In the past I had done this as herdsman and always was it like a second blow struck deep into me.
“Bialle,” I held my voice steady as I would when leading her to a full pool and fresh growth within it, “go free!”
I struck the blow with all the strength I could summon, hoping that it would need only one to loose this valiant friend. By fortune’s favor it was enough.
But still I crouched beside her, drawing my fingers through her sand-matted coat. Freedom from all the ills of life, yes, I must look at it so. Her patience and her last life gift would ever set her sharp in my memory.
There was a rattling of pebbles. I looked around. Murri was belly down pulling himself along, by one paw outstretched and then the other, to join me. When he reached the body he lifted his head and gave forth a squalling cry.
Chapter 16
I TRY TO SHUT OUT of memory that last gift which Bialle had for us. It followed the rigid custom of travelers and yet it was such that no one can lightly take, nor is it spoken of among us who have wandered far. We are assured that we are all linked, not only to the life about us, but to the very land on which we live. Therefore if one life or body may serve another, then that is the proper following of what may be demanded of us. Thus I put my knife to a second purpose, one so against my wish that I fought down revulsion even as I doggedly worked. Though I sensed it was not so to Murri.
Bialle had been one with us, yet he accepted, as was true of all his kind, that that which was the inner part of her had departed and what was left behind was no longer to be considered a trail comrade. That he would think my squeamishness to be a flaw I knew.
At least we need not fear that the scent of death and meat would draw rats down upon us. This land was too bitter and barren, not even the sandcats would range this far.
I sorted out our gear and made packs as large as we could carry, Murri, despite his loathing, having to again bear one.
So when the time came that we must stagger on, we bore with us that last food and moisture we could hope to find—unless I could discover the trail Kynrr pointed me to. I had not discarded his Kifongg though it was perhaps foolish of me to cling to such as part of my burden. Now I strove to keep off the demons of despair by humming and thinking of all the old bard had spread before me as a source of knowledge. If—when—I reached Vapala I would need his information to serve me until I did find some labor.
Still, how could I who had been but a servant, a herdsman, a family trader for a people considered by the mesa dwellers to be primitive barbarians, hope to find some outlet for my future? The traders’ guilds would be closed to me as a single tradesman with no link to any House. If all the stories of Vapala were true, the inhabitants were more strictly allied to House clans than even my people, and there would be little welcome for outsiders.
I tasted dust and with it an ever-growing despair. Still there was not that in me which would allow me to sit in this dreary wilderness and wait for death to come. As long as I could move, I realized that I would place one stumbling foot before the other and shuffle along.
The stars I steered by were there but certainly I could not be sure, having periods of dizziness from time to time, that I was still on my course. The constant rustle of the shifting sands—
Rustle of the sands! But there was no sand! I came to a halt and looked about me, aroused from that haze of fatigue and self-pity which had near overcome me.
The harsh pebble footing was gone. We were back in the cushioning of true sand. I looked about me, fully alert now.
Thus I saw the light a little to the east. From there carried also the distant scream of an ill-tempered oryxen, an answer to that as sharp and warning. I turned a little and was able to plod faster, even though my bruised feet sank sometimes ankle deep in that very welcome sand. I could only be heading for a camp—
Traders? For that I could hope. That there were others who hung about the edges of the Waste was also true. However, if I had indeed found the trail, those would be wary about approaching a track which was constantly patrolled by the scouts of Kahulawe.
Murri dropped back, flanking me now instead of forging ahead, and I realized that, while I might be traveling towards safety and help, it was not so for a sandcat. Too long had our species been at enmity with one another. He growled and I knew that that same thought was shared by him.
First light and then sound! There were voices singing. I could not separate the words as yet but the tune I knew well. It was a traditional one much liked by the traders, and each party seemed to have their own version, for they added verses concerning their own ventures and any strange thing which they had noted or endured during that trip.
Then that sound was suddenly overlaid, drowned out—the beat of drums—storm? I threw myself forward, digging in with my staff to pull myself along at a faster gait, hoping to reach the trail safety offered by the camp ahead before wilderness struck at us. Then I realized the distant beat of that warn drum was different. What message could be of such importance that the drums only used for the greatest warning would be set to beating out this different pattern?
The singing in the camp had ended. Yet still the drum, distant, kept on. Now that rhythm was picked up by the order drum of the traders, transmitting the news, that it might be carried on through the night as was always done.
“Ssseeeeeeee!” the traditional hail of the traders came as the drum ended. Some sentry had sighted me.
Though my own travels had heretofore been limited to the short trails, I knew well the answer I must give. My throat and mouth were so dry that I found it hard to raise above a choked answer.
“Kkkaalawwa—” The recognition of my own people. I knew, however, that I would be under close observation until I reached the open light of the fire and that there would be those casting to be sure that I answered with a truthful sign.
Again that drum in the distance had taken up a steady beat. Not a storm warning, not even the former message, but a second I could not translate, warning against some uprising of outlaws?
The outermost limit of the fire touched me, by the way of torches upheld by two women, swords out and ready, but with their brands in the other hand. They were of my own people and one I knew.
“Kinsha-va-Guara!” I hailed her crack-voiced.
“Who out of the night bespeaks my name?” I saw that her grasp on sword hilt had tightened. She was peering at me and I realized what a strange and perhaps even frightening apparition I must be, in my rent clothes, my back bowed under my pack, the marks of my ordeals upon me. And there was also Murri—
“Klaverel-va-Hynkkel—and Murri—” I spoke the cat’s name even as he was of us. “I have come from my solo—”
“Bringing death on four feet with you? That is a thing which has no meaning—” She relaxed none of her forbidding stance and her companion moved a little to her right so that if there was an attack she would be ready to give battle from another angle.
“I bring a comrade with whom I have faced death and to whom I owe my life. We are brothers by blood oath” (indeed the ceremony which Maraya had used was enough like a swordsbrother’s life essence sharing to be termed that). “There is no death threat from us, trail mistress.”
She stood staring at the two of us for a moment and then gestured us ahead with the torch, still holding her weapon in plain sight. I moved forward and Murri also, keeping close beside me. I was sure that the sandcat was not in any way afraid of any attack, being fully confident of his own strength. However, wariness was well bred into his kind.
“Off this!” he mouthed at me, giving a hard shake to his body to dislodge the pack he was wearing. That he hated the necessity of such service I well knew and appearing before strangers so beladen was highly hurtful to his pride. There was no reason why I should so humiliate him thus. I leaned down and cut the thongs so he was able to allow it to slip to the sands.