Martian Brains and Other Things

I forget who put me onto this knitting pattern, but here's what came out of it:

"Martian," because the aliens in Mars Attacks! have blue tinted, bulging brains. This hat is for the Harvy Milk silent auction. I also knit a pair of fingerless gloves to go along with it.

Meanwhile, I'm on the last chapter of the new novel, with a deadline of May 1. Since I revise as I go, I'm a bit worried that the end won't be as polished as the beginning. I suppose my editor will tell me if that's the case, though. On the other hand, it may be weeks until she gets to it, so I can keep tinkering.

I've been thinking about the initiation/hazing thread. Lots of your ideas are good, probably better than what I came up with which is more a threat than anything else. The following is about a challenge that's been issued to Jame's ten to ride out on wide patrol to the foothills. The peculiar mares are called "thorns" -- As Harn tells Jame later, "Introduce a mare in season to a rathorn stallion and, if he doesn’t kill her, eleven months later you get the blackest, meanest little filly you can imagine. All they lack is their sire’s armor."


Brier and the rest of the ten command had gotten perhaps ten miles away from Kothifir by the time that Jame caught up with them, having slowed Bel alternately to a trot and a walk so as not to over-tire her. Jame rode up beside Brier Iron-thorn on her tall chestnut gelding. Bel’s head barely came up to his shoulder. Neither spoke for the next mile. The others tactfully fell back to give them privacy.
“You should have told me,” Jame said at last, nudging the Whinno-hir into a brief trot to catch up with the chestnut’s longer stride. Trinity, no wonder people used saddles; her tailbone throbbed with every bounce.
Brier shrugged. “You had other things to do. Besides, why should you waste a day with the rest of us?”
“Because I’m your ten-commander, idiot. I assume that precious note of yours included me.”
“It did. Specifically. In none too polite terms.”
“Which made you all the more determined to leave me out.”
Brier shrugged again. “It was a stupid order, and presumptuous, given who sent it, to demand that the Knorth Lordan do anything. To involve you in such nonsense demeans us all.”
Jame sighed. “If it had only been addressed to me, I might have torn it up the way Gorbel did with his challenge. Rue had it right: this little expedition proves nothing unless we run into a raid. But I am your commander and therefore responsible for you. In the future, we aren’t going to like many of the commands given to us, but we will still have to obey them. Do you have any spare water, by the way?”
Brier unhooked a goatskin pouch from her saddle and handed it down to her. Jame drank, then leaned forward to offer Bel a cupped handful of water. The mare’s pink tongue rasped her fingers dry, once, twice, and again.
“All right,” she said, straightening, a bit defensive. “I’m here without travel rations, tack, or even a weapon, discounting the knife in my boot. When I saw you heading out without me, well, I didn’t stop to think.”
She paused, flicked by her sixth sense. Death’s-head was nearby, but so was something else.
“Horses,” she said. “Strange ones.”
They were finally in the foothills of the Apollynes, their view restricted by rolling hills, shrubs, and giant rocks. Their mounts stirred uneasily as hoof-beats approached both ahead of them and behind. Could it be another Gemman raid like the one that had cost the young seeker her life?
The rathorn Death’s-head roared around a boulder lower down and surged up the incline toward them, his white mane roached up all down his spine and his tail flying like a battle standard.
Simultaneously, black mares erupted from the surrounding rocks with riders also in black, cheches concealing all but hard, bright eyes set in sun-dark faces.
“Karnids,” Brier snapped. “Circle up.”
The cadets backed rump to rump with Bel squeezed in the middle, in danger of being kicked by anyone of them. Jame slipped off and dodged between the surrounding horses. Death’s-head swerved toward her, as usual nearly running her over but allowing her to grab his mane and swing onto his back as he surged past. The rathorn pivoted to face the mares, then paused, snorting. Some of them were in season. Their scent drew off his attention as others dashed in.
Jame found herself in the center of a swirling storm of horseflesh. Sleek black heads with red eyes snaked past. White fangs snapped at her. Hands grabbed. She drew her knife and hacked at them, all the time clinging to the rathorn’s mane, forced to ride high by the roached spine. Brier’s shout seemed distant. They were running away with her, the rathorn stumbling over rocky ground, striking almost at random.
Come. You know where you belong.
The image formed in her mind of a tall, black-robed figure lifting his arms to receive her. He wore a single, silver glove.
I hacked off that hand when it reached out between scarlet ribbons to claim me …
Death’s-head snorted and steadied.
Not my lady.
Then he stumbled again and threw Jame over his head. She fell among rocks and lay there, dazed. All around her iron hooves struck spark from stone. A hand grabbed her arm and jerked her up across a saddle, knocking the breath out of her. The dimming sky whirled overhead. Then it went black.