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

to him, “Go on! Stop when we come to a more sheltered place.” I picked Inhejeriel up in my arms and walked on. Without any suggestion from me, Geras moved in front of me, taking the brunt of the bitter wind. A moment later, Aras did the same. Both of them walked with their heads bowed against the cold, but their bodies broke the force of the wind a little.

After some time, I could not tell how long, the gap opened up, and we came out into a broad ledge. Before us, the stone fell away to open air. Clouds drifted below us, bright where the moonlight poured through them, shaded with lavender in the shadow of the mountain. Lesser mountains rose up through the clouds, their peaks sharp-edged and jagged. The cold was still sharp, but seemed less without the narrow gap channeling the wind into such ferocity. We stood now much higher than before; much higher than when we had first come through the tomb. I looked up, half expecting to see the stars near enough to touch. But as high as this place might be, the sky was still far above.

Everyone had paused, looking around. But now Aras asked, “Can we possibly get out of this wind for a little time?” Alone of all of us, he was not studying the sky or the mountains. His gaze was on Inhejeriel. She was trembling with cold or weariness. Her eyes had paled to white-lavender, like the shadowed clouds. I said, “We will certainly find a sheltered place where we can rest.”

“There,” Iro said, nodding the side, to a place where the faces of the cliffs would provide shelter.

I nodded, and we all walked that way. But before we crossed the whole width of the ledge, the mountain seemed to lean away from us, and we suddenly walked through a narrow valley. The land here was green with young grasses, snow lying only here and there, in small patches. To one side, a small waterfall cascaded down from the heights, becoming a slower, wider stream where it cut through the valley. Flowers bloomed along the stream, the kind with flat clusters of white flowers. The air was quiet here, and much warmer.

We had all halted in surprise. I started to speak, but Iro held up a hand to check me. I waited while he turned slowly from one side to the other, his head raised, taking in the shape of the land, the shapes of the mountains that rose up around this sheltered valley. Then he came back to me. “Ryo,” he said quietly. “I know this place. We are much closer to Talal Sabero, but in the land of the living, there is no path a man can take from here that will lead to the sacred mountain. A goat might climb the cliff that stands at the head of this valley, but not a man.”

I nodded. “We will rest here,” I decided. “Everyone is tired, and this place is comfortable. When we come to this impassible cliff, perhaps the land will shift beneath us again in a helpful manner.” If the land did not shift, I had no idea what we should do. But we had said we wished to rest in a sheltered place, and now we were here. We needed to come to Talal Sabero, and we were closer. I thought the gods would be kind when we came to a cliff a man could not climb. I thought it better to trust that than to backtrack.

I swung my pack to the ground and took out waterskins and sticks of travel food. “Drink enough,” I told Aras, handing him one of the waterskins. “If the gods are kind and shorten our path, then we will have enough water, and if not, we cannot possibly have enough, so do not hesitate.”

He was smiling, his expression wry. “A warrior’s philosophy. You’re probably right, but—” he stopped. Wolves were singing, not far away. Their voices rose into the sky, high and wild and beautiful.

“Wolves are not dangerous to us,” I reminded the Lau.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Aras said.

I glanced at Inhejeriel. She was sitting with her legs tucked up and her head bowed. She had not looked up when the wolves began singing. She trusted my opinion regarding the wolves—or she was too weary to care whether they might be dangerous.

When the waterskin came to me, I drank and then weighed the rest of the water in my hand and gave it back to Aras. “You did not drink enough. Drink as much as you want and give the rest to Geras.”

“We don’t need more,” he told me in darau. “Our people don’t need nearly as much water as yours.”

I paused. I had never noticed any such difference. Geras, leaning comfortably back on one elbow, said, “He’s right, Ryo. We drink more when water’s easy to come by, but we don’t need nearly as much as you do. You’ve never traveled with Lau in the drylands or you’d have noticed.”

“Nearly all of the summer country is drier than the borderlands, generally very much drier,” Aras added. “Towns and cities follow the rivers and the coasts of the Long Sea, or pipe water from a distance, or build deep cisterns and hope the rains arrive in their proper season. Around the bitter lakes of Surakaket, in addition to the public cisterns, every family has their own still, by which they distill lake water and make water to drink.”

“Bitter lakes?” Etta said doubtfully.

Aras smiled. “This is not the same meaning as bitter feeling. Bitter water is hard to describe. It’s salty, but not only salty. It’s not potable—”

That word had been in darau. It was not a common word. “Drinkable,” I said. “This water is poisonous?”

“Thank you, Ryo. Drinkable. Yes, that water is poisonous to people, and to most kinds of