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

grinned at me. “I had no hope that I would ever match Ryo with any weapon, so I learned to count. It has seldom been a useful skill, but perhaps someday it may prove otherwise.”

We had come to my father now. Ignoring all the foolishness of young men, he said gravely to Aras, “We gave the avila woman a wagon set beside the lake, in a place where the curve of the mountain makes a quiet place. It is not far. Perhaps two fingers of time to walk that far. My wife will meet us there, with her guest. They have gone down to the lake this morning with some of the other women, so they will take a different path, close along the lakeshore.” He gestured for Aras to walk beside him, with Garoyo, leaving the rest of us to follow. A handful of other inGara men joined us as well as we walked, older men, respected warriors, and the inVotaro warriors.

“I admit I’m excited,” Suyet said in darau. “A Tarashana! I never thought I’d see one.”

“Serve Lord Gaur and you never know what you might see,” Geras said. “Lakasha-erra on one hand and Ugaro on the other. I grant you, I didn’t expect ever to bump into a Tarashana either.”

“She is just as the tales say,” Raga volunteered in the same language, glancing at me for permission to speak. “Very small, filled with starlight, with patterns drawn on her face and eyes that may be every color of the sky. One sees why tales say the avila are people who belong to the sky as much as the earth. This woman is so small, one can imagine a wind blowing her away.”

My father, too dignified to hurry, had set an easy pace. I would have liked to walk more quickly, but only children would do anything so improper as run ahead of my father, so we all kept his pace.

Then Aras paused. My father stopped too, looking at him, his eyebrows rising. For a long moment, Aras stared along the lake the way we had been walking, toward the waterfalls, but then he turned to look in a different direction, up the slope that ran steeply toward the pass. Higher on the mountain, the stone was broken and rough; soil had gathered in sheltered places and small plants grew there, a kind with wiry stems and pink flowers. Other than that, there was nothing to see until the stone ran steeply up and up into the sky.

“Before we go on to see this Tarashana,” Aras said to my father, “I think there is something else, regarding a different matter, that I should probably tell you. I am not entirely certain. Although this is something I know because of sorcery, I do not think it is wrong for me to tell you. And I think this is something you would want to know.” He was not smiling, but his mouth was ready to smile and the corners of his eyes had crinkled in a way that meant he was laughing inwardly.

My father looked at him. “This is something I should know? Even though you learned it by means of sorcery?”

“I think so,” Aras said again. “If you were Lau, but everything else were the same, then to keep silent would be a shameful failure of my duty as your guest. But because I learned this by means of sorcery, I am not perfectly certain what I should do.” He added, “You may be angry when you learn it, lord, but I think not very angry.”

Everyone was staring at him now, baffled. I was also baffled. I could not imagine what Aras might have realized. “Should you tell me first?” I asked in darau.

“Maybe I should have,” Aras admitted in the same language. “But it’s too late now.” His eyes crinkled a little more. “It should be all right—I think.”

My father gave us both a quelling look and said to Aras, “You may tell me of this thing if you choose. If you should not have done so, I will correct you for your mistake. Knowing this, do you think you should speak?”

“I will accept your decision,” Aras said. “And I think I had better.” He nodded toward the empty slope. “Hokino inKera is lying up there, concealed, watching all that happens here.”

“Hokino inKera?” my father said in astonishment. He turned and stared up the slope. Arayo inKera jerked forward a step. Then he caught himself and stood still, but his eyes were wide. Raga looked from Arayo to my father, obviously concerned, but Tano watched me to see what he should do. I was trying not to laugh. I thought Aras was completely right to say my father would be angry, but not very angry. I was more concerned regarding my brother’s temper. Garoyo was the man who would take this as an offense and an insult.

My brother’s eyes had narrowed. “The warleader of the inKera is observing us from a place of concealment?” He looked up the slope, then back at Aras, and demanded, “How long has this been so?”

“You may ask him that,” said my father, and raised his voice in a roar. “Hokino inKera! Come face me!”

Before the echoes of my father’s words had died away, someone stood up on that slope, though by all I could see nothing larger than a fox should have been able to hide there. He was easily close enough that he must have seen the Lau come this way with my father, then one of the Lau pause and look directly toward his hiding place. He had probably expected my father’s command. Certainly he did not hesitate, but began to make his way down the slope toward us. When he came to the bottom of the slope, Hokino inKera did not look at Aras nor at his son nor at Garoyo nor at