Skybolts. Kero had described it so vividly it still lived in her memory.
'It was a wall of flame, as tall as a man, driving everything before it.
Herds of wild cattle were followed by a stampede of sheep. that was followed by a sea of rabbits, frightened so witless they'd charge straight up to a man and run into his legs. that was followed by the little birds that lived in the grass, and a river of mice-and then the wall was on top of you. You could hear it roaring a league away, and nearby it was deafening. It moved as fast as a man can run, and it sent up a great black pall of smoke, a regular curtain that went straight up into the sky. The burning area was farther than I could jump-at the leading edge the ends of the grasses were afire, in the middle, all of this year's growth-but on the trailing edge, all the previous years' growth that was packed down was burning as fiercely as wood, and hotter-' Kero paused and passed her hand over her eyes.
'Everyone let go their beasts; you couldn't hold 'em, not even Shin'a'inbreds.
A couple of the youngsters, I'm told, tried to run across the fire. It was unbelievably hot; their clothing, anything that was cloth and not leather or metal. caught fire. Not that it mattered. The hot air stole the breath from them; they fell down in the middle of the flames, trying to scream, and with no breath to do it, burning alive. The rest, the ones that survived, wet their shields and cloaks down with their water skins, put their shields over their backs and their wet cloaks over that, and hunkered down under both.'Like turtles under tablecloths' is what one lad told me.
They stuck their faces right down into the dirt, and did their best to breathe as little as possible. That was how they made it. And even some of those got scorched lungs from the burning air. She shook her head. 'Don't ever let anyone tell you a grass fire is 'nothing, 'girl. I lost half that patrol to one, and the rest spent days with the Healers, for burns inside and out.
It's not 'nothing,' it's hell on earth. My cousins fear fire the way they fear no living thing.' No, a grass fire was nothing to take lightly. On the other hand, there was no purpose to be served in giving Skif a lecture, especially not the way she felt right now. Anything she told him would come out shrewish; anything she said would be discounted. Not that it wouldn't anyway.
Rather than risk sounding like a fishwife, she simply took out her knife and cut a larger circle in the turf, removing blocks of it and setting them aside to replace when they were finished. She made a clear space about half as wide as she was tall. Skif sat and seethed when he saw her kindling a tiny fire in the middle of this comparatively vast expanse of clear earth, but he didn't comment. Then again, he didn't have to; she didn't even have to see his face, his posture said it all.
Even without her saying a word, he took what she did as criticism.
Was it? She couldn't help it. Better to do without a little tea than risk a fire. She decided that he was going to seethe no matter what she did,
whether or not she said anything.
And when the tea was boiled and their trail rations had been toasted over the fire, she put the fire out and replaced the blocks of turf enjoying, in a masochistic kind of way, the filthy mess she was making of her hands- again to the accompaniment of odd looks from Skif.
'He thinks you're doing this just to avoid him,' the sword observed cheerfully.
I don't particularly care what he thinks,' she retorted. 'I do care about making sure any watchers know that we're being careful with their land. It seems to me that since we're here on their sufferance, we'd better think first about how they're judging us. And I know they're out there.'
'Watchers?' the sword responded. they're there,' she replied.
There're at least four,' Need said, after a moment. 'I didn't know you could See through shields. You must be much better than I thought.' She came very close to laughing out loud. 'I can't. I simply guessed. the Shin'a'in are notorious for not allowing strangers on their land; and that they not only allowed us, they gave us a map, says that they are bending rules they prefer to leave intact. that didn't mean that they were going to leave us on our own, they don't trust us that much; if we didn't actually see anyone watching us, it followed that they were hiding. they aren't going to stop us, but I'll bet that if we did something wrong, we'd be dis-invited, and if we strayed from the path, we'd be herded back.' She thought about it for a moment; it was the first thing that had offered her any amusement all day. 'Might be fun to do it and see how they'd get us back on track. I bet it wouldn't be as straightforward as riding up and helping us back to the 'right' way. I bet they'd start a stampede or something.' The sword was silent for a moment. 'Convoluted reasoning, that; 'if we can't see them, they must be there.''
'Merc reasoning,' Elspeth replied, and let it go at that.
When she finished replacing the turfs, she looked up to see Skif still sitting there, watching her. There was no moon tonight, only starlight, but his Whites stood out easily enough against the high grass and the night sky, and seemed to shimmer a little with a light of their own. He looked like something out of a tale.
Or a maiden's dream, she thought scornfully. A hero, a stalwart man to depend on for everything. Perfect, strong, handsome-and ready to take the entire burden of responsibility on his shoulders.
She stood up; so did he. She moved off a little, experimentally. He followed.
