Tags:
Rowan,
bel,
inner lands,
outskirter,
steerswoman,
steerswomen,
blackgrass,
guidestar,
outskirts,
redgrass,
slado
in your book
then." Rowan was accustomed to recording her day's observations in
her logbook in the evening, by firelight. That would have to
change.
"A moment." Rowan retrieved her own felt
cloak from her bedroll, shook it, folded it, and stowed it in her
pack, using its cushioning to prop her tubular map case more
securely. Hesitating, she uncapped the case and pulled one chart
from its center, the one she and Hanlys had amended. She unrolled
it and held it up to compare with the landscape around her. Bel
moved closer.
Rowan mused over the new notations. "If we
travel due east, we'll cross through some forest before we reach
the veldt." This was the name the Outskirters gave for the wide
plains of redgrass. Beyond, where blackgrass predominated, was the
prairie. "We can reach it in less than three weeks."
Bel scanned the landscape. "I don't know
about that. We can travel quickly if we travel alone and don't meet
any trouble. But we ought to try to stay with the next tribe we
meet, even though it slows us down. The land isn't very bad
here—it's mostly Inner Lands and not much Outskirts, but that will
change. It'll be safer, and easier, to travel in a group."
Except for the tanglebrush, Rowan had yet to
note any evidence of the depredations commonly attributed to the
Outskirts. How soon, she wondered, would it alter? How quickly, and
how completely?
She rolled up the map and replaced it. It
slid inside its mates and down into the case with a hollow thump,
one of the sounds in all the world that Rowan found most
satisfying. "Very well, then," she said, "until we do meet a tribe,
let's cover as much ground as quickly as we can, alone."
The clouds had moved in sometime after
Rowan's second watch the previous night; now they deepened and
darkened. The breeze hesitated, backed, and a light sprinkle of
rain swept in, then departed. In the east, the sun disappeared as
it rose.
Rowan gauged the wind expertly, checked its
direction against her memory of the previous night's sighting of
the Guidestars. It was blowing from the west, steadily. Weather
moved generally from west to east, and despite the gray above, she
knew from the wind and sky that there was fairer weather coming. As
she recognized this, the rain returned, falling more steadily.
"This could last into the afternoon," she
told Bel. "I hate to lose the time, but we might do well to move
into that bit of forest ahead, set up a rain fly, and wait it
out."
Bel was disappointed, but agreed. "We can use
the time to practice swordsmanship. If you fight against Outskirter
weapons, you'll need to change your technique."
"I'm sure you'll teach me what I need. And if
I find the time, I can try to chart this area more carefully." And
they trudged eastward together, through the light drizzle and the
shifting air, to the shelter of the woods.
It rained for twelve days.
6
B y noon on the
first day of rain, a steady downpour had established itself,
relenting only occasionally and briefly. The air was hot and heavy,
and the weather, slow as treacle, moved up the land from the
southeast. Travel was postponed, for that day and for the next. The
third day began with a lull and a brief west wind that tried and
failed to clear the gloom. Then lightning skirted the eastern
horizon, and by noon all was again steamy heat and rain.
The two women coped as best they could,
stripping to their underlinen to endure the humidity. Rowan dropped
to a seat on her bedroll under the tarp. "Does this sort of weather
happen often?"
"Sometimes. But usually in the spring. Never
this late in the year, not that I can remember." Bel was seated
beside her, crowding close to avoid the water dripping from the
edges of the canvas, attempting to dry her hair with one corner of
Rowan's felt cloak.
Rowan stepped back out of the shelter and set
to cleaning a pair of rabbits that had fallen to her snares
overnight. Water intermittently drizzled onto her head as branches
above bent and sprang under
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