“Perhaps not.” Cynara followed Ronan’s gaze to the tall grass moving with as many as twenty shaauri, Sihvaaro among them.
“Kalevi?” she asked.
He nodded and touched his injured lip. “Watch.”
The Darjai had also noticed the approaching Kalevii, and began to make sounds so high-pitched that they hurt Cynara’s ears. At once they gathered up their comrade and bounded away.
‘They know they cannot prevail… now,” Ronan said, hearing her thoughts.
“I thought Darja and Kalevi are of the same Clan.”
“They are. That does not mean they are always close allies. The Darjai avoid a beating or worse by retreat.”
“Would they have let you go if you retreated?”
“I am not shaauri.”
Cynara was in the mood to tear out several fistfuls of red shaauri fur. Instead, she carefully took Ronan’s arm to examine his broken fingers. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Kalevi healers will cure me.” He urged her to readiness with his mind and stood very straight. “Aino’Ain’Kalevi Samit, the Second of my House.”
“Male or female?” she whispered.
“Female. As a majority of ve’laik’i are male, so most va’laik’i are female.”
‘That’s useful to know.” Cynara shut her mouth as the leader stopped several meters from Ronan, Sihvaaro a little apart from her attendants. Unlike the Darja warriors, Samit carried herself with neutral dignity, wearing robes not unlike those of the Aarys leaders but in mingled tones of red that nearly matched her fur. She clutched a tall, carved staff in one hand, and a silver pendant hung from her neck.
To either side and behind her ranged Kalevi warriors, distinguishable from the Darjai only by the color and cut of their spare surcoats. Cynara suspected there were shaauri of other Paths present, but their respective decorations and markings were obscured by those in front.
Ronan did not speak human language again for many minutes. He ignored Cynara entirely, his head slightly tilted and averted as he addressed the Second. Sounds, sometimes distinct as words, flowed and volleyed between them. Ronan’s voice was always soft, respectful, never submissive.
At long last there was a pause while Samit considered what Ronan had said, and Cynara tried to make an educated estimate of his success. The fact that the Kalevi warriors hadn’t moved forward seemed a very good sign. The long silence did not. Ronan’s back was a firm, unyielding wall blocking Cynara’s view.
If ever she had needed patience, it was now. She met Sihvaaro’s slanted eyes over the heads of Kalevi warriors. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Five minutes passed, and then ten. Her legs were going numb.
It is the shaauri way, Ronan said.
Curse the shaauri—
“Akai’po,” the Second said clearly.
Tension flowed out of Ronan like a flooding river. “He ‘i, ri hi’ir kala, Aino’Va.” He reached behind to touch Cynara’s waist. We go to Ain’Kalevi-ja.
Are we safe?
Samit has accepted my return. She will advise Lenko to listen to my words. You are acknowledged my captive, unless I am challenged.
Next time I’d prefer fighting for myself.
You may yet do so. He silenced her with a warning thought and fell in among the Kalevi warriors. Cynara went along with feigned meekness. Somehow Sihvaaro insinuated himself next to her, and she was reminded that at least one shaaurin could be trusted.
The party of humans and shaauri entered the woods, made up of conifers very much like those she had known on the northern islands of Dharma. There was little undergrowth, and only the occasional rustle of branches indicated other life high above. The path through the forest was unobtrusive, though clearly often used, and Cynara wondered if the shaauri here built roads.
The air grew noticeably colder when they left the woods for a meadow just awakening with new spring greenery. Clouds obscured the sun. Far below lay a cultivated field tended by several shaauri workers, all laboring with what appeared to be hand tools. There were no fences or obvious boundary markers save for distant woods and the silver thread of a stream.
From the hill Cynara could see other fields stretching out to the south and east. In the center of it all was a compound of low, sprawling wood and stone buildings of a color and design to blend in with the landscape. Structures of various sizes were separated by what must be irregularly shaped gardens, large and small, lacking the symmetrical order she expected in human design.