Blind Hari’s voice abruptly broke into his musings. “What says the war chief then? Does the tribe bear to the north and cross the Great River where it is not so wide and swift, or do we rather follow the Traders’ Trail and cross over as do they?”
Milo shrugged. “Unless we backtrack far west and then north, we still would be faced with a wide, swift and deadly river before we could reach the headwaters of the Great River. Why should we do that and risk the chance of a much harder winter in a northern land? Let us continue on to Traderstown and see what transpires there. If the dirtmen of that town will not afford us use of their barges for a reasonable fee, then we shall take the barges, the town and all in it by force of arms. It is the sacred destiny of this tribe to return to the Holy City of our Sacred Ancestors’ birth, and neither man nor Nature shall impede us.”
Stehfahnah lay on her side with her naked body bunched as closely together as she could to conserve its heat, but still her little white teeth chattered. She had been captive in the trapper’s cramped, filthy hut for a week, bound hand and foot each time he left for any reason, and as his traplines ran for many miles up and down the riverbanks and deep into the forests, he and his small but sturdy ass were usually absent from a bit after sunrise until nearly dark. The girl once more ran her dry tongue over even drier lips, wishing for her captor’s return almost as much as she dreaded it. It was purest torture to lie watching the bulging waterskin hanging but a few feet distant and not be able to reach it: and torture, too, was the need to forcibly restrain the needs of her body to empty itself during the long hours alone, but the man’s hard-swung belt had drawn blood from her bare back on the two occasions she had lost control and wetted or fouled the mattress of grass-stuffed hides whereon she lay. For a pitifully short time each night and morning he had made a practice of freeing both wrists and ankles that she might eat, drink and void. He did leave her ankles unbound all night… but only so that he might easily use her body whenever the mood struck him through the night hours. Once more Stehfahnah had reverted to the behavior pattern which had sustained her through the long weeks of her previous captivity, separating her mind from her body during the abuse she could not resist, trying not to show pain or any sign of emotion.
She might have experienced loneliness, had she not been a telepath. But the second room of the hut was stall for not only the little ass but for the trapper’s other animal, a mare he had captured from the wild years before, and brutally broken to the saddle. During the third morning of her captivity, whilst she had been silently conversing with the two female otters, the previously uncommunicative equine had suddenly joined the “conversation.” Mother-of-Many-Many had just apprised the girl that Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water had swum upriver seeking the creature that might be able to help her, the one that they called The-Bear-Killer. Stehfahnah had no idea what sort of beast the otters had in mind. The only impressions she could glean from them were of a huge (to them, at least), dark, furry creature with longish legs, a mouthful of sharp, white teeth and broad feet studded with long, curved claws. Stehfahnah had known that the mare was a mind-speaker—else she would have possessed no mindshield—but the girl’s earlier attempts to converse had been fruitless. Now the small dun mare said silently, “You are truly, then, a twolegs of the Clans. Long has this one been slave to this brutal dirtman twolegs. Sad day it was when you became such, sister.”
According to the mare, she had been separated from her herd—a sept of the Horse Tribe attached to Clan Mehrfee— while fleeing a terrible grass fire on the prairie seven years past. Stumbling with exhaustion, she had entered the riverside forest belt, having scented water. She had been taken at a small spring, too tired to really offer much resistance to the big, strong man and his hateful rawhide noose.
Knowing or suspecting that his catch was a Horseclans mare, he never took her onto the prairies when he worked for the traders each spring and summer, boarding her and the ass in Traderstown, where the stable owner also rented out their services now and again.
The girl had had but little “conversation” with the ass. The small creature was intelligent enough, but his mindspeak seemed minimal and had never before been employed with humans. As Stehfahnah lay there on the smelly hide mattress, a new but familiar thought transmission nibbled at her mind, and abruptly her thirst, the cold, even the aching of her full and distended bladder were forgotten. “Good-Twolegs,” announced’ Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water, “The Bear-Killer swam back down the river with me. He stopped where we came out to eat a muskrat caught in one of Bad-Twolegs’s hurt-leg-things. But we must wait until next sun to free you, for Bad-Twolegs and his long-ears are not far.” Eely Maidjuhz led his pack ass—the smallish beast staggering under its load—into the small clearing before the log hut, hung the dwarf antelope he had bagged by chance, then began to affix the day’s catch of skins to the drying racks. Once the last skin was up and the antelope’s small carcass butchered, he cleaned his knives, took up the ass’s halter and led him into the hut and through the front room to join the mare in the lean-to addition.
It was only after he had removed the packsaddle and halter, fed and watered both beasts, brought in the antelope carcass, started a fire on the hearth and spitted the minuscule kill in preparation for broiling when the coals became of the right temperature and consistency that he turned to Stehfahnah. “Wai, sweetchips, what-all yew bin doin”t’day? Heheheh! Yew glad fer’t’ see ol’ Eely? Yew wawnt me’t’ untie yew so’s yew kin gitchew a drank an’ piss?” Stehfahnah gritted her teeth. “Yes.”
The man’s grin remained, but his eyes cooled. “Yore mem’ry ain’t too sharp, is it, gal?”
Her teeth still gritted, Stehfahnah ground out, “Yes, master.”
The man nodded his shaggy head once. “But it don’ tek much proddin’, does it? Come spring thaw time I tek yew in an’ sell yew to Miz Soozee fo’ her who’ house in Traders-town, yew awta be broke in jest raht.” His grin widening, he chuckled. “Then Eely’ll jest git word’t’ pore ol’ Shifty Stooahrt wher’all yew is. Way yew hurted up thet gennamun, he oughta be purt’ glad’t’ git aholt of yew agin. An’ he won’ fergit me neethuh, I figger.” The man kept a slip-knotted thong around the girl’s neck while she squatted in the brush, observing her constantly, his steel-shod spear ready in his other hand. Back in the hut, he allowed her to drink her fill from the waterskin before once again retying her, not releasing her again until the antelope carcass was cooked to his satisfaction. Throughout it all and through all the hours that followed, Stehfahnah was aware that Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water was crouched nearby, somewhere beyond the log walls. When the man had gorged himself, he untied Stehfahnah to allow her to consume the remains’ of the carcass and to drink again from the skin, then tied her for the night, performed his necessary chores, banked the fire and flopped down beside his captive on the hide mattress.
Stehfahnah gritted her teeth, knowing what was surely to happen but as he rolled onto his side and his dirty, greasy fingers began their explorations of her body, there came a deep-chested huffing snuffling at the barred door. Then something began to attack the portal furiously, constantly growling and roaring, striking the door with such force as to slam it back against the bar several times, jar oddments from off the wall shelf near it and even set the items hanging from the wall hooks and rafters dancing and swaying. Spewing curses, Eely threw off the blankets, rolled out of the bed and, with his spear clasped in one hand, began to stir up the fire with the other, his wide-eyed gaze locked upon the quivering door.