Shadow Running
1
Matja Allina bent over the sleeping chal, touched his face. “His fever’s down. What’s the stump look like?”
The Herbmistress consulted her list. “It was checked two hours ago, cool, no infection. Um. Appetite good, wanted solid food, turned cranky when he saw the broth, but drank it down, ate his biscuits. We can send him home by the end of the week.”
“Good.” Matja Allina moved to the next cot and looked down at the form swathed in bandages. “Burns?”
“Yes. He’s still alive, but we don’t have much hope unless we can get him to the ottodoc in the Center at Nirtajai. Is there any chance of that?”
“I’ll ask the Arring when he calls.” She sighed, shook her head. “The Artwa isn’t likely to spend fuel on a chal. Do what you can. Brushie healwomen have some herbal pastes they use on burns, summer Brush being what it is and summer storms. I’ll send to see if they have something we can use.” She bent over the motionless form, curved her palm over the bandaged face, not quite touching the cloth. “Amurra bless and give you peace.” She moved on.
##
Aghilo looked through the door.
Shadith touched her arm. “The Matja says the world could burn down, but she’s going to finish this first. What is it? The Arring?”
“P’murr’s on the com, he wants the Matja.”
“Tell him she’s in the infirmary, it’ll be at least another half hour before she’s finished. Is it urgent?”
“I don’t think so. He said they’ve taken the base.”
“Good. We can do without more of this.”
Aghilo mimed wing-flutters with her hands, her sudden brief grin lighting her face. “And you won’t be flying your bed again.”
Shadith grinned back. “Right, it’s a dead loss as a glider.”
P’murr had a bandage on one arm and a new scar on his face; he looked exhausted, but he was smiling. “Flat,” he said. “Razed to bedrock. Tumaks are dead or scattered with Brushie hunters after them. It was the fires did it, Matja. Bad enough when lightning starts the SummerBrush burning. They tell me this lot had the habit of riding out and tossing incendiaries for the fun of it. With the winds they have out here, nothing could outrun those fires and there were families caught. I wouldn’t want to be a tumak in those hunters’ hands. The result for us is good. We won’t be bothered by tumaks. Not any more. When news gets back about what happened, danger pay won’t do it.”
“What did it cost us?”
“Five dead. The wounded? Every man’s got a nick here or there, most of them not serious. Ten bad, but they’ll live. Brushie healwomen are tending them. I suggest we leave them at the Mirp until they’re fit to ride. We made a pyre for the dead and spread their ashes over the base site.”
“Brushie dead?”
“I’m not sure, about twenty, I think. Most of their wounded are in good shape. If they didn’t get killed, they just got a few scrapes, a broken bone or two. We owe this to the Brushies, Matja. They raided the base arsenal before the tumaks tightened security, they got grenades and guns and cussives. When we hit the base, they blew out the gun-posts before the tumaks knew what was happening. We’d have had a lot more dead, if it weren’t for that.”
“Good work, P’murr. One thing. Before you come home, would you see the healwomen and ask what they do for burns? And see about the Bloodprice for their dead. I want that cleared as quickly as possible. We’ve a lot of rebuilding to do.”
“Right. Don’t relax the watch yet, Matja Allina. The bands that were outbase when we attacked are still around. Either the Brushies will get them or we will, but it’ll take a while.”
“I hear. Amurra bless, P’murr.”
“Amur bless, Matja Allina.”
Matja Allina touched the com off, slumped down in the chair. One hand absently patting Paji in his sling, she stared for a long time at the study wall. “Kizra,” she said finally, “get the chapa Tinoopa, please.”
##
“Chapa Tinoopa, send maids to the chalmistresses and chalmasters, I want a meeting in the West Reception Room; set the table up with pads and pencils, I want an urn of tea and those cheese straws Cook’s got packed away. Tell the maids to pass the word that the tumak base is taken and burnt to bedrock. People should still be careful, but the worst is over. I’ll need you here, too. We have to replant and rebuild or winter’s going to be murderous. Go now. The sooner we start on this, the sooner it will be done.”
When Tinoopa had bustled out, Matja Allina swung round to face Shadith. “Kizra Shaman, I’d like you to go back to the infirmary, the convalescent ward. Play your songs for them for an hour or so, brighten the day a little. It’s a dreary place, such a dreary place. The rest of the afternoon is yours to do what you want.”
3
By the time Shadith left the infirmary, the worst of the afternoon heat was over. The air smelled of dust and smoke, but the wind sweeping in off the mountains was damp and almost cool in comparison to the swelter of high heat. She found a hat, pulled it down to shade her eyes and wandered out to the paddocks east of the Kuysstead.
The Jinasu had the Kuyyot horses out for the first time in weeks; they were playing with them, riding bareback, racing them, joying with them in the return of their freedom to run.
Shadith climbed the fence, sat on the top rail with her feet hooked behind the rail below. She spent a while enjoying their enjoyment, it was a splendid antidote to the pain and boredom in the infirmary; then she swung the arranga off her back, began improvising to the beat of the horses’ hooves, the high fluting laughter of the Jinasu.
They danced the horses to the music, black and gray and roan, pinto and bay, a mosaic of color and shape, necks arching, manes and tails swinging in the wind.
Jhapuki rode over to her, sat on the big black smoothing her hand along his neck, scratching through his mane. “Wanna ride?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Done it before?”
“Yeh. Was years ago, though.”
“Any good?”
“Not bad.”
Jhapuki twisted her body around. “Ommla, get the bay gelding, the rocking chair, huh?”
##
Shadith slipped the strap of the arranga over her head, hung the instrument from the nearest upright, swung onto the bay’s back-grabbed a handful of mane as he quickstepped away. She’d forgotten how wide a horse was when you had to straddle the creature-and how quickly you felt his backbone in your tenderer parts.
With the Jinasu giggling with glee at her clumsy efforts, but patiently helping her to recover her form, she walked the bay around in circles. The girl whose body she wore now had ridden almost from the day she was born, so the body knew in muscle and bone what she had to relearn.
It didn’t take long.
By dusk she had her balance back and her feel for the horse’s rhythm; she couldn’t come near the skill of the Jinasu, but she was racing with them, laughing with them, enjoying the play of muscles in the beasts, the sting of the mane against her face, the thunder of their hooves.
When she slid off the bay’s back, her legs had no strength left, she crumpled to the ground, sitting splat in a pile of droppings.
The Jinasu held their sides and laughed so hard they nearly fell off their mounts.
She shook her head, laughing with them as she slid sideways onto a clean tuft of grass, wriggled back and forth to wipe her bottom off, then rolled onto her knees and staggered up. “Oh, god,” she groaned. “Oh, god, I hurt.”
She waddled bowlegged to the fence, crawled over it, collected the arranga and tottered back to the House.
##