Part 1

Virtú

           "So, is there a bar where we're going?"
           "Well, there'll be a series of springs about three quarters of the way up the mountainside if we keep in this direction." Vauhya grinned.
           "Hai, no, I was hoping for something with a little bit of heat. Don't suppose those are liquor springs?"
           "Sorry." Atra stopped and leaned on her makeshift walking staff to look at him wryly. "You don't strike me as a drunkard. I'd imagine that wrath would be your vice."
           "Cowardice, actually," he said. "But really, I'd be content with a bath and a warm meal." He patted her on the shoulder and got her moving again.
           "I'd be content with a bucket of water and a cold meal, as long as it wasn't that fungus you picked out. But then, I'm not a prince."
           "I thought they were Reytoh. I like Reytoh, and they looked about the same size." Atra laughed.
           "You're lucky I only let you have one of them. If you'd had any more you'd have been coughing blood instead of bile."
           They kept moving. The forest thinned, first in the trees and later in the underbrush, until the half-lidded gloom of the canopy's shade was gone and the sun warmed their pelts in its place. When the brush cleared they found traveling much easier, and though fatigue kept them from running, they were able to keep a respectable pace.
           The land past the forest was a vast stretch of hills and valleys littered with broken rocks from ancient glaciers. The ground was damp but drying; the grass, jeweled with dew, glinted in the sun. Far in the horizon the mountains stood, green and brown and black. Atra stopped and pointed up to them. "There. Across these valleys and hills, up that mountain - the big, long one in the middle - to that little green cleft right below the clouds. If we hurry we might reach the base of the mountain by night. From there it'd be the rest of the next day to get to that spring. We could hunt there, refresh ourselves, then cross the summit by noon of the next day, move down to a healthier elevation, and begin our journey east to Wikedu."
           "That's amazing." He tapped her chest. "Do you have a map that detailed of the entire continent in there?"
           "No, just of the Rhe'jah and parts of the surrounding provinces. I've had it for years - you learn the land quickly in a desert tribe, because otherwise you'd get lost, and that's lethal out in the sands." Vauhya nodded. He stared up at the mountain his companion had pointed out. It looked farther away than it was, he knew, but it couldn't be within a day's travel.
           "Hai, that's a long way, and we're days from Norsghar. I'm surprised there isn't at least a farm."
           "There is a very small settlement here," Atra said, "but it's a few hours to the northwest. That's the wrong direction."
           "How large is it?"
           "Insubstantial. We went there once to trade, but they didn't have anything to give us. They should count about forty or sixty now, all farmers, with a few children and fewer elders. I don't remember whether they even have a connection by blood or bond to Yoichi."
           "I doubt that they do. More likely they're a small subsidiary of one of our adjunct clans, a little farming village that grows just enough excess to offer as tribute." He nodded. "It won't be large enough to have a bar or an inn, but they'll trade work for food and clothing."
           "Work? Vauhya, that'll take days."
           "Then they'll be days we get to eat and drink and sleep indoors." Atra's ears sagged.
           "If you wish. It's in a basin northwest of here. The forest ends at the bottom of the basin's slope; we can probably follow the forest's edge there." He nodded; they turned left and began walking along the berm of the hill. As they went Vauhya became acutely aware of his appearance. Unwashed, uncombed, wearing breeches that had not been washed in weeks, his forehead a mess of caked blood and dancer's scarves: he noticed Atra's eyes flickering to him every few minutes, straying from their straight-ahead stare, and flinched self-consciously.
           "May I ask you a question?" Atra asked suddenly. He perked his ears.
           "Fa. Please, ask."
           "I'd like to look at that necklace you wear more closely. Would you lend it to me?" He lifted his keepsake over his muzzle and ducked out of the cord, then handed it to Atra. She inspected it as she walked, running her fingers over the imperfections in the iron, staring at the points of the star, pressing it into her forearm to look at the sort of indentation it left in her fur. Finally she collected it and its cord into one hand and returned it to him. There was a puzzled expression on her face.
           "Vauhya, why did you tell me you were a prince?"
           "I am."
           "A Yoichi?"
           "A Yoichi. My father was the lord and my mother was noble-born - Aurkoan clan."
           "Then why do you wear a forger's seal? That isn't a noble standard; it's a Nevanti crest, from the forge city. From Lleysidhre." Vauhya frowned.
           "It isn't Nevanti, or it shouldn't be. It should be the Mynoke symbol. My nurse gave it to me; said it was her family's sigil. She was Faura Mynoke. She wasn't from the forge city." Atra shrugged.
           "Don't believe me? Let's stop for a moment. Take that lleiri at your belt out." He drew it out, let it howl into the wind as the scabbard scraped the flat of the blade. It glinted in the sunlight as the dew, but unlike the gem-shine of the grass it had the speckled sheen of fish scales and angry waters. "Turn it down so that the pommel is out towards the sky." He dropped the blade. Atra bared two claws, hooked them into the worn tan leather of the bottom of the grip, and peeled it back - underneath the hide wrapping the unpolished, oil-stained metal was a dull grey. Even then, though, the light was enough to bring out the subtle contrasts of metalwork. There was a tiny imprint on the base of the pommel, a ring inscribed with a nine-point star.
           "I don't understand. She said she was a Mynoke."
           "Perhaps it's a lesser branch of the Nevanti clan," Atra said quietly. "I hardly know them all."
           "But if she was from Lleysidhre, why didn't she talk about it? She told me about being a soldier, about being a slave, about nine hundred thousand other things more personal and incriminating than that. And all the while lying to me about her place of birth? I don't believe it."
           "Maybe because the forge city prefers to keep its secrets and the rest of the world would prefer that it divulged them," she said. Atra frowned. "Perhaps Mynoke is not a forge city name, but one she took to keep her Nevanti heritage from the rest of the world. Few besides the Alman'queda know the crests and heraldry of the forge city clans, but many know their names. Your father was willing to make her your servant, was he not? Then why would he have not interrogated her, possibly tortured and killed her, if he had known that he had someone who might know the secret to forging lleiri?" Vauhya was silent. "And, the Nevanti, what of them? Do you think that they would have let her remain outside their influence, this wayward daughter who might help some other power learn their craft? There's an old saying in that city - no one who sees the forges of Lleysidhre leaves its walls without a lleiri in her hand or through her chest."
           "You think my matron knew how to forge lleiri?" Atra snorted.
           "Undoubtedly not. But perhaps some might've thought that she did. That would've been enough." Atra turned away and continued to walk their path.
           Vauhya sheathed his lleiri and stared at the pendant in his hand. He held it up to his eye and looked skyward so that the ring around the star also encircled the sun. The wind set the crest to twirling, intermittently blotting out that great honey-white ball, and he watched the light as it flashed. Light, dark, light, dark. Mynoke, Nevanti, Mynoke, Nevanti…
           He looked away from the sun and slipped the necklace back around his neck. There was no great insight there, except that regardless of his pendant and perception, the sun still shone.
          

---v---

           Iluin told me last night and again this morning that she'd read my mind. To her credit, she'd had details, but needless to say I was less than convinced. We couldn't have… what would the word be? Linked? Connected? Bridged? That we don't even have a word for such a thing ought to be telling. Then again, the hrasi might, but I still can't believe that it's possible.
           I should mention that my intellectual aversion to the prospect of Iluin's mind-reading abilities isn't based on the act itself, but rather on the difference in our species. I have no trouble believing that a sentient race might become capable of the limited telepathy that Iluin suggested she had. I know that that sounds silly and fanciful, like something straight from a low-grade It Came From Planet X sort of production, but at this limited level I think it's entirely possible; after all, just about every species communicates with pheromones, and in humans such signals are often given and read involuntarily and unconsciously. Consider also that in lesser organisms hormonal and other physiological variations in a multiplicity of individuals work to operate the individuals as a more efficient group construct. Is it really such a jump, then, to suggest that the biochemical conversation might evolve to become more finely tuned, to the point where it might convey more specific information? No, of course not. Now, where the survival advantage to justify such an evolution is, I don't know, but certainly it is within the realm of possibility. Say that silently conveying one's adrenaline levels to one's hunting party would be advantageous. Fine. And then it grows, until you're sharing data about what hurts, what you're feeling, what you're scenting, what you're seeing, what you're hearing. That's just about all you need to convey a memory. With memory comes sentient intent, and with intent comes language, and now we are talking pseudo-telepathy. So I have no problem believing that; I've seen facets of nature so counter-intuitive they make such an evolutionary response seem simplistic and even inevitable by comparison.
           What I don't believe is that any such connection could ever be achieved with me, a human being. In order to transfer complex signals such as sounds and images, you need compatible data or a translation mechanism. Now, it's safe to say that even if we didn't have wildly different ear, eye, and nose structures, the billions of years of evolutionary disparity between us would ensure that our bodies didn't code sensory input in exactly the same manner, so some sort of data translation is in order. Obviously, that wouldn't be coming from me, because my species is woefully unequipped for adaptation to external sensory information. If you don't believe me, look at the modern-day full eye transplant. An insignificant amount of the image processing is done within the eye, and yet any operation that doesn't involve a near perfect neurological match is an almost guaranteed failure. The responsibility for translation, then, is with Iluin. The same is true of the biological processes that regulate the assembly and disassembly of data from sensory perceptions to chemical messages. My nervous system has one brilliantly evolved method of sending data, and though it encodes, transfers, and decodes the pressure on my fingers at a third of mach when I ball my fist, it was not designed to take a very wide range of input.
           I don't want to sound needlessly pessimistic, but that's a considerable request to make of Iluin's body. Sending is going to be easier than retrieving, certainly, but even then the sort of biochemical machinations we're asking for would take every member of every scientific department at the university years to accomplish. We are asking her body to decipher the chemical language of an alien nervous system, to somehow divine the formats of information that my brain employs, to then adapt and translate its sensory data accordingly, and finally to transmit the translated data over to me, despite my lack of any sort of receiving apparatus. It's nonsense, and doing what she implied that she did - digging through my head to draw out a few ancient memories - would be even harder. If it'd been anyone else I wouldn't have bothered to consider the notion before I dismissed it; I'd have called her a fool from the start.
           Even still, I may have been too quick to attack her. She left me today, you see. She took me to a tower at the top of an island a few days out from the coast and left me there. I don't know why, except that she said she's going somewhere dangerous and she doesn't want me with her. I'm not alone; she has a friend here, a man who she insisted I'm safe with, and there are some natives. My friend is still gone. Maybe I'll get to know them, make friends; I don't know. I wouldn't say that I'm scared, but I am uneasy. I won't say that this is the first time I've been alone, because I was alone and terrified when I first woke up in Iluin's camp, but it feels that way. We all need our friends.
          
           Dr. Rachel Mitchell, diary excerpt from 11/7/2182
          
           They sat apart, watching one another. Rachel was at a bench near the wall, hunkered over her poetry volume, scrawling her diary entry in the margins with a pen on its last spurts of ink. The man was similarly hunched at table nearer the center, occasionally looking up from his work to stare at her. He was shaving bits of wood off a model skeleton with a worn knife, sometimes flicking his eyes over to a book next to him, presumably checking his work. Neither of them had said anything. Rachel wondered if she could make it to the bottom of the island before Iluin left; she doubted it.
           Entry finished, Rachel set her pen on the table, closed her book, and stood. The man looked up at her, raised his ears, and smiled. "Do you need []? You can [] if you want to - go [] you want. It's all safe." She didn't say anything. Instead she moved toward the stairs. One set led down much farther into a gloomy cellar; the other led higher, curving so that stone obscured the floor above. She put a hand on the staircase wall and moved upwards, letting those smooth black brick blocks run against her palms. Rachel curved with the staircase nearly halfway around the tower's circumference, going very slowly in the darkness. The stairs folded out into the second floor, which was black but for a small line of red-orange light at thigh height beside her and a tiny mock-constellation of pinpricks above it. The rays the lights cast died after a few feet, but were enough to give Rachel subtle impressions of objects, of presences further in the room. She kneeled in front of the line of light and saw the small table it rested on, the saucer it rested in, the clay hood that rested atop it. The hood had two or three dozen pin-sized holes in it, probably made to release the smoke from the candle inside. She plucked the hood off and set it aside - quickly, because it was uncomfortably hot - and the room deepened, coming into view.
           Even in the red-saturated dimness it looked a lot like her old university office. Funny - hundreds of light years and centuries of advancement away, the style was much same. A wooden desk polished until it wore a sheen like oil preserved in mid-ripple was set in the right wall, with a heavy wooden window closed tightly above it. To the left were three bookcases that reached from floor to ceiling, each lined with thick, hide-bound tomes. Opposite them was a mess of blankets and pillows raised on a rough wooden frame, another staircase behind it, and a set of chests to the right. She moved to the nearest bookcase and pulled a dark green volume from the shelf. It was filled with geometric diagrams - pages upon pages of arcs and lines and tangents done in rich olive ink on heavy, yellowed pages. The paper smelled like walnuts and light oil, felt rough like painter's canvas or well-starched rag sheet. She closed the manual and replaced it on the bookshelf. From behind her came a sigh. She turned around; there, in the stairway, the man was watching her.
           "I [] to [] you [] my books," he said. "They are very [] to me." Rachel stared at him. She crossed her arms, leaned against the wall, and raised an eyebrow.
           "Use smaller words. I can't talk."
           "Said Iluin. I think you talk []." He nodded towards the bookcase. "Do you know what [] are? Books?"
           "I know books," she said. That deserved a sneer, an indication of hurt pride, but she tried to remain levelheaded. "They're for reading."
           "Yes. Right. Good. For reading, not for eating or burning or cooking." That was too much, and he noticed her scowl. "Hai, I'm sorry. I don't want you to [] like a [], but… well, they are my []."
           "They're important. I hear you." His ears twitched and he stared at her, confused. "Those are my words. Different words. A different…"
           "Language? You have your [] language?" He stopped. "You would, wouldn't you. [] book did you look []?" So she pulled the green one back out and handed it to him; he smiled when he saw it, set it on the desk and flipped it open. "Hai, []. My []. Do you understand this? It's []." Rachel shrugged.
           "Yes. I understand it. It's Euclidean geometry."
           "Jee'ohm'try? This? No, it's []. The math of [], of looks. The math of circles and squares." She took note of what she thought was 'geometry'.
           "That geometry is… small. Not too useful - it has problems. There are others." He snorted.
           "What? Other ones? Not useful?"
           "Not useful for small things. When you look at very small things you can't have a geometry that makes two lines… uh…" What was 'parallel'? She mimed it with her hands. "That makes two lines that are together with a third together with each other."
           "Why not?" He seemed genuinely curious, and suddenly more intent on his math than his book collection. A man after her own heart, then. She dropped into her old lecturer's cant.
           "Because very small things are different. They work differently." Well, the cant didn't work so well in hrasi. It was hard to sound enthusiastic when you were scraping your lungs out of your throat to get the proper inflections.
           "Show me."
           "I can't," she admitted. "I need things you don't have."
           "You don't know what I have."
           "You don't have what I'd need. You won't. They are a big time away."
           "A [] time, you mean," he said. "You do need help with words." Then he grinned. "And [] I need help with my math. [] a trade?"
          

---v---

           "Don't hurry me," he snapped, yanking his coat arm from his sniveling majordomo. "I'll go when I'm ready, not when they ask me to."
           "Yes, my lord."
           "And why should I answer to them? I have my claws at their throats."
           "Yes, my lord."
           "Stop. Cease. I don't want to hear you say that any more."
           "Yes, -" Hahrum glared at the corpulent fool and he quieted.
           "Better. Now, be useful: go to their rooms, tell them that I'll meet with them at my leisure, and don't come back to me with their demands." The man ruffled, hairs raising.
           "My lord, that would significantly strain our relations with-"
           "Then our relations will be strained. Go." He went.
           Hahrum sighed and stared at the image in his bedroom mirror. His pelt looked thinner. It was the result of this politicking, doubtless; a lord was not meant for such things! Since becoming the lord of Yoichi he'd been beset by delegates and diplomats from his neighbors, all pouncing atop one another, fighting amongst themselves to be the quickest to cozy to his side. First it'd been the Higans, then the Oksa, then the Alman'queda, then the Aparnhi, in an endless line of fat, smiling trucemakers. And they were always fat; there wasn't a single hunter, a single real hrasi among them. He hated those lengthy discussions of statesmanship, seethed at the minor nobles that his neighbors sent him. For all his clan's power and prestige, their royalty did not deign to visit in person - he, the lord of Yoichi, the lord of the most powerful clan on the continent, did not rate the attention of his fellows. The slight festered.
           At the end of his bed sat one of palace servants, an older girl in shades of honeyed brown. Earlier, while on his morning ride, he'd noticed her working in the southern gardens. "You're that orchard girl - what's your name?" She shuddered at his voice, curled down in fear.
           "Sae, my lord."
           "Of what clan?" Again, the meek expression.
           "Kurin, my lord."
           "Kurin… I don't know it. It's a servant family?" She bobbed her head. "You're a very healthy young woman, Sae Kurin. When I saw you climbing trees I wondered if you could carry a blade; I might offer you better work elsewhere. Much better work - my sher'amn and their families live as well as I do." The girl looked down, suddenly engrossed with the tiling of the floor. "Scared? It's an opportunity you'll never best."
           "I'm sure it… would be. My lord, your sher'amn have already recruited through the servants' ranks. They gave me a lleiri and I nearly killed them with it. I can't wield them." He growled. "I-I'm sorry, my lord!" He waved her off dismissively.
           "It's the gods' doing, not yours. What relation is your bond partner?"
           "My lord?"
           "Don't question - answer." She flinched at that.
           "Sister. Twin."
           "Fine. Bring her here; you'll be my personal servants soon. You'll make decent guards, with arms like that - I need fighters, not farmers. Are you useful outside of the fields yet?" Her ears folded down.
           "My - my lord, I - I don't…" She trailed off. "I can play the reed flute," she said lamely. He snorted.
           "Useless, then. Can you talk? More importantly, can you listen? I want the two of you to entertain the Losun delegation while it sharpens its claws for the remainder of the day. Are you capable of that much?" He got a dumb nod. "Go. I'll have someone here with instructions when you return." She stood and bowed deeply; he grabbed her by the back of the neck while she was doubled over and angled her face up to him. "Hurry, and say nothing of this to anyone. My servants are mine alone, and if you cross me I'll give my sher'amn days to turn you to pieces."
           "Yes milord," she sputtered, then fled when he released her. He snorted again. His blood was still boiling from his conversation with the majordomo. That man needed replacing.
           "Was that necessary?" His ears perked; he stared across the room, searching for the speaker.
           "Where are you, Meera?"
           The woman oozed like black and tan oil from the shadows of his corner closet - it was only when she went to lean against his bedposts that he noticed the closet was perfectly lit, and had no shadows. "Hiding a few paces in front of my face, I see. I should have smelled you from that distance." She shook her head and ran a hand through the wedge of bare fur at the crest of her chest.
           "No. I brushed myself down with dust oil; I smell like the stones in the walls and the floors now. One of the Yoichi sher'amn from Sasako taught it to me. I'll teach the rest of my sisters when I see them." She purred, flicking an ear to the door. "Though I don't think I'll be teaching her. Did you ask her simply because she's attractive?" He scowled.
           "There's muscle under that fur."
           "Ah, I see - all the more reason to anger her. And you divined that from her strong, assertive berry-picking, presumably?"
           "I don't have to worry about her anger - I have you. And she needed the discipline. The promise of reward for obedience isn't enough to keep one's vassals in times of danger; only when paired with the promise of punishment for disobedience does it secure loyalty."
           "You're young to be inventing leadership philosophy."
           "And you're young to be criticizing your lord, but that hardly stops you. I watched for seasons as my father's quiet governing and diplomacy leeched away at our clan's influence. He employed reward alone, and accomplished nothing; we, Meera, will use both edges of the administrative knife. The north divisions may be seeking wayward family and consolidating our border holdings, but that hardly means that we have to leave the south idle."
           "Such a subtle shift of subject. You have something planned for Losun, then?" He nodded.
           "They've been the most vocal, far too much for a province of their size. They want reassurances, preferential trade, even military protection. They offer no recompense, but cite instead our 'history of excellent relations'. They have nothing to give us - their aristocracy is so bloated and demanding that the cost of maintaining it precludes any development, and they don't keep sher'amn. There aren't enough farms in that province to feed its people. Meera, they do not even have an army! For generations we've been their patrons, kept them safe and let them have their autonomy, ostensibly in exchange for an export of, as they'd have it, 'culture'. No longer.
           "While you were securing our relations with the church, dear Meera, I moved our mounted archers and southern garrisons to Rehdrie. In a few hours I'll send a pair of messengers to give them their riding orders. It'll be a quick attack, probably no longer than it would take our forces to cross the province. More importantly, it'll be a symbol to the others. They'll become much more willing to accept our offers of renewed truce and expanded trade, I think."
           "You know that they have ears in the palace. Culture is not a worthless commodity. They have spies in the courts, yes, but more importantly, they have friends." He grinned fiercely.
           "Which is why my new wonderful young attendant will, with some assistance, keep their delegation occupied. I may ask the minister of the arts to assemble a concert or play for the evening - a lord is allowed be idiosyncratic, and if we can keep their warning inside the palace until our forces cross the border and begin to occupy, Losun will not warning sufficient to ask its neighbors to entrench in its cities and impede our progress."
           "And the members of court?"
           "I have not called it into session today." He stepped to her and brushed down the edge of her cheek. "I'm sick. The ice fever. One of my sher'amn, just back from Higa, brought it with her." Meera threw her palms out in a shrug.
           "Clumsy, but possibly effective."
           "Hai, you are sharp-tongued today. But I suppose that's why I keep you. What did the Aghana send with you?"
           "His blessings. He wants you to go to Agan and the council. He thinks that they're ready to admit you, and he asks you to remember that your credibility among the other Aghanai wanes every day you take without attempting to join them." He glowered and looked away.
           "Gods, but he's insistent. Doesn't he realize that I have to settle myself with the other clans?"
           "Well," Meera said softly, shifting even as she did so, "it has been a full season since the trial."
           "And I'm tired of it! They're treating me like a damned fool, and I'm tired of it! My negotiations and meetings have come to nothing. They think I'm the impotent lord of a divided clan. It's going to take Losun's annexation to prove otherwise." He pulled his coat-flaps around him "I'm riding out to the southern lodge. Come with me. I want to be able to talk to you where there aren't so many niches and corners for stray ears." Meera bowed her head and followed him through his chamber door.
          

---v---

           The smoke on the horizon was the first sign. It was black, thick; it rose up into the sky in a giant hazy funnel. That was no cooking fire. "Maybe we should stay in the trees," Atra said. Vauhya flitted an ear in consent and they moved into the forest. The smoke grew thicker and thicker as they went, until they were at the banks of the crater. Below, the trees sloped down with the ground, then thinned into a wide green basin plain cut into rectangles by agricultural furrows. The fields were thick with golden waist-high grains. Farther in those fields stopped, replaced by a few corrals and roaming beasts; a stone wall that came up as high as the grain separated the fields and stables from the buildings of the township they surrounded.
           One of the buildings was burning. It was a small, mostly wooden structure on the far side of the town; it peeled like an overripe fruit as the flames licked the stiffness out of the boards and spewed smoke up into the sky. The main street and the alleys between the buildings were deserted; not a single woman or man was out. A few mah'sur in silver barding milled about in the streets, but otherwise the roads were untrafficked. Vauhya got to his knees, then waved Atra down beside him. He turned to her and put his hand out towards the village. "They're just letting it burn? What's going on down there?" Her ears flicked.
           "I don't know. I do know that villagers don't usually hang their work beasts down with plate mail and chain."
           "Those men are in uniform, aren't they? I see red and gold - that could be Yoichi or Aparnh.
           "Uniforms don't mean anything," she murmured, staring out at the buildings. "Slaughter a border patrol, take their uniforms, raid a settlement: it's an old highwaymen's trick. I want to know where the riders are."
           At Atra's last syllable a line of men and women emerged from the longest building in the center of the town. The first were dressed as soldiers - there were eight of those, all in full cavalry uniform, all bearing arms. Then there was a group of plainly clothed men and women. They seemed more varied in their age and stature - all of the soldiers were broad and tall, like giants against the flimsy frames of their drab counterparts. There were as many of the villagers; the two groups formed a pair of facing arcs. "They're talking," he said, and held up a hand to his forehead to block the glare from the sun. It didn't help much, but he did notice the change in their postures.
           "Do you see that, Vauhya? The warrior closest to us is leaning far forward, and the peasants are fidgeting. He has them cowering. I don't think they're talking; they're arguing, and he's winning." She was right; they came too close to one another and hunched into predatory stances. Yelling echoed up to them, though it was blurred to incoherent snarls by the wind. "They're going to kill each other," she hissed. But they did not; instead the soldiers turned their backs to the villagers, mounted the mah'sur, and continued to argue while mounted. No one moved towards the burning building. In an instant the soldiers pulled their mah'sur away from the villagers and galloped away, the pounding of those thick beast legs leaving a dark brown fog of dust hanging in the streets. Vauhya and Atra watched as the party of riders charged out of the street and through the northern gate of the little city wall, then through the fields and across the basin's plains, far out toward the northwest. Vauhya watched them as they climbed the opposing slope of the basin wall.
           "Let's go," he said then. "Quick, before the rest of the buildings catch and burn down too." Atra was on her feet and holding him down before he could rise.
           "Wait! We don't know what's happened down there. Those warriors could be back in an hour with an entire mercenary band or a full division of mounted archers."
           "Let me up, Atra." She hesitated, but eventually dropped her hand. He rose, brushed down his matted shoulder fur, and stared at her adamantly. "They're peasants, aren't they?" She nodded. "And I'm a prince, aren't I?" Another nod. "Then I help them and they help me. It's how the system works."
           "Damn fool altruistic-"
           "There's no altruism about it. If I don't help them, I'm no good for a prince and there's no purpose in going to Wikedu. If they don't help us, they'll be no good as subjects and we'll be justified in taking what we need and leaving."
           "I like that second bit better."
           "Fine. Now let's go."
           So they went running down the incline together, Vauhya stumbling back and forth between ill-placed bushes and Atra leaping the obstacles gracefully. They made a clatter like a stampede of raging Roahn, but it didn't matter; they weren't interested in sneaking through the village. When the trees ended they found themselves wading through grains, through spring's immature stalks and sappy bulbs. The plants were still quite alive and flush with water; their burs and thorns were still swollen, and the trip through them became an exercise in flinching. But after a few pawfuls of paces the fields gave way to one of the village's dirt roads. It wasn't as dry as the earth in the township, as it was still moist with the dew from the grains, but it felt solid under his feet, reassuring. Atra leaned at his side, panting, and the two took a moment to recover. "Think they'll have food?" she growled. He chuffed.
           "They'd better."
           They followed the road to the gate, crossed it, and continued. Farther down, standing at the end of the main street, were four men. Two were elderly, one middle-aged, and the last no older than he; they all looked at them, all with ears down.
           "Stop it," one of the elderly men growled, "Stop it there. Who're you and what's your business?" Vauhya stretched up to his full height.
           "I'm Vauhya; this is Atra. We need help, offer the same."
           "We don't need your help," the youngest one hissed, but the middle-aged man swatted him. He widened his stance and stared at them accusingly.
           "What's your clan? Where are you coming from? Why should we trust you?"
           "We're travelling from Norsghar," Atra said. "I'm a Sauhiss - that's Alman'queda. He's-" She stopped. He looked to her, then to the men.
           "I'm Yoichi."
           "No you aren't," was the quick, derisive reply. "You're dirty, all you're wearing is an old pair of breeches, and you haven't got a single Yoichi crest." The middle-aged man snorted. "If you're Yoichi I'm a mah'sur."
           Vauhya shrugged and put a hand to his lleiri. "Fine. I'll show you. I'm male, am I not?" He unsheathed the blade, watching them flinch at its drawing cry, then gave it a quick twirl. "This is a lleiri, is it not? Yes? I am male, and this is a lleiri, and it is in my hand." One more quick twist of the blade - Vauhya snapped the blade to parallel with the ground from its overhand arc, pointing it at the men. He sheathed his lleiri just as easily. "Now, tell me that I'm not Yoichi."
           "Yoichi," that same man hissed lowly. "You're Yoichi. Yoichi!" That time the name was spat. "We don't need any more of your kind. You are not welcome here."
           "We're not your enemies."
           "No?" the middle-aged man snapped. "I have a daughter and a wife who'd say differently!" Atra stepped forward in Vauhya's defense, but he held out a hand to stop her.
           "Don't, Atra." He took a single step towards them. "I don't know what your troubles are, or why you want to turn me away, but I do know that it's not unreasonable to ask for a night's rest, and I also know that you have no reason to keep her away. Please. I'll give you my weapons - I don't want to fight."
           "You're Yoichi," the youngest spat. "You're the cause of all this. We don't want to see you or your damned noble sycophants again - we want you dead." Vauhya grimaced.
           "Fa, I'm Yoichi. But I'm also Vauhya Yoichi. I'm not like the others; no one will rush to my aid. And I don't know what my clan has done here. Please: we only want to rest and to help."
           "Vauhya," one of the elders mumbled. "Vauhya, Vauhya… know that name. Vau- Hai! You're the youngest son of lord Yoichi!" He looked bewildered. "You're Vauhya Yoichi? Heretic Vauhya? The one who ran away from his trial?" At the last remark Vauhya winced.
           "Fa. The lord is my brother - I'm just another fool vagabond. I have no power. I can still help you, though - I'm strong and I'm fast, and Atra is more so. Please."
           "You're not listening to them, are you?" The young man exclaimed, but the middle-aged one waved him quiet.
           "You, Yoichi. Do you know about healing plagues?" Vauhya's ears flattened at that.
           "I - yes, to some limited extent. Why?"
           "Because four days ago your clansmen poisoned us with them."
           He stopped, confused. "What?"
           "You heard me, Yoichi. Your people's doing. Fevers, lesions, shedding, bleeding - and it won't stop spreading." The man eased, let his aggressive mask spill into a strained expression. "It hits the women worse," he said quietly. "Half of them are bald, their bodies covered in sores. We men fare better on the outside, but in our blood we're just as sick. We've had two full families die already, in four days - we're burning the second today, burning them in the house they built."
           "Rallan, don't tell them that!" the young one said. "Don't tell them anything! Gods' pity, he admitted to being one of them!"
           "Hush, Ural."
           "And what if he's not who he says he is? What if they sent him to-"
           "To do what?" one of the elders coughed. "To finish us? Because they're impatient and want the extra week it would take this epidemic to kill us all, to the man?" He stared at Vauhya. "Young sir, I am Sahel Ousan, and if you leave your blades in the dirt there you're welcome to share our food and our beds, plagued as though they all are."
           "My thanks," Vauhya said gravely. He took his two scabbards from his belt and gently set his lleiri in the road. Then he looked to the middle-aged man, now identified as Rallan, who puffed out his chestnut crest. "Have you found the source of the plague yet?" He went to walk with the man; it was several paces before Atra caught him and dragged him back. He turned to her; she was ears-down, terrified.
           "Hai, fool, you are an altruist. Didn't you hear him? He said they have plague! You walk in there and you'll die too! Me, at least I'm Alman'queda. I've probably already had that plague, and a score of others - we ship them all our lives. But you - you'll be meat for the molds." He paused, looked at the hand wrapped around his arm, then bobbed up to face her muzzle-to-muzzle.
           "I'm a Yoichi prince. I've had every plague ward on the continent and I've grown immune to half its poisons. I'll be safe." Her ears twitched and slowly unfurled.
           "Ah."
           "Rallan?" he asked, and they were in motion once more. "The source?"
           "No, we don't know how they infected us. They came and we started to sicken. Why - are you also a doctor?"
           "No, a war-maker. I was taught about the molds in the royal armory: how to use them, what symptoms they create. Tell me how they used the weapon and it'll be less effort to figure which they used. I don't know how to heal most plagues, unfortunately, but Atra might, and at worst I might be able to render aid general to the type. Maybe you've discovered how it spreads?"
           "Quickly," Ural said, face taut with anger. "Their reaction was completely out of proportion! They use plagues on us, their subjects, that'll have us all dead in weeks, all for grain."
           "For grain? That doesn't sound like Yoichi. Cavalry sent to harass villagers about their grain? Risking the spread of plagues for grain? That'd be a waste. Are you sure they're Yoichi?" He sneered.
           "They're Yoichi. The first time they came they brought their entire division into the basin. They have twenty riders and more mah'sur, all in their armor and battle standards; now the rest are camped to the north. They're clean and regimented - they aren't bandits, Yoichi. It's your family that did this." Vauhya was silent. They reached the center of the town, a lusterless patch of dirt and dust with paths reaching in all directions. He looked to the village men.
           "Where is your sick room?"
           "Sick room?"
           "You haven't grouped all of the ill together?" The man shook his head.
           "No. We didn't want to split up partners - we thought it would be too traumatic."
           "Well, hai," Atra snorted, "and you're surprised that it's spreading? We need to separate the ill from the healthy as soon as we can. A few will have to stay with the sick to treat them, of course, but we'll keep them separate from the other uninfected people. No sharing blankets, bowls, or houses - we boil all of the water and overcook all of the food. That'll slow the spread regardless of what the plague is."
           "Listen to them," Ural sneered. "Break up the families? And you want us to listen to these -"
           "Quiet." The elder Sahel pointed to a long building to the immediate left, opposite the one in which they'd seen the villagers and the soldiers meet. "It's not what you meant, but we do have the worst in there." Vauhya nodded.
           "Show me." He turned to Atra. "Stay here."
           "It won't be any safer out here," she protested, and more quietly: "I'm not your servant!"
           "You will be safer, and no, you're not, but I know that I've taken ward against whatever is in there. You can't promise the same, can you? So there's nothing for us in the risk. I can't force you, but it'd be better-"
           "-better that way," she finished. There was a sour expression on her face. "Fine. I'll… I don't know. I'll guard your swords." She held back from the rest, wrapping her cloak close about her as she stood in the street.
           "Hai, Yoichi," Ural growled. "This way." Together they entered.
           The building must have been made as a granary. It was wood and earth, little more than a series of bark-stripped logs laid atop one another, cut into place and sealed with clay and caulk. There were no windows, but a sharp-slanted roof for winter snow provided an attic, which meant the ceiling only reached three-quarters of the way down the room and a ladder was fixed to the wall where it ended. Otherwise it had been created without feature, little more than a giant box with a door. It was still a box, but now filled with people instead of grain.
           Stretched out on pads of soiled grass, covered with ragged sheets and threadbare bandages, caked with dirt and bile and salves of ground leaves, they littered the floor. He reeled at the stench; at the alkaline sour of vomit and the meat-salt of blood, at the pungent fish oil reek of rot and the citrus-spice of distress. Tall stone vases guarded fires every ten paces, mixing their warmth and light with the handful of sun rays that peeked from the roof and the walls, all of it just enough to bring color to the grey lumps that quivered and rumbled in the room's far corners. Water was everywhere: on the patients, on the floor, in the bowls and saucers that lined the walls and encircled the pallets. It was all bloody red. Two piles of cloth lay near the door - one a stinking, cloying mass of red-brown filth, the other a stack of neatly folded greys. A young woman was tending to another near the far wall; at their entrance she looked up, then stood. In her hands a wet rag dripped crimson, spattering onto the floor. Her expression was haggard.
           "I've never seen so many so sick at once," Vauhya said. Ural looked at him.
           "And this in four days."
           "In no more," the woman said softly. "I feel weak-legged too; I'll join them by nightfall."
           "You'll be fine," Sahel rumbled. "My niece, Skie." And then he whispered: "These are mostly women; we have as many men sick, but they seem to stay on their feet until they die. These… some don't even look like hrasi anymore. We haven't had one recover."
           "Who's this, uncle?" Sahel cocked an ear towards her.
           "His name is Vauhya. He says he knows Yoichi plagues."
           "Does he know this one?" Vauhya tossed out a palm.
           "Maybe. Let me see one of yours - in the light." Skie pointed to the figured she'd been tending.
           "Here. This is Eis Ousan, my elder cousin." The figure groaned. "She doesn't talk. Most of them don't talk much." Vauhya went to her gingerly, stepping over bloody pools and overturned dishes. Skie was next to one of the stone vases; he crouched with her beside it and together they examined her cousin in the red-orange of the firelight.
           The elder was right; they didn't look like hrasi. The afflicted woman was bald from the crest of her head to the fold of her sheets at mid-chest, her skin a dull, lusterless grey pebbled with thousands of hairless stumps. She was gaunt already, not bony but with definite sunken features. Worst, though, were the plates. Starting at her breast and running upward was a sheet of waxen disks, each the size of an eye, each frayed around the edges, each crusty and rigid, all pushed together and overlapping like the surface of a pond overrun with lilies and weeds. The little plates were yellow-brown, but in the center they thinned and turned foamy white. He hooked out a claw and very gently slit open a scale on the woman's shoulder. It oozed a single bead of thick pus that slid down halfway to the mattress before stopping, leaving a slimy trail in its wake. It stunk of infection. "Don't do that," Skie murmured. She dabbed the spot with her blood rag, running it in little circles around the disk, working the pus out. "It only makes it worse." Vauhya stared at his dirtied claw, then wiped it on his breeches and stood.
           "I know this. It's called the creep plague. It usually kills one in three, but you've made it much worse. Don't you have a doctor or a priest?" Skie looked up and shook her head; behind them Rallan snorted.
           "We had a pair of herbalists a long time ago, but we didn't have the money to keep them and they left for the cities. It hasn't mattered; we know our cures and how to treat the ill."
           "No," Vauhya said firmly, "You don't. This mess tells me that. You're washing your patients with soiled water - do you realize that you're washing them with their own blood? Each time you clean them up you're cross-infecting them, making it worse and worse and worse. That, and you haven't drained the sores of the victims. Wash those out and you'll clear a lot of the disease away. The creep plague is two different molds: a mange and an infection. The men are doing better because that mange doesn't affect us as much, and without the mange and its effect on the skin the infection has difficulty keeping a grip on the body."
           "So what should we do?"
           "There's a lot to do. We need to get rid of all of the water you're using now, and the rags, and the bandages. Then we need to draw new water, boil the cloths in it, and change it regularly. We'll have to switch out their sheets - actually, it'd be better to move them onto fresh pads outside in the light. As for fighting the plague, it'll be easier to attack both parts of the disease at once. Draining those scales and washing them out will cut off the sources of internal infection, and I can show you how to make a compact that limits the spread of manges." Vauhya scratched at the back of his mane and stared ruefully at the patients. "This is a disaster. We could lose a lot of these people. We'd better start now." He looked to Sahel. "Do you have anyone who'll help us? Two won't be enough."
           "A few, perhaps. Most of the women won't touch the ill, and most of the men we have are spending all their time training."
           "Training?"
           Sahel nodded. "We've been training - inside, mostly - to fight off an attack on our community. The Yoichi warned us when they first came that they'd slaughter us if we didn't yield. We continue to talk, but in the time between we continue to train as well."
           "You're not serious, are you?" The Vauhya's tail lashed. "A division of cavalry riding through this village would meet all the resistance of a scythe through grass. You said they had twenty soldiers? Twenty mounted soldiers? And you have how many - fifteen? Thirty? With as many hunting bows and rusting blades, I'm sure. Don't waste your time: better to be ready to pay your taxes or run."
           "Run where?" Rallan asked. "There's nowhere for us but here. And we couldn't harvest all that grain in ten days if we wanted to, nor would it leave us anything to eat. This is our place. If we run now, we'll all die. We're sick: we need warmth, food, water, and rest. We can't leave."
           "Norsghar is only days from here. You might reach it without losing too many."
           "Too many? You might consider us expendable, Yoichi, but we don't. That's not a risk we'll take. We're staying, and if they try to evict us we'll fight." There was a hard glitter in Rallan's eyes; Vauhya returned it with his own.
           "Fight and die. This is not a children's tale or a heroic saga - you're peasants, and they're cavalry, and you don't have the numbers to stop them. Farmers can't fight soldiers." Rallan growled.
           "Then how do you Yoichi have the power? We may be common farmers, but we're not ignorant. Ancient Nama fell to-"
           "That was different," Vauhya said. "That was a long time ago, and there were hundreds of peasants trained by Yoichi, and them beside sher'amn and Alman'queda. Besides, that was centuries ago; the truth of those events has probably been lost in the retellings. Life is not that just; the weak always lose to the strong, righteous or not."
           Rallan and Sahel shifted uncomfortably; behind him Skie coughed. Finally Rallan threw out his hands in frustration. "If you're really that jaded, then why are you here? One lone prince against the rest of his family - you might as well slit your own throat and save yourself the misery." Then he turned and stalked out through the door. Sahel stayed a moment longer, watching Vauhya dourly. It was only a moment before he left as well. Skie stood silent.
           "I won't do it," Vauhya said quietly. "I know what they'll ask me to do, and I won't do it. This at least might come to some good - we might save a few lives. But if they ask me to 'train' them or to fight with them, I won't do it. It would be a colossal waste; the gods could not make this village ready for a cavalry division in ten days."
           "We can't run," she whispered. "We can't surrender. We don't want to die. What would you do?" Vauhya didn't say anything. "It can't be impossible, can it? There was old Yoichi and Nama…"
           "It is less than impossible. You'll all be turned to worm meat. The idea of fighting is silly." He flicked an ear. "If I had your choice to make, I'd run. There's nothing in death! No pride, no honor, no vindication. Do what I did: run and plan to return later, when you're ready."
           "We won't," Skie said. "Our ties to this land are too strong. We'll stay, even if it means they take us to pieces." But there was none of Rallan's conviction in her voice. She shuffled.
           "It does," he said softly. She stood still.
           "Well, we should start with the water, then."
          

---v---

           It was not as simple as he had thought. Drawing the water was easy, and boiling it too. In fact, all of it was simple enough: making beds out of grass and empty grain stalks, washing soiled bandages, mixing the leave pulp and sand and oil of the compacts, draining the lesions of the sick and cleaning them up. The problem was their workforce. None of the villagers would go near the sick, bond-partners or not; they stayed at distance to talk with their ill family, and were happy to collect wood for the fires or grass for the bedding, but they stopped at twenty paces from his outdoor ward. Skie remained with him, and against his protests Atra joined as well, but that was all.
           It was all very ironic. Him, prince Vauhya, who'd been trained to become Lord or at least his brother's general, swabbing pus out of peasants' sores. Thus far he'd been soldier, cook, doctor, nurse; fields no right-thinking person would have thought him for. It was the gods' mockery of history; he, like old Yoichi, was outcast royalty, a man who wielded lleiri with his matron gone from his side, with villagers to protect and an Alman'queda to guide him. Where Yoichi Nama made a heroic flight into the desert, though, he was stumbling, incompetent, the continuation of his journey born more on luck than heroism. He sometimes stopped and glared up at the sky, confident and yet indignant that someone up there was laughing.
           The night came, and brought its sunless chill. They mopped the blood and the muck out of the storage room, then moved the sick back into it. Some of them were already improving, and only two had died. That was heartening. They fed those who they could rouse, tipping their heads up and feeding them a broth of grain, water, and oil, pouring it down the muzzles of those too weak to lap it up. All were appreciative; a very few were aware enough to ask his identity. He told them that he was a friend, and left it at that.
           Later they ate with the remaining healthy villagers. They arrayed themselves in a loose circle at the town square, all twenty-and-some commoners around a bonfire in the center. Vauhya sat facing his ward with Rallan and the elders, sitting upright with his legs sprawled and crossed at the ankle, a bowl of viscous grain slop with hot oil and red-green-brown spices in his lap. Atra sat behind him, slowly and carefully replacing his old impromptu bandages; he flinched and snorted as she broke scabs and pulled away multicolored veils stained red and brown, then replaced them with layers of bandages soaked in still-boiling water. They were both dressed in the plain greys and browns of the villagers now, but the difference was still apparent; the villagers fidgeted in reflex to the pain they imagined he bore. He saw some of those expressions and grinned inwardly. They looked to feel worse than he did.
           "Where did your head receive such a wound?" one of the young men asked.
           "From Norsghar. I broke an attacker's blade with a parry as he swung it at me and part of the top continued forward." His lleiri were at his side; Atra had retrieved them. He patted one. "I was fighting slave traders. They died." His new bandages tightened as claws worked at them behind his head, and then a hand slid down his neck to knead at his shoulder. "My thanks, Atra."
           "Fa," she said softly, then removed the hand and moved to sit abreast of him. She looked different with village garb: fuller, stronger. Her boots were hide and cloth bound by thin rope; her breeches, too long and too loose, were lashed at her waist with a crude twist of leather. It gave her a rough quality, as that of a bandit or nomad. The aura was accentuated by the set of her ears; after a day spent among those dying women she held them as though they were weighted with boulders. He was probably no different but for the tattered green cloak that Atra had returned to him, the one that identified him alone as foreign. "May I?" Atra asked, head tilting towards his lap. He spooned one last mouthful of the amber oil slush into his mouth, then passed the bowl to her. The end of her tail swatted his side; he took it by the end, gently looped it around his hand, rested it against his leg. It got him a warning glance, but she let it be and settled to eat.
           "Only nine days left," Ural said. "Nine days…"
           "Not enough," Rallan grumbled. He held his bowl with one hand and stirred it aimlessly with the other. "We'll need some out in the fields each day to convince them that we're trying to collect the grain instead of training. We'll need to clear out the tables in our hall so we can train inside together during the day. We can take shifts: some farm, some train, some clean and cook and work. We'll all train - all of us. We'll need everyone."
           "More emphasis on the work, Rallan." Sahel looked around the circle. "In nine days we'll be limited by our supply of weapons and armor, not by our supply of bodies. A set of brittle swords, a few hunting bows, and our scythes won't be nearly enough to hold against them. We won't be able to make any more metal, but we can make wooden weapons, and we'll have to make more arrows." One of the older women leaned forward and looked at Sahel. She was worried - there were anxious creases around her eyes.
           "Elder Sahel, most of us can't even use a bow. If you think we'll be able to make enough of them, well, it's lunacy. And armor - we don't know how to make armor. We don't even know if we have the materials." The others grumbled and shifted; the woman's sentiment must have been a shadow for their own. Sahel stiffened and arced his rigid-boned body upward.
           "Would any of you leave our home and abandon our ill family? Because for lack of an alternative that must be what you are proposing." Ears drooped. "No? Well, we could not harvest, sort, and ready all of that grain soon enough for them, and even if we could and did we would then starve. Maybe not at first, but that back-step would put us at the cliff edge of collapse, and eventually we would topple. Therefore we are left fighting."
           "But it's hopeless," another woman complained. She had a helpless, pleading urgency in her voice. "We're farmers. War, tactics? Those are military things. Those are Yoichi things. We don't know them."
           Atra stopped and looked up at him, oily gruel dripping from the beard of an otherwise beautiful woman. She said nothing - did not need to - but blinked, once, as though to ensure that he was not an apparition. He refused to see that expression; he looked away. Vauhya remained silent.
           "We have a Yoichi guest in our ring," Ural began, but Rallan glared at him.
           "Don't do that to your relatives. He won't help us - doesn't want to encourage what he thinks will kill us all." Ural's ears flattened. He gave Vauhya a vehement look.
           "You what? You're a prince! You're going to let us-"
           "Ural," Sahel said.
           "But-"
           "There's no point in arguing. He's made his decision, and we don't have the time. Simply be grateful for the aid he's given our sisters and daughters." Sahel looked down. "He's probably granted them the full of these last nine days." Ural stared at the two men, then spat and curled in on himself, seething. Vauhya watched the faces as they turned to him, then looked to Atra for consolation when they became too much. Her expression remained exactly the same. For a moment they stared at one another, then Atra set down the bowl, unwrapped her tail from his hand, and left. The commoners' expressions were many: accusatory, despondent, confused, desperate. He said nothing, but took his spoon and scraped some of the grain meal up into it. They watched him.
           "I'm a prince," he said finally, in his quiet, hoarse voice. "My only charge is to help you. And I have. I've tried to help you more, but you won't listen. Which is fine. But if you won't listen, I can't help you." This time they provided the silence. He grew uneasy. There was no reason to feel defensive, but he did. "If you stay to fight, you'll die - I keep saying that, but you won't listen. Nothing I could do in ten days would prepare you for my family's warriors." He picked out a bit of meat, chewed on it slowly, then swallowed. "I know… I'm sure you want me to be your salvation, your hero come to lead you to victory. I can't be. Won't be. As prince my interest is the wellbeing of my people; your anemic resistance would be the end of your wellbeing. I treat the plague women to save their lives. I deny you for the same reason." He scraped the last of the slurry and swallowed it down. "If you want to learn to run, come to me. Until then, I'll be doctoring."
           Vauhya set his bowl on the ground in front of him and stood. The villagers were tiny shadows at the bonfire's edges; they flickered in and out with the playing of light. He stared at them, primal instinct warning that they would evaporate without his attention. They were small; they all looked up at him. He turned around and walked away.
           The streets of the village were cold, hard, and dusty. Atra had left no footprints, but he'd caught her faint scent and knew were to find her - Sahel had lent them the village's small, empty stable for the night. It lay on the edge of town, a rectangular affair with a simple weave of overlapping planks and thatched stalks. It was close enough - close enough that Atra had disappeared into it in a few moments. The door was ajar; he swung it further open and entered.
           The stable was small, pressed in. Animal feed and bedding was scattered in the three pens, with more in the storage closet beside the entrance - a few rusting riding pieces hung useless on the wall. It all stunk of mah'sur, a heady, earthy sweat. A clean space had been cleared beside one of the pens and then filled with a generous pad of fresh, dry grasses - a neat pile of worn blankets lay atop it. Atra was there, her back turned to him. He shut the door quietly.
           "You're angry," he said. Nothing. He didn't approach her further. "You think I'm doing the wrong thing? I'm just encouraging them not to kill themselves."
           "They've chosen their path," she whispered. "You can't take them from it. Now you're just ensuring that they die. And we'll stay, though you'll do nothing. It's cruel." He looked down to her feet.
           "There's nothing I can do in nine days that will-"
           "That's not it." She turned around and walked toward him - her hands went to his shoulders and she leaned into him, sniffing at his neck and face inquisitively. Then she pushed away. "It's odd. You smell like Vauhya. But you can't be. He was the one who wanted to help this morning when I wanted to take and move on." She looked down. "Now the justice of their cause has me in their thrall and it's Vauhya who refuses? What happened?"
           "I don't think they can win. I'm sure, in fact, that they'll be slaughtered."
           "Of course they will. No civilian militia with a few days training could stop a cavalry sweep. That's never been the real question, has it?" He stared at her, sick.
           "Of course it has! That's a lot of life. That's seasons and seasons of living. It's too much to waste. They're my people!"
           "The ones trying to kill them are also your people. They've lived seasons and seasons too, and they're no more under your direction. You told me this morning that if you didn't help the village you were no good as a prince. Now they've chosen their path - and so because it isn't yours, you no longer have that obligation? Is that it?" Vauhya closed his eyes and shook his head.
           "No. They're working my land, and as long as they're in my service, I owe them my guidance. It's just that - no, I don't understand what my aversion is." He stepped back, raked hands through his mane. "I just don't want them to die - I don't want to have to see that. I don't want to fight and kill my cousins. I don't want to see this end with blood and the bodies of broken children. Atra, they're not my clan's enemy! Killing them or killing my clansmen would be a waste: a stupid, disgusting, pointless waste." Atra patted his cheek, drawing claws through the short furs there. He opened his eyes and found her at a distance, arm outstretched to his face. She frowned, ears fluttering down, and shook her head.
           Atra removed the hand and went to the blankets. She spread the three of them out, layered one by one, then collapsed on their makeshift bed. It was too small; sprawled out her arms dangled from the back edge and her legs angled down off the front. She rolled up and worked at the strings at her feet and chest as he dropped down beside her and did the same. They were covered in dust and grime and the coarse sand they'd nearly rubbed the fur off of their hands with in trying to clean up the mange on the women. Both were damp with the wet of the night air and the ceaseless splashes and spills of their ward's washing water, all tinged with the peculiar stink of exhaustion. He shucked all of his clothes save his breeches and piled them at his feet, then laid back against the nest of edges and points that sprung up through the bottom blanket.
           Atra twisted onto her stomach and lay beside him, head resting on his arm so that they touched noses. They shared the air between them and blew warmth against each other's nosepads; hers was cool, wet. "You should help them," she murmured. "You should try."
           "I don't want to die here. We'll leave when their time comes."
           "Of course. I don't want to stay either." He flagged an ear and looked at her with heavy eyes, then moved closer and stared upward.
           "Then… hai, the fields will be stained for generations. Gods' charity to the well-intentioned.