Let the Utwychtan and the Teowynn come back north with the people, he said as though the thought had just occurred to him.
Michael shook his head.
Ringbone nodded to himself, and broke into one of his unaccustomed smiles. If—when—they came north again, they would find the tribe four days' walk west from the burnt village. It had been decided that it was better to face the Knights than the ForestFolk—and here his gaze did slide sideways for a second at the silent Mirkady.
'Dhanweyr moih,' he said finally. And Michael wished him good travelling in his turn. Then the fox man stood up in one swift movement and was gone, off to organize what was left of his people.
And so they melted away, not so much disappearing into the trees as dissolving. Forty souls in search of sanctuary. Michael got the feeling that he was watching an ancient ritual, oft repeated. It was as natural as the turning seasons that men should shift and move, seeking a better place. Even if it destroyed them.
It was quiet when the last of the Fox-People had gone. Michael, Cat, Mirkady and hulking Dwarmo moved up the slope of the valley, away from the stink of the dead and the smoke of the funeral pyre, and lit a fire of their own to boil water and tend their wounds.
Night swooped in on them. At the edge of the firelight Dwarmo stood tireless guard like some broad megalith whilst Mirkady sat listening to the wood noises, his long ears moving back and forth.
Michael and Cat drank infusions of wood poppy to deaden the pain and cleaned out each other's hurts with a heated knife. There would be scars, Michael knew as he treated the gashes on Cat's legs, and he mourned the marring of her perfection. She was as thin and hard as a greyhound and her breasts seemed meagre—dark nipple and very little else. He kissed her navel as she lay under the knife, and covered her over again.
'You need feeding, Cat.'
'What about you? With that beard you look like a half-starved prophet, though your shoulders are nearly as broad as Dwarmo's. Where did you get that size from?'
'It's in the bones.'
They ate reheated venison and forest onions along with some barley spirit that Ringbone had given Cat. Powerful stuff, it was precious to the tribe for it could only be obtained through trade with the villagers. It was clear, but smelled strongly of alcohol, like methylated spirits that had somehow been infused with a hint of corn and summer dust. They trickled some on their wounds, stiffening and grimacing at the pain, which made Mirkady chortle. He declined a drink, recalling for them the sweetness of the mead in his own howe.
They fed the fire as the night deepened, heavy cloud being blown in from the west to hide the stars and promise rain before morning. The trees tossed and turned uneasily in the wind, their tops undulating and swaying like the waves on a vast, dark sea. Their campfire was a tiny jewel, a bright pinhead in the midst of the forest murk, for the pyre had burned to ash now, and Ringbone's dead were being scattered through the air like a cloud of dark moths winging towards some distant light.
'So it is south you are headed,' Mirkady said at last, the humour gone from his voice. Michael nodded. His arms were full of Cat and he was resting his chin on the crown of her head. Her cold fingers were clasped over his.
'You have an idea, maybe, of the country you will be entering,' the Wyran went on. 'It is not named the Wolfweald for nothing. And wolves are the least of the things you will encounter in there. '
'We know,' Michael said firmly. He thought Cat shuddered in his embrace, and hugged her tighter.
'Do you now? ... Sister Catherine, you know. You have heard the stories. Can you not talk this man out of madness? Cat leaned forward from Michael's arms and poked at the fire with a stick.
'There is no talking to him. He has a quest in mind and means to follow it.' There was a sort of weary bitterness in her tone.
'The kinswoman taken by the Horseman. I see. So you hope to find her, Utwychtan.'
Michael did not speak.
'Let me tell you a story, Farsider, an old one your lady might not know. Like all the best tales it is a true one, and it may yet give you an idea of what you are clamouring to get into.
'Some years ago—nine times fifty or less, which is a raindrop in a storm to the Wildwood—the Brothers took it upon themselves to convert the men in the wood to their way of thinking, and they sent out missions to the outlying villages. The villagers were easy to win over, for the crosses and holy words of the Brothers kept the beasts at bay. And so the men who are now of the tribes, though they were called Myrcans in the beginning, these men who had been the guardians of the villagers were left purposeless. They were and are a proud people, and when they saw they were no longer wanted or needed, they drew apart from those who had once been their wards. The people began to mistrust them, for they were warriors without compare in those days, consummate soldiers whom even the Wyrim respected. They were ostracized and degenerated into the wandering folk we know now.