Lupi 04 - Night Season

Dawning, which lasts a few sleeps. That’s how they divide the time—into sleeps—since they don’t have days. And after the Dawning it stays light for three months.”
    Cullen swallowed the last of the jerky, his hunger un-appeased. “No doubt they call that the Day Season.”
    Her grin flickered. “Good guess. That’s sorta why we’re here.” She tossed him another bundle. “Eat. I’ll fill you in.”
    This bundle was wrapped in a greasy cloth. His nose told him it was bread, and so it was—dark, heavy, with bits of fruit and nuts baked in. None too fresh, but he was in no mood to be picky. He ripped off a hunk. “Start with the casualties. Marilyn Wright’s in bad shape.”
    â€œYeah.” Her mouth thinned. “Head injury. They can’t do much for her until we get to the City. Kryl—that’s the Ekiba healer—stopped the bleeding and took down some of the swelling in the brain, but she doesn’t dare try to wake her.”
    â€œEkiba?” Cullen asked with his mouth full.
    â€œWen’s people. They’re sort of like gypsies, though they have some permanent camps, too. Fortunately we landed not too far from one of those camps. It took them a couple hours to reach us.”
    He swallowed. “How did Wen call them?”
    â€œEkiba can all mindspeak with each other. I’m not clear on just what their range is—either Wen doesn’t want me to know or he doesn’t know how to convert their units into ours—but it seems to be several miles. Anyway, they’re like a telegraph system, passing messages along.”
    â€œTheir healer set Brooks’s wrist, I take it. What about his leg?” Cullen finished off the bread regretfully. He was still hungry.
    â€œHis leg didn’t need setting—it was just a hairline fracture—but his wrist was a mess. She gave him this potion to knock him out because she had to cut it open to get the bones lined up right.”
    â€œHey!” Steve called from the next wagon. “You’re awake!”
    â€œSo I’m told. Brooks is drugged?” he asked Cynna, frowning. The man hadn’t stirred once.
    â€œNo, that wore off a long time ago. Kryl put him in sleep—you know, like Nettie does. A healing trance.”
    In sleep. Nettie. Memory stirred dimly. “I woke up earlier, didn’t I? I thought…” He’d thought it was Nettie tending him, chiding him for having emptied himself so badly. But Nettie, the clan’s physician-shaman, was on Earth. It must have been the Ekiba healer who called him out of uncsonsciousness.
    â€œWhen we made camp, yeah. Most of us weren’t in any shape to go far, but Wen’s people didn’t want to linger so close to the forest, so we traveled a couple hours, then stopped to take care of the wounded and get some sleep.” Cynna scowled down at him. “You scared the crap out of me, you know that? I’ve never seen anyone kill himself by abusing his Gift, but hey. Always a first time, right?”
    â€œI’m alive, aren’t I?” he snapped.
    â€œYou were in a damned coma!”
    That startled him into silence…for a couple seconds. “Couldn’t have been.” Coma was not a restful state. He felt fine…aside from an ongoing wolfish interest in the horses. “Is there any more jerky?”
    â€œGah!” Cynna looked disgusted, but did bend and dig under the seat again.
    Steve had unfastened the wooden gate at the end of his wagon. He propped it against the wagon’s side so he could sit at the rear with his legs dangling. Behind him Cullen saw a couple of wooden crates and a couple of sleeping bodies. One was orange. The other was snoring.
    Amusement tugged at Cullen’s lips. There was a sight—McClosky bedded down with Gan.
    â€œSure looked like a coma,” Steve said. “You were non-responsive. I pricked your foot with my pocketknife, and it didn’t twitch.”
    Maybe he was wrong.
    Suddenly restless, Cullen stood, hitched up the skirt of his thobe—he refused to think of it as a dress—and vaulted over the side of the wagon. His knee took the impact just fine, so it had finished healing while he slept. The pebbly road wasn’t kind to his bare feet as he trotted up beside Cynna, but he’d had all the sitting he could take. “You believed I was in a coma.”
    She hurled