Moongather

by Clayton, Jo;

  Dinafar shook the pad vigorously, then beat it against the rock, smiling with satisfaction as the vermin tumbled out. “I suppose they’ll do something about them today. We.…” She dropped the pad, straightened her shoulders. “They don’t know much about macai.”

  “Let me have that a minute.” The meie took the pad after Dinafar had scooped it up again. She held it out at arm’s length, narrowed her eyes. Dinafar saw the green spot on her forehead tremble a little, small waves passing across the oval of a green darker than the matte olive of her face. Black specks rained from the pad and vanished in the matted grass. Dinafar stood scratching absently at her stomach wondering just what she was getting herself into, the meie was stranger than she’d thought; still, she knew what she was leaving and that was enough. The little meie turned to her. “Stand still a moment, Dinafar. You’ve picked up some visitors.”

  Dinafar flushed uncomfortably. She knew some of the vermin were her own, parasites she’d picked up from the posser she’d herded, the stables she’d slept in. She looked down, hate like fire for the fishers who had shamed her from the moment she was born. Then she started as cool fingers touched the junction of neck and shoulder. A moment later, most of the itching was gone. “Maiden bless, meie,” she mumbled. The meie said nothing, simply swung back into the saddle.

  “Hand me that gear,” she said.

  Dinafar stared, then realized that she’d be riding the spare macai in a little while. The thought excited and frightened her.

  The meie rested saddle, halter, pad on the front ledge of her saddle. “Walk beside me. The other macai will follow and help shield you from the village. As soon as we’re under the trees, I’ll rerig our ugly friend here so we can make better time.”

  Half an hour later, when they were moving through high brush and scattered trees, when even the white cliffs had passed from sight, the meie pulled the macai to a stop. Dinafar was tired and hungry. Clinging to the stirrup leather had helped but in all her life she could not remember having walked so far and so fast. The meie untied the waterskin and handed it down to her. “Don’t be extravagant with this, Dina. We can’t stop to fill it for a good long time.” She glanced into the shadows under the trees and sighed. “Maiden knows what’s waiting in there for us.”

  While Dinafar drank, then rested, trying over in her mind the shortened version of her name, deciding that she rather liked it, the meie saddled the stray macai and slipped the halter over his ugly head. Then she called Dinafar and boosted her into the saddle.

  As they rode deeper into the forest, Dinafar clutched at the ledge of the saddle, trying to fit herself into the rolling rise and fall of the macai’s gait. She was beginning to feel sick; her hastily eaten breakfast was sitting uneasy in her stomach. She looked enviously at the small woman ahead of her who was swaying gracefully to the gait of her beast, back firmly erect as if her spine had a sword thrust down it.

  Dinafar thought of the village now far behind and smiled grimly. Henser will have to find himself another girl to pester. Her smile widened to a broad grin as she pictured an angry father taking the blunt end of a fish spear to his back. I’m out of there. I’m really out of there. She shivered, sickness churning in her stomach, exacerbated by the hatred roused in her by those thoughts. Clinging to the saddle she leaned out as far as she could, yielding to her need to vomit.

  Then small strong hands caught her and pulled her down off the macai, held her as her body was wrung by spasms of nausea. Sour and exhausted, she let herself be moved away and laid out on a thick layer of rotting leaves that smelled like cool rich earth. She could feel the dampness creeping through her clothing as she lay with eyes shut, entirely miserable. Then the small hands were back. A damp cloth moved over her face, cleaning away the sweat and sour liquid. She stiffened, feeling awkward, confused by the surge of emotion the meie’s gentle touch woke in her.

  She pushed the hands away and sat up. Her stomach shifted uneasily but she swallowed repeatedly until the nausea went away. When she looked up, the meie was tying the waterskin back behind her saddle. The small woman turned and watched her quietly. To Dinafar’s surprise there was a haunted look in the orange-gold eyes, an instant’s revelation of pain instantly suppressed.

  “Can you ride now?” The meie’s voice was gentle, calm, remote. Her pointed face was a mask, all expression disciplined away. “If you feel more comfortable walking.…” The words came slowly. Behind the meie’s outward tranquility, Dinafar sensed a nervous urgency that made her offer something torn from her by courtesy alone. Dinafar thought back to the helpless rages that had wracked her since she was old enough to feel, if not understand, the hate, disgust and cruelty she’d breathed in with every beat of her heart. This gentle courtesy accorded her by one who was a little more than a stranger brought her a sudden vision of life at the Biserica that gave her the strength to stagger to her feet and pull herself clumsily back into the saddle. She settled herself as best she could and looked down at the meie. “Tell me how to fit the macai’s rhythms, meie. I can’t seem to do it.”

  A half smile, little more than a rueful twitch of her lips, lit the small woman’s face. “My fault, child. I should have realized that you knew nothing about riding; you even told me so.” She moved her golden eyes critically over Dinafar, the green spot on her forehead twitching as she concentrated. The spot looked velvet soft; Dinafar was suddenly and intensely curious about the feel of it under her fingers, then she closed her hands into fists frightened by what she was thinking.

  “That damn skirt.” The meie wrinkled her nose while her eyes shone with amusement and disdain. “I cannot see why or how women endure this.” She began fussing with Dinafar’s bunched skirt, pulling out the wrinkles, pushing at Dinafar’s thighs and knees until her legs were pressed more firmly against the wide leather aprons that protected her from the macai’s knobbly skin. Dinafar swallowed a sigh at the pain as muscles complained against being stretched in unaccustomed ways. The meie patted her on the thigh, ignoring her uneasy blush, then swung into her own saddle. “It will take a day or two for your bones and muscles to accustom themselves to this.” She laughed. “I remember my own aches. You’ll be wishing the Maiden had called you home, but the soreness will go away, I promise you.” She clucked at her mount. As it took a step forward, she leaned over and caught hold of the halter on Dinafar’s mount, forcing him to walk beside her.

  “Center your weight around your navel.” The meie’s orange-gold eyes slid critically over her. “Hold your back straight but not stiff. That’s better. No, don’t stiffen. Think of your spine as a plumb bob. Know what that is? Never mind. Think of a string with a weight at the end. No matter how you move the top of the string, the weight keeps it hanging straight. Your spine is the string, your buttocks the weight.”

  Her voice was tranquil and remote; it fell on Dinafar’s ears like cool water as the two macai paced slowly along, side by-side. Buoyed by it, she was able to relax and let herself become part of the flow, not even noting when the voice merged with the flutter of the leaves overhead and finally stopped altogether.

  Dinafar rode with the meie in and out of cool green shadow, gold splotches of sunlight slipping over them where the leaves thinned. The wind whispered in a continuous murmur, a drowsy, comfortable sound with a resonant quality that such sounds lacked out on the grasslands. She let her macai fall behind and rode through the green world, filled with a joy as warm and bright as the patches of sun that danced over her.

  Sometime later, the meie twisted around in the saddle and looked back at her, then pulled her macai to a slower walk until they were once more side by side. The little woman smiled, both surprised and pleased. “You learn fast.”

  “Mongrels are clever creatures or so the story goes.” Dinafar smiled to take the sting out of her words. Old hates were slipping further and further behind as she left the village behind.

  The meie grimaced. “How many times have you heard that?”

  “All my life.” She
shrugged. “That’s past now.”

  The meie nodded; her quick smile flashed out again. “Forget it—or, if you have to remember, be glad you’re a clever mongrel. Stupidity’s no blessing.” She frowned as Dinafar clutched at the saddle ledge and shifted a little to ease some of the strain on her legs. “Tired?”

  “A little.”

  The meie tilted her head back, eyes narrowed, measuring the height of the sun. After a minute she looked down, rubbed at the back of her neck. “A little longer, then we’ll stop.”

  They rode on, the meie in front again, Dinafar trusting that the odd little woman knew where she was going. It was pleasant to relax that way, to let someone else take responsibility for her actions; Dinafar couldn’t remember when she hadn’t had to fight simply to stay alive. As time passed, though, and the macai rolled on and on, she began shifting about more and more, the burning in her groin and thighs mounting slowly until it was nearly unbearable.

  The trees opened out; they rode into a wide irregular space that was a burned-over section of the wooded slopes where lightning had set a fire and cleared off the larger trees. Several charred corpses of the squat brellim trees and the jagged pomacin lay like black exclamation points in the brushy second growth. As they followed a twisting track through the tangle, Dinafar began wondering when the meie planned to stop. She examined the straight narrow back ahead of her, the turning head, its tight curls bobbing with the movement. The meie seemed uneasy. Deeper in the brushy growth Dinafar could hear rustles and snaps as if predators were following them. She caught the itch from the meie and nearly forgot the pain in her legs.

  Bursting out of a clump of brush behind them, yelling his war challenge, a Kappra charged at Dinafar, his saber raised for a killing slash. The bronze blade hummed over Dinafar’s head as her war-trained mount squatted, then reared and threw her. She landed against a stand of springy saplings that broke her fall but sent her rolling under the claws of the Kappra’s macai. More by luck than any management on her part, she evaded them and scrambled into the brush on the far side of the track just in time to miss a second swing of the saber. Eyes ringed with white, mouth open in a damp snarl, the Kappra forgot her and rode at the meie.

  The meie dropped to the ground, smacking her macai on the rump to send it out of the way. As the Kappra drove toward her, she leaped back before the swing of the saber, glanced rapidly about, then darted to her left, plunging into a small stand of second-growth pomacim; their multi trunks were hard and sharp as spears and grew so close she could barely fit her small body between them. The whippy branches bent before her and snapped into the macai’s face when the Kappra tried to force his mount after her. Howling with rage and frustration, he swung down and bounded after her.

  Dinafar crawled out of the brush, using some of the curses she’d collected in the fisher village at the broken branches jabbing into her and tearing her already ragged clothing. She crouched by the track, pulling leaves from her hair, watching with horror and fascination as the fight continued. The Kappra was quick and adept with his saber. Most of his cuts missed by a hair and a half and the meie was bleeding from a dozen small cuts and scrapes. But he was a rider and clumsy on the ground. She was quicker. She used the young trees to block many of his cuts. Again and again he swung at her and slashed off the tops of saplings. Dinafar began to breathe a little easier. The meie’s face had gone utterly tranquil; she wove like a dancer through the second growth, like a were-light enticing the Kappra on to doom, she led him round and round. Dinafar dragged herself to her feet, casting about for a weapon, anything. She found a lopped-off branch and began absently stripping it of leaves and twigs as she watched the intricate duel in front of her.

  The Kappra’s breath was coming hard; his mouth gaped, dripped foam. He’d passed into a berserker rage that gave him a terrible strength and speed; he drove the meie back and back, his saber cutting through the saplings as if they didn’t exist, a squealing whiffling passage like nothing she’d heard before. Dinafar gasped again.

  The meie faltered. She stumbled over an exposed root and barely managed to escape the swing of the saber. Trembling with fear, Dinafar ran toward them, those death-dancers so intent on each other no one and nothing else existed for them. His wrist, Dinafar thought. If I can hit his wrist.…

  The meie stumbled again, slammed into one of the larger trees. The Kappra howled, triumph in the ululating sound; driven with all the power in his arm, the saber cut at her, moving so swiftly it was only a blur singing its own lethal sound through the air. The meie seemed to hesitate, stare helplessly at the descending death, then dropped and rolled away, this time to the right, moving so quickly that Dinafar could only gape. The saber cut through the emptiness where the meie had been and sliced deep into the tree—the trunk was just a bit too thick for the blade to cut completely through. As the Kappra tugged futilely at the hilt, stupid and blind in his rage, the meie lunged up at him, buried her knife in his side, yanked it out, the blade drawing with it a great gout of blood.

  The Kappra gasped and crumpled, the saber hilt bobbing over him. The meie knelt beside him, mouth twisted with a pain of her own. He groaned. With his last strength he spat in her face. No anger in her eyes, only sadness, she wiped the spittle away. “Maiden give you quiet rest,” she murmured. When he was dead, she brushed her hand across his face, closing his eyes, pushing his mouth shut. She knelt another minute in silence, then she retrieved her knife, wiped the blade on the Kappra’s loincloth and replaced it in its sheath. She picked up fallen leaves and rubbed them vigorously between her palms and over the bloodstains on her legs.

  Dinafar looked down at the dead Kappra, back at the rubbing, shaking hands. “Meie?”

  The meie sighed and got heavily to her feet. “What is it?”

  “You killed two yesterday and you didn’t … all this.” She swooped her hand from the dead man to the standing woman.

  “Yes.” The meie started trudging back along the track to the macain who stood rubbing sides, gingerly snatching bites of the brush. She reached up and touched the arch of wood and horn. “When the arrow strikes, you don’t feel them die.” She sighed. “You don’t feel them die.” She shook herself, seemed to throw off her depression and spoke in ordinary tones. “Get mounted. We can’t stop here.”

  When they were back in the green shadow under the trees, Dinafar saw the meie’s head turning again, using her eyes, ears and whatever other senses she had to probe the trees ahead and on each side. Before they’d gone far into the forest, the meie unclipped and strung her bow. No more surprises, Dinafar thought. She smiled, then shifted in the saddle, her mouth twisting as she sought vainly for a more comfortable position.

  The meie nocked an arrow, slowed her macai. A Kappra rode at them from the shadow, his challenge deadened by the close-huddling trees until it was cut off completely by the arrow in his throat. The meie slid down, cut her arrow free, murmured her quiet blessing while Dinafar pulled saddle and halter off the Kappra’s macai and dumped them on the ground.

  Twice more Kapperim attacked; twice more they died; twice more the macain were stripped and freed.

  At midday Dinafar was following the meie through a twisting ravine deep in the shadows of the mountain peaks. The trees had been left behind. Her legs were numb; she kept herself in the saddle with the grip of both hands on its ledge, too exhausted even to complain.

  When the meie stopped at last, Dinafar’s mount stopped also. The halt caught her by surprise and she nearly fell off. After she regained her balance she leaned forward until her face rested on the spongy fringe curving along his neck. Then she lifted her head and watched the meie through a haze of weariness; she saw her turning her head again, side to side as if she were feeling out their direction. With a quick habitual gesture, she brushed back her sorrel curls, then kneed the macai into a slow walk. Groaning silently, Dinafar clumsily kicked the macai into motion.

  After an eternity of climbing over rock slope, up and up, always up until Dinafar�
�s legs were no longer numb but burning, as if the macai’s barrel had turned to live coals, the meie rode into a narrow crack in an outthrust of rock that seemed to Dinafar the bones of earth itself thrust through its flesh. They plunged first into darkness then into light again as they emerged; the torment eased as the macai rocked to a stop. Small hands touched her thigh. “Slide down.” The warm husky voice cut through watery waves of tiredness swamping Dinafar. “Lean toward me and let yourself go. I won’t let you fall.”

  Dinafar sat swaying, unable to move farther, then she leaned out and let herself fall.

  The hands caught her. For a moment she was pressed against the meie’s strong little body, then she was stretched out on cool deep grass, savoring the pleasure of being utterly still. Hands straightened her legs and pulled her skirt down. A damp cloth passed across her face, then down her arms. She opened her eyes.

  The meie was kneeling beside her, the haunted look back in her eyes. It vanished as soon as she saw that Dinafar was watching her. She smiled. “Good. You’ll feel better in a little.” She moved on her knees along Dinafar’s body until she was kneeling at her feet.

  Dinafar had never worn shoes; she knew her feet were scarred and ugly and dirty. She tried to pull them away, but the meie took them in her hands, her surprisingly strong hands; she ignored the dirt, the broken nails, the cuts and scrapes, the thick horn on the soles, and began manipulating first the ankle then the toes. Dinafar gasped with pain, then sighed with pleasure as some of the grinding soreness passed from her legs. After a moment she started to become acutely uncomfortable as the meie continued to massage her calves.

  The meie looked up. “Don’t worry, child.” She sounded amused. The orange-gold eyes were twinkling at Dinafar. “No matter what you’ve heard about us, I’m not trying to seduce you.”