Chapter 30

 

Apparently the clanless did observe restday. Not that Dej was sure how it would differ from any other day. Their default activity appeared to be loafing in doorways and griping.

Restday didn’t get her off morning chores. But when they were done she went to sit outside the hut, enjoying some rare free time, though dark clouds threatened rain. It had already rained twice since she’d arrived.

She sniffed. Something smelled good. Her stomach gurgled. The size and quality of the nightly stews she shared with her hut-mates had reduced over the last few days.

Clanless began emerging from their huts and drifting towards the big hut. Dej waited until Lih and Vay came out, then tagged along behind. Vay gave Dej the bowl they’d grudgingly allowed as her own.

The fire in the big hut burned a type of sweet earth called peat, and it was always lit. Today it was squashed under a massive smoke-stained clay pot. People sat on the floor, avoiding the curtained-off alcoves round the edges where Mar and her attendants slept. The clanless elder sat in her chair, presiding over her people. Cal stood at her shoulder. Once everyone was settled Mar stood up. Her two attendants came forward. The men ladled out a bowl of stew from the pot, then gave it to Mar. People filed up to the cauldron to get served. Cal was second in line, confirming Dej’s suspicion that the clanless had as much of a pecking order as any bunch of squabbling dorm-mates. Cal had watched her practice a couple of times, standing to one side, arms crossed. Unlike some of the clanless, he never commented or laughed. Now, seeing her staring, he smiled. Dej smiled back then looked away, to find she was being watched herself, by Lih. The other girl wore her default half smile, half sneer.

“What?” snapped Dej, before she could catch herself.

Lih narrowed her eyes, and Dej wondered if she was about to get hit. It had to happen sooner or later. But not, apparently, in public. “Oh,” crowed Lih, “she’s got designs on our seer.” She elbowed Vay, who also smiled.

“Ah, so we have a seer; good.” Dej put gratitude in her voice, like the girls had done her a favour.

“Well,” said Vay, “he’s the closest we’ve got to a seer.”

“Not that close,” sneered Lih, and laughed.

The stew, when she finally got some, was more tubers than meat, but was hot and tasty. As she was finishing, Mar stood and announced, “The new one there is Dej,” Dej spluttered at hearing her name, looking up from her bowl as Mar continued, “though I’m sure you all know that by now. She’s another pathfinder.”

Dej straightened, but that was all the introduction she got. Looking around the assembled clanless it occurred to her that one of the women here might be her mother. If so it made no difference; skykin didn’t bother with such relationships, and the clanless seemed to have all the worst attributes of the skykin, with few of the good ones the crèche had talked about.

Once bowls had been put aside Mar opened her arms and smiled. “Treats, then.” The “treats”, handed out by her attendants, turned out to be pale starchy cakes and slivers of dried fruit. Dej had been wondering when they’d get shadowkin food. She made sure she savoured her cake and ring of dried apple.

 

The hunt left the next morning, led by Cal. Two dozen clanless, about a third of the total settlement, went, including Lih; she was a tracker. Vay, a healer, stayed. Kir travelled at the head of the hunt, on foot, Dej by her side. It was the first chance they’d had to speak all week, and Dej welcomed it, even if Kir didn’t appear interested in conversation.

They started down the defile she’d arrived along, then cut up a side valley heading southwest, deeper into the mountains. After an initial scrabble the land opened up enough for Cal to ride the rhinobeast they’d brought to carry the spoils.

After a while Kir halted. Everyone else straggled to a stop behind them. Kir turned to Dej and said, “We turn southwards here. Which way is that?”

Dej concentrated. They were in bogland with no obvious path and the Sun was hidden behind high cloud. After a while she pointed. Kir nodded, and the group adjusted their course.

Later that morning they reached a gentle slope covered in rocks. Trackers and hunters swarmed across it and flushed out the occasional rockslither; these were larger than the one Kir had caught, with four or five segments.

In the afternoon they climbed to high pasture, and the trackers fanned out, circling a herd of grazing creatures like large hairless rabbits with hardened backplates and heavy clawed feet. Those clanless not hunting moved upslope. When Dej opened her mouth to ask Kir why everyone hung so far back, the other skykin said, “Pichons are true herd beasts. Scare one and they all know. They’ve also a good sense of smell – so stay downwind.”

Sure enough, when one pichon raised its head, the others tensed and fled. But the hunters were ready and rushed forward, bringing the animals down with bolas, like the weapon the skykin woman had used on Dej when she ran from her bonding. The pichons died with indignant squeals that set Dej’s teeth on edge.

Kir asked Dej to pathfind several more times; mostly she got it right, although on the last occasion, when they were faced with two similar routes over the shoulder of a hill, Kir shook her head at Dej’s choice. “The leftmost one,” she said shortly, and set off that way.

That night they camped on a hummocky slope, lighting a fire using peat carried by the rhinobeast. Though some of the day’s haul had gone into its panniers, there was plenty to roast and it tasted good. People chatted and laughed, even including Dej in some of their banter. When Kir went to relieve herself, Dej followed.

Once they were out of the firelight Dej asked, “So you’re a pathfinder too?”

“I navigate, yes.”

“Does that make me your apprentice?” Dej liked the idea.

“One of them, yes.”

“But still your apprentice.”

Kir sighed, then relented and smiled, her teeth pale in the darkness. “Yes. I suppose you are.”

 

On the following day they circled south and skirted a steep valley, found yet more high bogland – this stretch too treacherous for the rhinobeast so they had to go around it – and passed through a wide bowl-shaped valley of reddish rocks, with caves along one side. In the next valley, as evening fell, they came across one of the hunt’s targets, though it didn’t require much hunting.

Clampers were flat-shelled snails the size of a clenched fist. When smoked, their flesh kept for months, and their empty shells were used as utensils. In the days before the hunt left, Dej had tasted, if not enjoyed, their chewy, smoky meat.

Now she helped prise them off the underside of rocks in a field of fallen stone slabs.

She made no mistakes in her navigation that day, though she’d found it hard to keep a straight path through the red valley.

That night she sat near Cal; not too close, just enough that he’d spot she was paying him attention. He had a Shenese accent: looked like they had something in common.

 

The hunt looped northward again, back towards the settlement. This took them onto shallow slopes of jumbled rocks: the best rockslither country, according to campfire talk. The rhinobeast, walking with delicate care, fell behind; the four trackers, including Lih, went ahead.

The morning brought plenty of false alarms, as the trackers circled or froze or crawled between rocks; but no prey. Kir admitted that, being this close to home, the area was heavily hunted.

The trackers finally uncovered a rockslither nest early in the afternoon. One moment they were edging forward, peering into crevices and exchanging handsignals, the next the rocks came alive. Hunters pounced, knives and spears at the ready. Dej hesitated as Kir sprang forward. The action was fast and silent: blows struck, writhing beasts raised on spearpoints, all in frantic moments. Dej, who’d only taken a couple of steps forward, contributed nothing to the hunt.

When, just before evening, the trackers came across another nest, Dej was ready. As the creatures exploded out from their rocky pinnacle she rushed forward, dagger in hand, heart pounding. Something sinuous swept past her foot. She struck out. Missed. Another target, between two rocks. She jabbed at it, and felt the point of her dagger snap. The rockslither escaped.

She looked up to see Lih standing on a rock above her, a dead rockslither baby in one hand. The look the other girl gave her was pure contempt.