Ammonite

Day opened her mouth to say more, but T’orre Na held up her hand. “Hannah, are you saying that you intend to simply stand, empty-handed, while Uaithne and the massed Echraidhe and Briogannon charge at you?”

“Only if necessary. And we’ll have our sleds, and the crossbows. Look, Marghe and Thenike might need us. It’s possible that these riders have at least one hostage. Do you want me to let civilians take care of this mess? I’m a Mirror, these are my people. I’ve been trained to deal with situations like this. And the storm won’t last forever. When it’s blown out, we’ll have our sleds, our weapons, our skills. These tribes need to know that.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Day, T’orre Na… We have to make our way on this world. People need to know that we can’t be pushed around.” She looked at them, unable to tell what they thought. “The sleds might be the only things that save Marghe. And Thenike. I can’t not go.”

Chapter Seventeen

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THE NIGHT WRAPPED hot and close around Marghe and Thenike as they galloped north and west from Holme Valley toward Singing Pastures. The pastures did not sing with wind now; the clumps of trees and the long grass hung silent and dark and still. The hooves rushing beneath them kicked up dusty scents of parched grass, despite the storm of two days before. Marghe’s throat was dry.

This isn’t going to work.

She concentrated on urging her mount forward, but with every thud of hoof on turf, the sick feeling in her stomach grew worse. This just isn’t going to work.

The thud of the horses’ hooves changed; they were galloping through a field of flowers, bursting open flower heads closed for the night, crushing the leaves and flattening stalks under hard hooves. They were suddenly drenched with the tight, sweet smell of olla. The smell of fear.

Marghe reined in suddenly. She could not do this. Thenike’s horse slowed, turned, came back.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do it. It won’t work.” Her horse snorted and shifted restlessly.

“He doesn’t like the flowers.” It was too dark for Marghe to see Thenike’s expression. They guided their horses out of the broken blooms.

Marghe broke the silence. “It won’t work. It just won’t. I can’t do it, Thenike, I’m not good enough. They won’t listen to me. They’ll laugh, or ignore me, or…”Or they would kill her, or capture her. Not again. “What if we’re wrong? What if they won’t believe I’m their Death Spirit?”

“If they believe Uaithne, they have to believe that what you say is at least possible. As you said to Danner, they’re living a legend now.”

“But what if that isn’t enough!”

Silence. “Do you want to go back?”

Yes! Marghe wanted to say, and nearly leaned from her saddle and reached out into the soft dark to take Thenike’s hand. But if she took Thenike’s hand now, all her resolve would crumble, and she would say, Yes, let’s go, I was a fool to even think I could pull this off. She kept her arms by her sides.

“No.” She would go on, she would try. She had to try. If only she had Thenike’s skills and could use song and drumbeat to drive her words like barbs into the flesh and minds of the Echraidhe, drive them deep, tangle them about so that they could not escape. Thenike could do it, if she were Marghe. But she was not. Marghe was the only one the Echraidhe might listen to, the only one who had lived with them and who was from another world. The only one they might believe. And all she had was her self, and her story. It did not seem much with which to face a hundred spears.

Thenike looked about her. “Here might be a good place for me to wait for Danner.”

Danner would come, they knew. She was a Mirror; she would not be able to help herself. It would be Thenike’s job to stop her, if she could.

They dismounted. Marghe felt as though she had swallowed something so cold it was turning her stomach to ice. She put her hands on Thenike’s shoulders; the bone and muscle felt warm and strong. They pulled each other close, and Marghe buried her face in Thenike’s hair.

When they remounted, the rim of the sun was just touching the eastern hills with orange. The horses’ legs were covered with pinkish yellow pollen. Thenike’s saddle leather creaked as she turned this way and that, sniffing the air. “The storm will come today.”

Marghe knew Thenike could not be smelling anything through the thick scent of olla; it was another sense she used. Marghe herself could feel that crawling under her skin, that ripe sensation she had felt before the last storm. “The sky’s clear.”

“I don’t think it’ll bring rain. Just hot wind and lightning.”

“How soon?”

“Afternoon, maybe. We’ll need to find shelter before then, some rock. The grass is dry enough to burn, without rain.”