She was urging the laggards on, running back and forth and chivvying them along, but it made little difference to the overall speed of the strung-out column of trudging fisher-folk, who were nearly all much more at home on a boat’s deck than land.
Ferin closed up to where Karrilke was striding along between her son Tolther and an older yellow-bearded man who wore a sleeveless leather jerkin with studded wrist bracers, displaying sinewy, muscled arms. He had a double-bladed axe slung across the heavy pack on his back, and a long knife thrust through his belt.
“Captain,” said Ferin, “this won’t work. The wood-weirds can run as fast as a cantering horse, and we have too short a start. They’ll catch us in the open.”
“I know,” said Karrilke heavily. “I’d planned to get to where the road turns south; there’s an old watchtower, built over the estuary there for defense against the Dead. It is large enough to shelter us all and is high and strong. We could make a good stand there, against any odds. But as you say, we go too slowly . . .”
Ferin looked ahead. She could see where the road began to turn behind the hill, but neither tower nor estuary. They had to be at least a league away, and the wood-weirds would catch them long before that. Even the shamans and witches would, for that matter. They might be horse nomads, but even the horse nomads could run when they needed to, much faster and for longer than these fisher-folk.
“I am the one they pursue,” said Ferin. “If I turn aside, they will follow me.”
Karrilke shook her head.
“No. You said your message is important, and it must truly be so for such a pursuit. Besides, you are our guest. It would be as if we gave you to them.”
It was Ferin’s turn to shake her head.
“I do not plan to be easily caught.”
She pointed across and up toward the northwestern hill of grey shale that rose to a razorback ridge, the ridge continuing in a twisting line as far as Ferin could see.
“There is a path along the ridge, up there, I think?”
“Yes,” said the axe-bearer next to Karrilke. “A very dangerous path. In some places the ridge is like a knife edge, and you can only pass at a crawl, gripping either side with hands and feet.”
“My husband, Swinther,” said Karrilke. She looked at him with a wry smile. “Who I trust has not gone that way since he was a boy, and was dared to take it, as they will.”
“If I go that way, I am sure they will follow,” said Ferin. “Wood-weirds do not go well along narrow ways, or on uncertain ground. There is much loose shale I can see from here, and even a wood-weird cannot survive a great fall.”
Karrilke hesitated.
“That would give us time to reach the tower . . .”
“You’ll need a guide,” said Swinther. He seemed to accept the idea immediately. “It looks straight enough from down here, but there are several false ridges, and if the cloud comes down you’ll be lost.”
“I don’t know . . .” murmured Karrilke.
“The lass is right,” said Swinther to his wife. He gestured at the long, straggling line. “They’ll speed up when the first few at the rear are slain, but it won’t make a difference. Not if these things are as fast as you say, Ferin. I’ll show you the way.”
“No, Pa,” interrupted Tolther. “Let me go!”
“Nay, lad,” said Swinther, tousling his hair. “You’ve not been past the first crest, have you?”
“I’ve been halfway along,” said Tolther. “Let me do it!”
“No,” said Swinther and Karrilke together. There was a moment of silence, then Karrilke added, “I’ll need your help, at the tower.”
Tolther looked away, face set in a scowl. Ferin restrained herself from shaking her head. The boy still didn’t realize this was a serious, life-or-death matter.
“We’ll need shields,” said Ferin. “The sorcerers won’t have bows, but their keepers will. And at least one of them has a good eye.”
“Best we have someone to shoot back as well,” said Swinther. He caught Ferin’s look of bridling indignation and added, “Besides yourself, I mean. Where’s Young Laska?”
“Up ahead,” said Karrilke. She filled her lungs and bawled out in her seagoing voice, honed to be heard over the fiercest gale, “Ahoy! Young Laska! You’re wanted!”
Up ahead, a middle-aged woman walking alongside a much older man looked behind, raised her hand, and came loping back. Her skin, hair, and clothes were so much all the same deep shade of brown she had the look overall of a deeply weathered old chestnut tree. Of greater interest to Ferin was the longbow on her back and a quiver of goosefeather-fletched arrows considerably longer than the ones the tribespeople used.
“Young Laska was with the Borderers for years, till she came home to make Old Laska’s dying comfortable—that’s her pa,” said Karrilke. “Only he’s taking a long time about it. She hunts still, and I believe is as good an archer as anyone could wish.”
“As for shields, we don’t have any as such,” said Swinther. He looked back along the line of stragglers, his eyes narrowing against the glare of the morning sun. “But there might be . . . I’ll be back. Keep walking on, I’ll catch you up again before we need to strike toward the ridge.”
He ran back the way they had come, moving easily, unlike most of his neighbors a man accustomed to a vigorous day outdoors, over hill and dale, cutting down trees and dragging heavy timber.
Young Laska arrived from the front at much the same time as Astilaran came hurrying up from farther back. The healer scowled at Ferin, who was carrying her pack again, made heavier by the fur she had packed away, as the day was now too warm for such a coat.
“I told you to rest as much as possible,” he said, talking as he matched his pace to hers. “Your foot is not better, my spell is merely holding back the pain and assisting your body to heal itself. Which it cannot do if you test yourself beyond enduring.”
“I cannot rest,” said Ferin. “The pursuit will soon begin in earnest, and I must lead the wood-weirds away from your people. After all, I was the one who brought them here.”
“What? What’s this?” asked Astilaran.
“I will take the ridge path, along the shale,” said Ferin, pointing. “They will follow me. You others will go on to take refuge in the tower.”
“You will break the spell!” protested Astilaran. “Climbing the shale . . . it is bound to stress the wound.”
“Ferin says the wood-weirds can run as fast as horses,” said Karrilke. She lifted her eyes to the rear of the slow column of villagers.
“Hmm,” said Astilaran. He looked back too, scratched his head and grimaced, his ever-present frown deepening even more. “We had best sort out some kind of rear guard. Megril alone would be overborne in moments. I recall a few spells that may be of use, I could probably deal with one or two of these creatures—”
“There are twelve wood-weirds,” said Ferin. “At least. Perhaps more. With the sorcerers who command them, and the keepers who watch the sorcerers. Your only chance is if they follow me, rather than you. On the shale, the wood-weirds may fall, the sorcerers too for that matter—”
“They may fall!” snorted Astilaran. “You certainly will when my spell fails and your foot gives way again. I do not like this.”
“It is a reasonable plan,” said Young Laska. She spoke with calm certainty. “The only one possible, given the circumstances. You called me back, Karrilke . . . is it to suggest I go with our visitor?”
“If you would,” said Karrilke. “Ferin, this is Young Laska.”
Ferin inclined her head, and received a similar movement in return.
“How far can you shoot that great bow?” asked Ferin.
“Up there, in the wind?” asked Young Laska. “Perhaps three hundred paces with any certainty of hitting what I aim at.”
“Better than I could manage with my bow, and the Yrus with theirs,” said Ferin. She was not sure Young Laska could be believed, for three hundred paces was more than half as much
again as far as she could shoot accurately with her own bow. But she had heard the southern longbows could send a shaft a great distance. Though she still thought it was too big and cumbersome for general use. You could never shoot such a bow from a horse, or up a tree, or from hiding.