The boar was digging its tusks into the earth already softened by its pawing forefeet, tossing bits of sod into the air and squealing in a rising crescendo of sound.
Side by side on the ground the boar would outweigh the cat, I thought. I had seen only two broc-boars in my life, and both had been well under the weight and shoulder height of this monster.
The cat screamed in fury as it sprang, not at the boar, but back from the prey it had cut down. And the boar moved after it with a nimbleness I would not have guessed possible. With another protest of feline rage, the snow cat leaped to a crag and up, soon gaining the heights. From there I could hear its hissing and growling growing fainter as it left the field to the boar who stood, its head cocked, listening.
Almost without planning, I moved then. It was dangerous. Wound that tight package of porcine fury, and I might be horribly dead. But as yet the boar had not winded me, and I saw in it such a promise of food as I could not, in my hunger, resist. Also it was standing now in just the position where I could get a telling shot.
I loosed my arrow and a second later threw myself backward into such hiding as the brush gave me. I heard a terrible squeal and a thudding, but I dared not wait. If I had failed, that four-footed death would be after me. So I ran.
Before I reached camp I sighted Rudo and Insfar and gasped out my story.
“If the boar did not follow you, Lady, it was because it could not,” Insfar said. “They are devils for attack. But it may well be your shot was lucky – “
“It was folly,” Rudo commented sourly and directly. “It might well have slain you.”
He had the truth of it. My hunger had betrayed me into the rankest folly. I accepted his words humbly, knowing that I might now be lying dead.
We returned together, scouting the terrain as if we expected an attack from ambush. “We had circled, going up-slope. When we finally reached the scene, there lay the cow and, beyond, on bloodstained ground torn by hoofs and tusks, the boar also. My arrow had sunk behind its shoulders and into the heart.
I found this stroke of fortune earned me awe from the rest of the party. Such a happening was so rare that it might be deemed an act dictated by the Power. I believe that from that hour my people held that some of Dame Math’s knowledge and skills were also mine. Though they did not say it to my face, I saw them send favor signs in my direction, and they paid heed to all I said, as if what I uttered were farseeings.
Yngilda remained my thorn-in-the-flesh. I kept to my resolve that first night, and when the flesh was roasting on spits above the fire, so that the savor of it brought juices flowing into the mouth, I spoke aloud so all could hear.
The able-bodied who did not labor equally to supply us all would not share in the fruits of our seeking. So I said, after I had given full praise for the results of that day’s harvesting. I saw that all shared that night – save Yngilda. But her I refused openly, that all might note I did not accept rank as an excuse for idleness.
She flung at me that I was under blood-curse to her family. But I said as firmly that I accepted the Lady Islaugha as my charge, and her I would serve. To that these assembled could bear witness. However, Yngilda was young, of strong body, and therefore she would find none here to wait upon her – it would be equal sharing.
I think she would have liked to fly at me, to rake my face and eyes with her fingers. But in that company she stood alone, measured for what she was, and she knew it. So at last she turned from us and crawled back into her lean-to, and I heard her crying, but such weeping as comes from anger and not from sorrow. I had no pity for her. But I also realized that I had made an enemy who would remain an unfriend.
However, it seemed as one day followed another Yngilda had reconsidered her position and thought the better of her obstinacy. She did not do her share of the work graciously, but work she did, even to the odorous business of helping to spread the strips of beef to sun-dry after we butchered the cow that had fallen to the snow cat.
We were frugal, even making use of the bones of both slaughtered animals, their hides (though these could only be rough-cured), and the rusks of the boar. Martine regained her strength, so I had hopes that before the warm weather was past we could fight our way to Norsdale and I could at last lay down my burden of leadership.
Lady Islaugha took to wandering away, in search, perhaps, of Toross. One of our number had to guard her ever, since while so driven to this wandering, her strength seemed the greater and she would set off briskly, often struggling with her guardian if he tried to thwart her, only to falter later when she tired. Then her guardian would lead her back.
Timon fashioned some better fishhooks, and I continued to try my luck along the river. I think out of stubbornness, determined to win a victory here as I had with the boar. But, judging by my continued failures, my luck did not hold in water as it had on land. So clear was that water that ofttimes I sighted the shadows of what were indeed giants compared to the unwary fish I managed to pull out. But either there was some trick of baiting I did not understand, or else these were warier than most fish.
It was during the third day when I followed the river that there came upon me the strong sensation of being watched. So acute did this grow that my hand went to Toross’ knife in my belt. From time to time I halted to look around, certain that if I turned quickly enough I could sight some face framed in the grass or in a bush.
I grew so uneasy that I decided to return to camp and alert my people. Some scout of the invaders might have found our backtrail. If so, we might be already doomed, unless we could find and slay him before he reported to his force.
As I turned, the bush parted and one stepped into the open. I had drawn steel in the same instant, ready to defend myself.
He held up empty hands as if he knew what passed in my mind. At the same time, seeing him in full, I knew he was no invader. His battle hood was loosened to lie back on his shoulders. And he wore no over-jerkin or tabard with arms emblazoned on it. Rather did his mail and leather look dulled and dingy, as if purposefully darkened.
But – As my eyes swept down his slim body I stiffened. He wore no boots, his leather breeches were in – fastened at his ankles with straps and his feet – but he had no feet! He stood upon hoofs like one of the cows.
From that impossibility I swiftly looked to his face again, half-expecting to find it monstrous also in some way. But it was not. A man’s face truly, browned by sun and wind, the cheeks a little hollowed, the mouth firm-set. He was not as handsome as Toross and – my eyes met his, and in spite of my control I took a step or so back. For those eyes, like the hoofed feet, were not of human man.
They were the color of that amber known to us as “butter,” a deep yellow, and in them the pupil was more slit than circle. Not a man’s eyes –
When I drew back there was a change in his face, or did I only imagine that? And now I remembered Dame Math’s teaching (had she ever in the past, before she had joined Norsdale, met such a one?), so between us in the air I drew a certain sign.
He smiled, but it seemed that smile was a wry, almost twisted one, as if in some manner he regretted that I knew him for what he was – one of the Old Ones. For the first time he spoke: “Greetings, Lady.”
“And to you – “ I hesitated, for by what honorific should an Old One be courteously addressed? That had not been in my training. Thus I gave him what I would grant one of my rank in the dales. “Lord, greeting.”