Chapter 28

“I think I see it!” Netra exclaimed, pointing. They were stopped, while Gerath examined an old corn on her toe that was hurting her. Gerath looked up irritably, brushing sweaty hair out of her face. The late spring afternoon was hot, though it was far from where it would be in another couple moons. Gerath squinted at the horizon, then shook her head.

“Right there.” Netra pointed again, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. They could have been there hours ago, if Gerath didn’t have to stop every hundred paces. “See? You can just see the smoke. That must be Treeside.”

Gerath pulled her shoe back on and stood up, shading her eyes to get a better look. “Blessed Mother, I believe it is. And none too soon. I can’t wait to get off these feet of mine. Why Brelisha sent me on this cursed task I’ll never know.”

Because you’re fat and lazy and you never go more than fifty steps from the Haven anymore, is what Netra wanted to say, but she wasn’t that dumb.  She didn’t need that much trouble. Instead she said, “Want me to carry your pack again for a while?”

Gerath peered at her. Her pale complexion had reddened in the sun and Netra knew she would be complaining tonight about sunburn. She seemed about to accept Netra’s offer, then frowned and shook her head. “It won’t do to have them see me show up looking like I can’t even carry my own weight. These people need to respect the Tenders. I’ll carry my own pack.”

“Okay,” Netra said. She started off down the trail.

“Come back here, girl.”

Netra stopped and turned around. Gerath was still standing on the same spot, her frown deeper than ever. She snapped her fingers and pointed at the ground at her feet. Netra took a deep breath, then walked back to her, fighting to keep her expression neutral. It was late afternoon already. If they didn’t hurry it would be dark before they got there.

“How many times have I told you to walk behind me? I am the elder Tender on this journey. You will stay behind me.”

“Yes, Gerath,” Netra said meekly. It was becoming harder to keep her anger from showing.

“And…?” Gerath tapped her foot.

“I’m sorry, Gerath.” Netra was losing her battle, so she kept her face lowered.

 “Good.” Gerath picked up her pack. She seemed to spend an interminable amount of time adjusting the straps and buckles. Then she carefully realigned the case containing her sonkrill. Netra tried to remember what her sonkrill looked like. It had been years since she’d seen Gerath take it out of her room. She found it hard to imagine the heavyset woman ever Questing. She probably never went further than the garden.

Drawing herself up straight, Gerath squared her shoulders and patted her hair into place. Netra almost laughed out loud. Did she think she was getting an audience with the king? They were still more than an hour away from the town—two, probably, the way Gerath walked. Was she going to hold herself like that the whole way?

Limping slightly, Gerath started off again. They hadn’t gone far before Netra stepped on the back of Gerath’s heel while watching a hawk wheel overhead. The older woman spun on her angrily.

“Watch where you’re putting those big feet of yours, girl!”

“Sorry,” Netra mumbled. “I was looking at a hawk.” The comment about her feet stung. So they were a little big. So what? She was taller than every other Tender at Rane Haven except Bronwyn. What good would little feet do her?

“You’d like to have broken my ankle.” Still grumbling about girls too young to buckle their own shoes, Gerath started off. Netra let her get a few steps ahead before following.

I am too tall, she thought miserably. Too tall, too awkward, too plain. What she wouldn’t give to look more like Cara. Next to her, Netra felt like a horse, all big feet and coarse hair. Cara was as slender and finely made as a china vase. Her hair was blond and soft. Netra pulled on her own hair. It was reddish-brown and her braid was as big around as her wrist.

Netra thought back to last year, when a peddler had come by the Haven. She was in a nearby ravine, crawling on her belly through a haldane thicket, trying to track a lizard through the dust, when she heard the peddler call out, announcing his presence. When she came running up, there was the peddler, standing at the back of his horse-drawn cart, all the Tenders gathered around oohing and aahing over his wares. He sold new pots and mended old ones, but he also sold bright bits of jewelry, hand-carved combs and bolts of cloth. He even had a small hand mirror, set in carved ironwood.

But Netra didn’t see any of it. She didn’t care much for such things anyway. What caught her eye was his son. The young man was about her age. He had long, black hair and forearms that rippled with muscle as he lifted packages out of the back of the cart. He lifted his head as she approached, looked her way, and smiled.

Suddenly Netra, who had never cared at all how she looked, felt very self-conscious of the leaves in her hair, the dust on her clothes. Desperately she ran her fingers through her hair, trying to force it into some semblance of order while she smiled waveringly back at him.

Then Cara came up beside her and she knew with awful certainty that he wasn’t looking at her at all.

He gave Cara a tiny hairpin, carved to look like a dove, while Netra ran and hid in the Haven. Cara saw how much it hurt Netra, and that night she tried to give the hairpin to her.

Even now, a year later, Netra winced at the memory.

“Watch it! You’re kicking dirt all over me!”

Mumbling apologies, Netra pulled up just before she stepped on Gerath’s heel again.

“Foolish girl. Always daydreaming. You need to plant your feet in the here and now and stop wasting your time mooning. I swear, I don’t know why Siena… “

Gerath droned on and on, carefully listing all of Netra’s faults and what should be done about them. Finally, Netra just stuck her tongue out at her back, and immediately felt better. So what if she was big and ugly? She was here, getting to go on her first real journey, while Cara was still stuck with Brelisha, memorizing those boring old histories. It was a beautiful day and she was outdoors. There was a lot to be happy about. Realizing that Gerath had finally paused for breath, Netra said dutifully, “Yes, Gerath.”

That appeared to satisfy Gerath and she shut up, concentrating on maneuvering her sore feet along the rocky trail. Netra watched her trip over a rock jutting out of the ground, then snag her robe on a limb. She shook her head. Wasn’t this woman supposed to be a Tender of Xochitl? For that matter, few of the Tenders at Rane Haven did any better outdoors that Gerath did. They were all supposed to be Tenders of the Arc of Animals. How could they all be so awkward and out-of-place outdoors?

It was because they all spent too much time indoors, Netra decided. If she were Haven Mother, she’d make it mandatory for everyone to be outside for a certain number of hours every day. Get off their fat behinds and get out, even just to work in the garden, instead of making the younger Tenders do it all. She couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the complaints that would cause. Brelisha would be apoplectic. She’d get red and thump her wrinkled fist on the table.

“But I’d make them do it anyway.”

“What’s that?” Gerath said. “What would you make who do?”

Netra clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Speak up, girl. What would you make who do?”

The old stubbornness that had gotten her in trouble so many times before suddenly flared up inside Netra and before she could stop herself she blurted out, “My name is Netra. I’m not a ‘girl’, I’m a full Tender.”

Gerath stopped like a log that has just run up against a boulder in mid-stream. Slowly she turned, her fists on her broad hips. “What did you say?”

Netra meant to apologize, she really did, but when she opened her mouth what came out was “I don’t like being called ‘girl’. I am a Tender, same as you.” And more of one than you’ll ever be.

Gerath eyed her up and down as if she were a stranger she’d never seen before. “You have a difficult time with respect, girl. You always have; I’ve always said it. Why Siena babies you I don’t know. You’ve needed a good, stout switch for too long now.” When Netra tried to speak she raised one chubby finger and silenced her. “No. Not another word. I am the senior Tender on this mission. I say what goes and what doesn’t.

“And you don’t.” She pointed at a flattened boulder beside the trail. “You will wait here until my work in Treeside is done and I return. Is that clear?”

“But, Sister—”

“No buts. I am done troubling with you. You will sit there and think of how to mend yourself. If you do not argue, if you do not move from this spot, when we get back to the Haven maybe Brelisha will not go so hard on you. Though I doubt it.”

She turned and stalked away, every inch of her bearing righteous and indignant. Netra considered throwing a rock at her, then threw herself down on the boulder. She fumed and muttered for the next few minutes while Gerath disappeared from sight over the next rise.

Then she jumped to her feet, pulled up the hem of her robe and tucked it into her belt so it wouldn’t twist around her legs so easily. Leaving the trail, she took off at a fast trot, taking a course that would lead her around to the side of Gerath and to the village before she got there. She didn’t care what the old hag said. She’d come this far and she was going to see Treeside.

          

The hamlet of Treeside sat on the slopes of the Firkath Mountains, right at the line where high desert scrub oak, manzanita and jojoba gave way to the pines and firs that dominated the upper reaches of the mountains. It was situated in a narrow ravine. A nameless stream ran down the ravine, through the town, sinking into the ground and disappearing long before it struck the desert floor.

Treeside’s security lay in its remoteness. It was far from any of the rough roads that ran between the cities of Atria, as the lands making up the remnants of the old Empire were collectively known. It possessed no mineral wealth and no discernible arable land other than a few tiny plots along the bottom of the ravine. Its inhabitants eked out a living with their sheep and goats, augmented by what little they could grow or scratch out of the surrounding landscape. They had little to do with the outside world and they liked it that way.

It was nearing sunset when Netra reached the town. She was, to say the least, disappointed when she crested the edge of the ravine and looked down on Treeside. The towns of Tornith and Tark—the only other towns she’d ever been to—were not exactly fairy tale cities, but they were impressive compared to Treeside.

There were less than a dozen buildings in Treeside, mean structures of roughly-stacked stone with lodge pole roofs. They sat huddled together around a wide spot in the stream like old men too tired to wander off to die. Nearby was a stone corral for penning the sheep and goats.

But the way Treeside looked was the least of her disappointment. The town was so ordinary. This was where Jolene’s vision sent them? It didn’t look like anything had ever happened here. It didn’t look like anything ever would happen here.

Netra crept closer, using great care to stay hidden. It wouldn’t do to have Gerath arrive and find the people of Treeside shouting and pointing to where she was crouched on the hillside. She peered off down the hill. Gerath was just visible, plodding up the trail. In front of her was a small boy, running towards the village with news of their visitor.

Soon the residents of Treeside were gathering and Netra had a chance to see them better. There were about thirty of them and they were dressed in cured leather rather than cloth. Netra’s interest perked up. These were not people spending their days indoors as the Tenders at Rane did. Clearly they were living closer to the Mother than most, taking only what the land could give and no more. Some of the men carried weapons but they were not iron. Chipped stone spearheads and arrowheads. Netra almost growled in frustration. How she would have loved to talk to these people. There was so much she could learn from them.

She ducked lower as Gerath approached but there was no need to worry. Everyone in Treeside was staring at the newcomer and Gerath herself was busy trying to look regal and imposing. Netra had to stifle a laugh at the sight of her. She’d taken off her traveling cloak to reveal her brown Tender robe and was holding the hem up with one hand, trying to keep her back straight and her face emotionless, all while maneuvering across the rough, uneven ground.

Netra actually did laugh when Gerath tripped and nearly fell, barely catching herself in time. Then she started moving closer. She had to hear this. Netra made her way to a tangled pile of boulders on the hillside overlooking the village. She was able to find a spot in them where she could watch what was happening without being seen herself.

Gerath stopped before the assembled villagers and drew herself up haughtily. She had taken her sonkrill out of its pouch and it hung around her neck, a nondescript piece of gray-white bone. Hers was not one of the real ones.

“I am the Tender Gerath, from Rane Haven, and I have come to Test your daughters for their ability to hear LifeSong.” Netra raised an eyebrow. She had wondered what Gerath would say and it appeared she was acting as if this were an ordinary Testing. “Any found worthy can come with me, to be raised in the ways of the Mother,” Gerath said regally.

There was a long moment of silence while the Treesiders stared at her. Then they all burst out laughing.

Gerath looked like she’d been hit between the eyes with a club. Her mouth worked while a slow flush crept up her neck.

“Perhaps you do not understand,” she managed finally.

A man stepped forward. He had grizzled gray hair and his animal hide clothing was dyed with streaks of red and black. In his ears were many earrings of what looked to be carved bone.

“We understand, Tender.” His speech was difficult to understand, but it was the same language. Brelisha had taught Netra that during the time of the Empire, all peoples of the Empire were forced to switch to a common tongue and by the time the Empire fell, the switch had been long enough that it had become the first language for most people.

“You will take none of our women away,” he continued, and now there was a hardness in his eyes. “Foolish woman of Xochitl. We remember the past, what you did to us during the Empire. You will not shadow us again.”

“You are confused. We never…”

“Go.” Now he pointed his spear at her and the threat was palpable.

Suddenly, Netra heard something approaching through the trees on the far side of the village. She looked up just as something huge shouldered its way through the trees, snapping limbs and trunks, and stepped into the village.

Go to next chapter