Nye, Jody Lynn - The Growling

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侵权投诉

THE GROWLING

Jody Lynn Nye

"You have used up the last of the birch moss, Honi," Dahli

complained, a frown on her heart-shaped face. She tipped up the

earthenware container to prove the truth of its emptiness, then

dropped it to the dirt floor. Her strong hands, more used to clenching

a sword than a broom, clamped down on her hips.

"Why not? My need is the same as anyone else's." Honi pouted,

flexing a bicep until her apron sleeve split, showing her bronzed arm.

In a moment, the shield-sisters might come to blows over an

increasingly petty argument. Their chief flung herself between them.

"Enough!" cried Shooga, her voice filling the small supply hut.

"Peace between you. Since there is not enough birch moss, I order

that you two shall go out and seek more, and furthermore, you shall

not raise your voices again. Now, apologize," she said, patting her

palms against the air as if pushing the two women together. "You are

warriors and sisters in combat!"

Dahli looked at Honi, who eyed her with suspicion.

"I apologize," Honi said at last.

"So do I," Dahli said, tossing back her mane of brown hair. "But

you did use up the moss." Honi's face turned a deeper shade of tan.

"I needed it!"

"And what am I supposed to do? Watch where I sit for a week?"

Dahli breasted up to Honi, her fists clenched. Honi went on guard

with her basket, as if she was about to belabor her shield-sister over

the head with it.

"Girls! Girls!" Shooga shouted, pushing them apart in truth this

time. The warrior women dodged to glare at one another over her

head, making faces. Shooga was fed up with the lot of them. Herback

hurt, too.

The time of the Growling had come again. Thank the Goddesses

such times were rare in the history of the village of Hee Kwal, or

there would be no unity, merely widely spaced houses full of woe.

The fault lay with Mother Nature herself. Women of bearing age had

children, with only a few turns of the moon between birth and

conceiving anew. With men gone so long, though, the last of the

children had been born months ago, leaving wombs idle. It was as if

all the women returned to the time of their earliest nubile season,

before they had bargained between themselves for husbands. As was

the way of the Mother Goddesses during the time of creation, each of

the women's cycles had gradually returned, joining the pattern until

they were identical in timing and duration. When the girls who had

reached womanhood but never been with a man were numbered

alongside the grown warriors, that made the Red Time very strong.

Woe betide the unwary stranger who wandered into the village

during the Growling. True, it only lasted a day or two in every moon,

but it sorely tried Shooga's patience.

The men of Hee Kwal had gone to the capital of Sen Serif, to

serve their year's time as honor guard to the king and queen. Next

time Shooga would see that it was the women who went to represent

Hee Kwal. The men had been away so long Shooga's youngest baby

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Nye, Jody Lynn - The Growling

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