Glen Cook - Darkwar 1 - Doomstalker

Doomstalker

by Glen Cook

Book One of The Darkwar Trilogy

BOOK ONE:

THE PACKSTEAD

Chapter One

I

It was the worst winter in memory. Even the Wise conceded that early

on. The snows came out of the Zhotak early, and by Manestar Morning

they stood several paws deep. They came on bitter winds that found

every crack and chink in the Degnan loghouses till in frustration the

older females ordered the males out to cover the curved roofs with

blocks of sod. The males strove valiantly, but the ice-teethed wind

had devoured the warmth of the ground. The earth would not yield to

their tools. They tried packing the roofs with snow, but the

ceaseless wind carried that away. The ranks of firewood dwindled at

an alarming rate.

It was customary for the young of the pack to roam the nearby hills

in seach of deadwood when they had no other chores, but this bitter

winter the Wise whispered into the ears of the huntresses, and the

huntresses ordered the pups to remain within sight of the packstead

palisade. The pups sensed the change and were uneasy.

Nobody said the word "grauken." The old, terrible stories were put

aside. Nobody wanted to frighten the little ones. But the adults all

knew weather like this conjured the beast lying so near the surface

of the meth.

Game would be scarce on the Zhotak. The nomad packs of the northland

would exhaust their stored food early. They would come south before

long. Some did even during the milder winters, stealing where they

could, fighting if they had to to seize the fruits of the labors of

their sedentary cousins.

And in the terrible winters -- as this promised to become -- they

even carried off young pups. Among meth, in the heart of the great

winter, hunger knew no restraint.

In the fireside tales the grauken was a slavering beast of shadowed

forests and rocky hills that lay in wait for careless pups. In life,

the grauken was the hunger that betrayed civilization and reason. The

Degnan Wise whispered to the huntresses. They wanted the young to

develop the habit of staying close and alert long before the grauken

came snarling up from its dark place of hiding.

Thus, another burden fell upon the harried males. They ventured out

in armed parties, seeking firewood and long, straight logs suitable

for construction. To their customary exhausting duties were added the

extension and strengthening of the spiral stockade of needle-pointed

logs and the bringing of snow into the loghouses to melt. The water

produced, they returned to the cold, where they poured it into forms

and froze it into blocks. With these ice cakes they sheathed the

exteriors of the loghouses, bit by bit.

This winter's wind was like none the pack had ever known. Even the

Chronicle did not recall its like. Never did it cease its bicker and

howl. It became so cold the snow no longer fell. Who dared take a

metal tool into a bare paw risked losing skin. Incautious pups

suffered frostbitten muzzles. Fear glimmered in the eyes of the Wise

as they bent their toothless heads together by the fires and muttered

of signs and evil portents. The sagan, the wisest of the Wise, burned

incense and made sacrifice daily. All the time she was awake her

shaky, pain-deformed old paws wove powerful fetishes and banes to

mount over the entrances to the loghouses. She commanded ceremonies

of propitiation.

And the wind continued to blow. And the winter grew more cold. And

the shadow of fear trickled into the bravest of hearts.

Huntresses found unfamiliar meth tracks just a few hours away from

the packstead, up near the boundary with the Laspe hunting grounds.

They might have been made by Laspe huntresses ranging out of their

territory, seeking what small game did not hibernate. But the snow

held no scent. Fears of the worst became haunting. Could it be that

savages from the north were scouting the upper Ponath already?

Remnants of an old fire were found at Machen Cave, not far north of

the packstead. Even in winter only the brave, the desperate, or the

foolish nighted over in Machen Cave. The Laspe, or any other of the

neighbors, would have traveled on by night rather than have sheltered

there. So the Wise whispered and the huntresses murmured to one

another. Those who knew the upper Ponath knew that darkness dwelt

within Machen Cave.

II

Marika, Skiljan's pup, reached her tenth birthday during the worst of

winters, when the fear lurked in the corners of her dam's loghouse

like shadows out of the old stories the old females no longer told.

She and the surviving pups of her litter, Kublin and Zamberlin, tried

to celebrate the event in traditional pup fashion, but there was no

breaking the gloom of their elders.

Skits drawn from folklore were customary. But Marika and Kublin had

created their own tale of adventure, and over the protests of

conservative Zamberlin, had rehearsed it for weeks. Marika and Kublin

believed they would astonish their elders, Zamberlin that they would

offend the hidebound Wise. In the event, only their dam proved

insufficiently distracted to follow their story. All their

expectations were disappointed. They tried flute and drums. Marika

had a talent for the flute, and Zamberlin enthusiasm on the skins.

Kublin tried to sing.

One of the old females snarled at the racket. They failed to stop

sufficiently soon. Skiljan had to interpose herself between the old

female and the pups.

The pups tried juggling, for which Marika had an exceptional talent.

In summertime the old females always watched and cooed in amazement.

She seemed able to command the balls in the air. But now even their

dam showed no interest.

Desolate, the pups slinked into a corner and huddled for warmth. The

chill was as much of the heart as of the flesh.

In any other season their elders would have snapped at them, telling

them they were too old for such foolishness. In this dread season the

old ignored the young, and the young stayed out of the path of the

old, for tempers were short and civilization's edge lay very near the

surface. A meth who slipped over could kill. They were a race with

only the most tenuous grasp on civilized behavior.

Marika huddled with her littermates, feeling the rapid patter of

their hearts. She stared through the smoky gloom at her elders.

Kublin whimpered softly. He was very frightened. He was not strong.

He was old enough to know that in the hard winters weakling males

sometimes had to go.

In name the loghouse was Skiljan's Loghouse -- for Marika's dam --

though she shared it with a dozen sisters, their males, several older

females, and all their pups. Skiljan commanded by right of skill and

strength, as her dam had before her. She was the best huntress of the

pack. She ranked second in physical endurance and strength, and first

in will. She was among the smartest Degnan females. These being the

qualities by which wilderness meth survived, she was honored by all

who shared her loghouse. Even the old females deferred when she

commanded, though it was seldom she ignored their advice. The Wise

had more experience and could see behind veils youth drew across the

eyes. In the councils of the packstead she spoke second only to

Gerrien.

There were six similar loghouses in the Degnan packstead. None new

had been erected within living memory. Each was a half cylinder lying

on its side, ninety feet long and a dozen high, twenty-five wide. The

south end, where the entrance was, was flat, facing away from

winter's winds. The north end was a tapering cone covering a root

cellar, providing storage, breaking the teeth of the wind. A loft

hung six feet above the ground floor, half a foot above the average

height of an adult meth female. The young slept up there in the

warmth, and much that had to be stored was tucked away in the loft's

dark crannies and recesses. The loft was a time vault, more

interesting than the Chronicle in what it told of the Degnan past.

Marika and Kublin passed many a loving hour probing the shadows,

disturbing vermin, sometimes bringing to light treasures lost or

forgotten for generations.

The loghouse floor was earth hammered hard by generations of feet. It

was covered with skins where the adults slept in clumps, males to the

north, old females between the two central firepits, females of

breeding age to the south, nearest the door. The sides of the

loghouse were piled with firewood and tools, weapons, possessions,

and such food stores as were not kept in the unheated point of the

structure. All this formed an additional barrier against the cold.

A jungle of foods, skins, whatnots hung from the joists supporting

the loft, making any passage through the loghouse tortuous and

interesting.

And the smells! Over all was the rich smell of smoke, for smoke found

little escape in winter, when warmth was precious. Then there was the

smell of unwashed bodies, and of the hanging sausages, fruits,

vegetables. In summer the Degnan pack spent little time indoors,

fleeing the thick, rank interior for sleep under the stars. In summer

adult meth spoke longingly of the freedom enjoyed by the nomadic meth

of the Zhotak, who were not tied to such pungent spirit traps. (The

nomads believed built houses held one's spirit prisoner. They

sheltered in caves or pitched temporary hide tents.) But when the ice

wind began to moan out of the Zhotak, old folks lost that longing.

Settled meth, who raised a few scrawny vegetables and grains and who

gleaned the forests for game and fruits that could be dried and

preserved, survived the winters far more handily than their footloose

cousins.

"Marika!" old Zertan snapped. "Come here, pup."

Marika shivered as she disentangled herself from her littermates. Her

dam's dam was called Carque by all the pups of the packstead -- a

carque being a rapacious flyer of exceedingly foul temper. Zertan had

bad teeth. They pained her constantly, but she would not have them

pulled and refused to drink goyin tea. She was a little senile and a

lot crazy and was afraid that enemies long dead would steal up on her

if she risked the drowsiness caused by the analgesic tea.

Her contemporaries called her Rhelat -- behind her back. The rhelat

was a carrion eater. It had been known to kill things and wait for

them to ripen. Zertan's rotten teeth gave her particularly foul

breath.

Marika presented herself, head lowered dutifully.

"Pup, run to Gerrien's loghouse. Fetch me those needles Borget

promised me."

"Yes, Granddam." Marika turned, caught her dam's eye. What should she

do? Borget was dead a month. Anyway, she had been too feeble to make

needles for longer than Marika could remember.

Granddam was losing her grip on time again. Soon she would forget who

everyone was and begin seeing and talking to meth dead for a

generation.

Skiljan nodded toward the doorway. A pretense would be made. "I have

something you can take to Gerrien, since you are going." So the trip

would not be a waste.

Marika shrugged into her heavy skin coat and the boots with otec fur

inside, waited near the doorway. Zertan watched as if some cunning

part of her knew the quest was fabulous, but insisted Marika punish

herself in the cold anyway. Because she was young? Or was Zertan

grasping for a whiff of the power that had been hers when the

loghouse had carried her name?

Skiljan brought a sack of stone arrowheads, the sort used for

everyday hunting. The females of her loghouse were skilled flakers.

In each loghouse, meth occupied themselves with crafts through the

long winters. "Tell Gerrien we need these set to shafts."

"Yes, Dam." Marika slipped through heavy hangings that kept the cold

from roaring in when the doorway was open. She stood for a moment

with paw upon the latch before pushing into the cold. Zertan. Maybe

they ought to rid themselves of crazy old females instead of pups,

she thought. Kublin was far more useful than was Granddam. Granddam

no longer contributed anything but complaint.

She drew a last deep, smoky breath, then stepped into the gale. Her

eyes watered instantly. Head down, she trudged across the central

square. If she hurried she could make it before she started

shivering.

The Degnan loghouses stood in two ranks of three, one north, one

south, with fifty feet of open space between ranks. Skiljan's

loghouse was the middle one in the northern rank, flanked by those of

Dorlaque and Logusz. Gerrien's was the end loghouse on Marika's left

as she faced south. Meth named Foehse and Kuzmic ruled the center and

right loghouses, respectively. Seldom did any but Gerrien have much

impact on Marika's life. Gerrien and Skiljan had been both friends

and competitors since they were pups.

The packstead stockade, and the lean-tos clutching its skirts, clung

close to the outer loghouses and spiraled around the packstead twice.

Any raider would have to come in through a yard-wide channel, all the

way around, to reach her goal. Unlike some neighboring packs, the

Degnan made no effort to enclose their gardens and fields. Threats

came during winter anyway. Decision had been made in the days-of-

building to trade the risk of siege in growing time for the advantage

of having to defend a shorter palisade.

The square between loghouse ranks seemed so barren, so naked this

time of year. In summer it was always loosely controlled chaos, with

game being salted, hides being tanned, pups running wild.

Six loghouses. The Degnan packstead was the biggest in this part of

the upper Ponath, and the richest. Their neighbors envied them. But

Marika, whose head was filled with dreams, did not feel wealthy. She

was miserable most of the time, feeling deprived by birth.

In the south there were places called cities, tradermales said.

Places where they made the precious iron tools the Wise accepted in

exchange for otec furs. Places where many packs lived together in

houses built not of logs but of stone. Places where winter's breath

was ever so much lighter, and the stone houses turned the cold with

ease. Places that, just by being elsewhere, by definition would be

better than here.

Many an hour had she and Kublin passed dreaming aloud of what it

would be like to live there.

Tradermales also told of a stone place called a packfast, which stood

just three days down the nearby river, where that joined another to

become the Hainlin, a river celebrated in the Chronicle as the guide

which the Degnan had followed into the upper Ponath in ancient times.

Tradermales said a real road started below the packfast, and wound

through mountains and plains southward to great cities whose names

Marika could never recall.

Marika's dam had been to that stone packfast several times. Each year

the great ones who dwelt there summoned the leading females of the

upper Ponath. Skiljan would be gone for ten days. It was said there

were ceremonies and payments of tribute, but about none of that would

Skiljan speak, except to mutter under her breath, "Silth bitches,"

and say, "In time, Marika. In due time. It is not a thing to be

rushed." Skiljan was not one to frighten, yet she seemed afraid to

have her pups visit.

Other pups, younger than Marika, had gone last summer, returning with

tales of wonder, thrilled to have something about which to brag. But

Skiljan would not yield. Already she and Marika had clashed about the

summer to come.

Marika realized she had stopped moving, was standing in the wind and

shivering. Dreamer, the huntresses and Wise called her mockingly --

and sometimes, when they thought she was not attentive, with little

side glances larded with uncertainty or fright -- and they were

right. It was a good thing pups were not permitted into the forest

now. Her dreaming had become uncontrolled. She would find some early

frostflower or pretty creekside pebble and the grauken would get her

while she contemplated its beauty.

She entered Gerrien's loghouse. Its interior was very like Skiljan's.

The odors were a touch different. Gerrien housed more males, and the

wintertime crafts of her loghouse all involved woodworking. Logusz's

loghouse always smelled worst. Her meth were mainly tanners and

leather workers.

Marika stood before the windskins, waiting to be recognized. It was

but a moment before Gerrien sent a pup to investigate. This was a

loghouse more relaxed than that ruled by Skiljan. There was more

merriment here, always, and more happiness. Gerriaen was not

intimidated by the hard life of the upper Ponath. She took what came

and refused to battle the future before it arrived. Marika sometimes

wished she had been whelped by cheerful Gerrien instead of brooding

Skiljan.

"What?" demanded Solfrank, a male two years her elder, almost ready

for the rites of adulthood, which would compel him to depart the

packstead and wander the upper Ponath in search of a pack that would

take him in. His chances were excellent. Degnan males took with them

envied education and skills.

Marika did not like Solfrank. The dislike was mutual. It extended

back years, to a time when the male had thought his age advantage

more than overbalanced his sexual handicap. He had bullied; Marika

had refused to yield; young teeth had been bared; the older pup had

been forced to submit. Solfrank never would forgive her the

humiliation. The grudge was well-known. It was a stain he would bear

with him in his search for a new pack.

"Dam sends me with two score and ten arrowheads ready for the

shaft." Marika bared teeth slightly. A hint of mockery, a hint of I-

dare-you. "Granddam wants the needles Borget promised."

Marika reflected that Kublin liked Solfrank. When he was not tagging

after her, he trotted around after Gerrien's whelp -- and brought

back all the corrupt ideas Solfrank whispered in his ear. At least

Zamberlin knew him for what he was and viewed him with due contempt.

Solfrank bared his teeth, pleasured by further evidence that those

who dwelt in Skiljan's loghouse were mad. "I'll tell Dam."

In minutes Marika clutched a bundle of ready arrows. Gerrien herself

brought a small piece of fine skin in which she had wrapped several

bone needles. "These were Borget's. Tell Skiljan we will want them

back."

Not the iron needles. The iron were too precious. But . . . Marika

did not understand till she was outside again.

Gerrien did not expect Zertan to live much longer. These few needles,

which had belonged to her sometime friend -- and as often in council,

enemy -- might pleasure her in her failing days. Though she did not

like her granddam, a tear formed in the corner of Marika's eye. It

froze quickly and stung, and she brushed at it irritably with a

heavily gloved paw.

She was just three steps from home when she heard the cry on the

wind, faint and far and almost indiscernible. She had not heard such

a cry before, but she knew it instantly. That was the cry of a meth

in sudden pain.

Degnan huntresses were out, as they were every day when time were

hard. Males were out seeking deadwood. There might be trouble. She

hurried inside and did not wait to be recognized before she started

babbling. "It came from the direction of Machen Cave," she concluded,

shuddering. She was afraid of Machen Cave.

Skiljan exchanged looks with her lieutenants. "Up the ladder now,

pup," she said. "Up the ladder."

"But Dam . . . " Marika wilted before a fierce look. She scurried up

the ladder. The other pups greeted her with questions. She ignored

them, huddled with Kublin. "It came from the direction of Machen

Cave."

"That's miles away," Kublin reminded.

"I know." Maybe she had imagined the cry. Dreamed it. "But it came

from that direction. That's all I said. I didn't claim it came from

the cave."

Kublin shivered. He said nothing more. Neither did Marika.

They were very afraid of Machen Cave, those pups. They believed they

had been given reason.

III

It had been high summer, a time when danger was all of one's own

making. Pups were allowed free run of forest and hill, that they

might come to know their pack's territory. Their work and play were

all shaped to teach skills adults would need to survive to raise

their own pups.

Marika almost always ran with her littermates, especially Kublin.

Zamberlin seldom did anything not required of him.

Kublin, though, hadn't Marika's stamina, strength, or nerve. She

sometimes became impatient with him. In her crueler moments she would

hide and force him to find his own way. He did so whining,

complaining, sullenly, and slow, but he always managed. He was

capable enough at his own pace.

North and east of the packstead stood Stapen Rock, a bizarre basalt

upthrust the early Wise designated as spiritually and ritually

significant. At Stapen Rock the Wise communed with the spirits of the

forest and made offerings meant to assure good hunting, rich mast

crops, fat and juicy berries, and a plentitude of chote. Chote being

a knee-high plant edible in leaf, fruit, and fat, sweet, tuberous

root. The root would store indefinitely in a dark, cool, dry place.

Stapen Rock was the chief of five such natural shrines recalling old

Degnan animistic traditions. Others were dedicated to the spirits of

air and water, fire and the underworld. The All itself, supercessor

of the old way, was sanctified within the loghouses themselves.

Machen Cave, gateway to the world below, centered the shadowed side

of life. Pohsit, sagan in Skiljan's loghouse, and her like visited

Machen Cave regularly, propitiating shadows and the dead, refreshing

spells which bound the gateway against those.

The Degnan were not superstitious by the standards of the Ponath, but

in the case of shadows no offering was spared to avert baleful

influences. The spells sealing the cave were always numerous and

fresh.

Marika played a game with herself and Kublin, one that stretched

their courage. It required them to approach the fane nearer than fear

would permit. Timid, Kublin remained ever close to her when they ran

the woods. If, perforce, he went with her.

Marika had been playing that game for three summers. In the summer

before the great winter, though, it ceased being pup play.

As always, Kublin was reluctant. At a respectful distance he began,

"Marika, I'm tired. Can we go home now?"

"It's just the middle of the afternoon, Kublin. Are you an infant

that needs a nap?" Then distraction. "Oh. Look."

She had spotted a patch of chote, thick among old leaves on a ravine

bank facing northward. Chote grew best where it received little

direct sunlight. It was an ephemeral plant, springing up, flowering,

fruiting, and wilting all within thirty days. A patch this lush could

not have gone unnoticed. In fact, it would have been there for years.

But she would report it. Pups were expected to report discoveries. If

nothing else, such reports revealed how well they knew their

territory.

She forgot the cave. She searched for those plants with two double-

paw-sized leaves instead of one. The female chote fruited on a short

stem growing from the crotch where the leaf stems joined. "Here's

one. Not ripe. This one's not ripe either."

Kublin found the first ripe fruit, a one-by-one-and-a-half-inch ovoid

a pale greenish yellow beginning to show spots of brown. "Here." He

held it up.

Marika found another a moment later. She bit a hole, sucked tangy,

acid juice, then split the shell of the fruit. She removed the seeds,

which she buried immediately. There was little meat to chote fruit,

and that with an unpalatable bitterness near the skin. She scraped

the better part carefully with a small stone knife. The long meth jaw

and carnivore teeth made getting the meat with the mouth impossible.

Kublin seemed determined to devour every fruit in the patch. Marika

concluded he was stalling. "Come on."

She wished Zamberlin had come. Kublin was less balky then. But

Zamberlin was running with friends this year, and those friends had

no use for Kublin, who could not maintain their pace.

They were growing apart. Marika did not like that, though she knew

there was no avoiding it. In a few years they would assume adult

roles. Then Zambi and Kub would be gone entirely . . .

Poor Kublin. And a mind was of no value in a male.

Across a trickle of a creek, up a slope, across a small meadow, down

the wooded slope bordering a larger creek, and downstream a third of

a mile. There the creek skirted the hip of a substantial hill, the

first of those that rose to become the Zhotak. Marika settled on her

haunches a hundred feet from the stream and thirty above its level.

She stared at the shadow among brush and rocks opposite that marked

the mouth of the cave. Kublin settled beside her, breathing rapidly

though she had not set a hard pace.

There were times when even she was impatient with his lack of

stamina.

Sunlight slanted down through the leaves, illuminating blossoms of

white, yellow, and pale red. Winged things flitted from branch to

branch through the dapple of sunlight and shadow, seeming to flicker

in and out of existence. Some light fell near the cave mouth, but did

nothing to illuminate its interior.

Marika never had approached closer than the near bank of the creek.

From there, or where she squatted now, she could discern nothing but

the glob of darkness. Even the propitiary altar was invisible.

It was said that meth of the south mocked their more primitive

cousins for appeasing spirits that would ignore them in any case.

Even among the Degnan there were those who took only the All

seriously. But even they attended ceremonies. Just in case. Ponath

meth seldom took chances.

Marika had heard that the nomad packs of the Zhotak practiced

animistic rites which postulated dark and light spirits, gods and

devils, in everything. Even rocks.

Kublin had his breath. Marika rose. Sliding, she descended to the

creek. Kublin followed tautly. He was frightened, but he did not

protest, not even when she leapt the stream. He followed. For once he

seemed determined to outgut her.

Something stirred within Marika as she stared upslope. From where she

stood the sole evidence of the cave's presence was a trickle of mossy

water on slick stone, coming from above. In some seasons a stream

poured out of the cave.

She searched within herself, trying to identify that feeling. She

could not. It was almost as if she had eaten something that left her

slightly irritable, as though there was a buzzing in her nerves. She

did not connect it with the cavern. Never before had she felt

anything but fear when nearby. She glanced at Kublin. He now seemed

more restless than frightened. "Well?"

Kublin bared his teeth. The expression was meant to be challenging.

"Want me to go first?"

Marika took a couple of steps, looked upslope again. Nothing to see.

Brush still masked the cave.

Three more steps.

"Marika."

She glanced back. Kublin looked disturbed, but not in the usual way.

"What?"

"There's something in there."

Marika waited for an explanation. She did not mock. Sometimes he

could tell things that he could not see. As could she . . . He

quivered. She looked inside for what she felt. But she could not find

it.

She did feel a presence. It had nothing to do with the cave. "Sit

down," she said softly.

"Why?"

"Because I want to get lower, so I can look through the brush.

Somebody is watching. I don't want them to know we know they're

there."

He did as she asked. He trusted her. She watched over him.

"It's Pohsit," Marika said, now recalling a repeated unconscious

sense of being observed. The feeling had left her more wary than she

realized. "She's following us again."

Kublin's immediate response was that of any pup. "We can outrun her.

She's so old."

"Then she'd know we'd seen her." Marika sat there awhile, trying to

reason out why the sagan followed them. It had to be cruel work for

one as old as she. Nothing rational came to mind. "Let's just pretend

she isn't there. Come on."

They had taken four steps when Kublin snagged her paw. "There is

something in there, Marika."

Again Marika tried to feel it. This sense she had, which had betrayed

Pohsit to her, was not reliable. Or perhaps it depended too much upon

expectation. She expected a large animal, a direct physical danger.

She sensed nothing of the sort. "I don't feel anything."

Kublin made a soft sound of exasperation. Usually it was the other

way around, Marika trying to explain something sensed while he

remained blind to it.

Why did Pohsit follow them around? She did not even like them. She

was always saying bad things to Dam. Once again Marika tried to see

the old meth with that unreliable sense for which she had no name.

Alien thoughts flooded her mind. She gasped, reeled, closed them out.

"Kublin!"

Her littermate was staring toward the mouth of the cave, jaw

restless. "What?"

"I just . . . " She was not sure what she had done. She had no

referents. Nothing like it had happened before. "I think I just heard

Pohsit thinking."

"You what?"

"I heard what she was thinking. About us -- about me. She's scared of

me. She thinks I'm a witch of some kind."

"What are you talking about?"

"I was thinking about Pohsit. Wondering why she's always following

us. I reached out like I can sometimes, and all of a sudden I heard

her thinking. I was inside her head, Kublin. Or she was inside mine.

I'm scared."

Kublin did not seem afraid, which amazed Marika. He asked, "What was

she thinking?"

"I told you. She's sure I'm some kind of witch. A devil or something.

She was thinking about having tried to get the Wise to . . . to . . .

" That entered her conscious mind for the first time.

Pohsit was so frightened that she wanted Marika slain or expelled

from the packstead. "Kublin, she wants to kill me. She's looking for

evidence that will convince Dam and the Wise." Especially the Wise.

They could overrule Skiljan if they were sufficiently determined.

Kublin was an odd one. Faced with a concrete problem, a solid danger,

he could clear his mind of fright and turn his intellect upon the

Glen Cook - Darkwar 1 - Doomstalker

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