TGR. Very close to the end of Part 2!

[fara_shimbo]

Chapter 58.
Last Slow March

Rumau was willing to wait until the next morning for Cookie to return and show them where the next Rose was. But the next morning, a cold rain was falling outside the Rose, and Cookie had not returned.

“I don’t know what to do, Yre,” she confessed. “Do we just go straight toward Perinc and stop at any Rose we happen to see? I know Mignette didn’t want us to wait but... I don’t know what to do.”

Yre rubbed his face against Rumau’s shoulder and pecked at her sleeve. “I think that yes, that is a most sound suggestion. You can smell those Roses from quite far off, you know.”

“You can smell those Roses from quite far off, Yre. I can’t.”

“There you are, then. You can leave it to me to find them.”

“Aurrigne, have you been up this way?”

Yre looked up at Rumau. He stood a little straighter but said nothing.
“I have been as far as Em only,” he said. “My brothers have gone farther. They’ve told me much.”

“Any Roses between here and Em?”

Off a ways, Gadrin sniffed the air and whinnied for Owán. No answer came, but the western mares took up the cry.

“Yes,” Aurrigne said. “Many. I remember there is one just north of Em. You can smell it in the city. And there is one a way north of that, that you can smell when the wind is coming from that way.”

“Which one is closer to Perinc?” Rumau asked.

“Neither, Rumau-Master. Opa, they say, is due northeast of Em, and Perinc east-northeast of Opa. The Em Rose is south of Em itself. I cannot say exactly where the more northerly Rose might be, but it cannot be far, if the scent carries so.”

“And how far is Em from here?”

Aurrigne considered. “From Dô to Em is, I have heard, as from Myo to Mermi. One syllable is as far from one syllable as two is from two, that’s how I remember it.”

Rumau huffed. Having been to none of those places, she had no idea how far that might have been, although she approved of Aurrigne’s mnemonic. “How long would it take us, do you think, to get there from here?”

“I regret I cannot say.”

“Yre?”

Yre looked up from his paper. “I have never trav­elled this way,” he said. “I am a more southerly wander­er, you see.”

Rumau tried to picture it all in her mind. It sounded as if a wrong decision would leave them quite far off the trail.

Then Gadrin neighed again, and suddenly Rumau knew exactly what to do.

... b ...

Two hours later, they broke camp. There were not as many carts, as there were fewer hannu and many of them rode. Some of them willingly obeyed Rumau’s in­structions to ride in the cart-train and make sure that none of the plates, nor any of Rumau’s remaining pos­sessions, were lost. The rest rode and shot, as Mignette had commanded them before they left.

They rode northeast, and in as straight a line as Ru­mau could muster. By late evening there was another river to cross, and on the opposite bank, a chiyaha vil­lage, long deserted. Rumau ordered a halt there; it was a per­fect spot.
All signs were that this village (and Rumau had to use the term very loosely) was perhaps only half-fin­ished to begin with. The central fire had been used a few times, judging by the amount of debris; but it had been rained on and seen at least one fall of leaves in its time. Only one of the cabins was complete, or as complete as chiyaha buildings ever are when not built under con­stant supervision. The workmanship started out, its seemed, quite well. Then it became ever more rushed until the outermost and hindmost parts of the building were simply thrown together so the whole could be pronounced complete, and a new, and thus far more interesting, project could be started. Still, that cabin was quite large, and warm once one was inside. Even Gadrin came in and laid down.

“I recover my strength,” Yre said, sitting down close to the horse. As he arranged his feathers neatly, Tsf, the cat, who had ridden on Yre’s back all this way, nestled in the particularly warm spot on Yre’s breast.

Rumau stood between horse and shimeyu. After a long moment, she lay down between them, with her head on Yre’s back and her feet on Gadrin’s, and cud­dled up close. Perennet, who had been convinced to re­move her armor for the trip but refused to remove her vest, sat close to them all and just stared. The rest of the hannu eventually gathered in the room and found places to sleep.
Aurrigne decided to stay by himself in another of the cabins.

Many times during the night, Yre desired to get up and check for himself whether Aurrigne was still there. But Rumau was so comfortable, and looked so happy and peaceful, that he could not bring himself to move. It was the happiest he’d seen her since the lost of Heyu and the filly. And watching the hannu, and thinking of Aurrigne, and Dar, and remembering what Mignette had said about her world, Yre was only too happy to let whatever moments of happiness they could get now last as long as possible.

Yre reached down and nuzzled his cat. The loyalty of the cat, he reflected, was the most wonderful of all since there was no need for it. Tsf could live both on his own and alone all his life in perfect happiness. Yet he had chosen to remain with Yre, though Yre never fed him, nor, in recent days, paid much attention to him other than insuring that he didn’t fall from Yre’s back.
Outside the cabin, the western mares began neigh­ing. Strange thing to do, Yre thought, with all the preda­tors about; though Rumau had told him once that horses could see as well at night as in daylight. Gadrin awoke and rose, and went outside to see what was going on. Rumau turned over and made herself more comfortable with her face buried in the feathers of Yre’s wing.
Yre finally put down his own head and slept.

... b ...

Rumau awoke the next morning, very early, to the sound of horses carrying on outside the cabin. When she tried to get up, she noticed a terrible crick in her neck, grumbled a bit and began to rub it. She noticed Yre looking at her with some concern, and was about to say something when she heard a familiar whinny. “Ahhh!” she said instead, her mind now completely at ease, and outside she went.

Owán Had reappeared. Rumau smiled very broadly, and walked up to greet him, giving him a few hearty pats. “Good to see you again,” she said. “Mignette may be nice, but I didn’t think you would pass up an oppor­tunity to get back to your mares if that opportunity arose.”

Owán gave Rumau that most horse folks would have said was a look of great pride, but will now thought was just stupid. She looked him over for signs that he had traveled a great distance, and indeed he had sweated some under the remains of his winter coat, now almost completely shed out. But whether he had come a long way, or had come a short way but at speed, she sim­ply couldn’t tell.
Horses. At times a total mystery, at times laughably predictable. She stood tall and stretched, and called, “everybody up! We are on our way after breakfast! Ev­erybody up!”

The hannu wroth immediately, as if they had never been asleep. Rumau couldn’t stand people like that. Heyu had been like that... great, now she was going to start the morning all depressed.

Yre and Aurrigne came out as well, though more properly bleary. Yre Greeted Aurrigne with a silent nod and, and Aurrigne, as it had become his habit, said, “Good day to you, Master Rumau and Master Yre.”

“Morning, Aurrigne,” Rumau said. “You’d better find yourself some breakfast, and then I’ll need you two to help me hook up the cart-train. I think this will probably be the last time we’ll need it.” Rumau looked around. “I don’t know how they did it, but I think the hannu grew some more last night.” She shook her head, and walked to a nearby stream, and let herself fall in to the refreshing waters.

Yre and Aurrigne watched. They didn’t say so, but they both realized that finally they had found something upon which they could heartily agree: deliberately getting one’s self wet was insane.

... b ...

Once everyone was on their way, Owán led the mares to the northeast. It took most of the day, travel­ling at more speed than Rumau would have liked, to reach the Next Rose. Emma and a small group of hannu came running out to meet them, and they stopped well away from the cloud of wasps that still surrounded it.

When the hannu who had come with Rumau saw the Rose, still with many blossoms on it, they raced their horses to it and jumped from their backs onto the branches, gobbling up flowers and hips as fast as they could.

Mignette herself soon appeared, and came running to Rumau, waving and calling.
“Where’s Cookie?” was the first thing Rumau had to say.

“She was with you, was she not?” Mignette said.

Rumau narrowed her eyes. “No. I thought you were going to send her to us, but she never came.”

“But surely that was days ago.”

“She’s not here?”

“No. She and the other Sky Lion took off when I told them too, but I have not seen them since then.”

“This time of year, I’m not surprised,” said Aurrigne, very delicately, as he was still afraid that offering an opinion unasked would cause offense.
“Why do you say that?” Rumau asked.

Aurrigne brightened a bit. “This is the time of that sky lions pair and nest, is not that the case? Only, I once overheard a great Master who was visiting my father mention this.”

Mignette shrugged. “I was under the impression that cookie would be too small for this. Sky lions do not breed until they reach a certain size, or that is what I have always been told and observed.” Mignette looked around at them all. “She would not leave me for a mate, would she? I, whom she has known all her life, since an egg? She would build a nest right here if she were going to do that, I’m sure of it.”

“Well these things happen,” said Rumau. “She’s probably at that age where nobody does anything that makes sense. Give her a couple of days, they’ll probably both of them come back.”

‘At least, we can hope that’s what’s going on,’ Ru­mau said to herself as she began to unhitch Gadrin from the cart train.

But Mignette caught her up. “Not yet!” She said. “I have something to show you! Come, you must see it!”

Rumau unharnessed Gadrin and let the mare wan­der off to graze. Mignette grabbed her hand and began to drag Rumau to a spot to one side of the Rose.
There, before them, neatly made and almost exactly, to the stone, like the one Rumau had built at the last rose, was a kiln.

Rumau went up to it and examined it minutely. She even reached down into the log well where fuel would be introduced and felt around for imperfections. There was one stone. That was all.

“The hannu you took with you did all this from memory?!”

“I helped!”

“But...”

“Hannu remember exactly everything they see. It’s a trade, I think. They trade the Rose that grows them the ability to speak for this gift.”

Rumau stood and sputtered for a moment. “And you use them as shields and fighters?!”

“Yes, of course.”

Rumau turned around and faced Mignette correctly. ”I can’t believe you’ve would waste such a talent! What a civilization you could have!”

Mignette turned to Aurrigne, and the latter translat­ed. Hearing the translation, Mignette snorted and said something to Aurrigne.

“Mignette says that beruliy already have a remark­able civilization. You just haven’t seen it yet.”

“I’m sure that’s true, and I’ll see it soon, I hope. But nevertheless a I think you are wasting an incredible re­source.” She turned back to the kiln and looked it over. “I don’t suppose you have clay...”

“We have some clay, yes. but it is of a different kind, I think. We could not find any of the clay that was at the last rose, and we had to go far to find this.” Mignette grinned. “And now I would like to see how my daughters look all dressed up!”

“You’re assuming it worked,” Rumau said.

“Of course it worked,” Mignette said flippantly. “If it hadn’t worked, you would not have been pleased with the kiln. You would have whined and said, ‘Too bad we’re not going to need it’ and such!”

Rumau chuckled. She went ahead and dressed up Perennet in her armor, and Mignette, Emma and all the hannu who had yet to see it were amazed.

Early the next morning, they all found themselves making more. And making some for Rumau and Emma as well, at Mignette’s insistence. Yre and Aurrigne both flatly refused.

(c) 2008 Fara Shimbo
To Be Continued...