All day after meeting Besh she had avoided the sages and their servants, seeking the clearings several arrow-flights to the west, where some pilgrims were trying to restore a few of the festivities of Gathering. Pavilions that had been taken down in panic were now restored, and many folk had come out of hiding. There was still plenty of tension. But some people seemed determined to get on with.life, even if just for a little while.

She visited one tent where craft workers showed wares brought from all over the Slope. Their goods would have impressed Rety even yesterday. But now she smiled scornfully, having seen the bright machines the sky-humans used. At one panel discussion, she watched hoon, g’Kek, and human experts discuss improved techniques for weaving rope. The atmosphere was hushed, and few in the audience asked questions.

Nearby, a traeki ring-breeder displayed some flabby donut shapes with slender arms, eye buds, or stubby feet. A trio of mature traeki stood near the pen, perhaps pondering additions to a newborn stack they were building back home. Or maybe they were just browsing.

Farther along, in a sun-dappled glade, chimp acrobats performed for a crowd of children, and an all-race sextet played by a simmering hot spring. It all might have seemed quite gay if Rety didn’t sense a pall, spoiling the mood. And if she had not already hardened her heart to all things Jijoan.

These Slopies think they’re so much better than a pack of dirty sooners. Well, maybe it’s so. But then, everybody on Jijo is a sooner, ain’t they?

I’m going far away, so it won’t matter to me anymore.

In a rougher clearing, she passed much of the afternoon watching human kids and urrish middlings vie in a game of Drake’s Dare.

The playing field was a strip of sand with a stream along one side. The other border was a long pit filled with coals, smoldering under a coating of gray ash. Wisps of hot smoke wafted into Rety’s face, tugging painful memories of Jass and Bom. Her scars tightened till she moved a ways uphill, sitting under the shade of a dwarf garu.

Two contestants arrived — a human boy starting at the north end of the field and a burly urrish middling at the south — sauntering and hurling insults as they neared the center, where two umpires waited.

“Hey, hinney! Get ready to take a bath!” the boy taunted, trying to swagger but hindered by his left arm, which was trussed back with cloth bindings. He wore a leather covering from crotch to chin, but his legs and feet were bare.

The young urs had her own protections and handicaps. Tough, transparent junnoor membranes stretched tight over her delicate pouches and scent glands. As the middling drew close, she tried to rear up threateningly — and almost fell over, to the amusement of onlookers. Rety saw the reason — her hind pair of legs were hobbled together.

“Silly skirl!” the urs shouted at her adversary, regaining her balance to hop forward once more. “Vavy skirl gonna get vurned!”

Along both boundaries — beyond the coal bed and across the stream — crowds of other youths gathered to watch. Many wore leather or membrane protectors, hanging jauntily open, while waiting for their own turn in the arena. Some boys and girls smeared salve over livid reddish streaks along their calves and thighs and even their faces, making Rety wince. True, none of the burns looked anywhere near as deep or wounding as her own. No blisters or horrid, charred patches. Still, how could they risk getting scorched on purpose?

The thought both nauseated and queerly fascinated Rety.

Was this so very different from her own story, after all? She had known that standing up to Jass would have consequences, yet she did it anyway.

Sometimes you just gotta fight, that’s all. Her hand lifted briefly to touch her face. She regretted nothing. Nothing.

Some urrish spectators also bore marks of recent combat, especially on their legs, where swaths of fur had gone mangy or sloughed off. Strangely, there wasn’t any clear separation along race lines — no human cheering section versus an urrish one. Instead, there was a lot of mixing, preliminary sparring, and friendly comparing of techniques and throws. Rety saw one human boy joke with a middling urs, laughing with his arm on her sleek mane.

A sizable group of zookirs and chimps screeched at each other in excitement, making wagers of piu nodules and pounding the ground with their hands.

Some distance beyond the coals, Rety saw another makeshift arena being used by juvenile traekis with newly wedded rings, engaged in a different kind of sport with g’Kek youngsters so light and agile, they spun wheelies and even lifted to stride briefly on their rear pusher legs. That tournament seemed to involve a sort of rolling, whirling dance. Rety couldn’t make out the point, but clearly the pastime was less violent than Drake’s Dare.

A pair of qheuen umpires — one gray and one blue — awaited the two contestants in the middle of the sandy strip. They carefully inspected the human’s sleeve for weapons, then checked the middling’s teeth for caps on her scythelike incisors. The blue qheuen then backed away into the stream while the gray extended armored legs and, to Rety’s blinking surprise, stepped daintily onto the bed of steaming coals! From then on it kept shifting its weight, lifting two clawed feet at a time high above the fuming surface, then switching to another pair, and so on.

After ritually — and warily — bowing to each other, the boy and middling began circling, looking for weakness.

Abruptly, they sprang at each other, grappling, each trying to push, twist, or throw the other in the direction he or she least wanted to go. Now Rety saw the reason for the handicaps. With both hind legs tied, the urs could not stomp her opponent or simply power her way to victory. Likewise, the boy’s strong, agile arms might throttle the middling, unless one was bound to his side.

“drak’s dare! drak’s dare! yippee yooee!”

The tiny, squeaky voice startled Rety, coming from much closer than the crowd of shouting onlookers. She swiveled, seeking the source, but saw no one nearby till a tug on her tunic made her look down.

“pouch-safe? yee talk! you me pouch-safe and yee talk you!”

Rety stared. It was a tiny urs! No bigger than her foot, it danced delicately on four miniature hooves while still plucking at her garment. The little creature tossed its mane, rotating a sinuous neck to peer around behind it, nervously, “yee need pouch! need pouch!”

Rety turned to follow its anxious stare and glimpsed what had it terrified. A sleek black shape crouched in the undergrowth, panting slightly, a lolling tongue hanging between rows of sharp white teeth. At first, Rety felt a shock of recognition, thinking it was Mudfoot, grouchy old Dwer’s funny companion in the mountains. Then she saw this one had no brown paw patches. A different noor, then.

The predator raised its head and leered at the tiny urs, taking a step, then another.

On impulse, Rety scooped up the quivering prey and slipped it in her leather hip-pouch.

The noor gave her a look of puzzled disappointment, then turned to vanish in the shrubs.

Cheers, boos, and excited snorts made her look up in time to see the human contestant tumble through a cloud of billowing ash. To Rety’s amazement, the boy was not instantly set ablaze but rolled erect, dancing from bare foot to bare foot on the coals, swiftly but calmly brushing embers from crevices in his leather garment. He waved off the gray qheuen, who had hurried protectively to his side. The youth ran a hand along his collar one more time, then sauntered across more glowing cinders back to the sandy arena.

Rety was impressed. Slopies seemed tougher than she’d thought.

“hot-hot, but not much heat!” the little voice squeaked from her pouch, as if pleased by her surprise. All memory of flight from the hungry noor seemed forgotten, “boy make boo-boo. slip and fall, but not again, not this boy! he tops! watch silly hinney get wet!”