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I slid from her back, walked two steps from her, and lay down on my belly in the muck I putit through my teeth After I had drunk, I lay there still, ue and frayed lips back to a semblance of normalcy Above me, Keeksha drank and then breathed and then drank some more Finally I heard the heavy splashes of her hooves as she moved out of the shallow pond and to the cracked earth at the rass that surrounded the sink I envied her

I stood slowly and wiped a scum of slime from my chin and then shook it from my hands I could feel the water in my belly, and felt almost sickened by the sudden plenitude of it I waded out of the muck and inspected our tiny sanctuary The cut of the watercourse meant that ere below the ept plain I could hear the constant mutter of the never-still air above us Our tiny hollow cupped silence Then, as I stood still, the chorus of life slowly took up its song again Insects spoke to one another A dragonfly hovered over the water The gore frogs that had gone into hiding during our splashing began to eobbets of spilled blood, they were blots of scarlet on the floating scum and stubby reeds of our pond I knew aat our arrival They were toxic little creatures When I was s up in hison the skin

I picked and ate so inthat I could fashion into a vessel for carrying water I dreaded the thought of the hunger and thirst I’d have to endure during my journey home, but not as deeply as I dreaded my confrontation with ht e I washed the thick blood froain I’d carry the reminder of my broken promise to the end of my days For the rest of my life, whenever anyone asked me about it, I’d have to adone back on ave way to plates of roughly cracked earth that showed how the pond had shrunk since winter I studied the tracks in theround had been moist, a little shrub-deer had visited the water One blurry set of tracks could have been a big cat or the slopped prints of a wild dog Beyond the cracked edge of the bare ground, dry grass stood in the skeletal shade of a dead sapling I picked several double handfuls of the grass and then approached Keeksha She see the dust and sweat from her back and flanks, but soon decided she enjoyed it It was not just that she’d found water for us I did it to reood care of my

Afterward, Ito sleep the afternoon away, then awaken, drink as much water as I could hold, and then ride as the stars pointeddown and broke the skinny branches away froht co I placed it by my side as I lay down to sleep As ed to be ho of the insects and the peeping of the gore frogs

CHAPTER 4

Crossing the Bridge

I opened my eyes The dark had not yet thickened into the full blackness of a night on the Plains I re my senses to their limits to discover what had awakened me Then I knew The silence I had dozed off to the relentless chorus of insects and frogs Now they were still, concealing the

My stick was still beneath rip on it and rolled my eyes to find Keeksha The mare stood, ears pitched forward, intently aware I shiftedto see, and then there was Dewara stood outlined against the darkening sky I instantly rolled to uard position as if it were a proper pike instead of a brittle pole The surge of hatred and fear that I felt surprised me Dewara’s swanneck was sheathed at his side I suspected it was still slick with my blood I had only the stick, and I was suddenly painfully aware of ainst the mature and solidly muscled warrior

He did not make a sound, but stalked slowly down the incline to my pond I held myself ready, and felt suddenly very calaze as he advanced and then a slow smile bared his pointed teeth "You learn the lesson I teach, I think," he said