Moonrise

'Do you play, boy?'

'I play,' Baj said, 'and am not a boy.'

'Forgive me.'

… But it seemed Baj was a boy, at least regarding employment of bishops, and ended the evening humiliated, after a desperate battle in which those nasty slanting pieces ruined him.

'Oh, dear,' Richard had said. 'Bad luck…'

So strange, it seemed to Baj, as he turned beneath his blanket, the ground's roots and stones soft enough for exhausted sleep. So strange to find this odd occasion, this odd company – frightening company in its way, and all of them journeying to no-doubt worse, to more knots in an already knotted cord of trouble. Strange to have some knots untied by nothing but laughter around a small camp-fire, then a lost game of chess.

Still… a deer tomorrow.

CHAPTER 7

But the summer deer still winter-hid in deep forest, deep hollows between the hills. Lady Weather's daughter, tragic Summer, had not yet sung to lure them out into meadows.

'I smell them,' Richard said, at the perfect middle of the next day, lifting his head to test the breeze when they stopped to drink water, chew strips of the jelly underbark of birches. '- But not close.'

Baj supposed Nancy had smelled them also, but preferred not to say so. 'If not a deer,' he said, 'then something else.' They'd seen two black bears at dawn – but those at a distance, going south and away. And Baj, stalking around a beaver pond later, had approached in time for an animal to slap its tail on the water, and dive out of sight and out of reach of an arrow.

Richard nodded. 'Oh, in time, something else.'

Something else already gathered – five small song-birds – Errol had killed with thrown sticks. They hung at his belt like feathered decorations.

… The day was beautiful, with cloud-shadows mottling the mountains' soft green. Soft green, soft mountains – though becoming greater. They humped up high along the northern horizon, so low clouds lay draped at their shoulders, spinning out on the wind in misty sunshine.

That beauty made better traveling for Baj, as if the country cupped him in green hands, drifting the warming perfume of growing things as he labored to keep up with the others – keeping up made easier, as he needed to mind only that, while his past and future napped like tired children, and were quiet.

In after-noon, they wended down steep slopes where waterfalls came drumming, splashing over stone. These were something Baj had never seen – clear water churned to white water as it fell from heights, and fell heavily. He saw even Richard stagger as he went shouldering beneath the only one with passage after – and was instantly drenched so his furred pack, his own fur crest and the tufts down his long arms turned soaked and stringy as the big Person lunged out from under the fall, and found dry stone beyond it. He checked his pack and possibles – then shook himself like a wet hunting dog.

Nancy went next, snaking under the bright, rumbling weight of water. She struggled through in spray… then climbed the rock beyond to find a lie of sunshine, and sit stripping wet from her scimitar's bright blade for fear of rust.

Baj – his quiver's leather cover tied over – went through, and enjoyed it despite the icy battering the falling water gave him as he managed his footing beneath it… In sodden buckskins, sloshing half-boots, he climbed across slippery stone to Nancy's boulder, and stood beside her, whiping water from his bow-stave… whipping rapier and knife blades thrumming through the air to dry them.

'You greased that sword, Nancy?'

'With horse-meat fat a while ago.'

'Not enough; you need to coat the steel.' Baj dug in his pack, found his little cake of tallow only damp. 'Use this – but be careful along the edge.'

She gave him the slantwise yellow glance he should have expected. 'I don't cut myself, Who-was-a- prince.'

'Neither do I – never – but somehow I bleed, every now and then, handling sharp steel.'

Nancy said nothing to that, but bent over the scimitar's beautiful blade – an interesting pattern of descending dark bands marking the metal – and began to tallow it… but carefully along the gently curving edge.

Baj sat, feeling muscles ease down his back and along his thighs and calves with a mild aching of relief. The Made-girl beside him smelled of soaked cloth and leather, of camp-fire smoke, and the faint sour odor of a fox's wet fur.

Richard – looking only a little smaller, damp – lumbered swiftly past them, and continued along a stony slope, great ax swinging in his hand.

'Go on,' Nancy said, bent over her blade, and Baj had grunted to his feet when she said, 'He's afraid of the water.'

Baj looked where she looked, and saw Errol dancing at the waterfall's other side. The boy ran forward to the toppling wall of water – stopped, and ran back as if it might chase him.

'He won't do it,' Nancy said, and stood. 'He swims wonderfully, but fears falling water. I'll get Richard to come and make him cross.'

'No need. I'll get him.' Baj trotted back down the stone, already wondering how to do it.

'Careful!' she called after him. 'Careful!'

Baj, cautious on wet rock, dropped his pack, unbuckled his sword-belt, and ducked back under the fall's torrential weight. The water hadn't yet heard the last of winter; it was wonderfully cold.

He came out the other side in a shower of spray, and saw Errol backing away as if he were bringing the waterfall with him.

'Won't hurt you,' Baj said, meaning he wouldn't and the fall wouldn't, but Errol – thin face pale beneath dirt and freckles – seemed not to trust that. He took more steps back, and drew a knife with his left hand. A broad-bladed knife, its steel flecked with rust… but the fine edge bright as silver. There were tongue-clicks; the boy seemed frozen, staring at glassy water toppling to foam and thunder.

Nancy was calling… something. Baj could barely hear her through the noise of falling water.

'There are moments,' the Master had said once, in the salle, '- moments that must not be allowed to become more than moments. They're to be dealt with directly.'

Good advice, and though the Master had been instructing on booze-house quarrels and useful ball-kicking, it seemed to apply here.

Baj unknotted his bandanna from his throat, shook water from it, then strolled up to the boy – ignoring the knife, careful not to notice it – stepped around behind him casually as if that had already been agreed to, then gently draped the cloth over Errol's eyes. The boy, blinded, stood still.

Baj, standing close, felt wiry muscle ease… and exactly as he would have with a colt caught in a stable fire, began to murmur soothing nonsense, and gently urged Errol along. Urged him along… And though the boy stiffened in fright again as the wall of water poured before them, Baj kept his eyes covered, said, 'Shhh… shhhh,' and led him in, holding him close with one arm. They moved together, ducking, buffeted with freezing cold… Then walked out from under.

Errol – standing sodden, his knife still in his hand – tossed his head exactly as a colt might have done, drops flying as Baj took the bandanna away, knotted it back at his throat, and went to pick up his pack and sword-belt, his heart still a little hurried.

Nancy, her scimitar sheathed, pack shouldered, stared at him, said, 'Careful along the edge,' and walked away.

* * *

Harder traveling then, over rocky outcrops reared surprisingly high past narrow gorges carved from north and north-east by centuries of the short-summers' snow-melt.