by Luke Norris
They were a proud people with generous hearts, and he began to wonder how he could repay the selfless kindness they had shown him.
One morning he was surprised to find he had a visitor. When he woke, it wasn't the small girl who often sat at his bedside chatting, instead it was a driver this time holding the water pitcher.
“I told you to keep that cut clean!” Ponsy's deep voice had a hint of mirth. He raised the water pitcher, and Oliver drank greedily, but his eyes remained on the big driver.
Ponsy's chestnut skin looked more sun-browned than he remembered, he had been spending time in the fields. His small mouth turned up in a grin, “but I think you're going to make it.”
“Where are the others?” Oliver asked.
“They are in the hut with the woman, Shira. She died this morning. I came to tell you,” he paused. “I think that Yarn maybe had something going for her because I saw him crying.”
Oliver looked at Ponsy's small features, they showed no emotion at breaking the news. This man is not in league with the others, he has no idea who they are or that Shira had been Yarn’s woman and lieutenant of a pirate crew, Oliver thought.
“The villagers have prepared a funeral fire outside the village for her,” Ponsy said, “I can carry you out to watch.”
“Why did Jerome not have a funeral fire?”
Ponsy looked at Oliver hearing the double question in his voice. “Yes, the big man died. We burned his body soon after we arrived. I know you were friends. I came to get you for the ceremony so you could say goodbye. I think Jerome would have liked that because none of the others were there, just two of the locals in charge of the fire and me. You were just too sick. Cougar you've been out for weeks. Then a few days later it was Costa, he died from his wounds.” Ponsy's stare became distant as he recalled the fight. “I have never seen a Driver move like that. I was not so close but his hands were moving quicker than the eye could see, I mean they were a blur! I told myself that it was a trick of the light but…,” he shook his head, “how did he best Jerome? That big bull was probably the most lethal driver among us, but he couldn't lay a finger on Costa. Even with Jerome’s strength and speed it was still only luck that he broke Costa's rib.” Ponsy looked back down at Oliver and saw the anger in his eyes and his hard-set mouth under the dark beard. “I thought you were next Cougar but I see you've still got fight in you, I think you will pull through after all.” He stood up to leave. “You are obviously in no condition to leave your bed so ill…”
Oliver put his hand on Ponsy's arm to stop him. “Thank you!” He looked beseechingly into the drivers small eyes.
Ponsy raised his eyebrows. “Why thank you?”
“For being there for Jerome. Take me! Take me to the fire! I need to see it!”
A shuffling at the door caused them both to look up. A young local woman entered the room, she was slender and had her black hair braided across her fringe. She searched the room briefly and her hazel eyes rested on Ponsy. “Taji alhayn?” she had an easy smile.
“Aii, I'm coming,” Ponsy replied. “This is Ayla. I'm helping with the harvesting in the hills.”
“You speak their language already?” Oliver asked.
“Ha!” Ponsy bellowed deeply, “only a few words. Verity has been helping me learn, she has a talent.”
“Wait! The woman driver has been helping you?” Oliver's eyes were searching.
“Yea, it’s scary how fast that girl learns. She often comes out to the fields too. I will come for you later Cougar!” As he turned and left, Oliver saw Ayla place her hand on Ponsy's arm.
*
Verity shivered. The huge waxing moon cast its pale light onto the form of Shira who lay upon the crisscrossed structure of dried wood. The bonfire had been built outside the village to keep her quarantined from its inhabitants. Over Shira’s face had been placed a white cloth as was the custom of the hill people. Verity was glad her face was covered, she had glimpsed the painful contortions that rigor mortis had frozen on Shira's final expression.
Verity had learned that Tahat's attempt to kill Shira on the road when they were first discovered had been an offer of mercy, but Costa and Yarn had naturally stopped him. Instead, Shira had endured three weeks of unbearable pain as the offspring of the arthropod had slowly grown inside her, feeding on her womb lining first and the surrounding tissue and finally her vital organs.
During that day Yarn had scrubbed her jumpsuit obsessively, until it was almost white again, and dressed her in it. Now she looked illuminated in the moonlight and peaceful.
Only two men from the village had come to oversee the cremation, they walked around the structure making final checks and talking in low voices with one another. The only other villagers were Tahat and the young woman that the red-skinned driver Ponsy had been spending time with, Ayla. Verity had even been helping him learn the language so he could talk to her.
Verity watched Tahat and Ponsy carry the sick driver, Cougar, on a makeshift stretcher and lay him down opposite her. Riff was beside her, his blond beard glinting. Behind Riff stood the other driver, Drake, whose dark face was only visible from the whites of his eyes and occasional flashes of teeth.
Drake glanced at her impassively. Verity didn't like him, he did whatever Yarn told him to do and hardly spoke. Costa told her this was most likely Drake’s third or fourth tour. That made him well over a century old. He had been under the influence of the drugs so long they’d had a permanent effect. Apparently, this made him an asset to the group because he wouldn't go thinking for himself like the other drivers. She had seen Drake take his shirt off to bathe on their arduous march, and seen the hundreds of scars that adorned his black torso. He must have been in hundreds of battles. How could they take everything from a man and force him to do this? It made her sick. She turned back to the fire.
If my parents could see their Veri now, she thought. Despite her petulant nature at home, her parents had openly bragged to their friends back in Terras about the success of their daughter. Her father made no secret about his aspirations for her to follow in his political footsteps.
The darker underbelly of society had attracted her investigative nature, but she had unwittingly stepped into a full-blown pirate trade. Were they even aware how deep this trade ran on Terras? She’d never even heard of it. Had she been so sheltered? Or was the scale of this industry simply not known to the politicians at home? These people had their own rules, and if they ever found out who her father was, they would panic and eject her into space without a second thought.
She looked at Yarn and saw a villager hand him the flaming torch to light the fire in his own time. She wondered what her father her parents would think of her about to watch the cremation of a second member of society on a primitive planet in as many weeks. I may never see my parents again. She realized. I'm trapped in this nightmare. The captain and engineer would kill me if they knew who I was! The drivers would kill me if they knew who I was! I’m stranded, along for the ride.
She started to choke up, a tear rolled down her cheek. Yarn looked over at her, and she saw he was crying too. He came over and placed a comforting hand on Verity's shoulder.
“She was a strong woman,” he said, “and the only woman for me. I will never find another like her.”
Verity thought how much older he looked. Whether it was a play of the flickering firelight she wasn't sure but his beard was whiter and the lines at the corner of his thin eyes looked like they had been etched deeper over the last few weeks.
He walked to the corner of the structure and held his torch to the dry wood until it caught, then walked around each corner doing the same. Verity watched him walk past Tahat and the two drivers.
Her gaze was drawn to the sick driver Cougar. In the flickering orange light, his eyes looked fierce as they followed Yarn. Suddenly he looked across the tiny glade to her and their eyes locked. She felt such accusation burning from his stone expression. Surely it was a fabrication of her guilty conscience. But his
eyes were so intense. His gaze deepened her feeling of isolation. She had to look away.
In her loneliness she had latched onto the hill people, learning the language and culture, she had become close to Zawej Tahat. Verity realized she was attached to these people, their amiable temperament and engaging manner with her. Society misses the point, they think they are so cultured by having the latest art or music from new planets, but what is that without the people? Seemed so hollow.
She knew that they wouldn't be staying here though. Now that Shira was dead they’d be moving on, and make their way to the south where these supposed kings lived. The only solace she could find in this was that it would bring them closer to Yarn’s grand scheme to get back to the ship, and eventually back to her Terras.
Fear was always on the periphery of her thoughts, a black fog that threatened to creep in and engulf her. What if Yarn’s plan doesn't work? There are so many risks with cryogenic sleep outside of the ship! Will my parents still be alive if I get back to society? Will my parents outlive me if I grow old on this planet? She pushed these thoughts back.
The fire caught quickly and burned clean and clear, only finally when Shira's body caught did the smoke become a plume of thick grey obscuring the stars behind it.
*
Oliver was awoken the next morning by voices outside Tahat's house. Bright light filtered through the door indicating late morning. Oliver still felt tired, but with each day he felt his strength returning, and with it his appetite. He pushed himself up to sit with his legs over the side of the bed.
The sight of his own body alarmed him. His thighs were so thin that his knees bulged, ugly protrusions. The muscles looked stringy as they writhed over each other, the hair on his leg was black and obscene against the white skin. God, look at me, I look like one of those Egyptian mummies, he thought.
He drank greedily from the water jug and then began frantically chewing on one of the strips of dried meat Zawej had left for him, but he stopped when he recognized the voice of Ponsy outside.
“I’m not just going to leave him here! He might recover yet!”
“The hill people here will look after him,” Yarn said. “Come south to the land of kings! We'll be kings among these primitives! There’s nothing here for you.”
“You go on, once Cougar recovers we can follow,” Ponsy replied.
“Well, you know where to find us.”
Oliver heard the rustling of possessions. They're leaving already! He realized. Verity was speaking to Zawej in the language of the hill people, Oliver could only understand bits.
“May you one day find your tribe again over the black mountains my second daughter,” Zawej said. Then she lowered her voice even though the others could not understand. “I see in you that you are not from the same tribe as these men, follow your heart my second daughter and be brave. Take these clothes and furs, but remember the men in the land of kings do not see us hill people well.”
“May you be blessed under the shadow of the mountain,” replied Verity. Then she turned to a young woman there, “Ayla, look-after this one, I think he is softer than he looks, and perhaps he has other reasons for staying here than the sick man.”
Oliver listened to Verity disgusted, that actress! That snake! Can't they see through her bullshit, see what she really is? But he had to admit she did a good job of making it sound like genuine emotion.
He heard the voices of the second-stager's growing fainter as they made their preparations to leave. Then Ayla, the young woman, spoke. “Tabqi?” she asked. She was right outside the door to Tahat's house.
“Abqi! - I stay!” Ponsy said.
He heard him step into the house, it wasn't long before he appeared through the door to find Oliver sitting on his bed.
“You're staying then!” Oliver said. “I know you aren't staying for me,” he waved his hand dismissively, “but you made the right choice! We need to talk Ponsy, there are things you need to know about the others, who they really are, and about yourself!”
“I came to tell you that the others are leaving, heading south,” Ponsy said, “but you heard already!” He looked at Oliver's solemn expression. “What things do I need to know Cougar?”
“Firstly, call me Oliver!”
23. Journey south
In the days that followed, Verity could see the landscape easing to softer rolling hillside. Plowed fields were interspersed with small patches of forest where the land was too steep or not suitable to farm. The travelers had passed through several villages belonging to the Hajir clan. It appeared only Tahat's people used the terrace form of farming, the people living on these gentler hills grew their crops on the fields and more livestock could be seen. Verity spotted the occasional villager even on horseback.
They attracted attention from villagers as they passed, but news of their strange arrival at Tahat's village had already traveled through the territory. They wore the leather clothes and furs of the Hajir people given to them by Zawej, so their appearance was not as startling as people had been led to believe. Although, the dark-skinned driver Drake did receive astonished stares along with Riff’s blond hair.
Zawej had convinced Tahat to give them a pony to bear their provisions for the long march. He had not parted with it gladly. They had given him their jumpsuits as a token of trade explaining the insulation and durable qualities of the material had enabled them to cross the black mountains, a lie Verity had not translated gladly, and the suits would be invaluable for hunters traveling into the foothills. This second part was of course true. In the end, Tahat had relented, giving them a beast of burden, and also a hunting bow that Riff had taken a fancy to.
Riff carried a thin quiver with a few arrows at his hilt and the long unstrung bow diagonally across his back with a leather strap he had attached.
They all wore long leather capes, each with large hood laced in at the nape. They quickly learned that these were far inferior to the material of their jumpsuits. They were good at breaking the wind and keeping off a light shower, but in the first deluge of rain, the leather became sodden and heavy. They donned the capes anyway as heavy rain was seldom and they were more useful than not.
Yarn still had an air of confidence and authority, but his enthusiasm for the escapade seemed to have died with Shira. It was as if she had been the muse for his spirit of misadventure. He was stony set, often walking for long periods in silence. He made no attempt at using diplomacy with the last driver, he simply gave orders. It was as if Drake had been craving somebody to take the mantle of leadership because he accepted the orders readily, falling back into the comfort zone of what he knew as a driver.
Verity felt more comfortable walking behind him. He reminded her of a slinking black cat, nice to look at, but lethal potential under the surface.
“From Tahat's description, we must be leaving Hajir land soon!” Riff said.
Yarn pulled the water skin from his belt and swigged at it while he surveyed the land. The plains now stretched out below them, a patchwork of forests, fields and small settlements could be seen in the distance. Away to the west, the light glinted on a great river meandering like a giant serpent from the foothills through the Lowlands to the haze on the horizon. Far to the south, it looked like the thin blue line of the coast could be seen, where the ocean met the wispy afternoon sky.
Verity had her hand to her brow to shadow her eyes from the afternoon sun. As she gazed at the panorama, she felt a sense of peace settle over her for the first time. There was something grounding about this land and its people, untainted by the cosmopolitan ascendancy of second-stage society.
“Yes!” she confirmed, “we are half a day’s walk from the last Highland village, that was the third village we passed, so this marks the border of Hajir land.” She drank from her own flask.
Drake had brought the pony up behind them, and Yarn turned to him and switched to the simpler command language. “Drake put your hood on! We don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves if we enco
unter people on the road. From the reaction in the villages your race is not known in these parts.”
Drake obeyed pulling the large hood over his head. The long brim hung down almost over his eyes, casting his dark face into complete shadow. His tall stature and wide frame rendered a menacing silhouette with the leather cape and hood.
“Good!” Yarn said. “That should keep us a little more inconspicuous.” He turned to Verity.
“What did Tahat say about the language of the lowlanders?”
“They trade with the clans, and many of the words are the same, but it is difficult for them to understand. From Tahat's description, it sounds to me like it is a dialect of the same language, but I won't know until I can talk to someone from there.”
“Ok, you will have to teach us as you learn! I'm sure it will be no problem for you sweetheart, you'll pick it up quick, you're as sharp as a Shitar singer.” Yarn winked at her. Music from the Shitar system was infamous. It was the first time in days that he had made any attempt at humor and Verity felt a hint of his old spirit returning. “Come, let’s lunch here!” he said.
They had some fruit left from the last village they had passed through and the salted dried meat Zawej had provided.
Yarn sifted through their food provisions and did a quick inventory. “I hope you can use that thing Riff!” Yarn pointed to the bow Riff had placed on the ground beside himself. “We have one day’s worth of meat left by my reckoning.”
As if in answer, Riff stood up with his bow and placed the permanently strung end between his feet. He leaned over the weapon compressing it with his upper body weight until he was able to slide the loop of the bowstring over the end. He drew an arrow from the quiver on his belt and notched it as he eyed a suitable tree. He drew the arrow back until the feathers on the arrow shaft tickled his blond beard. His beady eye ran along the length of the arrow. He loosed. The twang of the bowstring was followed by two noises. First, the thud of the arrow embedding itself in the trunk of the tree, and secondly the yelp from Riff as the bowstring snapped into his wrist peeling a small patch of skin back.