by J. D. Lakey
Chapter Five
Cheobawn wound Cloud Eye’s reins loosely around the saddle horn, pressed her mittened hands against her mouth, and blew hard through all the layers of silk, wool, and leather in a vain attempt to warm her fingertips. Even without the guidance of the reins Cloud Eye did not need help in figuring out where she needed to go. She and Connor followed Sigrid and Erin as they walked the fence line of the lower paddocks in search of strays. Vinara had thought this assignment best after the column had reached the pastures above the orchards and Hayrald had whispered his report in her ear. Cheobawn suspected he wanted to send her back down the hill to the dome but Vinara wanted as many eyes as possible searching the valleys and draws for the red-haired cattle. Sybille had ended that discussion with a few sharp words.
Did they hope to keep her out of trouble by sending her away from the others with Sigrid as a babysitter? Sigrid surely thought so. He had given her a dark look upon being informed of his assignment. Erin’s glare had been even less kind.
Walking the fence-line was not as fun or as glamorous as rounding up the reluctant herds in preparation for the drive back down Orchard Trail. It was a tedious affair; riding slowly, heads bent to watch the ground for tracks.
There were places where the snow had buried the fence in drifts then frozen hard enough to support even a bennelk. A small herd might cross the frozen barriers in search of sweeter grass or warmer bedding areas.
She did not mind Sigrid’s silence. Connor’s silence was more troubling. He had not said a single word to her since she rejoined the column and truth be told she was glad of this. After her conversation with Hayrald, the inside of her head was a jumble of feelings and thoughts and until she got them all sorted out, she did not want to talk to anyone, not even Connor.
The bennelk plodded on. Did they have to move so slowly? Cheobawn glanced nervously up at the sky. The sun, its light almost brittle in the dry, thin air, had reached its apex hours previous and with the short days of winter still upon them, they had less than an hour to gather up the strays and head back down the mountain before complete darkness overtook them.
“Not a cloud to be seen,” commented Connor, following her gaze. “Tell me again. How sure are we that a storm is coming?”
On another day, she might have smiled at his doubt. Connor was a true pragmatist. He did not believe in anything that he could not touch with his own hand. Today, after the scorn of the other Packs and the harsh words from Hayrald, his doubt rankled.
“We,” she said, using his all-inclusive word to remind him he was here of his own doing, “are most certain. Herd Mother has never been wrong so far.”
“Says you. How many big storms have we had so far this winter?”
“Five, no, six,” she ventured.
“And you have warned us about how many?” he asked pointedly.
“That’s not fair…”
“What’s that? How many? One? Exactly right. You win the prize,” Connor crowed softly, careful to keep his doubts out of Ramhorn’s ears. “She didn’t predict the first one, the one that wiped out the herds in the high meadows and killed Brathum and his patrol,” he pointed out. Cheobawn flinched at the reminder and looked away to stare up at the snow-covered Dragon’s Spine.
She missed Brathum. She missed his flute in the evening symphonies and his voice in the Temple choir. His patrol had not returned that day, nor for any of the days that followed. When the winds finally eased, a second patrol had gone searching. They had returned with a half dozen omehs tied to the saddle of the Alpha who led them, the bodies left where they had fallen as was fitting for a warrior of the domes. What the mountain took, it kept, the saying went. Brathum’s omeh hung in the Hall of Heroes along with a thousand other honor necklaces, a grim reminder to any who had the courage to brave the ghosts that haunted that corner of the Temple that life was not a gift freely given by the goddesses.
Cheobawn shook those morbid thoughts out of her brain. Truth be told, she had shoved the memory of those hard times into a dark corner of her mind and had no desire to bring them back out into the light.
Yet doubt plagued her. Cheobawn tried to think back. When had Herd Mother begun to complain about the ice demons? Locked in the heart of winter, autumn seemed so long ago. Before the despair of Megan and Tam going into the Temple. Before the first snow, certainly, but how soon before? Fall had started out mild, days packed with hunting forays and harvest celebrations, the crisp night skies clear and full of stars, the frenetic activity of the dome winding down with the last of the harvests almost in sight. It was so hard to remember the chain of events; the shifting, treacherous winds, the ragged wisps of clouds that were the first innocent harbingers of the coming storm, the panic in the Elders as the storm seemed to rise out of nowhere and turn the world into white chaos.
Sitting on the top of the stairs of the sleep level in the Coven’s apartments, she had watched the continuous parade of Elders down Mora’s hall, all of them bearing news of one disaster after the other. Animals lost. People lost trying to save them. Had she known it was coming and refused to hear the warnings? Was it her own ignorance that had killed Brathum?
“Cheobawn.” Connor's voice broke into her thoughts. “You didn’t know, right?”
“I, uh,” she tried to find the words that were the closest to the truth. “It was so ….” The words got stuck in her throat.
“By all that is holy!” Connor hissed, leaning in close, alarm in his voice. “Tell me you did not know about the first storm, I beg you.” She looked at him, feeling sick. He paled, horror dawning behind his eyes. She started to feel cross with him. Now? Now he asked, after it was too late? If he could think this about her then so too could a dozen other people who knew the true extent of her psi abilities. Would they all come to hate her for this lapse?
“I don’t know, OK?” she snapped, glaring at him. “Maybe. It didn’t make any sense, then. It wasn’t like Herd Mother said Ooh, look out, here comes the worst storm ever in all the recorded history of the domes,” Cheobawn hissed through clenched teeth. “She was saying crazy things about demons in the sky and I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t. Not really.”
“Is that why you stopped using the map?” Connor asked, the question a damning accusation. “You screwed up so you just stopped trying?”
He couldn’t have hurt her more than if he had stabbed her in the heart. Just for moment, she forgot to shield her thoughts from the ambient. It was a stupid mistake. One that added weight to Connor’s assertion that she might be losing control of her gift. The ambient flared scarlet for less than a blink of the eye. Just for a moment. She sucked all her emotions back into her heart, trying to spare Erin and the bennelk, but it was already too late.
One did not touch a bennelk with an unguarded heart. Strong emotion spread like wild fire in a herd. Her mount bore the brunt of her lapse. Cloud Eye’s head snapped up, looking for the thing that had caused her so much pain. Connor had hurt them. Connor must pay. Spinning on her hind legs, her tusks slashing the air, Cloud Eye bellowed in rage. Kite Wing leapt away with a squeal of outraged protest, barely saving her rider from a nasty leg wound. Cheobawn grabbed for the reins, her other hand on the saddle horn to catch herself as Cloud Eye tried to dance out from under her, kicking out in displeasure with her spurred hind legs.
Connor uttered a string of curses as he jerked Kite Wing around, trying to dodge the lethal claws. Wise Kite Wing managed to keep her rider and save him from harm.
Sigrid shouted something as he kicked Star into motion and aimed his bennelk at Erin's mount, Red Leaf, knocking her out of harm’s way before spinning Star around to do the same for Connor.
Cheobawn had no time to care. She had other problems. Cloud Eye danced sideways under her, her great clawed feet throwing up white puffs of powdered ice. Knees pressed against the saddle, her body swaying to match Cloud Eye’s motion, Cheobawn tried to persuade the mountain of animal flesh to calm down and return to her place. Cloud Eye
rumbled angrily and shook her head as the reins tightened. Cheobawn had no choice but to ease up on her grip and let her mount have her way.
Trouble was a contagion in a group of bennelk. Kite Wing’s blood was up, Cloud Eye’s rage catching hold inside her brain. She surged towards Cloud Eye, dodging Sigrid’s attempt to catch her halter as she snapped in irritation at the younger animal. Connor sawed ineffectually at her reins to no effect. Cloud Eye, junior-most in the bennelk ranks, should have given ground. Instead, she turned to defend herself, tusks up, hissing her ire. Sigrid’s Star turned to join the fray.
“Run,” Cheobawn shouted, at the end of her patience. “Run, you silly beast.” She kicked Cloud Eye hard in the ribs, jerked sideways on the reins and imagined running free over an endless plain of white as fast as her bennelk legs could carry her. Cloud Eye needed no more goading than that. She leapt clear of the tangle of angry bennelk with a stiff-legged spring that snapped Cheobawn’s head back with its power. They landed with a bone jarring thump, elk and rider, on the verge of a frozen drift. Cheobawn’s head snapped forward onto her chest. Before she could regain control, Cloud Eye had scrambled ungracefully away, up the bank and down the other side, claws tearing at the frozen snow, sending up clouds of ice with each leap.
The next paddock, the grass mowed short, had been swept clean of snow by the wind. The need to run away echoed between animal and rider until Cheobawn was not sure whose thoughts were whose. Cloud Eye, finding a solid purchase for her toes, put her head down, laid her antlers along the sides of her neck and ran as if a demon was on her tail. Cheobawn pressed her face into the ruff under her fingers and let the bennelk mind take command.
For a moment, Cheobawn imagined that she was free; that the meadow in front of her was flat and smooth and stretched on forever like an endless sheet of pack ice, that they could run without needing to stop for rest or food, time forgotten, with only the starlight from a million stars set in an ebony sky to light their way. There, behind her eye lids, she built the icy plain until it seemed almost real, the ice under Cloud Eye’s toes solid as stone, the canopy of night so close you could reach out and touch the stars.
She would have run forever, letting the cold ease the pain in her heart, but a darkness moved across the sky, blotting out the light. Other things, pale as starlight, hung in the air beneath it. She sat up, reining Cloud Eye in, her eyes peering upward trying to see the strange objects better. Between one blink and the next the spell was broken.
There were no stars, no icy plain, just the dusky violet sky above the Spine, the last rays of the sun staining the snowy peaks a thousand shades of pink and orange. Cloud Eye slowed of her own accord, her lungs heaving in the intensely dry air. Cheobawn looked down in concern. Exertion in this weather risked lung burn or worse yet, a malady called wet lung in which an animal could drown from thousands of minute hemorrhages inside the lung tissue. She knew this but had forgotten it in the heat of the moment. Cloud Eye coughed. It was a small, dry sound. Alarmed, she pulled her young friend to a stop.
I am sorry, Cheobawn thought. My heart is full of storms that cloud my mind. This is all my fault.
Rude males, Cloud Eye seethed, should be put in their place. Slashing tusks filled Cloud Eye’s ambient. Cloud Eye was still very angry.
No. My error. Mothers must shield their hearts from male thoughts. The one cannot exist in the presence of the other, Cheobawn said sadly, trying not to cry.
You are Herd Mother’s child. Your own herd is blind to your nature, Cloud Eye snorted in contempt as she stamped her feet.
I am tired of defending my nature. Let’s go home, Cheobawn said. Cloud Eye hissed softly and shook her head so hard the brass loops in her bridle rattled against the bony carapace that armored the ridge line of her nose, but she turned back all the same.
Sigrid galloped up to them and reined in hard. His mount, Star, planted her feet and skidded to a halt, showering them in ice.
“Are you mad?” Sigrid yelled. “You cannot just run off when the whim takes you!” He reached out to grab Cloud Eye’s lead rope but her bennelk would not tolerate any more interference. Tired as she was, Cloud Eye hissed and swung her head just enough to let him feel the back of her tusks. Sigrid jerked his hand out of harm’s way as Star danced away.
“Hush,” Cheobawn said absently, patting the young bennelk gently. She glanced out of the corner of her eye. Sigrid was staring down at her, his face flushed. “Forgive our rudeness, Father,” she said. “She has no good opinion of the males of her species and her sisterly advice is quite fierce. You would be safer at a distance.”
Sigrid kneed his mount away, giving her space as she set Cloud Eye into a slow walk back the way they had come. Sigrid followed after a pace and pushed Star to catch up but kept her well out of tusk range.
“I know you have a grievance with me,” Sigrid said, “and I am sorry for what happened. I did not mean for you and Connor to bear the brunt of Hayrald’s wrath.”
Cheobawn shook her head tiredly. “I am of the same opinion as Cloud Eye, I think. You, Connor, and Hayrald are made of the same cloth. Your only failing is your gender and that cannot be helped. There is nothing to forgive.”
“No, do not say such things, Little Mother,” Sigrid said, pain in his voice. “Be patient with us. Youth offends by its very nature and Elders offend because they forget what it is like to be young. I know a bit about how you and Connor must feel, with Tam, Alain, and Megan off fulfilling their Sacred Duties. If you need someone to talk to, I will listen.”
Cheobawn imagined telling him about the unspeakable things that had their claws in her insides and flinched. She would spare Sigrid this, whose heart was an open book to anyone who bothered to look into his eyes. He was still young enough to believe in honor and honest dealings, which was one of the reasons she adored him. They were his best qualities, having attracted Erin to his side and taken him far up the ladder of success. The hard truths about being an Elder would dawn in his mind eventually but she did not want to be the one to tear down the veils of illusion that protected him from the lies and deceits. His was a pure spirit, untainted and unjaded by the knowledge of Mora’s subtle machinations.
The truth was they were all puppets and Mora held all the strings.
She used to be like Sigrid, believing in good and bad, white was white and black was black with no gray area between. That was before she got old and learned that the world was all gray and it was easy to get lost. What would he think if she told him why Connor was upset with her? What if he agreed with Connor, thinking her responsible for the deaths of so many people?
“I would not burden you with the petty squabbles between packmates,” she said politely, staring at the back of Cloud Eye’s ears.
“Those are the worst,” Sigrid said. “The petty squabbles, I mean. We forget to be polite, living on top of each other as we do. I think it is a mistake to become too relaxed with each other’s company. You forget yourself and say things, careless things that hurt without intending to.”
Cheobawn turned to look at him, surprised that he understood. The tall boy met her eyes. He had the most amazingly blue eyes, the same color as the dusky sky overhead. She had never noticed that before. Sigrid flushed under her perusal and continued.
“I am sure Connor did not mean to offend you, Little Mother.”
“Oh, no,” she said sadly, “Offense was his intent. He has learned his skills of conversation from the First Prime. Cut to the core and inspect the offal that falls out of the wound after. That is Connor’s way.”
“Surely not,” Sigrid said gently. “You are his Ear.”
“He doubts that very thing, hence the argument,” she said, looking down at the intricate carving in the leather of her saddle horn. “To be honest, I doubt it myself.”
Sigrid’s silence was damning. Did he think the same thing? Or was she as mad as the bennelk and everybody was too polite to point that out.
“There are too many rules, don’t you think?”
Sigrid said.
Cheobawn looked up, confused by this sudden change in topic. Sigrid flushed under her blank gaze.
“I mean, I think about that sometimes. Rules. Rules create secrets. Secrets that cut us off from one another, leaving us isolated and full of knowledge with no one to share it with. I think the Packs are like that parable, the one about the wise Mothers in the room without light who must guess the nature of the animal hidden there. The animal is clever like the bhotta. It tricks each Mother into believing it is a thing she wants most. Thus, they start a shouting match over whose conclusion is correct. I forget how it ends.”
“It probably ate them,” Cheobawn said, all to familiar with Mother's teaching tales.
Sigrid frowned and looked away. He had been trying to tell her something. But what? Cheobawn cocked her head, trying to listen beyond the words to the meanings underneath. She had never thought of Sigrid as a philosopher.
Sigrid looked up and saw that he had her full attention. He continued, a sudden intensity in his voice.
“Perhaps every one of us carries a bit of the puzzle inside them, but we would never know it because we are forbidden to share information between Packs. Or between genders.”
She waited, holding her breath.
“What if, let’s say, I were to tell you something that I was forbidden to say? Some small bit of information. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” He looked at her, waiting to see if she understood. She didn’t. Not yet.
“Sure,” she said through stiff lips, suddenly terrified of where this was going.
“What if I found some of your personal things in an abandoned day pack in Meetpoint dome two summers ago? I remembered that day Blackwind Pack went out to fly your kite. I saw your bruises afterward. A simple explanation is usually the best. You were injured and forgot your pack. What if, hypothetically, of course, I gave your belongings to Hayrald and trusted him when he said he would pass it on to you?” Sigrid said.
