The terp translated, and Ramirez stepped forward to add his opinion. “Sir, she’s right. We don’t find a beddown location soon, we’re going to end up sleeping spread out on the trail. Before this whole thing started, I was going to recommend we camp here.”
Ben turned to Alacea. “What do you think?”
Surprised that she would be addressed, Alacea waited for Patricia to translate the question before speaking.
The Ranger captain listened to the translation and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He took a breath and shrugged. “Okay. We’ll camp here. Go bring everyone in.”
Patricia and Alacea left to tell the villagers to come back. Ben turned to Jenkins and rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. “How’s Burton?”
“Shoot, Sir, he’s already half done stitching himself up,” she replied. “A little aspirin, and he’ll be fine. The rocks missed the artery. Didn’t even need to break out the SprayClot.”
He nodded. “Ramirez, Baird, give me security at both ends of the wash and set a watch.”
“Claymores, Sir?” Baird asked.
Ben gave the question a moment’s thought. Normally, he wouldn’t dare close his eyes in the bush at night without claymore mines pointed in every direction from his beddown location. He had to remind himself that this was less a beddown and more a campsite.
“No,” Ben said tiredly. “Last thing we need is some Va’Shen kid tripping over one in the middle of the night.
“You got it, Sir.”
Burgers and Ramirez set off to gather the rest of the human troops spread out across the trail and set up for the night. Ben took a few steps away from the yarl’s corpse, around a boulder where the Va’Shen wouldn’t see him and bent over at the waist, breathing hard.
He practically ripped the patrol cap off his head with a shaking hand and took a deep breath before throwing up at the base of the rocks.
Word spread quickly through the villagers of how Bao Sen had killed a wild yarl with one shot, and she spent much of the rest of the evening bowing to villagers as they thanked her for saving them. Embedded within that story, though most thought it to be little more than fantasy, were claims that the Dark One leader had set off into the smoke to face the yarl in single combat, putting himself between the monster and the community.
Standing next to her, pulling apart pieces of the yarl’s scorched flesh with a fork, Hestean’s disbelief was made readily apparent by the way the tip of her tail twitched back and forth.
Hestean seemed uncomfortable by the question. Were it anyone but her friend, she would state the correct answer with the cold indifference of a historian charged with the responsibility of getting the facts correct. But Alacea was her friend and the Na’Sha.
The chief priestess’s ample tail whipped the ground behind her in anger, though her face did not show it.
Seeing there was no way to gracefully win the argument, Hestean decided to simply win it without grace.
The fur on Alacea’s ears stood on end as if they, themselves, could not believe what they were hearing.
Hestean told her.
Hestean’s ears flattened, and her eyes betrayed sympathy for the other Mikorin’s obviously flawed argument.
Alacea’s tail and ears drooped in disappointment. Of course, if Hestean were unwilling to take her word, why would she even entertain the testimony of a Dark One soldier?
Pavastea eyed the other two Mikorin carefully. She wanted to believe Alacea’s story if for no other reason than it made for a wonderful tale that could help put her own fears at ease. But Hestean was right. If the Dark Ones wished to convince the Pelle villagers that they wanted to help them, it made sense that they would say or do anything to make that argument. One could even argue that they had deliberately led the villagers past the yarl’s den in order to engineer such an opportunity. Her ears drooped at the thought.
She looked up as another familiar face appeared, heralding the end of the dinner line. Yasuren bowed formally to her.
she said.
Alacea handed the older vixen a “plate” and bowed.
Alacea stared down at her feet, no longer having the strength to argue.
Yasuren took her plate and turned to the others in the line.
The suggestion was met with happy cries from the village vixens and the huntresses cooking the meal. Alacea’s was not among them.
Ben spent about ten minutes with Specialist Burton, making sure the medic was doing all right and was being well taken care of before walking past the milling multitude of Va’Shen that litte
red the canyon until he was at the farthest end of camp. Grabbing onto a small tree that grew out the right side of the canyon, he used it to heave himself up to the top of the ridge where an almost lost-looking SeaBee sat next to an LED lantern under the canopy of a dark purple tree.
The sailor’s hand was on his sidearm and the look on his face made it clear he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to unholster it, shout a challenge or call for help. Seeing it was the Ranger captain in charge, he relaxed somewhat, knowing that he now didn’t have to make that decision.
Ben took a quick look at the watch post and nodded to the sailor. He pointed at the man’s rucksack and made a waving gesture back down the ridge.
“Go on, Sailor,” he said. “I’ll take your watch. Get yourself something to eat.”
The SeaBee looked confused by the gesture. He had heard Army Rangers were total hardasses. “You sure, Sir?” he asked.
“Yeah, go on.”
The sailor grabbed his gear and made his way noisily down the ridge. Ben sat down next to the lantern, his back to the tree and let out a breath. Between the monster, overseeing camp and making sure his people were all right, this had been his first chance to sit down in several hours.
He brought his carbine up and pushed his index finger against the magazine release. The polymer magazine fell obediently into his hand, and he looked down at the two lonely rounds that waited at the top. He frowned at the sight. Two in the mag, one in the chamber. It was a good thing Plan B hadn’t been to try shooting it out with the creature. Even down its throat, three rounds likely wouldn’t have even slowed the beast down.
The soldier pulled a fresh magazine from the front of his vest and pushed it into the rifle with a click. He put the spent mag back in the vest and leaned against the tree. Not far away he could hear the sounds of the Va’Shen villagers enjoying their feast and could see the orange flickering of fire through the brush and into the canyon below.
Ben reached into his pack and pulled out an MRE, simultaneously reaching up to the upper left side of his vest with his right hand. It wasn’t until the fingers touched air that he remembered, once again, that he had given that knife away. Grunting in frustration, he reached for the multi-tool on his belt and used the blade to cut open his dinner.
Taking the package of chili-mac, he cut open the top and then put it in the heating bag, adding water from his cantine to start the chemical reaction that would cook tonight’s meal. He rested it against the lantern and went back to sitting, his eyes looking dully ahead at the underbrush, focused on nothing.
Instead he listened, trying to identify or distinguish the night sounds of this new forest. He could hear the Va’Shen below, the slow bubbling of the heating pack as it started to boil. He heard something his mind immediately classified as a cricket, but in reality sounded nothing like it. It was just a recurring sound like the kind you would hear at night back in Indiana during the summer.
He heard another noise and grabbed his rifle, but by the time he turned to the source, that source was already standing within three feet of him. Ben let out a breath and leaned the carbine against the tree before turning back to her.
“Ms. Alacea,” he greeted.
Alacea held one of the yarl’s armor plates in her hands like a dinner plate, barbecued pieces of the animal’s flesh sitting on top of it. She bowed her head.
He, of course, didn’t understand the words, still wasn’t even sure what “tesho” meant, but he took a guess and patted the ground between them.
“Sure,” he said. “Why not? Pull up a chair.”
Equally as mystified by his words as he was with hers, she too took a guess and dropped to her knees near him. She held out the plate to him.
He pointed to himself. “For me?”
She pointed at him, the plate held firmly in her other hand. Then she pointed at her lips.
Ben took the plate and nodded in thanks. “Thank you,” he said. He examined the roasted meat and took a sniff. It smelled good. He pointed to her. “What about you?”
She pointed to herself, perplexed. He pointed at her again, then at the plate.
Her ears twitched.
He gingerly put the plate on the ground and reached into his assault pack. Alacea rose up on her knees, trying to see what he was looking for. Eventually he pulled out a metal disc that unfolded and came apart into a plate and a small pan.
“Tell you what,” he said as he worked. “We’ll split it.”
Using the metal fork that came with his mess kit, Ben pushed half the meat onto the plate.
“Almost forgot,” he told the bewildered vixen. He picked up the plastic bag, careful of the wisps of steam emerging from the top. Upending the bag, he scooped the chilimac onto both plates. He passed the yarl’s armor plate back to her with the spoon from his MRE before picking up the metal plate and stirring the meat and chili macaroni around with his fork.
Alacea lowered her head and sniffed the strange food, her nose curling at the pungent aroma. She looked up and found her Tesho looking at her as he chewed. It didn’t smell very appealing, but first impressions could be deceiving. Spooning some up, she pushed the chilimac into her mouth and chewed.
And then stopped.
It was disgusting. Her ears flattened against her head, and her tail shivered as if she were freezing. She went to spit it out, but stopped, her eyes locking with Ben’s. Her Tesho had given her this food. It was their first actual meal together as they had not had any type of bridal feast. It would be incredibly rude to simply spit out the first piece of food her Tesho had given her.
She sat up straight and continued to chew, trying desperately to look dignified while her ears and tail made her disgust apparent.
The priestess looked at him again as he laughed. It was the first time she had heard him make such a sound. His face looked so different than how it appeared before, almost as if someone had lit a lantern inside a dark room.
“It’s okay!” he told her, waving dismissively at the plate. “It’s an MRE! You don’t have to pretend they’re good!” He raised his plate to hers and took the chilimac back, replacing it with some of his meat.
Afraid she had insulted him, she waved her hands in front of him and gestured for him to return the macaroni. Instead, he pulled another brown package from the MRE about the size of a man’s wallet and pulled it open.
“Here,” he said, shaking the package over her plate until a yellow brick dropped onto her plate with more heft than she would have thought. “You’ll like this more. I promise.”
She examined this new intruder to her plate warily. It was a sickly yellow color, but there were tiny black specks in it. The priestess wondered if they were perhaps ticks or chiggers and watched them carefully to see if they would move. She again looked up at Ben and saw him gesture at it.
Alacea sighed. She wondered if making her eat disgusting food from his world was going to be one of his favorite entertainments. Reaching down, she picked a few of the black specks away from one corner of the block and was surprised to see soft yellow chunks pull away as well. Breaking off a piece, she touched it gingerly to her lips and braced for the worst…
It didn’t come. Her ears stood straight up, and her tail flicked back and forth as she reached eagerly for another piece. It was a pastry! A very dense cake that was both sweet and tangy at the same time.
Ben guessed at her question and supplied an answer. “It’s lemon poppy-seed pound cake. Probably the only good thing in an MRE aside from the mint.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Ben told her, eyes widening at her behavior. Glad to see he had scored a point, he ate his yarl in resumed silence. His
gaze was stolen by the sight of glowing green flashes of light jumping between trees nearby. He watched them warily. It looked like someone in the trees was throwing chemlights around.
Ben pointed at the trees and turned to her. “Kipu?”
Her ears twitched.
The Ranger resumed watching the antics of the small creatures as they hopped from branch to branch. Alacea looked down at her now empty plate, unsure of what to do now. It was hard to hold a conversation when neither spoke the language of the other. That said, there were still things she wanted to say and an inability for him to understand her somehow didn’t seem like a good enough reason to not say them.
She put the plate aside and turned her body toward him, lowering her head down until her forehead brushed the cold dirt on the ground.
He watched her in confusion and then smiled. “Hey, come on now,” he said. “It was just a bit of pound cake.”
She knew he didn’t understand her. She should have waited until the female Dark One was here to translate, but it just didn’t seem right. Alacea sat to her full height again. Pointing to herself, she spoke again, enunciating each word.
Ben paused, unsure of what she was doing at first. He adjusted his seating and turned more toward her. He pointed to himself.
<…is…>
<…is…>
<…Alacea.>
<… Ben,> he finished.
She put her palms together and made a clapping motion with her fingers.
The Vixen War Bride Page 23