Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [110]
“No, but I’ve tried everything else I can think of. And I won’t walk away from this.”
“No, you’re leaving that dirty job to me,” muttered Mari irritably. Hoharie returned her the sort of sharp shrug that indicated a lengthy argument concluded.
Hoharie went on, “I’ll set up a light link to you, Othan, and try for a glimpse inside the groundlock, then pull back. If I can’t disengage, you are to break with me instantly and not try to enter in after me, do you hear?” She caught her apprentice’s gaze and held it sternly. Othan gulped and nodded.
Fawn scrunched back in the litter of dry grass and dead leaves on Dag’s far side, wrapping her arms around her knees and trying to make herself small, so they wouldn’t notice and exclude her.
Hoharie paused, then said, “My knife is in my saddlebags, Mari, if it comes to that.”
“When should it come to it, Hoharie? Don’t leave me with that decision, too.”
“When the weakest start to die, I believe it will throw more strain on the rest. So it will go faster toward the end. That poor maker who died before Dag’s patrol arrived showed that such deaths won’t break the lock; if anything, it may grow more concentrated. I think…once two or more of the nine—no, ten—are down, then start the sharing. And you’ll just have to see what happens next.” She added after a moment, “Start with me, of course.”
“That,” said Mari distantly, “will be my turn to pick.”
Hoharie’s lips thinned. “Mm.”
“I don’t recommend this, Hoharie.”
“I hear you.”
Evidently not, because the medicine maker lowered herself cross-legged by the head of Dag’s bedroll, motioning Othan down beside her. He sat up on his knees. She straightened her spine and shut her eyes for a moment, seeming to center herself. She then took Othan’s hand with her left hand; there apparently followed another moment of invisible-to-Fawn ground adjustments. Without further hesitation, Hoharie’s right hand reached out and touched Dag’s forehead. Fawn thought she saw him grimace in his trance, but it was hard to be sure.
Then Hoharie’s eyes opened wide; with a yank, she pulled her hand from Othan’s and slammed the heel of it into his chest, pushing him over backward. Her eyes rolled up, her face drained of color and expression, and she slumped across Dag.
With a muted wail, Othan scrambled up and dove for her. Mari cursed and caught Othan from behind, wrapping her arms around his torso and trapping his hands. “No!” she yelled in his ear. “Obey her! Close up! Close up, blight you, boy!”
Othan strained against her briefly, then, with a choke of despair, sprawled back in her grip.
“Ten,” snarled Mari. “That’s it, that’s all we’re doing here. Not eleven, you hear?” She shook him.
Othan nodded dully, and she let him free. He leaned on his hands, staring at his unconscious mentor in horror.
“What did you feel?” Mari demanded of him. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “I—nothing useful, I don’t think. It was like I could feel her ground being pulled away from me, into the dark…!” He turned a distraught face to the patrol leader. “I didn’t let go, Mari, I didn’t! She pushed me away!”
“I saw, boy,” sighed Mari. “You did what you could.” Slowly, she stood up, and braced her legs apart and her hands on her hips, staring down at the two enspelled in their heap. “We’ll lay her out with the rest. She’s in there with them now; maybe she can do something different. If this thing was weakening with age, could we tell? If nothing else, she may have bought three more days of time.” Her voice fell to a savage mutter. “Except I don’t want more time. I want this to be over.”
Hoharie’s bedroll was placed under the ash tree close to Dag’s. Othan took up a cross-legged station of guard, or grief, on the opposite side to Fawn, who sat similarly beyond Dag. They didn’t much look at each other.
Toward sunset, Mari came and sat down between the two bedrolls.
“Blight you two,” she said conversationally to the unconscious pair, “for leaving this on me. This is company captain work, not patrol leader work. No fair slithering out of it, Dag my boy.” She looked