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

to be confident that I may trust what you say. Once that confidence is lost, it is very difficult to recover. That is why you should cherish your honor, not discard it for a momentary advantage. Perhaps someone has taught you otherwise. They were wrong.”

“I understand,” he said, muffled against the earth.

“Perhaps you do. I hope you do. You may sit.”

He obeyed, straightening and moving to sit cross-legged, as I was, though he did not raise his eyes to my face.

I asked him, “Do you understand that what you planned to do was wrong? That making use of such a deception to kill the lord of the inGara would be disgraceful, and putting the act on the inRasiko would be unspeakably dishonorable?”

The blood came up into his throat and face, dark in the moonlight. “I accept what you tell me. I am very sorry I thought of that plan. I ... I deserve punishment for—”

“Be quiet,” I told him. And, after a breath of silence, “You do not know how to judge anything. Least of all yourself. What has Aras said to you regarding the matter? I am certain,” I added, “that he has said something.”

He was still flushed, but he answered without stammering. “He said I have sixteen winters and do not know anything. He said when I have sixteen winters more than I do now, I may have better sense. He said I should tell you everything. He was right.”

“He is usually right. It is a hazard when arguing with a sorcerer. I do not release you from the oath you swore to me. I do not renounce the oath I swore to you. You remain within my honor and within inGara honor. My father is too just to punish you for an anger that was old before you were born. He will remember that. If necessary, I will remind him of it. You are a very intelligent young man—”

His head jerked up in surprise.

“Anyone could see it,” I told him impatiently. “Honor is more important, but intelligence is not a bad thing to have. It may be useful now. Think of something to say that will make my father see you as yourself and not as your father’s son. Something true all the way to its heart. Give him a reason to be generous to a son of Yaro inTasiyo.” I stood up. “Come back to the wagons when you are ready. We need not discuss this matter again unless you think of something else you should say.” I walked away, leaving him there.

 -10-

Two days after we left my brother Gayata and his wives and that part of the inGara people, on a clean morning that dawned bright and clear after a brief storm, with the endless skies stretching out forever above the earth, we finally saw the northern mountains clearly. The Fangs of the North stood against the sky, tiny with distance, but glittering and brilliant in the sunlight.

“Twenty days, Ryo?” Aras asked me, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed north.

“Not that many,” I told him. I ran my hand down my mare’s neck. “With as much grain as my brother gave us, we need not let the horses graze much. We will come there ...” I considered the distance, glancing at Rakasa.

He shrugged. “Fifteen days?” he guessed.

“Twelve,” I said, laughing suddenly. I nudged my mare sharply, leaning forward and giving her a loose rein. Happy with the clear morning and the wide, level ground, she caught my mood at once and leaped into a gallop. Rakasa was after me immediately, shouting. Our horses thundered across the steppe. I heard Suyet shout and then Lalani, her voice as high and piercing as the voice of an Ugaro singer as she passed me. She weighed nothing; her gelding could carry her as easily as though she were a bird perched on his saddle.

We could not ride at that pace for long, but we put a great distance behind us that day, for all the Fangs of the North seemed to grow no closer.

Later, I drew out the mountains in the ashes of our fire, showing the Lau how the land lay. “My mother’s camp will be set somewhere along the shore of this lake,” I told them, sketching its long, narrow shape. “We will ride along that lake for the whole last day before we come to the foot of the mountains.”

“Does it have a name?” Aras asked.

“The lake of the pass, the lake of ice, the narrow lake. We know which lake we mean. It is the largest lake within inGara territory. We inGara camp to the west of that lake. The inGeiro camp to the east. During the long cold, people may walk or ride across the ice. During the warm season, we ride around. Ordinarily no one would camp there in this season, but because of this Tarashana woman, people of both tribes may be there.”

“People of both tribes will definitely be there,” Rakasa agreed. “Yavorda and my father and everyone agreed some inGeiro should stay in the north to see how it happened.” He smiled at Aras. “Everyone thought you would come.”

“I am glad not to disappoint them,” Aras answered, smiling back. “I must say, I am impatient to solve this mystery now that we are so close. I hope nothing has happened to the Tarashana woman in all these days.”

“Perish the thought,” Geras exclaimed. “Gods-hated long ride if we made it for nothing.”

“Not entirely for nothing,” Aras murmured. “But certainly long enough.”

“Very soon now, we will come there,” I assured them both.

So that day passed, and the next after that, and the next again. For some days, we seemed to come no closer to the mountains. Then suddenly one morning they seemed much closer, which is how it happens when the