Free Book 1 - Doomstalker by Glen Cook

packstead. She could establish him no alibi. She did not
press, though. For Kublin, a male, even circumstantial evidence
would be enough to convict.
    In time even Pohsit began to wonder if the whole incident were
not a product of her imagination. Imaginary or not, though, she let
it feed her hatred, her irrational fear, her determination. Marika
began to fear something
would
have to be done about the
sagan.
    Luckily, more and more of the Degnan were sure Pohsit was
slipping into her dotage. Persecution fears and crazy vendettas
were common among the Wise.
    Marika did her best to stay out of the sagan’s way. And
when winter brought worse than anyone expected, even Pohsit
relented a little, in the spirit of the pack against the
outside.
     
----

Chapter Four

I
    Marika’s next night watch was very late, or very early in
the morning. The stars had begun to fade as the sun’s first
weak rays straggled around the curve of the world. She stared at
the heavens and daydreamed again, wondering incessantly about
things hinted in the new book. What
were
these
silth sisters? What were they finding up there among those alien
suns? It was a shame she had been born to a pack on the very edge
of civilization instead of in some great city of the south, where
she might have a chance to enjoy such adventures.
    She probed for the messengers again, and again the touch was
sharp. Both had reached the packfast. Both were sleeping restlessly
in a cell of stone. Other minds moved around them. Not so densely
as in a packstead, where there was a continuous clamor of thought,
but many nevertheless. And all adult, all old, as if they were all
the minds of the Wise. As if they were minds of sagans, for they
had that flavor. One was near the messengers, as if watching over
them.
Marika tried to touch it more closely, to get the feel of these
distant strangers who so frightened the Degnan.
    Alarm!
    That mind shied in sudden fear, sudden surprise, almost slipping
away. Marika was startled herself, for no one ever noticed her.
    A countertouch, light for an instant, then hard and sudden like
a hammer’s blow. Marika whimpered as fractured thought
slammed into her mind.
    Who are you? Where? What?
    There was darkness around the edges of that, and hints of things
of terror. Frightened, Marika fled into herself, blanking the
world, pinching herself with claws. Pain forced her into her
present moment atop the watchtower, alone and cold beneath mocking
stars. She stared at Biter’s pocked face, so like an old meth
Wise female, considering her from the horizon.
    What had she done? That old female had been aware of her.
Marika’s fear redoubled as she recalled all the hints and
half-heard talk of her elders that had made her determine to keep
her talents hidden. She was certain many of her packmates would be
terribly upset if they learned what she could do. Pohsit only
suspected, and she wanted to kill . . . 
    Had she gone too far, touching that distant female? Had she
given herself away? Would there be repercussions?
    She returned to her furs and lay a long time staring at the logs
overhead, battling fear.
     
    The nomads came next morning. Everyone rushed to the stockade.
Even the toddlers, whimpering in their fright. Fear filled the
packstead with a stench the north wind did not carry away.
    There were about a hundred of the northerners, and they were as
ragged as Marika had pictured them. They made no effort to surprise
the packstead. That was impossible. They stood off and studied
it.
    The sky was overcast, but not so heavily that shafts of sunlight
did not break through and sweep over the white earth. Each time a
rushing finger of light passed over the nomads, it set the heads of
spears and arrows aglitter. There was much iron among them, and not
all were as careless of their weapons as had been the owner of the
axe Marika had sharpened for so long.
    Skiljan went around keeping heads down. She did not want the
nomads to get a good estimate of numbers.