The River Wall by Randall Garrett

Author:Randall Garrett [Garrett, Randall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625670-30-4
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

19

It was an inexpressible relief to lie down. The pallet beneath me was thickly padded with vlek hair and, while not the soft comfort of a feather mattress in Ricardo’s world, it was more comfort than I had known since Ligor and I had left Inid. I thought of the tenacious old man, and resolved to send a message, telling him that I was all right. I had the feeling that in spite of having his hands full with rebuilding Chizan, he was worrying about me. He was that sort of a man.

Tarani lay beside me, sleeping. We had dismounted our sha’um in the clearing that was our home among the Sharith, and sent them into the surrounding forest for a well-deserved rest. Then with one mind, we had staggered toward the stream, stripping off clothes as we went. The clear, cool water had rinsed away the accumulation of soot and dust, and we had been able to walk with more control into the house.

Tarani had kissed me tentatively; I had responded tentatively; we had both laughed.

“One would think,” she said, “that we had only just met, since neither one of us is honest enough to plead fatigue.”

“Every day with you,” I had said, running my fingers across the delicate bone beneath her left eye, “I seem to meet you for the first time. And desire for you is always with me, even when I’m too tired to demonstrate it.”

She had drawn me down, then, to the pallet, to hold me tenderly. “It is decided, is it not, my love, that we shall never be parted again?”

“Never,” I had promised, and then I had held her until her breathing slowed and she slept.

But I was in that state of utter fatigue that defied sleep. We had stayed the rest of that day and part of the night in and near the Valley. As I had hoped, that first bonding had been a breakthrough. It had convinced the Riders that it could be done, and their sha’um in turn had encouraged their own mates into similar bondings.

When the wives of the Riders of the Valley sha’um had achieved their bonds, every one of them following the first woman’s careful approach, we were greeted with some surprises. The oldest Thagorn sha’um had left us one by one, to return later with not only one, but three or four sha’um—his mate, and the last batch of cubs, now grown. Where the wife of an active Rider had been with us, the male had controlled and threatened the cubs in order to give his mate the chance to bond to his Rider’s mate.

When all the bondings had been achieved—not totally without damage, but at least with no sha’um or Sharith having been killed—we had ridden back to our camping spot and spent the night in the fresher air, allowing the Valley sha’um to recover some of their strength.

On the following day, the bonded sha’um—males and females, unbonded cubs accompanying them out of family loyalty—had reentered the Valley and herded out all the sha’um that could be found.

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