Legacies (7 page)

“We understand each other. I mean, the nightsheep and I do.”

“Is it true that you raised a ram from when you were only five? And that he'll do whatever you want? Vardial said…”

“That's Lamb. Not a very good name for a grown nightram, but I was only five. He was an orphan, and I got him to nurse from a bottle for my mother. We've always been close.”

“You understand him…with your father…” Wendra swallowed. “I'm sorry. I wasn't…”

Alucius touched her shoulder. “That's all right. It was a long time ago.”

“How about the others…the other nightsheep? Do they obey you?

“They seem to. I haven't ever taken out the full flock by myself, at least not out of sight of the stead. Grandfather says I should be ready to any time.”

“So you are a herder.” She smiled again, warmly.

“Well…I'm going to be.”

“We'd better get back,” she said abruptly. “I can see that Father's getting the team ready.”

“I wish…” Alucius laughed, softly. “Yes, I suppose we'd better. Grandfather will be getting restless before long. Even with the moonlight, he doesn't like to drive that far at night.”

“Neither does Father.”

They turned and began to walk slowly back down the ridge to the west, and toward the stead. Alucius reached out and took Wendra's hand, gently.

Her fingers linked with his, and she did not release his hand until they neared the stable.

“There you two are!” called his grandfather. “Told Kyrial you'd be here before we had the teams hitched. I was almost right.”

“Wendra?” called another voice, feminine.

“I'm right here. Alucius and I just walked a little ways.”

“Your father has the team ready.”

Alucius turned to her. “I don't get to town often.”

“I don't get out to the valley at all, except for the gather. But, if you do get to town, I'm usually at the shop, in the back.” Wendra smiled, then stepped back and hurried to the wagon with the sign on the side—
KYRIAL, COOPER
.

After watching the cooper drive away with his daughter, Alucius had to hurry and climb up into the rear seat of his family's wagon, settling beside his mother.

“She seems awfully nice, Alucius,” Lucenda murmured.

“She does.” He just hoped it would not be that long before he could see Wendra again.

“It was a lovely gather, Royalt,” Veryl said. “Now, aren't you glad you came?”

“Suppose so. Worked out a trade with Jelyr, and a few other things…”

No one said another word about Wendra on the entire ride back to the stead.

Alucius and Royalt rode on opposite sides of the flock, behind the lead rams, as the sun rose over the rolling rises south of the plateau. The morning was clear and cloudless, like any other working morning, and chill, as was often the case in early spring. So chill that, until the sun was clear of the plateau and filled the valley with light and warmth, Alucius's breath steamed.

The youth kept his eyes moving, looking to the flock and beyond, and then back to his grandsire, trying to keep an even two hundred yards between them. The tenth of a vingt separation would widen to twice that, or more, once the nightsheep reached the area where Royalt decided they could begin grazing on the tender new stalks of the quarasote bushes, bushes that generally grew no closer than a yard to each other, and often much farther apart. After a year's growth, the lower shoots of the bushes toughened. After two years, not even a maul-axe with a knife-sharp blade on the axe side could cut through the bark, and the finger-long thorns that grew in the third year could slice through any boot leather. In its fourth year, each bush flowered, with tiny silver-green blossoms. The blossoms became seed pods that exploded across the sandy wastes in the chill of winter. Most of the seeds ended up as food for the ratlike scrats or for the grayjays, but enough survived to ensure new quarasote every year.

Within weeks of seeding, the old bush died and left behind stalks that contained too much silica to burn or to break or cut. Yet by spring, those stalks were gone, devoured by the shellbeetles that burrowed through the red sandy ground, and new bushes were sprouting.

The two rode slowly, without speaking, in a northeasterly direction down the long eastern side of Westridge. After almost a glass they reached the quarasote-covered flats stretching for more than ten vingts eastward to the rolling hills that formed the approach to the plateau. Overhead, the silver-green sky shimmered, and the early morning stillness had been replaced with a wind out of the northeast that carried the faint, but cold and iron-acrid smell of the plateau itself.

Alucius glanced up, catching sight of an eagle almost directly overhead, circling ever higher into the sky.

“Alucius!” Royalt called and then gestured.

The youth eased the gray mare toward the older man, around behind the flock, absently using his Talent to chivvy some of the laggards forward.

“Good. Saw you moving the stragglers up,” Royalt noted as Alucius rode closer. “Best keep 'em moving early, when they're ready and restless, and then let 'em graze their way back in the direction of the stead.” Royalt eased the bay alongside the smaller gray mare that Alucius rode. “See the marker wedge there?” He gestured to his left.

The youth squinted, slowly scanning the low rise beyond his grandsire, well to the left of the black backs of the nightsheep. Finally, he caught sight of a crystal on top of a black pole striped with yellow. He pointed. “Is that it? A quarter off north-northeast?”

“Good! Another glass past that and we'll swing south for about two glasses, depending on how they're grazing and what the shoots look like. So far, they've not been growing back so quick as I'd like. Been drier this spring, though. Hope we're not coming up on another drought.”

“How can you tell?”

“You can't. Not until it happens. Except less rain falls.” Royalt glanced back.

Alucius followed his eyes. “Those three are dropping back again.”

“Having you along makes it easier for an old man,” Royalt said. “One herder to watch the flock and the other to keep in stragglers before they get too far out.”

Alucius liked it when his grandsire called him a herder. “You're not old, sir.”

“Old enough, son. Old enough. It was a long time since I was your age.”

“Things were different then?”

“The things dealing with people were different. People change faster, and maybe it's just different people. The land is the same. The stead was pretty much like it is now, except the processing barn is new. Had three sheds then. This way is better.” Royalt gestured toward the plateau. “That looked the same then as now. So did most of Iron Stem. Few more people then.”

Alucius would have liked to have heard more, but he could see the three laggards were getting more and more separated from the rest of the flock. “I'd better get to them, sir.”

Royalt nodded.

Alucius turned the gray and worked his way through and around the scattered quarasote bushes, making sure his mount avoided the larger and older bushes particularly. The animals needed to graze more to the east, nearer the plateau, for their wool to be the best, and dawdling near the stead would only cut back on nearby forage, which might be needed in times of bad weather and make the wool less valuable.

The nightram's black undercoat was softer than duck down. It was also cooler than linen in summer, and warmer than sheep's wool in winter, but stronger than wire after it was processed into nightsilk. The wool of the rams' outercoats was used for jackets stronger and more flexible—and far lighter—than plate mail. The fabric stiffened to a hardness beyond steel under pressure, although its comparative thinness meant bruises were not uncommon, something that Royalt had stressed to Alucius. The underwool from the yearlings or the ewes was equally soft, but not as strong under duress. The fabric loomed from it was used mostly for the garments of the lady-gentry of such cities as Borlan, Tempre, Krost, and Dereka.

“Come on, you laggards,” he murmured as he chivvied the three, mainly with his Talent, watching as they ambled forward, slightly more quickly than the rest of the flock, to catch up.

Another glass passed as the flock moved through the scattered quarasote bushes, and past another crystal-tipped marker. Alucius could sense something, coming and going, as if in the distance, and not with his ears, but with his Talent. Yet he couldn't pinpoint it. Sometimes it wasn't there at all. He checked the rifle in the saddle holder, then glanced toward his grandsire.

At that moment, Royalt stiffened, turning in the saddle, looking toward the group of rams leading the flock.

Alucius watched. Two of the nightrams had lifted their heads, and tossed them, before lowering their horns. He could sense the smoldering feeling in each ram, even as his grandsire rode toward the pair, projecting disapproval. Both black-wooled rams looked up, either at the sound of the herder or his Talent-projection—or both.

Alucius smiled as the pair backed away from each other, and the calming voice of Royalt murmured across the flats. Belatedly, he cast out his own Talent senses again, but he could sense nothing. Had what he felt been just the smoldering anger and jealousy of the rams? That was always a problem, but gelding a ram reduced the strength of his wool—and the value. So his grandfather only gelded those males who were so intractable that they always wanted to fight for dominance, and it was as though the others understood. Certainly, after a gelding, the other rams were far more manageable, sometimes for months.

Another glass passed, and Royalt had turned the flock due east, through an area that had seemingly received more rain, and where the new quarasote shoots were more plentiful.

Once more, Alucius had begun to sense the uncertain something, edged in redness. Another ram building up to a challenge? What else could it be? Then, a feeling of red-edged cold darkness rushed over him.

“Alucius! Get that rifle ready. Sandwolves somewhere near here, maybe even sanders. Look sharp!”

Alucius had the rifle out and cocked. He glanced eastward, but the ewes grazing there seemed unperturbed. To the north, though, two of the rams had lifted their heads, and two of the younger males—one of them was Lamb—had started to move toward the flock leader.

Apprehension, if not fear, radiated from them.

Alucius rode northward, toward the violet-red feeling and the rams, who had formed a semicircle facing to the northeast. He reined up to the east, just slightly forward of the nightrams. The lead ram pawed the ground and snorted. Even Lamb snorted, although he did not paw at the red ground between the quarasote bushes.

Seventy yards or so to the north of the rams was a more open space, a good thirty yards across with no vegetation at all. There, the red-sandy soil shivered. One stonelike projection broke the surface, and then another. Then, there were two blocky figures less than two thirds the size of a man. The sanders were tan, and their skins sparkled in irregular patches, as if crystals shone through in places. The eyes were silvered green, also hard like crystal. Neither wore clothes, but Alucius could see only the same rough skin all over, without breasts or udders or any visible animal or human organs.

“Aim for the spot where the chest and neck join!” Royalt called.

Crack!
A shot followed Royalt's call.

Belatedly, Alucius fired his rifle. His first shot missed. The sander shook itself and started toward the rams. Alucius recocked the rifle and fired again. The heavy bullet struck the upper arm of the creature, and it turned toward Alucius and the gray.

From well behind and to his left, Alucius heard a frantic bleating, but the sander he had hit and scarcely jolted was lumbering directly at him.

He cocked and fired.
Crack!
Sections of skin, like rock chunks, fragmented away, and the sander slowed. He fired again, and a larger expanse of crystallike skin broke off from the sander.

Abruptly, the creature shuddered, and halted. As Alucius recocked the rifle, it seemed to melt back into the sandy ground. He glanced toward his grandsire, but the first sander was lumbering northward, well out of range for a good shot.

Alucius turned the gray toward the sound of the bleating, a sound followed by snorting. He rode almost a hundred yards toward the rear of the flock, where as Alucius neared, a younger nightram hurled himself against a reddish tan sandwolf, nearly three yards long, with fangs more than a handspan in length, fangs that glittered crystal sharp in the sunlight.

Alucius raised his rifle, but the nightram blocked a good shot at the sandwolf.

The sandwolf snapped, its teeth seeming to close on the ram's snout, but at the last moment, the ram lowered his head and then twisted upward. The sandwolf lurched aside, trying to escape the knife-sharp horns, but a pair of long gashes scored the beast's heaving chest. The sandwolf growled, backing away.

The nightram snorted, a hoof pawing the ground.

Alucius saw another tannish red shape farther to the south.

“The sandwolf!” called Royalt.

Alucius caught himself and raised the rifle, firing his last shot.

The wounded sandwolf growled, turned, as if to retreat…and collapsed.

Several other shots echoed across the quarasote flats, but Royalt missed, for the other two sandwolves sprinted away through the quarasote.

For a moment, Alucius just looked at the sandwolf—taking in the reddish tan fur that shimmered in places where the sun struck it, the fangs that looked more like crystal knives, the broad paws and large chest, and the yellow-amber eyes.

A snort turned his eyes to the nightram, streaks of blood on the curled horns whose forward edges were every bit as sharp as the fangs of the sandwolf, and the red eyes set in the black face, eyes that seemed to carry both satisfaction and sorrow.

From the ewe came a soft bleat. She licked at the dead lamb sprawled in the open space between the quarasote bushes. For a moment, Alucius just looked. The sense of loss and sadness that emanated from the ewe was as palpable to him as the sunlight and the wind.

Then he jerked his head around, expecting another sander, but there were none…and the sense of violet-red that had nagged him all morning had vanished. But there was a sense of something shimmering and green. Alucius studied the flock, then glanced up, his eyes tracking to the northeast. There, a good hundred yards away, was a soarer, hovering just above a clump of quarasote bushes, her features and figure shrouded in the indistinct shimmer that had surrounded the handful of soarers Alucius had seen over the years.

Royalt reined up beside his grandson. His eyes took in the soarer. The older man had his rifle out and cocked, but he did not raise the weapon.

“Why…?” murmured Alucius.

“Don't know. Sometimes you see them around sanders. Mostly not, though. Old tales say that soarers favor us by not meddling with people. Don't know for certain, but one thing's sure. You don't shoot at them. Bullets don't hurt 'em, and, besides, they don't do anything if you leave them alone.”

“If you don't?” Alucius asked.

“Saw a fellow who tried to shoot one, years back. Bullet hit her and vanished. Three sanders rose right out of the ground around him and killed him. Not worth it.”

As suddenly as the soarer had appeared, it vanished.

Royalt glanced down at the lamb and nodded sadly. “Diversion. When the sanders got us worried up with the rams, the sandwolves sneaked in back here.”

“What…what do we do now?” asked Alucius.

“Leave the sandwolf. Not good for anything we need, and don't want to spend the effort on the pelt. Just pack the lamb up behind you. Nothing else we can do. Cold enough that we don't have to skin it here. Besides, we don't really have the knives. The sanders won't be back. Nor the sandwolves. Not today, and the rest need to graze. Have this feeling it'll be a hard year, Alucius. Sanders don't come after nightsheep this early.”

“Why? They look like they're stone. How could eating…or killing…” Alucius wasn't quite sure what he meant, but the feeling was clear to him, that sanders were different, and that should have meant that they didn't need to kill sheep, not for food—although the nightsheep weren't good for human eating either, but when they died or were killed, the fleece and skin were always put to use. Did the sanders hunt to provide food for the sandwolves? Or did the sanders hunt for another reason and the sandwolves followed to get a meal?