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 tumbled 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.”
Dinafar knew from the heat and tightness in her face that she was blushing scarlet. She stammered, “I’m not… mm…”
The meie smiled. “Relax, Dina. She continued to work on Dinafar’s knotted calf muscles until she’d worked out most of the soreness and stiffness, then she stood and stretched, finally looked down. “That better?”
Dinafar sat up. “Yes.” She pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around them and examined the place with considerable curiosity.
She was sitting in the center of a tiny lush valley almost like a deep hole in the rock. The turf under her was cool and green, thick-set blades of short springy grass. By one wall a spring bubbled clear, cold water into a pool that never seemed to fill. Above the spring, carved with some delicacy into the living stone, was a great-eyed figure, generously female but obviously not human. “Who is she?”
The meie glanced, at the carving. “The Maiden,” she said quietly. “As the creasta shurin see her. This is a shrine-place.”
“Creasta shurin?” Dinafar frowned. “I thought they were just children’s tales.”
The meie laughed. “No, that they most certainly aren’t.” She unbuckled her weaponbelt and let it fall beside Dinafar. “Just shy and content to be unnoticed.” She unclipped her bow and set it down more carefully, laying it on the belt to keep it off the grass. “For very good reasons they keep away from men, too many of them have been killed for their pelts, but they are allied to the Biserica so a shuri should answer my call. We need a guide to show us the quickest and easiest way through the mountains; Maiden bless, the Kapperim don’t usually come above the treeline.” She shook her head then, looking troubled. “Can’t count on that, I’m afraid. Nothing holds the way it should this year.” She glanced at the carved figure. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” She shook her head. “No matter. In a little while I’ll call a shuri and see what problems the mountains will present us with.”
“Already?” Dinafar was dismayed; she’d thought they were settled for a while, this mountain cup felt safe and her body rebelled at the thought of climbing back on the macai.
The meie got to her feet and started toward the beasts who were grazing placidly not far from them. “I’m sorry, Dina, but I warned you. I’m pushed for time, I…” She sighed, shrugged. “You’ll have to keep up as best you can.” But when Dinafar started to get up to help her with the gear, the meie stopped her. “Rest now, you’ve got a hard night ahead of you.”
When the macain were stripped, the meie brought her saddlebags to the edge of the pool, knelt on the grass and started digging in one of them. She pulled a round loaf from the bag, glanced at Dina who lay sprawled comfortably on the grass watching her. “Catch.” The loaf landed with a little bounce on Dinafar’s stomach. She giggled and sat up. The meie dug farther and tossed over a parcel of fish paste. “Make us a sandwich; careful of this one.” She lobbed a long-bladed knife to Dinafar, It landed with its handle toward her, a foot from her hand. “This too.” The meie threw a tin cup to Dinafar and jumped to her feet, a flat pan in her hand. She nodded at the pool. “Good water.” For a moment she stood frowning; her fingernails clicking against the bottom of the pan. “I’ll get us some brambleberries. There’s a vine over there.” She nodded her head at the bramble web climbing the rock in a mist of green and purple.
Dinafar caught the cup, gazed at it, then at the meie as she searched through the leaves for the berries, dropping them like purple rain into the pan. Her fingers trembled. The fishers wouldn’t let her touch anything they ate from. She’d drunk from an old cracked mug that she washed herself and hid from children’s malice. Some of the boys broke her things whenever they could find them. She’d eaten from a wooden dish flung at her head, using a warped horn spoon she’d scavenged from the midden behind the Intii’s Hall. She’d been beaten for that, for having dared to touch it without begging permission-begging. They let her keep it, since it was already defiled by her touch. She looked down at the meie’s drinking cup, shared so casually, down at the loaf of bread and the fish paste and the knife. She set the cup gently aside and picked up the knife.
The meie came back, the pan heaped with berries. She took the sandwich from Dinafar, cut it in half, took half and raised her eyebrows at the empty cup. Her eyes searched Dinafar’s face, then she took the cup, filled it at the pool and brought it back. “Drink,” she said. There was pain in her face; Dinafar lowered her eyes, uneasy; the meie read her too deeply. “Drink,” the meie repeated softly.
Dinafar took the cup in shaking hands and sipped at the water. She handed it back to the meie who deliberately turned it and touched her lips to the spot on the rim where Dinafar’s mouth had been. She drank, then dropped onto her knees. Saying nothing-no words were needed-she placed the cup halfway between them and wriggled from her knees to a cross-legged comfort on the grass. She picked up her half of the sandwich and began eating.
Dinafar hesitated. She tried to trust what she saw, but the years of conditioning made it hard. Her body was stiff as she reached for a handful of berries, then began eating the sandwich. She reached awkwardly for the cup to wash down a mouthful of bread suddenly too dry. She drank, her hands shaking, water spilling from her lips, embarrassing her. She carefully wiped the rim of the cup against her sleeve, then drew her arm across her mouth. When she looked up, the meie was smiling gravely at her.
“Go gently, child,” the meie said. The quiet understanding in her face should have soothed Dinafar’s unease, but instead stirred her anger. It was an intrusion into places where the meie had not been invited. The meie shook her head. “Relax and accept what you can. You have to learn. There are no castes at the Biserica.” She watched Dinafar a moment longer then settled into a physical tranquility that was curiously infecting.
Dinafar caught that infection and gradually managed to relax into a drifting dreaming state beyond irritation and anger. She ate slowly and when she was finished she brushed bread crumbs from her mouth and lap, then sat quietly across from the meie, her hands folded in her lap, letting the stillness of the shurim shrine-place and the serenity of the meie bring her a peace unlike anything she’d felt before.