Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

And then another. “Highest priority, immediate attention, to Haranjus Pandel, Superior of Tower at Thou-ne. Provide secret refuge for Kesseret, from Baris. Patience. Soon. Tharius Don.”

Only when these messages were sent did he sit down to try and figure out what was going on. The only message to reach Gendra lately, he assured himself, was one from Thou-ne saying that Ilze, the Laugher, had gone to the Talons. All messages from Haranjus Pandel—as from any member of the cause—were surreptitiously obtained and copied to Tharius as a matter of course. What other messages? What other messengers? In winter? None he knew of.

Ezasper Jorn was thought by Tharius—indeed, by everyone—to be so complete a fool that Tharius did not even consider him in passing.

At the top of the pass, General Jondrigar dismounted his beast and let the handlers take it away. Now that it was assumed the fliers knew there were weehar and thrassil behind the Teeth of the North, the general chose to ride an ox whenever he liked. Since last year’s depredations on the herds, he had had crossbowmen stationed with the herdsmen, ready to bring down any flier who presumed to try such theft again. Making off with a weehar calf wasn’t something that could be done quietly. One flier couldn’t lift the creature, unless it was newborn, and the newborns were now carefully guarded. It would take two or three fliers, together with straps or some kind of basket, to carry a young beast, and that meant a certain amount of noise. The crossbowmen were alert. The general was fairly confident the fliers would get no more.

As for the beasts already gone, Koma Nepor had provided some clear flasks filled with a clinging liquid. Whenever the abducted herdbeasts were found, this liquid was to be thrown among them. “It contains a special strain of … ah, let us say biological material? Eh? No matter what, exactly. It will do the job on the beasts. Additionally, it will infect any of the fliers who come into contact with them.”

Which, being a derivative of the blight, it would do. Nepor had not been successful in determining the life cycle of the blight. Something in it escaped him and his ancient microscopes. He had been able, however, to make from blighted fish a long-lived distillation that was very effective. This distillation, modified in various ways, had remarkable effects on people, and Koma Nepor had no reason to believe it would not work as well on weehar and thrassil.

Seeing the clutter on the plain below, the general’s hand twitched as he considered using the flasks upon the herd humans gathered there. “Trash,” he muttered, reassuring himself with a glance at the expressionless Jondarites around him. “Trash.” Indeed, the multicolored splotches at the foot of the pass could as well have been fruit rinds, paper scraps, shells, bones, and chips. It heaved like a garbage pit, too, alive with human maggots squirming along the River and among the buttes. “Where is the woman?” he asked the messenger who awaited him. “Pamra Don?”

The messenger pointed, offering his glass. On a slight hillock overlooking the River a wagon, stood with a tall tent beside it. All around the hill, banners bloomed like flowers; red, green, blue, and Jondarite tents surrounded the whole. “There,” said the messenger.

Through the glass, General Jondrigar stared into Pamra Don’s face. At this great distance he could see nothing but the pale oval. A woman, carrying a child. Why was it, then, he asked himself in irritation, that she seemed to be looking directly into his eyes?

He did not hurry his trip down the pass. At the bottom of the pass there were warehouses to inspect. He received a report that worm had gotten into one that stored dried fish as well as roots and grain captured from the Noor. He specified the materials in that particular warehouse be used to feed the multitude. He was told what the spy balloons had seen from on high, a great number of approaching Noor, also crusaders, the steady trickle rising from Northshore into the northlands and thence to the place they stood.

“And a war party of young Noor, General. Just above Darkel-don. We could have a troop there in two days.”