Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (6 page)

“
Stop that,” she said,
stamping her foot in irritation. “Stop trying to change the
subject. We are just going to find the herds. That is all. The ice
demons are not my problem.”

“
What did she say?”
Druda asked. Druda, unlike the rest of the village who operated under
a burden of intractable skepticism, accepted without question that
Cheobawn could talk to his charges.

“
Herd Mother,” Cheobawn
said, casting an acid glare at the bennelk, “feels the need to
share her wisdom, most of it unhelpful to the situation at hand.”

“
Ah,” Druda said, as he
hid a smile against the bennelk’s nose and patted Herd Mother’s
neck, “One should not try to teach an oldma the difference between
bloodstones and acorns.”

Cheobawn glared at him
crossly. It was just this kind of indecipherable oldma wisdom she did
not need to hear. Was he siding with Herd Mother? She opened her
mouth to defend her bruised honor.

“
What do you mean by ice
demons?” Sybille asked. Cheobawn hiccuped in surprise and spun
around. How long had her nestmate been standing there?

“
It is nothing. I … Herd
… it is Dancer’s word for grimstorms.”

The skeptical sneer on
Sybille’s face made it obvious that she did not believe a word of
Cheobawn’s explanation. Herd Mother made a rude noise but otherwise
remained silent while Cheobawn clamped her teeth together to keep
them from chattering as she shivered under Sybille’s cold stare.
The silence grew as the air frosted with Sybille’s displeasure. The
Mother’s eyes did not leave Cheobawn’s face as she extended a
gloved hand towards the wrangler. Druda placed the reins in her palm
and left the stall, sliding silently around Cheobawn, the look on his
face attesting to the fact that he wanted no part of the conflict
that existed between the Coven’s Third Mother and the little Black
Bead.

The moment would not end. It
seemed to stretch on and on, in the space between one breath and the
next. Cheobawn struggled under its weight. Like all the Mothers in
the Coven, Sybille was frighteningly ruthless and deadly in her
kindness. Though Cheobawn had never seen her kill with the knives on
her belt, she did not doubt for a moment that Sybille would use them
if she thought it would solve her problem. Cheobawn never wanted to
be that kind of problem.

Sybille broke the spell with
a jerk of her chin.

“
Vinara is holding a mount
for you. Move it. You waste my time standing about having imaginary
conversations with animals.”

Cheobawn, her knees suddenly
weak, did not rise to the bait though the words were hurtful to both
her and Herd Mother. Instead, she pushed the stall door wide and
stepped away.

“
Cheobawn,” Sybille
said, stopping her with just the word. Cheobawn turned and looked
back at her nestmother. “The survival of the domes and your own
survival are not the same thing. Do me a favor and remember that,”
Sybille said softly.

Cheobawn, too terrified to
dissect the meaning of that threat, simply turned and fled, the
weight of Sybille’s displeasure chasing at her heels.

The
muster’s chaos had turned into a well-ordered ranking by the time
she got back to the stable yard. The bennelk stood in pairs, forming
a double line that curled around the limits of the yard. Each animal
had a wrangler holding onto its lead, keeping them stationary and
calm. Cheobawn jogged up the line looking for Connor. Under all the
cold weather gear it was hard to tell Father from Mother. She settled
on looking for the smallest rider besides herself. Gann resolved her
dilemma by waving at her from the middle of the troop. His charge,
Cloud Eye, was still riderless. Connor sat atop his own mount next to
Cloud Eye. He had a surly look on his face; he was not happy about
something, either mount or placement in the line.

Cheobawn grimaced. She had
problems of her own. She was not too pleased with getting Cloud Eye.
The young bennelk was a novice to this kind of formation and would
need a little schooling. Perhaps that was why she had been placed
well to the rear of the line- where any possible chaos caused by her
inexperience would not set the rest of the column off but far enough
from the last riders to not offer a convenient target to any
predator, however remote that possibility might be.

Cheobawn scrambled to don
riding gloves, mittens, and a woolsey face mask and neck scarf. Gann
moved to her side to help her mount while she buckled her riding
helmet on. The wrangler shoved her fur hat on her head, tossed her up
into the saddle, and adjusted the stirrups around her boots, fumbling
at the buckles in his haste while she checked the quick release snaps
around her bladed stick under her right knee. She had mounted just in
time. Vinara rode down the line for one last inspection, checking
everyone’s status before leading them out the yard gates. Cheobawn
looked up as the head drover stopped next to her.

“
I thought about not
letting this one ride with us,” Vinara said, studying Cloud Eye’s
form, “but we need the manpower and she needs the experience. I am
trusting that you can keep her in line today. As always, I am
grateful for your help.”

Cheobawn flushed, not
exactly sure how to respond to the unaccustomed compliment with so
many eyes watching. Sybille surged by on Herd Mother, intent on
claiming her position at the head of the column. Vinara’s mount
spun about on her hind feet and leapt after her. By the time Cheobawn
opened her mouth to thank the Head Drover, she was gone.

Connor sniggered softly as
he leaned across the gap between them. “You are such a dufus
sometimes. Would it have been so hard to say
Yes, Mother, thank
you, Mother
?”

Cheobawn ignored his jibe as
she patted Cloud Eye’s shoulder.

Herd Mother says I must
do as you say,
the bennelk said as she danced nervously sideways
on the tips of her claws. Cheobawn nudged her with a knee to remind
her where she needed to be.

You will be alright. Kite
Wing knows where to go.
Kite Wing was Connor’s mount. She was a
sister to Herd Mother and being neither excitable nor hard headed,
she was a perfect mount for an inexperienced rider. Vinara used her
to train all the new foals. The five-year-old Red Claw was next in
line in front of Cheobawn, being ridden by Soral, Sigrid's Second
Ear. Meshel sat next to her on another sleek three-year-old whose
name she had forgotten.

Just keep your nose on
Red Claw’s tail while we are on the trail,
Cheobawn told Cloud Eye.

The column began to move out
the gate. As Soral kicked Red Claw into motion, she glanced over her
shoulder with an acid stare, leaned out of her saddle with a
practiced grace, and said something in Meshel’s ear. Cheobawn did
not hear most of what the older girl said but Soral made sure the
sound of the last word carried to her ears. It sounded suspiciously
like
babysitting
.

Connor snarled and forgot
what he was about. Luckily Kite Wing did not need instruction. She
surged forward to follow Meshel’s mount, very nearly unseating him.
Cloud Eye hissed and reached out to take a nip out of Red Claw’s
tail. Cheobawn pounded her fist into the animal’s shoulder,
distracting her for a moment before kicking her into motion. It took
a few strides to catch up and get back into position, the bennelk
behind her grumbling loudly.

Naughty, Cloud Eye. No
biting the other sisters,
Cheobawn said, adding a forbiddingly
stern tang to the emotions of their exchange as she settled her mount
into place.

You wanted to bite
,
Cloud Eye said,
I heard you
.

Yes, but I showed
restraint. I did not even bare my teeth at her though she deserved
it,
Cheobawn said, sending a cold stare at Soral’s back.

Next time
, Connor’s
finger sign said,
let her bite. Just aim higher
.

Careful
, Cheobawn
signed with a quick shake of her head.
Do not rile the animals
.
But the sign for animal included a modifier that meant
young
Mother
, an obvious reference to Soral. Connor laughed, perhaps a
little too loudly. It wasn’t that funny. Meshel flicked him an
annoyed glare.

Connor rolled his eyes in
her direction. Cheobawn buried her face in her mittens to keep from
laughing. Older kids were always so deadly serious.

The column turned left just
out of the gates and followed the well-trampled road around the base
of the dome. Vinara walked the mounts for a handful of minutes,
letting the animals work the kinks out and warm their muscles before
she kicked her bennelk into a ground-eating lope, Herd Mother and
Sybille close to her side. As Herd Mother’s trumpet of joy echoed
down the line, Cheobawn smiled. It had been a long, hard winter. Herd
Mother was not the only one glad to be out and running.

Here in the lee of the dome,
the wind-driven snow collected in great drifts that, in some spots,
towered high over their heads. By accident or design, the same forces
that built the drifts also kept the verge of the dome clear. Vinara
led the herd into this sheltered canyon and kicked her mount into a
gallop over the dry ground. The column sorted itself out and followed
single file behind her. The sandy ground was kept free of snow and
ice by the heat from the dome, held close inside this small pocket of
air, insulated from the more bitter temperatures out in the open
fields.

It was a landscape that
encouraged imagination. Ice giants walked this fairytale land
carrying their clubs made of stone on their shoulders, covering the
trees in the forest with hoar frost with every breath. If you wished
it, the steaming breath of bennelk might become the fiery breath of
dragons, this fortress of ice, their eyrie. Cheobawn leaned low over
Cloud Eye’s shoulders as she followed Connor into the tunnel and
let the ambient of the world seep into her mind for the first time in
ages.

It was such a strange thing,
she mused. At night, when she was alone in her room in Mora’s
house, the ambient seemed overwhelmingly big; one could listen too
hard, filling your brain full of the thoughts of things that were
stranger than human, immense things, sentient things, whose
motivations were darkly primordial. Yet surrounded by the herd, she
became buoyed up by the delight they took in the everyday acts of
living. She felt brave in their midst. Perhaps it was just that she
was less alone.

Winter ambient was normally
a sleepy ambient. The short, cold days under leaden skies slowed
everything down. Even the humans under the dome moved at a slower,
gentler pace. Winter was the time of quiet industry for the tribes.

The tedious tasks, the
crafts that took days to finish, these were saved for the forced
confinement in the long winters days under the dome. The bins of
wool, linen, and silk, the skeins dyed with bark, roots, flower
petals, and insect carapaces were woven into cloth, the cloth turned
into clothes, wall hangings, rugs, and blankets. The small mountains
of long needles, reeds, and grasses gathered over the summer were
turned into baskets, mats, and wide-brimmed sun bonnets. The sheds
full of dried lumber were put to carving knife, plane, and lathe as
the craftsmen filled the season’s requests for musical instruments,
furniture, weapons, or artwork.

The furnaces and the kilns
roared nonstop, melting the sands into glass and the ores into metals
with the excess heat vented through the dome to keep the winter
gardens in bloom and the pools in the bathhouse hot.

Epic poems were written and
polished in front of the captive audiences at evening meals in the
Common Room. Musical plays and dramas were performed and the best
were chosen to be part of the entertainment for the first spring
Trade Fair.

Training continued but the
jousting matches and combat tournaments were replaced with quieter
games that encouraged strategy, organization, and precision.

The patrols went out but
only as far as the last warded circle. Cheobawn thought it was more
of a formality than a security measure. There was nothing to guard
against, really, with all the domestic animals inside the wards; but
the bennelk needed reminding that their lot in life was not merely
standing about in the stable yard with nothing to do but grow fat on
summer hay.

Life inside the dome
mirrored that on the outside. The bhotta and all its lizard cousins
detested the snow. They would sleep until spring, their minds filled
with the memories of hot summer days and fat, crunchy prey. The
stinging spiders, like all the arachnid species, had sealed their
silk-lined burrows at the first hint of cold, putting themselves into
cryogenic suspension, their minds a liquid placeholder in the ambient
as were the minds of the buzzers and the croakers who had buried
themselves in the mud of the bogs.