Ariah (52 page)

“
Dead how?” Sikelat asked.

Nardu shrugged. “Disease? Famine? Slavers? Who can tell. The land’s taken them. The Shallai likely limped off to nurse their wounds, but they did it too long ago for us to follow. There was a time once, when I was young and still an unpaired in the Trilvanda clan, that we Trilvanda thought to find another clan. We found only a few left—maybe twenty. Pirates, you know. This clan had ventured too far south and the pirates took so many. We found these twenty survivors, scarred people, people who thrummed with fear and worry. Who could not sleep nights. We found them, and land save us, we braved the chaos bred in their souls. We took them in. Some stayed with us, and some left in the night, left to wander the land alone and clanless.”

Some nodded. Some frowned. Kishva caught my eye from across the house and glanced at Shinnani, who was dark and distracted. I gestured at Moura, a Vrala calmer, to sit next to vim. Moura sidled up close, shoulder to shoulder, and Shinnani grew harmonious again.

Murmurs rippled through the clan. “Such a story,” someone said.

“
Clans come and go,” said another.

Halaavi cleared vis throat. “When I was young and still wandered with the Yavinaha, we saw many things. It is a stranger life than we live, the wanderings of the Yavinaha. No livestock, you know. With no yaks, no goats, you get rooted to the land. Pasture does not matter so much. Think on it, a life where pasture does not matter so much. The Yavinaha wander, but their wanderings are dictated by the ebb and flow of clan routes, and not the growth of grass. The Yavinaha wanderers are at the mercy of the clans they find. No milk without kindness; no furs without generosity. The Avolayla found a Yavinaha band, and they saw in that band a child: ragged, hungry, and calm. And the Avolayla took me in. That Yavinaha band still wanders, but not to the Avolayla.”

The clan was quiet for some time. A Rishnalla youth fidgeted. “I am just a goatherd, and I am young. Very young. And boring, so you may ask me to stop telling this story anytime you want. I am sure an Idok has a much more interesting story.” Ve cleared vis throat and seemed to run out of steam. A Vrala next to vim patted vis back and gave vim an encouraging nod. The Rishnalla goatherd continued. “I am a goatherd. I’ve been one not so long as many of you, but long enough to have this story. Some of you might remember when this happened. There was a time a few walks before this one where the rainy season came hard and vengeful. Storms came up suddenly; the land was chaos and danger. It was hard to find good pasture; the rains lingered too long in the soil, and the grass rotted on its stalks. Some of the goats got sick. It was a hard time, and it got harder. A day came where we found decent pasture for the goats and sent them out. I and three others took our herd to pasture. A storm came. A terrible storm. The rain came down in sheets, dark sheets, like night fell early. We drove the herd back towards camp, but one of us counted them and saw we’d lost a few, which was bad since we’d already lost so many to bad pastures. Two of my comrades went off to find them. I and Vrala Savanli drove the goats we had back to camp. The rain eventually stopped, but our comrades didn’t come back. At first we thought they’d taken shelter to ride out the storm, but a day passed, and then another, and it was clear something had happened. The runners found them. They’d been washed up in a flood. The runners said their bodies were smashed, splintered. A violent thing, the runners said. All because they could not bear to lose three or four half-dead goats.”

The clan chewed over this story. The hour was late, and we dispersed to our yurts. The decision spread slowly, like a disease, from one person to another. No one made a proclamation; no formal decision was made. The runners simply returned to their maps one day, first to see if the Shallai might have crossed paths with some other clan in the region, and then to map a route to connect with the Allunga who roamed in particularly good pasture land northwest of where we were. No one spoke of the Shallai again.

* * *

We crossed paths with the Allunga in high summer. We found them in a region of the grasslands the Droma know as the Slide, a plain that slopes gently downward over miles and miles. Unnamed streams split from the Vanna River to the north and thread through the basin. Rich grass grows on the Slide, and fresh water is abundant even in the dry summer months. There is, on the Slide, enough to pasture livestock from more than one clan, and its consistent richness meant it was likely the Allunga returned there every summer.

We saw their livestock first. Their yaks, like ours, had already shed their downy undercoat. They are sleek animals in the summer, not the shaggy shambling creatures they are in the winter. The Allunga yaks were larger than ours and darker. Not so different, but different enough to the practiced eye. Our runners ran out to meet the Allunga herders, singing walking songs bred by things Halaavi had said to the clan when we first reached the Slide. Halaavi was deeply taken with that part of the land. Ve spoke of harmony and cycles, of the lack of time there. I felt it, what Halaavi spoke of. It felt to me like a shift in the magic. The Slide was a place where the land magic was smooth and pristine, a place where the magic blended with the abundance of the mundane parts of the land instead of fighting with it.

The runners ran, and their voices slipped from earshot. Three days later, the runners returned singing an Allunga running song with Allunga runners in tow. The Allunga runners wore their hair cropped close to their scalps and sported beaded bracelets and anklets made of painted yak bones, which clattered when they moved. They ran into camp swathed in a slight sheen of sweat, grinning, and our runners led them up to our fire tent for food and drink. Avolayla children crowded around them, fingering the beads, asking questions. The Allunga were perfectly at ease until they spotted me. One froze, blinking, ash-faced. Another leapt to vis feet and demanded explanations. Ve called me a settler, a slaver, things I had not been called in years. Halaavi ran over and tried to explain, but the Allunga would not listen until an Idok calmer brought the mood back down.

Kishva came and stood next to me, arms crossed. “Nardu said this might happen.”

“
Said what might happen?”

Kishva glanced at me. “You might happen, Vrala Ariah. We know you. We trust you. But all they see is someone from the west.”

I sighed and pulled my hair over one shoulder. It was a hot day, and I was naked to the waist. My hair by then hung almost to the waistband of my pants, a smooth sheet of white that glinted in the bright summer sunlight. Kishva ran a hand through it. Kishva loved my hair, loved the smoothness of it. I cracked a smile, felt what ve wanted, and knew we’d meet in the unpaired’s yurt that night. I had, the second before, wished I looked as Droma as I felt. When Kishva looked at me like that, I didn’t mind my Semadran body so much. “What should I do?”

“
Nothing,” Kishva said. “Know that you’ve disrupted the harmony a little, but you should just keep doing what you do. Weave. Mind the children. Stick close to Laavi. They’ll come around.”

“
What if they don’t?”

Kishva shrugged. “Time is endless. We’ll cross with another clan. Just don’t startle them. You know, like when we send the little ones to learn the herds.”

I laughed. “Kishva, the Allunga are not goats.”

“
Goats, elves, there’s not much difference if you ask me,” ve said, still playing with the ends of my hair. Kishva smiled at me and left me to weave on my own while the Allunga stared at me in suspicion. It had been a long time since I’d been the cause of discord. I’d forgotten how to build walls. I found that out when I tried to shield myself from their tempers and worries and couldn’t. I practiced Yavinaha meditation to let their emotions pass over me. I had a small measure of success with it. The Allunga left that night with no promise to return. I could not help but feel guilty, though no one seemed to care much, and then I couldn’t help but feel guilty for feeling guilty. Kishva did, at least, take my mind off of it when dark fell.

As I have said before, the Droma do not rush into decisions. There was no reason for us to resettle until we needed to, and there was enough grass to sustain both herds. The proximity to the Allunga made life a little more difficult for our herders, who had to make sure they were herding just our livestock and that they had not inadvertently stolen any goats or yaks or antelope from the Allunga, but otherwise there was not much for us to do but wait. Our patience did, eventually, pay off: it took a few weeks, but the Allunga discussed it and traded stories and thought on it and came to the conclusion that I was not a threat. One morning just as high summer peaked and the days began to cool, young Allunga runners clattered into our camp. They were greeted warmly, and they returned the warmth. We fed them, and they told stories to the children, and the unpaired Rishnallas welcomed them into their yurt for the night. At dinner, one of the runners came and sat next to me. Ve cleared vis throat, and conversation died around the table. “Avolayla Vrala Ariah,” ve said, “our clan requests your presence in our camp.”

I stole a glance at Halaavi. Laavi nodded at me. “I am glad to accept. May I ask why?”

The Allunga runner smiled and ran a hand over vis shorn scalp. “Well, some of us are curious. Some of us are afraid and don’t want to be. But we ask your presence because we may have news for you.”

“
For me?”

“
Maybe. We’ll find out when you come back with us.” Halaavi drifted over. The Allunga runner pointed at us each in turn. “Shared skin?”

“
Yes,” I said.

“
Ve is welcome, too, of course,” the Allunga runner said.

“
When do we leave?” Halaavi asked.

The runner shrugged and ate a bit of goat cheese. “Tomorrow, the day after. Whenever seems a good time. Can you run?”

“
Yes,” Halaavi said.

“
No,” I said. Halaavi glanced over at me and laughed.

The Allunga runner shrugged. “We can go slow. Time is endless.”

We left the Avolayla camp two days later just before dawn. The Allunga runners went slowly for me; I walked the entire way. The Allunga runners were a rowdy, young, half-grown bunch. They ran around us while Halaavi and I walked. They struck off on odd little forays, tackled and wrestled each other in the high grass. One challenged Halaavi to a race, and Halaavi grinned and sprinted off. The Allunga won, but not by as wide a margin as ve expected. Halaavi earned the grudging respect of the Allunga runners, and some of that respect bled over to me by association.

The Allunga clan was nearly twice as big as the Avolayla. The old of the Allunga were older, the babies more numerous. The clan’s route was a good one, and their herds were large. They stayed in the eastern interior, far away from slavers. Halaavi sang one of vis walking songs as we approached camp. The runners ran ahead. Brown faces peeked out of yurts and around the sheltered sides of the cooking tents. A clutch of elves a generation older than myself and Halaavi—the Nalunghai—snapped to attention. Some of the Allunga sang back to Halaavi. Others stared at me. That clutch of four Nalunghai were the only ones to approach us. The person leading the way was tall and sharp-jawed. Ve had skin like polished wood and an untamed fierceness around the eyes. “Avolayla Vrala Ariah.”

“
Yes?” Laavi’s walking song petered out. The Allunga drank in the silence.

“
I am Allunga Nalunghai Koro.”

Halaavi looked over. “Koro the Echo?” Koro nodded. Laavi frowned slightly. “You are the one with news for Ariah?”

“
I am.”

“
Are you sure this is news for me?” I asked. I didn’t want it to be. I wanted it to be a mistake. Who would have news for me but the Exalted’s Army? Who besides the Butcher of the East was out looking for me? I felt my fear rise and rise and overflow, pouring out of me and into Halaavi and the nearby Allunga. I had visions of the Avolayla in chains and their livestock slaughtered and left rotting on the plains, all because they’d had the kindness to take in a stray.

“
It may not be for you,” Koro said, “but we have not yet met another this news might belong to. You will know, once you hear it, if this is news for you or not. You must be hungry. Are you thirsty?”

“
I…” I stole a glance at Halaavi. “If you would not mind, I would like to hear the news first.”

Koro blinked at me in surprise but gestured for me to follow vim. Ve led Halaavi and I to vis yurt. Strings of painted beads hung on the door and clacked when ve let us in. Ve left the door open for light, but it was cool in the yurt. Koro rifled through first one bag, then another, before ve found what ve was looking for. Ve pulled out a folded slip of paper. The Droma, who have no written language beside what I stole and transliterated into Semadran characters, have little use for paper. Whatever they want to set down for future generations is woven in a lefta, knotted in a door string, or embroidered on the skins of a yurt. They depict, they don’t write—and they certainly don’t depict with something as flimsy as paper. Koro held the paper in vis hands and looked over at me. “We were far west when we got this. It was very strange. We were far enough west that we could smell the settler’s air. That drought two or three walkings back, did you Avolayla feel it? Yes? That’s the one that pushed us west. We followed the Vanna River, which was narrow as a grass snake, because we were afraid that our fall pasture was dead and dry. We have a big herd, you know, we need a lot of pasture. And the westlands, there is much pasture there. We fled the famine into slavers’ lands.” Koro frowned and turned the paper in vis hands. “Anyway, there was a day a solitary settler rode out to us. The settler didn’t know the land, didn’t see us close in until it was too late. We roped vis horse and brought it down. The settler ran. That settler could run like a scout, even in settler clothes, even in high, dry grass. The settler ran, and the settler spoke Droma. Not much; not well. Just a string of words, but not words a slaver would know.
Triloshilai
,
fliyya
.” Shared skin, friend. “I felt it before the others. I was out running, training some of the young ones. I felt how the settler wanted to communicate. I was the one who approached vim. I sang a walking song, and the settler sang back. Not a walking song, not a Droma song, but ve sang back.”