Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

heads with anything that comes to hand—our tents, our blankets. We will hobble them, front feet as well as rear. If they get up, we will probably lose them, so we must keep them down.”

Bara and Tano were already moving quickly to take the saddles and packs from the horses, and now Rakasa and Geras began to make the beasts lie down. The horses were so trusting that they would let a man pull their heads around and guide them to their knees, then press them to roll onto their sides.

There was a different feel to the air now: a stinging that raised the small hairs on the back of my neck and my arms. The sound of the coming storm was only a murmur, but swiftly growing louder. The approaching line of clouds was a boiling blackness across the sky, though on the other side I could already see the ordinary sky.

The horses felt the storm and began to try to get up, but by this time most had been hobbled. Rakasa tied his shirt across the last mare’s head while Geras hobbled her. Then Rakasa pressed Geras to lie down himself. “Put your arms over your head,” he ordered.

I repeated this in darau, raising my voice to be heard over the increasing roar of the storm. “Lie down! Put your arms over your heads. There may be hail. Be ready to hold your breath. There will be rain and you may feel you will drown if you stay down. Hold your breath and stay where you are. The shiral will pass quickly, but if you lift your head, the winds are dangerous. There are tales of someone whose neck was broken that way.”

“That can’t really have happened, Ryo?” Suyet said uncertainly.

“It could certainly happen to a slender Lau neck. If you try to stand up, the wind may hurl you a long way, so stay down. Lalani, lie down.” I set a saddle over her arms to protect her head against hail. I said, “Suyet, lie down with her. Cover her body with yours. Cover your head with your arms.” He did as I told him, and I set another saddle over his head. Rakasa was helping Geras, so that was well enough, and to my surprise, Tano had moved to help Aras.

The roar of the storm filled all the world. To the east, hardly a bowshot away, the shadow of the storm was black and the rain came down like a wall across the world. I ran to Aras. Tano had put a saddle over Aras’ head and lain down on top of him, with another saddle set ready to the side. I dropped down over them both, dragged the waiting saddle up over my head and neck.

Aras grunted and said, “You’re a little heavier than seems strictly necessary, Ryo.” He almost sounded amused. Obviously he could breathe well enough

“Soon you will have something else to worry about,” I told him, and the storm struck and the world dissolved into the bellowing winds and pounding rain. I could not tell if hail came down too; the rain itself felt like a single heavy blow across my whole body at once. The wind tried to tear us from the ground and hurl us into the sky—the temperature dropped from warm to cold in a heartbeat—water rushed past; I hoped I had been right that the Lau could hold their breath long enough for that to pass. I counted, which was what my father had taught me to do when I was a child. I counted to twenty and then to twenty again and then once more.

Then it was past. The roaring rushed away to the west and light bloomed around us as the line of clouds passed on. I put the saddle out of the way and sat up, and took Tano’s hand to pull him up, then pulled Aras up as well. Everyone was getting up. The horses were getting to their feet as Rakasa and Geras released them. They were bewildered, but willing to be comforted. They shook themselves, scenting the damp air as they tried to make sense of what had happened. Higher on the slope, Lalani took Suyet’s hands and staggered to her feet, coughing and shaking water out of her face. She stretched her arms out and bounced gingerly on her toes, making sure she could move everything. Then she glared at me and said in taksu, her voice a little shaky, “Tigers are one thing, but no one warned me about that.”

Suyet grinned at her. “A little too exciting, wasn’t it? Ryo, please tell us that doesn’t happen all the time out here!”

Aras added, “Your country has the most remarkable weather, Ryo. Is this also something that comes from the gods?”

“The whip of the gods,” I told them. “The shiral. It comes only here on the steppe, and only in the warm season. It is not as dangerous as the fengol ... usually it is not as dangerous. It strikes hard, but passes quickly. Is anyone hurt?”

No one seemed to be. The water had already poured away. A great, endless quiet spread out, hot and humid now that the storm had passed. The ground steamed as the Sun poured down his strength from the cloudless sky. A new stream rushed away down a narrow gully at the foot of the almost imperceptible slope where we stood, though already that stream was shallow. The stillness was broken only by the sound of the leaping water and the distant murmur of the retreating shiral. The whole world seemed to have taken a deep breath and settled into a new calm.

There had been hail. The pieces had been as big as my thumbnail. The ground was covered with them, as with snow, but the ice was melting already, leaving flattened grasses and damp soil that was not really wet because