Perhaps the creature could be useful. Enris made himself lean back comfortably. “Why would an empty ditch stop them?”
Its head bobbed sharply, twice. An indication of some strong emotion, he thought. “Hard Ones have an instinct for self-preservation. The courseways were not always empty. The risk of encountering water?” It turned a hand downward. “They drown. That is why they rest on one another if they can, for fear of rain. Those on the bottom rarely survive. Do you think that cruel?”
Enris glanced at the pile of living rock, then beyond it. He frowned at the Tikitik. “I think they’re a problem. I’m on Passage.” Make it official, lest the creature interfere. “I don’t see any—” what had it called the ditch? “—courseways between here and the mountain.” Or streams, for that matter. Which raised an interesting question. “How did you get past them?”
A bark. “It is the Hard Ones who fear me.” The Tikitik rose to its feet. Its concave torso was wrapped in paired bands of cloth, the same pale dull color as its skin. The bands supported bags on what would be waist and hips for an Om’ray, as well as a sheath. From that, the creature drew a long—familiar—blade, which it attached with a twist to a staff. “Are you hungry, Om’ray?”
Without waiting for his answer, the Tikitik strode over to the rock hunters. Enris was astonished to see the entire pile start to quiver. The movement was slow and halting, more an indecisive landslide than purposeful flight. The greatest speed was attained by those falling off the top, who managed to roll and bounce a fair distance from the rest. Once on flat ground, they leaned until they tumbled over, stopped to become rocks again—as if to fool any watcher—then leaned and tumbled once more.
By day, he decided in disgust, the things posed no conceivable threat to anyone or thing able to walk. By truenight, asleep or trapped—that was another matter. Could there be a defense? Despite his aching head, he stood to get a better view.
The Tikitik used no stealth. It selected a rock the size of Enris’ pack and turned it over using the butt of its staff. The rest kept rolling away. For some reason unsatisfied—or to torment the rock—the Tikitik pushed it over again, then held it in place with its foot. “Come,” it ordered, bobbing its head twice. “See.”
Keeping a wary eye on the retreating rocks, Enris joined the gray Tikitik. Up close, the creature smelled like unwashed clothes and sweetpie. It tapped a spot on the rock with the blade of its weapon. “There. Hard Ones have formidable armor, but everything breathes.”
Enris had to lean close to see what the Tikitik had found. It was a deep crevice, the width of his little finger. Unlike a natural crack in rock, this curved in a sinuous line twice the length of his hand, never changing in size.
“Find the midpoint,” the Tikitik said, doing so with another tap. He held the blade tips up. The metal was plain, but otherwise the tool was identical to the one currently inside Enris’ coat, with one hooked tip longer than the other. “This severs the organ that controls breathing. Thus.”
The “Hard One” struggled, but as its effort consisted of a grinding push against the ground, easily countered by the pressure of the Tikitik’s foot, it appeared helpless. Reversing the blade, the Tikitik plunged it deep into the crevice at an angle, then brought it straight with a quick powerful motion. There was a loud whistle—Enris couldn’t tell if the Hard One screamed in pain or if this was its final exhalation—then the “rock” sagged into itself.
In death, the Hard One appeared more alive, a bag made to look like a rock, rather than stone itself. He dared touch it. The “skin” felt like the sand sacs he and his father used for fine polishing, rough and cold.
The Tikitik barked. “What waits inside is of greater value to one on Passage.” It levered the blade sideways and the “bag” split open. “Especially a hungry one.”
There was nothing remotely appetizing in the mass of green, black, and glistening yellow that spilled out on the ground. And the smell! Enris covered his nose with his sleeve and stared at the Tikitik. “You’d eat that?”
It poked and stirred the remains, adding considerably to the smell and mess. Enris was about to protest when the Tikitik withdrew the blade, a fist-sized lump of blue caught on the hooked tip. “I’d eat this. A delicacy, foolish Om’ray. Only found in the young ones.” It thrust the lump at Enris and wiggled it suggestively.
“Thank you, but I’ve food of my own,” the Tuana said hastily. Tikitik had taken Aryl prisoner and force-fed her. She’d described the experience vividly; they hadn’t used their hands.
“As you wish.” The Tikitik shook the “delicacy” from its blade. It landed with a sodden thud among the oozing remains. “You should move,” it advised, walking back across the shallow line of ditch and sitting exactly where it had sat before. “The Hard Ones find their own impossible to resist.”
It was true. Their almost imperceptible roll to escape had become an almost imperceptible roll to return. Because of their greater size, each roll moved the larger of the Hard Ones farther, so they soon outdistanced the rest.
Soon? Metal, Enris judged, cooled faster. Being thirsty as well as hungry—if not for a blue lump—he left the rocks to their business and returned to his pack. The Tikitik’s small eyes roved about on their cones; its large pair followed Enris, an unwelcome attention the Tuana chose to ignore.
After a cautious drink from his dwindling supply, he undid the ties holding the waterproofed flap, then opened the top to rummage through his supplies. His eyebrows rose as he pulled out a tight coil of rope, rope he hadn’t packed. The lengths were few enough. He’d taken nothing the exiles might need.
Except himself.
His fingers found something small and soft attached to the rope. A lock of brown hair, cleverly tied in the shape of an Om’ray. Keeping his back to the Tikitik, Enris unhooked it with care, then tucked it safely inside the pouch hanging around his neck, with the old firebox and odd wafer.
No mystery who’d done this for him, who’d given him Passage gifts as a family should.
There was more: Grona travel bread—a large bite of which promptly went in his mouth; one of the Sona blankets; other Sona supplies: rokly, swimmer meat; last, but not least, a Yena longknife.
He recognized the nicks along its fine edge; not that Aryl would give him anyone’s but her own. It was an admirable tool—and weapon. At that thought, Enris put away the longknife, grabbed the bag of rokly, and turned to face his companion. He sat, then reached into his coat for the blade he’d found with the bones. He balanced it on one knee. “Rokly?” he offered.
The small eyes snapped forward so all four could stare. At the blade, he noticed with satisfaction, not the morsel he held out. The Tikitik bobbed its head upward, twice. “A shame Om’ray have forgotten how to read,” it said finally.
Forgotten? Nothing this creature said was by accident. It must know Om’ray Adepts read in the Cloisters. Heart racing, Enris ran his finger over the symbols. “Is that why the Oud destroyed Sona? Because that Clan let everyone, not just Adepts, learn to read and write?”
A too-thin arm lifted languidly, two fingers pointed where the dead Hard One had been. Had been, Enris saw with a lurch of his stomach, because the remains were now beneath a slowly shoving pile of its own kind. “The Oud are equally tasteless and unsophisticated,” pronounced the Tikitik, lowering its arm. “They don’t care about those who read. They don’t themselves. They claim their flesh remembers.”
Enris pressed. “The Sona are gone because the Oud reshaped this valley. Why?”
A bark and a sly dip of its head. “The Sona are not gone.”
He knew this feeling: it was the one watching Aryl and other Yena gambol across the beams of roofs and up vertical cliffs gave him. A dizzy, fingerbreadth from disaster, about-to-fall-into-an-abyss, dry-mouthed, disbelieving terror. With a sincere dollop of frustration. They never listened to him. Stay on the ground. Stay away from the Oud. Don’t stay here.