her instruments 02 - rose point by m c a hogarth Read Free Book Online

path permitted it. “Possibly two. And unlike us, they know where they’re going. We’re having to track them to find them.”
    “I thought you knew where the horse was, the one they stole.”
    Ra’aila snorted. “Sure we do. That way.” She pointed. “But maybe you haven’t noticed, but we can’t exactly go in a straight line around here.”
    “If you had a Pad,” Reese began.
    “But we don’t.” At Reese’s mutinous look, the Aera said, “Do you?”
    “Well, no,” Reese said. “Pads are expensive.”
    “Ahhh,” Ra’aila said with a sage nod. “Of course. Not one of your priorities.”
    Reese eyed her.
    “You should mime your ears,” Ra’aila said, amused. “You make them so obvious. Here, that swept-back ear look.” The Aera demonstrated by putting her hands at her temples and then swiveling them with the fingers pointing back, and mock-scowled at Reese.
    Surprised into a chuckle, Reese said, “Fine, yes. I got the message. You people came here to do what you wanted, and you didn’t have the money to do everything. Right?”
    “Right,” Ra’aila said.
    “I can’t help but think, though, that you really didn’t have a plan for anything,” Reese went on. “The Kesh has nothing to trade yet, despite you people evidently having operating expenses you haven’t compensated for. And you planned this division of labor thing so well that half of you gave up on it within five years.” She glanced at Ra’aila. “Don’t you think maybe you could use a little more thinking ahead, maybe?”
    “You can do a lot of thinking ahead, Captain, and still be unprepared when the thing you haven’t predicted side-swipes you,” Ra’aila said. “Or do you honestly think we were expecting our own friends and family to sudden turn on us?”
    Reese fingered the straps—reins—in her hand. “No. I don’t think anyone expects that.”
    The Aera nodded. And added, “I don’t mean to be harsh. It’s just… been very bad here. I’m not making a joke when I say that no one expected this to happen. Had we all been working together as planned, we would have had something worth trading by now. We would have had more of the horses done. We would…” She trailed off, shrugged her shoulders. “We would have been different. Things would have been different. But they’re not.”
    “So this happens often,” Reese said. “These people stealing from you, shooting you.”
    “Not often, but… enough.”
    Reese glanced at her. “And you let them? I mean, fine, you didn’t expect it. But now you know that it’s happening. And you’re going to let it keep happening?”
    “They’re family ,” Ra’aila repeated. “What would you have us do? Shoot them?”
    “They started it…!”
    “And we should finish it, is that it?” the Aera said.
    “If the choice is between ‘let my sister shoot me,’ or ‘stop her,’ I would think the answer’s pretty clear,” Reese said.
    “And do you have a sister, Captain?” Ra’aila asked.
    Reese looked away. “No.”
    “Well, then. Don’t be so quick to judge, ah?” When Reese didn’t reply, the Aera rode close enough to bump their horses together. Startled, Reese looked at her and found her with her hands at her temples again, flattened back.
    She laughed, reluctantly. “All right, fine. Point conceded.” She shifted a little in the saddle, wincing. “But please tell me this gets easier.”
    “I’m afraid it’ll get harder first.”
     
    To Reese’s dismay, they rode until nightfall without finding the raiders or Hirianthial. When the party halted and began dismounting, she said to the person nearest her, “Is that it? We’re stopping?”
    The Kesh answered her from her knee. “For the night, yes, Captain.”
    She looked down at him. “Where did you come from?”
    “The back of my mare,” he said with a smile: a tighter one than the ones he’d been using on her before all this began. “Can I help you down?”
    “Ah...” Reese looked down