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

clearly and loudly so that as many people as possible could hear. “I acknowledge that the gods favored you, Geras Lan Karenasen. Clearly the gods agree with your opinion in this matter. I acknowledge that your lord, Aras Eren Samaura, is not for me to judge. I set aside his offense against me. I will not forget it, but I set it entirely aside. So long as he commits no other offense in the winter lands, he may return to his own country, where his own king may judge him.”

No one could have expected anything else, but the swelling murmur above made it clear that everyone had an opinion. Koro ignored this. He said to Royova, “You did well. I cannot reproach you. You were not meant to win that fight. Take up your sword.”

Royova straightened. He said, his tone wry, “No man wins every fight. But that is not one I expected to lose.”

“I hope very much I will not fight you another time, warleader,” Geras said to him. “If the gods had not favored me, I would be dead—and if you had not chose, chosen, to fight, ah, gently? If you had not chosen to fight that way, even the favor of the gods could not give me the victory.”

“The gods cannot set the victory into the hands of a man who will not take it,” Royova answered. “In any fight, cleverness may be as important as strength, as everyone knows. I underestimated my opponent, which is always a serious error. I am glad to be reminded of this truth by an opponent who was not a bitter enemy. You fought well and won fairly.” He picked up his sword, slung it back into place, and got to his feet. Then he said to our king, “I think I have nothing else to do here. As you have not taken back my sword, I have many other tasks to which I should attend. I promise I will carry out these other tasks as you commanded ... unless the gods prefer otherwise.”

Koro nodded to him. “Go,” he said. “I am certain that when you return, I will hear that everything else happened as I told you it should.”

Royova turned, signaled to his warriors, and walked away, up the hill, toward the place some of his other warriors held the ponies. His men pulled Yaro inTasiyo to his feet and followed.

For all that time, I had utterly forgotten the inTasiyo warleader. Now I was not even interested enough to watch the inVotaro warriors take him away. Stepping close to Aras, I knelt, and bowed to our king, and straightened. Glancing at the Sun’s place in the sky, I said, surprised to find so little time had passed, “He will sleep for another three hands of time. At least three. Maybe more than that.”

Koro nodded. “Stay with him until he wakes. Then bring him to me, in my tent.” He looked at my father. “If a man corrects his son’s disrespectful manners, I have no opinion on the matter. But I have not been offended by any inGara today.”

“Yes,” my father said noncommittally.

“Come with me now,” Koro told him. He raised his voice. “Yavorda inGeiro! Soro inKera! Geroka inYoraro! All the lords of any tribe, attend me now!” He walked away, toward his own tent, with my father. Above us on the hillside, those lords who had been watching stood up and followed him. Almost everyone was getting up and walking away. The murmur of voices was like the distant shiral: quiet only because of the distance. Ugaro do not normally shout at one another, but we are often forceful. Certainly many people were expressing forceful opinions now.

Hokino said, to Geras rather than to me, “I will not say again that Lau are a cowardly people. Come with me. I have a salve for the bruise I think you have across your side, and if your ribs are cracked, I will see to that.” He offered Geras a hand.

Geras took it, grunting as the inKera warleader pulled him to his feet. He said, “More than one bruise. I am too old for this.”

“A younger man would not have possessed the skill to lead Royova inVotaro into any trap,” Hokino told him, and they walked away together, up the slope, toward the place where Suyet and Lalani waited with Siwa and Arayo and some other inKera people.

Now only Garoyo and I and Tano remained in this place. Garoyo dropped down to sit on his heels, studying me—my chest. The cut, which I had forgotten. I touched the bandage he had made of my shirt. Blood had soaked through the cloth.

Garoyo said to Tano, “Go up and get a needle and thread. And a bowl for water, and a shirt that has not been cut to pieces and does not have blood all over it.”

“Yes,” Tano said. Jumping to his feet, he ran up the hill.

Garoyo looked at me. He said finally, “I am not displeased by the way in which everything happened. I acknowledge that the gods do not want your Aras to die here, and who am I to say the gods misjudge the matter? But I am not altogether pleased to know that my brother is still the tuyo of this man, whose character I now see no choice but to doubt.”

“He stopped himself.”

“When you spoke to him, he stopped. May he do so the next time, and the next after that.” He paused. Then he said, “I would like to ride with you for at least part of the distance when you depart for the summer lands. I do not know whether our father will permit it, even if he gives the warleader’s sword to another man—”

“He will not do such a thing, and should not.”

“He should. Twice now, I have allowed a man to slip past my