It Happens Every Day

by Derek A. Murphy

  She moved around the interior of the cave then, keeping an eye on the entrance to make sure the owls weren’t able to get in. The entrance seemed a bit too small for them and they seemed wary of entering anyplace where their wings didn’t have free play. At the very back of the cave, she found a much smaller doorway with steps carved into the floor that led down. The width of the steps were a little small for her feet and the risers weren’t as tall as she was accustomed to, leading her to believe that they might have been intended only for the use of the Little People.

  As Petra made her way down the steps, she kept the slime-covered torch low and near the steps so she could avoid a misstep and swallowed as she descended because of an air pressure differential. The steps led down and down, following a natural twist in the passage so that they seemed to spiral down into the earth. After a while, her back began to pain her from the strain of bending as she descended and she stopped now and then to ease it.

  During one of the stops, she heard a whispering sound that reminded her of the whispering she heard when her unlucky doubles lured her from camp and nearly bolted back up the steps. Still half-turned to run, she stopped and listened more carefully and noted that there were scraps of language in this, whereas the whispering of her doubles had been unintelligible. The more she listened, the more it seemed that it was the language of the Little People she was hearing and she continued her trip down the steps. She reasoned that though the Little People were strong, she was stronger and she had been toughened by the time she had spent as a slave of the Rocheg-oc-ule.

  Nearing the bottom, she scanned the steps ahead of her for irregularities and moved the makeshift torch behind her to shield it from view, realizing that she would be back-lighted by it. After the last few steps, she entered into a small space with a level floor and moved around the space to find an exit. As she drew closer to an area slightly oblique from the steps, she noticed a bluish glow like that of her torch and moved toward it, finding the doorway she sought. Edging around the doorway carefully, she kept the torch behind her and moved so that one eye could peek around the doorway.

  Three women of the Little people were grouped around an upright stone that she couldn’t quite make out and, growing curious, she moved further into the room to see better. Another pool of the bluish stuff lay beyond the women and cast its light over them. All three women were nude except for some kind of leather harness that draped over their shoulders and dipped between their legs, stretching up over their backs in strips. Other than that, she could tell nothing about it as they all faced away from her. One of the women stood on a raised area before the stone, speaking to the others as they stood on either side of her and slightly ahead. Petra had picked up a smattering of the Bor-bon-meeg language during her time as their sister in bondage and was able to follow some of it.

  "…has told us to watch for our…bring them to the fire. The man with the big…who…Bon-tow-fut will arrive with the Uu-mor…with the Staff. The …has been taken and will arrive earlier. We must…the…until their…"

  Petra was sure that if she could just get closer, she could understand the words that were missing from the woman’s speech and she moved around the doorway, keeping close to the wall beside it. Moving to the side, she was able to come just a little closer and was able to hear better.

  One of the other women asked, "How can we delay the ceremony? The Grey One has the sisters of the Precursor to do his bidding."

  The third woman said, "He suffers us to do the mundane things that he can’t be bothered with telling them how to do. They are mindless, doing only that he directs them to."

  The first woman said, "The Grey One grows weaker by the moment. He doesn’t want to waste any of his energy controlling them while they tend the fire or lie down for him. That is why he kept us alive in the first place; to do the things we do so well."

  The second asked, "Why must we make fut with them? He has taken everything from them already. Why is that necessary?"

  The first answered, "It was the act of making fut that he used to drain them. Making fut with them rebuilds their energies so that he can drain them anew without making fut with them again."

  The third said, "But they are turning to stone! Touching them is as cold as touching the stones that surround us!"

  The first said, "We have only to perform the duties he sets us until the Man Who Makes Fut Feel Like Flying arrives."

  Suddenly shocked to hear Brian spoken of in that way, Petra dropped her torch and in panic at revealing herself, turned to the doorway to make her escape. Before she had gone three steps, the three women were on her and she was tripped and thrown onto her stomach with leather bonds wrapped around her wrists. As one of them levered her over onto her back, she straddled her and Petra saw what the harness the women wore was for; each of them had the prosthetic, double members that Petra had seen the men of the Little People wear attached to their harnesses. Frightened of what the women might do with them, she redoubled her efforts to escape and finally gave up as the three women threw themselves on her, laughing their shrill laughter.

  None of them made any move to accost her beyond what they had already done in binding her and she soon gave up her struggles as useless. Weighed down by their slight bodies, she couldn’t have escaped anyway. Seeing that she was growing quiet, one of them, whose voice she recognized as the second, said, "You are another of the Sisters."

  Another, the third, said, "She has yellow hair. The others have all turned grey."

  The first said, "Stupids! She wears her hair in braids! She has spent time among us. See how the braids are worked! That is the work of the Reviled Clan! The clan of Bon-tow-fut! The Betrayers! This is the Precursor!"

  The other two women scrambled off of Petra as though frightened, backing away several feet and the first rose from where she sat on Petra’s stomach and stepped across her to slap the others. When she had finished, she returned to Petra and knelt beside her.

  "They have waited so long for the opportunity to strike against the Grey One, and now that it has come, they are frightened."

  Struggling to sit up without the use of her hands, Petra jerked at her bonds again and glared at the little woman.

  "Why did you tie me?" She demanded.

  Reaching out to tug gently at one of Petra’s braids, the woman said, "We thought you one of the Sisters. We know they are mindless, but we feared that the Grey One might have been observing us through her eyes. Now that we know you are the Precursor, we do not fear that."

  She sneered over her shoulder at the other two women, saying, "Now they fear that they will set something in motion that we have been awaiting so very long that will change everything, even though we have been working to bring it about."

  Petra tugged at her bonds again, demanding, "Turn me loose!"

  Abruptly grabbing Petra’s ankles, the woman rolled her back to her stomach, but instead of releasing her wrists, quickly tied her ankles with cord and rolled her onto her back.

  Astounded that someone who was supposed to be disposed to her in a friendly manner would betray her this way, Petra gasped in indignation and tried to wriggle free once again. In frustration, she asked, "Why? Why won’t you let me go?"

  Surprisingly, the woman’s eyes brimmed with tears and she said, "You must wait till Big Man with the Staff arrives! You mustn’t be discovered until then! All will be wrecked if you are."

  Fuming, Petra lay back and tried to ignore the three women as they moved around her, stuffing small cushions under her head and shoulders, plucking at her clothes here and there, smoothing wrinkles that might irritate her skin. One of them left and returned with a stone pot of some sweet-smelling unguent and they all three began rubbing Petra’s body with it, their little hands dipping under her clothes to reach the most intimate places. Petra was sure the women would have liked to remove her clothes so they could work unimpeded, but feared that Petra would try to escape; a fear that was well-placed.

  She lay still, enduring the in
dignity until a booming sound echoed through the cave. At the first sound, the women rose from beside her, twittering and laughing. As they rushed out through another door, the first turned back, saying, "Lie still. We will return with food. We have to go and minister to the Sisters."

  From what little she had heard before being discovered, Petra knew that it was some sexual rite that had been demanded of them and felt her lips curl in distaste. There was nothing left to do but lie there and wait for them to return. With their departure, the cave became quiet and she could hear water dripping somewhere off in the distance, its noise echoing eerily in the semi-darkness. At least it was warmer in the cave than it would be out in the mist.

  * * *

  Brian had to admit that being almost totally engulfed in Urh-mor-hrh’s fur was warmer than being exposed to the wind of their passage in the mist. Now and then, another Uu-mor drew close with either a Rocheg-oc-ule or a pair of Bor-bon-meeg on its back and he saw that where the Little People were paired, one of them was usually asleep and the other one held them securely while holding onto the fur. Sometimes he would hear a disturbance in the mist and wondered what was happening until a Soos-tow glided in front of Urh-mor-hrh and attacked another Uu-mor that was within sight of them. The pair of Bor-bon-meeg riding the Uu-mor rose as one with long, stone knives and slashed at the owl’s legs. Screeching, the owl flapped its wings heavily to rise out of danger but another Uu-mor leapt onto its back with a Rocheg-oc-ule stabbing at the owl from its back and bore it to the stone beneath. As they passed, he saw that one wing had been ripped from the owl and it was having a hard time defending itself as it died.

  He thought about trying to burn owls from the air with the Staff but thought better of it; he wasn’t as adept at clinging to the fur as the others and didn’t want to lose the Staff. Settling into the fur again, he resigned himself to being somewhat useless until they arrived at the Temple. As the hours wore into what seemed like days, he had a hard time staying awake on the loping animal’s back and turned to rubbing his eyes with the back of the hand that held the Staff to stay alert.

  Finally, he felt the pace they were keeping slow and began to see more and more of the Uu-mor around them with their complement of riders. There seemed to be fewer of the big beasts and there was blood on most of them. Some were missing riders and he saw one with a pair of Bor-bon-meeg on its back that was literally covered in blood. The beast didn’t seem injured too badly by the way it moved, but the little woman who rode his back was holding the little man on its back by main-strength and gasped as the beast stopped and she let the man slip from her grasp. Sliding from the animal’s back, she knelt over the man, both of them covered in blood and wailed in grief; the first sign he had ever seen that the Bor-bon-meeg women cared for anything but sex.

  The group moved into the ring of a circle of standing stones and began unloading their passengers. Sliding from Urh-mor-hrh’s back, he felt his legs give a rubbery tremor and wondered if he could stay on his feet. His free hand was still locked in the animal’s fur and he had to consciously unclench his fingers to step away from him. Sinking onto the cold, wet stone beneath him, he looked up at the tiger-ape.

  "Now what?"

  Tiredly, the beast said, "We rest now. If we continue, we will be too tired to fight and you will not reach the Temple at all."

  The sussurrating sound of an owl passing by overhead came then and one of the Uu-mor leapt into the air, bringing down an owl, but the bird’s talons were clenched in the beast’s chest and they rolled over and over while they fought. Another tiger-ape raked the bird from atop the first and battered its head into a red ruin.

  Urh-mor-hrh said, "We would be no safer if we kept moving and they would be able to pick us off one by one as we tired. At least we can fortify this place."

  Puzzled at first by the animal’s statement, Brian saw several of the Rocheg-oc-ule climb the standing stones with coils of leather cord in their hands. Working quickly, they tied the cords to the stones, crossing and re-crossing them above the heads of the others until they had a rough net pulled taut over the group of standing stones. Long bits of glittering metal, the first he had seen in this place, were woven into the strands of the cords and he knew that they were part of the defense. From then on, the stooping attacks of the Soos-tow stopped and they were able to settle down to sleep and eat after Brian raised a globe of heat and light.

  One of the Bor-bon-meeg women found a pool of water standing in a depression in the stone and dipped a stone cup into it, passing it around to the others. When she had finished, she carried a leather bag of cooked meat through the group and passed out handfuls of it till it was gone. When it came Brian’s turn to take a bit of the meat, he could tell from the woman’s expression that he would be seeing her again before they rose to continue. When he finished eating, he curled into a ball next to a large stone and Urh-mor-hrh reclined beside him, on the side away from the stone, blocking access to him.

  The tiger-ape said, "Stay close. It will be cold while you sleep."

  Brian closed his eyes tiredly and felt himself spin down into sleep and knew that nothing would wake him.

  After an interminable time, he drowsed, neither awake or asleep, and vaguely felt small hands roving over his body. When they made it to his groin, he opened his eyes, feeling the stickiness of sleep trying to keep them closed and blinked at the little woman who burrowed in between him and the big Uu-mor. He was sure it was the woman who had passed out the meat and sighed. Nothing seemed to keep these people’s minds off sex. But instead of progressing to more love-play, the woman settled down with a hand clasped around him, unmoving. Drifting back into sleep, he supposed the woman was simply trying to find something that gave her a sense of security.

  * * *

  He awoke to a tumult around him and glancing upward, saw a pair of the giant owls tangled in the net above them some distance away and their talons held the net open, allowing another owl to enter. It was slashed and clawed by one of the tiger-apes, but was followed by another that snapped a Rocheg-oc-ule in half with its beak. Slinging the lower half of the body away, entrails uncoiling from it, the owl alighted on the stone and strode into a small group of Bor-bon-meeg. They attacked it with their stone knives and he lifted the Staff, slicing the owl’s head from its body before turning his attention to the owls that held the net open. Once they were disposed of, he began sending beams of light through the net, careful not to burn any of the cords; such action might let more owls in.

  The owls altered their mode of attack then, gliding in from the sides under the net en-masse and alighting on the handiest foemen. As the attack rolled up the packed mass of the humans, big and small, the owls were attacked by the tiger-apes, but one by one, the giant beasts were occupied by one or more owls until they nearly reached Brian. He had been busily turning the power of the Staff on them and grinned in battle-lust at the smell of burned feathers in the damp mist. The heavy, acrid scent made his nose run and caused him to cough but he kept on burning them down whenever the press allowed him to target one of the owls without also burning a member of his own group. The Bor-bon-meeg woman who had slept curled against him ran past with a knife raised high, screeching at the top of her voice. She ran directly into the path of an alighting owl and leaped higher than he thought possible, grasping one of the bird’s talons and slashing again and again at its legs. Clambering up one of the legs out of frustration in not being able to reach anything vital, she stabbed its underbelly and was crushed between it and a Uu-mor when it leapt on the bird. He saw her lifeless body roll limply free and burned the bird with the Staff as the tiger-ape clawed at its head, ripping its beak from its face.

  When the owls finally broke off their attack, flapping mightily and leaving many of their number behind in a welter of blood, feathers and dead meat, he took the opportunity to look around the misty battlefield and saw that there were far fewer of his companions than before. A bare dozen of the humans, both big and small stood dazedly among t
he dead and looked around them. The Rocheg-oc-ule had taken a real beating, leaving only one man and two women standing, covered in blood and gasping in pain as they supported each other and a woman of the Bor-bon-meeg that clung to one of the women. The rest of the Little People seemed more or less whole, but reeled where they stood from exhaustion and blood loss. Of the Uu-mor, only ten of the adults stood on their feet while another fifteen or so stretched their lengths on the wet stone, their battles behind them. Another dozen Uu-mor adolescents wandered the battlefield, seeming as dazed as the humans from their first encounter with the enemy.

  Urh-mor-hrh approached him with more wounds welling blood that dripped on the wet stone and gazed tiredly on him.

  "Another attack will end our enterprise. We must go to the Temple now. The Soos-tow would not have attacked if The Grey One was not close to feeding from the Precursor. It will be more difficult from here on."

  Gesturing toward the bodies of the dead, Brian asked, "How are we supposed to make it through the owls with so few of us left? They are too many for us."

  Sighing, the tiger-ape said, "I do not know. We must, that is all."