as you, but …” She turned away so he wouldn’t see her mouth quiver.
“That is the lightest I can make myself. I shall think of something.” He climbed off her bed. “Rest. I will reflect on this and resolve it.” He watched as Evvy curled up on the rags. “You cannot understand what a joy my moments of speech with you are. Each one presents me with a new idea or a new problem, when I have seen nothing new in ages. I have not felt so alive in millennia, Evumeimei.”
“Huh!” she said, disbelieving. “I’m not the interesting one. That’s Briar, and Rosethorn, and Parahan. They’ve done all these things, and they know languages, and books, and different people. I just know stones. Not even all of those.” She yawned.
“Then I look forward to our meeting with your friends. Truly, Evumeimei, do not value yourself so little. You are a bright light in my underground home.”
“Thanks, Luvo. That’s a really nice thing to say.” She pulled some rags over herself and slept before her new friend even walked away.
She dreamed she could hear Diban Kangmo talk with him.
When Evvy woke, she smelled cooking. She also smelled musk and dung, and heard the restless shift of hooves on stone. She opened her eyes and saw a large yak drinking from the lake. Luvo sat near her bed, next to a smaller peak spider — only three feet tall — and two covered pots.
“This is Diban Kangmo’s daughter,” Luvo explained as the smaller spider scurried off into the far end of the cave. “She is very shy of humans. She is the one who bandaged your feet.”
“Thank you so much!” Evvy called after her.
“She also brought food for you and a bag for me to ride in.”
“Ride? Ride what?”
“Big Milk,” Luvo said. “She is the queen yak. It is a great honor to you that she chose to do this for us, and our luck that she has no young to prevent her from helping. We cannot ask a male. They are too restless.”
Evvy thought she was going to cry. Big Milk had turned her head to stare at them with one eye. Or rather, she stared at Evvy.
Finally the girl thought of something safe to say, other than that the rock had lost his mind. “Luvo, she doesn’t have a saddle or bridle.”
She had to explain what those things were between bites of onion-and-mushroom dumpling. When she finished her description, Luvo said, “I could not ask one of my friends to take metal in her mouth and bind her head in leather. She might become ill. Poor thanks that would be! Besides, I have never seen anyone ride a yak in such a way. You will tie the bag around your waist and shoulders, and hold on to Big Milk’s fur. She has plenty of that. She will not even feel it if you pull. Her undercoat is quite thick and packed firmly beneath the outer fur.”
“But how will she know which way we’re going?” Evvy asked. “The reins are so you can pull right, and the horse goes right, and so forth.”
“I will tell her which way to go,” Luvo said confidently.
“Where will I sit?” Evvy didn’t say that the animal’s back looked as broad as if she could lay down on it and sleep without rolling off.
“The herd boys ride on the necks of the tame yaks. You have trusted me so far, Evumeimei.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Do you have one now?”
Evvy looked at Big Milk, who swiped a thick tongue around furry jaws. The girl sighed. “Not really.”
Evvy hated to do it, but she used one of Luvo’s silk offering scarves to wrap up the leftover dumplings. The cloth was made of brightly dyed patches, and now it would have grease stains. No doubt it would also stain the crimson shirt she wore, since she was hanging that small bundle on her chest. Once she was ready, she lowered Luvo into the bag he had brought. It was a picking bag, big enough that she could slide one strap over her shoulders and under her arms. She wrapped the coarse upper strap in a scarf so it would not chafe her neck, and wore the upper strap there.
Luvo must have said something to the yak. She ambled over and knelt on her forelegs. Impulsively Evvy scratched Big Milk between her curved horns as she would a cow. She felt a bit better when the yak turned her head and rubbed it against Evvy’s belly.
“I think we’re going to get along,” the girl said. “Now, be patient with me, all right? I’ve never ridden anybody as wonderful as you before.”
“She likes the compliment,” Luvo told Evvy. “Swing your leg over, carefully!”
With a bit of experimenting and a little struggle, Evvy managed to get herself and Luvo onto Big Milk’s back. Then she gave the great yak another forehead scratch and settled her grip into the fur on the animal’s neck. “Now what?” she asked.
Slowly Big Milk straightened one foreleg, then the other. Evvy squeaked, then bit her lower lip to keep from doing so again. She yelped. Her lip was one of the injuries from the fort that was not completely healed.
Big Milk ignored both noises. She set off briskly along the shore of the lake, headed deeper into the cave.
17
THE TEMPLE OF THE TIGERS
THE CONFLUENCE OF THE TOM SHO AND SNOW SERPENT RIVERS
It was clear that Soudamini would go half mad before all of the western troops had packed up and ridden north.
“We’ve been through this before,” Parahan told her, an arm around her shoulders. He and Briar had taken her up onto the roof before the westerners could hear her mutterings. “These people don’t fight for a living. Well, perhaps the temple folk do. As the war goes on, they’ll understand the importance of starting the march at dawn, not starting to pack at dawn.”
Souda gnawed a thumbnail and swore to herself in Banpuri.
“Our people are all ready to ride,” Briar said in consolation. He stared toward the distant river, hoping for the slightest hint that Rosethorn was coming. He wasn’t unhappy that the westerners were holding them up.
“They may as well have slept late for all the good it will do us!” Souda replied, her husky voice a soft growl. “Who drew the short straw so we left last, anyway?”
“You,” Parahan said.
“You may as well tell our people to unsaddle their mounts and run some weapons practice,” Souda told her twin.
“Already did,” he replied.
Then Briar felt it, the lightest touch of green. He inhaled and forgot to breathe out, waiting. There it was again. Suddenly his chest hitched and he began to hack, unable to catch his breath. Parahan shoved a flask of tea into his hands. Briar gulped half of it down. When he could breathe properly again, he stretched his power as far as it would go. That touch was a little stronger. It connected to his magic; he knew it like his own.
“I think you’ll be happy we’re last,” he said casually.
