“The nomads, you mean?”
“The men from the plains.”
The men from the plainswerethe nomads. Addie nodded. “I saw. To trade, I guess.”
Sathe made one of her animal-like head motions so characteristic of the For. Her short tigerish nose quivered.
“Trade,” she spat with disdain. “What is it that we have to trade? Nothing of value.”
“Your skins, Sathe,” Addie said gently. The For woman’s skill with tanning pelts was renowned, even if she herself refused to acknowledge it.
Sathe made a sound deep in her throat that passed for a scoff. “They will take the skins. Nothing else of value. That Hoban will want whatever they brought, all of it. And your women, they will try to make them stay. They always do.”
Addie didn’t reply. Instead, she fetched a clay pot and a wad of moss and sat down cross-legged to clean the tubers and cut them into small pieces with a sharp sliver of rock. Placing the chunks in the pot, she covered them with a big smooth rock. The rock would press down on the vegetables, smushing them and releasing their clear tangy juice for the women to drink.
Ah, the challenges of strange worlds. This godforsaken, backward planet lacked in so many ways that Addie had long lost count of them, but a few biggies stood out day after day. Like water. There was no water.
“This place is all wrong,” Sathe said about the city.
No shit,Addie thought, meaning the entire planet.
Sathe’s bitter disapproval of their way of life was a sentiment she expressed often. She hated it here, in this artificial permanent settlement when all she wanted was to return to her nomadic way of life. But, like Addie, she had nowhere else to go, albeit for a different reason. For custom of expelling the sick and handicapped had doomed the one-eyed disfigured Sathe and made her, who retained only limited mobility in her right arm, a pariah without a tribe. Not that she had any tribe left to claim anyway, not after hers had been wiped out by Wrennlins.
“Those men only want to trade,” Addie pointed out. “They won’t stay here, no matter how much Iolanthe entices them.”
Sathe didn’t bother hiding her contempt. “No. Not here. No man wants to stay. Not with your women.”
“Hoban stays,” Addie named the For male who resided in the city. “And Wynn. And the others.” There were quite a few others. Male others…
Sathe’s one working eye narrowed so that only the mossy green of her double-ringed iris showed. “They are all broken, like me. Of no value. No For female will accept their ruined bodies.”
Sathe was right. Except for Hoban, who Addie suspected was here on an easy power trip, every other resident of their settlement had some sort of a physical handicap, and their imperfections spoke to For people of failure and liability.
Addie struggled to understand the logic underlying For’s callous attitude toward their own people, but maybe there wasn't any logic. Only a daft superstition.
“Maybe they will look at our city and see a haven. A safe place.”
“A safe place!” Sathe’s upper lip curled in utter mockery. “Thishavenof yours is doomed. Dead as rocks, all of us. Staying in one place will lead to it, mark my words.”
Addie had heard her apocalyptic predictions before. “Come on, Sathe, stop being so gloomy. Iolanthe founded this place what, eight years prior to my coming here? That’s ten years. And they’ve been fine. Have faith. And let me see that hand of yours. Have you been stretching your fingers?” She reached to take Sathe’s crippled hand, but the woman snatched it out of reach.
“Mind your tubers, Addie-woman. My hand is mine to look after.” Grumbling, she moved away.
Shouts rang from the direction of the plaza followed by the sounds of an unmistakable altercation.
Dropping her culinary tools, Addie ran out of the shack and halted when she reached the back of Iolanthe’s large teepee, the Yuux in a frenzy above her head.
“Hush, you two,” she hissed, afraid the critters would give away her position.
Her command unsuccessful, she craned her neck, peeking at the plaza from behind the thick layer of prime-quality furs that covered the teepee.
The guest warriors, surrounded by the city males, were frantically trying to ward off what appeared to be a surprise attack. Addie saw Hoban rising and lowering his massive arm wielding a heavy battle axe. It found its targets with terrifying accuracy, hitting and chipping off at the defensive blocks the traders put up with short cudgels they had on them. If they had brought their own axes or spears along, as they surely must have, the newcomers clearly hadn’t been able to get to them in time.
“That Hoban,” Sathe hissed from behind Addie. “Ambushed them! It never happened whilehewas here.”
“Who?” Addie asked, her eyes glued to the ugly show of strength on the plaza.
Scarred Wynn, a hulking male like Hoban, expertly wielded his oversized wooden club, bloodlust showing clear in his flat werewolf features twisted as they were now, in the heat of the battle.
