"Mother Anders! You are with child, just as you suspect, and it's a boy! You and Father Anders should celebrate!
"Sandra Uthor, Carla Garrison, and Amarra Sims! Bundling Day was successful for you! You are with child! Sandra, you will have identical twins! Girls, find their fathers and celebrate!"
I looked at Jensen Miller, narrowed my eyes, and shouted, "Cally Yoder! I do not regret what I did to you! It was worth exile, for it was justice for your collusion with your sister Dori to murder your infant niece! Remember this every time you look in the mirror or try to write!"
There came a wail from the back of the crowd, where Cally sat in a wheeled chair, ruined face buried in her bandaged hands.
I took a deep breath. This next part would be painful to many. "Towana Miller! You must break it off with Jessa Turner! I know you love each other desperately, but she is your half-sister! Your father cheats on your mother as often as he can. Nor should you court Theresa Davis, Clara Oldfuss, or Clarissa Gentry!"
Jensen Miller stared at me with a clear, pure hatred, and I knew I'd hit the bullseye with that announcement.
I turned to glare at a bully who had made my life hell for 10 years. "Terrance Greaves! Leave the sheep alone! Women are much better for comforting, and provide babies besides! Jess Philips, the same can be said about your greep girlfriends!
"Everyone: Quanah Spivey is the one who keeps drilling holes in the walls of the women's shower hall! You'll find the brace-and-bit under his bed. Davie Gentry, return the women's small clothes you've been stealing, which your father has discovered already! Wash them thoroughly first.
"And," I said dramatically, "I have your next exile for you, if you still believe in justice. Have the Homeguard investigate him if you don't believe me." I pointed at a rail-thin man in the back of the crowd. "Ezra Catriss! Stop molesting the town's children! Hamiltown needs those boys and girls to grow into productive citizens, not twisted by performing for your viewing pleasure, or slobbering on your sickly root! Elders, he has threatened them with death if they tell! And while I am not entirely sure, you should investigate the death of Kathie Saltfuzs 12 years ago, to see if she really fell off the palisade on her own."
I saw at least a dozen children, some as young as 10, lower their heads in terrified shame. I hadn't meant to hurt them; but I was a Truth-Teller, and sometimes the raw truth causes collateral damage. It was worth it to finally out that human monster Catriss, even if I had no firm evidence.
Finishing the Formula, I said loudly, "Those are my Final Words! I have now ceased to exist!"
With that I clucked my tongue and pulled Flicka around carefully. Then I tapped her dappled sides with my heels, and we proceeded through the gate, the heavy travois following behind, not looking back. The moment we cleared the gate, the Homeguard started to close it, and before I was a minute away, the gate boomed shut, ending the first chapter of my life.
Chapter 3
When I met Coulter McBride, a week after Ava and Undine joined us, it was love at first sight. That exquisite face and long, lean form attracted me instantly, and I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach when she blinked those startlingly blue eyes at me, with their incredible lashes. Her skin was the color of milk chocolate, while her long, silky hair was a honey blonde, and she wore an exquisitely embroidered purple cotton tunic that stretched down to her knees in front. In contrast, the rest of her was covered with a short coat of rich, shiny gray-white hair, with knee-high black socks on all four legs. She seemed unselfconscious about her posterior female parts, even though they were right out there, as obvious as you please—but maybe that was because they weren't human.
She trotted up to our mid-day meal encampment, clutching a boar spear, looking hopeful. The second she saw S'linkitha standing there in all her naked glory, she dropped to her fore-knees, saluted smartly with her left hand, and rapped out, "Sir or Madam! Specialist E-4 Coulter Monday Maniac McBride, formerly of the Fifth Mounted Cavalry! Sir or Madam!"
"Get up, Specialist," Slinky said regally. "I'm not a Lieutenant Colonel anymore, and you're no longer a soldier. All that BS ended after the clusterfuck the Step Through into this Earth became. So. You cavalry riders melded with your horses during the Step Through. That's what I'd heard. And Coulter is a man's name; I assume you and your mount were male also?"
"We were. Maniac was a former racehorse and sire."
"Yes, I recognize the name. A Triple Crown winner, yes? You must be proud."
"I am, Colonel. I still remember those races well."
"Call me S'linkitha, or Slinky, like our man here does. Surname St. Ross." She made introductions, pointing out the others. "Undine Parish, kappa, former Navy SEAL. Jenna, my daughter. Ava, harpy. Both second-gens, so they have no surnames, unless they intend to take Tobias's. And finally," and she made a grand gesture, "this is Tobias Fell, our coven stud."
"You're building a coven around him? But he's just a kid! How old is he?"
Slinky's lips quirked in a funny way, like she was embarrassed and proud at the same time. "He's 25. First year old, the rest new."
The horse-lady's jaw dropped. "He's a baby! In old years, that would make him just 19!"
"Barely an adult. Yes, quite. But he's... well, he's literally been touched by the Dawn Goddess, and he is both sexually mature and very fertile."
I smiled shyly and held up the egg's sling, unwrapping it to show her Ava's egg, which emitted a steady warmth and seemed to pulse in my hand. "This is the egg Ava and I made. He was laid just two days ago, and will hatch in two months to become my tenth-born son, Isaiah."
The clearing went dead silent. I could have sworn the stream stopped flowing, the birds stopped chirping, and the insects stopped buzzing. Even I was surprised. I didn't know it myself until I said it, though calling my son Isaiah after my lost father seemed natural.
I had no idea at the time what I meant when I called him my "tenth-born" son instead of my firstborn, but as it turned out, I was correct. But I wasn't really worried about it; I was so excited that I didn't care. I can't wait until I can send Mother a letter! I thought with a silly smile.
Rewind:
After I got well out of earshot of Hamiltown, I stopped at a secluded spot along the river where Clem and I had camped one night. I sat on a log that had our initials carved in it, stared into space, and found myself weeping after a while. I didn't wail, though I wanted to; but it wasn't safe. The Homeguard rarely patrolled way out here. This was officially the wilderness.
After crying like a little girl for half an hour, I dried my tears and looked around. Flicka was still cropping grass, so we were safe, for her ears were the best monster alarm I could possibly have. Sighing, I pulled out Old-Father's map. It was a simple thing, the ink made of poke-salad juice and charcoal, showing a few trade roads and the river trail that followed the main branch of the Rio Trinidad north by northwest. It was marked with the locations of a few trading posts and former Old-Tech dams that had failed catastrophically when the bitty-swarms ate all the rebar in the concrete. By now, even all the rubble had been reduced to rock and sand, but the scars were still on the landscape, and sometimes there were surviving buildings nearby containing things that could be recovered—like military rations from the C.S. Army Corps of Engineers facilities that had monitored the dams. Very rarely, the COE conservation facilities also had bows confiscated from illegal hunters. The compound bows were ruined, naturally, except for the rare ones made completely of organic compounds or composites not recognized by the bitties as artificial. Occasionally there were luminium arrows, if they had been made of the right alloy. Most recurve bows were intact, though none of the firearms had survived.
A few days' ride downstream, there was a star on the map encircled with the dark, flaky ink, with the word GODDESS written underneath. I decided I would head that way, though what She could do to help me I had no idea, even if She decided She would. It looked like She had taken over what was left of a little place called Ivy, and Old-Fat
her had written "Stone Gymnasium" under her name.
I knew that there was no way She was a real, live Goddess. Even in this ruined world, everything was explainable with technology; but if She were a living computer with access to advanced medical technology, as seemed more likely, I would reach out to Her for help with my maturity problem. I had no idea what I might give Her, but I would do my best to make Her happy, even if I had to spend a few days or weeks gathering up whatever it was She wanted.
It turned out to be a lot easier than that, but I didn't know it at the time.
Eventually, I remounted Flicka and moved on down the river trail, making ten miles before dark. I piled up a huge batch of firewood before I lay down, and tied thin silken thread in the surrounding brush in three concentric circles at 25, 15, and 10 yards, with a series of little ceramic bells interspersed among them. Young-Father gave me those bells. He said they'd saved his life more than once when he was with the Homeguard.
That night was uneventful. I dreamed about Ezra Catriss being hauled out of his place and horsewhipped after a bunch of "his kids" had come forward with the truth. He wasn't even given a trial, just dumped outside the gate with nothing but what he was wearing.
Later, I dreamed of a solemn little boy who looked a lot like me, but who glowed with an inner light and could reach tentatively into something called the Nether. During the dream, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Father. Hurry," then went back to playing with his transdimensional toys.
That stayed with me all the next day. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was exhausted when I set camp, having pushed Flicka until we made about 35 miles before sundown. We were more than halfway to the Goddess, Whoever or Whatever She was.
Rebound:
After my announcement about Isaiah Junior, Coulter just curtsied (it was complex, with four legs and all) and tossed back her glorious mane. She didn't say anything, leaving the third degree to Slinky.
"And what makes you say the egg will hatch a boy child, Tobias?" the succubus asked sweetly. "I have explained to you that we dimensional travelers bear no male children, and why."
"I just know it's a boy," I said stubbornly, "and I'm naming him after my father, Isaiah."
She lifted an elegant eyebrow. "Your father was an Isaiah? How interesting." She didn't say why; she just repeated, "Why are you so sure it's a boy?"
"I dunno," I said, a little defensively. "It just looks like a boy. Feels like a boy. Ava, have you ever seen a harpy egg that looked like this one?"
She shook her head. "Most are brown or green, without flecks."
"There, you see? It could be a boy egg!"
Slinky advanced on me, her eyes as icy as the stars, and full-named me. That was when I knew I was in trouble. "Tobias Angus Fell, listen to me. I have told you that the people from my Earth cannot produce male children. This has held true for the 24 years my people have been here. No dimensional traveler, whether Alfa, succubus, dwarrow, olbytla, kappa, giantess, pooka, harpy, or any other of the millions of our kind has EVER birthed a male. If they had, we would all know, because the birth would be celebrated."
She looked me up and down. "Now, I will tell you this bluntly, so prepare to protect your fragile male ego: except for your condition and your relationship with the Goddess, you show no indication of being particularly special, or even especially good-looking. That said, I am fond of you. I will willingly bear your children and allow you to remain our coven stud for as long as you behave. I will not continue to be fond of you if you get either of these young girls' hopes up, only to have them dashed when they birth girl children. Am I understood?"
I sighed deeply and told her she was. Then I added, "But I'm a Truth Teller, S'linkitha. I was changed along with the rest of the world on the Day of Ruin. So sometimes, I just know things. This egg will hatch a little boy harpy. I promise. You can drain me if I'm wrong."
To my surprise and horror, she slapped me so hard I spun around and hit the ground. The hand-mark would linger on my face for days. Then she leaned over me and hissed, "Keep your fortune-telling bullshit to yourself, or I will drain you, boy."
So much for me being in charge of this little group. I guess I was just their man-whore all along.
As I got up from my pile of humiliation and tried to recover some dignity, I whispered the real reason why I knew that the egg would hatch a boy: "Aurora told me all my children would be sons." And I believed my Goddess.
Rewind:
On the second night of my exile, a troll walked through my alarm system like it wasn't even there... because it wasn't. I'd forgotten to put it up. And I never thought that something as big as a troll could possibly move through thick brush so quietly. The more fool I.
I was awakened by Flicka's worried wickers, and then her screams, which cut off with a horrifying crunch that told me without even looking that my horse was dead. A moment later, I found myself 30 feet up a pine tree with absolutely no memory of how I'd gotten there, looking at the travois full of supplies that I had, thank Whomever, had the presence of mind to hoist into another tall pine and lash down tightly.
The troll set about the serious business of eating my horse, bones and all. The demon was twice my height, with scabrous green skin and flabby dugs that hung down to her belly, swaying disgustingly in the flickering light of the dying campfire. Most demons were beautiful, but not this one. I wondered what kind of man could ever manage to couple with such a thing, but I figured that obviously one had (I didn't know about the free gorillas then). Her dugs were well-used, so she had been a mother at some point.
She still was. As I sat in the fork where trunk and branch met, silently praying for Flicka and thanking her for saving my life, the she-troll roared into the forest. A moment later, twin miniatures of her, only my height, came shambling out of the woods to feed on Flicka. They were hairier than their mother, matted fur covering most of their scales, and without hesitation ducked their heads into Flicka's body cavity and began feasting on her entrails. Every once in a while, I could see their teeth flashing in the dim light.
It was too gruesome to watch, so I turned my head and looked away until the noise stopped. In the end, they dragged Flicka's remains off with them to wherever their lair was, and it wasn't long afterward that the eastern horizon started to brighten. When I finally climbed down from my tree, just as the sun was coming up, there was nothing to see but a torn-up spot and a swath of bloodstained leaf litter. They hadn't left behind any other trace of her, not even bones or gristle.
I couldn't keep the hideous beasts and how they must have been made out of my mind. Between that and thinking of Flicka's grisly fate, I vomited three times that morning.
I would never again be that careless, I promised myself. (Wrong.)
It took me a while to get the travois out of the tree without Flicka's help, and when I did, I found that it was too heavy for me to pull on my own. Dammit, even if I could, this was going to slow me right the hell down. It might take weeks to get to the Dawn Goddess at the rate of a mile an hour, and I'd be in danger the whole way.
At least the succubi, harpies, olbytla, and other demons would leave me be. Physically, anyhow. I was too young for their games. And at least I didn't have to worry about male perverts among them like Ezra Catriss, which was one way to find a little silver lining in the cloud. Hopefully I could stay away from normal people.
Ultimately, I had to make some big choices about what to keep with me and what to store away. I took the largest pack I could handle and filled it with anything perishable, basic cooking utensils, some canned food, binoculars, and extra clothing. I also folded up a soft deer hide to use as a bedroll at night. I strapped extra knives to various parts of my body, and hung a hand bow and a quiver of bolts at my waist, counterbalanced with a quart canteen on the other side. The map I kept in my pocket; the Forums I left behind. The rest of my goods (and there was a decent amount) I bundled up on the travois and put back in the tree. It should be safe enough. This was an is
olated area, so I doubted any people were likely to find it; and with this being a troll's territory, none of the other demons would dare enter the area. If I hadn't been ignorant of the lay of the land, I wouldn't have entered the area either.
The Rio Trinidad doesn't have much of a valley, but I stayed on the lower of its three erosional terraces as I continued onward. This helped me stay on track, and there was always a convenient source of water nearby. I often had to cross small streams feeding into the Trinidad, but it usually wasn't too bad. Once or twice I had to backtrack away from the river to find a fallen tree or ford, but that wasn't unexpected.
I approached the site of the first trading post carefully, easing up on it through the forest and using the binoculars to peer at it from a distance before I left the woods. There was nothing in that location but burnt-out ruins at least a year old. Whoever had traded here had been driven out or claimed by the demons.
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