Sheri Tepper - Grass

Rigo looked down with a sense of forboding. Many pale faces looked up. And there were already Hippae down there! It was indeed as though they had been waiting He thought of telling Sebastian to go back, return home But that would seem such arrant cowardice! Death before dishonor, he sneered at himself. Of course. “Set it down,” he said.

When he opened the car door, Obermun Jerril bon Haunser was poised outside, his face empty of any emotion.

“Your Excellency,” he said. “I have the honor of conveying to you the challenge of Obermun Stavenger bon Damfels. He wishes me to say that the whore, your wife, has taken away his son, Sylvan. And that you will answer for it or be trampled to death.” He gestured backward, toward the wall of the estancia, where a dozen Hippae stood, shifting from foot to foot, clashing the barbs on their necks despite the empty-faced men and women on their backs.

Rigo felt molten iron rise into his face. That Jerril bon Haunser had said no more than he, Rigo, had implied toward Marjorie only redoubled his fury. “How dare you?” he snarled “How dares any of you?” He raised his voice to a shout. “A mother goes to look for her daughter, and you call her a whore? It is your wives who have made themselves whores. Your wives and your daughters! Who have whored themselves to them!” He thrust a rigid finger at the rank of Hippae along the wall. “Your wives and daughters have spread their legs for lovers who are not even human!”

There was no quiver of movement among the mounted men. Obermun bon Haunser’s face did not change. He might as well have been deaf and blind. He seemed not to have heard Rigo’s contemptuous insult. He bowed, twisted his lips into a vacant smile, and gestured toward an approaching Hippae. “Your mount,” he said.

Rigo felt Persun seize his arm. “Let us leave, Your Excellency. We can!”

Rigo shook off Persun’s hand. “I will not run,” he snarled through a red curtain of rage. “Not from them, not from any of them.”

“Then for God’s sake take this,” and Persun thrust something into Rigo’s jacket pocket from behind. “A laser knife, Your Excellency. One of my carving tools. The Lady Marjorie wilt not forgive me if I let you die.”

Rigo heard him at some level, though his anger would not let him respond. He dropped out of the car and stood waiting for the Hippae. It grinned at him, showing its teeth, eyes gleaming. There was no mistaking the impudence, the malice, the arrogance in those eyes. With a surge of panic Rigo realized that Stavenger bon Damfels had not issued the challenge. The challenge had come from the Hippae! It was they who had arranged and directed this confrontation, they who had choreographed this movement of men and beasts, Jerril bon Haunser did only their will, not his own.

Rigo cast a quick glance upward, toward the estancia. There were people gathered on the terraces, watching, mouths open in astonishment or wonder or fear. So this was not a familiar sight. How had the beasts managed it? How had they winkled their riders out of the estancia? How had they assembled these hunters?

There was no time to consider hows or whys. The Hippae before him thrust out a mottled blue leg, muscled like a monument. Rigo fumbled for his rein ring, found it in his pocket, tossed it clumsily over the bottom barb, and felt it tighten as he leapt upward. His toes found the stirrup holes. He braced himself just in time as the beast reared high. He was staring at the sky, suspended only by the tightened reins and his toes, leg and back muscles locked rigid to hold him in place. The Hippae walked on its hind legs, stalking, laughing an almost human laughter, seeming to move as easily in that position as it did on four legs. After what seemed an eternity, it dropped forward once more.

Another beast loomed beside him, a great green Hippae, lining up beside the blue as for a parade. Stavenger sat upon the green, face forward and empty as a hatched egg, only the shell which had once housed him remaining. The green Hippae clashed its barbs and Stavenger shouted. There were no words, only meaningless rage. His mouth opened. His face reddened. He howled. Then his mouth closed and he sat there once more, unmoved.

The blue beast clashed its barbs and Rigo felt himself shouting. He bit down on the shout, closed it off, swallowed it. Fury rose up in him and forced the Hippae out of his mind. The beasts danced, side by side, like a pair in a quadrille. They galloped, trotted, changed legs, did it once again. The horseman in Rigo grew even more wrathful. They had learned this from Don Quixote and El Dia Octavo. This was mockery. This was humiliation. He twisted his left hand tightly in both reins to free his right hand, then felt in his pocket for the laser knife. A simple, ordinary tool, one that Persun used to carve bits of wood and grass stem, one he had probably used on the panels in Marjorie’s study. A simple tool.

And yet… it could be a weapon. He stared at the neck barbs clashing before him. They looked like horn. Or like teeth. If they were indeed like teeth or horn, the beast might not feel it if they were cut. The knife had a blade of variable power and length. At higher power the blade could take off these barbs at flesh level. As the Hippae danced, Rigo reached one hand forward, thumbed the knife on, and touched the top of the second barb. The knife cut a notch into it, like a heated blade into wax. The Hippae didn’t react. Rigo cast a quick look around. No one had seen him. No one was looking. This prancing dance was not for the benefit of the zombies along the wall, not for Jerril or Eric or even Stavenger. This was for the Hippae themselves. They were the only ones enjoying it, and they were so arrogantly intent upon displaying their power that they had not bothered to keep watch upon the riders. Rigo cut away the sharp edges of the first barb, narrowing it to make a place he could grip, then slipped the knife back into his pocket and waited to see what would happen next.

Next was a challenge. Bellowing at one another. Turning their backs on one another and using both front and rear feet to kick clods at one another. Clods? Something black and powdery that they took some trouble to find. Black dust powdered down upon him. Then the Hippae faced one another again and rose on their back hooves. Clashing barbs, hissing through teeth they separated, dancing backward until a considerable distance had opened between them. A hundred yards. Two hundred. Rigo risked a look at the assembly on the walls, at the mounted men. Nothing. No cries, no excitement. Only this deadly calm. He gritted his teeth and hung on. At last, the green beast lowered his head and charged. Rigo’s mount did the same.

The opposing mount was coming up on his right, neck arched down and turned so that the barbs jutted wickedly outward. Rigo’s mount had taken the same position. They were like two warhorses, thundering toward one another. Neither of the beasts could see where he was going. Each threatened the other. Stavenger sat like a dummy, unseeing. At the last possible moment, Rigo jerked the toe of his right boot out of the stirrup hole and stood on his left toe, right leg high and bent back, holding himself high by locking his left hand tightly around the blunted barb.

The barbs of Stavenger’s beast meshed with those of Rigo’s mount, passed through and raked the place where Rigo’s booted leg had been, missing the blue Hippae skin by the thickness of a finger. Still holding himself high, Rigo could see Stavenger’s right boot in tatters. Blood blew from the man’s leg, long ragged lines trailing into the dust. The animals had no intention of hurting one another. The barbs were aimed at their rider’s legs.

Rigo settled upon the creature’s shoulders, and as they moved apart he took out the knife and cut the four barbs immediately in front of him, striking them to make them fall to one side. Though there were longer barbs on the neck, the amputation made him safe from being skewered, at least. The Hippae had turned and were readying themselves for another charge. They had to aim themselves like missiles; once their heads were down, they could not see where they were going. Some instinct or long practice let them know precisely where their opponent was, however. They passed this time on the left, the barbs meshing like gears, screaming as they plunged past one another, and once again Rigo moved his leg and balanced high on the opposite side of his mount, glued there by equal parts rage and fear.