An otter woke in the forest. How had it got there? What was it doing there? Why did everything hurt so much? Why was the cold so vicious? Cold, hurt, and dazed by a mix of fatigue and dreams, the otter rolled onto its hands and knees and lay there, suffering. A piteous mewling sound escaped it.
Bit by bit, it remembered.
'Oh shit,' said Yen Olass, remembering.
She opened her eyes, but shut them again. The light was vicious.
'Caltrops,' muttered Yen Olass.
But here in the forest, the light was not the blinding dazzle that glances off snow and ice. The fault was not with the light but with her eyes. They were dry and tired. She wanted to rub them, but saw her hands were filthy.
Yen Olass tried to sit up. On the third try she succeeded. She flexed her hands, trying to get some life into her fingers which, at the moment, were as clumsy as bear paws. Dirt stained the map-lines on the palms of her hands. What had her mother said? 'These are the tracks of the herds which roam the other country. Remember them, in the place beyond darkness.' Now what had she meant by that?
She rubbed her hands together vigorously then stuck them into her armpits. But there was no warmth there, only cold, cold, river-wet fur. Had they been through the river during the night? No. But they had marched endlessly, endlessly.
Yen Olass glanced up at the sky, which had cleared to a taunting virgin blue. It was early morning, and it was positively frosty. She closed her eyes again, then, opening them, looked at the others. Who were both asleep. The Melski was grunting and twitching in his dreams. Resbit was snoring ever so slightly, sleeping so sweetly that Yen Olass had an almost irresistible urge to give her just the tiniest poke in the ribs. Perched on a tree branch overhead, a bird poured out endless streams of exuberant song: joy joy joy!
'Shut up, bird,'said Yen Olass, the tone of her command suggesting that there would be dire consequences for disobedience.
The bird stopped singing, and started improvising a bizarre stream of squeaks, sneezes and staccato clucking. Yen Olass leaned back against a tree and stared upwards, trying to see exactly where the bird was. Could she catch it? It flew away, giving her an easy answer to that. She squinched up her eyes, which were still protesting against the daylight. Was there anything at all to eat up there? Nuts, apples, onions? What time of year did apples get born? And did they get born as little apples, or were they something else first?
Up in the trees, Yen Olass saw a bird's nest. Spring meant eggs and baby birds. And that meant breakfast. She stood up. She was still groggy, either from sleep or the lack of it. She shook her head, which protested. She hobbled over to' the bird nest tree. In spring, when visiting the hunting lodge at Brantzyn, she had sometimes seen children scrambling into the trees to plunder nests for eggs. But she had never climbed a tree herself. Oh well, there's a first time for everything.
Resbit and Hor-hor-hurulg-murg jerked awake as something crashed into nearby undergrowth. Resbit looked around wildly then screamed:
'Yen Olass! Look out! There's something in the bushes!’
From the bushes came a stream of ferocious language. 199
Resbit did not know what was being said, but she strongly suspected most of the foreign words being used were obscene. Yen Olass came blundering out of the undergrowth. She was scratched and bleeding.
'Don't laugh!' said Yen Olass.
'You're hurt! What happened?’
'Don't laugh,' repeated Yen Olass, as though it was very, very important.
But soon, Resbit was finding it very difficult to keep a straight face.
'Oh, Yen Olass! You thought a little branch like that would hold you? Surely not!’
Yen Olass, supposing that a tree was very much like a horse (if you fall off, you must get back on) was already looking for another nest. She found one, and was soon climbing for it, with both Resbit and Hor-hor-hurulg-murg shouting advice to her. Yen Olass, unable to translate from the Galish and climb at the same time, ignored them.
She was getting up quite high. From here, she could see the river, which was not far away. Clinging to a branch, another branch underfoot, she admired the view. On the far side of the river was a soldier who appeared to be admiring her.
'Yen Olass!’
'Shush!' hissed Yen Olass.
'What?' shouted Resbit. 'What was that?’
'Quiet, quiet!’
'What?' said Resbit. 'In case we scare the eggs away?’
She obviously found that very funny. Yen Olass tore off a small branch and threw it at her. What was Galish for soldiers?
'Enemy!' said Yen Olass. 'Over there!' From the far side of the river, there was a shout. 'Yen Olass!' said Resbit urgently. 'Get down out of there! There's someone across the river!' 'Now you tell me,' muttered Yen Olass. She began to climb down – slowly – finding, to her surprise, that it was much harder to climb down than to climb up. Now that was contrary to reason. The tree was the same tree whether she was going up or down. But she was finding it very difficult.
'Yen Olass – no, no, don't step there!’
Too late. There was a groan of tearing wood, a scream, a crash. And, from across the river, another scream. Harsh commands in Ordhar. The baying of a dog.
'Yen Olass,' said Resbit. 'What are they saying? What are they saying?’
Yen Olass did not translate the soldiers' Ordhar. Indeed, there was no need to. There was more screaming, and Resbit understood, and said, shocked:
'They're killing people over there.’
'Let's go,' said Hor-hor-hurulg-murg. 'Yen Olass, if you can't walk, I'll carry you.’
'Help me up,' said Yen Olass. 'I'm not a baby.’
And none of her bones was broken. But even so, every step cost her.
Did they see you?' said Hor-hor-hurulg-murg.
'I don't know,' said Yen Olass.
The soldier who had looked in her direction might have missed her, as she had been well-hidden in the foliage.
'But they might have heard us,' said Yen Olass. 'Some of us were noisy enough.’
'Yes,' said Resbit, 'especially when we fell out of trees.’
Yen Olass grunted, said nothing.
The fugitives had no way to know if the soldiers on the far side of the river had been a patrol which had accidentally come upon some refugees, or whether their escape had been discovered during the night, leading to a deliberate manhunt through the forest. But they had to presume that, since there were soldiers on the far bank of the river, there were likely to be soldiers on their own bank of the river.
They pushed north till noon, then halted, because both Yen Olass and Resbit had absolutely had it. Hor-hor-hurulg-murg permitted them a little sleep, then woke them and made them march. They refused, but, when he threatened to go on alone and leave them, they dragged their weary bodies on for a few more leagues.
When evening came, and they halted, Yen Olass felt stuporous. She and Resbit laid themselves down then and there, and collapsed into absolute sleep.
Yen Olass had expected to sleep forever, but she woke in the night. A wind had got up, and the darkness was full of creaks and rustles, of sighs and moans, of little sounds and larger sounds which might have been animals or people or ghouls or ghosts. She felt the forest surrounding her, enclosing her, hemming her in.
'Yen Olass?’
'Yes?’
'Are you awake?’
'No. This is just a dream.’
'That's not kind, Yen Olass,' said Resbit.
'I can be kind,' said Yen Olass, 'if I try.’
'Then do try.’
They held each other close, and were comforted. They began to talk, and Yen Olass told Resbit about her plan to go west, across the mountains from Lake Armansis to Larbster Bay.
'But what will I do?' said Resbit.
'You'll come with me.’
'Oh no.’
'But you must. What would you do otherwise?' 'That's what I was asking.’
'You will come with me,' said Yen Olass firmly. 'No.’
Resbit was not to be persuaded. She made Yen Olass understand that the people at Larbster Bay were a degenerate clan of thieves, drunkards and slavers.
'They rape rats,' said Resbit.
'What?' said Yen Olass, not sure if she had heard right. 202
'Rats. Small. Four legs. Screeee! They rape them. At Larbster Bay.’
'Go to sleep,' said Yen Olass. 'You're dreaming already.’
'And when I wake, it'll be all over. Yes?’
'When you wake,' said Yen Olass, 'we'll hunt some eggs. First thing. Before we go anywhere.’
'You be careful hunting those eggs. Don't let them push you out of the tree again.’
'Let me tell you a little story,' said Yen Olass, 'about a young woman who fell asleep and rolled into a river.’
'Gamos!' said Resbit, giggling.
Yen Olass realized she had once again used the Galish word for a female horse instead of the Galish word for a human female. But she still didn't see why that was funny.
That day, as they marched north, they saw no sign of soldiers, so Hor-hor-hurulg-murg called a halt early in the afternoon. He caught fish in the river, and gave the women one each. Yen Olass found everything in her tinder box was damp, so she spread it out to dry; for the time being, they would have to eat the fish raw.
After the fish, the women climbed for eggs. Then they sat down to feast. Resbit started telling riddles, and Yen Olass tried to answer them. Their Melski guide helped them out with their language difficulties. Some of the riddles were easy enough, such as 'How do you sex an egg?' where the answer was simply 'By growing it into a chicken or rooster.' But one, which baffled Yen Olass, went as follows:
I was sired by a stallion.
I am furry as a rabbit.
I live in trees, unsuccessfully.
Yen Olass struggled with it for ages, then finally gave up. She demanded the answer.
'A gamos!' said Resbit. 'A gamos!' And she rolled round on the ground, laughing. 'Now that wasn't fair,' said Yen Olass. 'It wasn't nice, either.’
But her protests just made Resbit laugh all the more.
When Resbit quietened down, Yen Olass heard something rustling in the undergrowth nearby. She stalked it and caught it, raked it out of the undergrowth with a branch, and displayed it for all to see.
'A veagle!' said Yen Olass, naming the hedgehog in Eparget.
'A crel!' said Resbit, naming it in her native Estral. 'The Galish call it a klude,' said Hor-hor-hurulg-murg. 'A klude,' said Yen Olass, committing the word to memory.
Resbit bent over the little klude and cooed to it, saying, 'Skoon, skoon'. From the way she was saying it, Yen Olass guessed that 'skoon' meant 'cute', unless it meant something like 'Oh you sweet little beautiful thing you.’
'It's not skoon,' said Yen Olass. 'It's food.’
'Don't be cruel,' said Resbit.
'I'm not cruel, I'm hungry.’
'However, in the end, even Yen Olass was not game to eat a hedgehog raw, and so the little klude escaped to live another day.