If she'd been tervardi, though-she'd have gotten to both of us. And I don't think Vree's as good at self-control as I am. I would truly have had a situation at that point.
"where?" the bondbird replied, with the inflection that meant "Where are we going?"
The hertasi, Vree," he Mindspoke back. "the ones on the edge of k'sheyna. this-one hurt-sleeps."
"Good." Vree's mind-voice was full of satisfaction; the hertasi liked bondbirds and always had tidbits to share with them. He could care less about Darkwind's burden; only that she was a burden, and Darkwind was hindered in his movements. "I guard." Which meant that he would stay within warning distance just ahead of Darkwind, alert at all times, instead of giving in to momentary distractions.
Unae his bondmate...Latrines, he thought firmly. Cleaning out latrines. most part, would start out chasing a helpless-looking old Nera looked up at Darkwind-it was hard for the diminutive hertasi to do anything other than "look up" at a human-his expressive eyes full of questions.
"And what if she wakes?" the Guard Mindspoke. He turned his head slightly, and the scales of the subtle diamond pattern on his forehead shifted from metallic brown to a dark gold like old bronze. Nera was the Elder of the hertasi enclave and an old friend; Darkwind had brought his burden-and problem-straight to Nera's doorstep. Let the mages discount the hertasi if they chose, or ignore them, thinking them no more than children in their understanding and suited only to servants' work.
Darkwind knew better.
"I don't think she will," Darkwind told him honestly. "At least not until I'm back. I risked a probe, and she is very deeply exhausted. I expect her to sleep for a day or more." Nera considered that, his eyes straying to the paddies below, where his people worked their fields of rice. The hertasi settlement itself was in the hillside above a marsh, carefully hollowed out "holes" shored with timbers; with walls, floors and ceilings finished with water-smoothed stone set into cement, and furnished well, if simply. The swamp was their own domain, one in which their size was not a handicap. They grew rice and bred frogs, hunted and fished there. They knew the swamp better than any of the Tayledras.
That had made it easy for Darkwind to persuade the others to include them within the bounds of the k'sheyna territory. The marsh itself was a formidable defense, and the hertasi seldom required any aid. A border section guarded by a treacherous swamp full of clever hertasi was something even the most stubborn mage would find a practical resource.
Though they knew how to use their half-size bows and arrows perfectly well, and even the youngest were trained with their wicked little sickle-shaped daggers and fish-spears, the hertasi preferred, when given the choice, to let their home do their fighting for them. Enemies, for the
lizard-rn2n, only to find themselves suddenly chest-deep and sinking in quicksand or mire.
The hertasi were fond of referring to these unwelcome intruders as fertilizer. ' Nera was still giving him that inquisitive look. Darkwind groaned, inwardly. There were some definite drawbacks to a friendship dating back to childhood. Old Nera could read him better than his own father. thank the gods for that.
The Changechild's attraction didn't work on Nera, any more than it did on Vree-but Darkwind had the feeling that the hertasi knew very well the effect it was having on the scout. And he was undoubtedly giving Darkwind that look because-he assumed the attraction was affecting his thinking as well as-other things.
Darkwind sighed. "All right," he said, finally. "If she wakes and gives YOU trouble, she's fair game for fertilizer. Does that suit you?" Nera nodded, and his flexible mouth turned up at the corners in an approximation of a human smile. "Good. I just wanted to be certain that your mind was still working as well as the rest of you." Darkwind winced. Nera was so small it was easy to forget that the hertasi was actually older than his father, and was just as inclined to remind him of his relative youth. And hertasi, who only came into season once a year, enjoyed teasing their human friends about their susceptibility to their own passions.
It didn't help that this time Nera's arrow hit awfully near the mark.
"I'm still chief scout," he reminded the lizard..Anything that comes out of the Pelagirs is suspect-and if it's helpless and attractive, it's that much more suspect."
"Excellent." Nera bobbed his muzzle in a quick nod. "then give my best to the Winged Ones. Follow the blue-flag flowers; we changed the safe path since last you were here." With that tacit approval, Darkwind again shifted his burden to the ground, this time laying her on a stuffed grass-mat just inside Nera's doorway. When he turned, the hertasi Elder had already rejoined his fellows, and was knee-deep in muddy water, weeding the rice. He might be old, but he had not lost any of his speed. That was how the hertasi, normally shy, managed to stay out of sight so much of the time in the Vale; they still retained the darting speed of that long-ago reptilian ancestor.
Darkwind pushed aside the bead curtain that served as a door during the day, shaded his eyes, and looked beyond the paddies for the first of the blue-flag flowers. The hertasi periodically changed the safe ways through the swamp, marking them with whatever flowering plants were blooming at the time, or with evergreen plants in the winter. After a moment he spotted what he was looking for, and made his way, dry-shod, along the raised paths separating the rice paddies.
Dry-shod only for the moment. When he reached the end of the cultivated fields, he pulled off his boots, meant mostly for protection against the stones and brambles of the dryland, fastened them to his belt, and substituted a pair of woven rush sandals he kept with Nera.
Rolling up the cuffs of his breeches well above his knees, he waded into the muddy water, trying not to think of what might be lurking under it. The hertasi assured him that the plants they rooted along the paths kept away leeches, special fish they released along the safe paths would eat any that weren't repelled by the plants, and that he himself would frighten away any poisonous water snakes, if he splashed loudly enough, but he could never quite bring himself to believe that. It was very hard to read hertasi even when someone knew them well, and it was all too like their sense of humor to have told him these things to try and lull him into complacency.
He could have gone around, of course, but this was the shortest way to get to the other side of the swamp, where the marsh drained off down the side of the crater-wall into the Dhorisha Plains. The swamp, barely within k'sheyna lands, ended at the ruins he sought-and when he had apportioned out the borders, he had made sure that both were within his patrolling area.
One advantage of being in charge; I could assign myself whatever piece I wanted. Dawnfire gets the part facing on the hills that hold her friends, and I get the area that holds mine. Seems fair enough to me.
Normally he didn't have to get there by wading through the swamp.
This was not the route he chose if he had a choice.
The water was warm, unpleasantly so, for so was the heavy, humid air. A thousand scents came to his nostrils, most of them foul; rotting plants, stale water, the odor of fish. He looked back after a while, but the hertasi settlement had completely vanished in waving swamp-plants that stood higher than his head. He thought he felt something slither past his leg, and shuddered, pausing a moment for whatever it was to go by.