Law of the Wolf Tower: The Claidi Journals Book 1 by Tanith Lee (black authors fiction txt) 📕

You can imagine I wanted to ask her what was going on, but I couldn’t speak the baa-language, and pointing anxiously at the floor and straining my eyebrows up and down, only seemed to make her think I thought there were mice in the room. She hurried about looking under the wool rugs, found nothing, and bleating reassuringly, went out all smiles.

Presumably as she’d brought the breakfast and was smiling, nothing too awful was taking place.

I ate. Then washed my hair in what was left of last night’s washing water. I did it for something to do, really. The day was already hot, and I was soon almost dry. Someone knocked.

It was one of the Shepherd’s men. He put a small chunk of wood into my hand. I bleat-thanked him and stood there stupidly. Then he pointed at the wood, and I saw something had been scratched on it. The Sheepers didn’t have paper. Their writing seemed to have something to do with the patterns they make with the beads and things on the sheep …

Anyway, the scratches read, ‘Go with him. Bring everything you want. We’re leaving at once.’

I gulped. ‘From Nemian?’ I asked.

‘N’baa miaan’baa,’ said the man. Or something like that. But nodding.

There wasn’t much now to pack in the sack. This book, of course, the ink pencil I write with, the flask, even though I hadn’t had a chance to refill it. A few bits and pieces.

I was scared. I had to face it now, the Waste still frightens me. Although apparently full of towns and tribes and settlements and even ‘sophisticated’ cities, there were all those deserts and poisonous areas in between.

No time for qualms. I climbed down the ladder after the Sheeper.

In the main indoor room, where usually we’d eaten breakfast, the loud noise was going full tilt. Men were roaring and laughing, and someone was singing, and plates were smashing or just being used very roughly. Through a doorless doorway I caught a rush of tan cloak, flaming with gold fringes.

We went along the gallery, through a side door, and down an outside wooden stair.

In the dirt-floored side yard, a chariot had been hitched up with a team of four sheep, with painted horns.

Nemian stood in the chariot with the driver. He made a brisk princely movement with one arm, hurrying me to come over and get in.

‘Nemian, I didn’t fill—’

‘Shut up, Claidi.’

Nice.

Oh well. This was obviously not the time for a chat. If he wasn’t the gentlemanly joy he’d been last night, we could just be in danger right now.

We left the yard slowly, not making much sound. I don’t think the rowdy bandits would have heard us anyway.

I could hear them.

Bash went something, and slam went something else, and gales of happy laughter, and someone crying more or less in the language Nemian and I spoke, ‘You kill it properly, Blurn. Don’t try to eat it alive.’

Oh … God, I thought.

Outside the yard the whip cracked, and the sheep, thank Whoever, kicked up their shod hoofs. We went at quite a lick down the main track, and not long after were let swiftly out by the gate of Chariot Town, at the feet of the pale hills.

TROUBLE ALWAYS FOLLOWS

Pattoo used to say, solemnly, ‘If you run away from trouble, it always follows.’

Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying.

It’s certainly what happened that morning.

After the first bolt up the rattling hill slope, the going got very steep. We had to slow down.

But looking back from quite a high spot, you could see some of the town, and the gate, and nothing was going on there.

Nemian and the chariot driver had baa’d a bit. Now Nemian said to me, ‘You realize why we left?’

‘They were dangerous, the men who arrived.’

‘According to the Sheepers, that’s putting it mildly,’ said Nemian. ‘They’re all mad, those wandering people. Theirs is a hell of a life.’ He smiled. ‘Tempting, really. To live by skill and courage. One long adventure. But pretty foul too. No comforts. And they can’t afford any politenesses.’

Neither had he, I thought. Which summed it up. In constant danger lay constant rudeness. What an extremely petty thought.

It’s just … Well, I’ve had enough of people treating me like rubbish. I’d innocently thought that would change. And last night—

Last night was apparently last night.

The sheep trotted for a while, where the ground levelled, then clambered, the chariot lurching, on the steeper parts.

I couldn’t be bothered to explain now how I’d had no chance to fill the water flask. I suppose I could have used the hair-wash-water, all soapy, with hairs in it. Hmm.

‘Don’t sulk, Claidi,’ said Nemian. ‘Did you like it there so much? How silky your hair looks today.’

‘Where are we going to now?’ I asked with thin dignity.

‘The Sheeper will see us on to a hill village up here. We’ll have to find our own way from there. There may be a cart or something we can barter for.’

I knew about barter, the exchanging of one thing for another, although in the House it never happened. Buying things didn’t either, but I’d heard of that too, and Nemian had mentioned (last night) that his city on the wide river used coins, money.

The Sheepers hadn’t seemed to want any returns. They just seemed friendly. I hoped that would keep them safe with the bandit band.

The hills were opening out all around us now, and weren’t as ugly as I’d anticipated. Very little grew on them, however. An occasional bush with whitish fluff, a type of short pale grass. In the closer distance, they looked soft, like pillows.

We pulled up after about an hour, and the sheep chomped the grass. Nemian and the Sheeper shared some beer, but I didn’t fancy it.

I was looking back down the hills, when I heard – we all heard – a beating clocking sound ringing from the hills’ backs.

Suddenly, over a slope to the left, precisely where we didn’t expect