by Nathan Long
He was less co-operative when it came time to get him out of the coach. “I cannot allow it, mistress. No true Dhanan would permit a woman to lift a burden as heavy as myself. And am I so poor a man that I must beg assistance in the first place?”
Well, nobody can say I butt in when I’m not wanted. I shrugged. “Hey, I ain’t stoppin’ you. Go on, take a crack at it.”
He stood up, jaw set—and sat right back down again, sheet-white, his eyes rolling up in his head. “A passing weakness. If you will allow me a moment to recover.”
I crossed my arms. “Dude, you need a week in bed watching game shows, with someone who knows a hell of a lot more than me takin’ care of you. We gotta get you home.”
I put an arm around his waist. He flinched from my bare skin. “Mistress, I protest. I weigh too much...”
What a little priss. I slung him over my shoulder, pulled myself out of the coach one-handed, then eased us both down to the ground and sat him down, his back propped against one of the trunks. His eyes were as round as poker chips.
“By the Seven, mistress, such strength is impossible! Why, you carry me like so many bedclothes. How do you come by this...” He gasped and looked around at the carnage. His face sagged like somebody had pulled the bones out of it. “Lau. Sil. Cousins.” He put his head in his hands.
I didn’t know where to look. I never do when people get all emotional. After a while he stopped snorfing and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “My apologies, mistress. I dishonor brave men with these tears. They were true Dhanans. They would never have wept...”
He stopped, staring at me in the sunlight. “Mistress, you are...” He went pale and started trying to back away from me, eyes wide, but since he was already pressed against one of the trunks, so all he did was dig grooves in the dirt with his heels.
I raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter now?”
He made a weird hand motion at me. He put his thumb and middle finger together and touched them to his left eye, his right eye and then his mouth. “Begone, mistress demon. I do not wish to travel yet to the lands of the dead.”
“Demon? I ain’t no demon. I ain’t even a Hell’s Angel.”
“Tease me not, tormentor. Have you not a demon’s dead pink skin, its hair of flame, it’s green eyes? Do you not have a demon’s unnatural strength and size?”
I laughed. Maybe I should have been insulted at the less than flattering description, but it was too funny. So hell on this planet was full of big, pink, red-headed chicks? Pretty much what Father Flanagan always told me. “Buddy, calm down. I promise I’m no demon. I’m flesh and blood, just like you.” Well, okay, not just like him. He was an alien, but you know what I mean. I held out my arm. “Go on. Pinch me.”
He shrank away. “If you be no demon, explain yourself. What are you? From where do you come?”
That was a tricky one. Did I tell him I was an alien from outer space? Not smart. I’d probably be taken to the local version of Area 51 and get dissected. But telling him I came from “across the big water” was risky too. These guys probably knew exactly who lived across the big water, and it was a good bet it wasn’t dixie-fried biker gals. I decided to play dumb. “I don’t know. I woke up on that stone there, right before you were attacked, and I can’t remember anything before that. Do you know where I came from?”
He looked toward the stone disk and froze, then the weird eye-touching motion again. “So strong. Could you be...? By the Seven, that is worse even than...” He trailed off.
I stepped forward. “Come on, pal. Don’t leave me hanging. What do you mean? What’s worse? Worse than what?”
He shook his head. “No man speaks of this.”
He wasn’t putting me off that easily. He knew what the stone disk was. My heart thumped. Maybe he knew how to get me back home. “Bro, if you know something, some way to get me back to my own people...”
Suddenly there was an edge in his voice. “I know nothing. Be silent.”
“Listen, you little pipsqueak. I’m only asking a civil...”
“Do you dare speak to me this way?”
“I just saved your life, pal. I’ll talk to you anyway I damn well please.”
That made him pause. He nodded. “Forgive me, mistress, you are correct. That was ungracious. I owe you a debt I cannot repay. But there is danger here. We must leave quickly.”
“Not unless your house is right around the corner. You need to eat and rest first. You lost a lot of blood.”
He scanned the horizon. “Impossible. We cannot wait. There is food in that chest. Help me fill a pack and I will eat as we walk.”
We? That was twice now he’d said we. “Uh... I’m coming with you?”
“You may go where you wish, but in exchange for your assistance, I will gladly offer you what meager hospitality I can, though as things stand, this may be the extent of it.”
I dragged the chest he’d pointed to from the pile. He looked sadly around at the wreckage and the slaughter. “’Tis unthinkable to leave good men unburied, but if we stay we will soon join them. Kedac-Zir will pay for this.”
I took a pack from a bird saddle and started filling it with stuff from the chest; strange fruits—or vegetables maybe, I couldn’t tell—little round yellow ones, long twisty white ones, like curly-cue string beans, sweet- smelling bread, cold cuts, little meat pies with crust the color of boiled lobster, a clay jar sealed with wax that sloshed when I moved it. “So what was all this about, anyway?” I asked. “Why did those guys attack you and take that girl?”
“She is no mere girl. She is the Aldhanshai Wen-Jhai, daughter of our Aldhanan, Kor-Har, the ruler of Ora, the greatest nation on Waar. She is...was, my betrothed. The love of my life. He who stole her is Kedac-Zir, Dhanan of Kalnah, and Kir-Dhanan of all Ora. I am Sai-Far, son of Shen-Far, Dhanan of Sensa.”
Well, that all went in one ear and out the other. The only thing that stuck was that his name was Sai something. I stuck out a hand. “Jane Carver, of...” I remembered just in time. “Of I don’t know.”
Sai bowed where he was sitting and crossed his wrists like they were chained. “Your servant.”
“But why did he attack you?”
He sighed. “Uncivilized barbarians that we are in Ora, we continue an old custom that should have died out in the dark ages; “The Sanfallah”, or to give it a truer name, the bride-napping. Though my family and Wen-Jhai’s had both approved the marriage, custom dictates that I must come to her father’s castle like a brigand, duel with her father—the Aldhanan no less—and drag her off to my lands, defending my right to have her against all comers.”
I passed him some of the meat pies and veggies. “Eat. You gotta get your strength back.”
He took the chow, but offered some back to me. “And you? Do you not hunger?”
I hadn’t realized it ’til then, but I did hunger. I hungered like dammit. Traveling light-years in a second, or whatever I’d done, sure built up a powerful appetite.
I was worried that the grub might kill me, being from another planet and all, but I was going to die slow and painful anyway if I didn’t eat. I’ll take quick and painful any day. I nibbled one of the meat pies. The meat tasted like pumpkin. I mean it tasted like meat, but like pumpkin meat. Like cows that had been eating pumpkins. Ah hell, forget it. You try and describe a taste. I dare you. Whatever it was, it was food. I wolfed down four little pies as Sai continued his story.
“Usually the ordeal is purely ceremonial. The groom and the father touch swords, the father falls back, the groom departs with his bride as the women wail the traditional laments, and all that went as arranged. But this Kedac-Zir, the animal, decided to exercise the other part of the ritual and take Wen-Jhai from me before I brought her safely to my home.”
I stopped chewing. “This was all part of some ritual? Killing all these guys? Can’t you sic the law on him?”
Sai made a face. “No no. Kedac-Zir is perfectly within his rights. Here in benighted Ora we believe
that a man who can’t hold onto his bride doesn’t deserve to keep her. Wen-Jhai is Kedac-Zir’s betrothed now, unless I can reach him before the wedding and defeat him in single combat. Then she would be mine again. But as you can see, I unfortunately am a man of words, not actions. And a wounded man of words at that. She is lost to me, forever.”
“Man, that blows chunks.” Poor kid. I guess it doesn’t matter where you go in the universe, the jocks still pick on the brains.
He nodded. “I know not this phrase, but your meaning is clear, and true. When news of this defeat reaches home I will not be welcome in my father’s house. To have lost my bride is one thing. Not to have died defending her is unforgivable. I will be scorned by society. Perhaps I will enter the priesthood.”
He closed his eyes. I worried for a second, but he was still breathing, so I let him be. I guess talking so much had worn him out.
It was at that moment, sitting in the middle of a bunch of dead purple guys and their luggage, eating strange food and talking to an honest-to-god alien that it all caught up to me. I thought, “Well I guess I ain’t goin’ to jail any time soon,” and that was it. I started laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, that laughter where your chest hurts and no sound comes out.
I guess you had to be there. Okay, maybe it wasn’t funny, not even then. Maybe I was just hysterical. Sai sure didn’t appreciate it. He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Does my plight amuse you?”
I shook my head and tried to talk through the spasms. “My plight... Not yours... My plight’s amusing the hell out of me.”
It took me a second to stop chuckling. I could see Sai steal a look at all my jiggling flesh. He looked away, as embarrassed, and waved toward the trunks. “Mistress, it pains me to see you... distressed in this way. Please. My lady’s garments will only go to waste in this desert. Take whatever you like.”
He was right. I needed some duds. If we were heading for polite society I couldn’t be walking around with my skin hanging out—not all of it anyway. “Good plan, bro. You just rest up a bit and I’ll make myself decent.”
He nodded wearily and closed his eyes.
I glanced through Sai’s fiancée’s stuff. Not a chance. The waist of one of her fancy loincloths wouldn’t have fit around one of my thighs, let alone my hips. And the tops? Forget it. It would have been like trying to fit footballs into egg cups. Time to get practical. This planet seemed to be a place where fights happened at the drop of a hat. I gave up on the frilly stuff and turned to the dead guys.
First I tried out some of the swords. I didn’t know bad from good. I just picked the one that felt best in my hand. They were all as light as toys. More gravity problems. I’d just have to get used to it. Next I found a dead guy close to my build and stripped off his harness, armor and loincloth. It was all a little sticky and stinky. There wasn’t much to do about the armor or the harness, but I rinsed the loincloth in water from a little wooden keg. I have some standards.
The harness went on no problem. It was adjustable, with buckles and cinches and rawhide ties. The armored sleeve was a good fit too. It was leather, sewn over with overlapping metal scales, and covered my arm up to my neck and all of my right boob. Or at least it would have if I’d been a man. As it was I had to leave a strap loose to make room.
And speaking of boobs, while I was making my adjustments, I noticed that the lighter gravity had an unforeseen plus; my breasts now sat higher than they’d been when I was sixteen and the envy of the girl’s locker room. I smiled. I might be living in some bad sci-fi nightmare, but this I could get used to.
I was finishing off my outfit with a pair of boots and shin guards from another, smaller guy, when Sai woke up. He choked. “Mistress Jae-En, what have you...? Please, mistress. This is unseemly. You cannot...” He stopped, lifting his head, listening. I heard it too. A rumble, like the one I’d woken up to earlier. We looked up. Coming across the plain at a run were the four harnessed birds from the coach. They’d come back.
I smiled. “How’s that for luck. We’ve got a ride.”
“No, Mistress Jae-En, this is no luck at all. This is our doom.” He was looking past the approaching birds. I followed his gaze.
Far off, but closing on us fast, was a churning dust cloud, shot through with glints of steel and half hiding the forms of massive galloping beasts.
CHAPTER THREE
MONSTERS!
At first I thought they were horses and riders—okay, not horses, but some kind of powerful animals carrying big, shaggy riders. There were definitely things with four legs galloping in the dust cloud, and hairy arms hefting big-ass spears and swords, but as they got closer I got the next big shock in a long day of big shocks. Horse—or whatever—and rider were all one animal!
They reminded me of those horse-man things in Fantasia. Whaddaya call ’em? Cen-somethings. Except these weren’t cute. Not by a country mile. The horse-part was more like an extra large tiger, low to the ground and striped yellow and eggplant purple. It had a thick, Komodo dragon tail at one end, and a squat, upright man-body at the other. Their back legs were like a cat’s, strong and springy, with padded paws that left footprints bigger around than a Frisbee. Their front legs had what looked like big, lumpy clubs on the ends. I couldn’t make out any more detail than that with all the dust and movement.
Their heads were huge, with wide, blunt faces like a bear’s, except tiger-striped like their bodies. The striping went up into thick dreadlocks, some yellow, some purple, that hung down their wide backs.
Even with the swords and spears in their hands it took a minute for it to sink in that these weren’t animals. I mean they were, but they were people too. Okay, not people, but another race. You know what I mean. Real aliens this time. Not guys who looked like some guy in a band with a little purple make-up. I got it when I noticed the beads and bones woven into their dreads. Apes might pick up clubs, but jewelry don’t interest them much. For a second I thought that might be a good thing. If they weren’t animals maybe we could negotiate, right? Then I saw some very human-looking skulls around the waist of one mean-ass mother. So much for the “We’re all cousins under the skin” approach.
I’ll give Sai credit. He didn’t run or burst into tears. He took a sword from one of his dead buddies and painfully got to his feet. He could hardly stay upright he was so weak, but he set his jaw, used the sword for a prop and made like he wasn’t going to budge.
The cen-tigers slowed as they neared us, circling us and the coach like a bunch of bikers intimidating some nice couple who’ve broken down in the middle of nowhere—not that I know anything about that kind of thing. The leader, a huge, scarred thug with a leather eye-patch over one eye, stopped in front of us. He was about eight feet tall, and smelled like the world’s dirtiest cat box. Then, like we weren’t already impressed, he reared up on his hind legs and dropped his tail to the ground to make a stable-looking tripod. Now I got why his front “legs” looked different than his back ones, and why some of these boys had two, three and even four swords strapped to their backs. Their middle limbs were some kind of multi-purpose leg/arm, and those lumpy clubs they ran on were fists with thick, callused knuckles.
Pretty snazzy—four legs when you needed speed, and four hands to swing swords with when you needed to fight. If I hadn’t been so worried about keeping my skin intact right then, it would have been fascinating. As it was, I spent the time multiplying hands and swords and cen-tigers and coming up with some really depressing numbers.
Sai stepped forward, raising an open hand in what would seem to be a universal sign of peaceful intentions. “Hail, noble Aarurrh. Forgive our trespass. We were forced into your lands by our enemies. Please take what you will of our supplies and... and our dead, but leave us to withdraw and seek vengeance on these cowards who drove us to violate your borders.”
It seemed like a pretty good speech to me, but One-Eye didn’t think much of it. He spat insultingly close to Sai’s feet and scratched himself with his left middl
e hand. “Aarurrh not care why you here, insect. This Aarurrh land. You pay.” He had a hard time talking Sai’s talk. It was like his mouth wasn’t shaped right to make those kinds of noises. “You be slave for women until die. Then meat like these.”
And with that he signaled to two flunkies and turned away to supervise the looting. He barked at his men in some lingo that sounded like a bear gargling razor blades. I didn’t understand a word. So, my universal translator wasn’t universal after all. That sucked.
Not that I needed a translator to tell me what he was saying. He motioned to some guys to grab boxes and armor, and had others start cutting up carcasses. I almost lost my cookies when I saw that they were choosing their chops and spare-ribs from both birds and men.
I tried to catch Sai’s eye while our guards were putting away their swords and unhitching coils of rope. If we were going to try something now was the time, but Sai was already putting down his sword and holding out his wrists. Wounded and out of it like he was I guess that was the smart thing to do, but I felt a little let down.
The flunkies tied him up first. Nobody was watching me. These guys had no idea what my earth-strong muscles could do. If I jumped, and kept jumping, I just might get away. But while trying to decide if I could live with myself if I left poor Sai behind, and wondering how much he’d weigh me down if I slung him over my shoulder, the flunkies finished him up and grabbed me.
It probably saved my life. As they were making me look like something from Bondage Babes Monthly, I noticed some nasty little bolo-thingies hanging from their belts. I might have got a jump or two on them, but it was a good bet they would have brought me down, maybe permanently. I decided I should keep my jack-rabbit impersonation to myself. I played meek and mild as they threw me and Sai face down over the haunches of two junior members and cinched us in place with belts.
Soon after that all the baggage and dressed meat were loaded up and tied down. One-Eye gave a roar and we were loping in double file over the endless blue prairie.