Shadowkill

##

Matja Allina stood on an upended fleece bin and spread her hands as if she blessed the wrung-out workers looking up at her.

“It is done,” she said. “Well done.”

A patter of hand against hand.

“You have worked hard and played hard.” She smiled at them, letting her eyes wander across the faces of chal and chapa and the harder, darker faces of the Brushies. “I have no doubt there’s a crop been planted that will come to light nine months from now, a lusty squalling crop of sons and daughters.”

Laughter and some long smoldering looks exchanged between Brushies and certain of the chal and chapa.

“This is a happy day for all of us.” She spread her hands again. “It is a great sadness for me to blacken these good feelings, but I need to warn you all, especially those of you going back to the Brush. Procagharadad is in Kirtaa with two Families. You know that. Know this. The Arring Pirs called me last night to warn me. Kamaachadad has hired a hundred tumaks to hit at Ghanar Rinta. I said a while ago that Shearing waits for no man’s war to end, but, Amurra bless, the war has waited for the end of Shearing. It won’t wait much longer. The tumaks will be here before the month is out. You know them, you know what they’ll do. If they catch you in the Brush, they’ll play with you until you wish for death and send you home to be a warning. They’ll fire the Brush; yes, they’re fools enough to do that. They’ll kill whatever they can’t catch. We’ve had tumaks before, but never so well armed and supplied. So take care, people of the Brush. If the time comes when you want shelter behind Ghanar walls, if I still have the say…” she broke off, her composure momentarily shattered.

A sigh passed through the crowd. They knew what she was not saying; if Pirs was killed, someone else would be ruling on who was let inside Ghanar walls.

“If I have the say still,” she went on, her voice hoarse but, determined, “you will be welcome here. Go, then, our friends, and take care, take very good care of yourselves.”