Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(105)

"No business tonight, Lord Sillek," protests Lygon. "It's a cold winter out there, and tonight's the time for warmth and good food."

"I stand corrected." Sillek raises his hands, half in laughter, half in mock defeat.

Zeldyan smiles. So does her father.





LVII



A LOW FIRE, for once, burned in the hearth of the great room.

Ryba sat in the chair at the end of the table, with Saryn on her right and Nylan on the left. Ayrlyn sat beside Saryn, while Fierral sat next to Nylan with Kyseen beside her. Relyn was seated beside Ayrlyn. Gathered around the foot of the first table on the side below Saryn were Gerlich, Narliat, and Selitra. On the side below Nylan were Huldran, Istril, Murkassa, and Hryessa.

"I'd guess you'd call this a status or planning meeting." Ryba's breath created a flicker in the candle at her end of the table. "I wanted to hear from each of you about how your efforts are going, and any suggestions you might have." The marshal looked at Gerlich. "Hunting?"

"It's getting harder," Gerlich said. "The deer we do get are thinner. We haven't seen a snow leopard since the engineer killed his. The big cats have gone to lower grounds-or hibernated. The same for the bears."

"The old ones say the leopards talk to each other," added Murkassa.

Her breath nearly guttered out the other candle, and Huldran reached out and moved it more toward the center of the table.

"What about smaller animals?" asked Ayrlyn.

"It takes a lot of effort to catch them, and what good is a hare when we have to forage for more than a score of people?" Gerlich shrugged, looking toward Kyseen.

"You get me three hares, and I can make a meal," affirmed the cook.

"How are your supplies coming?"

"Not as well as I'd like," admitted Kyseen. "We've been grinding and powdering some of those roots into the flour, and that stretches it. Some of the guards say it's bitter. What can I do? The potatoes are good, but we'll finish those off in another eight-day, maybe two, if we only have them every third day."

"The potatoes are all that stick," said Huldran. "There's not enough meat, and the loaves are getting smaller."

The low moan of the wind outside the great room punctuated her words, and, for a moment, no one spoke.

"Birds?" asked the marshal.

"We've got owls and gray-hawks up here. That's all we've seen, anyway," answered Gerlich. "Neither has much meat, and they're so quick I don't see how you could shoot them."

Ryba nodded and turned to Saryn. "What about the livestock?"

"There isn't enough grass and hay for the horses and the sheep," Saryn said. "We've cut back on the corn for the chickens, and they've cut back on laying. There's not enough grain for the rest of the winter for them, either."

"The chickens, they lay little in the winter," said Hryessa. "I would start killing the older ones and let the young ones live for the year ahead."

"Can you work that out?" asked Ryba.

Saryn glanced at Hryessa, then at Ryba, and nodded. "That still doesn't solve the fodder problem."

"The lander we used for storage is more than a third full," said Selitra.

"I helped fill that full, I did," interjected Narliat.

"We're only about halfway through the winter," pointed out Saryn. "There's no forage out there, and there won't be even after the snow melts."

"There are the fir branches . . ." suggested Murkassa. "Goats sometimes eat them."

"It doesn't do the goats much good," pointed out Relyn,. "and sheep can't eat as many things as goats."

"We're getting short of food," Ryba pointed out, "and we don't have enough food for both sheep and mounts." Her eyes narrowed. "We can get more sheep, one way or another, if we have to. Without mounts we're dead."

"We need twenty mounts," said Fierral. "And they can't be skin and bones."

The marshal turned back to Saryn. "Figure out a slaughter schedule for the sheep-and horses, if need be-that will leave us with twenty mounts, if you can, by the time there's something for the sheep and horses to forage on. It would be good to have some sheep left, but . . . we'll need the mounts more to get through the summer."

"That's going to take a day or so."

"A day or so won't make any difference. Also, work it out with Kyseen. That's so she can plan the food schedule to keep everyone as healthy as she. can, given this mess."

Saryn nodded.

"What about timber? Firewood?" asked Ryba.

"We're almost out of the green timber for making things," said Saryn flatly. "We've got skis for everyone, and you've seen the chairs and room panels-and the cradles. That's about all we can do this winter. We're running through the stove wood and firewood. We can't even drag enough wood up from the forest to replace what we're burning. If we drag up more than we are now, the horses will need to eat more, and some will get lung burn."

"Should we turn the furniture into heat?" asked Gerlich idly.

"No," answered Ayrlyn. "That wouldn't add two days' heat, and it would be a waste of all that effort. Besides, the impact on people's morale . .."