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

but not seriously uncomfortable. I had been thinking about his question—I had been thinking about this all day, along with other things—and now I said, “He will be very angry. We regard the inTasiyo as lacking in honor, so taking this young man into my honor is an act the lord of the inGara must consider a very serious matter. I will have many days to consider how I may explain in a way that may perhaps cause less offense, but I do not expect him to take it lightly.” Something else occurred to me. I said as firmly as I could, “My lord, perhaps you have the right to step between me and the lord of the inGara. I do not know whether that would be wrong. I do know that I would greatly prefer that you refrain from any such act.”

He answered formally, in taksu, “I will remember your request.”

I thought about arguing, but he already knew my feelings on the matter.

“Yes,” he said, in darau again. “I’ll do my best not to protest any punishment your father decrees, Ryo, but there are some things I won’t stand by and witness in silence.” He paused. Then he said, “I’m glad you don’t expect anything dire, but nevertheless, I don’t intend to offer any promise regarding this matter, so don’t ask.” Then he turned his head and smiled, barely perceptible tension easing out of his face.

“Geras knows very well how to make a young man know he is safe,” I commented. “And of course anyone can see Suyet’s nature is friendly.”

“I expect you’re right on both counts,” Aras agreed, amused. He blew out the candle and lay down.

I lay down as well, and listened to the rain against the canvas, and thought that I was not displeased with the events of the day, and that I might be content to let everything happen as it would in the next days, and let future days hold what they would.

 -7-

Five days later, we came to the Little Knife. The gap was not much wider than enough for four men to ride abreast; in places, narrower than that. The horses’ hooves rang on the glassy black stone, sending echoes rebounding from one wall of the gap to the other and back again, almost like the sound of many bells. The horses tossed their heads, their ears swiveling in surprise. Sometimes young Ugaro men race their ponies through the gap just to make the Knife ring, which is a clamor that carries for an astonishingly long distance.

Suyet tipped his head far back and stared up at the sharp-edged peaks that cut the air above us, his eyes wide. “I thought you said you climbed it,” he said to me. “No one could climb that!”

“It is not as high farther to the east,” I told him. “But crossing the Little Knife is a hard day’s work everywhere along its length. This gap is the most valued thing we inGara possess. The inGeiro share this gap with us. There are other gaps like this, some wider and some narrower, but if a tribe has no way to cross, they must ask leave of another tribe or carry what they own up and down. Some tribes raise up ramparts and ladders, but it is still difficult. For horses or ponies, one must have a gap.”

I was silent for a little while, thinking of the first time I had crossed the Little Knife with Aras. That had been a hard, bitter day. Almost the worst day. I did not like to think of it.

He said, behind me, in darau, “We both survived it, so there’s no need to dwell on that now. There’s a tale about how the Little Knife came to be here, isn’t there? I never asked you for the story.”

I told it to him and to Suyet while we rode. It is a long tale, so I finished it that night, while we gathered around the fire to eat. Suyet helped Lalani prepare our food, and she permitted this, which would not have occurred in the summer lands. When the venison stew was ready Lalani took a bowl to Tano. I had noticed some days past that Tano would neither ask for nor take any food that was not given to him, even if he was very hungry. By the time I had realized it, I also saw that Lalani knew it too, and always made certain to bring him as much as any young man could wish to eat. Already he was looking less thin. It had not taken him long to begin to put on the weight proper for his age.

Tano did not look at anyone while he ate, but every now and then he smiled at something someone said. Twice he smiled at a comment someone made in darau. He had proven quick to learn it. He was not as quick to improve other skills. By this time, I had seen that he showed adequate skill when sparing any of the Lau. He did less well against Bara and Rakasa. He did worst of all against me.

The kind of training that might have shaped this pattern had come to my mind slowly. I did not like what I thought I saw. For the present, I did nothing, hoping the problem would wear away with the days.

We traveled north from the Little Knife for eleven days before we came to the steppe. The land rose all that way. The forest thinned, the trees became smaller and spaced more widely, and there was more grass, until suddenly there were no trees anywhere and the land spread out before us, the grasses blowing in long waves, green and dusty green and dusty blue for as far as the eye could see to the north and the east and the west. Far, far to the north, one