“That’s decided then,” Zaria said cheerily. “Let us go!”
We followed the same path around the mountain as before, picking out way through the blue and purple valleys until we made it to Linnet’s territory. The lake was just as brilliant beneath the sun as it had been last time, and I thought about going swimming again today.
“Who goes there?” came the loud call, followed by Linnet’s emergence from her cave up ahead. This time, Arton didn’t bother to introduce himself as her grandson, instead gesturing to the newcomers.
“This is the new woman Valeria, and her Bitter Sea mate, Grim,” he explained.
“It’s good to meet you,” Valeria said briskly, nodding.
“You’re tall for a new woman,” Linnet announced, swinging her sight stars up and down Valeria’s six-foot-frame. “That’s good.”
She wasn’t as generous with her reactions to Grim, however.
“Well, you’re quite an unnatural looking creature,” she said. To her credit, she didn’t seem afraid of the gigantic Grim, the scarlet lizardman standing at just about ten feet tall. Even the most open-minded sort of person would probably do a double take when first encountering a Bitter Sea male. “But you are also tall. Very tall,” she finally admitted somewhat grudgingly. “So I suppose that is good. But watch those claws around my brolka!” she added sternly. “I don’t want their wool – or any other parts of them – getting damaged!”
“I will not damage them,” Grim promised.
“Besides,” Zaria said, “You have claws, too, Linnet.”
“But I know what I am doing with them,” she growled, shaking her bow/walking stick. “I’ve never met this male before. Nearly twice the size as a Deep Sky man, yet he may have only half the brains for all I know!”
“I can vouch for his brains,” Valeria said, very clearly trying not to laugh. Obviously, she was just as charmed by Linnet’s old lady crustiness as I was. “They’re in good working order.”
“Well, I’ve never met you before, either,” Linnet said imperiously. “And I know nothing of your standards when it comes to such things.”
“I imagine that your standards are very high indeed, Linnet,” Grim rumbled good-naturedly, apparently not minding all the conjecture about his brains, or lack thereof.
“They certainly are,” Linnet scoffed. “My own blood does not even meet them half the time.” She swung her bow in poor Arton’s direction, and he nearly dropped his basket. When he recovered, he sullenly held it out to her. A sort of peace offering so that she’d stop bullying him, I figured.
“We brought you moonbark and new spinner silk!” Zaria said when Linnet took it.
“Bah! What am I to do with such things?” she muttered. But even so, she was already hanging her bow on her shoulder and rummaging through the basket, digging out an especially big piece of moonbark and popping it into her mouth. Linnet the braxilk, whom I’d begun thinking of as Linnet the Second, approached on foot, bending her long neck with interest towards the basket.
“Here you are, you great goon of a creature,” Linnet said to her mount with gruff affection. She pulled out a bit of moonbark, then tossed it in the air. Linnet the Second’s beak closed on it with lethal precision. She snapped it down like a heron would swallow a fish.
“I am going to put this away,” Linnet said, indicating the basket. “You may go see the brolka. But donotbother them.” She seemed to aim this comment solely at Grim, even though the big lug really hadn’t done anything to deserve it besides being big and scaly with a lot of sharp bits on his anatomy.
“I will not,” he said gravely.
“He won’t. None of us will,” Valeria promised.
Linnet eyed her, then gave a grunt of approval. “Very well. You look as if you can keep him and the others in line.” She waved her tail towards Zoren and Ox, indicating the “others” she thought might need wrangling. Apparently, Tilly and I didn’t count too much. Probably because a brolka could totally take one of us out if it really wanted to. While extremely cute, they were also pretty damn big, and strong from climbing and jumping around on the mountainside.
As Linnet returned to her cave, the rest of us went around the shore of the lake to see the brolka. They were grazing as they had been the last time. A small one came towards me at once, and I was fairly certain it was the same baby I’d been petting the last time.
“Hi, cutie!” I crooned, leaning down to pat its downy head. “We’re back!”
Our little group dispersed a bit then, the others wandering around to visit with the other brolka. Grim said something to Valeria about the water, and she told him to go have a swim if he liked, an offer he took her up on immediately.
“So, what have you been up to?” I asked the small brolka who seemed to have become my buddy since the last time I was here. “It’s been a whole week! I think you’ve grown!” It bleated at me in response, and I nodded as if giving serious thought to its answer. I was about to pet it again, when it suddenly bleated much more squeakily than before and danced out of my reach, bolting back to the brolka I assumed was its mother.
“Oh. OK. Guess we’re done, then. Bye, cutie!”
But the baby brolka wasn’t paying any attention to me now. In fact, none of them were. They all began crowding into a tight formation, the smallest ones at the centre. Tilly and I looked at each other in bewilderment. Surely they weren’t cold.
“Something’s coming,” Arton shouted from closer to the lake’s shore. “Everyone, get to the cave!”
“What the hell?” I whispered to Tilly as we hustled down the slope towards the shore and the cave.
