Sheri Tepper - Grass

Sylvan shook his head. “Estimating distances is not something we do much of, I’m afraid. On the Hunt, it doesn’t matter. We measure Hunts in hours, not in miles or kilometers or stadia, as they do on Repentance.”

“From the ridge it looked to be half a mile,” Father James agreed. “Enough territory in here to hide any number of Hippae.”

“If we do not find a trail leading out,” said Marjorie wildly, “then we will search within, among the trees.” She appealed to each of them in turn, seeking agreement. Brother Mainoa sat very still upon his horse. His expression was alert, as though he heard something she could not hear. “Brother Mainoa?” she asked. “Brother?”

His eyebrows went up, and he smiled at her. “Of course. Of course. Let us first look for a trail.”

The way the Hunt had come was easy to find. The way the Hunt had gone was equally easy. Crushed grasses testified to the fact that more than one Hunt had come this way recently. Some stems were completely dried, others were newly broken and still leaking moisture. Brother Mainoa rode down this broad trail and then pulled Blue Star to a halt as he pointed off to the left. All of them could see the narrow trail which wound into the grass. Father James picked a stem of broken grass and handed it to Marjorie. It was still moist. “So,” she said. “So.”

“If a Hippae has her,” Tony said in a carefully emotionless voice, “how are we to get her?”

“Hide,” she said. “Wait until it leaves her alone. Steal her back.”

“I wish we had weapons,” Father James said.

“So do I,” she admitted. “But we don’t.”

He shook his head, only slightly. “Let us hope we find only one of the beasts opposing us.”

Rigo boiled the morning away, waiting while Sebastian reassembled the aircar, a longer process than had been anticipated. The new parts, though appropriately numbered, were not a precise fit. Sebastian took them to his own shop in the village, as he put it, “to shave them down a bit.”

By midafternoon the first car had been put together and tested. Driven by Sebastian, with Persun Pollut along for whatever assistance he might offer, Rigo set out for Klive. The trip took slightly more than an hour, across the southern tip of the swamp forest with the clutter of Commons off to their left. They landed in the gravel court beyond the first surface and crossed that surface on their way to the terrace of Klive.

“Your Excellency,” a little voice cried from behind the balustrade. “Your Excellency!”

Rigo turned, surprised to see one of the bon Damfels daughters beckoning to him. He moved toward her, impatiently, wanting to go on into Klive to see whether Marjorie was there.

“They’ve gone,” the girl said. “Roderigo Yrarier, your wife and son and the Green Brothers, they’ve gone.”

“Gone where?” he blurted. “Where?”

She shook her head, tears suddenly starting down her cheeks. “You mustn’t go up there. Father, the Obermun, is in a rage. He will kill you. He has half killed Emmy already. Your wife came to ask where your daughter had been lost. Sylvan told her. He found out from Shevlok, and he told your wife. Sylvan went with them. Father had been screaming since then. Emmy tried to calm him and he beat her—”

A bellow from the house above them sent the girl fleeing along the side of the house. Rigo stopped, put one foot on the step before him, and felt himself pulled firmly away. Sebastian had one arm and Persun the other, and they seemed determined to drag him away from Klive, by brute force if necessary.

“Don’t go up there, sir. He will not listen to reason. Listen to him. He sounds like a bull!”

“Listen to Pollut, sir. He will not give you any help, not now. You must wait. Wait until he is calmer. Wait until you can speak with someone else.”

“At the Hunt,” Sebastian suggested. “Tomorrow. At the bon Laupmon Hunt.” They dragged Rigo away, he resisting them but not protesting, as though some part of him realized the sense of what they said even though his body was unwilling to agree.

The horses followed the trail in single file, their riders at first alert for any sound, then gradually, as mile succeeded mile, growing slack and distracted. Mainoa and Lourai were preoccupied with pain, aching joints and throbbing buttocks. Marjorie was thinking of Rigo, and Sylvan of Marjorie. Father James was praying that he had not done the wrong thing, and Tony was thinking of a girl he had not seen for a very long time. The slap of the grass blades on their bodies had become hypnotic. Even Marjorie, usually alert to the nuances of horse behavior, did not notice that the horses were acting very much as Don Quixote had acted when she had ridden him away from the Hippae cavern. Ears alertly forward, they moved as though they were headed home. As though someone spoke to them. The riders did not comment upon this. With the sun on their backs, they rode, unspeaking, the only noise the sound of the horses’ hooves.

The world spun the sun to the center of the sky and then downward once more. The light was on their faces. They had stopped once or twice to drink and relieve themselves, but the trail winding enigmatically ahead of them had enticed them to keep the stops brief. The first howl came from behind them, far off to the right.

Marjorie stiffened. She had heard the sound before, and it meant terror.

“Hippae,” said Sylvan in a hopeless voice. “Do they know we are here?”

“Not yet,” said Brother Mainoa.

“How do you know?” Marjorie demanded.

“You came to me for help, Lady Westriding, and I’m giving you help. How or why isn’t something we can talk of yet. I tell you truthfully that the Hippae do not yet know we are here. They will know, shortly, but not yet. I would suggest we move more rapidly.”

Tony sat up, kneeing El Dia Octavo into a canter. He rattled away down the narrow trail, the others following. Brothers Mainoa and Lourai were hanging onto their saddles, grunting with effort. “Push down with your feet,” Marjorie cried. “Sit straight. It’s no more difficult than a rocking chair.”

Brother Mainoa pushed down with his feet and continued to hang on. After a time the rocking motion became predictable and his body adapted to it. Rillibee/Lourai was quicker. He found the motion exhilarating. Grass heads slapped him in the face and he grinned widely, seeds in his teeth.

More howls from behind them, to both right and left.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Marjorie demanded over her shoulder.

“Swamp forest,” Mainoa said, grunting, “just ahead.”

He had no sooner said it than they came through the last of the tall grasses to see the forest at a considerable distance ahead and below them, stretching to the limits of sight in either direction. The trail they had been following ran toward the forest like an arrow flight, one aimed at a rocky knob which raised itself above the level of the distant trees. The bowl of grasses before them came only slightly above the horses’ bellies.

“Can the horses run faster?” Mainoa called plaintively. “If they can, we should.”

Don Quixote and El Dia Octavo had made the same decision or had been informed of it — at the same moment. They waited for no signal from their riders but sped down the slope, tails streaming behind them, ears flattened. The mares plunged after them, Irish Lass thundering away at the rear. For Mainoa it was as though he rode a nightmare. Though he knew he would fall, he did not. Though he knew he could not stay on, he did. The horse beneath him seemed determined to keep him in the saddle, and through all his panic he perceived that fact even as he heard the howls rising from the height they had just left. He could not risk looking back to see how close the Hippae were.