“I have ointment,” she said finally. “It might help your back.”
And I thought: Save it for your own back.
“Diut?” She laid a hand on my arm exactly where the jehruk’s claws had raked. My fur hid most of that wound and no doubt she did not see it. But I felt it. That was enough.
I turned, striking her across the face as I moved. She stumbled back, almost falling, then moved quickly to escape. I caught her arm and held her while I beat her. At first she struggled to break away. Then suddenly, she stepped in close to me and before I knew what she meant to do, she dug her fingers into a wound on my shoulder.
My body flared in yellow agony. I would surely have killed her then had she not managed to break away.
She ran to get her bow from where she had left it leaning against a tree. But even hurt, I was too fast to let her fit an arrow into it.
She leaped back from me as I snatched away her bow. Then suddenly she was crouching, her knife in her hand. I stared at her.
“Do you think I will let you kill me with that?”
“Do you think you can stop me? I’m quick, and you’re hurt.”
“And I have your bow and your arrows.”
She looked at me for a long time, her face already bruised and swollen, her eyes narrowed, the knife steady in her hand. “Then use them to kill me,” she said. “I will not be beaten again.”
Angrily, I threw the bow aside. A weapon. Did she truly believe I needed a weapon to finish her? Even with her knife and my wounds, she must have known she was no match for me. She might hurt me, but I could certainly kill her. And I would have to kill her if I went after her now. Kill her or give in to her.
But slowly, as my initial rage subsided, I realized that I no longer wanted to kill her. I valued her. Valued even her unheard of disregard for the blue because it made our relationship different from any that I could have with a Tehkohn woman. A relationship of the kind Jeh and Cheah had where differences existed, but were ignored. Once I had had such a relationship with Tahneh when she was younger. Our differences had been hi age and experience. She could have been my mother, and yet there had been no barriers. We had loved well. But now Tahneh was old and I was alone again. My people stood in awe of me and obeyed me and looked to me when there was trouble. That was as it should have been, but still, it left me as much alone as Alanna’s strangeness left her. We could give comfort to each other, she and I.
Yet there she stood with her stubbornness and her long knife.
“Put the knife down, Alanna. Shall we kill each other like animals? This is foolishness.”
“I will not be beaten again,” she repeated.
I said nothing.
“Why do you beat me?” she demanded. “What good does it do? Do you think I’ll learn faster out of fear of your beatings? I won’t. I can’t. Send me away from you if I displease you so.”
“Alanna, the knife.”
“No! Not until you decide. We’re not children squabbling in the inner corridors. You need not prove your strength or your coloring to me. We can talk to each other. Or we can go away from each other!”
I drew a deep breath and let my body relax. “Put away the knife, Alanna.” I spoke quietly, gave her no promise. Not in words. That would have been too much. But she rose from her crouch and after a slight hesitation, sheathed her knife.
I went to the pack she always carried when she hunted, and searched through it until I found the ointment in its small metal container. I gestured to her and she came to kneel beside me. We spread ointment on each other’s wounds and said little to each other. For days we would say little to each other—until the thing we had done to our liaison began to heal.
I did not beat her again. Not once. And most of the time, she obeyed. When she did not, we talked—sometimes very loudly. But in spite of our disagreements, our nights together became good again. I lay with her contentedly and her knife remained in its sheath.
To Alanna’s relief, Jules Verrick came out of his withdrawal two days after Diut’s visit. His physical condition was good—better than Alanna’s had been. He had not hurt himself as she had, had not gone through the violent convulsions that had wracked her. He was weak, hungry, thirsty, and tired, but that was all. Only five hours after his pain had ended, he was up and sitting in the cabin’s main room reading a book that Nathan had brought him—a book with a section on drug addiction. He looked up and smiled when Alanna came in. Her words erased his smile at once.
“We’re about to lose our prisoners, Jules.” She had already given the room a quick check to be certain that it, like the rest of the house, was free of Garkohn listeners. Now she sat down.
Jules closed his book. “You mean they’re plotting an escape? How did you find…?”
“No. I mean their people are coming for them.”
“Same question, Lanna. How did you find out?”
“Diut told me. He came back secretly two days ago. He wanted us to know about the escape so that we wouldn’t interfere.”
Jules grunted. “I must have made a pretty poor impression on him if he thinks I’ll stand for that!”
Alanna said nothing. His words were meaningless. More “ritual lying.” She had no more time for it than Diut had had. She had some harsh truths for Jules—about the Tehkohn, about herself.
He studied her, interpreted her silence his way. “You told him we’d go along with it, didn’t you!” he accused.
“I did,” she said quietly. “We had a choice. We could give up the prisoners peacefully, as he commands, or we
