She found Zamberlin waiting there, almost hiding in a shadow. "Where have you been?" he demanded. He did not await an answer. "You better get straight to Dam before anyone sees you."

"What in the world?" She could see he was shaken, that he was frightened, but not for himself. "What's happened, Zambi?"

"Better see Dam. Pohsit claims you tried to murder her."

"What?" She was not afraid at first, just astonished.

"She says you pushed her off Stapen Rock."

Fear came. But it was not fear for herself. If someone had pushed Pohsit, it must have been ...

"Where is Dam?"

"By the doorway of Gerrien's loghouse. I think she's waiting for you. Don't tell her I warned you."

"Don't worry." Marika marched into the packstead, disposed of her burden at the first woodpile, spied her dam, went straight over. She was frightened now, but still much more for Kublin than for herself. "Dam?"

"Where have you been, Marika?"

"In the woods."

"Where in the woods?"

"Out by Machen Cave."

That startled Skiljan. "What were you doing out there?"

"I go there sometimes. When I want to think. Nobody else ever goes. I found some hennal."

Skiljan squinted at her. "You did not pass near Stapen Rock?"

"No, Dam. I have heard what Pohsit claims. Pohsit is mad, you know. She has been trying-"

"I know what she has been trying, pup. Did you decide you were a huntress and would get her before she got you?"

"No, Dam."

Skiljan's eyes narrowed. Marika thought her dam believed her, but also suspected she might know something she would not admit.

"Dam?"

"Yes?"

"If I may speak? I would suggest a huntress of Grauel's skill backtrack my scent."

"That will not be necessary. I am confident that you had nothing to do with it."

"Was she really hurt, Dam? Or just pretending?"

"Half and half. There is no doubt she took a fall. But she was able to walk home and raise a stink. A very inept murder attempt if it was such. I am inclined to think she was clumsy. Though what a meth her age was doing trying to climb Stapen Rock is beyond me. Go now. Stay away from Pohsit for a few days."

"Yes, Dam."

Marika went looking for Kublin immediately. She found him where she had left him. She started to snarl, but before he even looked up he asked, in a voice no one else could hear, "How could you do such a bad job of it, Marika? Why didn't you mash her head with a boulder while she was down, or something?"

Marika gulped. Kublin thought she had done it? Confused, she mumbled something about having had nothing to do with Pohsit's fall. She withdrew.

Not till next day did she become suspicious. By then trails and evidences were impossible to find. And Kublin adamantly denied having had anything to do with it himself, though Marika was able to isolate a period when no one had seen him around the 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.

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. The packstead looked small because its stockade had been built close to the loghouses. Let them think the packstead weaker than it was. They might do something foolhardy and find their backs broken before they learned the truth.

Marika did not find that reasonable thinking. The nomad leaders would have questioned meth from captured packsteads, wouldn't they? Surely they would have learned something about the Degnan packstead.

She gave them too much credit. They seemed wholly ignorant. After a few hours of watching, circling, little rushes toward the stockade by small groups trying to draw a response, a party of five approached the gate slowly, looking to parlay. An old male continued a few steps more after the other four halted. Speaking with an accent which made him almost incomprehensible, he called out, "Evacuate this packstead. Surrender your fortunes to the Shaw. Become one with the Shaw in body and wealth, and none of you will be harmed."