"Take," Lan said, homing out a bowl of steaming and fragrant soup. She took it and their fingertips touched across the smooth glazed warmth of the bowl. The Far Rider watched her take her first drink. "Good?" he inquired, his voice almost gruff.
She nodded. It was bitter and rich with fat. She drank it all and then took her knife and speared the meat and fleshy mushrooms left at the bottom. It must have given her courage, for she said, "Why put up the tent? The moon is still full." Blood came to her face as she asked the question and she wished she could take it back. It seemed bold and reckless. And he would make her pay for it.
Lan set down his soup, long fingers carefully cupping the bowl. The lead clasps in his hair clicked together as he moved. "It is the first day of the full moon that is most sacred. We cannot count ourselves Sull unless we feel its light upon our faces thirteen days a year." His voice was stiff but she recognized he had made an effort.
She wanted to know more, but had no way of gauging how long his new patience would last so she said nothing further. When she leaned toward the fire and poured herself more soup it seemed to please him. Absurdly she felt glad.
Later, as she rose to tend the gelding, he stood also. "I will feed and water your horse," he said. "It is owed."
From this morning? How could such a small thing incur debt? Baffled, she bowed her head, and watched as he crossed to the area where the horses where pulling seaweedlike sedge from beneath the snow. After a few moments her gaze jumped to the tent.
She breathed deeply and went for a pee. Squatting in the shadows behind the tent, she hiked up her cloak and dress and relieved herself. When she was done she took a handful of snow and rubbed it between her legs.
When she emerged into the light of the campfire her face and neck were icy and dripping; she had washed them for good measure as well. Glancing at the Far Rider she saw that he was intent on picking out twigs from the hoofs of his stallion. He did not look up as she slipped inside the tent.
It was cool in here, and smelled of wolf. Light from the moon pierced pin-size holes in the skins. Quickly Ash stripped off her clothes and made a bed for herself out of blankets and furs. Snuggling down she curled into a ball. And told herself she wasn't waiting.
She felt peculiarly excited by her makeshift preparations. Their practicality seemed audacious. In her mind she had borrowed some forwardness from Katia. It seemed necessary.
Time passed and the pinholes of light changed angles. Noises occasionally sounded from outside; horses blowing air, the hiss of snow on the fire, the mournful call of the great white owl. Ash listened intently at first, her body shivering with restlessness and cold, but when every new sound failed to produce Lan Fallstar she gave up. It didn't seem possible but eventually she slept.
Her dreams were of the grayncss that touched everything yet no one but she could see. The creatures that bided there uncurled their rotting limbs and claws as she passed. Some hissed. They watched her with narrow and glinting eyes, glad that she had not come in the flesh. Beyond them, a dark and immense presence was moving just beyond her perception. She felt its great age and momentum, and perceived the utter coldness of its purpose. Mistressss, it called through shadows that swarmed it like wasps, Do not wake.
Ash awoke. She was not alone. Lan Fallstar lay beside her. his body still, his breathing metered. The moon had set but it was not wholly dark; starlight blued the tent.
What am I? Ash wondered. She had been told she was a Reach by Heritas Cant and Ark Veinsplitter, but she did not know what that meant. She was shaking, she realized, her chest and stomach vibrating intensely. Do not wake. The words had been a warning. Did that mean the creatures in the Blind were afraid of her? Why? Ark had hinted that she could track the shadow beasts, perceive them over distance. Was that reason enough?
Teeth chattering, she rolled over, twisting the blankets and lynx fur around her body. She felt icy cold. The nightmare had sucked asvay her warmth. Do not wake.
She reached for Lan Fallstar in the dim blue light of the tent. She hardly knew what she was doing but she craved his warmth and was desperate to feel his live body pressing against hers. He gasped as she touched him, and she felt him hesitate. He had not been asleep, she was sure of that. A moment passed where he might have moved away from her, where his hands were up and touching her hands and it would have been a small thing for him to push back. He did not push back, instead he sighed sharply, parting his hands and sliding them down to her waist. A quick, almost violent flexing of muscle brought her next to him. Ash smelled him, the altenness of his skin and sweat. As he thrust through blankets and furs to grab her buttocks she kissed him. Her mouth was wet and full of saliva and it coated his lip before he opened them to kiss he back. Their teeth knocked together with an odd dissonance, and it slowed her for a moment. Lan's hand was moving between her thighs now and she could not understand why it was taking so long to reach where it needed to be. Her sex was hot and wet. It ached, literally ached, to be touched.
He did not taste human and that excited her. As she curled her tongue against the roof of his mouth he slid his hand against her sex. Ash opened her legs wider. Her tongue stiffened. Hot pulses passed along her belly. One finger found a sweet spot and rubbed it softly but insistently. She could hear the wetness swish against his hand. Grabbing him firmly she arched her hips toward him. The finger moved faster, its pressure increasing. With her free hand he squeezed her buttocks, his fingertips jamming into the point where they met. Ash gasped. All she wanted him to do was not stop. The finger was creating delicious friction deep beneath her skin. Suddenly the tension broke and her legs and hips started jerking. Heat pulsed down her thighs and up through her belly and she lost control of herself, grasping at his ribs and pushing against his hand. She did not breathe until it stopped.
Afterward he pulled himself on top of her and pressed his hard sex against her own. As he broke the fine membrane of skin that protected her body and entered her, he murmured, "Ish'I xalla tannan"
I know the value of that which I take.
Outside the tent the wind began to rattle the birches.
NINETEEN Hunting Prey
Raif reached the city on the edge of the abyss just as the sleet started. Smoke from the cave fires blew in his face. He could not say the familiar scent of burning sedge and willow canes made him glad to be back. He had a strong desire to set down his kit, rest, and not enter, but it was already too late for that.
"Twelve Kill on the ledge!" came the cry from a watcher on the high wind-carved cliff above him. Raif acknowledged the man with an open hand, yet did not look up. Already he could hear the call being relayed across the ledgerock, echoing from cave to cave and ledge to ledge, moving up cane ladders and rock-cut stairs, along tunnels and stone galleries before finally plunging down into the Rift.
"Kill. Kill. Kill" Raif heard. His name reduced to a single word.
The children came out first. Skinny and clothed in fine silks and brocades gone to rags, they kept their distance and stared at him with big eyes as if they ha|jreason to be afraid. One older boy bounced a stone in his cupped fist, his tight little mouth twitching. Raif looked him in the eyes, looked long, and the boy caught the stone, closed his fist, and dropped his hand against his side.
The Maimed Men and their women came out next and they were not a lovely sight. Dressed in dyed leather shirts and tunics, animal skins with the heads still attached, armored cloaks, spiked helms, rat-fur hoods, scaled breastplates, steel gauntlets, burned dresses, boned bodices, goat fleece collars and kilts and all manner of straps, belts, packs and chains, they did their name proud. Every one of them was lacking; a missing eye or arm, a clubfoot, a deformed spine, a cleft Palate, a claw hand, a wine-stained face, absent flesh, extra flesh. Things not present at birth and others taken away later. Raif became aware of his own missing flesh — the tip of his little finger, cut off at the knuckle-and wondered if he would ever lose enough of himself to feel at home here. He had a brief hut intensely strong desire to run, turn and flee back to the eanyonlands and Badlands-places were the land was the only thing that was wasted. The cragsman Addle Gunn's words came back to him. "None of us are whole" He had not been speaking about flesh.