Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) by Alexes Razevich Page B

found. Still, it didn’t feel right to me. I knew Kelroosh needed the food — and once I had stolen food myself in Chimbalay — but this was not something any commune doumana would do to another. To take food. To steal seeds that would be food in the future. It was wrong.
    But I wasn’t a commune doumana any longer. I was of Kelroosh, though not corentan, and my corenta-sisters needed what lay in those silos.
    I could only carry one bag. Nez and Binley carried the other four filled with grain, and Azlii carried the six unruly preslets, struggling to escape the sacks.
    Shoosh now , I sent to the preslets, to calm them down. Shoosh . Shoosh . I felt the birds settle, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Look at this , I sent to the birds. This is where you are going . I visualized Kelroosh, the preslets running free on the commons and through the village. The bagged birds squirmed, but with anticipation now, not fear.
    The four of us struggled under our burdens, heading back across the muddy fields. I kept sending the preslets calming visions, but part of me watched the stiffness in Azlii’s and Nez’s spines and I knew they were thinking the same thing I was: Where were the doumanas of Grunewald commune?
    Azlii came to a sudden stop and pointed toward a structure set away from the others, nearly backed into the hills. “What is that?”
    Binley shook her head. Nez shrugged.
    “A smokehouse,” I said. “For preserving beast-meat. Only the wealthiest farming communes have them. Simanca wanted one for Lunge. She might have won it, too, in the ten-year competition, if I hadn’t left.”
    Azlii kept her eyes on the structure. “Would there be food in there?”
    “Maybe. It could all have been eaten by now.”
    “Let’s go see,” she said.
    The other four started toward the smokehouse, but I said, “Wait. Something’s wrong.”
    Azlii sighed. “Something’s wrong in this whole commune. We’ll come back and pay for the food, I promise you that.”
    “No,” I said. “See how the building is leaning slightly? Like a big hand pushed it.”
    Nez squinted her eyes and cocked her head. “A little. Maybe. I can’t tell from this distance.”
    My steps faltered as we walked to the smokehouse. The closer we came to it, the more my neck burned. I set down the sack I was carrying. The structure definitely leaned, but I couldn’t see a reason for it. Azlii had sped her steps, impatient with my worries and me. She disappeared around the side of the smokehouse.
    When she reappeared moments later, her neck spots glowed gray-red with shock.
    “Hurry,” she called.
    Nez and Binley dropped their sacks and ran, their footprints deep in the mud.
    I came around the side of the structure. The hillside behind it had let loose. Mud and rocks had pushed through the back wall. A river of mud filled the smokehouse almost to the rafters.
    “I saw a foot,” Azlii said, throwing off her cloak. “Someone’s in there. Help me.”
    We dug handfuls and armfuls of mud, throwing them to the sides, the gritty, sticky sludge wet enough to squeeze water from. Azlii reached her first, the doumana whose foot poked from the muck.
    We freed the foot past the ankle, up the leg, almost to the knee. Nez had found her other leg and worked to free it. I inched my way up the mud and found her head, digging fast but carefully, hoping there was an air pocket and she might still be alive.
    I stared down at the doumana’s still face. “You can stop digging.”
    “But maybe…” Nez said from behind me.
    I looked over my shoulder and shook my head.
    “We’ll get her free anyway,” Azlii said, “out of respect.”
    I dug down around her, moving the mud away from her neck and shoulders. Azlii took one leg, Binley and Nez the other. The ground was slick beneath us. I dug the toes of my foot casings into the mud. Azlii nodded, and they pulled while I lifted and pushed.
    The low, gray clouds opened and a sudden hard rain fell.
    “Now what?” Binley said.