Owlsight

Dusk had faded into darkness, and they were swallowed up by the night before Keisha could call them back.

Keisha let out the breath she’d been holding in, and looked at both Nightwind and Kero with gratitude. She couldn’t believe how quickly the confrontation had ended, although she wished with all her heart that it had been less painful for her parents. “This isn’t the first time you’ ve held off angry parents, is it?” she asked Kerowyn, who laughed.

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “And you should see them when their baby-child is going to go hit people with sharp things, instead of Heal them of the aftermath!” She shook her head reminiscently. “Hate to do it, but a child has to grow up sometime in their parents’ eyes, and better they should blame me than their own flesh and blood.”

“Well, thank you, thank you both,” Keisha sighed. “I almost gave in to them; I probably would have, if you hadn’t helped.”

They all turned their mounts away from the dispersing gathering, and headed back toward the Vale just as the full moon appeared above the trees, gilding their path with silver. “I don’t think you would have,” Nightwind said, after a long silence that took them right to the edge of the night-darkened forest. “But don’t feel ashamed that they made you feel as if you were going to.” Now Keisha heard the smile in her voice. “Parents always know what strings control your heart and soul. After all, they are the ones who tied them there.”

Thirteen

This was, of course, not the first time that Darian and Snowfire had gone scouting an enemy encampment. The easiest way was the path they had chosen - through the treetops. The easiest way was also the safest; getting themselves into a tree near the barbarian encampment, and letting the owls make overflights while they used their owls’ eyes to observe. Snowfire sent out both of his birds, but Darian only had Kuari to keep track of. This, of course, meant that Snowfire had twice the work of Darian, but Snowfire might have been happier if Darian hadn’t insisted on coming along in the first place.

He had only agreed because they had a limited time to work in, and needed as much information as they could get.

Darian put his back up against the curiously smooth bark of his tree, and concentrated on the noncombatants, the women, girls, and young children, who were gathered around their own fire. Snowfire sent Huur and Hweel to single out those who seemed the most important in the clan, and to look for a shaman or mage. Darian didn’t know what Snowfire was seeing, but from his point of view, much as he hated to admit it, these people were nothing like the arrogant barbarians of years ago.

As Kuari actually perched no more than a few feet above the heads of a gathering of women and children, he took note of a wealth of details through the owl’s sight. For instance, there was one decoration repeated over and over in their clothing and ornaments - a cat. It was some sort of great hunting-cat, and the colors it was portrayed in were whites, grays, and blacks, giving it a ghostlike appearance. Decorations included stylized cats in profile in every conceivable position, cat faces, cat eyes, and cat paw-prints. As ornaments, he counted cat furs, cat teeth, cat skulls, and cat claws. This, then, was probably their totemic animal.

So much for the decorations of their lives. Now for the substance.

In this much, this batch of barbarians was similar to the last - the sexes were strictly segregated. Women, girls, and small children below the age of puberty grouped around one campfire, sharing one meal, the adult males crowded around another, sharing a different meal, with more of the choice cuts of meat. Snowfire was concentrating on the adult males, so Kuari and Darian ignored them.

Whatever dinner the women had was long since eaten, though the men were still chewing away; the only signs of it were the cracked and gnawed bones in the fire, the two pots filled with coals to burn out the residue of food left in them. One thing did surprise him. The women did not seem particularly cowed or slavish; they chattered among themselves, scolded rowdy children, sewed hides into articles of clothing or decorated the finished clothing. If this isolation was an indication that they were considered inferior creatures by the men, there was no sign that they were kept that way with beatings and brutality.

As Kel had reported, though, there were several people, mostly children, who seemed afflicted with a curious paralysis or wasting disease. These victims lay quietly on furs beside the fire, occasionally rubbing emaciated limbs as if to ease a constant ache. An arm might be afflicted, or a leg - never both legs or both arms.

On the other hand, how could a child survive long with such a profound affliction in a nomadic clan? Even in Valdemar, people with paralysis had difficulty in simply staying alive. He had the sense, gained mostly from the way that women would look at the afflicted children and sigh, that there had been other children who had been stricken worse than these - and had not survived.

He gleaned all he could, noting that not all the women were making or decorating new garments. Some were working on weapons, fletching arrows, fitting heads to spears. Yes, those things could be used for hunting, but they could also be used for war. Just how many spears and arrows did the tribe need for hunting, any way? If nomad tribe can’t afford to carry much; why make so many weapons when there are hectares of raw materials all around them? He could understand stockpiling spear tips, arrowheads, but not whole weapons. Spears in particular were clumsy and hard to transport for people who had no wagons; why bother making entire bundles of extras?

Because they expect conflict, that’s why. Can’t stop to fletch arrows or fit a point to a shaft in the middle of a fight.