"When did your father die, Andrew? Not long ago, right?"
He looked up at her in wonder, as if she'd magically read his thoughts. "It was only a month ago, just before the longest night."
Tally wondered what the longest night was, but didn't interrupt.
"He and I were searching for ruins. The elder gods like us to find old and Rusty places for them, for study. We came upon outsiders."
"Outsiders? Like you mistook me for?"
"Yes. But this was no young god we found. It was a raiding party looking for a kill. We spotted them first, but their dogs had our scent. And my father was old. Forty years, he had lived," he said proudly.
Tally let out a slow breath. All eight of her great-crumblies were still alive, and all in their hundred-teens.
"His bones had grown weak." Andrew's voice fell almost to a whisper. "Running in a stream, he turned his ankle. I had to leave him behind."
Tally swallowed, dizzy at the thought of someone dying from a sprained ankle. "Oh. I'm sorry."
"He gave me his knife before I left him." Andrew pulled it from his belt, and Tally got a closer look than the night before. It was a disposable kitchen knife with a notched, ragged blade. "Now I am the holy man."
She nodded slowly. The sight of the cheap knife in his hand reminded Tally of how her first encounter with these people had almost ended. She had almost met the same fate as Andrew's father. "But why?"
"Why, Young Blood? Because I was his son."
"No, not that," she said. "Why would the outsiders want to kill your father? Or anyone?"
Andrew frowned, as if this was an odd question. "It was their turn."
"Their what?"
He shrugged. "We had killed in the summer. The revenge was on them."
"You had killed…one of them?"
"Our revenge, for a killing in the early spring." He smiled coldly. "I was in that raiding party."
"So this is like payback? But when did the whole thing start?"
"Start?" He stared into the flat of the knifes blade, as if trying to read something in the mirror of its dull metal. "It has always been. They are outsiders." He smiled. "I was glad to see that it was you they brought home, and not a kill. So that it is still our turn, and I may still be there for my father's revenge."
Tally found herself speechless. In seconds, Andrew Simpson Smith had changed from a grieving son into some kind of … savage. His fingers had turned even paler, wrapped around the knife so tightly that the blood was forced from them.
She took her eyes from the weapon and shook her head. It wasn't fair to think of him as uncivilized. What Andrew was describing was as old as civilization itself. In school, they'd talked about this sort of blood feud. And the Rusties had only been worse, inventing mass warfare, creating more and more deadly technologies until they'd almost destroyed the world.
Still, Tally couldn't afford to forget how different these people were from anyone she'd ever known. She forced herself to stare at Andrew's grim expression, his weird delight in the heft of the knife in his hand.
Then she remembered Dr. Cable's words. Humanity is a cancer, and we are the cure. Violence was what the cities had been built to end, and part of what the operation switched off in pretties' brains. The whole world that Tally had grown up in was a firebreak against this awful cycle. But here was the natural state of the species, right in front of her. In running from the city, perhaps this was what Tally was running toward.
Unless Dr. Cable was wrong, and there was another way.
Andrew looked up from his knife and sheathed it, spreading his empty hands. "But not today. Today I will help you find your friends." He laughed, suddenly beaming again.
Tally breathed out slowly, for a moment wanting to reject his help. But she had no one else to turn to, and the forests between her and the Rusty Ruins were filled with hidden paths and natural dangers, and probably more than a few people "who might think of her as an "outsider." Even if she wasn't being chased by a bloodthirsty raiding party, a sprained ankle alone in the freezing wilderness could prove fatal.
She needed Andrew Simpson Smith, it was that simple. And he had spent his life training to help people like her. Gods.
"Okay, Andrew. But let's leave today. I'm in a hurry."
"Of course. Today." He stroked the place where his slight beard was beginning to grow. "These ruins where your friends are waiting? Where are they?"
Tally glanced up at the sun, still low enough to indicate the eastern horizon. After a moments calculation, she pointed off to the northwest, back toward the city and, beyond that, the Rusty Ruins. "About a week's walk that way."
"A week?"
"That means seven days."
"Yes, I know the gods' calendar," he said huffily. "But a whole week?"
"Yeah. That's not so far, is it?" The hunters had been tireless on their march the night before.
He shook his head, an awed expression on his face. "But that is beyond the edge of the world."
They left at noon.
The whole village turned out to see them off, bringing offerings for the trip. Most of the gifts were too heavy to carry, and Tally and Andrew politely turned them down. He did fill his pack, however, with the scary-looking strips of dried meat that were offered them. When Tally realized that the grisly stuff was meant to be eaten, she tried to hide her horror, but didn't do a very good job. The only gift she accepted was a wooden and leather slingshot offered by one of the older members of her littlie fan club. Tally remembered being pretty handy with slingshots back in her own littlie days.
The headman publicly bestowed his blessing on the journey, adding one last apology — translated by Andrew— for almost cracking open the head of such a young and pretty god. Tally assured him that her elders would never be told about the misunderstanding, and the headman seemed guardedly relieved. He then presented Andrew with a beaten copper bracelet, a mark of gratitude to the young holy man for helping to make up for the hunters' error.
Andrew flushed with pride at the gift, and the crowd cheered as he held it aloft. Tally realized that she had caused trouble here. Like wearing semiformal dress to a costume bash, her unexpected visit had thrown things out of whack, but Andrew's helping her was making everyone relax a little. Apparently, placating the gods was a holy man's most important job, which made Tally wonder how much city pretties interfered with the villagers.
Once she and Andrew were past the town limits, and their entourage of littlies had been called back home by anxious mothers, she decided to ask some serious questions. "So, Andrew, how many gods do you know…uh, personally?"
He stroked his non-beard, looking thoughtful. "Since my father's death no gods have come but you. None knows me as holy man."
Tally nodded. As she'd guessed, he was still trying to fill his father's shoes. "Right. But your accent's so good. You didn't learn to speak my language only from your father, did you?"
His crooked grin was sly. "I was never supposed to speak to the gods, only listen as my father attended them. But sometimes when guiding a god to a ruin or the nest of some strange new bird, I would speak."
"Good for you. So … what did you guys talk about?"
He was quiet for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. "We talked about animals. When they mate and what they eat."
"That makes sense." Any city zoologist would love a private army of pre-Rusties to help them with fieldwork. "Anything else?"
"Some gods wanted to know about ruins, as I told you. I would take them there."
Ditto for archeologists. "Sure."