Chapter 4
Keeva was on the verge of tears. She and Sharno had become so cold and exhausted that they had wrapped their cloaks around themselves like blankets and lay down in the icy dead grass which seemed as prickly as stinging nettles, trying to get to sleep. But they couldn't. The harsh, cold wind had frozen Keeva's eyes open, and as she stared at the seething, roiling, stormy gray sky, tiny light snowflakes began drift downward. They stung Keeva's wide-open eyes, but Keeva barely noticed; every ounce of her force of will was bent upon staying alive, staying conscious. She dimly heard Sharno whisper hoarsely beside her, his strength nearly gone, "Look at the sky. This is no light snowfall. It's going to be a full-fledged storm. Unless some miracle happens, we're not going to survive it."
Keeva didn't reply. She tried to blink, tried to move some part of her body, tried to assure herself that she was alive and would remain so. Death was a Silverstar's worst fear. Even though the fox was not Silverstar born, she had been brought up with Silverstar customs, and therefore had the same fears and beliefs as the Silverstar. Keeva realized that thinking about these things, thinking hard about anything, took her mind off the pain and effort it took to cling to life. She did not know how long she spent, thinking furiously about everything she knew in the Silverstar, ignoring the wind shrieking like a wounded beast, the snowflakes dancing over her numb body. At some point Sharno must have slipped into unconsciousness beside her, because she vaguely remembered feeling his form fall limp inside his cloak and seeing his eyes close.
The next thing Keeva remembered clearly was a whiny voice calling, "There's a snowstorm brewin', mate. Brr, it's freezin'! If we don't find th' camp soon w'll die of cold!"
A similar voice, nearer to the fox and ferret, replied, "There've gotta be other shelters if we don't find it."
Keeva couldn't believe her snow-filled ears. Somebeast had come to rescue them! Maybe it was Thirafel, Maiko's mother, the squirrel who had taken them in and sheltered them, with a search party!
A weasel popped his head over the top of the hill, completely ruining Keeva's fantasy. His cruel eyes widened as they met Keeva's frozen ones. The weasel shouted over his shoulder, "Oy! Blewflit! Lookit wot I found! A frozen fox!" He climbed on top of the hill and saw Sharno. "And a frozen ferret! Wonder wot those idiots were doin' out in weather like this?
Blewflit climbed up the hill behind him, grumbling, "Huh, y' may as well ask wot we idiots were doin' out here in weather like this."
When he saw Keeva and Sharno, he grinned. "They're nice liddle 'uns. Ol' Ku- the Gray One," he checked himself, "He'll like 'em."
"He might," replied Warttail impatiently, "But even if he will, how're we goin' t' get 'em back to the camp? They might be liddle 'uns, but they're in no fit state to walk, and they're too heavy t' carry. We don' know the way back either."
"Why don't one of us go back t' look for the camp, while the other stays here by these two?" Blewflit suggested.
Keeva watched them arguing over who would stay on the hill in horror and amazement. It seemed hers and Sharno's lives would be saved, though they probably had very little chance of surviving in the paws of vermin. Again she tried desperately to move her numb body.
"Wake up and look around!" She managed to hiss at the unconscious form of Sharno.
He groaned slightly and opened his eyes a crack. He opened them more when he saw the two weasels. "We're going to die anyway, if they're our rescuers," he whispered.
It had been decided that since it was Blewflit's idea, he would stay on the hill. He didn't like this at all, but Warttail wouldn't agree to anything else. Warttail stood up and sniffed the air. His cruel features lit up with delight.
"Ha! I smell burnin'! That could mean only one thing! It must be nearby!" Blewflit slid down the hill quickly. "Where? Let's go!"
Warttail grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.
"Oh no, matey, yew ain't gettin' out of guardin' them that easily. Stay here."
"But- matey, don't leave me here where the ice spirits can get me."
"Ice spirits! Don't talk rubbish. Jest stay here with the fox an' ferret an' they won't harm you."
Keeva had decided that the safest thing to do would be to pretend she and Sharno were as cruel, ruthless, and uneducated as the two weasels. Travelers who visited the Silverstar were often hostile to them because foxes and ferrets were generally evil. Now Keeva could use that to her advantage.
"We've been here fer hours an' we haven't been bothered by no ice spirits," she said disdainfully, trying to imitate vermin slang.
"See Blewy, listen t' the vixen. I'm goin' now."
Blewflit sat down and gloomily watched Warttail leave.
"Some matey," he grumbled. "'Tain't fair, leavin' poor me at the mercy o' the ice spirits."
"That other weasel's right," said Sharno, catching on to Keeva's plan, "There's no such thing as ice spirits."
Blewflit glared at him. "Shuddup. Yore our prisoners now, until the Gray One sees fit t' let ye be hordebeasts. If he does."
Keeva wriggled around more. She noticed that the more she moved, the less frozen she became. The air, hard ground, and the snow that was now falling quite heavily were just as cold ever, more so, because the sun was blocked out the angry swirling black mass of storm clouds. But now there was a glint of hope that hadn't been there before, and that warmed both Keeva and Sharno as much as anything else.
Keeva sat up. "What's this 'Gray One' ye keep mentionin'?" she asked, trying to get as much information out of Blewflit ad she could.
"Yull find out soon enough, fox," Blewflit snapped, "'Tis bad luck t' say his name outside o' the camp. What're yew two's names anyway?"
"I'm Skublade and this is Ashard," Sharno invented quickly.
"All right, then," said Blewflit. "Now shuddup."
The storm had truly started and Keeva and Sharno were hugging each other again, shivering violently, by the time Warttail came back. Snowflakes clung to his greasy brown fur. The deep paw prints he had left in the already ankle-deep snow were swiftly filling, the storm making sure it looked as though no one had ever walked there. The wind pursued clouds of thick snow through the air, obscuring everything with swirling whiteness.
"I found it!" Warttail shrieked above the noise of the wind. "Follow me!"
Blewflit roughly grabbed Keeva and Sharno and hauled them up. They both gasped with pain as their stiff, cold limbs moved for the first time in hours.
"Move yer lazy behinds! Slowness'll be our deaths out 'ere!"
Blewflit ran after Warttail, dragging Keeva and Sharno along with him. They tried to move on their own, but their paws were too numb and frozen. The pair was dragged through the deepening snow, pulled over snowy hills, bumped over snow-covered rocks. Their world was snow, a barrage of snow-filled wind assaulting their unprotected faces again and again, the tiny sharp crystals of snow on the ground cutting into their bare paws, leaving bloody prints in the infinite snow. Somehow Sharno managed to pull himself upright and do the same for Keeva.
"There 'tis," said Warttail, stopping on top of a hill.
The camp was protected from the worst of the storm by the circle of hills. Sharno could see the silhouettes of hordebeasts crouched inside their grubby tents, and the miserable forms of the few unlucky enough to have had their tents destroyed by the storm curled up on the ground trying to keep as warm as possible. Sharno inwardly recoiled with distaste. The Silverstar liked having things clean, and despised almost anything as dirty as those tents.
Warttail and Blewflit, abandoning the fox and ferret, raced down to the rest of the horde. Keeva and Sharno followed, trying to keep their balance but ending up sliding down.
"Blewflit! Warttail! Where 'ave yew bin?" a rat called over to them. "Ol' Kuna wants t' see yew. He's gettin' impatient."
Both weasels went pale.
"Where is 'e, Ringorn?" Blewflit asked the rat hurriedly. "In 'is tent, as usual?"
Ringorn nodded. "Ye'd better hurry afore 'e gets too impatient."
Warttail grabbed Keeva and Sharno and pulled them towards a large clean blue silken tent. "C'mon, yew lucky liddle 'uns, yer in fer an appoin'ment with th' Gray One."
Even though neither Keeva nor Sharno had ever heard of the "Gray One" before, they both felt a little chill of fear they couldn't explain.
Kuna paced around his tent, oblivious to the raging storm and the misfortunes of his hordebeasts outside. Where in the name of seasons had those weasel scouts got to? The fox's ruthless dark-ice eyes flicked to a corner of the tent, where there was a polished mahogany table he had plundered from a settlement he had destroyed long ago. He reached under the table and undid a hidden latch. A secret drawer opened. Kuna Cherra took out ten razor-sharp metal hollow hooks and carefully fitted them onto his claws. Those weasels would get what they deserved. No beast was late for a meeting with the Gray One!
Kuna heard a voice outside call very quickly, "Mighty Lord Kuna Cherra, true lord of the Eastern Hills, we bring news!"
"You are permitted to enter my presence," Kuna replied slowly and evenly.
Immediately the tent flap was thrown aside and Warttail and Blewflit hurried in, half dragging, half carrying the still slightly frozen Keeva and Sharno. Kuna stared at them in silence.
"Lord," Warttail began respectfully, careful to talk as smoothly and carefully as he could, for Kuna Cherra did not like the slang he normally used, "We have knowledge that the Silverstar Maikolar has set out on her blademark quest. It is to gather information for the Great Library." Both he and the two friends gasped slightly, for different reasons. For the weasel it was talking like that, which always tired his voice, and for Keeva and Sharno it was the surprise that Warttail and Blewflit knew about Maiko's quest, that they knew what a blademark was at all. Swordspear customs weren't exactly deadly secret, but they were generally not told to anyone who didn't have a close connection with the Silverstar.
"The Silverstar," Warttail continued, "are not planning anything else big, and remain unaware of our presence."
"What are these?" Kuna asked tonelessly, pointing at the vixen and ferret with his gleaming metal claws.
Blewflit took over. "We found them on a hilltop, Lord," he reported, speaking as carefully as Warttail had. "They were frozen almost to death, and we thought you might want to train them to be hordebeasts. The fox is Ashard, and the ferret is Skublade."
The Gray One nodded. "You have done well. Here is your reward for being late."
Quick as lightning, Kuna Cherra slashed each weasel across the face hard and deep with his razor-sharp metal claws. The unfortunate scouts screamed and clutched at their mutilated faces, while dripping blood stained the perfect silk floor.
"Leave," Kuna Cherra commanded calmly, "before you ruin my tent any further."
Sobbing and wailing, Blewflit and Warttail stumbled off into the howling snowstorm outside.
Keeva and Sharno stared at Kuna, horrified. Sharno had sensed a sort of tenseness in the air from the start, almost as though the weasels had been expecting something like that to happen. Keeva now deeply regretted her decision to trick the scouts into thinking they would make good hordebeasts. She suspected that slow, painful death at the Gray One's claws would be a lot worst than death by freezing.
"I will always accept creatures into my horde, no matter how young," said Kuna, as though nothing had happened. "You will be expected fight, work, obey me, and say the correct Formalities like any of my beasts. Do this, and you will be rewarded. Shirk or idle, and you will be punished like my scouts." He paused and looked at them hard, his freezing eyes seeming to pierce into their very minds. "You will wonder what a Formality is. A Formality is the proper greeting to me at the right time and place, like the one my scouts said before they entered my tent. Thornlock will issue you weapons, instruct you in their proper uses, and teach you the Formalities."
A wildcat who had been sitting in the corner so still and silent that Keeva and Sharno hadn't noticed her at all leapt to her feet and said, "I am Thornlock, Lord Kuna Cherra's captain, second only to his noble self. Skublade, Ashard, come with me."
It was as the two friends were leaving the warm, dry tent for the cold, wet, whirling snow outside that Keeva noticed the swordspear shoved under the mahogany table. As many things as had shocked and horrified her before, none did as much as this. The only way Kuna could have gotten the swordspear would be to slay a Silverstar squirrel.
"A swordspear," she moaned to her friend. "That horrible villain had a swordspear under the table."
Sharno's eyes widened and a look of despair flitted across his face like the shadow of a moth across the moon before he composed himself and whispered, "The name, did you see the name?"
Keeva nodded. "Shazaneer," she replied solemnly.
"Keep up," snapped Thornlock's voice from somewhere ahead of them. "I don't want to be stuck out in the storm forever."
As the fox and ferret hurried along behind the wildcat, they silently wondered what cruel fate had forced them seek refuge in this horde of evil, heartless vermin.
That was when Sharno realized. "In the sacred tongue of the Silverstar," he whispered to Keeva so softly she could barely hear, " 'Kuna Cherra' means 'Power Seeker'."
Keeva was on the verge of tears. She and Sharno had become so cold and exhausted that they had wrapped their cloaks around themselves like blankets and lay down in the icy dead grass which seemed as prickly as stinging nettles, trying to get to sleep. But they couldn't. The harsh, cold wind had frozen Keeva's eyes open, and as she stared at the seething, roiling, stormy gray sky, tiny light snowflakes began drift downward. They stung Keeva's wide-open eyes, but Keeva barely noticed; every ounce of her force of will was bent upon staying alive, staying conscious. She dimly heard Sharno whisper hoarsely beside her, his strength nearly gone, "Look at the sky. This is no light snowfall. It's going to be a full-fledged storm. Unless some miracle happens, we're not going to survive it."
Keeva didn't reply. She tried to blink, tried to move some part of her body, tried to assure herself that she was alive and would remain so. Death was a Silverstar's worst fear. Even though the fox was not Silverstar born, she had been brought up with Silverstar customs, and therefore had the same fears and beliefs as the Silverstar. Keeva realized that thinking about these things, thinking hard about anything, took her mind off the pain and effort it took to cling to life. She did not know how long she spent, thinking furiously about everything she knew in the Silverstar, ignoring the wind shrieking like a wounded beast, the snowflakes dancing over her numb body. At some point Sharno must have slipped into unconsciousness beside her, because she vaguely remembered feeling his form fall limp inside his cloak and seeing his eyes close.
The next thing Keeva remembered clearly was a whiny voice calling, "There's a snowstorm brewin', mate. Brr, it's freezin'! If we don't find th' camp soon w'll die of cold!"
A similar voice, nearer to the fox and ferret, replied, "There've gotta be other shelters if we don't find it."
Keeva couldn't believe her snow-filled ears. Somebeast had come to rescue them! Maybe it was Thirafel, Maiko's mother, the squirrel who had taken them in and sheltered them, with a search party!
A weasel popped his head over the top of the hill, completely ruining Keeva's fantasy. His cruel eyes widened as they met Keeva's frozen ones. The weasel shouted over his shoulder, "Oy! Blewflit! Lookit wot I found! A frozen fox!" He climbed on top of the hill and saw Sharno. "And a frozen ferret! Wonder wot those idiots were doin' out in weather like this?
Blewflit climbed up the hill behind him, grumbling, "Huh, y' may as well ask wot we idiots were doin' out here in weather like this."
When he saw Keeva and Sharno, he grinned. "They're nice liddle 'uns. Ol' Ku- the Gray One," he checked himself, "He'll like 'em."
"He might," replied Warttail impatiently, "But even if he will, how're we goin' t' get 'em back to the camp? They might be liddle 'uns, but they're in no fit state to walk, and they're too heavy t' carry. We don' know the way back either."
"Why don't one of us go back t' look for the camp, while the other stays here by these two?" Blewflit suggested.
Keeva watched them arguing over who would stay on the hill in horror and amazement. It seemed hers and Sharno's lives would be saved, though they probably had very little chance of surviving in the paws of vermin. Again she tried desperately to move her numb body.
"Wake up and look around!" She managed to hiss at the unconscious form of Sharno.
He groaned slightly and opened his eyes a crack. He opened them more when he saw the two weasels. "We're going to die anyway, if they're our rescuers," he whispered.
It had been decided that since it was Blewflit's idea, he would stay on the hill. He didn't like this at all, but Warttail wouldn't agree to anything else. Warttail stood up and sniffed the air. His cruel features lit up with delight.
"Ha! I smell burnin'! That could mean only one thing! It must be nearby!" Blewflit slid down the hill quickly. "Where? Let's go!"
Warttail grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.
"Oh no, matey, yew ain't gettin' out of guardin' them that easily. Stay here."
"But- matey, don't leave me here where the ice spirits can get me."
"Ice spirits! Don't talk rubbish. Jest stay here with the fox an' ferret an' they won't harm you."
Keeva had decided that the safest thing to do would be to pretend she and Sharno were as cruel, ruthless, and uneducated as the two weasels. Travelers who visited the Silverstar were often hostile to them because foxes and ferrets were generally evil. Now Keeva could use that to her advantage.
"We've been here fer hours an' we haven't been bothered by no ice spirits," she said disdainfully, trying to imitate vermin slang.
"See Blewy, listen t' the vixen. I'm goin' now."
Blewflit sat down and gloomily watched Warttail leave.
"Some matey," he grumbled. "'Tain't fair, leavin' poor me at the mercy o' the ice spirits."
"That other weasel's right," said Sharno, catching on to Keeva's plan, "There's no such thing as ice spirits."
Blewflit glared at him. "Shuddup. Yore our prisoners now, until the Gray One sees fit t' let ye be hordebeasts. If he does."
Keeva wriggled around more. She noticed that the more she moved, the less frozen she became. The air, hard ground, and the snow that was now falling quite heavily were just as cold ever, more so, because the sun was blocked out the angry swirling black mass of storm clouds. But now there was a glint of hope that hadn't been there before, and that warmed both Keeva and Sharno as much as anything else.
Keeva sat up. "What's this 'Gray One' ye keep mentionin'?" she asked, trying to get as much information out of Blewflit ad she could.
"Yull find out soon enough, fox," Blewflit snapped, "'Tis bad luck t' say his name outside o' the camp. What're yew two's names anyway?"
"I'm Skublade and this is Ashard," Sharno invented quickly.
"All right, then," said Blewflit. "Now shuddup."
The storm had truly started and Keeva and Sharno were hugging each other again, shivering violently, by the time Warttail came back. Snowflakes clung to his greasy brown fur. The deep paw prints he had left in the already ankle-deep snow were swiftly filling, the storm making sure it looked as though no one had ever walked there. The wind pursued clouds of thick snow through the air, obscuring everything with swirling whiteness.
"I found it!" Warttail shrieked above the noise of the wind. "Follow me!"
Blewflit roughly grabbed Keeva and Sharno and hauled them up. They both gasped with pain as their stiff, cold limbs moved for the first time in hours.
"Move yer lazy behinds! Slowness'll be our deaths out 'ere!"
Blewflit ran after Warttail, dragging Keeva and Sharno along with him. They tried to move on their own, but their paws were too numb and frozen. The pair was dragged through the deepening snow, pulled over snowy hills, bumped over snow-covered rocks. Their world was snow, a barrage of snow-filled wind assaulting their unprotected faces again and again, the tiny sharp crystals of snow on the ground cutting into their bare paws, leaving bloody prints in the infinite snow. Somehow Sharno managed to pull himself upright and do the same for Keeva.
"There 'tis," said Warttail, stopping on top of a hill.
The camp was protected from the worst of the storm by the circle of hills. Sharno could see the silhouettes of hordebeasts crouched inside their grubby tents, and the miserable forms of the few unlucky enough to have had their tents destroyed by the storm curled up on the ground trying to keep as warm as possible. Sharno inwardly recoiled with distaste. The Silverstar liked having things clean, and despised almost anything as dirty as those tents.
Warttail and Blewflit, abandoning the fox and ferret, raced down to the rest of the horde. Keeva and Sharno followed, trying to keep their balance but ending up sliding down.
"Blewflit! Warttail! Where 'ave yew bin?" a rat called over to them. "Ol' Kuna wants t' see yew. He's gettin' impatient."
Both weasels went pale.
"Where is 'e, Ringorn?" Blewflit asked the rat hurriedly. "In 'is tent, as usual?"
Ringorn nodded. "Ye'd better hurry afore 'e gets too impatient."
Warttail grabbed Keeva and Sharno and pulled them towards a large clean blue silken tent. "C'mon, yew lucky liddle 'uns, yer in fer an appoin'ment with th' Gray One."
Even though neither Keeva nor Sharno had ever heard of the "Gray One" before, they both felt a little chill of fear they couldn't explain.
Kuna paced around his tent, oblivious to the raging storm and the misfortunes of his hordebeasts outside. Where in the name of seasons had those weasel scouts got to? The fox's ruthless dark-ice eyes flicked to a corner of the tent, where there was a polished mahogany table he had plundered from a settlement he had destroyed long ago. He reached under the table and undid a hidden latch. A secret drawer opened. Kuna Cherra took out ten razor-sharp metal hollow hooks and carefully fitted them onto his claws. Those weasels would get what they deserved. No beast was late for a meeting with the Gray One!
Kuna heard a voice outside call very quickly, "Mighty Lord Kuna Cherra, true lord of the Eastern Hills, we bring news!"
"You are permitted to enter my presence," Kuna replied slowly and evenly.
Immediately the tent flap was thrown aside and Warttail and Blewflit hurried in, half dragging, half carrying the still slightly frozen Keeva and Sharno. Kuna stared at them in silence.
"Lord," Warttail began respectfully, careful to talk as smoothly and carefully as he could, for Kuna Cherra did not like the slang he normally used, "We have knowledge that the Silverstar Maikolar has set out on her blademark quest. It is to gather information for the Great Library." Both he and the two friends gasped slightly, for different reasons. For the weasel it was talking like that, which always tired his voice, and for Keeva and Sharno it was the surprise that Warttail and Blewflit knew about Maiko's quest, that they knew what a blademark was at all. Swordspear customs weren't exactly deadly secret, but they were generally not told to anyone who didn't have a close connection with the Silverstar.
"The Silverstar," Warttail continued, "are not planning anything else big, and remain unaware of our presence."
"What are these?" Kuna asked tonelessly, pointing at the vixen and ferret with his gleaming metal claws.
Blewflit took over. "We found them on a hilltop, Lord," he reported, speaking as carefully as Warttail had. "They were frozen almost to death, and we thought you might want to train them to be hordebeasts. The fox is Ashard, and the ferret is Skublade."
The Gray One nodded. "You have done well. Here is your reward for being late."
Quick as lightning, Kuna Cherra slashed each weasel across the face hard and deep with his razor-sharp metal claws. The unfortunate scouts screamed and clutched at their mutilated faces, while dripping blood stained the perfect silk floor.
"Leave," Kuna Cherra commanded calmly, "before you ruin my tent any further."
Sobbing and wailing, Blewflit and Warttail stumbled off into the howling snowstorm outside.
Keeva and Sharno stared at Kuna, horrified. Sharno had sensed a sort of tenseness in the air from the start, almost as though the weasels had been expecting something like that to happen. Keeva now deeply regretted her decision to trick the scouts into thinking they would make good hordebeasts. She suspected that slow, painful death at the Gray One's claws would be a lot worst than death by freezing.
"I will always accept creatures into my horde, no matter how young," said Kuna, as though nothing had happened. "You will be expected fight, work, obey me, and say the correct Formalities like any of my beasts. Do this, and you will be rewarded. Shirk or idle, and you will be punished like my scouts." He paused and looked at them hard, his freezing eyes seeming to pierce into their very minds. "You will wonder what a Formality is. A Formality is the proper greeting to me at the right time and place, like the one my scouts said before they entered my tent. Thornlock will issue you weapons, instruct you in their proper uses, and teach you the Formalities."
A wildcat who had been sitting in the corner so still and silent that Keeva and Sharno hadn't noticed her at all leapt to her feet and said, "I am Thornlock, Lord Kuna Cherra's captain, second only to his noble self. Skublade, Ashard, come with me."
It was as the two friends were leaving the warm, dry tent for the cold, wet, whirling snow outside that Keeva noticed the swordspear shoved under the mahogany table. As many things as had shocked and horrified her before, none did as much as this. The only way Kuna could have gotten the swordspear would be to slay a Silverstar squirrel.
"A swordspear," she moaned to her friend. "That horrible villain had a swordspear under the table."
Sharno's eyes widened and a look of despair flitted across his face like the shadow of a moth across the moon before he composed himself and whispered, "The name, did you see the name?"
Keeva nodded. "Shazaneer," she replied solemnly.
"Keep up," snapped Thornlock's voice from somewhere ahead of them. "I don't want to be stuck out in the storm forever."
As the fox and ferret hurried along behind the wildcat, they silently wondered what cruel fate had forced them seek refuge in this horde of evil, heartless vermin.
That was when Sharno realized. "In the sacred tongue of the Silverstar," he whispered to Keeva so softly she could barely hear, " 'Kuna Cherra' means 'Power Seeker'."
