That was because Melech had gone on ahead with Lebesair. With their gas sacs and thin membranes they were vulnerable to pellet guns. One hit wouldn’t bother them much, the hole would seal itself before too much of their lift leaked away. Enough hits, though, and the weight of lead as well as the loss of gas would bring them down. An Eolt on the ground was a dead Eolt.
Wild lives brushed against her touch, feral beasts descended from the fertilized ova brought by the Fior, budding beasts that had developed here, and the curious mixes that she didn’t know how to explain. No, mix wasn’t quite the right word. Blend? Alloy rather than compound? Like the moss ponies, two strands of life style woven into a quirky whole.
In any case, no danger to them.
They stopped at intervals to feed and water the ponies. That was doubly important now that they had no spares. They stopped at noon to eat and let Shadith check Danor’s bandages and see how he was holding up.
Tokta Burek was right, the journey seemed to be speeding up the healing rather than setting him back. His temper wasn’t improved and his weakness meant it came out in spates of complaint and jabs at Shadith and Maorgan. Shadith caught him watching Maorgan with an evil satisfaction at seeing the Ard suffering the absence of his Eolt.
Mid-afternoon Shadith rode round a bend and saw a group of Fior and Denchok leaning on shovels and contemplating the bridge over the creek that crossed the road. The water foamed around rocks and hit the bridge piers with a force that made them shudder visibly. She waved Maorgan to a stop, then rode forward till she reached the group.
“Oso, Meathlan. Is the bridge safe for the crossing? We carry an injured Fior to Chuta Meredel and can’t stretch too much circling.”
They turned and stared silently at her with a blank-faced stolidity that was as intimidating as it was irritating. She’d met this response many times before in her long life, so she simply sat with her hands resting on the pommel, waiting for one of them to make up his or xe’s mind to speak.
A Denchok set hands on xe’s hips, looked from Shadith to Maorgan just visible behind her. “Injured?”
Maorgan raised his brows. When Shadith nodded, he rode a few steps forward, enough so the Denchok could see the litter.
“Chorek,” Shadith said. “Tokta Burek fetched his fever down, but we’ve got to get him to Meredel.”
“Best keep a hard watch out, the choreks’re bad round here. Politicals, lot of them, chased out of Ordumels down Plain and landed on us. And there’s no dumels for shelter ‘tween here and Medon Pass. Take it slow, maybe better get the litter over first. Storm winds last night kicked a couple planks off and the water loosened the piers some when it rose. We were just figuring how to shore them up till we can get a builder from Minach.”
When Maorgan tried to lead the litter ponies onto the bridge, they set their feet, hunched their heads down, and wouldn’t budge. Shadith clicked her tongue, slid from the saddle. “Best let me do that, Ard.”
Danor swore weakly as she edged past the ponies. She ignored him, rubbed the poll of the off bearer and considered how much control she should exert. These tough stubborn little beasts liked ground solid beneath their feet, not shifting about with little screeching whines. She rather did, herself. She could feel uneasiness on the verge of solidifying into fear. That wasn’t good. She eased into the mindfield, not trying to see through the pony’s eyes, only to give him a sense of warmth and security.
After a minute of her massaging his poll and his brain at the same time, he relaxed a little. She repeated the process on the other litter pony, then stepped away from them and pulled off her boots. She tossed them onto the road and walked the bridge, feet clinging to the worn planks, feeling them shudder against her soles. Through the openings left by the windripped planks, she could see the water hammering at the supports. They were right, though, it would hold if she could keep the ponies calm.
She came back. “Ard, your harp, play us across, hm? The Mad Mara’s Lament I taught you a while back so I can serenade our little friends here.”
“Wild things fluttered in my head,” she sang and remembered another time she’d sung that song, sitting in a cage, waiting to be sold to a bunch of bloody-handed priests.
“Wild wings fluttered in my head
And wild thoughts muttered there
In waking dreams I saw you dead
Your body rent, your throat gone red
Your splendid thighs ripped bare.
I cannot sleep, cruel love
Memory’s my Mourning Dove
Cuckoos call out, horned maid
See your faithless lover fade
All oaths broke, all hope betrayed…”
With the last notes, the caцpa stepped from the bridge, snorting as he let her lead him clear. She hitched the leadrope to a convenient sapling and ran back across the swaying timbers, collected her boots, pushed them into a saddlebag, then went back to work coaxing the other caцpas across.
The swaying was worse, the footing more uncertain, so this time it was harder to get them going, even with her mindtouch soothing them, but the harp music helped. They were used to the sound and it covered all but the worst of the noises from the bridge.
As Shadith swung into the saddle, the Denchok on the far side of the swollen creek cupped his hands about his mouth and called, “Watch out for choreks. Thick as fleas.”
She waved to him, then rode Brйou around the litter ponies and took her place in front. “Let’s go.”
It is the peculiar quality of water sounds that they can be quite loud and yet inaudible a few minutes off. Before they’d gone more than a few score paces along the road, all Shadith could hear was the wind creaks of the trees and the pattery sound of the leaves. Now and then a flurry of sound broke across this background and once she saw a small flier turn into jewels when it darted through a sunbeam, ruby and emerald on the carapace, with diamond wings. The Forest hummed around her, the peace as thick as the shadow that lay across the road, the trees giants now, rising ten or twelve times her height. Their trunks were rough textured, the bark deeply incised and so loose that they looked like they had the mange, patches of old bark in place, dark gray and spongy, patches of new pale green and rough as if someone had used a rasp on them. The distance between the trees increased with their height, but the forest didn’t open out like others she’d seen. Even though the light under the canopy was minimal, spikes of fungus rose everywhere, pastel and pulpy, pale pink, ocher, grayish-green, ivory. Lichen vines spread from trunk to ground in fan-shaped webs and giant slimemolds spread like golden syrup across the ground. The air had an odd mixture of conifer bite and fungal musk.
She kept the mindtouch sweeping from side to side, reaching as far as she could. Back and forth, back and forth, almost soothing in its regularity. Back and forth, back and forth, the road a green and pastel tunnel ahead, gently curving, following the swell of the mountains, rising and falling only a little, sometimes a small cut into the mountain to keep the level easy, sometimes a hardpacked fall of scree glued in place with concrete.
They stopped to feed and water the ca6pas. Danor feigned sleep so she’d leave him alone. He needn’t have bothered. She was too tired to fool with him. She sat a while wondering if she should put her boots back on, at the same time rather enjoying the freedom for her feet. Probably not a good idea in this place, no telling what bacteria or parasites she was picking up. She didn’t move. It was hot and the air was heavy and her feet felt good as they were.