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

long time. He braced his hands on his thighs, catching his breath and staring across the distance between us.

“He’ll come to us here,” Aras said, not quite a question. “I mean, he’ll come to you, Ryo.”

“Unless he is very stupid, yes,” I agreed. “He will see he has no choice now.”

Even as I said this, the young man began to make his way across the meadow toward us. I was not at all surprised to see five men come out of the forest behind him, two and then two more and then another. Bigger men, not taller, but older and stronger. The trespasser glanced over his shoulder and then lengthened his stride. If they had been pursuing him for a long time, no doubt he preferred to come to us rather than turn to face those warriors. Especially if he had been clever and set traps to slow them down. They would be very angry if any of them had been embarrassed or injured by such a trap.

“He would have gotten across the meadow, and he might have kept away from them for some time longer,” Rakasa said. “But I think they would have had him tonight.”

“Yes,” I agreed. Older men cannot run as fast as a young man, but this was inGara land, which they knew well and he did not. Some of those warriors would have pressed him hard while others, younger and faster, cut around by easier ways to get in front of him. I thought they would probably have caught him long before dawn.

The trespasser did not look back again, but came on straight toward us. I thought he might be a boy rather than a man: he was tall and his bones showed he would be big, but he did not carry the weight one expects of a young man past his fifteenth winter. If he were a boy, that would make everything easier.

The trespasser’s gaze flickered over the Lau without pausing and lingered on Rakasa and Bara for a breath. Then he focused his attention on me. He came close enough that if I had held a spear, I might have touched him with it. Then he dropped heavily to his knees and bowed to the ground. His hair was braided back. I could see it was not as long as it should have been: someone had already cut it for him, a year ago or maybe the year before that.

“I am Ryo inGara, son of Sinowa inGara, lord of the inGara,” I told him. He had to know this already. He might not have known my name, but he had to know a son of Sinowa inGara had been given to a Lau warleader as tuyo, and still lived. That was a tale that would have run all the way to the edges of the world by now. He would have to be very stupid not to guess what young Ugaro warrior would be here, so close to the summer country, in company with all these Lau. I asked him, “How many winters do you have? Who are your people?”

He straightened and knelt back on his heels, keeping his head lowered and his gaze on the earth between us. His voice came a little uneven because he was still breathing hard. “I have fourteen winters, warrior. I am inRasiko.”

So he was a boy. That would make everything easier. His people were a tribe I had not guessed. They were rivals, not enemies. That was also good. I said, keeping my voice stern, “You are far from the lands of your people. All the land here belongs to the inGara.”

“Yes,” he said. He did not look up, but held out his hands, palm up, in the gesture that asks for mercy. “Please,” he said. “I ask you to be generous, warrior.”

“Do you expect generosity of me, inRasiko?” He could not answer that, of course; neither yes nor no would do for a question of that kind. He wisely said nothing, only bowed a little lower. But I was glad to know I could be generous. There was no enmity between inRasiko and inGara. I could let the hunters have him; they would beat him and let him go and neither inGara nor inRasiko would need to take any notice of the incident.

“Ambitious, for an inRasiko boy to attempt to raid inGara,” Rakasa commented.

This was true. That tribe was not nearly as important as inGara. I could see Rakasa liked this boy’s ambition. Of course he would. Bara looked more thoughtful. He said, “Even more ambitious for a boy to try such a thing on his own.”

This was true as well. “Where are your companions?” I asked. “Are they also here, within inGara’s territory?”

The inRasiko boy said in a low voice, “I came alone, warrior.”

Bara raised his eyebrows, but I thought I knew what had happened. The fourteenth year is hard for a boy, harder still for a boy whose hair had been cut not so long ago, shaming him. Being young and stupid, this boy had decided he must perform some glorious and daring feat in order to impress everyone and regain his pride. He had decided he would make his way to our lands and raid us in some brave way that even we inGara would have to admire. Then he would go back and tell his people of his victory over the inGara and everyone would forget he had ever been ashamed. It had been a foolish thing to attempt, but if my hair had been cut when I had twelve or thirteen winters, I might have tried something like this. But he had made some mistake that put inGara warriors onto his trail and he had not known they were behind him until they were too close for him to get away.

Still, some things puzzled me. I asked him, “Why did you not