Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (9 page)

“
I don’t know, OK?”
she snapped, glaring at him. “Maybe. It didn’t make any sense,
then. It wasn’t like Herd Mother said
Ooh
, look out, here
comes the worst storm ever in all the recorded history of the domes,
”
Cheobawn hissed through clenched teeth. “She was saying crazy
things about demons in the sky and I didn’t know what that meant. I
still don’t. Not really.”

“
Is that why you stopped
using the map?” Connor asked, the question a damning accusation.
“You screwed up so you just stopped trying?”

He couldn’t have hurt her
more than if he had stabbed her in the heart. Just for moment, she
forgot to shield her thoughts from the ambient. It was a stupid
mistake. One that added weight to Connor’s assertion that she might
be losing control of her gift. The ambient flared scarlet for less
than a blink of the eye. Just for a moment. She sucked all her
emotions back into her heart, trying to spare Erin and the bennelk,
but it was already too late.

One did not touch a bennelk
with an unguarded heart. Strong emotion spread like wild fire in a
herd. Her mount bore the brunt of her lapse. Cloud Eye’s head
snapped up, looking for the thing that had caused her so much pain.
Connor had hurt them. Connor must pay. Spinning on her hind legs, her
tusks slashing the air, Cloud Eye bellowed in rage. Kite Wing leapt
away with a squeal of outraged protest, barely saving her rider from
a nasty leg wound. Cheobawn grabbed for the reins, her other hand on
the saddle horn to catch herself as Cloud Eye tried to dance out from
under her, kicking out in displeasure with her spurred hind legs.

Connor uttered a string of
curses as he jerked Kite Wing around, trying to dodge the lethal
claws. Wise Kite Wing managed to keep her rider and save him from
harm.

Sigrid shouted something as
he kicked Star into motion and aimed his bennelk at Erin's mount, Red
Leaf, knocking her out of harm’s way before spinning Star around to
do the same for Connor.

Cheobawn had no time to
care. She had other problems. Cloud Eye danced sideways under her,
her great clawed feet throwing up white puffs of powdered ice. Knees
pressed against the saddle, her body swaying to match Cloud Eye’s
motion, Cheobawn tried to persuade the mountain of animal flesh to
calm down and return to her place. Cloud Eye rumbled angrily and
shook her head as the reins tightened. Cheobawn had no choice but to
ease up on her grip and let her mount have her way.

Trouble was a contagion in a
group of bennelk. Kite Wing’s blood was up, Cloud Eye’s rage
catching hold inside her brain. She surged towards Cloud Eye, dodging
Sigrid’s attempt to catch her halter as she snapped in irritation
at the younger animal. Connor sawed ineffectually at her reins to no
effect. Cloud Eye, junior-most in the bennelk ranks, should have
given ground. Instead, she turned to defend herself, tusks up,
hissing her ire. Sigrid’s Star turned to join the fray.

“
Run,” Cheobawn shouted,
at the end of her patience. “Run, you silly beast.” She kicked
Cloud Eye hard in the ribs, jerked sideways on the reins and imagined
running free over an endless plain of white as fast as her bennelk
legs could carry her. Cloud Eye needed no more goading than that. She
leapt clear of the tangle of angry bennelk with a stiff-legged spring
that snapped Cheobawn’s head back with its power. They landed with
a bone jarring thump, elk and rider, on the verge of a frozen drift.
Cheobawn’s head snapped forward onto her chest. Before she could
regain control, Cloud Eye had scrambled ungracefully away, up the
bank and down the other side, claws tearing at the frozen snow,
sending up clouds of ice with each leap.

The next paddock, the grass
mowed short, had been swept clean of snow by the wind. The need to
run away echoed between animal and rider until Cheobawn was not sure
whose thoughts were whose. Cloud Eye, finding a solid purchase for
her toes, put her head down, laid her antlers along the sides of her
neck and ran as if a demon was on her tail. Cheobawn pressed her face
into the ruff under her fingers and let the bennelk mind take
command.

For a moment, Cheobawn
imagined that she was free; that the meadow in front of her was flat
and smooth and stretched on forever like an endless sheet of pack
ice, that they could run without needing to stop for rest or food,
time forgotten, with only the starlight from a million stars set in
an ebony sky to light their way. There, behind her eye lids, she
built the icy plain until it seemed almost real, the ice under Cloud
Eye’s toes solid as stone, the canopy of night so close you could
reach out and touch the stars.

She would have run forever,
letting the cold ease the pain in her heart, but a darkness moved
across the sky, blotting out the light. Other things, pale as
starlight, hung in the air beneath it. She sat up, reining Cloud Eye
in, her eyes peering upward trying to see the strange objects better.
Between one blink and the next the spell was broken.

There were no stars, no icy
plain, just the dusky violet sky above the Spine, the last rays of
the sun staining the snowy peaks a thousand shades of pink and
orange. Cloud Eye slowed of her own accord, her lungs heaving in the
intensely dry air. Cheobawn looked down in concern. Exertion in this
weather risked lung burn or worse yet, a malady called wet lung in
which an animal could drown from thousands of minute hemorrhages
inside the lung tissue. She knew this but had forgotten it in the
heat of the moment. Cloud Eye coughed. It was a small, dry sound.
Alarmed, she pulled her young friend to a stop.

I am sorry
, Cheobawn
thought.
My heart is full of storms that cloud my mind. This is
all my fault.

Rude males
, Cloud Eye
seethed,
should be put in their place
. Slashing tusks filled
Cloud Eye’s ambient. Cloud Eye was still very angry.

No. My error. Mothers
must shield their hearts from male thoughts. The one cannot exist in
the presence of the other,
Cheobawn said sadly, trying not to
cry.

You are Herd Mother’s
child. Your own herd is blind to your nature,
Cloud Eye snorted
in contempt as she stamped her feet.

I am tired of defending
my nature. Let’s go home,
Cheobawn said. Cloud Eye hissed
softly and shook her head so hard the brass loops in her bridle
rattled against the bony carapace that armored the ridge line of her
nose, but she turned back all the same.

Sigrid galloped up to them
and reined in hard. His mount, Star, planted her feet and skidded to
a halt, showering them in ice.

“
Are you mad?” Sigrid
yelled. “You cannot just run off when the whim takes you!” He
reached out to grab Cloud Eye’s lead rope but her bennelk would not
tolerate any more interference. Tired as she was, Cloud Eye hissed
and swung her head just enough to let him feel the back of her tusks.
Sigrid jerked his hand out of harm’s way as Star danced away.

“
Hush,” Cheobawn said
absently, patting the young bennelk gently. She glanced out of the
corner of her eye. Sigrid was staring down at her, his face flushed.
“Forgive our rudeness, Father,” she said. “She has no good
opinion of the males of her species and her sisterly advice is quite
fierce. You would be safer at a distance.”

Sigrid kneed his mount away,
giving her space as she set Cloud Eye into a slow walk back the way
they had come. Sigrid followed after a pace and pushed Star to catch
up but kept her well out of tusk range.

“
I know you have a
grievance with me,” Sigrid said, “and I am sorry for what
happened. I did not mean for you and Connor to bear the brunt of
Hayrald’s wrath.”

Cheobawn shook her head
tiredly. “I am of the same opinion as Cloud Eye, I think. You,
Connor, and Hayrald are made of the same cloth. Your only failing is
your gender and that cannot be helped. There is nothing to forgive.”

“
No, do not say such
things, Little Mother,” Sigrid said, pain in his voice. “Be
patient with us. Youth offends by its very nature and Elders offend
because they forget what it is like to be young. I know a bit about
how you and Connor must feel, with Tam, Alain, and Megan off
fulfilling their Sacred Duties. If you need someone to talk to, I
will listen.”

Cheobawn imagined telling
him about the unspeakable things that had their claws in her insides
and flinched. She would spare Sigrid this, whose heart was an open
book to anyone who bothered to look into his eyes. He was still young
enough to believe in honor and honest dealings, which was one of the
reasons she adored him. They were his best qualities, having
attracted Erin to his side and taken him far up the ladder of
success. The hard truths about being an Elder would dawn in his mind
eventually but she did not want to be the one to tear down the veils
of illusion that protected him from the lies and deceits. His was a
pure spirit, untainted and unjaded by the knowledge of Mora’s
subtle machinations.

The truth was they were all
puppets and Mora held all the strings.

She used to be like Sigrid,
believing in good and bad, white was white and black was black with
no gray area between. That was before she got old and learned that
the world was all gray and it was easy to get lost. What would he
think if she told him why Connor was upset with her? What if he
agreed with Connor, thinking her responsible for the deaths of so
many people?

“
I would not burden you
with the petty squabbles between packmates,” she said politely,
staring at the back of Cloud Eye’s ears.

“
Those are the worst,”
Sigrid said. “The petty squabbles, I mean. We forget to be polite,
living on top of each other as we do. I think it is a mistake to
become too relaxed with each other’s company. You forget yourself
and say things, careless things that hurt without intending to.”

Cheobawn turned to look at
him, surprised that he understood. The tall boy met her eyes. He had
the most amazingly blue eyes, the same color as the dusky sky
overhead. She had never noticed that before. Sigrid flushed under her
perusal and continued.

“
I am sure Connor did not
mean to offend you, Little Mother.”

“
Oh, no,” she said
sadly, “Offense was his intent. He has learned his skills of
conversation from the First Prime. Cut to the core and inspect the
offal that falls out of the wound after. That is Connor’s way.”

“
Surely not,” Sigrid
said gently. “You are his Ear.”

“
He doubts that very
thing, hence the argument,” she said, looking down at the intricate
carving in the leather of her saddle horn. “To be honest, I doubt
it myself.”

Sigrid’s silence was
damning. Did he think the same thing? Or was she as mad as the
bennelk and everybody was too polite to point that out.

“
There are too many rules,
don’t you think?” Sigrid said.

Cheobawn looked up, confused
by this sudden change in topic. Sigrid flushed under her blank gaze.

“
I mean, I think about
that sometimes. Rules. Rules create secrets. Secrets that cut us off
from one another, leaving us isolated and full of knowledge with no
one to share it with. I think the Packs are like that parable, the
one about the wise Mothers in the room without light who must guess
the nature of the animal hidden there. The animal is clever like the
bhotta. It tricks each Mother into believing it is a thing she wants
most. Thus, they start a shouting match over whose conclusion is
correct. I forget how it ends.”

“
It probably ate them,”
Cheobawn said, all to familiar with Mother's teaching tales.

Sigrid frowned and looked
away. He had been trying to tell her something. But what? Cheobawn
cocked her head, trying to listen beyond the words to the meanings
underneath. She had never thought of Sigrid as a philosopher.

Sigrid looked up and saw
that he had her full attention. He continued, a sudden intensity in
his voice.

“
Perhaps every one of us
carries a bit of the puzzle inside them, but we would never know it
because we are forbidden to share information between Packs. Or
between genders.”

She waited, holding her
breath.

“
What if, let’s say, I
were to tell you something that I was forbidden to say? Some small
bit of information. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” He looked
at her, waiting to see if she understood. She didn’t. Not yet.

“
Sure,” she said through
stiff lips, suddenly terrified of where this was going.

“
What if I found some of
your personal things in an abandoned day pack in Meetpoint dome two
summers ago? I remembered that day Blackwind Pack went out to fly
your kite. I saw your bruises afterward. A simple explanation is
usually the best. You were injured and forgot your pack. What if,
hypothetically, of course, I gave your belongings to Hayrald and
trusted him when he said he would pass it on to you?” Sigrid said.