by Candy Rae
CHAPTER 9 (Northern Continent)
James and Kath also sneaked away. One moment they were there, but when Jim looked again they had vanished and he decided they had gone to spend some time alone. Presumably Rozya and Matvei were doing much the same thing. He laid his head against a convenient tree. Despite its hardness, he felt his thoughts wandering and his eyes closing. Tired out with all his experiences his head lolled forward. He was sound asleep within minutes.
Larya found him there some time later. Sitting down at his side, she poked him with her left forepaw, hard. Jim woke with a start and looked up at her out of bleary eyes.
Her emotions, he sensed, were full to the brim of agitation. Something was seriously wrong, of that he was sure. A knot of apprehension started in his stomach. He sat up a little straighter, better to hear what she said.
“Jim. Get up. A message has arrived. You must come to the daga of Zanatei.”
When they arrived Jim noticed that this daga was larger than the others. Inside he was pleased to find some tree stumps arranged as seating stools to one side. Good! He wouldn’t need to stand. Zanatei, Afanasei and a strangely marked Lind were seated in front of them. They were waiting for Jim.
“Sit,” requested Zanatei courteously. It was, after all, his daga.
When he was seated comfortably there was an uneasy silence, as if his hosts were trying to work out what to say. Perhaps they were, Jim had no way of telling. Larya sat beside her partner and prepared herself to listen to what Afanasei said. She was becoming even more agitated as the seconds ticked by and this increasing tenseness communicated itself to Jim. The knot in his stomach grew.
“Spies return,” said Afanasei at last, “with news.”
He paused.
“Larg come summer.”
Jim took a deep breath and nodded. He had been expecting this. What he was not expecting was what Afanasei said next. It was only five words, but they were the last five words Jim was expecting to hear.
“There are other men south.”
“Men? How did they get there?” he asked in surprise, rocking back on the stool.
“Same way as you did.”
“Another ship?”
The Lind did not answer. They looked very worried. It was obvious that there was more to come.
“Jsei will tell,” said Zanatei indicating the strange purple-marked Lind who stepped forward. Jim returned the look he gave him eye to eye. From another pack, different colour pattern, wonder if all the packs are differentiated in this way?
This was neither the time nor the place to investigate. He had far more important matters to worry about, like who exactly were these men?
Jsei started to talk rapidly in Lindish and Jim could only understand a word here and there. He shook his head sorrowfully at Afanasei.
“I don’t understand him,” he admitted. “You will have to translate.”
“I know the tale,” said Afanasei and began to talk in slow Standard. “They are bad men, they fight and kill.”
“Fight and kill?” interrupted Jim, wondering why the complement of a colony ship would start killing and fighting each other. Then, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he began to realise what the Lind were trying to tell him. He grew hot and cold, all at once.
“The Electra! The prison ship!” he exclaimed. “Great stars above, she must have been thrown here by the storm as well. What abominable luck.”
“Many men. No females,” stated Afanasei.
That bore out Jim’s assumption that it was the WCPS Electra. He racked his brains trying to remember what he knew about her. She had been a bigger ship than the Argyll. Why, she must have been carrying over twenty thousand convicts. He had never seen the manifests but with growing dismay he recollected a conversation in the petty officers’ mess one evening a couple of years ago. There had been no female convicts on the transport. Apart from a few specialists and the families of the crew the entire complement on the ship had been male. No wonder the convicts were fighting amongst themselves. He wondered how the female survivors were coping. He concluded that they were probably having a very bad time.
He continued to sit, stunned, his thoughts racing, on the wooden seat, stunned and broodingly silent. Larya tried to comfort him but to no avail. He was too shocked to speak.
“Larg plan alliance with these men.”
This was chilling news. It sounded as if they would not just have to contend with the Larg this coming summer but with an army of criminals as well. Jim was glad that the Lind had not called a general meeting. The human youngsters were scared to bits at the thought of the impending campaign against the Larg as it was. This news would seep into their courage with devastating results. This news would have to be broken gently. Let them get accustomed to the thought of war first. It did make warning the settlement that much more imperative. He would have to go soon.
“Do the Larg send spies to the north the same way as you do to the south?”
“Yes,” said Larya. “Paddle on wood when water is deep in cold season.” A picture of a Lind lying astride a large tree trunk impinged itself in Jim’s mind. Jim had wondered how the Lind traversed the channel when tides were high and the smaller islands were submerged and not available to rest on. They used wood to give them buoyancy and paddled over the sea. A certain type of redwood floated exceedingly well over a long immersion time. Jim had tested it out for himself. Just how efficient was that? His estimation of the Lind went up another notch.
“These men know that there are humans in the north, the Larg will have told them,” decided Jim.
Zanatei nodded. “Yes,” he said simply, “we think so.”
“Land is dry there,” said Afanasei. “Settlement is good land for humans.”
“Good arable land, of course, they would want such land for themselves. The south is mainly desert if I remember correctly. The only arable land is that bordering on the rivers?”
But Afanasei was not finished. He was the first of them to realise that it was not just the land that would draw these man north.
“They wish mates also.”
There was the rub, Jim realised with increasing dismay. The convicts would covet the land and the women in the settlement, to start families of their own. They would massacre the men and take the women and younger children for their own, at least the strongest of them would. The humans in the north were outnumbered by at least four to one, not good odds in a fight. These were vicious men, sadists and murderers being well represented. The Larg would support them, of course they would. Help with this summer campaign and allies in the north for the future. If the south won, the Lind and the colonists would have to retreat further and further eastwards into Lind lands as the Larg and convict descendants prospered and multiplied.
It didn’t bear thinking about. But he would have to think about it, they all would.
Jim rose to his feet. “Our plans have changed. Time is of the essence. I’ll have to warn the settlement at once. Those remaining here when I go west will help teach you about how humans fight and what you must do.”
He strode towards the entranceway then turned and issued one last comment. Unconsciously, it emerged from his mouth much like a command. “I’ll brief Francis. Listen to him whilst I am away. He knows what he is talking about.”
With that he exited the daga at a run, Larya following at his heels.
Zanatei and Afanasei looked at each other.
“A good man I think,” said Zanatei, “a good choice as Susyc of our armies. True, he has never been inside a battle with the Larg but Larya will prepare him. You go with Jim to meet with the other humans?”
“Ceja,” answered Afanasei. “I go. I respect Jim and believe he will be a good leader. He has a good grasp of tactics too I think. Jim to be Susyc for Lind and human?”
“I will send message back to Gtratha advising his appointment. I think they will be amenable.”
Afanasei nodded, well satisfied with his pack-leader’s answer.
&n
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