by Ron Collins
His reputation was at stake.
The whelplings had followed him because they’d been told to, but now they had seen Hateri’s insolence, and they had seen him win. They were spending the heats with Hateri, listening to his guidance. M’ran was almost certainly right in his prediction of Hateri’s future as a power broker. Watching it happen made Taranth feel older still.
“The pup’s going to take your team,” one of the katja harvesters told him while they were playing a game of dice. She was a free-ranger, but not quite as old as Taranth. Something past two full cycles rather than three.
“He can have it,” Taranth said, rolling and losing at the same time.
The quadar laughed and pounded him on the arm so hard it hurt. “Responsibility is overrated, eh, my friend.”
The answer annoyed him.
Like everyone here, she was a quadar who wanted independence.
She seemed reliable enough in the way she lived her life—a quadar who would do her part for the whole, but who he suspected was more pragmatic than principled. To live a life in the desert and not do the things one needs to do is to have the desert take you young. So she went to the katja sheets every other heat, and she brought in her allotment of the root that sustained much of life here. She went out on the hunts when needed, and she stabled animals when shamed into it. But her presence here was not otherwise of much note. She was baked thin, and her eyes were shot through with a network of veins that came from overindulging in a certain mold that grew in the caves. She lived as free of the Families and the council as he did, but he disdained her lack of interest in anything else and especially her lack of interest in movement.
He did not want to settle in a place and then have nothing to look forward to but a walk to the katja sheets and a night’s worth of oblivion.
And yet, watching Hateri and the rest of the whelps as they went about their own preparations reminded him of the limits of his time.
That before long what he wanted or what he did not want might not matter.
Watching the whelps left him keenly aware that he would not live forever.
CHAPTER 11
As their fourth heat at Harshish Point passed, Taranth and M’ran selected three healthy tal beasts that had been freshly watered, and arranged for three flatbed carts with axels that were still straight and that, though weathered, were still sturdy and firm. They acquired water, hard nuts, bags of katja bread, and dried meat. They gathered rope and extra bags, and coverings they would need for the salvaging.
The whelplings loaded these onto the carts for the return trip.
The rest, and now the activity, raised the entire group’s spirits. The group was fresher now, and clearly feeling stronger.
Yanil’s knee had healed, and their time down in the cool caves had given everyone’s bruises the chance to fade. Their desert-addled minds had gathered back together. They were a grizzled crew, now. Or at least it seemed that way to the whelps. Their success in arriving here meant they were experienced desert dwellers, and Hateri’s use of the guns had raised all of their statures.
The whelps also recognized the value of the tal beasts.
These muscular, six-legged animals with fine, bristly pelts smelled horrendous, but were otherwise perfectly formed for the desert—loping with smooth gaits that seemed to take no energy, and when properly managed, able to travel for many heats without water. Their shoulders came to Taranth’s chin, and their heads rose taller. Pulling the carts, even heavily loaded, would not be an issue for them. Knowing that the carts were full of supplies raised spirits even further.
The expedition ate together that last night at Harshish Point, and they listened to Cestral give a concert on the mouth harp she had found in the stores under the rock. Some told stories. Others sang.
In the noise of the evening, Taranth almost missed the moment where Pietha whispered something into Hateri’s ear and slipped a gift into his hand. It was a small thing. Not something he could make out in the thin light of the cave, which was probably for the best. He felt voyeur enough just seeing what he had seen.
When Hateri slipped away with Pietha once again, Taranth felt blood stir through all three of his hearts, but was happy to find that it did not make him angry.
The next morning, though Eldoro had not yet risen, all of the team was ready. This fact pleased Taranth beyond reason.
They chewed roots and drank water, then loaded themselves into the back of the carts and began their return journey to the mesa where they hoped the Taranth Stone still lay.
Taranth guided the lead cart, and the group selected Hateri and Yip to guide the other two—at least to start out.
The trip began with a lurch as each animal moved forward to make their way through the slot leading out of the settlement. Wheels ground against sand-lined rock, and the light of Eldoro cast its redness across the ground. The axles squeaked behind the footfalls of the animals, and the stench of the beasts filled Taranth’s senses. The wooden platform beneath his feet bounced to the rhythm of the tal beast’s stride.
“You could never know this was a battlefield just a few heats back,” M’ran said as he held onto the rail to keep from pitching over.
Taranth clicked the back of his throat. M’ran was right. The desert had already smoothed over the events that had transpired there only three heats back. He recalled the sensation of plunging his knife blade into the dying raider, the pressure of the blade against his hand and the firmness of the stroke as he completed the slice. A detachment came over him as he remembered watching the quadar’s blood soak back into the sand.
“The desert reclaims what it needs,” he said.
“You’re a fatalistic nob, aren’t you?”
“Just telling the truth.”
“Then let’s hope the desert doesn’t need your Taranth Stone.”
Taranth snarfed. “That would be the grand irony, wouldn’t it? The council sends their whelplings to gather the Light That Falls from the Sky only to have the desert beat them to it?”
“We’ve already beaten the desert to it, my friend. Now we’re just trying to keep it from stealing what is already ours.”
Taranth turned his central toward M’ran.
An entire stream of thoughts ran through his mind, but he said none of them. The desert had nothing but time, and in the end would always win. It wasn’t Taranth’s job to teach him that. Instead, he turned back to the tal beast and let the rawhide reins go looser in his hands.
The animal picked up the pace, heading westward and gently south, back to the place where the Taranth Stone should be waiting for them.
M’ran continued to give small talk, but Taranth was too busy watching the carts to pay him much mind.
Hateri stood tall at the front of the cart to Taranth’s left, reins of the tal beast in one hand. His jaw jutted forward into the wind. The hood of his field robe billowed behind him in the desert breeze. He was, Taranth admitted, the picture of leadership. Bold, direct, and strong.
Taranth sighed.
Young.
Taranth himself had been like that once, but that was a long time ago.
Though no one else complained, the weather remained almost too clear and too calm for Taranth’s liking. It gave the heats a sameness that numbed his mind. Eldoro rising, piela and kax scurrying in the dry dust, jah overhead. Those were the same every heat.
A herd of fleet-footed razo broke up the monotony of the third morning. As the razo gathered around a root bramble and filled themselves, Taranth took the moment to point out how two razo played sentry against any rela pride or a neantha pack that might come while the rest ate, and how the sentries were left the choicest vines in return. When the razo were gone, he took the party to the grazing fields and showed the younger quadars how the animals had eaten only the leaves, leaving the roots themselves intact so that the sheet would yield another such breakfast later.
“They’re like the katja harvesters in Harshish Point,” said Yip.
&nb
sp; Taranth smiled, and they moved on.
With the team’s renewed confidence and the tal beasts providing steady progress, the company made it back to the mesa in only five heats’ travel.
The whelplings took much of one heat to load the scattered components of the Taranth Stone onto the carts.
Most pieces could be handled by one quadar alone, while others needed a pair. The largest section, however, required eight of them to lift, and then they could barely balance it on the cart.
They secured the larger pieces with thick-twined ropes, and wrapped up smaller pieces in sacks and boxes that they affixed firmly to the rails.
“We’ve seen the winds,” Hateri said when Ogala had carelessly left a sack open to the air. He leveraged himself up onto the cart and tied off the sack, then ensured it was strapped snug to the side rail. “They need to be tight,” he said as he hopped down.
He gave Ogala a nod, which she returned.
From that point on, the work was done well.
The load took less time to gather than Taranth expected.
The gathering stood dirty from their work, but strong and proud under the fading smear of Eldoro in the clouds.
“I think we’ve got everything,” Hateri finally said. “Should we leave?”
They looked to Taranth for confirmation.
“There is more heat left,” Taranth said to Hateri, “but we’ve worked hard. I think it best we camp, don’t you?”
Hateri hesitated, then apparently realized he had just been asked for advice. He scanned the sky, taking in the positions of Eldoro and Katon, who was now rising noticeably earlier each heat in her quest to catch her brother.
“Yes,” he said. “I think you’re right. It would be good to rest. Use the lee of the mesa for camp. Everyone drink what they can.”
“Then let’s do that,” Taranth said.
The gathering broke. They relaxed and watched as Eldoro sank to the west.
Taranth gathered with them and pointed out exactly how far Katon had already slipped up on her brother.
“See how she is nearing half her highpoint now,” he said, pointing Katon’s light out against the sky above as the last of Eldoro was fading.
Yip added, “When we started she was just arriving on the far side when Eldoro was leaving the sky.”
“Yes,” Taranth said.
He took a large stone, then, and he used the edge of his knife to mark the shapes of the shadows that Katon and Eldoro gave to the ground. He spoke of their mixed patterns, how the shadow pattern alone could let them tell what part of the year it was, and in fact what part of the cycle they were in.
The gathering listened.
They asked questions, and Taranth was amazed to see the lessons take hold, and how they began to teach each other. All quadars were taught the basic paths of the heats, of course. They were impossible to miss. But the art of shadow reading was a different thing all together.
“Can you tell us the patterns?” Satrak Waganat asked.
A depth lay in his gaze that Taranth understood better than any other. It was the first thing the whelp had said to Taranth the entire trip.
“I can tell you them, yes. But to truly know them requires you to watch them carefully for entire cycles.”
“Show me,” the Waganat said.
So Taranth did.
Later, when Eldoro was hard set and Katon was past her highpoint, Taranth went to sit beside Hateri.
The quadar made no movement to indicate Taranth existed, though Taranth knew Hateri was aware of him, as were the rest of the gathering.
Hateri was finishing his meal, chewing quietly on dried piela lizard and sipping from water. He had just finished arranging the night water catch.
“You will lead the team home,” Taranth said, speaking loudly enough to be heard across the distance but in a voice controlled enough to ensure the rest of the party heard it as a simple statement of fact rather than sense any implied threat.
He clicked his throat to show he was done.
Hateri’s primaries glanced his way. “Trying to save your skin?” he whispered.
“Do you think it needs saving?”
“This is your expedition, Elder,” he said in a stronger voice.
Taranth raised the ridge over his central and looked at the rest of the party, seeing something that he took as surprise on M’ran’s face.
“The young replace the old,” he said. “It is the quadarti way. It’s the way of the desert, too. I brought us to the stone. You’ve earned the right to lead us back.”
Hateri stopped chewing and just looked at Taranth.
Taranth smiled in the coolness of the evening. He stood and, while the rest of the party watched, went to his bedding and slipped into the dust cover. Pausing, he pointed to the timer box that was still hanging from Hateri’s belt. “What time do we leave?”
A self-conscious expression spread over Hateri’s face.
He looked at the device, then to Taranth. His central scanned the sky where a pair of jah were out hunting.
“We’ll leave when Eldoro crests,” he said.
The team seemed to smile as one.
Taranth used his central to scan the late sky, then lay back on his blanket. The roof of his lean-to groaned in the wind.
“Don’t forget to set the guard watch,” he said.
Perhaps this next generation of quadars would turn out all right after all, he thought as he closed his eyes.
Then he slipped off to a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 12
The burning wind came three heats later.
It came suddenly, and ferociously.
It came just as the team had cleared the craggy series of obsidian crevasses Taranth’s da had called Death’s Teeth, a line of jagged rock that could have broken the force of the gale if the group had been just that much slower.
Instead, the storm caught the team on the long run of flat land between Death’s Teeth and the eastern ring of outer Esgarat.
Until then, the weather had been clear.
Almost no wind.
Eldoro had been an orange blot high overhead, the sky a yellowed dome of clouds that seemed to stretch into forever.
The storm started with one gust, a simple duster that spiraled upward and disappeared quickly.
If Taranth had been paying attention, he would have stopped them then. If he had been sharp, he would have had them bind the carts for shelter and lay the tal beasts down against the wind to give them protection. But he was striding along at the back of the team, stretching his legs and worrying only about their direction while Hateri led them forward.
By the time he noticed the wall of sand rising up, it was too late.
The wind came like the blow of a hammer.
The heat like the blasting of a furnace.
The sand like the swirling of razors.
Visibility was gone in seconds.
Taranth shouted orders, fell to his knees, and wrapped his hood over his face, hoping the others remembered their lessons.
The youngest of the tal beasts gave its piercing call of danger as it broke from the line. The cart behind the tal twisted and turned with its movement, then caught the wind and the inertia of its sudden change in direction raised it up. The cart tilted and rolled, contents and quadars falling to the ground. The animal panicked and tried to run, its form a dark shadow fading into the orange depths.
The wind was already so strong Taranth could not hear the party scream.
The sand-darkened shape of Yip Kil was standing up ahead, then she was gone. He crawled toward the others, keeping low to the ground to give the storm less area to grab, keeping his fingers wide to give him full purchase. The strength of the wind made it like climbing a sheer cliff sideways. Sand burned anything that was exposed.
He kept his eyes mostly shut, squinting ahead.
A dark lump lay before him.
It was M’ran.
“Did you see anyone else?” he yelled into his friend’
s ears, but the question was answered for itself when M’ran turned to face him. M’ran’s eyes, central and both primaries, were squeezed tightly shut and both hands were over them. He was groaning and grunting, “Burns!” He screamed when Taranth grabbed him. When he heard Taranth’s voice the screams turned to pleading. “Make it stop!” he called. “Make it stop!” But Taranth knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, and while the pain would subside M’ran’s sight was likely gone forever.
“Stay here!” he commanded. “Keep down!”
The wind battered him as he pulled himself forward.
A trick of the current picked him up and skittered him along the ground like so much dry brush. Skin tore from his fingers and knees as he tried to catch himself. For an instant he thought he was dead, but luck was his. The wind deposited him painfully into a thicket whose thorns pierced his skin and whose dry wood chattered like bone music in the angry swirl. His arm was battered, but he caught a hold that let him keep steady and gather himself back up.
He pulled himself out of the bush.
Using his bruised arm as a shield, he peered through the curtain of sand.
He had no idea which direction he had come from.
So he did the only thing a quadar of the desert knows to do.
He hugged the ground close, and he waited for the storm to subside.
When it was over, Taranth went back toward the team’s last location.
His legs and back burned from where thorns had impaled him. He would have to dig them out later, a painful process that he wasn’t looking forward to, but one that was far better than to leave them to fester. His neck and arm hurt, but would heal. The wind still gusted but it was a calmer beast now, settling to simply beat the folds of his robes against his chest, scrub his skin, and carry dust away.
The landscape was desolate, open, and barren.
He saw no one, not even a blind M’ran.
A cart had been overturned nearby, looking more like a cage than a form of transportation now. The largest pieces of the Taranth Stone remained lashed to it, trapped inside. As he drew near, a mound of sand stirred and a tal beast rose up, still attached to the cart. The animal gave a plaintive call, and an awkward shake that scattered clouds of dust. Taranth grunted his admiration. It was a grizzled thing, this tal beast, but it knew how to turn its back to the wind and let the sand build its protection.
