The one that now approached slowly, rooting in the garden, grunting and chewing tubers was a smaller male. Zell breathed a sigh of relief. On the other hand, he could only hope it wasn’t part of a whole band.
Suddenly, it lifted its head, sniffing and squinting. Yes, it had noticed him. Zell braced himself.
It broke into a run, lowering its head, the impressive tusks gleaming in the sun.
Zell put the spear into position, ramming the end into the firm ground, one of his feet reinforcing that hold. He leaned forward on the other leg, bracing the spear at an angle, anticipating the impact.
The megaboar sprinted at him and ran right into the spear. Of course, the knife was too small to do enough damage for a quick kill, and it slipped on the strong chest, raked up, and just tore one ear. The megaboar simply kept running, bowling Zell over and tearing the makeshift spear out of his hand.
Shaking blood from its head, the megaboar whirled and ran at him again. Zell jumped to the side at the last moment, hoping to be able to recover the spear for a second stab.
The megaboar ran past him, and Zell grabbed the spear, barely putting it back into position before the megaboar was attacking again.
This time, it took the spear in the throat. Its speed was still high enough to carry it all the way to Zell before it collapsed on him, thrashing and slashing.
Zell screamed as one of the tusks sank deep into his calf, tearing his leg. He grabbed the spear and wrestled it out of the megaboar’s throat, scooting back on the ground, his blood mingling with that of the beast.
He stabbed it again and again, and finally the large beast stopped thrashing. Zell staggered to his feet, aware he needed help, leaning on his mangled spear, his vision getting fuzzy. He took a wobbling step towards the huts, then another. The tusk must have sliced his leg really badly, he thought as he sank to the ground after only a few more steps. At least everyone else was safe. Reality faded.
Vaguely, he felt hands on his leg, horrible pressure, then a belt tightening on his thigh. He groaned in pain.
“He’s losing too much blood,” a familiar voice said.
“Yes. Let’s try this.”
Blinding, searing pain shot through his leg, lashing through his entire body. He couldn’t even scream because he couldn’t get air into his lungs. His body locked up and trembled.
“Hold him, Shabs! I must seal this artery! And this blighted regenerator is not working well at all.”
Strong hands gripped his leg, while he still writhed in worse pain than he had felt his entire life. Suddenly, it stopped, and he sagged, gasping for breath.
“It’s done, but that’s it. I can’t use it for the rest if it causes this much pain. I need to do this the old-fashioned way.” That was Ssheyrra, snarling so much he hardly recognized her voice.
Zell noticed hands on his shoulders, kisses on his face, wetness splashing down. He opened his eyes with an effort. Girma was crying. He tried to lift a hand, but had no strength left. His eyes fell shut again.
“Keep him awake, Girma! Slap him, if you have to.”
More pain in his leg made him twitch.
“Hold him. I can’t have him flopping around like that.”
“She’s stitching your leg,” Girma said, tears still dripping on him. “You need to hold still.”
“Oh.” He was surprised by how weak his voice was.
“Hang on, Zell. Please hang on.” Girma’s mouth twisted, and more tears flowed.
“’s ‘kay,” he mumbled. “Don’ cry.”
She didn’t listen to him, and cried even more instead. He tried to move a hand again, and this time she grabbed it and held it in a tight grip. He twitched his fingers a little, and she sobbed.
The little painful tweaks in his leg moved further and further away. His vision dimmed. He blinked.
“Zell!”
He blinked some more, but his eyes insisted on falling shut.
Someone slapped him, and he focused a little. His hand hurt. Why was he so tired?
“Zell!” The voice was so anguished that he forced himself to open his eyes again. Oh, it was only Girma. But why was she crying? And crushing his hand?
“That’s all I can do here. We need to get him to a proper regenerator, or that regenerator to him. Soon.”
“We need to evacuate this Sanctuary. It’s not safe with that hole in the Fence. There might be more of those monsters.”
“Well, then, can you carry him?”
“Probably.”
Who were they talking about, Zell wondered vaguely. He felt arms underneath him, and then he floated. No, he was being carried. He almost laughed at himself for being so confused. His head rolled a little, and he found a shoulder to lean it against.
“That’s good,” someone said. “Stay with me.”
Well, where would he go? Silly Rraussha.
He noticed when he was put onto a soft surface. A bed, he thought. That was good, he was so tired. But for some reason, Girma didn’t want him to sleep. He pried his eyes open.
“Zell.” She was still crying. “Zell, you’re badly hurt.”
He managed a snort of a sort. As if he didn’t know, with his leg pulsing and aching.
“Promise me you’ll stay?”
He produced a weak smile, just for her, but he couldn’t move his lips well enough for words. So he moved his fingers and hoped she would understand. Of course, he wanted to stay. If he died, Girma would cry even more, and that just wasn’t acceptable.
She kissed his face again.
He found his voice. “Love you,” he mumbled, little more than a sigh, but she had heard him. She sobbed out loud.
Ssheyrra moved into his line of vision. “You’re stable now, Zell. We’re doing our best to get a working regenerator, and then you’ll be as good as new in next to no time.”
She was babbling, and that surprised him.
“So tired,” he whispered.
“That’s okay. You can sleep now.”
Oh, bliss.
He closed his eyes and slipped into grateful oblivion.
Chapter 19
Zell’s left leg was stuck in a trap. He twisted and pulled and did everything he could, but it wouldn’t come free. The trap was hurting him, and he needed to get away, there were Diles coming after him. He thrashed some more, but suddenly, the Diles were there. They pushed down on his shoulders and legs, and they were going to capture and torture him. He kept struggling.
Someone was calling his name. Over and over again.
That voice was familiar. And it told him to stop fighting and lie still.
Zell found he trusted it enough to obey.
A hand took his, another one was gently patting his shoulder. “Zell, please wake up. Please.”
He blinked open his eyes, found Girma peering down at him with an anxious frown, and memory rushed back in.
“Oh, stars,” he mumbled and sagged back. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
He nodded.
“The Sanctuary stays evacuated, until they fix the hole in the Fence,” Shabs said. “They have retrieved the carcass, and they are skinning it and cutting it up. You’ll get the tusks eventually.”
Zell managed a weak smile. “Not that I did it for the trophy.”
“Ssheyrra is out borrowing a regenerator from her clinic. She says your leg will be just fine as soon as she can get to work on it.”
“That’s good.” One of his worst fears went away. He closed his eyes and sighed.
“She saved your life.” Girma’s voice trembled. “There was so much blood.”
“Most of that was from that megaboar, I think.” Well, he had certainly added a lot to it, but he wanted to calm down Girma.
“Really?”
Zell opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Yes. I got it in the throat.”
“I was on a roof,” Girma went on. “I couldn’t leave you. Shabs came back after shooing out the people, and Ssheyrra was in a tree. We
saw all of it.”
“That was a bad idea.” Zell sighed again, he had hoped that his friends would be far away when he was expecting to die.
“I had to watch.” Her mouth twisted. “I just had to. You were risking your life with a weapon that hardly deserved that name. I… at the worst, I had to witness that… fight.”
Witness his death, she meant. Zell reached out to touch her cheek. “That was brave.”
“When you fell…” Tears were still running down her face.
“I’m here, Girma. And I will be back on my feet.”
She fell silent and just held his hand.
His mind went back over the attack, and he found he had several questions.
“Why are there no weapons here when megaboars live nearby?”
Shabs shook his head. “We won’t ever keep weapons inside a Sanctuary. And this is not usually megaboar territory.”
“And the Fence?”
“It has never failed before,” Shabs said with a sigh. “We even have a warning system to let us know when the circuit is broken, and it didn’t give an alarm.”
Zell frowned. “I want to see it. This sounds all very unusual.”
“It is. And if you hadn’t been there, that megaboar would have vandalized the Sanctuary and killed everyone living in it before the guards could have done a thing about it.”
“Exactly.” Zell found that his voice had turned grim. “And who has an interest in damaging both your status and your income?” It was a rhetorical question for him, but he couldn’t believe Shabs hadn’t considered it.
Shabs’ skin paled. “Ssasssal. And her cronies.”
“So if you can leave that Fence alone for a few more days until I can see it and track the megaboar to discover how it found its way there, we might get some answers.”
“You can track megaboar?”
Zell sighed. “Shabs. I grew up in these forests. I know how to live and survive in them, I know the animals and how they live, I know how to avoid the bad ones, and how to kill them when I can’t. I have the experience of more than two decades in that environment. None of you do.”
The Rraussha sighed in return. “I am sorry. I wish I knew more about your life.”
“One day, I might show you.” Zell smiled.
“It was quite impressive watching you improvise a weapon. I think I never appreciated how dangerous you could be.”
“My own spears would have worked much better.” Zell missed his old life intensely at that moment. “They have blades double my hand span. If I set them right, they get a megaboar directly in the heart.”
“You have hunted them? On purpose?”
“Yes. Their neck leather makes very good shields and armor.”
The Rraussha blinked. Girma giggled.
“I love you, Zell,” she said and kissed him soundly. “And I love how you can surprise Shabs.”
“I can see that life as a pet would never suit you.” Shabs sighed.
Zell laughed. “Oh, I don’t mind not having to risk my life regularly, just to eat. But I couldn’t live in a tiny room with no sunlight. And I only just realized how much I miss the trees. So you do have a point.”
“Armor?” Shabs asked. Zell should have known the Rraussha would not have missed that. “The Hunt Master caught you in a torn shirt and a thing wrapped around your lower body.”
“A loincloth. It’s nicer to run without my parts dangling around,” Zell said wryly. “I was on decoy duty. Which means no weapons, no armor. We don’t need to let the Diles know how we really live. Life is much easier if you think we’re primitive animals just scraping out a living.”
Shabs hid his face.
Zell lifted himself up on an elbow and reached out to touch the Rraussha’s arm. And realized how weak he still was, as his hand trembled doing so.
“Shabs. I’m just being brutally honest. You need to fully understand the dynamics of the relationships between Humans and Diles.”
The Rraussha sighed deeply. “And you keep revealing new levels and facets to me. I feel like I’m trying to move not just one mountain but a whole mountain range.”
“We can only start by moving some rocks. And possibly find more helping hands.”
“How can you stay so optimistic?”
“It’s the way in the Tribes. How could we survive in a dangerous world, if we only saw the bad? Five of my childhood friends have died already, one of them in childbirth. If I were to dwell on that, how could I keep going? So we rejoice in the good times, and just live through the bad times.”
“I know you can make the best out of a bad situation,” Girma said quietly.
“And it explains how you faced Ssasssal.” Shabs looked at Zell with newfound respect.
“But here we are talking, and you must be hungry.” Girma looked chagrined.
Zell smiled. “I wouldn’t mind eating a little.” His stomach growled at that, and Girma giggled again.
Sitting up and eating the food exhausted what strength he had. Soon he found himself nodding, and Girma ordered him to sleep.
The next day, Ssheyrra arrived with a regenerator ready to work on Zell’s leg.
“I had to recalibrate it for Chooman cells. It wasn’t stimulating healing very well, and instead activated the pain sensors. For some reason, there are no settings for Choomans. I think it’s okay now, but I would like to test it first.”
“What do you mean by ‘testing’?” Girma frowned.
“Use it to heal a small wound.”
Girma held out her arm. “Bite me.”
Ssheyrra stared. “That would work, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Is there anyone else you would rather hurt?”
The Rraussha closed her eyes for a moment. “No,” she whispered.
“There you are.” She held out her arm again.
Ssheyrra gingerly took it, leaned over it, took a deep breath and carefully bit Girma. The girl winced a little.
Blood welled up and stopped immediately, when Ssheyrra activated the regenerator. Moments later, not even a scar was left.
“That is amazing.” Girma looked up.
“It’s a fairly recent development,” Ssheyrra explained. “We had to figure out how to make cells work much more quickly than usual. Speeding up what they naturally do, so to speak.”
Zell was surprised how quickly she finished treating his leg. Even pulling out the stitches didn’t hurt. And a careful test by just moving his foot showed him that the muscles were working properly again.
“Can I get up now?”
Ssheyrra smiled. “Do it slowly. You lost a lot of blood, and you might get dizzy.”
“Your instrument doesn’t fix that?”
“Not yet.” She grinned at him, ready to catch him.
Warned by the look in her eyes, he first just sat up and put his feet on the ground. Black spots danced through his vision. Yes, the warning was clear.
He pushed himself up anyway and swayed for a moment or two, until his vision stabilized. “Yes, I can see that it’s a problem. I would still prefer to pee on my own.”
He wobbled to the bathroom, followed by a peal of laughter.
When he returned, he felt better already. There was nothing worse than showing weakness, even to friends.
“How soon until that gets better? And I can go back to my duties?”
“I don’t know. I have no baseline with Choomans,” Ssheyrra said with an annoyed shake of her head. “We don’t often treat them.”
“I’ll be making new data again, then.” Zell grinned and walked to a chair, grateful he could sit down.
“The Breeder you have been seeing has conceived,” Girma said quietly. “She’s from the Sanctuary you protected, so right now, they are all in the central house. I suppose you could visit.”
“Not today,” Zell admitted.
Chapter 20
It took several days before Zell was confident he could stay on his feet for as long as he wanted to. Shabs looked especiall
y pleased at that, and woke Zell early the next morning.
“We can go and look at the Fence today. I found someone to protect us while we’re Outside.”
Zell was surprised at the enthusiasm on the Rraussha’s face. He grinned. “That’s good. I somehow doubt you would want to let me make a real spear. And I’m not even talking about letting me run about with one.”
Shabs laughed. “Not really. That’ll get us in trouble quickly. No, I have a friend in Enforcement, and he’s licensed to carry an energy weapon. That should stop any megaboar quickly.”
Zell nodded, even though he had a bad feeling about such a weapon. It gave too much power to anyone.
“If we go into the Wilderness, I would like to use a piece of cloth.”
“I remember you talking about your loincloth.”
Zell nodded. “You carry your parts inside your body, with that member sheath you have. I don’t, and they get annoying if I have to move fast. Wrapping them up is useful, and if we do run into trouble, I can protect you better.”
“What kind do you need?”
“The fabric you use for your bedding is good.”
“Come”.
Shabs took him to a work room and showed him a roll of neutral beige cloth. “Here. Would that work?”
“Yes. What can I cut it with?”
“These are scissors.” Shabs demonstrated their use, and Zell took them. Moments later, he had wrapped the piece of cloth around his hips and his parts. He heaved a huge sigh.
“Thank you, Shabs. This feels very, very good.” He stretched a few times and felt like a hunter for the first time since his capture.
“Let’s go. Sshirr is going to be here soon.” Shabs tightened a utility belt around his hips, with a few pockets filled.
They were waiting in front of the hub building when the aircar pulled up. A large Rraussha got out and took a barreled stick out of the cargo hold. He slipped it into a holster on his back and strode towards them. He also wore a utility belt.
“Morning, Shabs. So what do you want to do today?” Then his eyes fell on Zell, and his mouth dropped open. “Shabs, why is this pet dressed and not restrained? That’s very much against the rules.”
Zell mentally put Shabs’ friend into the Dile category at that, but he still gave him the traditional salute of the Tribes, bowing his head and putting his fist on his heart. “My name is Zell.”
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