’s so wrong.”

“Do you eat them? ” asked Ash, hunkering down in fascination.

This won gagging noises from all the patrollers present, except Dag, who said only, “No. The flesh is tainted.”

“Lakewalkers do skin them sometimes,” said Fawn, remembering a certain bride gift.

“Not to use the leather,” said Dag. “Just… in special cases.”

When the pain was too great, and mere victory wasn’t revenge enough, Fawn suspected.

Dag looked at Sumac, who looked back. Sizing each other up?

Sumac cut across the moment, saying simply, “Well, what next, patrol leader? ”

Fawn thought she could see the weight of responsibility descend like a hundred-pound sack of grain on Dag’s shoulders. He sighed. “Scout, I reckon. North, wouldn’t you say? ”

Sumac’s lips pursed. “That thing could have been running for home. But we haven’t felt any blight sign, south of here. We don’t have enough patrollers to split up and run a proper pattern.”

“We haven’t seen any traffic from the north all day,” said Dag.

“Nor from the south,” Sumac pointed out, “but I agree, north seems the best bet. Should we send a courier for help? Closest camp to here would be Laurel Gap, I reckon.” She turned her head, and called, “Anyone else here ever been to Laurel Gap Camp? ”

The other patrollers returned negative mumbles. Sumac muttered, “Blight. I don’t want it to be me. But it might have to.”

“Not yet, leastways,” said Dag. “Right now we’re in the middle of nowhere, knowing nothing, which doesn’t make much to report.”

Sumac’s eyes glinted. “Indeed.”

“Open your ground to me.”

Her brows went up; a faint flush tinged her high-boned copper cheeks. But she evidently complied.

Dag looked her up and down, nodded without expression. “Pick a partner and ride up the road a piece. No more than five miles. See if you find any blight sign. I’ll try to organize”-Dag’s eye swept the company-“these,” he sighed.

“Right.” Sumac swung aboard her horse, looked over not the patrollers but their mounts, evidently judged Barr’s the swiftest, and said, “Barr, follow me!”

Arkady’s hand lifted as she wheeled away, but fell back unseen.

The two scouts loped off up the road, mud spinning from their horses’ hooves.

Fawn puzzled over that last exchange between uncle and niece. Oh.

Of course. Dag had been checking to be sure Sumac hadn’t conceived, before sending her out. It wasn’t just his general protectiveness; pregnant women, as Fawn had painful reason to know, were preferred prey to a malice on the verge of a molt. The women’s natural making made them beacons, walking bait. Their new ground shields might presently be protecting Fawn and Berry-she touched the walnut at her throat-but what of Vio or Calla? The Lakewalkers would know even if the women didn’t, yet, she reassured herself. They’d take precautions. Children were a malice’s next most favored morsels-she glanced uneasily at the Basswoods’ wagon, where the crying had died down.

“All right,” said Dag, raising his voice to carry, “everyone move up to that next little ford.” He pointed toward a shallow creek crossing the road a hundred paces farther along. “We better grab the chance to water the animals. We have to make ready to run sudden.”

That it shifted everyone farther from the disturbing sight and smell of the dead mud-man was just a bonus, Fawn figured. Setting an example, she retrieved Magpie’s reins and marched along briskly.

–-

A quarter hour later, Dag found himself saying to Sage, “No, you can’t take your anvil!” He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. “If a malice is close, our best chance of escape is to abandon the wagons and run mounted. If you farmers get caught within range of its ground powers, it could seize your minds, and then you wouldn’t believe how ugly things can get. You rescue each other first, then weapons and animals, then food if there’s time. But no more. Absent gods, every Lakewalker child is taught this by age five!”

“The wagons are all we have!” cried Grouse.

“You can’t stop to defend things.”

“But my anvil!” said Sage. “It’s everything to me.”

Dag fixed him with a stern eye. “More than Calla? ”

“Er…” Sage fell silent.

“If it doesn’t fit in your saddlebags, leave it.”

“Chances are,” said Fawn, “we can circle back later and collect our gear again. If we live. And if we don’t live, we won’t need it anyway, right? ”

Sage still looked torn.

Whit put in helpfully, “Sage, your anvil would be the last thing thieves would run off with. It takes two fellows just to lift it!”

“Not if it’s still in the wagon. They can just take the whole rig.”

“We’ll have the mules,” said Fawn. Cleverly not suggesting that a malice could just chain up its mud-men slaves to haul it all off, good girl.

Dag gave her a grateful nod.

Sage wavered, then resigned himself to unhitching his team, Indigo helping. Dag hurried to greet Remo and Neeta, returning on foot from scouting up toward either ridge.

“Nothing up on my side within groundsense range,” reported Remo.

“Mine either,” said Neeta. “No physical signs, either. Just animal tracks and old travelers’ camps.”

Dag eyed the high ground overlooking them with disfavor; that there was no hostile eye up there spying on them now didn’t mean there hadn’t been an hour ago, or any time this morning.

“Should we feed folks while we can? ” asked Fawn.

She was thinking, as always. Dag said, “Hand snacks only. Don’t light a fire.”

Everything waited on Sumac and Barr. The company was actually closer to the next big settlement riding forward than back, and the passes were about the same climb in either direction. At least the road behind was known to the farmers now. But until they actually located the malice, it was a guess which direction was truly safer. If the malice proved sessile he’d go after it with a quarter patrol without hesitation, Dag decided, but if it was more advanced, sense demanded they go neither south nor north, but cut across country west to Laurel Gap Camp and the nearest reinforcements. Or did it? Dag imagined dragging this whole gaggle of farmers over fifty miles of broken terrain, mud-men in pursuit, and bit his lip. He would certainly have to send a pair of patroller couriers swiftly on ahead. Reducing the farmer youngsters’

Lakewalker guardians by two… He turned to more immediate calculations.

“Rase, let me see your sharing knife.”

The boy already had it out of his saddlebags and slung around his neck, good. He pulled it out on its thong and displayed it; Dag ran his hand lightly over the sheath. A good making. “Seems sound,” he said aloud. “If we take on a sessile, you’ll be the centerpiece of the attack. This is the experience you came north to get; it just came on a little sooner than you expected, is all.”

Rase’s nostril’s flared, in pride and fear. “Yes, sir.”

“Whose heart’s death is in there? ”

“My great-grandfather’s. About two years back.”

“I see.” Dag touched his forehead in respectful salute. “How’s your ground veiling? Have you been keeping up your drills? ” With Sumac as his patrol leader, Rase surely ought to have been.

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. I carry a primed knife, too, but I’ll hold mine in reserve.”

“It’s lucky we have two knives in this patrol,” said Rase.

“That wasn’t luck, that was preparation. Know the difference. Preparation, you can control.” He gave the young patroller an encouraging grip on the shoulder, which made Rase flash an earnest smile.

Reminded, Dag turned away to rummage through his own saddlebags.

His new bonded knife came to hand first, and he slipped its strong braided cord over his neck and tucked the dark sheath into his shirt.

Next, sifted farther down, he found his primed knife-dodgy, first, and unsupervised making that it was. The sheathed bone itself lay lightly on his chest, but the weight of ugly memories it held dragged like Sage’s anvil. Well, if the renegade Crane’s cruel deeds had any redemption, this was it.

He turned to find Fawn watching him, her dark eyes grave. Her lips moved as if to speak, then pressed closed; she gestured down the stream instead. “So, uh… what’s the matter with Arkady? ”

The maker sat on the creek bank in the midst of a patch of green horsetails, his head bowed to his knees.

“The mud-man, likely. The trained sensitivity that makes good makers also unfits them for patrol. Malice spoor hits them too hard.”

Fawn frowned at him. “You’ve been doing sensitivity drills with Arkady for the past two, three months. What’s that going to do to you? ”

Dag sighed. “I’m not real anxious to test it. We’ll just have to see.”

She came nearer; her little hand rose to trace the walnut-stained knife sheath hidden under his shirt. “I suppose you have to wear this. Just don’t… don’t do anything stupid with it, all right? Remember what you promised.”

Not while I’m aboveground and breathing, her words echoed in the hollows of his mind. “I won’t forget.”

She nodded sternly. Abruptly, he lifted her up, hugged her, twirled her around, and kissed her on the forehead.

“What was that in aid of? ” she puffed in pleased surprise, righting herself as he set her back down.

“Nothing. Just because.”

She ducked her head in a firm nod. “That’s a good reason.”

The farmers were bickering with one another and with the patrollers, but all were making steady progress at sorting out mounts for a retreat, so Dag didn’t attempt to interfere. Packsaddles were rapidly refitted for riders, emptied of their loads and padded with blankets.

Inevitably, Dag supposed, the Basswoods’ so-called riding horse had no saddle. He wondered whether it would be better to distribute the two children with their parents, or with the best riders, which would be a couple of the patrollers. Assuming everyone headed in the same direction.

He foresaw another argument, there. Ah, gah. His brain was doing that mad thing again, running unstoppably and repeatedly down every possible and impossible scenario, even though he knew blighted well that the world never delivered him his expectations.

Fawn brought him a chunk of cheese wrapped in cold pan bread left from the morning. He munched it along with a few swallows of flat, tepid water from his water bottle while he walked a tense perimeter along the turbid creek and around the too-noisy camp, his groundsense straining outward. It was still Arkady, and not Dag, who first lifted his head from his knees and turned his face north. Dag jogged to join him as Arkady stumbled out onto the road and looked up it.

Arkady’s lips parted in horror, and he went greener than when he’d first seen the mud-man. Sumac’s horse was galloping wildly toward them. The stirrups flapped and swung from its empty saddle.

Every patroller in range turned to stop the runaway with a summoning, so hard that the poor beast tumbled to its knees. It grunted up and stood trembling, lathered white between its legs and down its shoulders.

Dag ran up, looking it over for blood or wounds, trying frantically to remember if Sumac had been wearing her leather coat when she rode off in the heat. It wasn’t tied behind the cantle…

Arkady touched the empty saddle and groaned, “No…”

“She’s a Redwing,” Dag said through his teeth. “She lands on her feet. We are survivors…” He whirled and bellowed, “Whit! Fawn, Berry! Get those blighted farmers mounted up! Patrollers, to me!”

People scurried, yelled, stomped. Argued. The patrollers led their horses up and stood in a ragged line, awaiting orders. In an agonized voice, Arkady said, “Go!”

Dag looked up. A mile off, a horse bearing two riders popped over a rise into sight and his groundsense range simultaneously. “Wait,” Dag said.

Arkady’s face lifted, following his gaze. It felt almost uncouth to be watching an expression so painfully exposed, a man’s last hope returned to him.

Gods, Sumac, Dag thought. If the pair of us don’t have heart failure before this is all over, it won’t be your fault. And then she could inherit her captaincy, clever girl. Agonizing minutes passed as the laboring horse cantered nearer.

As soon as they hove within shouting range, Barr called excitedly, “We found the malice! It’s just up the road!” A ripple ran through the patrollers like the strain through a mob of horses milling at the start of a race.

Barr pulled up among them. Sumac more or less fell from where she clung behind Barr’s cantle down into Arkady’s arms. A drowning man couldn’t hug his log any harder than he did her. Her braid was coming undone, tendrils of black hair plastered around her flushed, sweating face.

Strained lines of pain framed her mouth and eyes, and she was breathing hard, but her gold eyes blazed like fires. She pushed Arkady away enough to find her feet, but didn’t shuck off his anxious hand supporting her elbow, nor his tender one that prodded her scalp, though she did wince. She was wearing, absent gods be thanked, the coat; her ribs bore only bruises, though the knot on the back of her skull was swelling like an egg.

“This malice looks like it’s just barely out of its burrow,” she wheezed. “It’s advancing down the road with a guard of twenty-two mud-men, but they’re moving slow.”

“Seventeen mud-men now,” said Barr.

“They none of ’em have clothes or arms at all, except for rocks and sticks.”

“And numbers,” Dag muttered. “And the malice. Likely it means to supply itself with our weapons and gear.”

“It’ll have to think again about that plan. Dag, we can take it!” said Sumac.

“Looks like it almost took you.”

“Oh, well.” She tossed her hair back in a mockery of a feminine gesture, and grinned. “I didn’t collect worse than a knock on the head, and you should see the other fellas. Grant you that malice is nasty.”

“And strange, absent gods it’s strange,” said Barr.

“It’s the first you ever saw,” said Dag. “How do you figure? ”

“Well, Sumac said, but even if-it’s huge, Dag, seven foot tall at least, ugly as mud, but it can barely move for its great big belly sticking out. The whole time after we’d run headlong into its guards and were fighting our way back out again, it never stopped waddling along. It can’t be covering more than two miles in an hour. So I make it two, three hours till it reaches here.”

“The mud-men can move faster.” Dag jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “As we saw by their scout, I reckon.”

Sumac said, “The malice looks like a sessile about to molt, except for its being out on the road. I’ve never seen one that close to splitting, if so.”

“Good for us if it’s awkward, but its menace is in its ground powers, not its pseudo-body.” Dag chewed his lip. Very few decisions left, here, till he committed them all irrevocably to action. “Rase, are you up for facing your first malice? ”

“Yes, sir!”

Dag nodded, grinning darkly, the old excitement running molten through his veins. I thought you were tired of this game, old patroller? A live malice was never just a training exercise, but absent gods, this sounded close to it. So, let’s teach these youngsters a few tricks. The better to keep them alive on the day when Dag would not be there, and the malice would not be so soft.

Whit, flanked by Fawn, had come up to the edge of the crowd when Sumac had arrived. Now he shouldered forward to say, “Dag, can I ride with you? ” He touched the walnut at his throat.

Dag said automatically, “No. I need you to lead the farmers.”

“Berry and Fawn can do that! What’s the point of making this ground shield if we can’t try it out? ”

Indeed, that was going to be a problem, if he kept making shields for people he loved… “Blight, Whit. If I ever make shields for Reed and Rush, I’ll happily stake them out as bait. Not you.”

Fawn said, “If your shields are ever to make us farmers be partners to Lakewalkers, and not just backward children in your eyes, it has to start somewhere. Seems to me you’ve said a word or two about a man starting where he is. Well, here we are.”

She would quote Dag back to himself… He weakened. “I suppose,” he said, “someone has to hold the horses.”

“Thanks, sir!”

“You be careful, Whit,” said Fawn sternly. “Don’t go turning that into the stupidest thing I ever said. I shouldn’t like to explain it to Berry. Or Mama.”

“Right, Sis!” Whit gave Fawn a hug and dashed off to collect his horse.

“Arkady goes with the farmer party, of course.” Dag narrowed his eyes at the maker, who, praise be, didn’t protest. “So do you, Sumac.”

Sumac opened her mouth, hesitated.

“You’re still dizzy from that knock on your head, your horse is spent, and if it all goes sour, someone needs to know how to get these farmers to Laurel Gap. Which reminds me, Barr, go swap out your mount for a fresher one.”

Barr scurried. Miraculously, Sumac didn’t argue, but allowed the concerned Arkady to lead her off. She was blinking rather hard, as if her vision wasn’t quite meshing.

In minutes more, Dag was leading five patrollers and one West Blue boy at a canter up the road, while Berry and Fawn rousted the rest to ride south. Dag wanted to put as much distance between the attack and Fawn as he could, to give the farmers their best chance if they needed it; and if they didn’t, well, one of the young patrollers could play courier and close the gap quickly enough. A mud-man troop, horsed, could do the same, but these all seemed to be afoot, so far. And let’s keep it that way.

Dag’s safe scheme to leave his tent-brother with the horses foundered at once on Whit’s crossbow. His little patrol was too short on archers to forgo the weapon or its most experienced wielder. He reordered his plan of attack in his head yet again, in time with Copperhead’s swift stride.

“Barr!” he called over the hoofbeats. “Where’s our last good cover before we come up on ’em?” Which would be soon; already, and despite his closed ground, Dag could feel the dry shock in his midsection that told him a live malice was nearby.

“Depends on how much they’ve moved since we hit them,” Barr called back. “Right up there, I think.” He pointed to a rocky outcrop almost overhanging the road, the tail of a spur from the western ridge, sheltering a seeping rivulet. “Not many trees beyond, all fire scrub and brambles. We’ll be able to see trouble coming.”

So will the malice, Dag thought, but waved his hook in acknowledgment.

They swung into the sheltered space, to find signs of its having been used as a campsite by many prior travelers. The patrollers dismounted and began arming themselves.

Dag flung himself off Copperhead and scrambled up the steep slope to the ridgelet, flanked by Barr. On his knees, he parted the blackberry canes and poison ivy with his hook arm and peered out into the hot green afternoon.

The road drew a groove through the recovering scrub, winding down to the next stream crossing and up again, an open space of a good mile. A quarter of the way across it, the malice’s band trudged toward them. Dag could see the creature clearly, head and shoulders above its mud-men. Its body was indeed massive, its gut enormous, its gait clumsy and bizarre.

“Still on the Trace,” murmured Dag. “I’d have thought you and Sumac would have driven them to cover. By the way, five down or no, I don’t thank you two for teaching them to fear Lakewalkers, or how to fight us. Sumac should have known scout doesn’t mean alarm.”

“We were flying around a bend and ran into them quicker than we expected. Just beyond that next rise. They were more spread out, then,” Barr whispered back. “They’ve only moved on about a mile since.”

Dag squinted into the shimmer trying to number mud-man heads, gave up, and said to Barr, “Count ’em. Has it changed? ”

Barr’s younger eyes narrowed intently; his lips moved. “Twenty-six now. Hey! That can’t be right.”

Dag didn’t think Sumac had miscounted. “It must have drawn in its scouts, for defense, and to replace the fallen. Which is no bad result.”

This close to the malice, Dag didn’t dare open his groundsense to check, but he saw no sign of flanking mud-men moving through the nearby scrub. Any more distant mud-men were not a tactical consideration.

The enemy was closing the gap, if at a shambling pace. Let them do most of the walking, good. Dag slid back down to the clearing. The horses had been tied patroller style, that is, reins wrapped up so as not to trail, and heavily persuaded to stay together. Because you wouldn’t want to physically tether a horse you might need to summon, nor risk leaving the poor beasts helpless if no one returned to release them. He rechecked Copperhead, then turned to order his patrol, keeping his voice low.

“All right. We have the advantage of this rise here, which I mean to keep. As soon as the malice and its mud-men are in bow shot, if they haven’t spotted us and turned tail first, I, Whit, Tavia, and Barr will try to take down as many as we can till we run out of arrows. After that it’s a wild pig hunt with spears and knives, except pigs aren’t smart enough to gang up on you and mud-men are. Try not to get separated and become a target, and keep an eye out for anyone who does. Don’t stop to finish off your mud-man if it’s too disabled to move, but be aware they’ll keep coming at you even when hurt as long as their malice is alive. And remember the mud-men are just a noisy diversion; the only target that counts is the malice, and getting Rase and his knife up to it. Try to circle behind it, Rase.”

The patroller swallowed, set his shoulders, nodded. Forced his hand, clutching the knife slung around his neck, back to his side.

Dag drew breath and went on swiftly, “I’m shifting your usual partnerships around. Neeta and Remo both will partner with Rase, flanking him like linkers, because they have the best ground veiling to be that close to the malice, and Neeta has some experience.”

Neeta flashed a nervous but pleased smile, and ducked her chin.

“That leaves Barr with Tavia, and Whit with me.”

That pleased Barr, certainly. Whit blinked in shy pride.

Without Whit along, Dag would have partnered Rase, guiding him in to his first kill. Whit had slain bandits; mud-men wouldn’t shake him unduly. But if the ground shield failed, the boy risked ground-ripping or-almost worse-mind slaving. If the latter happened, Dag hoped he wouldn’t have to do more than clout his tent-brother on the head to put him out of the way till the malice went down, but that wasn’t a task he dared leave to anyone else. He did not voice the risk, not wanting to put Whit off his stride.

“We don’t have to worry about surrounding the malice once it’s close to our position. It’s moving so slow that when the mud-men are out of the way we’ll almost be able to overtake it walking. But-listen close, Whit, because this is where it gets different than a pig hunt-taking on the malice is more like attacking a big bear, and not one of the cute black bears you find around here, but a big northern grizzly. It’s strong, it swings around fast, and it can knock a man thirty feet if it connects with you. Only the sharing knife will kill it. So you concentrate on the mud-men, and leave the malice to Rase and his partners. Got it? ”

“Yessir,” said Whit, eyes wide.

“All right. Get a drink or a piss now if you need to, keep your grounds shut tight, no talking from here on. Tavia and Barr, find your best shooting positions. Whit, stay by me.”

Dag went to Copperhead and collected his adapted bow and arrows.

He hitched his quiver over his shoulder, unbolted his hook from its wooden wrist cuff and dropped it in the leather pouch at his waist, seated the bow in its place, and locked it down. He tested the draw: strings dry and sound. Whit came bounding up swinging his crossbow, and Dag thought to whisper, “Don’t cock that thing till I fire my first shot. Noisy ratchet.”

Whit nodded understanding. Except for an occasional faint clink of gear or snort from a horse, Dag’s makeshift patrol was moving in proper uncanny silence. Now he had nothing to do but find a good line of sight from the cover of the rocky rise, hunker down, and wait for things to go wrong.