Chapter 28

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

"Please tell me, Pegasia," Ureeblay asked the giggling four-legged girl who was standing on the Muddy River shore in front of him and acting out how a maki moved. The sound of her continuing glee was indeed starting to aggravate him. Remembering his manners, the young man decided not to open his mouth again while he was angry.

As he listened to Pegasia giggle, the young woman actually reminded Ureeblay of his sister when Nayohme was trying to make him upset. Pegasia pursed her wide lips together again, while scratching her wet scalp.

Distracted by the thought of his aggravating sister, Ureeblay found he was gripping the shaft of his hickory staff harder than needed in the fist of his right hand. The boy in him wanted to lift the staff and smack the butt into the gravel in exasperation. Can't she see by the claws on the torque around my neck that I'm a proven hunter, he wondered, yet she treats me as if I am a child!

To his left, the wide stretch of Muddy River sparkled with the rays of Father Sun. His bright orb was in the blue sky over the thick green forest canopy above the far bank, halfway toward the Eve horizon. The girl swayed and scratched, her eyes dancing with mirth as Ureeblay just stood there, trying to calm his temper.

He wondered why she thought it was so funny to mimic this maki animal she'd called him. Ureeblay slowly filled his lungs with air again, and then he gradually exhaled—a trick his sire taught him. His sire had told Ureeblay that doing so would calm him down, and would center his attention when he studied the night sky. His sire also told him the trick would help him deal with his sister and her teasing.

Pegasia continued to taunt him while scratching her head with one hand and her hip with her other. As Ureeblay was regaining more of his composure after meeting his first Hurstmon, he decided he needed a way to deal with this mocking attitude of hers. He wondered if all of her people were this way. He made a decision.

"Please tell me, Pegasia," he asked this girl again, "have my manners offended you in some way, or is it the Centaurs' custom to make fun of someone you've just met?"

Out of the corner of his left eye, Ureeblay saw the wolf sitting on her honey-colored butt next to them on the shingle. Her ears perked up and her tail stopped moving. She looked from Ureeblay to Pegasia. In front of him, Ureeblay watched as the happy grin on the young Centaur woman's face faded and her fingers stopped moving against her scalp and her hip and side.

Still looking at his face, Pegasia lowered her right arm and again he was aware of the band of tattoos around the dark skin of her wrist. Her wide mouth formed a frown as a contrite look suddenly appeared in her sky-blue eyes. Her quick change of demeanor reminded Ureeblay of Chaloni, the little girl who lived with her parents and younger brother next to his mother's shelter in Sweet Water camp. The young girl's face always fell so quickly whenever an adult called her to account for one of her many acts of gleeful mischief. Ureeblay shook his head to clear the funny little girl's image from his mind.

He focused back on Pegasia, hoping his repressed aggravation didn't show. If this girl were like his sister, any sign of aggravation on his part would only feed Pegasia's determination to bedevil him more.

"Especially," Ureeblay added, tilting his head as he looked down at the Centaur's exotic, damp, and now crestfallen face, "when that someone has offered you fire? Fire you no longer have. Fire that you can use to cook those three-bar mussels you've been collecting, so you don't have to eat them raw." Ureeblay gestured with his left arm toward the top of her sunken basket, still attached somehow to the limb out in the muddy water.

In addition to the growing look of contrition on her face, he could see something else—possibly fear, or worse, desperation he realized—growing in Pegasia's eyes. Well, that is if the Hurstmon have the same feelings as Welow Swongli, he told himself.

Still, the thought that his words caused the look on her face suddenly felt like a little punch in his gut. Ureeblay tried to soften his rebuke by saying, "Without salt ... well, raw mussels," and he made a face as if he'd bitten into something that tasted bad, "all I can say, Pegasia, is ughh, not very tasty."

Her eyes going big, Pegasia suddenly brought up both of her hands and her forearms under her long hanks of wet reddish-brown hair hanging down her chest. She lifted her hands and placed her palms against her face so they covered her eyes and eyebrows. Her damp tresses moved away from her body. Seeing the intricate band of tattoos on her right wrist, part of Ureeblay wondered what the significance of the black markings might be to the Centaurs.

With her long, delicate but strong fingers rested up on her forehead, Pegasia swung her elbows out from her sides. Her hair moved away from her bare, tanned chest, exposing her pert breasts with her dark, finely shaped nipples to Ureeblay's eyes. Then Pegasia moved her front right leg forward while bending her left knee, lowering the front of her reddish-brown, hide-covered body. She continued the movement by bowing her human torso forward toward Ureeblay, her wet hair hanging down outside her bent elbows that extended forward.

Her submissive gesture reminded Ureeblay of a Welow Swongli getting on his or her knees and bowing down in front of a clan leader or anyone who had the power to decide that person's fate in some way or grant them a great boon.

This must be some Centaur custom, part of Ureeblay thought, surprised and suddenly uneasy at her action. Part of the young man thought she should be making some apology for calling him a Maki bwoi, whatever that term of obvious derision really meant to other Hurstmon. Another part of him wondered if she had any idea where the Hurstmon warriors looking for her might be, when had she seen them last, and how far away?

As those observations and worries sprung up in his mind, Ureeblay felt an uncomfortable silence growing between the two of them. It was as if Pegasia waited for some kind of response from him—a response that he did not know.

The young wolf, or daugg, as the case may be, just sat on her butt, watching their new acquaintance while tilting her head from side to side. The wolf's pink tongue showed out the right side of the animal's slightly opened mouth. Her honey-colored fur was bright in the rays of Father Sun. Her ears were up and focused toward Pegasia and the posture that she'd taken.

"Oi, Pegasia, Dauw-der off Chu-ron," the Centaur girl finally spoke up from her bow of subservience, her young voice soft, but with a pleading quality to it that made the gentle side of Ureeblay feel uneasy while also giving another part of him a thrill. "Oi pee-lees beeg yahr farguvness, Ureebay off tha puta noa i te oranga o te awa ... tha Peeple fram a-crass tha rivah."

She maintained her bow and continued, "Farguv mhai...

"Oi ... Oi haf ah baid haibut off maiken ... ssss ... joiks ... wheen Oi'm unaisy. An nauw, Ureebay ... Oi'm ifried. Oi beeg yah, pee-lees." She added in her people's language without taking her hands from off her eyes or raising up from her bow, "Hoko toku Kaitiaki me te Whakaruruhau... "

Another sparkling golden-red dragonfly buzzed in from the water to Ureeblay's left. It hovered for a moment on the blur of its four delicate wings above the part in Pegasia's hair and then landed on her damp scalp.

She didn't move a muscle. In the angling light from Father Sun, the insect was beautiful and made the girl seem all that more exotic and appealing with a living, natural adornment on her reddish-brown hair that was still plastered to her head.

"Ssss..." she hissed from her stance and bow.

Ureeblay got the feeling that whenever Pegasia made that sound she was trying to remember some Welow Swongli expression.

"Oi aisk yah fur tha pritekshin off yahr ... sheee," Pegasia announced in a slightly wavering but formal sounding voice that didn't have quite the pleading edge as he'd heard moments before. With her hands still on her face, covering her eyes, she said, "Kaipanga ringa tao ... yahr spier ... arhm. Fur grainten mhai yahr pritekshin fram hairm ... an fram tha othur centaurs thait arh liken far mhai, waunten tah taik mhai bake ... Oi yahm yahrs ta cammand ... Taik mhai ihntah yahr heird, Oi beeg yah, Ureebay. Oi wiel abay yahr cammands...

"Ih-ihn ail whays..." she added as the base of her thick tail stuck straight up causing the wet hair to arch in the air behind her. Pegasia's rear hooves moved farther apart on the gravel of the shingle, lowering her rump.

"Ihn ... ail whays," Pegasia repeated in a young, meek sounding voice that made wooly-worm feelings go up Ureeblay's spine under his vest and his spirit hammer harness. He was suddenly aware of his hickory staff gripped in his right hand and resting on the gravel near his right moccasin.

With Pegasia's changed inflection, Ureeblay thought there was a different meaning to her words, a difference that he didn't quite grasp.

Ureeblay was feeling overwhelmed. Here the first Hurstmon, or Centaur, that he meets asks him for the protection of his spear arm, and tells him that she is afraid of a group of her own people looking for her. Centaurs wanting to find her to take her back, he thought—but back to what, and why?

Did he want to risk getting involved in her problems? There must be a compelling reason for at least two groups of Centaur warriors to spend so much time looking for this girl. Especially, Ureeblay reminded himself, if the group that he thought was after him all this time was actually one of those looking for her.

Then his sister's face appeared before his mind's eye. She had a stern look on her otherwise beautiful features and Ureeblay knew she was reminding him of his manners. Here was a young woman from the river of his dreams that Nayohme had told him about on one of her wonderful visits in his second life. Now Pegasia was asking for his protection. Ureeblay realized that he would be a clod and a lout, and worse—a man with no honor—if he turned her away.

The young man knew he had no choice in this matter. Good manners demanded he help her as best he could until she was out of danger. Ureeblay did recognize that there was something else happening between them during this exchange of words. However, he figured that he might as well go ahead and jump out on this log, too. There was no other way for him to find out where else the river of his dreams was going to take him this time.

After all, he'd done it before. He had survived that experience so far in a fine manner—if he did think so himself. Only time would tell. The spirits certainly were providing him with enough opportunities.

The sparkling golden-red dragonfly on Pegasia's scalp launched up into the air and headed off toward the high ledge of the cutback bank before starting upstream, buzzing down low over the gravel of the shingle. The young wolf jumped between the bowing girl and Ureeblay before cutting sharply around Pegasia's hooves and pounding after the big flashing insect.

The Centaur girl lifted her drooping tail again, bringing Ureeblay's attention from the departing wolf back to his immediate situation. Standing there beside the Muddy River in the light of Father Sun, Ureeblay could tell that Pegasia was worried and scared. It came to him that he did not like to see her upset, and he realized that his seeming indecision in answering her plea was making her feel worse. Part of him did like her posture and her attitude at this moment, but he was being rude by not giving her an answer now that the issue was decided.

"Achumm..." Ureeblay cleared his throat and tried to adopt an air of formality for what he was about to say. He adjusted his sling around his head with his left hand and then fingered the leather plait holding the sheath containing the frozen sliver of lightning before dropping his fingers down, touching the left claw on his hunting talisman. He wondered what Pegasia was going to say about the splinter of frozen lightning once she saw how fast he could draw fire from the piece of fallen Swongli and she learned how he acquired the amazing item. Would she be upset that her protector was a thief? Would he even tell her the circumstances of his discovery?

That really isn't her concern, Ureeblay decided, especially if she accepts the protection of my spear arm.

"Pegasia of the Centaurs," he spoke up, his deep voice taking on as important a tone possible while he recalled a few of the times he'd seen and heard a camp member acknowledging another Welow Swongli's servitude debt to them before then accepting that person as their debt servant.

"I, Ureeblay of Sweet Water camp of the Welow Swongli, grant you the protection of my spear arm. In return, I accept your, ah, your protection debt to me. Now, you are mine to command in ... ah, well ... all ways ... I accept you as a member of my household ... until ... well ... until the World Mother decrees that our paths must part."

He could see Pegasia's relief in the relaxing muscles of her neck and upper shoulders as she reacted to what he'd said. Her positive response to his words made him feel better.

"I will command you," he told Pegasia as he roughly followed the points of an acknowledge servitude debt among the Welow Swongli. He had to admit that he was also feeling a little thrill at the idea that he finally was going to have the last word with a female for once.

"And you will obey, or receive just punishment. You will do the tasks I give you. You will learn from me. You will always tell me the truth. You will always lookout for my best interests. You will keep any of my secrets that you might learn from all others unless I say otherwise. You will not flee your obligations to me lest you be turned out forever ... and so become a walking ghost."

As Ureeblay watched the cues of her body, he could tell she was relaxing even more. Again, he knew that most of what he'd declared to this point he'd taken from the Welow Swongli custom of accepting a servitude debt that seemed to apply to this situation.

However, the young man realized that on his journey on this side of the Toolie, he had come to learn that the knowledge of women was just as important, even more important in lots of ways, than the knowledge of men. He would not make the same mistake of his ignorant youth here, he told himself, even if Pegasia was a woman of the Centaurs and not of the Welow Swongli. He would recognize that what she knew was important to both of them.

"In addition, Pegasia of the Centaurs," he spoke up, "you will give me your good counsel ... ah, advice, about your impressions of situations, about your people, your lands, your customs, and your ways of doing things so I am not ignorant. You should even feel free to tell me, I guess, what is on your mind—however, I will have the last word in all matters."

The relaxation he'd noticed in her posture and the muscles of her well-formed, large body flinched just a little in response to his very last words. Ureeblay perked up. Pegasia must have just realized that it was going to be his right to have the last word when it came to dealing with each other in the future.

"Do you agree to these conditions, do you accept my protection?"

He could see the expansion of her chest and barrel and he could hear the deep inhalation of air that Pegasia took while her hands still covering her face. Then she exhaled.

"Oi dau, Ureebay," she said. "Thienk yah, moi Pritektah..." With her thanks, Pegasia slowly brought her hands away from her eyes, her forehead, and her long, ample nose.

Ureeblay saw her look up into his eyes. Her eyebrows went up and he could tell she was intrigued by something.

"Yah railly ... waunt tah knauw whaut Oi thaink?" Pegasia asked, her surprise at what he'd told her evident in her voice and her sky-blue eyes. He could hear her sense of humor reasserting itself in her voice when she asked, "Yahr weillin tah axily lisson tah mhai ... an theen maik yahr deecisins?"

"Yes," Ureeblay found himself agreeing, feeling a grin come to his face at the look of now gleeful amazement forming on the young Centaur woman's exotic features. Then he added, slowly pronouncing his words and hoping she would understand he was trying to correct the way she said some of his words, "As part of my household, I am willing to actually listen to you, and then I will make my decisions ... after you give me your view point about what I am deciding.

"Then," he continued, "you will do as I decided—whatever that is. That is how we will work together for our betterment and safety. I will learn from you, and you will learn from me—while still obeying me once I make up my mind on any issue ... especially obeying me during those times you don't like what I tell you—understood?"

"Th-then..." Pegasia replied, speaking carefully as a smile started to form on her attractive features as she looked up at him from her bow. "Yess, Oi, ssss ... I will dau ... do ... as you de-cide.

"Rait nauw, mm-my view pai-point iss, we gau a-crass tha rivah bifore darhk. We make caimp a-crass rivah whair tha laind iss Tapu. Tapu laind iss saif laind ... then we saif. Saif fram the othur Centaurs thait arh liken for mhai, me.

"Sheee ... and ... I haf salt, Ureebay," the young woman told him with a big grin as she stood back up, her long reddish-brown hair covering her bare breasts and nipples. Then what she just said hit him.

Salt!

"Salt is ga-good," Pegasia told him. "Ureebay, m-my salt is for our beedderment ... ssss, betterment."

With that said, she turned to Ureeblay's left and started back into the muddy water, heading for the forked limb and her sunken basket.

A thrill went through Ureeblay as the idea that Pegasia had salt sank into his brain. He thought about the tastes of food with just a bit of salt added to a meal and felt his mouth water. Part of him noticed that the water truly was deep right off the shingle beach as the young man watched Pegasia sink up to her neck with her long back, her finely shape rump, and her long tail going under the sparkling muddy surface as she approached the thick limb coming from the side of the floating trunk at the water line. Her head stopping where he first saw her rise up out of the water and the young woman reached up for her sunken basket lashed to the stout fork in the limb.

Pegasia's earlier comment about being safe from the Centaurs looking for her by crossing the river came to his mind. She seemed certain that the other side of the Muddy River would be something she called Tapu land. She said that Tapu land would safe land—or they would be safe on Tapu land. He didn't understand what Tapu meant or why being on Tapu land would make them safe. However, Pegasia was from this side of the Toolie, after all, the young man reminded himself. Ureeblay hoped she was correct about this Tapu idea.

But, Ureeblay asked himself in confusion, how can we get across the Muddy River to this Tapu land before dark?

"Pegasia," Ureeblay called out to the young woman working in the water, "I was looking for what I need to try and float across the river when I happened upon you." He watched the young Centaur finish unlashing the rim of her basket from between the forked limb, only her head, neck, and her arms were above the water. "I don't see how we can use my plan to float across the river before it gets dark ... By the World Mother, I don't see how we can use my plan to float across the river in four or five days, even with your help."

"It is good then," Pegasia announced as she lowered the basket under the limb and started to turn back toward the shore. Pushing waves of muddy water in front of her emerging body as she neared the shingle beach, she added, looking up at Ureeblay, "thait the Nota Piriti is justa whays uprivah, ain'tit, mait."

What is a Nota Piriti? Ureeblay asked himself. And what does Pegasia mean, calling me her mate?

The young man started feeling there was more to the little ceremony the two of them just went through than he realized when he gave this Centaur girl the protection of his spear arm. Now that he'd promised, he needed to find out exactly what their responsibilities were to each other according to her Centaur customs.

The young woman rose up out of the sparkling water and stepped onto the gravel. Ureeblay was surprised that she actually carried two bulging, woven bags connected together between the flexible wicker rims that he'd seen sticking up out of the river. Water was sloshing down on the gravel as it emptied out of the containers. He noted that some kind of braided, long, dark-brown hair—not bison however—made up the cordage someone used to make the baskets.

Actually, Ureeblay saw that not only were the containers quite full, but a wide band of woven cordage between the long sides of the wicker rims connected the two bags.

He could tell there were many three-bar mussels in both sides of her container. Ureeblay realized that she'd been collecting for some time to gather that many mussels. The combined baskets weighed a good deal the young man could see by the ripple of muscles under the young woman's tanned, glistening-wet skin on her human arms, shoulders, and her midsection. The rippling continued to the bigger muscles under the wet reddish-brown hide of her animal body.

Ureeblay noticed that he was aware of the smell of the muddy water on Pegasia's skin and hide, almost as if it were a slight irritation at the back of his throat. In spite of that, he admired her well-formed, powerful, big body.

Ureeblay could see why storytellers long ago came up with the tale about Coyote fooling Lost Spear into creating the first Hurstmon. He wondered how far from the truth the tale was in the storytellers' attempt to explain how the World Mother created a tribe of such interesting creatures.

She isn't a creature, Ureeblay told himself as he watched her holding the two bags of mussels, she is a person.

Ureeblay suddenly realized he was sort of hoping to see her bare breasts again. He felt a blush hit his cheeks, and in spite of that, another part of the young man wondered if this Nota Piriti Pegasia just mentioned was a ford across the river. This close to the Toolie, he easily could have missed seeing a ford across the river in his sickened condition as he had managed to wander upstream. He reckoned that just across the Muddy River here was about the place his memories of coming ashore on the Toolie became fever dreams.

"About this, ahh, Nota Piriti..." Ureeblay said, wanting to know more about her statement about crossing the Muddy River.

Pegasia grinned at him and gave him a nod. With each of her hands holding to the top, outside rim of either heavy bag, the young woman turned her human torso to her left. As she lifted her twin containers up higher, she continued to swivel her torso around until she was able to heft the mussel-filled bags over the shoulders of her lower back. Now, one dripping bag rested on each side of her withers. She wiggled her human half and stamped her hooves, rocking the barrel of her lower body and settling the weight of the two connected bags in place.

"I've got a travel-drag back at my camp," Ureeblay told Pegasia, impressed at her solution for carrying the load of mussels. "I use the bed of the drag to carry my gear and supplies as I pull the load behind me," the young man said as he gestured to the arrangement of woven bags half-filled with three-bar mussels resting across her withers.

"Sheee ... ah tra-vel draig," Pegasia asked as she rubbed her hands together in front of her chest and then flicked both of them at the ground as if to fling the water off her fingers, "thait is ah... travois?"

Ureeblay just shrugged his shoulders without saying anything. He didn't know what the word travois meant.

Pegasia held up her right hand, then extended her index and middle fingers up in the air and asked, "Tauw palls for yahr load to riest ahn?"

She studied his body and then bent her elbows, bring her hands up by her sides with her fingers in the position they would be in if she held onto draw poles next to her ribs. Without moving her arms, she took a step forward and leaned her torso as if she were pulling a weight behind her.

"Yes," Ureeblay smiled and nodded his head with excitement. "A travel-drag is a, ahh, trah voy.

"I hope by crossing over this Nota Piriti, we won't get very wet," the young man continued as they just stood there on the shingle by the muddy river. He could hear the little bit of worry in his voice as he pushed the butt of his hickory staff down into the gravel. "My travel-drag is good for crossing water about knee deep. Any deeper than that and my gear will get wet, so I'd have to move all my things across the river on my back to try and keep them dry. That will take a while. I've collected a lot of supplies and gear along the way and I'll not have something ruined by dunking my gear in the river."

"We gait wait ... ssss ... get wet," Pegasia told him with a big grin on her face. She pointed her two fingers up at the clear blue sky above the green canopy of the trees over them on one side and the big stretch of muddy water on their other, "annaly if it's rhainin' ... and thair's not ah claowd abaut.

"Mm-my good ad-advice," she said to Ureeblay with a tilt of her head and her eyebrows going up, "is we go to yahr caimp nauw. Get yahr trav-el drag. Load ap yahr ... ssss ... yahr gear. Then we go to my caimp. My caimp baytwain hair and the Nota Piriti—not fawr. Ureebay, we-ell get a-crass rivah bifore darhk." She gave him a nod of her head, her wet hair dripping water down her skin and her hide.

"A-crass rivah, we make nauw caimp. Yah make fi-er, then I fiex parai kakahi for us to ait ... my Whakaruruhau," Pegasia told him with a grin on her face and mirth in her sky-blue eyes. She slightly bent her head to him while keeping her eyes focused on his the whole time. "Saund good to yah, Ureebay?"

"Then you will fix whatever you said for us to eat," Ureeblay replied slowly, not being able to contain his chuckle. He shook his head and grinned at Pegasia. "The way you speak my words is worse than a ... a Warmisher talks ... That is a person of the Welow Swongli—my tribe—but who lives far away from my clan's territory."

"And we can't have that—understand?" he asked the young woman, with a big smile on his face. "And, Pegasia, what you said about crossing the river and you making us food does sound good to me."

"Then I will fix parai kakahi," Pegasia said slowly, ending those words with a delightful little laugh before she added, "for us to ... e-eat. That ... sounds good to me, mait. Yah will deescuvar, Ureebay, I yahm good rand ah caimpfire—I fix good eats. Yahr billy," she told him, moving the two lengths of her wet, hanging hair and rubbing her bare stomach, "nevah raygriet my ... ssss ... my debt to yah."

Huh, Ureeblay thought with a suppressed snort, she is my debt servant now.

He shook his head and inhaled deeply, realizing he'd found a debt servant without having to cross the Toolie, how long the arrangement was going to last was another thing altogether. Part of him was aware of the sound of insects and soft gurgle of the moving water under the warm rays of Father Sun.

"You see to it that I don't have any regrets, Pegasia. I'll be hungry, once we get across the river," Ureeblay told her, feeling a big smile on his face. "I'm still growing, after all." He adjusted his quiver against his left hip and shrugged his shoulders, feeling the spirit hammer settle against the back of his vest, as Pegasia slowly looked him over from his head down to his moccasins.

"Fallow me, then," she told Ureeblay with a beautiful, pleased smile and a wave of her right hand as she turned on the gravel and started to crunch upriver, "We cain claimb to the tap good ... ssss ... aisayir ... thees whay and—"

"Easier," Ureeblay interrupted, correcting her pronunciation without thinking about it as he walked behind the young Centaur woman, using his hickory staff as a walking stick. The strange hesitation in the movement of her fine reddish-brown rump with each step of her back legs captured most of his attention. Absentmindedly he added, "Did you find an easier way to get up and down to the river? I mean, from up on the bank? I have not been this way before."

"I did," she called back to him. "I have been ... this way before."

Ahead of him, Pegasia's long, dark tail, which was starting to dry out, flicked around in the sunlight. That action amazed the young man, as well as the view of Pegasia he saw when her tail lifted and swung to either side of her rump. He realized he was staring at glimpses of her damp anus and her female parts almost right in front of him.