I woke up feeling incredibly warm and comfortable. Blinking, I realized I was still in the lodge- Ah, I must have limpet'd Gren's arm last night, and her lap, and really somehow managed to make myself incredibly difficult to dislodge.
I squirmed until I got free, then leant down and poked Grenwin on the cheek.
She awoke with an articulate, "Glrgh?"
"Good morning!" I said, checking the time on my tablet. "It's four in the morning! Time to get up!"
The warrior blinked lazily at me, then closed her eyes and snuggled back down, snoring softly.
I covered her up some more with her cloak, then walked off to get cleaned up and a change of clothes.
Honestly, I might just wear something nice today, even if it's not amazing enchanted clothing. Something about the idea of doing something mundane felt grounding, in a way.
Eventually, I settled on a basic purple linen tunic. I found a wide cloth belt with filigree, and after a few moments of finagling got myself a small bow going on my lower back. Shoes were easy, some simple two-inch strapped heels. Bad for the snow, but I was fairly sure I could make breaking an ankle look good.
No, bad Maia, that's not a very helpful thought!
Shrugging, I put on a good pair of soft-soled boots, with some small touch-ups to help blend the outfit together.
Dressed, I checked the day's agenda on the tablet; We were going to finish disassembling the Valkyrie, and I was going to take a look at one of those powerplants. Something about "Fold Carbon" kept cropping up in my thoughts whenever I was reminded of them, some material that existed in both real- and Fold-space. That had a few uses, if it wasn't horrifically toxic or hazardous in some other way. If magicks, thanks to Elder Hamgwyn, were a real thing, they could be used against my people. Maybe a material that existed on two levels of reality would have some sort of interaction with these magicks.
Or it might be completely unrelated and unreactive to… Supramundane acts? I need a word for magic that wasn't magic, but maybe that was just my own desire to classify things. Certainly, what Hamgwyn had described wasn't any sort of classical fantasy magic that I was familiar with. Hell, I still don't count Channeling as magic, really. It was too consistent, too real, too useful to be something as mysterious as magic.
Maybe that was the problem, really. What did it matter what I considered magic or not? To everyone else here, I was still "merely" a woodswitch of ridiculous ability… Well, alright, selling myself short there.
I paced around the entry hall for a few minutes, ruminating on exotic materials, bullshit physics, and why Channeling felt more like math than anything else.
There was something to the shape of that thought, a hint of… Radiance, almost. When I thought about how well Saidar fit with my life now, how reliant I could admit I was, I couldn't deny that it had been taking it's own identity in my mind- A branch of investigative mathematics, not too dissimilar to the superscience that let a bunch of Mars colonists build teleporters and connect… Wait, they what?
They connected to Hell?
The teleporters PASS THROUGH HELL?
Wait, was hell real, then? Like how Channeling was real this whole time and nobody thought it was unusual in and of itself- No, looking back, the initial reactions had to have some pre-existing understanding of the One Power, rudimentary and shrouded in mystery that they were.
Hell, though, didn't fit. There wasn't a point to it, it may very well have been a that-particular-Mars-specific thing.
No Hell, and that was my final verdict.
I really, really, hoped I was right.
No, I had to be right. There weren't any slaughtering robots running around since I'd picked up the Apollo database. Nor had I seen any Zentran soldiery once I consumed that queer folded light, despite the notion that if I pushed, I could learn how to create my own cloned army.
Wow, having superpowers was a lot of responsibility. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I pigeonhole myself into the role of a civilian commander-in-chief. Gren and Ygdis and the rest were… Well, they were actual fighters. Warriors, not soldiers, but they were already terrifyingly on the path to that, thanks to me.
It wasn't right to just send out orders and hide away in a comfy place, insulated from the consequences of my decisions. It was so wrong to me that I gagged, and wasn't that a peculiar response I didn't know how to parse. The idea of abandoning my people and become some shadow-player of a greater game was disgusting, just contemplating felt like I was trying to walk through chin-high sludge that clung to me.
Shivering, I went back into the sweat lodge to warm up.
There were a couple of people in one of the rooms. Shrugging, I grabbed a towel, stripped off, and joined them.
"Maia!" A girl's voice broke me from my quiet rumination.
"Jenine?" I asked, and sure enough, I hadn't recognized her without the rest of her clothes. Sitting next to her, "How have you been? You make it back to your people alright?"
The girl nodded, blushing slightly. "I ran from you. That was wrong of me. Forgive me?"
Blinking, I nodded, giving her a side-hug. "Sure. I understand why, if it helps any. No hard feelings."
"No hard feelings!" She repeated, "I did make it before the clan moved on. I was wrong, everyone was happy that I was back, and that I was safe."
"That's great!" I gave her a squeeze, "I'm sure you've tried the food Lom's people makes by now. What do you think of it?"
She laughed, "Better than anything I've had before. Where did you find him?"
I thought, then shrugged. "He was with Ellir's people when they joined up, I'm pretty sure. Oh, speaking of, what do you think the Hornfoots are going to do?"
She looked at me curiously, "Stick around! Why would we leave when we have everything we want? We don't need to capture any more caribou, this year's hunt was beyond anything we expected. We've got safety, warm lodging, good food, and these games! I won three sumos in a row yesterday!"
I took a moment to make sure I processed that properly. "That's great! I noticed quite a few Hornfoots joining Ygdis' scout corps. I'm fairly sure you and your people have an excellent grasp of fast and efficient distance travel, as well as carrying quite a lot on your backs reasonably stealthily."
Jenine nodded, extending a finger with every point I said. "Yep, if we're here, we're going to contribute. You're right on the rest. We had an expedition south of the Wall last winter, passing by the Nightfort and going into the forested mountains. There are interesting people living there, you know."
"Oh?" My interest was quite thoroughly piqued, "Interesting how?"
"They're mean. Way meaner than anyone short of the Thenns, or giants on a bad day. Er, not Ogier, the mammoth-herders. They don't like us freefolk much, but they're not any different. They'll trade with us, sometimes, but most of the time we avoided camps and villages 'cus my Da knows which ones will tell the Watch about us and which ones won't."
"Does he, now?" I hummed, "I'll have to meet him."
"You have!" Jenine said happily, "Yesterday, he was the really large man carrying Flag Charlie."
Memories of a peculiarly high-pitched giant of a man, easily Ogier-scaled, who refused healing of his old injuries. Affable, friendly, and I was certain he was just waiting for the right moment to kill me and take my place.
"Oh, no, yeah, I remember him. Nice guy, carried his downed squadmates back to safety. That's the kind of attitude I want to engender, and I'm glad he's so cool."
"What's that mean, anyway? You are saying no, then yes?"
I blinked, "I'm from a place called Winnipeg. We just… I don't know, we talk like that. There are people further out east that sound funnier, though. If I ever learn how to do a Newfie accent, I'll show you."
Jenine shrugged, "You're a strange woman."
"Yes," I nodded in satisfaction, "Strange is a word for it. Seems like the world might need some strangeness, no?"
She chuckled, "Maybe it does. Strangeness got us here, maybe strangeness takes us where we want to be."
We settled into a companiable silence, broken only when she asked if she could feel my wings.
I told her no, and that she'd need to get to know me better before asking something so shameless. Though, looking at the kneejerk reaction, I'm not entirely sure why I did that.
The revelation that I was some sort of composite person, two people made one… Didn't really bother me. If that made me Mai and Kasey's daughter, I guess that's just how it shakes out. Doesn't make me any less me, and I have way too much self-validation to let it get to me.
So, fuck it, maybe Mai's parents could fly and do magic. I can't fly, but I bet Channeling is cooler.
Juvenile power contests aside, I wanted to know more about that. Kasey had talked about them as a normal part of this world, not an intruder like her, if I was putting things together rightly.
She showed up, met Mai at some point, then they both decided to… Merge, or something, leaving me in the snow with the lights in my mind. Lights they didn't know anything about.
Dressing, I left it behind as I said my goodbyes and did a few rounds around the perimeter with my flashlight.
Speaking of, turns out the tablet can supply power easily to the flashlight, at least when closer than five meters. I could string up some sort of repeater every few meters and once the whole system is saturated, everything should just work well enough.
A gross oversimplification, but god, I was looking forward to outdoor lights.
I saw nothing out of the ordinary on my patrol, something I corroborated with the others on watch. Nothing tonight, no activity, animal or otherwise.
Maybe our maneuvers and training yesterday spooked our ghosts and got them to leave?
No, that would be convenient. It just put my hackles up, feeling like an army of the dead was just lurking just out of sight.
My foot stepped on something weird in the snow, and a second later a frigid hand was clamped onto my shin.
"Ah! Fuck! Wights!" I shouted, kicking the shit out of the blue-eyed face that shook itself up out of the snow.
Wait, I'm being dumb.
A thread of fire reached out and… did nothing to the wight. It rose to its feet, dozens, hundreds appearing out of the drifted snow.
Suddenly, the unseasonable cold, the constant snow, the shadows in the woods that nobody could get a read on.
They'd been putting an army under our noses!
Wordlessly, I turned on my heel and sprinted back to First Fork, bellowing all the while, "Wights! The Others! Attack incoming! Duty stations!" and so on, until the village was awash in activity. Shouts rose, defensive walls were manned by men and women with torch-poles, spears of all lengths, and I was satisfiedby how each squad was acting in accordance to their three months of training. Five members carried bows in addition to their melee arms, and so in every squad of ten men, three were prepared to loose flaming arrows, while the other two ensured the arrows were lit and that they had suitable ammunition.
We had tons of the stuff to use by now, and we were about to see how well it would work out.
I took position overlooking the wall, atop an observation tower I hastily constructed from Shaped wood and stone. Grenwin and Ygdis climbed up the ladder, followed shortly by Symon, making the small cabin atop the tower feel cramped.
Grenwin wasted zero time in bellowing orders, arranging message runners, and even carrying the prototype semaphore flags we'd put together the other day.
Ygdis was resolute, sharp eyes watching the darkness.
"Maia," Grenwin said steadfastly, "We need light. Make it happen."
Nodding, I wove together a large orb of threaded Air, Fire, and Spirit. Without a gem to anchor the weave, I had to use a much larger artificial manifold.
The darkness of the early morning was slowly but surely pushed back by a brightening orb hovering above the defenders, casting the forest beyond into long shadows and clearly illuminating the killing ground.
"Good, keep that up." Grenwin said, then turned to a messenger waiting on the ground, "Squads two and three, fireteam Charlie, orders are to loose lit arrows into the forest."
The messenger nodded, dashing away, and a moment later two separate organized flights of flaming arrows were sent aloft on high arcs, before raining into the forest. There was no sound, but we could see more than a few wights catching alight instantly, stumbling out into the open clearing before crumbling to the snow.
"I-" I started, before Grenwin touched a fingertip to my lips to shush me.
"Wait." She said.
We waited for minutes, before a tide of bodies pushed its way out of the trees. Behind the rushing horde, just at the treeline, stood five pale shadows.
The air rippled with the sound of crackling ice and peals of cruel, mocking laughter.
Grenwin grimaced, shouting to the assembled lines, "Brace for contact! Repel all climbers, burn-teams prioritize incapacitation over elimination! Ready yourselves!"
The snow came, then, great flurries that fought the artificial sunlight. Slowly, it dimmed, further and further, before the field was cast in an unearthly half-light.
The wights sprinted.
The Others laughed.
Grenwin was confident. She'd seen their tricks before, and this time, she would push them back.
Symon, all but forgotten in the corner, prayed quietly. He prayed for the gods of salt and sea, the gods of the markets, all of the gods of the Stepstones and Salty Dorne; The Seven, the Old Gods, hell, maybe Maia might pull something from her ass and save them all.
Maia felt… peculiar, as her sun's power seemed to drain away, a constant wicking of energy that she had to replace herself, turning an otherwise efficient construct into a nightmare of balance that required her total focus to maintain. Whatever she was facing was powerful, and it was doing things to the Power that shouldn't be possible. Her threads shouldn't slip through her grasp, or shrink away as their energy was diverted somewhere.