Warlock

Chapter Nineteen

I

It was the quietest time of Marika's brief life, at least since the years before the nomads had come to the upper Ponath and destroyed. The struggle continued, and she participated, but life became so effortless and routine it fell into numbing cycles of repetition. There were few high points, few lows, and each of the latter she marked by the return of her nightmares about her littermate Kublin.

She could count on at least one bout with dark dreams each year, though never at any time predictable by season, weather, or her own mental state. They concerned her increasingly. The passing of time, and their never being weaker when they came, convinced her that they had little to do with the fact that the Degnan remained unMourned.

What else, then? That was what Grauel, Barlog, and even Braydic asked when she did at last break down and share her distress.

She did not know what else. Dreams and reason did not mix.

She did see Braydic occasionally now. The comm technician was less standoffish now it was certain Marika enjoyed the most senior's enduring favor.

Studies. Always there were studies. Always there were exercises to help her expand and increase her silth talents.

Always there were frightened silth distressed by her grasp of those talents.

Years came and went. The winters worsened appreciably each seasonal cycle. The summers grew shorter. Photographs taken from tradermale satellites showed a swift accumulation of ice in the far north. Glaciers were worming across the Zhotak already. For a time they would be blocked by the barrier of the Rift, but sisters who believed themselves experts said that, even so, it would be but a few years before that barrier was surmounted and the ice would slide on southward, grinding the land.

It never ceased to boggle Marika, the Serke being so desperate to possess a land soon to be lost to nature.

The predictions regarding the age of ice became ever more grim. There were times when Marika wished she were not in the know-as much as she was. The world faced truly terrible times, and those would come within her own life span. Assuming she lived as long as most silth.

Grauel and Barlog were inclined to suggest that she would not, for she never quite managed to control her fractious nature.

The predictions of social upheaval and displacement, most of which she reasoned out for herself, were quite terrifying.

Each summer Marika served her stint in the north, from the time of the last snowfall till the time of the first. Each summer she exercised her ability to walk the dark side, as much as the nomads would permit. Each summer poor Dorteka had to endure the rustification with her, complaining bitterly. Each summer Marika helped establish a new outpost somewhere, and each summer the nomads tried to avoid her outpost, though every summer saw its great centers of conflict. She sometimes managed to participate by smuggling herself into the strife aboard a darkship commanded by a pliable Mistress.

Gradwohl's strategy of driving the nomads west into Serke territories seemed slow in paying off. The savages clung to Reugge lands stubbornly, despite paying a terrible price.

The Reugge thus settled into a never-ending and costly bloodfeud with the savages. The horde, after continuous decimation through attack and starvation, no longer posed quite so serious a threat. But it remained troublesome because of the rise of a warrior caste. The crucible of struggle created grim fighters among the fastest, strongest, and smartest nomads. Composed of both male and female fighters, and supported by ever more skillful wild silth and wehrlen, it made up in ferocity and cunning what the horde had lost in numbers.

Gradwohl's line of blockhouses north of Maksche did succeed in their mission. The final southward flow crashed against that barrier line like the sea against an uncrackable breakwater. But the savages came again and again, till it seemed they would never withdraw, collapse, seek the easier hunting to the west.

As the nomad threat waned, though, pressure against the Reugge strengthened in other quarters. Hardly a month passed but what there was not some incident in Maksche involving rogue males. And that disease began to show itself in other Reugge territories.

But none of that touched Marika. For all she was in the middle of it, she seemed to be outside and immune to all that happened. None of it affected her life or training.

She spent the long winters studying, practicing, honing her talents, making monthly visits to Bagnel, and devouring every morsel of flight- or space-oriented information Gradwohl could buy or steal. She wheedled more out of Bagnel, who was pleased to help fill such an excited, eager mind.

He was learning himself, turning his interests from those that had occupied him in the Ponath to those of the future. His special interest was the web of communications and weather satellites the brethren maintained with the aid of the dark-faring silth. The brethren created the technology, and the silth lifted the satellites aboard their void-faring darkships.

Marika became intrigued with the cycle and system. She told Bagnel, "There are possibilities that seem to have escaped everyone."

"For example?" His tone was indulgent, like that of an instructress watching a pup reinvent the wheel.

"Possibilities. Unless someone has thought of them already and these ridiculous barriers against the flow of information have masked the fact."

"Give me an example. Maybe I can find out for you."

It was Marika's turn to look indulgent. "Suppose I do have an original thought? I know you tradermales think it unlikely of silth, but that possibility does exist. Granted? Should I give something away for nothing?"

Bagnel was amused. "They make you more a silth every time I see you. You're going to be a nasty old bitch by the time you reach Gradwohl's age, Marika."

"Could be. Could be. And if I am, it'll be the fault of meth like you."

"I'd almost agree with you," Bagnel said, his eyes glazing over for a moment.

Those quiet years were heavily flavored with the most senior's favor. With little fanfare, initially, Marika rose in stature within the cloister. In swift succession she became a celebrant-novice, a celebrant-second, then a full celebrant, meaning she passed through the stages of assistanceship in conducting the daily Reugge rituals, assistanceship during the more important rites on days of obligation, then began directing rites herself. She had no trouble with the actual rituals.

There were those who resented her elevation. Of course. Traditionally, she should not have become a full celebrant till she was much older.

Each swift advancement meant someone else having to wait so much longer. And older silth did not like being left behind one who was, as yet, still a pup.

There was far more resentment when Gradwohl appointed Marika junior censor when one of the old silth died and her place among the cloister's seven councillors was taken by the senior censor. Zertan was extremely distressed. It was a cloister senior's right to make such appointments, without interference even from superiors. But Zertan had to put up with Gradwohl's interference or follow Paustch into exile.

Marika questioned her good fortune less than did Grauel or Barlog, who looked forward to a dizzying fall. Those two could see no bright side in anything.

The spring before Marika's fourth Maksche summer, shortly before she set out for her fourth season of counterattack, death rested its paw heavily upon the cloister leadership. Two judges fell in as many days. Before Marika finished being invested as senior censor, Gradwohl ordered her elevated to the seventh seat on the council.

Tempers flared. Rebellion burned throughout the halls of the ancient cloister. Marika herself tried to refuse the promotion. She had much more confidence in herself than did any of the Maksche sisters, but did not think she was ready for the duties of a councillor-even though seventh chair was mainly understudy for the other six.

Gradwohl remained adamant in the face of unanimous opposition. "What will be is what I will," she declared. "And time only will declare me right or wrong. I have decreed it. Marika will become one of the seven judges of this house."

As strength goes. There was no denying the strong, for they had the power to enforce their will.

But Gradwohl's will put Marika into an unpleasant position.

The sisters of Maksche had not loved her before. Now they hated her.

All this before she was old enough to complete her silth novitiate. Officially. But age was not everything. She had pursued her studies so obsessively that she was the equal or superior of most of the sisters who resented her unnaturally fast advancement. And that was half their reason for hating her. They feared that which possessed inexplicable strength and power.

The strengthened resentment caused her to turn more inward, to concentrate even more upon studies which were her only escape from the misery of daily cloister life. Once a month, there was Bagnel.

And always there was a touch of dread. She suspected doom lurking in the shadows always, at bay only because Gradwohl was omnipresent, guarding her while she directed the northern conflict. While she let the sisterhood beyond Maksche run itself.

Marika was sure there would be a price for continued favor of such magnitude. She believed she was prepared to pay it.

Gradwohl had plans for her, shrouded though they were. But Marika had plans of her own.

II The summer of Marika's fourth return to the Ponath marked a watershed.

It was her last summer as a novice. On her return to Maksche she was to be inducted full silth, with all the privileges that implied. So she began the summer looking beyond it, trying to justify the ceremonies in her own mind, never seeing the summer as more than a bridge of time. The months in the north would be a slow vacation. The nomads were weak and almost never seen in the Ponath anymore. The snows up there were not expected to melt. There was no reason to anticipate anything but several months of boredom and Dorteka's complaints.

Gradwohl assigned her the entire upper Ponath. She would be answerable only to Senior Educan at Akard. She made her headquarters in a log fortress just miles from the site of the Degnan packstead. In the boring times she would walk down to the site and remember, or venture over hill and valley, through dead forest, to Machen Cave, where first she became aware that she had talents different from those of ordinary packmates.

A great shadow still lurked in that cave. She did not probe it. Because it had wakened her, she invested it with almost holy significance and would not desecrate the memory by bringing it out into the light for a look.

She was responsible for a network of watchtowers and blockhouses shielding the Ponath from the Zhotak. It seemed a pointless shield. The Zhotak was devoid of meth life. Only a few far arctic beasts lingered there. They were no threat to the Reugge.

That Gradwohl considered the northernmost marches safe was indicated by Marika's command. She had twenty-three novices to perform the duties of silth, and Dorteka to advise her. Her huntresses and workers-commanded by Grauel and Barlog, who had risen by being pulled along in the wake of her own rise-were ragtag, of little use in areas more active. Except inasmuch as the command gave her some experience directing others, Marika thought the whole show a farce.

The summer began with a month of nonevents in noncountry. The Ponath was naked of meth except for its Reugge garrisons. There was nothing to do. Even those forests that were not dead were dying. The few animals seen were arctic creatures migrating south. Summer was a joke name, really. Despite the season, it snowed almost every day.

There was a momentary break in the boredom during the third week. One of the watchtowers reported sighting an unfamiliar darkship sliding down the valley of the east fork of the Hainlin, traveling so low its undercarriage almost dragged the snow. Marika dived through her loophole, caught a strong ghost, and went questing.

"Well?" Dorteka demanded when she returned.

"There may have been something. I could not make contact, but I felt something. It was moving downstream."

"Shall I inform Akard?"

"I do not think it is necessary. If it is an alien darkship, and is following the east fork down, they will spot it soon enough."

"It could have been an unscheduled patrol."

"Probably was."

A darkship out of Akard patrolled Marika's province each third day. Invariably, it reported a complete absence of nomad activity. What skirmishing there was was taking place far to the south. And the few nomads seen down there were now doing as Gradwohl wished. They were migrating westward, toward Serke country.

There were rumors that Serke installations had been attacked.

"Looks like the Serke have lost their loyalty," Marika told Dorteka after having examined several such reports.

"They have used them up. They will be little more than a nuisance to our cousins."

"I wonder what the Serke bought them with. To have held them so long on the bounds of death and starvation."

Dorteka said, "I think they expected to roll over us the year they took Akard. The intelligence says they expected to take Akard cheaply and follow that victory with a run that would take them all the way to Maksche. Maksche certainly could not have repelled them at the time. The glitch in their strategy was you. You slew their leading silth and decimated their best huntresses. They had nothing left with which to complete the sweep."

"But why did they keep on after they had failed?"

"Psychological momentum. Whoever was pulling the strings on the thing would have been high in the Serke council. Someone very old. Old silth do not admit defeat or failure. To me the evidence suggests that there is a good chance the same old silth is still in charge over there."

"By now she must realize she has to try something else. Or must give up."

"She cannot give up. She can only get more desperate as the most senior thwarts her every stratagem."

"Why?"

"The whole world knows what is happening, Marika. Even if no one admits seeing it. Our hypothetical Serke councillor cannot risk losing face by conceding defeat. We are a much weaker Community. Theoretically, it is impossible for us to best the Serke."

"What do you feel about that?"

"I feel scared, Marika." It was a rare moment of honesty on Dorteka's part. "This has been going on for eight years. The Serke councillors were all old when it started. They must be senile now. Senile meth do things without regard for consequences because they will not have to live with them. I am frightened by Gradwohl, too. She has a disregard for form and consequence herself, without the excuse of being senile. The way she has forced you onto the Community ... "

"Have I failed her expectations, Dorteka?"

"That is not the point."

"It is the only point. Gradwohl is not concerned about egos. The Reugge face the greatest challenge of their history. Survival itself may be the stake. Gradwohl believes I can play a critical role if she can delay the final crisis till I am ready."

"There are those who are convinced that your critical role will be to preside over the sisterhood's destruction."

"That doomstalker superstition haunts my backtrail still?"

"Forget legend and superstition-though they are valid as ways of interpreting that which we know but do not understand. Consider personality. You are the least selfless silth I have ever encountered. I have yet to discern a genuine shred of devotion in you, to the Community or to the silth ideal. You fake. You pretend. You put on masks. But you walk among those who see through shadows and mists, Marika. You cannot convince anyone that you are some sweet lost pup from the Ponath."

Marika began to pace. She wanted to issue some argument to refute Dorteka and could not think of a one she could wield with conviction.

"You are using the Reugge, Marika."

"The Reugge are using me."

"That is the way of-"

"I do not accept that, Dorteka. Take that back to Gradwohl if you want. Though I am sure she knows."

Grauel witnessed this argument. She grew very tense as it proceeded, fearing it would pass beyond the verbal. Dorteka had been having increasing difficulty maintaining her self-restraint.

Marika had worked hard to bind Grauel and Barlog more closely to her. Again and again she tested them in pinches between loyalties to herself and loyalties to the greater community. They had stuck with her every time. She hoped she was laying the foundations of unshakable habit. A day might come when she would want them to stick with her through extreme circumstances.

For all she had known these two huntresses her entire life, Marika did not know them very well. Had she known them well, she would have realized no doubt of their loyalties ever existed.

Barlog entered the room. "A new report from Akard, Marika."

"It's early, isn't it?

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Another sighting."

"Another ghost darkship?"

"No. This time it's a possible nomad force coming east on the Morthra Trail. Based on two unconfirmed sightings."

"Well, that is no problem for us."

The Morthra Trail was little more than a game track these days, lost beneath ten feet of snow. At one time it had connected Critza with a tradermale outpost on the Neybhor River, seventy miles to the west. The Neybhor marked the western frontier of Reugge claims in that part of the Ponath.

"Sounds like wishful thinking," Marika said. "Or a drill being sprung on us by the most senior. But I suppose we do have to pass the word. Dorteka, you take the eastern arc. I will take the western." Marika sealed her eyes, went inside, extended a thread of touch till she reached an underling in an outlying blockhouse. She relayed the information.

Two days later touch-word brought the news that Akard had lost contact with several western outposts. Darkships sent to investigate had found the garrisons dead. An aerial search for the culprits had begun.

One of the darkships fell out of touch.

Senior Educan sent out everything she had.

When found, the missing darkship was a tangle of titanium ruin. It had buried itself in the face of a mountain, evidently at high speed. The Mistress of the Ship and her bath appeared to have suffered no wounds before the crash.

"That is silth work," Marika said. "Not nomads at all, but Serke." She shivered. For an instant a premonition gripped her. Grim times were in the offing. Perhaps times that would shift the course of her life. "This must be the desperate move you predicted, Dorteka."

The instructress was frightened. She seemed to have suffered a premonition of her own. "We have to get out of here, Marika."

"Why?"

"They would send their very best. If they would go that far. We cannot withstand that. They will exterminate us, then ambush any help sent from Maksche."

"Panic is not becoming in a silth," Marika said, parroting a maxim learned at Akard. "You are better at the long touch than I am. Get Akard to send me a darkship."

"Why?"

"Do it."

"They will want to know why. If they have lost one already, they will want to hoard the ones that are left."

"Invoke the most senior if you have to."

Sighing, Dorteka started to go into touch.

"Dorteka. Wait. Find out which outposts were silenced. And where that darkship went down."

"Yes, mistress," Dorteka replied.

"Sarcasm does not become you. Hurry. Before those fools panic and run away."

Dorteka went into touch. Her strained, twisting face betrayed her difficulty getting through, then an argument ensuing. Marika told Grauel, "If those fools don't come across, I'll hike down there and take a darkship myself. Why did they put Educan in charge? She is worse that Paustch ever was. She couldn't ... " Dorteka had come out of touch. "What did they say?"

"The darkship is coming. I had to lie, Marika. And I had to invoke Gradwohl. I hope you know what you are doing."

"What state were they in?"

"You can guess."

"Yes. Educan was packing. Grauel. Get my coats, boots, and weapons." On the frontier Marika dressed as one of the huntresses, not as silth.

Dorteka studied a map while Marika dressed. Marika glanced over her shoulder. "A definite progression, yes?"

"It does look like a developing pattern."

"Looks like? They will hit here next, then here, here, and then try Akard. No wonder Educan is in a dither. They will reach the Hainlin before dawn tommorow."

"You have that look in your eye, Marika. What are you going to do?"

No particular thought went into Marika's answer. "Ambush them at Critza." It was the thing that had to be done.

"They would sense our presence."

"Not if we use our novices to keep our body heat concealed."

"Marika ... "

"We will hit them on huntress's terms initially. Not as silth. They will not be looking for that. We will chew them up before they know what is happening."

"Critza is not inside your proper territory."

"If we do not do something, Educan will run off and leave us here. The Serke will not have to come after us. They can leave us to the grauken if they take Akard."

"True. But-"

"Perhaps one of the reasons Gradwohl favors me is that I am not bound by tradition. Not if form's sake means sticking my head into a kirn's den."

"Perhaps."

"Contact the outposts. We will gather everyone. Grauel. Prepare for two days of patrol for the whole force."

III Marika kept the darkship aloft continuously, bringing huntresses to Critza, till she felt the Serke party could be within an hour of her ambush. The western outposts had fallen as she had predicted. Akard was in a panic. The leadership there had so wilted, Marika no longer bothered trying to stay in touch.

A pair of darkships raced over, fleeing south, practically dripping meth and possessions. "That," Marika observed, "is why we silth are so beloved, Dorteka. Educan has saved everthing she owns. But how many huntresses and laborers were aboard?"

Dorteka did not try to defend Educan. She was as outraged as Marika was, if not quite for the same reasons. The Akard senior's flight was indefensible on any grounds.

"Everyone in place?" Marika asked. There were no tracks in the snow, nothing to betray the ambush physically. The huntresses had dropped into their positions from the darkship. "See if you can detect anybody, Dorteka. If you do, get on the novice covering." She could detect nothing with her own less skillful touch.

Fear proved to be a superb motivator. The novices hid everyone well.

"That is it for Chaser," Marika said as the last of the major moons settled behind the opposite ridge. But there was light still. Dawn had begun to break under a rare clear sky. Long shadows of skeletal trees reached across the Hainlin. The endless cold had killed all the less hardy. They were naked of needles. Occasionally the stillness filled with the crash following some elder giant's defeat in its battle with gravity. Farther north, where the winds kept the slopes scoured of snow, whole mountains were scattered with fallen trees, like straw in a grain field after harvest.

A far hum began to build in the hills opposite Critza. "Utter silence now," Marika cautioned. "Total alertness. Nobody move for any reason. And hold your fire till I give the word. Hold your fire." She hoped it would not be much longer. The cold gnawed her bones. They had dared light no fires. The smell of smoke would have betrayed them.

A machine thirty feet long and ten wide eased down the far slope, sliding between trees. It slipped out onto the clear highway of the rivercourse, surrounded by flying snow. For a moment Marika was puzzled. It seemed like a small darkship of odd shape, floating above the surface. It made a great deal of noise.

Then she recalled where she had seen such a vehicle. At the tradermale station at Maksche.

Ground-effect vehicle. Of course.

A second slithered through the trees, engine whining as it fought to keep from charging down the slope. Marika silently praised Grauel and Barlog for having established superb discipline among the huntresses. They were waiting as instructed.

They dared not open fire till all the craft were in the open.

She could see meth inside them, ten and an operator for each of those first two. At a guess she decided two silth and eight fighters aboard each. And definitely not nomads.

What had Bagnel told her about ground-effect vehicles? Yes. They were not sold or leased outside the brethren. Ever.

This ambush would stir one hell of a stink if she pulled it off.

A third and fourth vehicle left the forest. These two appeared to be supply carriers. No heads were visible through their domes, only unidentifiable heaps.

A fifth vehicle descended the slope, and a sixth. And still those already on the river hovered, waiting.

Marika ground her teeth. How much longer could fire discipline hold among huntresses already badly shaken by what faced them?

Not long. As the eighth vehicle appeared, making four carrying meth and four carrying supplies, a rifle cracked.

The huntress responsible was a competent sniper. Her bullet stabbed through a dome and killed an operator. The vehicle surged forward, gained speed rapidly, rose, and smashed into a bluff a third of a mile upriver. Its fuel exploded.

Long before that happened Marika's every weapon had begun thundering at the Serke. For a while the vehicles were hidden by smoke and flying snow.

Two more vehicles came down into the storm of death.

"Get that darkship up over the trail," Marika snapped at the Mistress of the Ship. "Wait. I am going with you. I do not want you following Educan. Dorteka. Keep hitting them. Get the personnel carriers first."

A vehicle broke out of the fury and scooted away north, sideslipping around the burning vehicle upstream. "That was a transport. We will catch it later. Take it up."

The darkship rose. At a hundred feet Marika could see that the remaining craft had been disabled. Huntresses had come out of some and were returning fire.

A fuel tank blew, spread fire to other crippled vehicles. The conflagration generated a battle between volatile fuel and melting snow. Burning fuel spread atop the running melt.

Marika reached with her touch and found several silth minds among the survivors, all bewildered, shocked, unready to respond. She jerked back, ducked through her loophole, grabbed the first suitable ghost she found, and hurtled down there. Slap. Slap. Slap. She dispatched three silth.

There were at least four more vehicles in the forest, all carrying silth and huntresses. They had halted. Marika flung herself that way, hammered at silth hearts and minds till she encountered one that hurled her back and nearly broke through her defenses.

She ducked back into the world long enough to order the darkship forward. The bath carried automatic weapons and grenades. She would wrestle the Serke sisters while the darkship crew demolished them with mundane weapons.

And so it went for a few minutes, the bath crippling two of the vehicles. Marika fenced the strong Serke sister, and ducked around her occasionally, discovered that hers was the only Serke silth mind still conscious.

On the river the survivors of the ambush were getting organized. The Serke silth ducked away from Marika and went to prevent Dorteka and the novices from overwhelming her fighters.

The huntresses on the mountainside headed down to help their sisters. They fired on the darkship as they went.

You are a strong one, the Serke silth sent. But you will not survive this.

I have survived the Serke before, Marika retorted. This is the end of the Serke game. Here, today, you will all die. And you will leave the Reugge the proof needed to call the wrath of all the Communities down upon the Serke. You have fallen into the trap.

You are the one called Marika?

Yes. Which great Serke am I about to destroy?

None.

The silth slammed at her. Marika barely turned the blow, interposing her ghost between herself and that ruled by the Serke. She had made a tactical error. She had issued too strong a challenge before fully assessing the strength of the other's ghost. It was more powerful than hers.

Bullets hummed around the darkship. One spanged off the metal framework. Marika wondered why the ship was not moving, making itself a more difficult target. She ducked into reality for a second, saw that one bath had been wounded and another had been knocked entirely off the darkship. The Mistress had only one bath to draw upon. She could do little but remain aloft, a target for rifle fire.

Marika flung a hasty touch Dorteka's way. Dorteka. Get some mortar fire into the woods up here. Under the darkship. Before they bring us down and we are all lost.

The Serke attacked again. She wobbled under the blow, fought its effects, tried to locate a more powerful ghost. There was none to be reached quickly enough. There were some great ones high above that might have been drawn in had she had time, but the Serke would give her no time.

She dodged another stroke, slipped back into reality. Bombs had begun to fall on the slope below. Had she had the moment, Marika would have been amused. Those mortars were all captured weapons, taken from slain nomads. The brethren were adamant in their refusal to sell such weapons to the Reugge.

She located the Serke silth visually. The female stood beside her disabled vehicle. Marika tried a new tack, hammering at the snow in the trees above the meth.

A shower fell, distracting the silth. Marika used the moment won to stab at the huntresses firing on the darkship. She slew several. The others broke and ran.

The silth regained her composure, punched back, adding, You do not play the game by the rules, pup.

Marika dodged, sent, I play to win. I own no rules. She struck at a tree instead of the silth. The brittle trunk cracked. The giant toppled-in the wrong direction. She cracked another, then fended off the silth again.

This was not going well. The Serke was wearing her down. And the darkship had begun to settle toward the surface. For the first time she felt uncertainty. The Serke sensed it, hurled mockeries her way.

Angered, she cracked several more trees. This time the Serke was forced to spend time dodging the physical threat.

Marika used the time to unsling her rifle and begin firing. Her bullets did not touch the silth, but they forced her to keep moving, ducking, too busy evading metal death to employ her talent.

Marika hurled a pair of grenades. One fell close. Its blast threw the silth ten feet and left her stunned.

Marika took careful aim, pumped three bullets into the sprawled form, the last through the brain.

"That should do-"

The darkship began to wobble, to slide sideways, to tilt.

The Mistress of the Ship had been hit by a stray bullet.

She had wanted to fly for so long. Marika's thoughts were almost hysterical. She hadn't wanted her first opportunity at flight to come at a time like this! She grabbed at the ship with her mind, trying to put into practice what she knew only as theory, while she edged out the long arm toward the wounded Mistress.

Tree branches crackled as the darkship settled. Marika was afraid a giant would snap and in its fall sweep her and the darkship to the surface.

Without her and the darkship, the Serke would win still.

The darkship was low. She'd probably survive the fall. Still, she had to do more than survive. She had to save the darkship. She had to be available to support her huntresses, who were in a furious firefight with the Serke huntresses. She had to ...

She reached the Mistress of the Ship. Despite the meth's salvageable condition, Marika pitched her off the position of power, ignored her cry of outrage as she fell. There was no time for niceties.

Marika closed into herself, felt for those-who-dwell, who had begun scattering, summoned them, made them stabilize the craft before it fell any farther. She drew upon the bath and willed the ship to rise.

It rose. Smoothly and easily, it rose, amazing her. This was easy! She turned it, drove it toward Critza, brought it down a little roughly just a few feet from its original hiding place.

The wounded bath died moments later, drained of all her strength. The other passed out. Marika had drawn upon them too heavily.

Marika had nothing left herself. Darkness swam before her eyes as she croaked, "Dorteka! What is the situation?"

"They have gotten dug in. There are too many of them, and they still have a few silth left. Enough to block our dark-side attacks. We dare not assault them. They would cut us apart. I am hoping the mortars will give us the needed edge. You killed the leader?"

"Yes. It was a close thing, too. I had to trick her, then shoot her. Keep using the mortars to pin them down till I recover. No heroics. Hear?"

Dorteka gave her a look that said she was a fool if she expected heroics from her teacher.

Marika drained her canteen, ate ravenously, rested. Weapons continued to crackle and boom, but she noticed them not at all.

The Serke huntresses had gotten out of their transport with nothing but small arms. Thank the All for that. Thank the All that she had been able to think quickly aboard the darkship. Else she would be dead now and the Serke would soon be victorious.

The moment she felt sufficiently strong, she ducked through her loophole, found a monster of a ghost, flung it toward where the surviving Serke silth cowered, arguing about whether or not they should try to retreat to the two unharmed vehicles and flee.

They were terrified. They were ready to abandon their followers to their fates. The one thing that held them in place was their certain knowledge of what defeat would mean to their Community.

Marika sent, Surrender and you shall live.

One of them tried to strike at her. She brushed the thrust aside.

She killed them. She touched their huntresses and told them to surrender, too, then slaughtered those who persevered till she had no more strength. She returned to flesh. "The day is yours, Dorteka. Finish it. Round up the survivors."

When it was all done neither Marika nor Dorteka had strength enough to touch Akard and let the garrison there know that the threat had been averted.

Grauel started fires and began gathering the dead, injured, and prisoners inside the ruins of Critza. She came to Marika. "All rounded up now."

"Many surrender?"

"Only a few huntresses." Her expression was one of contempt for those. "And five males. Tradermales. They were operating those vehicles."

"Guard them well. They mean the end of the threat against the Reugge. I will examine them after I have rested."