Cook, Glen - Darkwar 01 - Doomstalker by Cook Glen

Author:Cook, Glen [Cook, Glen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1985-10-18T22:00:00+00:00

III

Nomads were no further problem. Enemies were not needed. Weather, hunger, increasing weakness due to exposure and short rations, those were enough to make the trek a misery. Marika took the travel better than her companions. She was young and resilient and not spending much energy pulling the travois.

Thus, when it came time to take shelter, the duty fell upon her. Grauel and Barlog were so exhausted they could do little but tend the fire and stir the pot — the pot that had so little to fill it. They snarled at one another for not having had sense enough to loot the nomads. The tall silth’s pointing out that the nomads had carried nothing but weapons did not soften the dispute.

Meth did not withstand hunger well. Already Marika felt the grauken stirring within her. She looked at the others. If it came to that desperate moment, upon whom would they turn? Her or the old silth?

They had been five days making a two-day journey. Marika asked the tall silth, “How far must we travel yet? Surely we must be very close.”

“Fifteen miles more,” the silth said. “A quarter of the way yet. The worst quarter. Five miles down we have to leave the river for the trails. There are many rapids where the river will not be frozen over.”

Fifteen miles. At the rate they had been progressing since the old one got hurt, that might mean three more days.

“Do not despair, pup,” the silth said. “I have put aside my pride and touched those who watch for us in Akard. They are coming to meet us.”

“How soon?” Grauel asked, her only contribution to the conversation.

“They are young and healthy and well fed. Not long.”

Not long proved to be a day and a half. Every possible thing that could go wrong did, including an avalanche which destroyed the trail and compelled a detour. The grauken looked out of every eye, needing only a nudge to tear free. But meet those other silth they did, eight miles from the packfast, and they celebrated with what for Marika was the feast of her young life.

After that the cold and snow should have been mere nuisances. A meth with a full belly was ready to challenge anything. But not so. They had been too long hungry and exposed. The slide toward extinction continued.

Marika did not see Akard from outside on arriving, for they approached the stone packfast under a heavily clouded sky at a time when no moons were up. The only hints of size and shape came from lights glimpsed only momentarily. But by then she was not interested in the place except as journey’s end. She half believed she would never make it there.

The journey from the Degnan packstead took ten nights, most spent covering the last twenty miles. For all she had food in her belly, Marika was exhausted, being half carried by the silth who had come to the rescue. And she was in better shape than any of her companions.

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