Dave Duncan - West of January

“Of course, sir! Now you will permit me to teach a few manners?” The young man’s eyes had blood in them—my blood.

“Also, he beat my mother to death!” I squealed.

The angel looked back at me and shrugged. “That is not my business, either, young Knobil. Did you think it would be?”

“Sir…angels prevent violence—don’t they?”

“Not that sort of violence. And if Herdmaster Anubyl wants to beat you also—did you think an angel truce would save you from that?”

I had no words left. My plan had failed, utterly, and I had not considered that possibility. I began to tremble more violently even than Anubyl, although for other reasons.

The angel turned back to him. “Perhaps it does. I have never heard of the truce being carried that far, I admit, but I suppose violence is violence—”

“With respect, I disagree! This is a family matter.” Anubyl showed his teeth and began to edge around the angel to get his hands on me. Violence he wanted.

The little man moved slightly, blocking him. “He expected to be safe while I was here, Herdmaster. It was ignorance, but perhaps we should not disappoint his ideals?” He shrugged, seeing that his audience was not supportive. “Oh, well… These so beautiful damsels? You were about to introduce me to that one.”

Anubyl shot me a murderous glare and then turned to describe Oapia’s virtues and skills. The angel glanced briefly at me. I was not too stupid to read the message in his eye—I had been given a reprieve, but not for long.

With a sob, I turned and ran between the tents and began racing up the hill. At the crest I paused for a moment to look back. I was just in time to see the angel following Oapia to her tent. The rest of my family had not moved—women standing, children sitting, all staring up at me. Anubyl was already running, not toward me, but in the direction of the horses. His bow and his sword were there, also.

Ahead of me, empty ridges marched outward to reach the sky. On my right was the herd, with very few herders tending it.

About three woollies out of five owned a dasher, so the odds were against me. I was lucky, else this tale would have ended right here. I would have been ripped to fragments.

The underside of a woollie, I discovered, was cramped, smelly, and unbearably hot. The great shaggy feet shuffled on either side of me, and I had barely room to move, my back pressed against the monstrous belly, which rumbled and bubbled continuously. A calf-length pagne was not designed for crawling on hands and knees. The heat and the stench made my head spin.

In theory I could remain there as long as I could stay awake. I had food, for the rear nipple dangled in my face. In practice, of course, the heat was deadly, and I quickly rubbed my knees raw, for I had no way of avoiding rocks and cactuses as the woollie blundered ahead, continuously grinding grass. I had not known that woollies avoided eating cactus, but that one did. It was a humiliating refuge, a mobile torture chamber, and a very fitting prison for a coward.

What could I hope to accomplish? Anubyl had only to wait until I became exhausted and the woollie crawled away, leaving me lying in full view. He would certainly stay awake long enough for that to happen, and I did not think his murderous rage would cool very much in the meantime. I should have run while I had the chance and died with a little more dignity.

And eventually I managed to convince my craven body of that, or else the pain in my knees did so. I spread myself flat and let the rear canopy of hard wool scrape over me. Sunlight and blessed fresh air returned. I prepared to breathe my last…

Somebody sniggered.

I sat up with a wail.

It was Rilana, regarding me with much amusement. “What’s it like in there?”

“Where is he?” I looked around at the humped shapes of woollies.

She smirked. “He’s gone out to get the women and poles.”

Of course! I should have thought of that. Work parties could evict dashers, and they would race around until they found unoccupied woollies, or the one with me under it.

“Here!” Rilana said and held out a canteen. “It’s only half-full, but it’ll have to do. There’s a gully over that way.”

She shook her head and was suddenly serious. “Good luck, Knobil!”

I grabbed the water bottle, spotted a quick kiss on her forehead, and ran.

So my cowardice did save me in the end. Anubyl had first looked for me in the open and then guessed—or been told—that I had hidden in the herd. Later, while he was looking for me under the woollies, I was fleeing away over the grasslands. Obviously Rilana had kept her word and hadn’t told him I had gone. My luck held again. I was able to stay down in gullies for a long way. One small herder does not show up for very far on a landscape so huge. He did not come after me on his horse, or if he did, he did not find me. Probably he preferred to stay close to the camp while the angel was there.

By chance, or because my luck still held, I was heading south. Anubyl had said that there were water holes that way. Even after the angel left, he would probably want to scout to the north, if he believed what the angel had told him. South was my safest road.

I settled into a long-distance lope, a loner at last.

THE LOPE FELL TO A WALK, the walk at last to a stagger.

The sun burned without mercy above my left shoulder. Desiccated ridges and hollows rolled on without end. Boulders and sand, scabby grass between patches of gravel and shattered dry clay—an empty land beneath a vacant sky.

“You can’t go on forever, you know,” said a whisper in my ear.

“Who are you?”

“I am Loneliness. I am your companion now.”

“Go away.”

“Not until you die. I shall be with you always, until then. It won’t be long.”

“I have a knife and a bow string and a water bottle.”

Loneliness laughed at my side. “An empty water bottle and no sling. Even Indarth had a sling.”

“What need I fear? Thirst? I shall find a pond. Food? I can eat miniroos. Poisonthorn? I am not a child!”

“Eagles. Rocs. Roo packs. People.”

“They are rare,” I insisted. “Anubyl survived. I shall find a pond with trees and make a bow.”

There was no shade, but I sat on some thicker grass to fashion a sling from my pagne. It had been tattered before, and I was now left with little to cover my nakedness. That hardly seemed to matter very much.

“Or even traders!” I said loudly. “I may meet some traders.”

Loneliness laughed again. “You have nothing to trade. Traders would not be interested in you.”

He was wrong, of course. He did not know—because he was me, and I did not know. Traders would have been very glad to see me, but I met no traders, not then. Those canny, nervy folk would have long since fled the grasslands.

I was surprised at the effort needed to force myself back onto my feet. Loneliness fell into step beside me once more. His voice was the sound of the wind on the hills. It was the crunch of grass below my feet, and sometimes it was my voice.

“What if you see another herd?” he asked. “People? You will want to go to them, won’t you? You have never been away from people before.”

“And the man will kill me. No, I must be alone. Until I can go back and kill Anubyl.”

“He is a man. You are a boy.”

“I am a man now.”

“Are you?” Loneliness inquired. “Your body hair is coming in gold, like the stuff on your head. Your eyes are blue like a newborn’s. They never turned brown, as eyes should. There is something wrong with you. You will never be a proper man, freak.”

The grass was withered to its roots, littered everywhere with dry dung. The hollows held the corpses of ponds, and the only trees I saw had long since been cut down or shriveled to useless brittle tinder.