Read Shadows in the Cave for Free Online

northwest or southwest, turned by the shapes of the great ridges. The rhododendrons and mountain laurel were thick as fur on the hillsides, blocking vision. Scouts walked ahead and behind. Others flanked themselves to each side and followed trails that led to observation points. Spotting enemies in this country was almost impossible, but Shonan and his soldiers had driven all enemies back to distant borders. He might have felt safe if he did not remember, every day of his life, that his wife was taken from him in an enemy attack in country just like this.
    His duty now was to pay attention, but his daughter was making it hard.
    “What?!” she said. “What do you expect? You’re making us leave everything we love. Our friends? Most of them we leave at home. Our uncles, aunts, and cousins?” She spread her arms toward the forested mountainsides. “Why don’t I see them? Every place I played as a kid, every place I stooped to get water, every place we gathered onions or seeds—where is it all?”
    Shonan walked silently. Aku said, “Lots of our relatives and friends are here with us.” A third of the village, in fact.
    “Yes, being tortured. Walk three quarter moons to a place we’ve never seen and don’t give a damn about, and then stay there forever.”
    Only Shonan and a score of soldiers had visited Amaso.
    “Salya,” said her twin, “you have your lover.” Unlike me . “You will have a husband, children, your family.”
    Shonan and Kumu glanced at each other, but neither even whispered.
    Salya plunged on. Sometimes she was like the drummers at a ceremony—carried away with their own rhythms and then wilder and crazier until dancers fell on the ground laughing, unable to move to such a beat. And the drummers loved it. They banged on until … who knew what made them stop? Who knew what would make Salya stop?
    Shonan strode along on one side of her, her clown lover and twin brother on the other side. None of them cared if she banged out her mood. It was half anger and half play, and would wear down. Shonan’s mind was on the country. He couldn’t see far to the rear, high ridges shutting out half the sky. He couldn’t see past the forest to the next region they would reach, the piedmont, the foothills of the mountains. He knew it, though. It was a good country, full of oaks, chestnuts, silver maples, sweet gum and black gum, and lots of game. They would spend a night in a Galayi village in the piedmont, Equani, where three narrow streams joined into one broad river. Everyone had relatives there. It was the last time they would sleep inside for the three quarter moons of their walk.
    “When we’re happy where we are, you ask us to start all over in a village of strangers! Why? So you can be important? You want to be a hero like your grandfather?”
    Shonan gave her a sharp glance. Smart remarks about the hero Zeya were out of order.
    Salya stopped as if she was out of breath, but she always had enough breath to start a fire. She could have gone on about all their neighbors, the babbling and shouting of the children they knew, the roughhousing of the boys, and her girlfriends and their chance to smile slyly and gossip about boys their own age.
    Shonan and Aku knew Salya’s barbs well, and in their way they were friendly. She liked to stir the pot. But she didn’t often run the wolf of her anger this long.
    “Kumu,” said Shonan, “would you run ahead and speak to Yim and make sure things are all right? Wait for us there.”
    It was a gesture accepting Kumu as part of the party. The clown trotted off.
    “You done?” said Shonan to Salya, knowing he shouldn’t ask.
    Those words pricked her into rambling on. No one listened.
    Aku, especially, had other things on his mind. His father had indicated that things would work out with Salya and Kumu.
    Aku was silent because his mind was far away. He was the twin who was glad to go to Amaso. Salya thought he wanted to get away from a gang of teenage boys who