(no subject)
Written as I go.
The high winds pushed veils of clouds across the face of the moon; they tore the trees apart like weeds and tossed the still-green branches to the ground. The wind blew the wheelbarrow to thumping against the wall of the croft, and every thump sounded like a knock. And every knock was a policeman's knock.
Hashu was the same man, Inakka decided as she watched him scoop rutabaga mush from a wooden bowl. Arrogant as a chieftain, in his tattered cloak and mud-stained shirt and breeches, with a broadsword at his waist even when he sat at the table. He took Uri's chair and filled it to overflowing, and Inakka decided that if this crude giant ate more than his fair portion of their dinner, he would never have a portion again.
He had killed the nobles--this should have meant something to her, but she found herself unable to think anything but that Hashu was now in her den, filling the room with his smell, and that this thought made her teeth ache.
And then there was the red wolf.
The face, she knew vaguely; he wore his raw-boned grace with neither the shame nor the submission that she remembered, though, and his pale skin had roughened from burning and peeling and burning again until at last he had darkened to the shade of dry earth. Something of the hunted beast lingered in his eyes, but he bore himself like a hunter now. He was not afraid of his body--he trusted his wrist to guide his spoon, and his legs to balance the milking stool as he tilted it back, and his hollow cheeks to hold a sharp smile between them.
He also bore his monstrous comrade's scent like a banner of ownership, mixed with the smells of city and charred wood and stale autumn storms. In the wolf-language of glances and postures and scents, the red wolf repeated quietly but firmly in every moment, I am his, and he is mine.
The wheelbarrow handles tap-tap-tapped at the wall, louder even than the thunder. Inakka stood from the table and began to wipe her bowl clean, as Takka poured tea for the family and for the guests.
In some lands, such as this one, hosts served the guests first, but the Ikika had no such love of strangers.
"If either of you asks for their story, he sleeps in the cowshed," said Inakka; she put her bowl on the shelf beside their tattered copy of Oujeiina Joujanettaa. They had twelve books now--twelve books, but far more dishes, and little space to spare for storage. "In this storm, the constables will stay in their precious city and give us a night to breathe, but what then? The hunter of hunters will not fit on the ledge in our chimney." She took bowls from her brothers and from Hashu to clean them; the red wolf, though, met her eyes, and she generously let him have the last of the rutabagas.
Inakka dragged her chair to a warm place by the hearth and scrubbed with slow, measured strokes at the polished and seasoned wood of their bowls; the fragments of rutabaga that remained came away and stained her rag orange as the peppery aroma joined with the scent of tea.
Tap, tap, tap, said the wheelbarrow against the walls.
Hashu laughed; his laugh resounded from the new stone floor and the high sleeping loft. "We won't be staying. Tomorrow morning, we move on--we just thought we'd catch up with old acquaintances" and from the way that he savored that word, Inakka knew that he didn't mean Nicht's pack "before we hunted in north Deit."
"Are we acquaintances, then?" she spat, bringing the bowls down in a stack on the shelf. "What brought you here, to our farm, to our forest?"
Hashu had just taken the recalcitrant bull by one of its horns and manhandled it into the shed, and even Takka--the strongest man she knew--had never been able to stand steady as stone when the bull had pulled and bucked and twisted--
"We've come to see Sjarrin and Fakhi."
The red wolf stood, almost as tall as the hunter of hunters but perhaps only a third of his size. He wore leathers like Seyah's, a fur-lined vest and soft, well-tanned trousers; his boots made no sound on the stone of the floor. "They haven't joined your pack, have they?"
"No, they haven't." But they lived in that ruined building that had once been Seyah's house, before Kargoth had died and his house had passed on to the dEbweme wolf.
"I thought they wouldn't," said the red wolf. He took up the stewpot and, to Inakka's surprise, the rag, and began to clean the last of their dinner's residue from the cast iron. "Hashu's acquaintances find their throats slit in the worse districts, but I try to show mine more courtesy."
Tap, tap, tap, said the wheelbarrow on the wall; lightning flashed like a housefire through the small, round window in the door.
It flashed a silhouette onto the floor, helmeted and dark as charcoal.
It hadn't been the wheelbarrow.
The high winds pushed veils of clouds across the face of the moon; they tore the trees apart like weeds and tossed the still-green branches to the ground. The wind blew the wheelbarrow to thumping against the wall of the croft, and every thump sounded like a knock. And every knock was a policeman's knock.
Hashu was the same man, Inakka decided as she watched him scoop rutabaga mush from a wooden bowl. Arrogant as a chieftain, in his tattered cloak and mud-stained shirt and breeches, with a broadsword at his waist even when he sat at the table. He took Uri's chair and filled it to overflowing, and Inakka decided that if this crude giant ate more than his fair portion of their dinner, he would never have a portion again.
He had killed the nobles--this should have meant something to her, but she found herself unable to think anything but that Hashu was now in her den, filling the room with his smell, and that this thought made her teeth ache.
And then there was the red wolf.
The face, she knew vaguely; he wore his raw-boned grace with neither the shame nor the submission that she remembered, though, and his pale skin had roughened from burning and peeling and burning again until at last he had darkened to the shade of dry earth. Something of the hunted beast lingered in his eyes, but he bore himself like a hunter now. He was not afraid of his body--he trusted his wrist to guide his spoon, and his legs to balance the milking stool as he tilted it back, and his hollow cheeks to hold a sharp smile between them.
He also bore his monstrous comrade's scent like a banner of ownership, mixed with the smells of city and charred wood and stale autumn storms. In the wolf-language of glances and postures and scents, the red wolf repeated quietly but firmly in every moment, I am his, and he is mine.
The wheelbarrow handles tap-tap-tapped at the wall, louder even than the thunder. Inakka stood from the table and began to wipe her bowl clean, as Takka poured tea for the family and for the guests.
In some lands, such as this one, hosts served the guests first, but the Ikika had no such love of strangers.
"If either of you asks for their story, he sleeps in the cowshed," said Inakka; she put her bowl on the shelf beside their tattered copy of Oujeiina Joujanettaa. They had twelve books now--twelve books, but far more dishes, and little space to spare for storage. "In this storm, the constables will stay in their precious city and give us a night to breathe, but what then? The hunter of hunters will not fit on the ledge in our chimney." She took bowls from her brothers and from Hashu to clean them; the red wolf, though, met her eyes, and she generously let him have the last of the rutabagas.
Inakka dragged her chair to a warm place by the hearth and scrubbed with slow, measured strokes at the polished and seasoned wood of their bowls; the fragments of rutabaga that remained came away and stained her rag orange as the peppery aroma joined with the scent of tea.
Tap, tap, tap, said the wheelbarrow against the walls.
Hashu laughed; his laugh resounded from the new stone floor and the high sleeping loft. "We won't be staying. Tomorrow morning, we move on--we just thought we'd catch up with old acquaintances" and from the way that he savored that word, Inakka knew that he didn't mean Nicht's pack "before we hunted in north Deit."
"Are we acquaintances, then?" she spat, bringing the bowls down in a stack on the shelf. "What brought you here, to our farm, to our forest?"
Hashu had just taken the recalcitrant bull by one of its horns and manhandled it into the shed, and even Takka--the strongest man she knew--had never been able to stand steady as stone when the bull had pulled and bucked and twisted--
"We've come to see Sjarrin and Fakhi."
The red wolf stood, almost as tall as the hunter of hunters but perhaps only a third of his size. He wore leathers like Seyah's, a fur-lined vest and soft, well-tanned trousers; his boots made no sound on the stone of the floor. "They haven't joined your pack, have they?"
"No, they haven't." But they lived in that ruined building that had once been Seyah's house, before Kargoth had died and his house had passed on to the dEbweme wolf.
"I thought they wouldn't," said the red wolf. He took up the stewpot and, to Inakka's surprise, the rag, and began to clean the last of their dinner's residue from the cast iron. "Hashu's acquaintances find their throats slit in the worse districts, but I try to show mine more courtesy."
Tap, tap, tap, said the wheelbarrow on the wall; lightning flashed like a housefire through the small, round window in the door.
It flashed a silhouette onto the floor, helmeted and dark as charcoal.
It hadn't been the wheelbarrow.