Ayshen was a k’Leshya hertasi, and did not suffer from the painful shyness shared by all of the Pelagirs hertasi, including his mate. So he was neither offended nor alarmed by Darian’s reaction.
“The boy has never seen one of us, eh?” Ayshen chuckled. “No worries. I mind me the time I saw my first Haighlei; I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. To me, the idea that you humans had hide colors that wildly different just set my brain afire.” He turned to Darian, and cleared his throat.
“To hearth, bed, and bread, be welcome,” he said in slow and uncertain Valdemaran.
Darian jumped, but held onto his meal with both hands, and made an awkward little bow. “Thanks be to the keeper of the house; my hand is at his service,” he replied in the formal manner.
Ayshen chuckled. “Tell him he shouldn’t have said that - I need a dishwasher today! You were on the roster, but with that bad arm, you can’t lift pots. It’s probably why you got the wound, as an excuse.”
Snowfire obediently translated, and a slow smile crept across Darian’s face. “I wouldn’t mind - if he really needs the help,” the boy said shyly. “I used to do all the dishwashing for Justyn - and - I could pay you back a little by taking your place.”
The glance he gave Snowfire had more than a shadow of hero worship to it, but Snowfire knew how to deal with that. “If you have no problem in taking my place, I would be grateful,” he replied and made a face. “On the whole, I don’t mind washing dishes; it’s preferable to a lot of other camp chores that I won’t escape because of my bad arm. And I will miss out on the special treats Ayshen keeps for his helpers.”
The ploy worked; he not only established that he was grateful to Darian for volunteering, but that the job of dishwasher brought with it some extra rewards.
It was arranged that Darian would report to Ayshen after the evening meal; with a bit of trial, they determined to both of their satisfaction that Ayshen could direct the boy with a bit of mime and a great deal of pointing.
That certainly went well, Snowfire thought with satisfaction, as he led Darian off in the direction of the dyheli grazing grounds. He is resilient, I must give him credit for that. Now that he has the concept of nonhuman partners planted in his mind, I’ll show him the next set.
* * *
Darian had hardly known what to think when he first saw the hertasi cook, Ayshen. The creature had looked - at least at first - so very much like the horrible Thing that had been leading the enemy fighters!
But Snowfire hadn’t been afraid of Ayshen, and the hertasi himself had been very kind - as Ayshen had put together a lunch for the two of them, and as Darian had gotten over his fright enough to look closely at him, it was obvious that he wasn’t very much like the enemy Thing at all. Darian found himself volunteering to act as a dishwasher, and even more surprising, found himself looking forward to the task. At least now he would be able to accomplish something useful here!
It was so odd, though - feeling an urgent need to be useful.
“So - what’s a hertasi, anyway?” he asked Snowfire around a mouthful of bread.
“They are, so we believe, one of the creations of that same great mage who ended the Mage Wars,” Snowfire replied. “As you saw, they are descended from lizards, and they share many characteristics with lizards. Cold sends them into a stupor, and extreme cold could kill or injure them very badly. They act, more or less, as our helpers; they cook and clean for us, make clothing, act as the assistants for artisans - when they are not, themselves, artisans as well. In return, we give them the protection of our Vales and scouts and things that they need. They tend to live in colonies, although they take single mates. They are one of the five nonhuman races that we Tayledras associate and work with.”
“Five?” Darian could hardly believe it. “There are five kinds of - of - things that you have around your Vales?”
“As equal partners and helpers and not always in the Vales. The tervardi, or Bird-people, the kyree, or Fur-brothers, and the dyheli, or Straight-horns, usually live outside our Vales. The hertasi and the gryphons in our Vales entwine their lives with ours; the others live entirely separate lives from ours, and only become partners with us where there are specific tasks that are better done with all our peoples.” Snowfire was so matter-of-fact about this - as if he were telling Darian how the Hawkbrothers arranged to get things from traders, or worked with the Valdemaran Guard! Darian found his head swimming. First, two-legged, intelligent lizards, and now this!
“In fact,” Snowfire was continuing, “we have dyheli with us as well as hertasi on this journey. They have volunteered, in token of their separate alliance with Valdemar, to act as our mounts and burden bearers. Selenay has offered, in light of the fact that they are grazers and most of the Pelagirs are forested, to sponsor colonies of dyheli into some of the unused grazing lands on the western border, and our dyheli are also along as scouts to investigate this possibility. We could say that, as grazers, they wish to find if the lands and available grasses and plants suit their tastes.”
Darian giggled at the word play. “What - what do these dyheli look like?” Darian asked. “I mean, I’ve heard stories, about some of the things in Hawkbrother lands, but I’ve never seen any.”
Snowfire smiled. “That, my friend, you are about to see for yourself. Look there - “
He pointed as they came around another of the ubiquitous vine curtains - and there, in a sunny meadow, was a small herd of something vaguely like deer with ghostlike coloration of pale beige and cream.
At least, they had four legs, hooves, and two delicately curved, unbranching horns on their heads. But the heads themselves were much larger than that of a deer, the enormous brown eyes looked more forward than a deer’s did. But the biggest difference was in the shape of the skull; a small and delicate muzzle, comparatively speaking, but an elongated cranium, something that could easily contain a brain the size of a man’s.
As he and Snowfire stood at the edge of the clearing, every dyheli head came up, the humans were examined closely, but swiftly, and then every dyheli head came down again, back to the important business of grazing.
Darian blinked at them in awe; he was no stranger to the concept of an intelligent, four-legged creature. After all, he was a native of Valdemar, and you’d have to have the brains of a wheel of cheese not to know all about Companions. But these creatures were so - different.