Lauren's Barbarian

by Ruby Dixon

  “You spent way too much time on the internet back at home,” I tell her brightly, and give her shoulder a squeeze. “You can’t give up.”

  Her slumped shoulders and lack of response tell me she already has.

  Since I’m the one that tries to make everything better, I give her shoulder another squeeze. “We’re going to be going back to the others soon, Mari. Very soon.”

  “And then what?” she asks, a bitter note in her voice. “He can die on the frozen shore instead of the warm one?”

  I want to protest that. I want to tell her that it’ll be all right. That maybe the others kept some of the ship’s medical technology and they can whip something together that can fix whatever is wrong with T’chai. But I’m not even sure I believe that myself. If his cootie, which is supposed to speed up healing, can’t fix him, what makes me think that a few scrapped parts from a now-destroyed spaceship are going to do the job?

  “Soon,” I promise her again. And because I know I’m not being helpful to her, I leave, so I can at least be helpful somewhere else. Maybe I can talk to K’thar. Being at his side always makes me feel better, even if it’s only to see him smile and feel his hand on my hair.

  I’m shallow, I know. Sometimes I just like to be petted by my favorite guy.

  The moment I go outside, though, I see that K’thar is far down the beach, directing M’tok and J’shel as they tie down a pontoon on the side of one of the rafts. No cuddling for me, I guess. I pause to admire his backside, covered in the leafy kilt thing he’s got working. I can’t see his buns—which is a shame, because they’re great buns—but I recognize the twitch of his tail as he stands there, instructing the others. I sigh dreamily when he flexes his shoulders. Maybe I can get him to steal away for a few hours this afternoon under the guise of fruit or egg hunting.

  The guy makes me positively insatiable. I always thought I was a bit too level-headed to be one of those “nympho for your man” types, but I guess I was wrong about that. Just thinking about running off into the trees with him for a little while makes my pulse beat a little harder between my thighs in the most intoxicating way. I’m obsessed with him. He’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, and he’s the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Even the language barrier between us seems to fall a bit more every day. I’m learning him from his smiles and the way he holds himself, the sigh he makes when he’s frustrated…and the growl low in his throat when he’s turned on.

  I shiver just thinking about that growl.

  The guys on the beach look too busy for me to drag him away, though. This raft is the last one that needs to be finished. There are three large ones—one for each tribe—and the plan is to rope them all together so no matter if the current takes us off course, wherever we land, we’ll be together. It’s taken some time to figure out how to make such big rafts float properly. I thought all we’d have to do is tie some wood together and we’d be good to go, but our early attempts flipped over a lot and I’m terrified of the thought of that cold open water full of slithering things and having a raft flip. N’dek won’t be able to swim, nor T’chai, or the baby. We have to be as secure as possible, so it took a few more attempts to figure things out. Now, the rafts have extra logs crossing underneath to add more buoyancy, and we’ve added pontoons on each side to help with stability. N’dek’s whittled enough oars for each person to have their own, and we’ve been tanning hides for days so we’ll have warm clothes. The egg baskets are mostly full. Extra fish have been dried and smoked so we’ll have something to eat as we journey. We’re almost ready.

  The thought is terrifying.

  For weeks now, I’ve been banging the drum, insisting that we leave for the far shore that I’ve reassured them is there. That there are more people waiting, more females, more game, more everything. I’m supposed to guide them to the shore, because that’s where I came from. Thing is, now that the time to leave is almost here, I’m afraid. What if the distant shapes I see aren’t land after all? What if Mari and I strayed way, way off the path and I can’t lead K’thar’s people back to Harlow and Liz and the others? What if I screw this up and lead everyone to their deaths?

  “No pressure, Lo,” I whisper to myself. “This is when you do your best, when everyone needs you. So suck it the fuck up and get to work.”

  Strangely enough, bullying myself seems to do the job. A reminder that people are counting on me is all that my brain requires to kick into gear. Like I have for so many mornings, I scan the skies, looking for the gigantic predator birds. When I don’t see any, I move to the cliffs and begin to climb, heading for the highest vantage point. The cliffs here are made of a soft sort of rock that crumbles easily, which means that grooved steps have been carved into the side of the cliff by constant use, and that makes it so that even a graceless human like myself can climb to the top.

  I make it to the peak, scan the sky again for danger, and then straighten. Up here, the breeze is stiff, the tops of the trees rustling below. This is one of the tallest places left on the island, I think, and it’s a good spot to eyeball our journey. I move a rock that’s holding down a curled bit of papery bark that I left up here yesterday. Without a lens, I don’t know if my “telescope” is just more than a tube to look through, but I feel like it helps my vision regardless. I sit down on the rock and use my bark spyglass to study the waters.

  It’s very distant, but I’m positive I see mountains of some kind. Maybe not specific mountains that I recognize, but I remember there being mountains. That’s good enough for me. It means there’s land, and I can’t imagine that Mari and I got that far off course. I imagine I would have woken up, wouldn’t I? The last thing I remember is Marisol hauling me out of the water into the floating pod, and then nothing. I don’t think I’d have slept for days, so it must be less than a day’s journey back to the other side.

  Which must be those mountains.

  I hope.

  God, please let me not be wrong. I know my eyes are better now with the cootie. I can see really long distances, but even I’m not sure just how far that land is from here. It’s a mere sliver of color, a smudge against the backdrop of endless green ocean water. But the land has to be somewhere close nearby. It makes no sense otherwise. I sigh and drop my bark telescope, a little frustrated. If I could see just a little bit farther…

  A shadow drifts into my field of vision overhead.

  I’ve seen enough skyclaw in the last few weeks to know what a danger they are. Heart hammering, I drop to my knees and quickly crawl under the nearest fern, breathing hard. My hands and knees are scraped up, but it doesn’t matter. If that thing sees me…

  But the shadow drifts overhead and keeps on going. It doesn’t stop. I wait, utterly silent, and watch the thing fly off in the distant skies. It’s heading for those mountains. That just confirms my suspicion that there’s something there at least. I’ll deal with the skyclaw problem later. One issue at a time.

  As I watch it glide away, to my surprise, I see a second form. Another skyclaw. A third joins it.

  That’s…odd.

  Other than that first day on the beach, we’ve never seen more than one at a time. The two on the beach at once were a mated pair, but most of the time, I’m told, they hunt alone. Three together seems very, very strange. My skin prickles with awareness as another skyclaw joins the others.

  It’s like the entire sky is full of them.

  What is going on?

  “L’ren!” K’thar bellows nearby. “L’ren? ANSWER!”

  I can hear the terror in his voice. He’s seen them, too. “I’m up here,” I call back. “On top of the cliff!” I don’t know all those words in his language yet, but he can follow the sound of my voice. I’m not getting out from under the bushes until I know it’s safe.

  I pick thorns from my palms and watch the fleet of skyclaw in the muddy-looking sky. I’ve only been here a month, of course, so maybe this is normal, but it seems frightening to m
e. What could cause so many of the big predators to up and leave their hunting grounds?

  Of course, the moment the thought crosses my mind, the earth begins to shake.

  I bite back the scream building in my throat. Not again.

  I close my eyes and hug my knees to my chest, waiting for the earth to stop trembling. Each earthquake is terrifying to me. I can’t ignore them like the others do, though I try hard to pretend I’m not freaking out every time one happens. They happen more often than we eat, and yet I can’t sit back and pretend they’re not happening, that the earth isn’t shaking. That we’re not perched atop the remains of an active volcano and that’s why we’re living in a steamy island paradise in the middle of iceberg country. Each earthquake never lasts long, though. I always brace myself, waiting for this to be the “one,” but it never is. The world trembles for a moment or two, and then goes still.

  Until today. It shivers and I count off the seconds. One. Two. Five. Ten. Eleven before it stops. Then it starts again, almost immediately. This one lasts for five seconds. A third tremor falls right behind, and then the world goes still once more.

  It’s so quiet I can hear my heart thudding painfully loud in my chest. That’s too many earthquakes in too short a period. Something’s wrong.

  “L’ren,” K’thar calls, and I scramble out from under the bushes and fling myself into his arms. I hug his neck tightly, and when I can finally choke down a breath, I point up at the sky, where the skyclaw are all retreating. “Look!”

  He nods, a grim look on his face. “They go.”

  My alien sounds far too calm, and I shake my head at him. “You don’t get it. They’re fleeing. They’re all fleeing this place! We need to go, too!” As if to punctuate my words, the earth shakes again in another quick tremor.

  At that, K’thar gives me a grim look and nods. “We go.”

  Thank god. Finally, we’re getting out of this place.

  19

  K’THAR

  I do not waste breath asking my mate if she can climb down from the cliffs. There is no time. The ground beneath our feet shudders and shakes, and overhead, the skyclaw head away from the jungle in great numbers. They know something we do not, and like my L’ren has been trying to warn us, the Great Smoking Mountain is not dead.

  I think of the time seasons ago, the way the world burned and the skies filled with smoke and the air clogged with ash. I remember it was so thick that we spit and wept gray for several turns of the moons, and it covered us like a second skin. I remember my camouflage was the color of ash for so long that when I turned blue once more, it surprised me. I remember the trees withering and dying and a season of starvation.

  But mostly I remember the deaths. So many died. My parents. My father’s brother and his kits. Our clan went from seven hands of people to just one in a mere heartbeat. The same with Shadowed Cat and Tall Horn. I remember the clan of the Long Tail, who chose not to send anyone on the hunter’s challenge that day. None survived.

  We must leave here before that happens again.

  I fling my L’ren over my shoulder and climb down the side of the cliff with all the speed I have in my arms. For once she makes no protest and does not demand to go on her own. I make it down and then we race forward, meeting the others on the beach.

  “We should not wait any longer,” R’jaal tells me, rushing to meet me. He holds a pack in his hands and waves M’tok forward. I see the Shadowed Cat clan dragging the rafts toward the water, and J’shel races past, bundles of supplies in his arms. Somewhere in one of the huts, Z’hren wails, upset. It is all chaos.

  I nod to R’jaal, who seems to be the only calm one other than myself. “I will help those unable to get to the rafts on their own. Make sure the supplies are evenly distributed between all three tribes.”

  He looks as if he will protest my order—R’jaal does not like to take direction from me—but bites back his protest and nods.

  My mate slides out of my arms. “Z’hren,” she tells me. “Bb ndzsus.”

  I nod at her. “You retrieve Z’hren, my mate. I will get T’chai.”

  “Yes, T’chai,” she tells me, then grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles. She gives me a nod and a smile, then dashes toward the hut that N’dek and Z’hren have temporarily made their own. Even in this madness, she thinks of me. It warms my heart and my khui sings a gentle song of happiness. There will be more time for that later, though.

  For now, we must all escape.

  I move to the hut and see M’rsl there. She jumps to her feet, her cheeks wet with tears, and babbles something in her strange language. Unlike my mate, she has made no attempt to learn our words. I cannot judge her, though. She has tirelessly waited on T’chai both day and night. She will have time to speak our words when he is better. “Come,” I tell her, moving to T’chai’s side. “We will go now.”

  “Wt! Cntmvim!” She grabs my arm. “S’woondid!”

  “We must go,” I tell her again calmly and pull her hand from my forearm. “Before the Great Smoking Mountain dies once more.” I move to T’chai’s side and kneel next to him. The male’s abdomen is bloated and looks discolored underneath the crisscross of angry wounds. His face is pale but covered in sweat, and his camouflage seems to have bled out of him entirely. He is not long for this world, and I hesitate at moving him.

  Then again, none of us are long for this world if we stay.

  I ignore M’rsl and her unhappy protests as I gently take him in my arms and carry him out to the rafts. She stops screaming at me when she sees the others, and races to his side, clasping his hand even as I haul him toward the nearest raft. Perhaps she has realized what is happening.

  R’jaal meets me at the edge of the rafts. “Strong Arm will take the lead raft,” he tells me. “Since this is your journey.” His smile is thin. “And you have more arms than us to paddle with.”

  Does he think we will lead them to their death? “My L’ren knows the way,” I reassure him, and set T’chai down gently on the second raft in the small group of three. Nearby, S’bren tests the ropes and A’tam lashes the supply packs down so they will not fall overboard.

  I hear an angry squawk, and when I turn, I see my mate with Fat One perched on one shoulder, Z’hren in her arms. She keeps a protective hand over the kit’s head and scans the skies, as if she is afraid something will harm him from above. Behind her, N’dek limps out, leaning heavily on O’jek of Shadowed Cat.

  If it were any other day, there would be much teasing of the three rival clans working together. But today, no one is laughing.

  M’rsl points at the sky behind us and says something. My mate gasps.

  I turn and look. On the far end of the island, where the smoke pours endlessly into the sea, black clouds of ash boil and billow into the skies as if someone has lit a great fire. I remember this. It is dangerous.

  Lives will be lost if we stay. It is decided, then.

  “We go,” I tell the group sharply, pointing M’rsl to the raft with her mate and then gently easing my mate toward the first one. “Let us waste no more time here.”

  We paddle out, silent. For once, there is no bickering amongst our clans. Everyone is silent and gets to work. Since we are at the front of the raft chain, we have the toughest work ahead of us. Our paddles dig into the water and we head away from the shore as quickly as we can. Even N’dek, who has not put effort into anything since his injury, paddles with grim determination. My mate holds Z’hren in her arms and shushes him when he cries, causing Fat One to squawk angrily. I did not realize the flyer was coming with us, but when the animal settles on my shoulder with a flap of his wings, I cannot resist giving him an affectionate scratch. I am glad for his presence. It will remind me of home even as we leave it behind.

  The current fights against us for a time, but once we get farther out, it eases a bit and then we are carried along as if on a breeze. We rest for a moment and I scan the water. Never have I been this far out. The things that dwell in the water are fierce and hu
ngry, but today they seem silent. Perhaps we are lucky, or perhaps they do not know what to make of our large wooden crafts. Either way, I will gladly take whatever luck we get. Time passes. No one speaks. The kit falls asleep in L’ren’s lap and she shades his face with a leather blanket. The air grows cooler as we get farther and farther out into the water.

  “Look,” J’shel says after a time. His voice is low, frightened. “Behind us.”

  I turn, my paddle resting on my thigh, and glance behind us. I immediately scan the rafts of the others, but nothing seems amiss. Then I see it. Massive clouds of smoke, twice the size they were before, billowing out from the island. Not just in one spot, either. The gray of it stretches in a long line, and I realize the trees our burning.

  Our home. It is being destroyed. The trees we carved into our new clan home will be gone, along with the kaari and all the nightflyers that live in their branches. The huts of our ancestors that make up the Tall Horn home will be gone next. The Shadowed Cat caves will be likely destroyed as well. Nothing will be left.

  There is nowhere to go but forward. Grimly, I turn ahead once more and dig my paddle into the waters. My mate and my kit need safety. If that means the cold place on the far end of the water, that is where we will go.

  20

  LAUREN

  It’s near dawn when I wake up to Z’hren nuzzling at my top, trying to feed.

  “Whoa, little buddy,” I tell him in a gentle voice as I detangle my limbs from a sleeping K’thar’s. Sometime in the middle of the night he migrated over to my side of the raft and held me away from the edge. I’ve ended up in the middle of the thing with the baby, and Kki perches on a basket nearby, ruffling his wings and looking indignant at his surroundings. I sit up and adjust the baby, handing him a chunk of an edible root for him to gnaw on. We should have prepared better for travel, I think. There are eggs, and dried fish, of course, but I feel reluctant to break out an egg when our journey’s just beginning. What if this takes longer than we thought?