C. Cherryh - Kutath

"What are we into?" he asked. "Boz, are you sure?”

"I'm sure of nothing. But I suggest we take our chances on the known quantity. That if we go looking long enough ... we might turn up something that doesn't follow the rules we know, even what little we know. And what do we do then?"

"What do we do with the mri?”

"We get a contact We try the names we know. We get back into the range of Duncan's mri and we turn on the lights.”

Galey's eyes slid aside to Kadarin, back again. "That totally breaks with the orders I have.”

"I know that”

"We rest here the night; we'll go back tomorrow morning, if that's what we're going to do.”

"Now." She shivered with the thought. "My old bones don't like the thought of a night walk; but how much time can we have? If we delay here, then we're giving up time; and if it comes to waiting on the mri… then time is the only thing we have to use, isn't it?”

Galey sat still a long moment, staring at nothing in particular. Finally he looked at Kadarin. "You have a word in this.”

"What works," Kadarin said. "What works and gets us home with it done.”

"It's on my head," Galey said. "Say that I ordered you, all the way.”

"Kel'anth," Bias whispered. "Watch says they are coming." Niun sprang up from morning meal and excused himself through the Kel which scattered for their weapons. He walked along beside kel Dias, out into the dark before dawn and a stiff wind out of the south; his kel-sword he had with him, and his dus determined to follow, inanimate and living accouterments. He tucked his veil into place and felt somewhere not far from him the other dus, and Duncan, heard running steps this way and that through the camp, messengers dispatched to the other tents, to advise them of outsider approach. Hlil came up beside him, matched his pace. Ahead of him the watch stirred out, from the seeming of a rock on the crest of the eastward dune, a robed kel'en unfolding to stand and point mutely toward the east, to the dim showing of dunes in the starlight.

The Kel spread out along the crest facing that darkness, where the hint of shadow moved far, far off. Niun found himself, as he ought to be, the center of the line, with Hlil at his right hand and the dus at his left Duncan was not far from him ... he and his dus had no right to stand so near center; he turned his head to see, and found him by Has, in second-rank, orderly and with second-rank distributed evenly as they ought, accepting of that presence… second-rank's business, he reckoned, disturbed-turned his face again to the dark and waited, the dus which touched him beginning a vibrating song, incongruous here, this over-confidence. It sang against him, such that only those nearest might hear at all, so deeply that it shuddered into bone and flesh, numbing, soothing. For a moment there was awareness of the mate a few paces behind; of Duncan, anxious; and Ras, a bleeding shadow; of Melein awake in another tent and an exultation so fierce it pulsed in the ears; of sen'ein calm, kath'ein love, the sleeping peace of children… camps and kel'ein scattered around about them, far across the dunes. Farther still, dus-sense, contact with others…

He shuddered suddenly, disrupted the gnosis, pulled out of it from deeper than he had ever fallen within it. Duncan's manner with them ... no restraint. No barriers. The song reached to others, to sweep them in also. "Yai!" he said. It stopped, and the dus threw its head, brushing against him. There were others out there, beyond the dark and the shadow which had taken on distinction on the opposing crest, that flowed down it, weapons and Honors aglitter in the starlight

Hao'nath; that was apparent by the direction of them; and by the way they came, their intent was plain, for warriors walked long-striding, with hands loose, at random intervals and not by order.

"Ai," someone murmured nearby, the whole Kel relaxing; a current of joy ran through the dusei like a strong wind.

Other masses appeared on the horizon, signaled by the first breaking of daylight, the appointed time. One in the east, one southeast, and north. . . perhaps.

The hao'nath were coming upslope now, hasting somewhat in the nearness of the camp. Rhian sTafa led them, center to center, and Niun came out to meet him, unveiled as Rhian unveiled, embraced the older kel'anth gladly. The Kels mingled, kel'ein who had come to know each others' faces, finding each other again with a relief strangely like a homecoming, for veils were down and hands outstretched.

There was for the moment lack of order; and in such chaos Niun turned, looked for Duncan, who had likewise unveiled, conspicuous among the others as the dus by him. He turned and looked back down the slope, and saw others coming as the hao'nath had come, easily and without hostility, the second and the third tribes, with the fourth now a shadow against the coming dawn.

'They are coming too," he said to Hlil, overjoyed, and at a sudden and cold impulse from the dus by him he turned again, toward Duncan, abruptly as if a hand had caught his shoulder.

Rhian had paused there, only looking at Duncan and Duncan at him, and Niun cuffed at the dus to stop that unease from building.… but Rhian turned his back to walk away.

"I am not sick," Duncan said, audible to all about them. "Sir.”

Rhian turned again, and Niun's heart lurched, for all he approved that answer, for all he had some faith in the hao'nath himself. Rhian tilted his head, looked Duncan up and down, and the beast by him as well.

"You are unscarred," Rhian said, which settled any matter of challenge between them, but not of right and wrong.

"My inexperience loosed my fear; and fear loosed the beast," Duncan said. "My profound apology, sir.”

Again there was long silence, for a kel'anth's pride was at stake. "You ran well," Rhian said, "kel'en." And he turned his back again, the while a murmur came about them… ai-ai-ai, that was relief and deprecation at once, Kutathi applause, as for a good joke in kel-tent, as to say it had not been so serious. Rhian shrugged and smiled grimly, touched one of his own folk and touched the hand of a kel'e'en truemate, she might be.

Duncan stared after him soberly, as if he well knew what a chill wind had brushed him.

And suddenly the ja'ari were among them, with Tian s’ Edri at their head; they had met with Kalis of the ka'anomin of Zohain and her band and theirs had joined in the madness of companionship on the way, poured among them like a black wind out of the dawn, glad to find the hao'nath ahead of them. Niun and Hlil and Rhian met the two kel'anthein, and stood atop the crest to watch the arrival of yet another group who came as the others, in haste and gladly.

"Mari," said kel Tian, who had come in nearest them. And soon another black mass had joined them, and Elan of the mari was among them, to embrace and be embraced.

"Last but the patha," Tian said, but the excitement now quickly faded, and Niun gazed out toward the lightening horizon with increasing unease. There was no sign of the fifth tribe. Quiet began to settle over the mingled Kel, until all eyes were on that vacant expanse of sand and sky.

Eventually there was total quiet, and where had been confusion, the line began to expand itself along the crest, the mood gone grim.

Light came full enough for colors, an amber and apricot dawn which flung hills into relief. "Perhaps," said Elan, "they hope for us to walk to them." And there was a murmuring at that from Tian and Rhian.

Then there was something, a darkness moving, a shadow. A few pointed, but no one spoke after that, not the long while it took for folk to walk so far, not during the intervals in which the comers were out of sight in the rolls of the land.

They vanished a last time, and reappeared on the crest facing, a huge number, nigh five hundred kel'ein, and hastening down the slope in friendly disorder.