Mistress of Animals

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Hadishti’s son, Dimghuy, walked down to Najud and Penrys about an hour later.

They’d spent the time moving the tethers for their animals to give them all fresh grass to graze. Najud was eager to either move on or make plans to camp here, but they would have to invite him to stay, and he couldn’t hurry that decision in the shock of what they’d brought from the High Pass.

The time that was passing was mute evidence of how much they needed someone to lead them, to make those decisions unhampered by inexperience.

The young man bowed to both of them. “My mother asks you to make your camp with us this evening, and to join us in our discussions.”

Najud glanced up at the circle of kazrab where everyone was watching, and then looked over at Penrys, who nodded her agreement.

“We would be honored,” he said, and the look of relief on Dimghuy’s face was evidence of how formal the request had been.

The young man waved his arm at the camp, and all the men walked down through the long grass to help with the unloading of the animals.

Every time Najud set his hand to a pack, one of them was before him, lifting it down on his behalf. At first it amused him, but a throttled word of exasperation from Penrys, who was getting the same treatment, finally prompted a response.

“I have been traveling on my own for ten years, barqahab, and am perfectly capable of unloading a horse, or even a donkey!”

Dimghuy looked shocked. “But you are bikrajab. It’s not fitting.”

Najud snorted. “I am many things, but helpless isn’t one of them.” He could hear Penrys’s suppressed chuckle in the background.

“I’ll tell you what I need,” he said, “and we’ll do this together. Yes?”

The young men nodded, and things went more smoothly after that. They left the horses and donkeys loose in a herd of their own, accustomed as they were to each other, and clustered the packs, frames, and tack on a platform of rocks under their waterproof canvas covers, secure from any sudden rain.

Their helpers wouldn’t let them shoulder the kamah and the rest of their camp gear, so Najud gave up and followed them to their designated site, some distance behind Hadishti’s kazr.

*At least it’s relatively private.*

He shook his head at Penrys’s remark.

*Yes, but they’ll be scandalized when they realize there is no barrier between the male and female sides.*

*I wonder if that’s what Hadishti was thinking of when she picked this spot? I owe her my thanks, if so.*

Najud smiled privately, and then stepped up to direct the erection of the simple tent. Penrys was going to discover just how little privacy there really was in the taridiqa.

Penrys pitched in with the chores around the camp, or at least she tried to. She spoke to Hadishti about sharing supplies, but was turned down, politely but firmly. When she offered to help with preparations or cooking, the woman just shook her head, kindly. “This is no trouble, bikrajti, no need for you to concern yourself.”

The youngest Zannib had resumed their herd duties, all but Yuknaj who was helping Hadishti with dinner, and they rode the perimeter of the grazing animals, encouraging them to stay settled in the vicinity of the spring. Penrys turned to Najud for some employment, but found him deep in conversation with the other young men. Even from a distance, Penrys recognized the “getting acquainted” tenor of the discussion and thought her presence would disturb it.

Left to her own devices, then, she located the highest rock in the nearby terrain, within sight of the camp, and waited. Some of the packs from the High Pass had been claimed and doubtless each of the kazrab had its share. From her vantage point, she saw the remainder resting in a forlorn heap, not far from the central fire where Yuknaj was tending to a stew. The smell of flatbreads baking rose from Hadishti’s kazr, making Penrys’s stomach grumble.

Not easy to fit in here. I’m a foreigner, wearing the wrong clothing, and a wizard. That last designation is the one they seem most comfortable with—at least they know what to do with that. Maybe Najud is right, maybe we need some sort of status in their eyes to be sharing a tent. Their country, their rules.

One thing I can do. That’s a lot of animals they’re trying to control. Wouldn’t hurt to get a good count, even if they already have one.

She settled into a comfortable position and did a detailed scan, segment by segment, around a full circle—five times, once each for the horses, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats. It was easier to count the species one by one. Almost forty horses, including their own, their seven donkeys, twenty-two cattle, thirty-five sheep, and seventeen goats.

With three or four herdsmen? How can they possible control that?

Even as she thought it, all three of the outriders trotted in from their posts, stripped the tack from their sturdy mounts, and tethered them near the edge of the camp.

Even so simple a meal as goat stew and fresh flatbread was a welcome change, after more than a week crossing the High Pass eating even simpler fare. The conversation around the fire was subdued and it deliberately avoided the topics on everyone’s mind.

Grief warred with hope in most of the minds Penrys touched, the dread engendered by those mute packs versus the uncertainty, the possibility that their friends and family could yet be found alive.

Hadishti kept her eye on everyone, and when she laid her empty bowl down in front of the bit of carpet she used as a seat, all of her campmates did the same, and the conversation stopped.

She spoke to Najud, across the fire. “We of the Kurighdunaq clan thank you, bikraj, you and your companion, for the kindness you’ve done us, bringing us this unhappy news of our kinsmen. You see us here, three families, unable to decide on our next action.”

Jirkat nodded from his own spot, in support of her statement.

“We have spoken,” she said, “all of us, about what we should do. With one thing we all agree.”

Najud listened attentively.

“We want you to advise us,” she told him.

Penrys held her face expressionless. Najud was not surprised, she saw—he had expected something like this.

He raised one hand our, palm up, diffidently. “I am just a tulqaj, a traveler. Out-clan and out-tribe.”

Hadishti nodded, and waited.

Najud spoke confidently. “If it were me, I would return to the summer encampment, which you say is not far. I’d make an appraisal of what’s gone, and I’d do a careful search again for your missing kin. The herds especially can’t have vanished without a trace. It seems to me that so many, even after two months, would leave a trail we can see.”

He raised his finger in the air. “I don’t say you have not already done this. But this is what I would do.”

Jirkat said, “Yes, we’ve done this. But we were in a hurry, I confess, expecting at any moment to find our families, and rushing to seek them.”

He looked down. “We haven’t found them. Now it’s time to retrace our steps and start again.”

He exchanged an enigmatic look with Hadishti, then he bowed low from his seat to Najud. “Bikraj, you are clan-kin through Qizrahi, and no one can deny it. You are well-traveled, you are older than all of us here, except Hadishti, and you and your companion have seen wonders. You have been on the taridiqa in your own clan for many years—you are not strange to our ways.”

Penrys noted his hesitation. What are they leading up to?

“We, all of us, would like you to be zarawinnaj for us, to lead us to our zudiqazd after we search again, as you advise, and there to guest with us for the winter.”

This time Najud was surprised, Penrys saw, however he tried to hide it.

Hadishti added, “We need a man of your experience, bikraj, and we need bikrajab, too, for if this is not wizard-work, then I don’t know what else to call it.”

Najud lifted an eyebrow at Penrys, his expression unusually sober.

She shrugged. *We must winter somewhere, you said, and they seem to need us. Besides, you can’t leave something this… whatever this is… uninvestigated.*

“I will swear the oaths of a zarawinnaj,” he said to Jirkat. “We’ll see you to your winter camp and do what we can to find your missing along the way.”