“With men it is—most men. Some are evil and violent. Quen treated you awfully roughly, but only when you stepped into his ground.”
“His ground?”
“Fighting. He does it very well. Many men do. Apparently, Stel never did.”
Ahroe tried to laugh, but it made her face hurt. “Stel? No. I never saw him fight. He took little guard training— only what all had. He—”
“Was he strong?”
“Yes. He is. He does stonecutting sometimes. He could always lift a great deal. But I could have beaten him in a fight if he—”
“Did he know enough not to try it out?”
Ahroe said nothing, partly out of pain, partly in thought of Stel. He certainly was not helpless. She never thought of fighting him. They had been instinctive friends from childhood, from the time he had given her a practice boat he had made in his woodworking class. He had come up to her and said, “Are you Ahroe Dahmen? Here.” And he had walked away embarrassed.
Bara had brought Garet, who was waking. “Did he try it out? Would he, if he were here, have felt pity for a strange young woman with a baby and no husband anywhere?”
“Yes, of course. But he wouldn’t have beaten her into the ground.”
“At least his pity is like Quen’s. His pity turned to love. I tried to tell him to leave you alone, but he thought he could see a way to help you—by giving of himself.”
“All this doesn’t sound like what happened.”
“No. But you had a hand in that. And we fear the windy storm that makes the grass green. Now, I must go and cook. You are going to have some black eye there. But it will heal. I am sorry, Ahroe. But things will calm. After the worst wind, the river water becomes smooth and clear.” Bara put her arms around the younger woman and patted her a long moment, then got up to go out. At the door she turned and said, “I am sorry, Ahroe, but I have been thinking about what I have told you a long time. You are not among the Pelbar. Walk gently when you cross a quaking bog. Talking is a method. You don’t always have to fight.
“Another thing. I know you think we here, we women, have a bad time, with all the dirt and work, but remember that it is not amusing for the men to stand in a freezing rain on a hunting station for most of a day and have the cattle turn aside an ayas back and never come. They have to do it, and the tough survive it. Your Stel had other skills, and other needs, and you could treat him differently.”
“I never—” Ahroe began, but Bara had gone outside again. Then she lay back and nursed Garet, who drank greedily and long. Ahroe watched him dreamily through her one open eye. Hagen came in and then came over to her, kneeling down. When he saw her face, his showed shock and anger.
Ahroe put her hand on his arm. “No. Don’t do anything. I had a hand in bringing it on.”
“He had no right—”
“Please let it go. I would not have you hurt. I have things to learn, too. I have been thinking of Stel. If I knew then what Quen has just taught me, maybe I would be home with him now, or at Northwall.”
“Just the same, he—”
“No, Hagen. Please. Look what Ral and Bara have done for me. And you. I have eaten Quen’s meat. I have never done anything for him. He is rough, isn’t he. I am glad Assek wasn’t so fast and strong. Now please let me think this all over and be quiet.”
But Hagen still sat there, angry and upset. Ral came in, knelt at her other side, looked at her face, and whistled long and low. “Well, Ahroe, it looks as if you stood in the way of an axe.”
“A dull one, too.”
“Too sharp for me.”
“Are your teeth all right?”
“Yes. All there.”
“And that nose. Is that a bruise? Or is it broken?”
“A bruise only.”
“He is a rough boy, isn’t he. But he went too far this time. Only a touch will trigger a deadfall, but then all that weight comes whunking down.” He sat a moment, then leaned quickly and kissed her forehead. “I still have three cows to milk. Hear them out there? They are saying I have neglected them. When are you going to help me milk, Ahroe? Ah, you yourself are being milked still, aren’t you.” But he was on his way out and didn’t wait for any answer.
A half-month later Ahroe and Hagen set out again. Her eye was better, but for a small arc of red in the white, and her nose had resumed its narrow shapeliness. The whole camp said good-bye, and watched them up the hill. Bara called, “I hope you know what you are doing. Come back anytime. Bring Stel when you find him.”
They waved back, then didn’t turn again. Ahroe couldn’t. Again she felt cast adrift, by her own hand, but Hagen was there, and old as he was, remained wholly devoted to her. Ahead of her, he walked stiffly but steadily westward, and she had a sudden inkling that it was all a grand adventure to him, for the first time going west of Shumai territory into a new land, the eastern face of which shone this morning with the sun over their shoulders.
The first two weeks passed without remarkable event. They went slowly because of Garet. resting and foraging. Ahroe could see that Hagen still enjoyed himself. Then, topping a rise, they looked at a new scene. In the distance, the landscape looked brown and lifeless, eroded into deep gullies, steaming with dust.
“What is it?”
“It is an empty place. It is death to cross it.”
“Do you think Stel did?”
“No. I think he would know. If he came this far west, he is probably to our south—if we have not overrun him again. But I know of no people to our south, and I surmise he may have continued west.”
“Then we should go south around the empty place?”
“I think so. From here. We would have to anyway. Ral knew of no one there. We should skirt the empty area and continue westward. Let’s back off it a little to be safe.
I saw another empty place once, far to the northeast, west of the Bitter Sea. They always come where there was an ancient city. The broken roads run into them. Sometimes you can see ruins out in them.”
The two turned south around the great bum of ancient times. That same morning, Quen returned to Ral’s. He had been troubled ever since his encounter with Ahroe. He had gotten no peace. He had finally decided that whatever Shumai rules or attitudes are, he had been wrong. After avoiding the place as long as he could, he finally came back so that, if nothing else, he might rid himself of the massive emotional upthrust that troubled him days and nights. Omar and Wald were with him.
Ral greeted them outside the animal pens, hands on hips, his blond braid over one shoulder, his leather smock dark with dirt. “They have gone,” he said. “I was expecting you. You were too violent with her, Quen.”
“Where?”
“Westward.”
“Does Hagen know about the empty places?”
“Yes. I am sure.”
“Then what?”
“I think he thinks Stel is to the south and west.”
Quen frowned. Wald muttered slowly, “Well, if they go to the empty place, then turn south, they will come to Roti country. I hope the woman has dark eyes.”
“What of the baby? Have his eyes turned dark?”
“Gray. Like his father.”
“If his father went that way, then that was an end to him. Gray, you say. Well, boys, what do you think?” Quen stared into two sets of eyes as blue as his own.
“I say we’ll have to go and get them.”
“What is all this?” Ral asked.
“The Roti. Haven’t you heard of them?”
“No. The Roti?”
“No wonder. Few know of them. They speak some unknown language. They capture blue-eyed people and sacrifice them.”
“Garet?”
“Him they would let grow up. Then they would kill him. It all has something to do with—well, with sex. The whole bunch is sex-crazy. They think blue-eyed people come from the sky and are gods.”
Ral whistled. “I will come, too.”
“No. You have too much to care for here.” Quen called this
over his shoulder as they already began a loose Shumai trot up the grassy hill, Ral somewhat bewilderedly watching them go.
12
It took Hagen and Ahroe three days to arc around the empty land southward, reaching a country of higher hills, dotted with broadly spaced pines and rough clumps of grass and brush. Hunting was poor, but Ahroe shot several burrowing animals with her short bow. They were smaller than the woodchucks of the Heart River, larger than the ground squirrels that squeaked and hid as the humans approached. Hagen called them prairie chucks.
The night of the third day they slept by their small fire. Hagen felt uneasy. He was sure he had heard something. Yes. He sat up. Suddenly, he was lashed by a noose around his neck, then quick coils around his body. As he shouted, Ahroe jumped up and a noose whisked around her. She cut it off with a sweep of her short-sword, but another, then another, wrapped her, and she too was ensnared. Five figures with shaved heads slid into the firelight. One picked up Garet, who screamed and cried.
One with a strange headdress cried out, “Puus da oun das tan. Coom. Fro das coeden.”
Another added twigs, and the fire flared up. All of them ignored Hagen and Ahroe, clustering around the fire with Garet, forcing open his tightly shut eyes.
“Aaahhhiiieee,” the leader cried out. “Diu heer es nu may nezumi iro!” They all took up the chant, dancing around the fire with Garet, who shrieked in total fear, swung above all their heads. They turned to the two bound adults, who twisted and fought against the leather ropes. The leader put his foot on Ahroe’s neck, looking at her eyes.
“Naaah. Heo nyet das may nezumi iro.” Then he turned, handed Garet to another man, and as he went to stoop by Hagen, suddenly his chest sprouted the point and shaft of a Shumai spear. He grunted and slumped. The man with Garet whirled as another spear went through his hip. A third snatched up the child and ran from the firelight, while the other two seemed to vanish into the shadows.
Hagen had rolled over and was sawing his wrist ropes against the spear tip. “Quen,” he said. “It is Quen. And some others.” And as he said it, Quen came into the firelight with Garet.
“That was a long run,” he said. “Wald and Omar are with me. They are after the others. Here.” He laid the baby by Ahroe, sawed through her bonds, then what was left of Hagen’s.
Ahroe, still bewildered, took Garet, and said. “Dear Aven, we are so glad. . . .” But Quen had put his knee on the Roti’s back, yanked back his spear, and run off into the dark, pausing to give a long, quavering yell. An answer came from the south, but none northward.
“Here comes Wald,” said Hagen, rubbing his wrists, as a thickset but slender man plunged through the firelight running northward. They heard his receding footsteps, and a long silence. Ahroe strung her short bow and laid out her five arrows, letting Garet cry. Hagen stood at the edge of the firelight, his spear held close to him. Another rope swished out over Ahroe’s neck, and Hagen followed it as it pulled taut to the Roti who threw it, running his spear into the man’s midsection. Two others jumpe.d on him. One had a knife, but as he raised it, Ahroe’s short-sword raked into his ribs and through them. The other turned as Hagen tripped him, but scrambled up and ran into the dark.
Ahroe rushed back to Garet as two Roti appeared on Ihe other side of the firelight. She snatched up her short bow, nocked, and shot without aiming. The front Roti buckled and pitched into the fire. The other stopped, turned, and dragged him out, as Hagen returned with his spear and, swinging it by the butt, cut the man’s knee. The Roti yelled and dropped, seizing his leg with both hands and writhing. Hagen took one of the fallen ropes and snagged his ankles, then turning him over, wrapped his neck from behind. Then he took the end and bound the man’s arms behind him.
Quen and the others returned. “One got away,” said Quen.
“Two,” Hagen replied. “One from here, too. Mean stuff.”
“You will have to kill that one. And the others, too.”
“Kill them?” said Ahroe.
“They want the child, for his gray eyes. Or any of us for our blue ones. They sacrifice the blue-eyed, with . . . while . . . Anyway, they sacrifice them. They think blue-eyed people are gods from the sky.”
Ahroe felt a wave of fear and revulsion. Taking up Garet, she held him to her and sobbed, fighting back her emotion with all her guardsman’s resolve, but without effect. The men looked at her, silent and embarrassed. The three younger ones sat down, winded and tired. Hagen built up the fire, bound the Roti Ahroe had wounded, and dragged him into the firelight. Hagen was limping, having wrenched his back. The Roti breathed with difficulty. Ahroe continued fighting her emotion, her head against Garet’s. The infant continued to wail.
Quen came over and squatted down in front of her. He put his hand on her hair. “You are thinking of Stel. You mustn’t worry. He may not have encountered them. There are not—”
She looked up. “Stel?”
“I have heard that he has gray eyes.”
Ahroe grew still, but her breast heaved as she sat thinking. “No, I was thinking of Garet. Stel? You think they might have sacrificed Stel?”
Quen paused, then said, “If he got this far, all the way from the Heart, by himself, he was a man of resource. Maybe they didn’t get him.” He paused again, a long while, then added, “Ahroe, this isn’t the time, I know, but I have felt so bad about what I did. There are rules, and there are feelings. And I went by the way things have always been done. I was wrong. What can I do? It was not right. It is something I can never make up. It—”
“You and the others have just saved our lives, Quen.” “Well, but that is not the same. That is only . . . well, it has nothing to do with the other.”
Ahroe stood up and took Garet over to Omar, then came back and put her arms around Quen’s neck. “I am tired, and you did really hurt me, but I am not so stupid that I don’t know who my friends are. I am sorry, too. It was my Dahmen blood, forcing things my way. I had no right. The irony of the whole thing is that if you weren’t the kind of man you are, you could neither have made such a mess of me nor come here so fast to save us.”
“You had a better right than I did. I know you were anxious. I was wrong. And I know these things are never made up, no matter what. They are always there.”
“It didn’t happen, Quen,” she said into his shoulder.
“But, well, all right. Now we had better be busy. There is much to do. We have to get out of here, for one thing. Tonight we had better move on a little. Then we need a rest. I am like an old rabbit skin.”
Ahroe, turning, saw Omar almost asleep with Garet, held like a sack of seeds. Hagen was binding the wounds of the Roti, moving stiffly with his hurt back. Wald was watching the darkness.
They did move on, lining up the dead Roti. Ahroe had prevailed on the Shumai not to kill the hurt ones, so they left them tied lightly. They went southward through the darkness, then turned west. Before morning they found a hill with a high escarpment, and there spent until afternoon sleeping and resting. They saw no more Roti.
“We will take you west beyond them,” said Quen.
Then we will go back, or else go around the empty place. North is Emeri country, but we are at peace with them, and I would rather risk their whims than these ghostly people. At least you can talk to them.”
Setting out again, they began to see signs of habitation, in a lack of dead lower limbs on trees, or on the ground, and then on a hillside below was a path edged with stones.
Hagen had been limping, with his twisted back, but when he tried to go down the steep hill to the path, he fell behind. His face was contorted with pain. As they turned around and looked at him, he said, “Go on. I did this once before a long time ago. I will catch up with you.” But they decided to go together, painfully slow as this was.
Reaching the path, they found it well constructed, but little used lately. Hagen walked more easily on level ground, and the group pressed ahead.
“This is not Roti work, I think,” Quen rema
rked. “These are other people. The Roti all live nearly together to the east. Look.” He pointed ahead to the Ozar bean fields, now largely gone wild. Advancing farther, they saw three figures, all dressed in loose gray robes, standing near a low, rambling building. Two were bald. They drew quite close before being noticed. Quen held up his two hands, and the one figure with hair, a dark old woman, advanced slowly.
“You are welcome here,” she said. “I am Fitzhugh, of the children of Ozar. This is Taglio and Finkelstein. We are all that is left of the Ozar.” Then as her eyes swept the small group, she caught her breath as she saw Ahroe. “A Pelbar? Another Pelbar?”
“Another? Stel is here?” Ahroe’s hopes rushed together like water and rock. Was it possible?
“Stel was here. He left us last autumn going west. He was with us for nearly a half-cycle of seasons. So you must be Ahroe. He told me about you. You look worn.” Advancing, she took the younger woman’s hands, smiling shyly up at her. “And who are these?”
“Quen, Wald, Omar, Hagen. And this is Garet,” she added, turning around. The baby regarded Fitzhugh solemnly, then reached out a hand. Fitzhugh gave him a finger.
“Stel never said he had a child,” she said. “He looks like him. Look. Both chin and eyes.”
“Stel never knew about him.”
“Well, come inside. I can feed you fish and beans, but not much else. That is what we eat.”
Quen made a face sideways to Wald. But they all were hungry. “Can you defend yourselves against the Roti here?” Hagen asked.
“They are not interested in us. I haven’t seen them since Stel left. A group of them followed him here, but they think of us as death, so they stayed away. This spring, way up that pass in the west, I found five of them, dead. They had evidently lain there all winter. I found three of Stel’s arrows with them. They must have followed him. Peaceful as he was, he seems to have defended himself at last. There is one on the shelf,” she added, pointing at the slender arrow, now warped.
Ahroe picked it up. Even weathered, it showed Stel’s deft exactitude. “He must have made a longbow.”
“Yes. Yes, he did. He killed a wild cow with it with one shot for us. That was just before he left. I suppose if he had not, he would have been here still, but for my sister, McCarty. The meat made all of us sick. We ate too much of it, not being used to it. McCarty encouraged it, then blamed Stel. She hated him.”
Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02] Page 11
