TGR Part 2...

[fara_shimbo]

Chapter 59.
Dash to Perinc

Many helpful hannu and a warm dry wind helped Rumau to get plates made and loaded into the kiln in about four days, which, in Rumau’s estimate, had to be a world record.

Perennet made pinch pots with clay scraps, and soon all the hannu were doing it. They made exactly the same thing, all of them, until Rumau stepped in to try to encourage some creativity.

Yre stayed around to help with the plates, and gave himself the job of kiln-monitor by day. By night he sat up, looking through his lenses, and drawing stars.

Aurrigne began to take long walks on his mending leg, “to strengthen it.” Each day he went further and further afield.

On the fifth day, when the kiln was firing, everyone at the Rose heard a distant, keening shriek. Odd noises were commonplace, and everyone thought that it was probably just someone who’d crossed the path of some predators. But Yre knew better; he got up and began to race toward the sound, off to the east. Curious, Emma followed.

... b ...

“By all the stars I’ve ever seen,” Yre whispered, “this is most terrible.”
He and Aurrigne were standing in the middle of a group of shimeyu, one still dying, and a dozen or so al­ready dead. Emma circled the group, looking thought­ful and treading most carefully.

“I know these people,” Aurrigne said, nearly shak­ing. “That one, that is my third cousin on my mother’s side. And that one is my grand-nephew. What hap­pened here? I see no scratches on these others, only on my kin! What happened, and who are these?”

Yre was walking among the dead. “These are all members of the Merm Historical Society, Master Ad­huashu’s people. I recognize the ranks. And no, they were not killed by kicks. They were arrow-shot.”
“But there are no arrows here.”

“I imagine they were taken away. Arrowheads are not easy for our hands to make. But here are the holes, that arrows would make. See you? Here, and here?”

Aurrigne leaned down and examined one of the corpses. “They will have seen,” he said, in awe. “These will tell no one, but if there were others, they will have seen. They will know. So much for our secret... What do you think passed here, Master Yre?”

Yre stood up and looked all around himself. “It is impossible to say,” he said after a while.

“Very brave of them,” Emma said in Common Tongue. “Useless what they did, but brave, I guess.”

Yre and Aurrigne suddenly realized that they’d been speaking to each other in shimeyu-speak. “What did they do?” Aurrigne said.

Emma paced around on all-fours, then stood up and examined the field from a higher vantage. She walked around and looked even at the ground, which confused the shimeyu somewhat as there were actual tracks on the dry earth.
“These shimeyu,” Emma said, grabbing one of the imped feathers that all of Dar’s group wore, “saw the others on the road.”

“That is quite an assumption,” Yre said.

“Not at all,” Emma said. “They must have done. Dangerous not to be on the road, yes? So, they stay where they belong. Now, the two groups. They were far from each other, probably.”

Again, Emma noticed, Yre and Aurrigne looked doubtful. She smiled proudly. “Or else, no reason to use bows, bows would be seen. So, far enough away to see arrows fall but not see bows, but then you shimeyu see very well, so here maybe I am wrong. But...

“These shimeyu, Dar’s people, I think you said, shot at these other shimeyu. Here I am confused. Why would they so do?”

Yre had an idea, but didn’t want to propound it. Nevertheless he was pleased when Aurrigne confirmed it by saying, “Because Adhuashu was at the meeting my father called, of all the Masters, a while back. So was the Master of Five, and many other Masters as well. There was no consensus reached on whether they would as one go to the Madhai; and I suspect that was because each of them got the idea of sending their own people.”

Emma, still learning Common Tongue, got the gist. “Yes, that makes it clearer.” She walked around and ex­amined things anew. “Your father Dar wishes to be the first to reach Rumau’s people. He can do this in part by making sure no one passes him on the road. So he and his people tried to do by shooting... Adhu... whatever the name is.

“But Adhu-whatsit would have the same want. And maybe realized the advantage of bows. So, sent some people to catch them, maybe delay Dar too. So, the fight, as you see here.”

Aurrigne raised his crest, which was as much expres­sion as he could muster. Yre was astonished. “Such a weapon is worth sending people to stop?!”

“Rumau thinks so.”

Aurrigne turned to Yre and nodded.

“Enough for shimeyu to fight one another over? That’s absurd!”

“Yet it happened,” Emma said.

“And you know all this just by looking?” Aurrigne said with some astonishment.
“By looking. By thinking. By knowing why people do what they do. I love this kind of thing. It’s very useful.”

Yre shook his head aggressively at the others. “We must hurry now,” he said. “The more I think, the more trouble I see in my mind. Let’s go back.”

... b ...

“There are more of them?!” Rumau stood up so fast that even some of the hannu were taken aback. “how many more? How many groups are heading back to my home, and how many of them are archers?”

“To the best of my knowledge,” Aurrigne said, “only my father’s group are archers.”

“But the others have seen this now. They’re not stupid. Obsessive, maybe, but not stupid! They’ll learn what you did, and you can bet that pretty soon they’ll be doing it themselves! This is horrible!”

Rumau walked up to the kiln, and began to shove additional fuel into it. If things started blowing up now, she really didn’t care.

“In truth, Rumau,” Aurrigne said in a somewhat tremulous voice, “I don’t think they will. using bows and arrows would after all make them Toolists. Nobody wants that... well, very few people want that anyway.”

“Is that what you think?” Rumau said. “I don’t know what your argument against the use of tools is, but one thing I do know is this. Even the oldest, grumpiest, most intractable old-timers will take up something new, no matter how reviled it is, if it gives them the advantage of power over someone else. Trust me on this one. No,” she said in response to doubtful looks from both the shimeyu. “You’ll see. Someone told me once that the purpose of all these societies is to enlarge and advance the family line. Now tell me, what do you suppose will, in the long run, advanced a family line faster than being the only family line around?” Rumau snorted and got back to the kiln.

“You take a very dim view of us, Rumau,” Yre said. “We shimeyu are an honorable people. honor and re­spect, especially for our betters, that is the cornerstone of everything we do. Is that not true, Aurrigne?”

“Absolutely, it is most certainly true.”

Rumau simply huffed.

“And if I may be so bold, I will tell you what it is we have, as you say, against Toolism.”

By now, Emma and Mignette were listening as well. When Aurrigne did not go on, Rumau stood up and stared at him.

“It is from watching all the chiyaha that we have learned this most valuable lesson. It is this. When a society starts using tools, it becomes dependent upon them. If you were to put a group of chiyaha back into the wild, without us, and without their silly little towns, would they survive on their own? No, they would not. We’ve seen this happen, over and over again. The first thing they tried to do when they are on their own is make tools to make shelters. They seem to be unable to live without shelters anymore. Yet shimeyu like Master Yre and I, we have not lost our independence like that. You could drop one of us anywhere, is that not correct, Master Yre? put us in any wild place and we will sur­vive. The Masters altogether have decided that we must never lose our independence. Never.”

Rumau tilted her head and folded her arms. “Yet you and your brothers and your father are very good with bows, and apparently are not hesitant about using them.” She turned and went back to fiddling with the kiln. “I have to think for a while. Leave me alone.”

... b ...

Rumau stayed up with the kiln until very late at night. In between adjusting airflow and adding fuel, she began making notes about what she was doing, jotting down ideas for improving the armor. At one point, Yre tried to urge her to get some sleep, but he got nowhere, only chased away and snapped at.

Rumau had nothing to say to anyone all the next day. The firing had finished and all that was needed was for the kiln to cool down. Apparently it wasn’t happen­ing quickly enough.

Emma was confused, and the two shimeyu just plain irritable. But Mignette seemed to understand what was going on. Every now and then, she would look over Rumau’s shoulder and make some small comment, or point something out. Rumau would erase something with a piece of leather, or make some new notation, but otherwise carry on as if no one else were there.

At about midday, Mignette gathered Emma and the shimeyu together, as well as all the hannu, and gave them orders to go out and gather as much food as they could. Yre ran, and Aurrigne, expecting a long walk, went more slowly and tried to save his energy. The han­nu rode on horseback. Mignette herself stayed behind and repaired the cart-train. Nobody saw Cookie any­where.

Rumau began dismantling the kiln that evening, and the next morning the entire group was off at a gal­lop. Aurrigne who could not yet run at speed, rode in one of the carts. they headed due east, straight for Per­rinc. Even at night, they stopped only long enough for the horses to eat; The hannu scurried about and gath­ered up fruits and leaves, and last year’s grains, for them so that the horses would not have to wander too far.

Rumau brooded the entire time. She leaned down onto Gadrin’s neck and said, “Writing, bows, armor... my world is breaking apart, my dearest.”

Gadrin ran for a while with her head raised, so that Rumau could lean her head on the mare’s soft, thin mane, and nickered quietly from time to time.

... b ...

They stopped, days later, when they came to the River Di. Where a tributary joined it, the river became wide and flat and the perfect place to ford; but the West­ern Mares and their foals were tiring and needed a days’ rest. Owán and Gadrin, fit and proud, nevertheless ap­preciated the halt.

The actual town of Di was somewhat to the south east, and just visible from the ford. Yre was loathe to stop there, and without any embarrassment whatsoever, Aurrigne just hid from sight under one of Rumau’s blan­kets, after giving everyone stern warnings not to reveal that he was with them, or that they had even seen him along the way. Soon some chiyaha were seen heading toward them, so Rumau had Gadrin and Owán chase them off.

Rumau took the opportunity to all but disappear herself, but this time into the cool water of the river. So it was Emma and Mignette who found the tracks.

“Three toes,” Emma observed. “Meyyeh shimeyu, like Yre. Chao have only two toes. Not runners, tracks are too small for runner-feet. They crossed the river quickly, without even slowing down. See here? Their strides haven’t shortened. They ran right into the water. And they probably ran right out again.”

Mignette had seen Emma make deductions from tracks like this before, and was quite amazed by her skill. “How long ago did you think they were here?” she asked.

“Not more than one day ago,” Emma said. She dipped her hands into the water, and then touched some prints in the mud of the river’s immediate bank. “Perhaps as early as this morning, the river is flowing quickly and I do not expect that the mod would have remained so compressed underfoot for very long.” She broke away one of the highly sides were much had been displaced by a flood, washed her hand again, and felt the mud that had been exposed by the break. She shook her head. “As early as this morning, but no later. All the mud is the same temperature. Nothing is colder from having been exposed overnight.”

“Now you just show off,” Mignette said, knowing a thing or two about mud herself.

“Mignette, there was a sky lion, too.”

Mignette walked over and examined a print at which Emma was pointing. It certainly could have been Cookie’s... “I’m not surprised, really,” she said, “Sky lions need to drink.”

Emma said no more, and after a while Mignette headed back to the camp. Emma stayed behind and followed the tracks. The sky lion went into the water, was chased out by shimeyu... seems to have tried to fly away and was brought crashing down... ran some ways down a gully...

And there she found it. A sky lion carcass, feathers strewn everywhere, only bones remaining.

She decided not to tell Mignette.

... b ...

When at last they were ready to move again, the western mares would not go. The lead mare (a position Gadrin had tried to take but failed) had had enough, or perhaps had no further wish to risk the foals. Owán called loud and long for them, well after Rumau got them all underway; Gadrin finally bit him on the rump to shut him up, and galloped on ahead of him.

In the afternoon of the next day, Perinc was in sight.

(c) 2008 Fara Shimbo
Part 2 To Be Concluded...