Mistress of Animals

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Najud eyed his new clan responsibilities, as they stood and waited for his instructions. Hadishti’s children, Sharma and Dimghuy, were already on herd duty, and he would send Yuknaj out to join them as soon as all the pack animals were loaded.

Jirkat’s group had a pack string of both trade goods and their travel loads, as Najud and Penrys did, and each of those needed a leader. The small pack strings that the other two groups had been using for their loads also required leaders.

“Today we travel to the summer encampment. Jirkat tells me it’s twenty miles. The cattle are the slowest, so we’ll go at their pace.

“After we load the pack animals, here’s how we’ll do it. The outriders will be joined by Penrys. She can find strays and bring them back. It’s a… bikraj skill.”

Penrys nodded to them when they glanced at her.

“I want Jirkat and Hadishti with me as we go. Khashguy will take your string, Jirkat, and we’ll add to it Hadishti’s four and Yuknaj’s three. Winnajhubr will take my string, the horses and donkeys both.”

He noted both Winnajhubr’s pride at the increased responsibility, and Ilzay’s suppressed dismay at receiving no task yet.

“Ilzay, I want you to be scout on our way. Ride out one or two miles and confirm the route. Come back and tell us about hazards. Find us a good spot for the mid-day break. This is not part of your clan’s tarizd, not until we reach your summer encampment, so stay close.”

Najud suppressed a smile as Ilzay almost visibly swelled with satisfaction.

“Penrys will watch our backtrail as well as help the outriders.”

He looked at each of them. “Any questions?”

Receiving silence, he waved Yuknaj and Penrys off to the herds and started everyone else on the task of loading all the pack animals for the long day’s walk.

Penrys mind-scanned all the way around every half hour or so, first counting the animals that should be in front of her, by species, to make sure none had strayed, and then more widely, looking for others.

Her range had improved from the two or three miles of a couple of months ago, ever since she had pulled in the power of the Rasesni wizards in their fight against the Voice, the wizard she’d killed before she could learn where he had come from, chained like herself. Now she thought she could reach five or six miles. Certainly she had no trouble following Ilzay’s meandering path as he scouted forward on the line of march, and back to inform Najud.

She’d been pleased with her one find before the mid-day break, a flock of seven sheep, led by a stubborn old ewe who dodged her for a while before trotting before her into the larger flock moved along by Yuknaj. “These are my mother’s sheep,” the girl called, and Penrys lifted an arm to her in acknowledgment before fading back to the rear again.

Ever since mid-day, however, she’d been kept busy picking up pockets of strays—horses, mostly, and sheep. The cattle she found were independent minded, reverting to their ancestral behaviors in the absence of people. One bull was belligerent, delaying her until she drove the rest of his little herd forward without him. His nerve broke, then, and he followed them, bellowing defiance at her as he went.

I hope Dimghuy can handle that one.

She kept her mental attention on the boy in case there was a sudden alarm, but it must have worked out all right.

The sun was about two hours from setting when she contacted Najud for more than just a simple update.

*How close are we? I’ve got more animals coming up than I’ve got daylight to handle.*

*Half an hour should see us there. We’re planning to swing the herds up north of the camp. What more have you found?*

*Horses, mostly, and more cattle. Sheep, too. Six bunches, maybe more. Haven’t felt a wandering goat all day—they must have gone somewhere else.*

There was a delay while Najud considered the situation.

*We’ll be there at least a full day tomorrow. Let’s fetch them in then, and you can have Sharma to help.*

*That’ll do.*

Penrys rotated her head until her neck cracked. It had been a long day in the saddle, more mileage than just leading a pack string. Lonely, too, without Najud to chat with. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt the zarawinnaj while he was working.

They’d made their camp in the fading daylight, just on the northern perimeter of the abandoned encampment. Najud had had their kamah set up on the edge closest to the looming, unlit structures, marking the margin and serving as a sort of protective barrier, but even so, Penrys noticed the constant sliding of eyes south into the dark, every time a flicker of firelight provided an excuse.

Collecting dried dung for the fire had been no problem, here where the herds had spent some time two months ago. The small group discussed their plans for the next day as they ate a simple communal dinner. Najud had explained to her how unusual that was—normally each kazr had its fire and meals separately—but while the weather was clear, he encouraged this gathering for the sake of helping these clan fragments bond together.

Penrys approved. We’d be cooking outside for ourselves anyway, so I’m just as glad someone else is doing it for the group.

“Tomorrow,” Najud said, “we’ll see what we can find in the encampment and around it. Some tasks we know already—Penrys says she’s found more of the herd strays in the area, so she’ll look for them in the morning with Sharma and bring them into the herds. They’ll need an anchor there to receive them, even if we’re not going to be moving them—that’ll be you, Dimghuy.”

“I want to salvage every animal we can.” There were nods all around the fire. “Penrys, when you’re done, can you get me a count of every horse that shows evidence of having ever carried a pack? Sharma and Dimghuy can show you what to look for.”

“All right,” Penrys said. It seemed to her that Najud’s voice had gotten even deeper with the advent of his new responsibilities.

Heads came up at that. Jirkat said, “What are you planning, zarawinnaj?”

“It’s only about eighty miles back to the zudiqazd, if you take the outward or returning routes from here, yes? And less if we go directly. Is there any reason we couldn’t go straight there, anything in the way?”

Najud’s gaze was fixed on Jirkat who answered, “No, people do come visit sometimes, like their family.” He waved a hand at Yuknaj and Winnajhubr. “We can travel directly.”

“Good,” Najud said. “That’s only six days of easy riding, since we have to take it slow if we want the cattle to keep their weight. We’ll spend a day or two here and gather fuel for the journey. Then we’ll take everything we can, make packs for every animal that can bear them. I want to salvage it all—all the wealth of the clan, if we can carry it.”

Penrys noted Hadishti’s clear nod of approval.

“It will mean we make less distance each day,” Najud said, “spending all that time loading and unloading the packs, but if the weather holds, what’s another couple of days?”

Penrys asked, “Won’t we need more people as herdsmen, as we pick up more animals?”

“Not necessarily. The big caravans are mostly long pack trains with a limited herd of spares and food. We’ll be the same. Every horse that can carry a load will be part of a string, and so the loose herds shouldn’t be unmanageable.”

Ilzay said, “But what about our families?”

“We look for them first, in the morning. I want to see the route up from the spring camp, its trace on the ground. Whatever happened, those herds didn’t fly out of here, and the numbers Penrys reports don’t account for most of them. Anything fresher than the spring trail should be visible. We find the herds, we may find the people.”

“Forgive a foreigner for the question,” Penrys said, looking around the fire at the others, “but how often do people visit from the winter camp? Is it unusual?”

Hadishti said, “No, each time we stop for the encampment, we tend to get one or two visitors. They know where we’ll be, and when, of course.”

“That’s what I would have thought,” Penrys said. “Then where are those visitors? It’s been at least two months since this camp should have been moved. If someone came up from the winter camp, wouldn’t they have gone back and brought others to search, and to salvage everything, by now? Why is all of this still here?”

The silence was unbroken for several moments, then Najud said, “If we had enough people, we would send a rider to the zudiqazd with the news, and they would come meet us part way. Meanwhile, we can’t be sure there’s been a visitor—perhaps there were none.”

He looked around at his little command. “In any case, we can’t do everything. Our responsibility is to make one last assessment of what happened, preserve the clan’s livelihood, and get to the zudiqazd as quickly as we can, in that order. If there’s a problem in the winter camp, we can’t make it better by not bringing all we can.”