Jo Clayton - The Burning Ground

Silence.

Thann crept from xe’s corner and started on. Xe’d been careless before, too focused on Isaho and frightened for her to remember line-of-sight; the pellet burn across xe’s shoulder was painful reminder that kept xe from forgetting pain. Bent over, black braid falling past xe’s ears to tickle xe’s chin, xe quickened xe’s pace to an awkward trot, scuttling from shadow to shadow along the battered street.

Shots ahead. A squeal and a blast of pain and fear from Isaho.

Mouth working soundlessly in xe’s distress, Thann straightened and raced toward xe’s daughter.

Xe saw her finally, a small figure with a dangling arm, trotting by an open space as pellets rattled round her. Xe held xe’s breath until Isaho was swallowed by a wall’s shadow, then plunged across the gap and pinned her to the bricks with xe’s body.

Isaho started struggling, whimpering, “nanny, Anyameami, Linojin,.I have to go to Linojin. Mam and Baba and Keleen, they’re waiting for me.”

By the time Thann quieted her, the sniper had stopped shooting and the big guns were silent. It was near sundown, the shadows were long and thick, the wind rising, whipping grit and debris against them, against the walls, scouring clown the streets between the hulks still standing.

“Thanny, I’ve got to go to Linojin. Nobody listens. I’ve got to go.”

Thann patted her. +When you’re healed, Shashi. I promise you, we’ll go together.+ Wincing at the pain in xe’s shoulder, xe slipped xe’s arms under xe’s daughter and grunted back onto xe’s feet. Xe lumbered across the open space, then began working xe’s way back to the shelter they were sharing with Cousin Mikil.

Her shoulders rounded, her face weary, nothing in her eyes but fatigue, Mikil watched while Thann bandaged the pellet wound on Isaho’s arm. She turned her head at a weak whistle from the other room, but she didn’t move.

Thann cupped xe’s hand across Isaho’s brow, sighed.

“Fever?”

Thann got to xe’s feet. +A little,+ xe signed. +The wound is clean now, and she’s strong; I doubt there’ll be trouble.+

“What about you?”

+It’s just a burn, barely broke the skin.+

Mikil rubbed at her eyes, then reached out, touched Thames ann. “I don’t…”

Thann lifted a hand, stopped her. +I know,+ xe signed. +As soon as my baby’s well, we’ll find another place.+

Mikil started to speak, then shifted to signing after another glance over her shoulder. +It’s Ankalan who’s fussing. He says you’re not his clan, so why should he have to give you room and feed you. When he hears about this… he told me if that femlit runs off once more and makes fusses for us, she goes. And our anya…+ She quivered her hand in a “what-can-I-do” gesture. +Seeing you reminds xe too painfully of what xe has lost.+

+I know, Mika. These are hard times and they make for hard choices.+

Thann bent over Isaho, bathed her face and arms, got her to drink some bitter halaba tea, tucked her in again, and sat beside her trying to decide what they should do.. More and more even the clan-bond was being broken. The people in Khokuhl were turning into scavenger gangs picking over the dead city, chancing death each time they left their holes to forage. How long before they were feeding on each other?

Would it really be worse to leave the city and try to reach Linojin? At least Isaho would be happier. And if they had just a little luck and were very, very careful.. Xe slid xe’s fingers into xe’s shirt, touched the flesh about the pellet burn. A little heat. Not bad, though. Maybe stiffness in the morning.

Isaho muttered in her sleep. Thann smoothed xe’s hand over the child’s hair, brushed back a curl that had crept across her eyes, left xe’s hand tucked up against xe’s daughter’s face while xe whistled very softly an old lullaby.

As she huddled among boulders deep in a thicket of thornbush, Wintshikan tried to ignore the horror below, but the breeze climbing the mountains from the ixis camp brought her the smell of roasting meat and screams from one of the women they’d caught, brought Impix laughter and broken bits of words.

Zell was shaking all over, xe’s tears hot as they touched her arm. She freed the arm, laid it about xe’s shoulders and pulled xe close, wrapping the Shawl about xe to keep away the sounds and as much of the smell as she could. She couldn’t do anything about Zell’s thinta and tried not to think about the emotions Zell shared with the dying anyas.

The awful thing whispered by her sister Hekan was true. Impix phelas ate Pixa anyas. Ate their flesh as the flesh of a beast, not with honor and sorrow at a funeral feast. Butchered them and ate them. She thought about the empty eyes of the Pixa leader and it came to her that Pixa phelas were no better, that they also ate anyas when they could. Her mouth flooded, her stomach heaved, but she clamped her lips shut, swallowed hard, and barely breathed as she waited for this terrible night to end.

The Impix phela left before dawn.

They were so noisy in their departure that Wintshikan was afraid of ambush and clutched Zell tight when the anya tried to get to xe’s feet. “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till I’m sure they’re gone.”

The sky grayed in the east, a line of pink touched the bit of peak Wintshikan could see through the tangle of branches and vines. Below, at the stopping ground, a sicul whistled and chirruped, then half a dozen others joined in. In the distance a wild chal barked, then ran yipping from something big enough to scare it but too slow to catch it.

The light strengthened.

Shadows crept along the ground.

+It is thne.+

Weary to the bone and sick at what she knew she was going to see, Wintshikan put her hand on the boulder she crouched against and levered herself onto her feet. “Zell, stay here.”

The anya shook xe’s head, but xe stayed very close to Wintshikan as the Heka worked through the thornbush onto the more open slope under the muweh trees. The growing light wasn’t kind to xe, putting hollows in xe’s cheeks and deepening the lines in xe’s dark and gracile face.

The tents lay in rags. Everything the Impix couldn’t carry off that could be broken was shattered; what they couldn’t destroy, they urinated and defecated on. Eggs were stomped into smears, the embryos inside unrecognizable as anything but a scribble on the ground. Anya bones were scattered about, broken, the marrow sucked from them. All mixed together. Who could tell how many were gone. Seven of the Ixis women were sprawled on the trail, stakes driven through them. They’d died hard, but not from the stakes. Blind Bukh and Oldmal Yancik were tossed in a heap with three smaller bodies, the two mints and one femlit who couldn’t run fast enough but were too big to carry. Throats cut.

Zell thrust xe’s fingers in xe’s mouth, curled xe’s tongue and let out the loud warbling whistle which was the emergency summons that was supposed to bring the ixis together.

One by one those still alive came back. Four womenXaca, Nyen, Luca, Patal. Two anyas-Wann and Hidan, neither of them in egg nor yet in bond. Two young fernlits, the last of the ixis children-Kanilli who was Xaca’s daughter and Zaro whose mother had a stake through her heart, whose anya was bones with the others.

They came separately from under the trees but stood huddled together near the blackened spot where the Praise fire had been. They were silent, even Luca, standing with eyes down, looking uncertain, fear stronger than grief.

Wintshikan left the pile of the dead and came to stand with her arm about Zell’s shoulders. She drew in a breath, let it out. “Xaca, see if you can find a knife, a pot that’s usable. We need to bless the dead.”