Mindbond Read Free Page B

Two
    Truly, Kor was weary, after nursing me more nights and days than I have fingers on one hand. I had thought he would be talking with Tass when I returned with a yearling hart, but he lay soundly asleep. Tass and I skinned and butchered the young deer ourselves. It did not surprise me that she was expert. She had been on her own, hunting and warring and carrying on some nameless quest, for years, maybe her lifetime of years, for all I knew. She had told us little, Kor and I.
    â€œYou hunt with mercy,” she commented, severing the neck.
    I nodded. The spine was broken cleanly by my arrowhead of chipped flint, so that the deer had died within an eyeblink. The Fanged Horse Folk, and even some of my own Red Hart Tribe, said that meat tasted sweeter when it had leaped in fright and pain, but I did not care. Venison downed by my bow might be cooked the longer, to my way of thinking, for the red deer were like tribesfolk to me, and I wanted never to make them suffer. I had practiced long to learn the skill of killing them instantly.
    â€œIf I cannot slay with the single bolt,” I said, “I do not shoot.”
    â€œYou should have so much mercy on Kor,” said Tass.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I demanded, though I knew well enough.
    â€œCalling him Sakeema.”
    I glowered at her. “Can you say it is not true?” I argued, lowering my voice so as not to awaken him.
    â€œI hope it is true.” Dark fire in her voice, for no one knew more of the legendary past than Tass. She traveled plains and mountains and seacoast in search of it. With a jolt I realized that her longing was perhaps greater than my own.
    â€œWhy does he deny it?” I muttered.
    â€œYou know what they did to Sakeema, Dan.”
    Ai, yes. Torments—and Kor had already withstood torments enough for any ten heroes. Shamed, I kept silence.
    â€œAlso, you know Kor, that he does not speak untruth or lack for courage. But you cannot know Sakeema for certain. So stop badgering Korridun. You are hurting him.”
    I retorted the more sharply because she spoke truth. “You dare speak of hurting Kor?” I whispered furiously. “You, who spurned his proffered pledge?”
    I should have known those waters were too deep for me. She looked me levelly in my eyes. All powers, but she was strange and beautiful, her dark-browed face as startling as a dream.
    â€œI spurned him for your sake,” she said, “and if you should be fool enough to ask me the same, I would spurn you for his.”
    I stood up, reeling a little as if I had been struck, and took the offal away upon the deer hide to feed it to the fanged mares up on the slope. And there I stayed watching them, though their rendings made no very pleasant sight.
    â€œBring mushrooms for stew!” Tass shouted up the mountainside at me, and her shout woke Kor.
    I gathered mushrooms and crowberries in a fold of birch bark. By the time I had enough I felt ready to face Tass again. She and Kor scarcely glanced at me when I came back to the fire, for they were quarreling. Or rather, Tass sounded vexed, and I sighed. Our Tassida had been the best of comrades when she was a boy: steady, courageous, ardent in a quiet way. But since we had found her to be a maiden, she seemed always to be on her mettle.
    â€œI can’t get any sense out of her,” Kor appealed to me. “She says she just happened to find us here.”
    â€œIt is true!” Tass dumped mushrooms and berries into the stew, stirred it savagely. “Wind of chance pushed me this way. Whatever urgings govern me, I always obey them.”
    Kor quirked his eyebrows at me, as if to say, See? But I was in no fit mood to dispute with her, and kept silence. She crouched with the stirring paddle in her hand, her lips slightly parted—they were of the shape of a noble bow, double bent. My mistake, to notice those lips. I felt a warm tide rising in me and battled it, ashamed, knowing Kor