The donkeys Iole and Phaidra ambled along the road, drawing the cart effortlessly even with Tyrel and Kaveri's combined weight added.
The southern summer sun was high, its light creeping under the edge of the canvas supported on four poles over the flat bed of the cart. They'd long since learned to dress to keep skin covered, adding to local styles as necessary. Currently, Kaveri had a triangular scarf wrapped around her neck to protect the skin exposed by the square neck of her dress and wore boots rather than the sandals more typical for women under her calf-length skirt; she and Tyrel each had added a lightweight coat with sleeves long enough to drape halfway over hands. Heads were bare, but that was what the shade was for, and strangers with covered faces tended to make people nervous. They took turns between holding the reins and keeping hands tucked into sleeves.
Kieran, amarog-form, was farther under the canvas roof, trying not to move, and at moments Tyrel heard him panting. Safe from the sun, his own dense fur was becoming a problem in the humid heat. Had they known what to expect, Tyrel figured he'd have changed last night, but he was always more comfortable in his own form, and they'd had no reason to anticipate this.
Behind them, in the wagon drawn by the powerful and deceptively easygoing mule Mirren had named Ander, Narcissa and Lysandra had similarly taken precautions. The wagon's tiny porch was scant shelter when the sun was at the wrong angle. Probably they were also passing the reins back and forth, but mule and donkeys were so accustomed to being together that Ander would for the most part simply follow the cart with little effort on the part of his mistresses.
Inside, drowsy still from Sanur's dark phase the night before last, bobcat and wildcat slept in the cubbyhole bed, with no need to force themselves back into activity before they felt like it. It was a luxury they all appreciated in turn. The plump duck Kaveri and Kieran had produced before they left last night's riverside campsite would go first to the two cats, since Meyar was barely past full, and Talir and Lirit were both in a comfortable midway waxing phase.
The road itself was solid and no more plagued with ruts than many, but around them, there was more open ground than sheltering forest. Flat terrain stretched away on all sides as far as the eye could see, covered with low dense vegetation that was not so much green as dirt-coloured; higher rocky patches with a few scrubby trees jutted out like islands here and there. Phaidra, always ready to try anything, had snatched a mouthful only once, stirring up a cloud of insects, and now ignored it, so Tyrel concluded that it wasn't particularly appetizing even within Phaidra's broad definition of edibility.
The insects were a plague in themselves, but Narcissa had ways of dealing with that, and they'd all grown accustomed to the greenish-acid scent of the thin oily stuff that deterred insects from landing to bite or harassing the eyes and ears and vulnerable areas of the donkeys and mule.
The punishing sun kept making Tyrel want to turn northwards and keep going. Children of moonlight and night, the merciless sun and sultry air were at best uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous. They should be near Chimaka's domain, though, and then it would take little time to reach the valley that was her son. In the Garden, it would be more tolerable, and it would be worth it to see how Dayo was doing and watch the trio of newer family members experience the Garden for the first time. After that visit, they could reconsider direction.
“If we don't find a reasonable place to stop soon,” he commented to Kaveri, who currently had the reins, “we may just have to camp for a couple of hours at the edge of the road and hope for the best. I'm not sure I want to go far off the road into that stuff, it looks prickly and not very pleasant and it's full of insects. And I'm not sure I trust that ground with wheels, it's too rough.”
She nodded. “I don't much care for this country at all, and I think I'd prefer to avoid it in the future. Next time, let's stay farther north until we can cut directly south to the Garden.”
“Sounds good to me. I wonder whether this road is always this quiet, or the locals just avoid it at this time of year.”
“Smart locals, if they do,” Kaveri sighed.
“There's something ahead of us.” Tyrel stood up, one hand on the nearest pole for balance, hoping for a better view, but it was too far away to make out any detail by sunlight. “On or by the road, I can't tell which.” He sat back down.
“Maybe we'll be lucky and it'll be a public spring and a lay-by where we can stop for a bit.”
“Given our usual luck, it'll be a collapsed bridge or a band of highwaymen too stupid to find a busier hunting ground.”
Kieran gave a soft whuff of amusement from behind them. Tyrel heard him shift position, and glanced back to see him sit up.
“Too true,” Kaveri said ruefully.
It took a while to reach what Tyrel had spotted, but as they approached it became clearer that it was a grove of what passed for trees around here. They weren't much taller than the wagon, and the bare branches showed stark against the blindingly blue sky, so they were going to be of little use as shade, but they might indicate water.
Next to the trees was a simple structure Tyrel recognized, though he couldn't bring the name to mind at present: a long pole had a bucket at one end, a weight at the other, and was supported on a frame much closer to the weight than the bucket. Those were built over wells and other low water sources, and were meant to make drawing water up to the surface easier through the weight providing a counterbalance to the weight of the full bucket.
“Oh good, water,” Kaveri said, with a sigh of relief, also recognizing it. “And enough clear flat ground that we can stop there for a while. The one big drawback to the cart and the wagon is that it makes people so suspicious if we travel at night. Although I'm beginning to think it might be worth it.”
Kieran whuffed agreement.
“I'll go tell the others we're stopping.” Tyrel dropped off the side of the cart and waited for the wagon to catch up.
Narcissa had a veil-like scarf pinned over her casually-braided hair, with a generous fold of it across her chest, and the prior night had altered the sleeves of her dress and the bottom of her skirt into greater length. Lysandra, in contrast, had simply wrapped a lightweight Enodian-style mantle over her local-style dress, arranging it to keep as much skin as possible covered. Each had a folding fan in one hand, delicate painted fabric over thin flat strips of wood; Lysandra, at the moment, had Ander's reins in her other hand.
“We're stopping?” Lysandra asked.
“Yes.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” Narcissa said. “I'd give a great deal for an ocean breeze. Or at least some real greenery to offer proper shade. How can land so flat have air so still?”
“I have no idea. We've been in flat areas where the wind is enough to hammer you breathless. It looks like there's a well up ahead, at least.”
“Well, that's something,” Lysandra said philosophically.
He jogged ahead to catch up with the cart and hop back on, not a big deal with both vehicles moving at an easy pace.
The area around the well was indeed flat, pounded hard by hooves and feet. The trees, they discovered, grew at the edge of a stone-edged pit; next to the pit was a trough lined with broad flat stones fitted tightly together.
Tyrel left the others to unharness the donkeys and mule, while he investigated the well and the frame net to it. The bucket was of wood, the rope in reasonable repair though fraying in a few places, and the whole structure was sturdy. He dropped the bucket into the well and pulled down on the beam, against the counterweight, until he heard a splash below; he let go of the beam and pulled up on the rope instead, and it came up easily. The trough was positioned where the bucket could be emptied into it readily.
It wasn't water alone that poured into the trough, but several small objects. He let go of the bucket to investigate.
Mice? Were they that desperate for water, that they fell in and drowned? Getting out past that lip of rock around the edge would...
Behind him, he heard Kaveri shout, “Madoc! Mirren! Need you now!”
Tyrel spun around, hand automatically going to his lower back. Dagger or throwing knife?
Kieran was on his feet, though still on the cart, snapping at small somethings and tossing his head to fling them away; Kaveri had her hands full with the two jennies, who were dancing in place in agitation and shaking their heads violently.
Lysandra had the presence of mind to open the wagon door before jumping down and coming to help, leaving Ander to Narcissa. Madoc and Mirren bolted out, pausing only long enough to scan for the problem before leaping off the wagon and racing towards the cart.
Tyrel abandoned the well and ran after them.
Hundreds of little brown bodies no longer than his finger, with long naked tails the same length again, were swarming the cart.
The two cats lunged up onto the cart, clawed paws and sharp teeth making short work of the tiny invaders, but it seemed like two more replaced each one that they killed. Tyrel came quickly to the conclusion that he'd be more effective in fox-form, but with the sun high above, that wasn't an option.
He left defence of the cart to the others and worked his way around to the front, feeling rather unsettling crunching sensations with every step. He grabbed Iole's bridle, so Kaveri could let go and concentrate on Phaidra.
“Get them moving!”
Kaveri nodded, and between them, they coaxed the panicking jennies into starting to walk back towards the road. Mice scrambled along the traces, and Tyrel and Kaveri tossed them off, talking to the donkeys as soothingly as they could.
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Once they were in motion, the wheels rolling over more tiny bodies that failed to get out of the way, it was impossible for more to climb onto the cart. That gave Kieran and the cats the chance to hunt out the ones that were already aboard. Mirren's ears swivelled constantly, tracking by sound, and she wriggled into crevice after crack to reach the ones that thought they were hiding. Tyrel glanced back, and found that Narcissa had followed suit with Ander. Lysandra was briskly removing the few that had targeted the wagon.
But then, the cart had some hay for the animals, because they didn't always find good forage, and a few sacks and small casks and boxes of bulky foodstuffs and raw materials for Narcissa's medicines. Anything edible that was in the wagon proper was in pottery or glass: spices and tea and honey and the like.
“That must be why everything looks so bare,” Kaveri said, a bit breathlessly. “It isn't because it's the season. The mice have stripped everything edible.”
“Great, so what do we do? We can't keep moving indefinitely. Well, we can, I suppose, but the girls and Ander can't.”
Kieran bounded off the cart and back towards the well.
“He says stop,” Tyrel relayed, drawing Iole to a halt; Phaidra mirrored it, and behind them, Ander stopped immediately. “I hope he has an idea.”
“Me too.” Kaveri stroked Phaidra's nose. “Don't worry, we'll think of something, sweet girl. We won't let anything happen to you.”
“In all the time we've been wandering around, we haven't seen anything like that outside of a besieged city.”
“I know. Something's badly out of balance around here. Things may not be pretty in the nearest town.”
Kieran, from somewhere behind, barked.
“Come, he says,” Tyrel said. “Turning around is going to be interesting.” He listened to the second bark. “I think he wants you two now,” he added to the two cats, and then, watching Mirren kill another mouse and drop it over the edge, “Maybe just you'll do, Madoc.”
Madoc gave him a look that said plenty, but jumped down and trotted off in Kieran's direction. Mirren, meanwhile, sat up, absolutely still except for her ears, then spun around to start digging her way into another small space.
“Mirren, I wouldn't do that while we're turning,” Kaveri said. “If we hit a bump and something shifts, we might lose you for a while. And I think we're going to need you.”
Tyrel heard a faint high-pitched squeak, and Mirren backed out carefully with another mouse. She discarded the body, and instead of looking for more, she chose a spot on top of a sack, where nothing could crush her small body.
Given how difficult it was to manoeuvre the two-wheeled cart into a turn on the rutted road and broken ground, in the midst of a distracting cloud of insects, it was just as well she was safe.
“Oh, the wagon's going to be a nightmare to turn,” Tyrel muttered. “I hope Kieran knows what he's doing.”
“He usually does.”
“Have you got these two? I'll help with the wagon. Somehow.”
Kaveri nodded. “Go.”
Normally unflappable Ander was distinctly unsettled, and less cooperative than usual. By the time Tyrel and the sisters got him facing the right direction, the cart was already at the well.
“Everything looks pretty calm,” Tyrel observed, bracing himself against the edge of the doorway between the two seats. “Kieran and Madoc are prowling around, though.”
“Maybe there were fewer than we thought?” Narcissa said, but she sounded unconvinced.
“Maybe.”
Kaveri greeted them with a wave, busily unhitching the two jennies from the cart, though the harness could stay in place until they stopped that evening; she already had the prop in place that held the front of the cart level when it wasn't in motion.
Tyrel stepped carefully past Narcissa and jumped down, urging Ander to position the wagon close to the cart, angled so the wagon's body could cast some degree of shade. With the sun so high, they'd still need to set up the canopy, but that would take only a moment to do.
“Stay alert,” Kaveri said. “There are more, but I think the majority are dead.”
“There were so many,” Lysandra protested, accepting Tyrel's offered hand as she gathered her skirt and dismounted. “How can they be? And what about the rest?”
“They go where there's food,” Kaveri said. “Look around. There's nothing left to eat. They aren't going to live here hoping for passersby to feed them. The main concentration of them will be anywhere there's still something to eat. We just stumbled into an outlying population.”
“The nearest town,” Narcissa said, letting Tyrel help her down in turn.
“Probably.”
“Worse than this,” Lysandra muttered. “Oh, that'll be such fun.”
“We do have the option of turning back,” Tyrel said. “This is the most direct road, given where we left the show, but there are others. If we lose days or even weeks, so what? The Garden will be there.”
“We might be able to help,” Narcissa said.
“With a plague of mice? I can't think how. For right now, let's get some sort of camp together so we can rest for a bit. I'll get some water drawn.”
“Can you watch the girls?” Kaveri asked Lysandra. “I'm going to find the shovel.”
Given the number of small dead bodies all over, like some sort of grim mockery of a battleground, Tyrel could see why.
He filled the trough, scooping out drowned mice, and the sisters led the donkeys and Ander over. Without hesitation, all three plunged their muzzles into the water to drink thirstily. Tyrel retrieved the buckets that fit onto the side of the wagon and filled them, hooking them into place. Lysandra unrolled the large rectangle of pale moonspun that served as a canopy and fetched the poles that supported the outer corners. When Tyrel finished, he added his own hands, and in only a moment, they had a rectangle of shade along the side of the wagon. Kaveri and Narcissa led the jennies and Ander into the shelter and tethered them there, while Lysandra went to fill a trio of nets with hay for them to eat.
Living mice remained, but relatively few. With more leisure, Tyrel saw Madoc crunch the occasional mouse and swallow it. Mirren took a brief break, in the shade under the wagon, to devour one herself, leaving the intestinal tract and, for some reason, the skull. She had no idea why she always did that, and could tell them only that it felt wrong to eat it.
“Does anyone want a drink badly enough to be worth a fire?” Kaveri asked. “Probably we wouldn't catch anything likely to kill us before moonrise, but...”
“There's wine and water in the wagon,” Narcissa said. “And ale. I'll get it.”
Kieran and Madoc and Mirren stayed on patrol around the wagon and cart; the others made sure there was a bowl of water for Madoc and Mirren under the cart, but Kieran drank from the trough. The sisters each had a cup of well-watered wine, and Tyrel and Kaveri shared a leather flask of decent ale, as they made themselves comfortable in the canopy's shade near the animals.
Inside the wagon was an Enodian invention: a pottery box, which rested on several sturdy feet within a larger box, and the space between them was filled with water. When the lid was on, anything inside stayed, while not exactly cold, at least at a more stable temperature than the outside air. It was meant to use ice, not water, but that was hard to come by in much of the world. In this kind of heat, water and wine and ale that had been in it were rather refreshing.
“So what are we going to do?” Kaveri asked. “If we keep going, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. If we go back, we'll lose some time. Tyrel's right, there's really not much we're likely to be able to do to help against a massive overpopulation of mice.”
“An increase in the number of mice or rats in a town can be the cause of disease epidemics,” Narcissa said. “And it's quite likely I can do something about that.”
“Well, that's hard to argue with,” Tyrel conceded. “What we find might be extremely unpleasant.”
“It's more unpleasant for the people living under whatever conditions exist,” Lysandra said calmly, “than it can be for us to come into it from outside, immune to illness and to the loss of home or livelihood or family. Do you really think Cissa and I are that delicate?”
“I know better,” Tyrel said. The places they'd been that claimed that women were inherently and categorically weaker still baffled him: evidence to the contrary was in plain sight everywhere. Their Enodian princesses were unquestionably elegant and refined, but that wasn't at all the same thing. “And I didn't say anything about you in particular. Watching people suffering when you can't help isn't much fun for anyone. But if you think there's a chance of something we can usefully do, then fair enough. Hey!” He raised his voice. “Narcissa thinks there might be an epidemic ahead, carried by the mice. Anyone object to going on?”
Mirren pounced on a mouse with every indication of excitement, seizing it and tossing it into the air so she could jump on it again. If she'd heard at all, Tyrel could see no sign of it. But that was probably answer enough.
Madoc, watching her, glanced at Tyrel. Green-gold eyes closed in a slow blink, and he shrugged, a ripple of motion that made spotted fur shimmer all the way down to his hips.
Kieran barked from under the wagon, where he'd just snapped up and swallowed a mouse. When they looked, he emerged and touched noses with Iole, the closest to him. Protect, he told Tyrel.
“Good point. We need to keep an eye out for the girls and Ander. They need to eat, and how nasty can mice get if they're starving?” He gave Kaveri a questioning look.
“I have no idea,” Kaveri said. “Huge numbers of starving mice aren't something Forester lore ever covered. I don't think it's likely to happen without human intervention. Crops and granaries and such, I mean. Maybe the decline of natural predators. I could be wrong, because I really know nothing about this.”
“Nothing I've read,” Narcissa said, “has really analyzed what causes the rodent population to grow. We only established the direct causal link between that and epidemics less than three dozen years ago, and no one has worked out yet exactly how it works—bites or droppings or something else. Only that the rodents come first, then illness begins to spread. When we discovered it, we began to reinforce granaries with sheet metal or hardened tiles, and we began to encourage cats around the cropland as well as the granaries by building shelters and offering supplemental food. The difference was significant, which can reasonably be taken as confirmation. The rodent population has stayed minimal, and the reports of entire villages or towns being swept by illness have declined.”
“It's cheaper and more effective to build the granaries the new way and to encourage the cats than it is to treat an epidemic after it takes hold,” Lysandra said. “To say nothing of the damage in terms of lost production and human suffering and lives. Even in mild epidemics there are deaths.”
“What about the population of the cats?” Kaveri asked curiously. “They can breed extremely rapidly, given the chance.”
“Male cats are even easier to castrate than male livestock,” Narcissa said. “Although admittedly it takes only a single intact male in a group. Knowledge about safe surgery has increased hugely in the past sixty years or so, and there's a surgery that can be performed on a female cat to sterilize her. They heal from it readily, especially when young. That's quite new, though, and mostly occurs close to major towns. In most cases, the feline population does more or less stabilize in harmony with the availability of food. I meant for years to get around to investigating reports of an herb or possibly a mixture of herbs that, in rural areas, is given to the cats mixed with a small amount of bait. Many people insist that it keeps the females from conception, or possibly from coming into season. The reports come from multiple sources and aren't always as complete as one might like. I'd still like to look into it, someday. If it works on humans, or can be modified to work on humans, it might mean another effective form of birth control. Given natural variation, with some things working better for some people than others or having side effects, the more that are available the better.”
“Agreed,” Kaveri said. “That does sound interesting. Not currently relevant, I suppose.”
“We could certainly do with a dozen or so cats,” Lysandra said drily. “The mortal sort, to assist our valiant pair, who are doing such a wonderful job. If anyone's tired after all that sun and the excitement, I can promise to stay awake. There may be something we can do when we reach the next town, but we can't do that until the heat is less intense, and there's nothing at all we can do here.”
“I could look for whatever I have on rodent-borne epidemics,” Narcissa said.
“Or I could while you rest.”
Tyrel and Kaveri traded glances. It was a tempting offer.
“Wake us if anything at all happens?” Kaveri said.
“A second wave invasion?” Lysandra said. “You'll be the first to know.”
The ground was hard-packed, with embedded rocks. Tyrel decided to nap on the cart instead, which would also not add to the area the cats and Kieran guarded. The space in the centre where Kieran typically lay was good enough. The sisters and Kaveri, meanwhile, vanished into the wagon.
The addition of a breeze might have made the cart pleasant contrast to the interior of the wagon, but the still air meant that there was probably scant difference. The inside of the wagon might even be cooler, sheltered as it was. He knew he wouldn't be able to relax there, though. Old reflexes said that with any threat in the vicinity, he needed the clearest line of sight possible.
Even if the threat was tiny and squeaky and, in his fox form, tasty.