Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

I had better be right. But I knew I was right. I knew—I trusted absolutely—that Aras would have found some way to warn me if I were wrong.

The inTasiyo camp was not very close to our inGara tents. Everyone walked quietly. My father walked at the front. He did not seem to hurry, but he did not slow or glance aside either. People moved out of his way, looking curiously after us when they saw Koro and Yavorda and Soro and everyone else, women as well as men. Many followed. The audience for this was going to be enormous. I glanced at Aras, but his expression told me little. But he met my eyes, and I was more certain than ever I had been right to move, even at the risk of involving everyone in the problem.

I said to Geras, “However it happens, I am grateful you noticed Tano was missing. I did not notice.” I was angry with myself for that failure, and angry with Tano for what I thought he had tried to do, what he was probably still trying to do. But I did not only feel angry. I felt sick as well. That came from the thought that Tano might have waited in vain for me to come after him, because I had failed to realize he had disappeared.

Geras slanted a look down at me. “I’ve been a troop leader a good long time, Ryo.”

So. That was true. That made me feel a little better. Troop leaders keep track of many men all the time, whether in barracks or in town or in battle. I was still ashamed I had not realized Tano was missing, but it was true that Geras had been a troop leader for almost as many years as I had been alive.

The inTasiyo had set their camp a little distance from the nearest other camp, in a place somewhat screened from view by the way the roots of the mountains enfolded the land. Rakasa, walking on my other side, said in a thoughtful tone, “They do not mingle very much with other people. I think there are no inTasiyo among the people following us.”

I glanced back, and around, and realized he was right. If anyone here was inTasiyo, that person should have run ahead to tell their people we were coming. No one had done so.

Lalani had been murmuring rapidly to Darra in darau. I thought she was telling Darra the story about my father and his first wife and Yaro inTasiyo. Darra was nodding, silent, her mouth pressed thin. She did not like the tale she was hearing. I wondered if she had known it already; whether she had heard the tale from her aunt or from her grandfather or someone else who had lived through all those events.

Ahead of us, someone, my father or one of the many warleaders or someone else, clicked his tongue, the way a warrior will in reproof when young men are behaving badly. Everyone fell silent, and for the last distance, no one spoke. The silence spread as everyone who had not heard that sound realized that someone important must have signaled for quiet. Almost the only sound was that of feet stepping across the earth. Even though many feet trod the ground, that was not loud.

In the hush, the sound of leather cracking against flesh carried surprisingly well.

Ordinarily, no one pays attention when a respected warrior corrects a young man, or when a father punishes his son, or anything of that kind. That is an ordinary occurrence. This was not like that. The moment we came near enough to see what was happening, anyone could see this was different.

None of the inTasiyo acted as though what was happening was unimportant. They were all quiet, and all attentive. And they were all here, or so many it might be all of them. Their camp was neat, everything in good order, everything in good repair, but no one was engaged in the normal activity of a camp—preparing food or making cloth or working with leather or all those tasks. No one was talking about unimportant things. No boys were quarreling, no girls singing. Nothing of that kind. Everyone was turned toward the other side of the camp, where Yaro inTasiyo was beating his son. The young man he almost certainly thought was his son. Only as we came among them did those people realize anyone had come—that alone was remarkable enough. Someone called out at last, and someone else hushed him, and Yaro turned, the whip still in his hand. It was the most brutal kind of whip, stiff leather from haft to tip, with metal braided into the end. We inGara do not consider a whip like that appropriate for correcting any but the most serious faults.

Yaro’s expression was calm. That was what I saw first. This was a brittle calm laid across rage; that was what I thought of him after another heartbeat. I did not see hidden pleasure in his expression, in his eyes, in his mouth. That was one possibility I had thought of, but I did not see that. Only that rage. I thought I knew what had caused that today, but I also guessed, studying him now, that he might be a man who always found one reason or another to be angry.

His anger did not make him stupid. His glance went from Tano to my father to Koro and back to Tano. When he faced my father again, I thought he very likely knew exactly what was happening. From the suppressed fury in his expression, I thought he believed my father had arranged this. Perhaps he had so little regard for the young man who had been his son that it did not occur to him that Tano had done this on his own.

Yaro took a step forward. He was a very big man, as