Moonscatter (20 page)

“Well enough.” Tuli glanced at Teras. He nodded. It was Rane who was following, no one else. “Why didn't you just come with us? How come you waited?”

“You look like you were waiting for me.”

“Someone.” Tuli spoke before she thought. Teras's fingers closed tight about her arm, but his warning came too late.

“One of you is a sensitive. You?” She nodded at Teras.

He drew back until his spine was pressing against the trunk of the spikul. Tuli chewed on her lip.
Did it again, Maiden bless, ran my mouth before I thought
. She moved closer to Teras, closed her hand around his. She felt him stiffen, then relax and knew he'd forgiven her. With a brief reluctant nod, he said, “Me.”

Rane crossed her arms on the saddle ledge, smiled down at them. “Owleyes and Longtouch. You make a good team.”

Teras grinned. “Well,” he said. “Sometimes.” He slid off the root. “You didn't answer Tuli's question.”

“I had things to do before I left.” Rane's voice went cool and distant. She waited until the twins were mounted again, then the three of them rode back up the embankment and set their macain to an easy lope. The mounts of the twins were rested and well-fed, full of frisk though not as high-strung as Rane's racer.

Tulu studied the lanky ex-meie, wondering just why she'd come after them, why she'd really come, not what she said, wondered if they'd ever get any answer to that, one they could believe, not that laconic non-explanation she'd given them. She shifted in the saddle, suddenly aware of her sores as if Rane's question had stirred them into life.

The ex-meie rode closer. “Bothering you?”

“A little.”

“Ummm.” She inspected Tuli's mount. “A good flatland beast with a steadyish gait.” She paused. “How's your balance?”

“Huh?”

“Ever walk corral poles?”

“Course. Lots of times.”

“Good at it?”

“Some. Why?”

“Never mind. Try taking your feet from the stirrups and letting your legs hang. Don't grip with your thighs—hold yourself on by balancing your upper body. Hang onto the ledge if you start slipping, that should be enough. Teras.” Her call was quietly spoken but insistent. Teras twisted around, saw them slowing and dropping behind, pulled his mount to a stop and waited for them. When they came up with him, Rane said, “We're going to have to move slower. Your sister is having some trouble again.”

Teras nodded, rode beside Tuli ready to give her a supporting hand if she needed it. After wriggling about in the saddle until she felt comfortable, she kicked her feet out of the stirrups, then tried to deal with the consequent feeling of instability. With a startled gasp she clutched at the ledge as she found herself tilting inexorably to her right. Eventually she slumped like a sack of grain in the saddle, legs dangling loose, her body moving bonelessly with the swing and sway of the macai's stride. It was a rather exhilarating feeling. She was rooted in the macai and through him into earth herself, wholly relaxed, almost giddy with the unexpected pleasure in this sort of riding, the ease of pain only a minor though welcome, bonus.

After watching her closely for a while, the quiet ex-meie nodded and her smile stretched to a broad grin. Her worn face relaxed. The warmth usually hid behind her controlled bearing shone from her blue-green eyes like sunlight on rain-wet brellim leaves. “You should have seen me trying to ride when I ran away to the Biserica.” Her voice had a tender, musing quality. She might have been talking to distract Tuli from the questions seething in her head, or might simply have been in a remembering mood with Tuli just by chance riding beside her. Or she might have other reasons, helpful or threatening. Tuli wondered as she listened, but she listened avidly.

Rane made a clown face, ran long, rather bony fingers through her thatch of straw-colored hair. “Stenda women, ah stenda women, what a life they lead.”

Tuli added, “A while back we passed a stenda boy with a herd of macain.”

Rane chuckled. “And he wouldn't even give you greeting.”

“Yah. A snot.”

“A Stenda, moth. A lord of creation. Born knowing he's infinitely above the rest of us.”

“You couldn't ride?”

“Oh no, Tuli. A stenda lady—never. It wouldn't be at all proper. We sew and we smile, we learn our genealogies until we can recite them in our sleep. We gossip and protect our complexions and wait to be married. If we're lucky and a little talented we may even learn some music.” She patted her flute case. “And it's so damn dull one wants to scream aloud but that wouldn't be permitted. A stenda lady has a low and pleasant voice at all times no matter what the provocation.”

“So you ran away.”

“So I ran away.” She sighed. “Not before I was beaten bloody more than once. I used to slip out at night like you and Teras when I couldn't stand it any longer, usually when TheDom was full, I couldn't bear to stay inside when he painted the world silver. I used to play with the macai foals or just wander about feeling free. I was very bad at escaping then, they caught me nearly every time and every time they caught me my father examined me to make sure I was still virgin. Examined me publicly. Called all the family together. The times I wanted to kill him, chop him into bloody shreds.…” She sighed again. “Ah well, that was a long time ago.”

“Sounds like the Followers are first cousins to stenda men,” Tuli said. “They kept yammering stuff like that at me.” She slanted a look at Rane, then gazed down at hands resting lightly on the ledge in front of her. “Do many stenda girls reach the Biserica?”

Rane's lips twitched, but she answered seriously. “Not many. Just the stubbornest.” She shrugged. “Most stenda women seem to like the way they live. My youngest sister is quite happy, no pretense about it.”

“Sort of like Nilis.”

“Sort of, I suppose.” Rane's eyes twinkled at her.

Tuli fell silent. Her ankles and feet started to swell, hurt when she moved them. She lifted one foot and rested her toe in the stirrup. It threw her off balance, but felt better, so she slipped in the other toe. When she was settled again, she glanced at Rane, started to speak, clamped her lips tight.

“Why did I leave the meien?” Rane's voice was gently teasing. “You want to ask that, don't you.”

“It's none of my business.” Tuli was embarrassed. Her face felt hot and tight.

“No, it isn't.” Rane looked away. Her profile was all Tuli could see in the slanting light from the setting sun. “Still, it's certainly no secret. You met my shieldmate but I don't know if you remember her, it was a long time ago, nearly half your lifetime, moth.” She rode silent for several minutes, her profile altering as her lips moved into a brief tender smile. “Meien always ride in pairs. Sometimes for companionship and protection, sometimes because they are lovers. We were lovers, my shieldmate and I. You probably can't understand that, moth, but it was so. Passion and affection, an affinity of souls. Together we made a whole, apart we were uneasy and imcomplete. I was fourteen, your age, moth, when I stumbled through the Northwall gate. Fourteen when I met her. I was thirty-nine when she died.… she died—do you know, there were months when I couldn't say those two words together. She died for two years, a wasting disease that even our healers couldn't cure. I left the Biserica because there were too many memories there. Out here.…” She moved her hand in one of those innately graceful gestures Tuli now knew were a lingering result of stenda drilling. “Out here I can let go of her. And remember the good times if I'm in a mood for memories.” Tuli saw with surprise that she was smiling. “I'm just a wanderer now, moth, playing flute for those who want to hear it. The Players make me welcome for the sake of this.” She patted the flute case with laughing affection. “And I'm useful if they run into trouble with drunks or men who pester the Player women under the delusion that they're little more than whores. It saves a lot of bad feeling if I'm the one to tunk the louts on their thick heads and leave them for the Townmaster's men to cart off to the lock-up.” She tapped the saddle ledge. “A caveat here, Tuli. You and Teras did right to trust Fariyn and her friends. The other Players are something else. They're fiercely loyal to their own but outsiders are fair game. If you run into them again, trust them only as much as you have to. And keep an eye on exits.”

Tuli frowned, suspecting that there was a lot about Rane and her activities the ex-meie wasn't telling. She swallowed her curiosity, knowing she'd get no satisfactory answers. “Tchah,” she whispered.

“Hurting again?”

“No. Just thinking.”

“Oh.” Rane's lips twitched. “That can be painful.”

Thick yellow clouds were piling up above the Earth's Teeth, pushing at the sharp peaks like hauhaus shoving against a corral fence. The sunset stained them rose madder and rust, garnet and gamboge, amethyst and indigo, great rolling puffs of barren dust given momentary glory. Rane watched the clouds, silent and still, her hands relaxed on her thighs. Tuli saw the colorplay that enthralled the ex-meie and paid it perfunctory tribute, but she was filled with fear for her father and she had little mind left for anything else. When she looked at Teras, riding stiff and unyielding beside her, she knew he was feeling the same fear.

His head started moving, turning slightly side to side. He was scanning the road ahead, scanning the sky. Tuli waited for him to speak but when he said nothing she grew impatient. “Anything?”

“No.” He lifted a hand, let it fall. His gong occasionally deserted him when it would be most useful. They'd learned long ago never to depend on it when they were trying to sneak back into the house after one of their night runs. Tuli stared at the sky ahead, not knowing what to expect, then she leaned tensely forward, ignoring the pain as she pressed sores hard against the saddle flaps.

A black shape barely distinguishable from the sky flew across the road, flew back. She strained to see.
Not a trick of the twilight
, she thought.
One? Yah, only one
. “Teras, Rane.” She pointed. “A trax. There. Just one.”

Teras tried to follow the line of her pointing finger. “You sure?”

“Tcha! Would I say it if I wasn't?”

“You think it might be watching Da?”

“Maiden knows.”

Rane wiped sweat from her forehead, her eyes on that black shape still far ahead. The sun's murky glow picked out the planes of her high cheekbones and the long slide of her nose, sank her eyes into smears of shadow. She pulled her cowl up over her head with a crisp movement of one hand as if she were issuing a challenge to that unnatural thing that waited for them. Her macai caught her mood, tossed his head, sidled about, his claws pricking delicately at the blacktop. “That thing's already seen us, don't you doubt that.” She tugged at her cowl. “We'll ride slow and steady till we're a quarter mile, maybe a little more, past the snoop.”

“Past?” Tuli blinked. “Oh.”

Teras grinned. “And come back through the trees.”

“Didn't think I'd need to explain.”

Tuli eased a hand down along her thigh and rubbed gently at the sores. After a minute she said, “If Da is there, what are we going to do about that trax?”

Rane dipped and tapped on a flat leather case behind her right leg. “Crossbow,” she said. “Its range is longer than those lethal slings of yours.” When she straightened and saw Tuli's face, she shook her head. “I'm not making fun of you, child. Are you as good as your brother?”

“She's better, 'specially at night.” Teras touched Tuli's arm.

Tuli closed her hand about his, happy with this renewal of their closeness. “Maybe I can see better'n him, but he can sling harder and farther.”

Rane nodded slowly. “I see.” Her head tipped forward, she brooded in silence as they slowly drew closer to the circling trax. It was bigger, like a child with great leathery wings. The air near the surface of the Highroad was still, the only sound the clack-pad of the clawed feet on the resilient paving, but high overhead the clouds were spilling, wind-driven, from behind the peaks and spreading out across the Plain, veiling the pale light from TheDom while he was still low in the east. “Maiden curse them!” Rane slammed a hand down hard on the saddle ledge, then soothed her startled mount. She jerked the cowl off her head again, her short hair standing out from her head like tumbled straw. “Look here, Tuli, Teras.” She pressed the hair back from her face, tapped at her temple. “I hate this, it shouldn't be necessary.” She straightened her shoulders. “This is a good place to hit if you want to lay a man out with your slings. You'll either kill him or put him out of action for a good long while. If his back is to you …” she bent her head forward, felt at it with long strong fingers. “Here. Try to hit about here. If his hair isn't too thick.” She straightened. “If it is or he's wearing something on his head, one of you sting him, the other be ready for the temple when he swings around. If you're lucky. He could dive for cover and make a nuisance of himself instead.” She went on talking as their macai walked briskly over the blacktop, giving capsulized advice in a hard, steady voice.

Time passed—and distance—faster than they knew. Tuli looked up, gasped. The trax was directly overhead, drifting ominously on the wind. It was huge. She gaped at it. Far huger than she'd thought even when Teras relayed what Hars had told him. Vast and shadowy in the starless sky. Vast and terrifying. She couldn't look away. She tried to swallow but there was a huge lump shutting her throat.

“Tuli.” Rane shook her loose from her paralysis. “Don't look at it, just keep riding.” She smiled tightly. “Not that I blame you. That one's twenty times the size of most traxim.”

Tuli nodded. Though she still couldn't speak, Teras asked the question plaguing her. “How much longer?” he whispered.