Sheri Tepper - Grass

A bell rang. All the bon Damfels but Rowena excused themselves and departed suddenly. One moment they were there, the next they were gone.

“They have gone to dress for the Hunt. If you will come with me,” she invited in a near whisper, “we will watch from the balconies until the Hunt departs.”

Tony and Marjorie went with her, casting one another questioning looks. Nothing here was predictable or familiar. No word, no attitude conveyed any emotion with which they could empathize. Rigo and Stella stalked along behind them, their dark, intense eyes eating up the landscape and spitting it out. There and there. So much for your gardens. So much for your hospitality. So much for your grief and your hunt which you will not share with us. Marjorie felt them simmering behind her, and her skin quivered. This was not diplomatic. This hostility was not the way things should go.

Still, they went on simmering as they were ensconced upon the balcony and provided with food and drink. Nothing was familiar, nothing resembled any such gathering at home. They looked down at the empty first surface for a time in silence, sipping, nibbling, trying not to seem ravenous, which they were, casting sidelong looks at Rowena’s distracted face.

After a time, servant women in long white skirts came out onto the first surface, bearing trays of tiny, steaming glasses. The hunters began to trickle in. At first glance the hunters seemed to be dressed in familiar fashion, then one noticed the vast and padded trousers, like inflated jodhpurs, creating bowlegged, steatopygous curves, at first laughable, and then, when one saw the hunters’ faces, not amusing at all. Each hunter took a pale, steaming glass and drank, one glass only, a swallow or two, no more. Few of them spoke and those few were among the younger ones. When the horn sounded, though it sounded softly, Marjorie almost leapt from her chair. The hunters turned toward the eastern gate, which opened slowly. The hounds entered and Marjorie could not keep from gasping. She turned toward Rowena and was surprised to see a look of hatred there, a look of baffled rage. Quickly. Marjorie looked away. It had not been an expression their hostess had meant anyone to see.

“My God,” breathed Rigo in awe, all his animosity set aside in that moment of shock.

The hounds were the size of Terran horses, muscled like lions, with broad, triangular heads and lips curled back to display jagged ridges of bone or tooth. Herbivores, Rigo thought at first. And yet there were fangs at the front of those jaws. Omnivores? They had reticulated hides, a network of lighter color surrounding shapeless patches of darker skin. Either they had no hair or very short hair. They were silent. Their tongues dripped onto the path as they paced in pairs, split to go around the waiting riders, joined again in pairs, and proceeded toward another gate at the western side of the courtyard.

“Come,” said Rowena in her expressionless voice. “We must go down the hall to see the Hunt depart.”

They followed her wordlessly down a long corridor and onto another balcony which looked out over the garden beyond the wall — where jaw-dropping shock waited, and a blaze of fear which was like sudden fire. They stood swaying, clutching the railing before them, not believing what they saw. “Hippae.” Marjorie identified them to herself, shuddering. Why had she supposed they would look like horses? How naive she had been! How stupid Sanctity had been. Hadn’t anyone at Sanctity made any effort to — No. Of course they hadn’t. Even if they had tried, there hadn’t been time. Her thoughts trailed away into shivering depths of barely controlled terror.

“Hippae,” thought Rigo, sweating, taking refuge in anger. Mark another one down against Sender O’Neil. That damned fool. And the Hierarch. Poor uncle. Poor dying old man, he simply hadn’t known. Rigo held onto the railing with both hands, pulling himself together with all his force. Beside him he was conscious of Stella leaning forward, breathing heavily, quivering. From the corner of his eye he saw Marjorie put her hand over Tony’s and squeeze it.

Below them the monsters pranced silently, twice the size of the hounds, their long necks arching in an almost horselike curve, those necks spined with arm-long scimitars of pointed, knife-edged bone, longest on the head and midway down the neck, shorter at the lower neck and shoulders. The eyes of the mounts were burning orbs of red. Their backs were armored with great calluses of hard and glistening hide.

Stavenger bon Damfels was preparing to mount, and Marjorie bit back an exclamation. The mount half crouched as it extended its left foreleg. Stavenger stepped up on the leg with his left foot, raising his left arm at the same time to throw a ring up and over the lowest of the jutting spines. With his left hand on the ring, close to the spine, he pulled and leapt simultaneously, right leg high to slide over the huge back. He settled just behind the monstrous shoulders, his hands parting widely to reveal thin straps which pulled the ring tight around the blade of bone. Stavenger turned his hands, wrapping the straps around his fingers, gripping them. “Reins,” Marjorie thought fleetingly; then, “No, not reins,” for the straps were obviously only something to hold on to, only a place to put one’s hands. There was no way they could be used to direct the enormous mount or even to signal it. One could not take hold of the razorlike barb itself without cutting off ones fingers. One could not lean forward without skewering oneself. One had to brace oneself back, leaning back in an endless, spine-straining posture which must be agonizing to hold even for a few moments. Otherwise… otherwise one would be spitted upon those spines.

Along the animal’s mighty ribs were a series of deep pockmarks, into which Stavenger thrust the long pointed toes of his boots, bracing himself away from the danger before him. His belly was only inches from the razor edges. On his back, slung across his shoulder, he wore a case like a narrow, elongated quiver. As the mount turned, rearing, Stavenger’s eyes slid across Marjorie’s gaze with the slickness of ice. His face was not merely empty but stripped bare. There was nothing there. He made no effort to speak to the mount or guide it in any way. It went where it decided to go, taking him with it. Another of the Hippae approached a rider and was mounted in its turn.

Marjorie still held Tony’s hand, turned him to face her, looked at him deeply, warningly. He was as pale as milk. Stella was sweating with a feverish excitement in her eyes. Marjorie was cold all over, and she shook herself, forcing herself to speak. She would not be silenced by these… by these whatever they were.

“Excuse me,” Marjorie said, loudly enough to break through their silence, through Rowena’s abstracted fascination, “but do your .. your mounts have hooves? I cannot see from here.”

“Three,” murmured Rowena, so softly they could scarcely hear her. Then louder. “Yes. Three. Three sharp hooves on each foot. Or I should say, three toes, each with a triangular hoof. And two rudimentary thumbs, higher on the leg.”

“And the hounds?”

“They, too. Except that their hooves are softer. More like pads. It makes them very sure-footed.”

Almost all of the hunters were mounted.

“Come,” Rowena said again in the same emotionless voice she had said everything else. “The transport will be waiting for you.” She glided before them as if on wheels, her wide skirts floating above the polished floors like an inconsolable balloon, swollen and ready to burst with grief. She did not look at them, did not say their names. It was as if she had not really seen them, did not see them now. Her eyes were fixed upon some interior vision of intimate horror so vividly imagined that Marjorie could almost see it in her eyes. When they approached the car, Rowena turned away and floated back the way they had come.