by Nathan Long
Queenie’s gang, the smaller clans and loners, were cheering, but they were way outnumbered. The rest of the crowd was howling for my blood, surging forward so the ropes bulged in and the sword-posts started to tip. It didn’t matter that One-Eye had been a bully, even by Aarurrh standards. He was an Aarurrh. I was an outsider—an animal.
Fights were breaking out. Queenie’s pals versus everybody else. A pack of thugs ducked under the rope and started toward me. I thought I was done for, but just as I started trying to tug my sword out of One-Eye’s rib cage, I was surrounded by four of the chief’s big elite guard and the bobcat-faced living megaphone started shouting for everybody to shut up. It took a minute, but finally the volume dropped to a low grumble.
The chief stood up. He spoke. I couldn’t understand what he said, but his voice stayed calm so I hoped for the best. I searched the crowd for Queenie. She gave me a reassuring nod.
The chief finished his speech and Bobcat broke up the meeting. As the crowd wandered off, the chief’s guards marched me toward his tent. I got worried again. The chief might not want to murder me in public with part of his tribe giving me the hip-hip-hooray, but a little accident in the tent? I felt a little better when I saw that Handsome, Queenie and Sai were getting the invite too. You don’t bring witnesses to a murder.
We filed through the flap. The details faded in as my eyes adjusted to the low light. Weapons and shields and wooden masks hung from the tent poles. Rugs were overlapped on the ground. Blankets and wicker baskets and trunks were tucked close to the leather walls. Four purple-guy slaves brought the Chief’s couch back in and he settled stiffly into it. I suddenly realized that the couch wasn’t just a chief’s right. The guy couldn’t stand too long without it. A young Aarurrh girl poured him a drink in a jeweled cup that had obviously been made for much smaller hands, and he took a long sip.
Sai and I were held back as the Chief had a pow-wow with Queenie and Handsome. Sai whispered a sketchy translation. “He promises that we shall be escorted to civilized lands at first light tomorrow. Handsome wishes to be part of the escort but the chief refuses. Now they speak of Handsome and Kitten’s betrothal.”
That didn’t need any translation. I could see the happiness in Handsome and Queenie’s faces. They bowed and stepped back and the chief turned to me and Sai, giving us a cold once over, especially me. He called over his shoulder.
A skin curtain at the back of the room was pulled aside and an Aarurrh like a blind ghost stepped out of the shadows.
He was a shrimp by Aarurrh standards, almost as small as the pony-size kids, but he still scared the pants off me. First, he was an albino. His tiger-striping was almost white on white, like the pattern on a fancy dress shirt, and his dreads were like fat white grubs. Second, he couldn’t see. His eyes were filmed over with a milky membrane, the purple-black of the pupil showing through as lavender, like a grape drowning in liquid soap. And finally, he was sniffing like a bloodhound, his head hanging to one side like his neck was broken, mouth gaping.
Queenie and Handsome shifted uneasily as he shuffled in. They didn’t like him any better than I did. The chief grunted something and that wobbly head rolled around, snout taking in a long breath, until that unseeing gaze settled on me.
I flinched back and bumped into my guards. Blind Ghost’s four hands snaked out like they had eyes of their own, then slid around me with nauseating gentleness, closing around my arms, my neck and my waist, pulling me in. That snuffling snout started probing everywhere, my mouth, my hair, my armpits, my crotch. I tried to struggle away, but my guards’ hands clamped down on me. I wanted to heave, but he probably would have sniffed that too. Finally he pulled back, staring at my forehead like he thought he was fixing me in the eye.
“A new smell.” His voice was as creepy as the rest of him, a high, thin wheeze like a cat with a cut throat. He turned and hissed at the chief in his own language. He didn’t sound any better that way.
They talked back and forth for a bit. Then the chief turned to me and Blind Ghost stuck his schnozz in my pit again.
I looked over at Sai. “What the hell is this?”
“He’s a diviner. He can smell when you lie.”
“Bullshit.”
My guard wrenched my head around and pointed me at the chief. The chief spoke Sai’s language even worse than Queenie, but he got his point across. “Where from?”
“I don’t know.”
Blind Ghost barked. “Lie!”
Crack! My guard belted me with a paw. It was like being crowned with a fur-covered frying pan. I hit the carpet. The boys picked me up again and we started all over.
“Where from?”
I shook my brain back into place. Maybe this guy could tell if I was lying. I’d just have to tell the truth then. “Coral Gables, Florida.”
Blind Ghost sniffed, then sniffed again. He frowned. “Truth.”
“Where that?”
“America.”
“Truth.”
The chief growled, annoyed. He tried another tack. “Where that from here?”
“I don’t know.”
Blind Ghost was looking really unhappy. “Truth.”
The chief started forming another question, but I continued. “I don’t know how I got here. I woke up on...” I saw Sai twitch and something told me mentioning the teleport stone to these guys was not a good idea. “...on the plain. Near a battle between the red cloaks and the gold cloaks. That’s the first thing I remember.”
“Truth.”
“No memory?”
“I remember where I was before, but I don’t know how I got here, or where there is from here... or how to get back.”
“Truth.”
Blind Ghost and the Chief jawwed again, then...
“Alone?”
There’s one I could answer without hesitation. “I am the only one of my, uh, tribe within five thousand...” I hunted through my built-in alien dictionary for a word that meant a really long haul. “...Five thousand ilns of here.”
My guard floored me again for sassing back, but Blind Ghost just stared. “Truth.”
The chief stared too. I don’t know how much these guys knew about their planet. They might have thought it was flat for all I know, but if an iln was anything like a mile they’d have to see I was pretty damn alone.
They talked again, for longer this time. Queenie and Handsome were starting to look worried. After a bit, the chief turned to Sai and grilled him about me, with Blind Ghost snuffing at him the whole time. Sai backed me up, telling the truth, but also leaving out the part about the stone disk. After that, the chief had me pick up chests and his couch, all easy one-hand lifts, which amazed them all over again. It was only after I finished that I saw Queenie shaking her head at me like I’d fucked up.
Finally the Chief signalled the guards to take us outside again. The crowd was gone, but One-Eye’s clan and the higher-ups were still there, chatting and waiting around. They came to attention and the chief had his mouthpiece make an announcement.
This time it was One-Eye’s gang who were all smiles and Queenie’s gang who were upset. I could see Handsome and Queenie wanted to speak, but they held their tongues. I wondered what was wrong.
I got my first inkling when the guards led me and Sai away. Instead of going with Queenie, we were put in some kind of supply tent with guards posted outside. “What is this bullshit? We’re supposed to be free. Why are we shut up in here instead of over at Queenie’s, packing?”
Sai shrugged. “I know not, mistress. Perhaps we are here for our protection. One-Eye’s compatriots seemed less than pleased at your victory.”
It seemed a little thin to me. “Yeah, well maybe. What did that snooty bastard say? The chief’s mouthpiece? Queenie sure looked down in the mouth about it.”
“My knowledge of the language of these savages is limited, but from what I could decipher it seemed nothing untoward. He merely named the warriors who would escort us out of Aarurrh lands.”
; Well, we could have wondered back and forth all night, but I was beat. Killing giant, four-armed tigers takes it out of a girl. I found myself a nice comfy stretch of floor and sacked out.
***
Me and Sai woke up before daylight the next morning to the sound of Queenie’s purr outside the tent. She was talking to the guards, and laying on the charm with a trowel. I could smell cooked meat and sweet roots through the tent and the clink of crockery. After a bit there was a grunt and the tent flap opened, revealing Queenie carrying a bag full of breakfast and the guards chowing down on more of it behind her.
She hugged us and greeted us in a loud voice, laughing and setting out the bowls of food. As we started eating she stole a glance back to the tent flap and lowered her voice.
“They kill you. First night out. The guards who take are clan brothers of Hruthar. Wait for you sleep and...” She made a throat slitting motion.
The food turned to dirt in my mouth. Sai sighed, like he knew this was coming all along. One-Eye’s pals had the escort job. We were dead meat.
Queenie patted my arm. “No worry. Raohah and Murrah save you.” She meant Handsome and Kitten. “That night, you camp Black Rocks. Always first stop on long trip East. You lay down. Guards lay down. Then quick, you get up, carry,” She pointed at Sai. “And...” She made a hopping motion with a hand. “Find rock like uklan’s head. Raohah and Murrah wait. Take you.”
“What’s an uklan?”
Sai spoke up. “A desert lizard. Fear not, mistress. I know its shape.”
I had a lot of other questions. Were these guys really going to wait until we were asleep to kill us? What if they didn’t camp in the usual spot? What if they caught me before I got Sai to the uklan rock? I didn’t get to ask them. One of the guards looked in and barked at Queenie to get out.
She barked back, gathered up the bowls and the bones, then gave me a sad motherly look and one of her rib-cracking hugs. She put me down and touched my cheek. “Keep eye open and claw sharp, Jae-yin.”
She was out of the tent before I could do anything more than nod. She’d knocked me for a loop. She’d used my name. I didn’t know she even knew it. After all that stuff about “good girl” and “bad girl.”
Sai got all nosy. “Is something wrong, Mistress Jae-En?”
“Mind your own business. Just dusty around here, that’s all.”
CHAPTER NINE
ESCAPE!
I had to hand it to the chief. He’d solved his little problem neater than a CIA cover-up. By agreeing to let me go he’d satisfied Queenie’s faction, but by naming One-Eye’s pals as our escorts, he’d let the other side know that we were going to die once we got out of camp. Sure Queenie’s side realized what was going on, but you can’t just call the chief a liar. He’d tied them up but good. Luckily, Queenie was one smart, brave mama, or Sai and I wouldn’t have known the score until their swords were halfway through our necks.
About an hour after Queenie’s goodbye breakfast, just as dawn was seeping through the seams of the patchwork tent, the door flapped open and our two escorts popped their heads in, grinning, and motioned us out.
The ugly bastards acted like a couple of pederasts taking cub scouts to a football game. They led us to their pack krae with way too much chuckling and backslapping. They couldn’t wait to get us out of camp. Sai and I exchanged uneasy glances, but what could we do?
You’d think that the Aarurrh would be their own mules, being built like they are, but they’re too proud. They don’t like to carry more than their weapons and a light pack and they never take riders. Queenie had been going way out of her way putting me on her back during the krae stampede. No warrior would have done it. The Aarurrh use the krae the way the purple guys do, for meat and as pack animals and cart horses. Our escort saddled up two of them for us, but hobbled them so that we couldn’t high-tail it.
Sai had no problem mounting up; he’d been riding these things all his life, but I was a little nervous. I remembered the whole wild-eyed herd of them going off the cliff and thought maybe I’d just walk. When I stalled, one of our guards picked me up under the armpits and plopped me on the saddle like a dad putting a kid on a horsey ride outside a supermarket. I flailed around for a second before I found the reins and stirrups and settled in.
Riding a krae felt kinda odd to somebody who’s only rode horses before. The saddle sat in front of the wings, practically on the krae’s neck. And since the thing only had two legs, the stride was more like a human’s side-to-side stroll than a horse’s four beat roll. It wasn’t bad, just different and it took a little getting used to.
As far as the big birds being temperamental, turned out I had nothing to worry about. These were pack animals, and pretty beat-down pack animals at that. Our captors didn’t treat their livestock any better than they treated their slaves.
There was no official send off. Queenie was there, sad and quiet, but Kitten and Handsome weren’t, and neither was the chief or Blind Ghost. We trailed out of the dark, silent camp and up to the rosey light that spread across the plains and tinted the flowers of the blue-stemmed grasses the electric pink of a hooker’s hot pants.
***
Nothing happened during the day. We rode into the sun all morning, until it was right on top of us, then rode away from it all afternoon. After a while Sai started recognizing some far off mountains. “That is Shar-Vet, and that the Tooth of Zavyan. We travel homeward. Think you they mean to honor their bargain after all?”
I snorted. “You believe that, I got some Florida real estate I’d like to show you.”
“Flo-rida, Mistress?”
“It’s an Earth thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
Our escorts kept up their palsy-walsy bullshit, pointing out landmarks, translating dirty Aarurrh jokes with the few scraps of purple-guy talk they knew, piling on the food and drink and exchanging knowing looks and private jokes that Sai, who had a Dick and Jane level vocabulary in Aarurrh, couldn’t begin to understand.
I like to think that even without Queenie’s warning we might have figured out what these bozos were up to from the food thing: they were feeding us way too much. If we were going to be travelling for three days we would have run out of food on day two the way they were shoving it down our throats. They knew they’d have two less mouths to feed after tonight. But even if we’d figured it out and escaped, I’m not sure we’d have made it.
From our weeks of hunting and gathering, Sai and me knew enough of the local veggies that we wouldn’t have starved, but water was harder to find than an honest politician in Washington DC, and there were predators. We saw them in the distance a few times; vurlaks, Chevy van-sized six-legged hulks that looked like a cross between a Gila-monster and a pit bull with skin like velvet over concrete; and shikes, spindly, two-legged, four-armed tiger-monkeys with teeth too big for their heads. They hunted in packs and looked like they were distant cousins of the Aarurrh. Between those guys and a whole damn menagerie of other horrors I only heard about, Sai and I would have been lunch meat before sunrise.
We reached the outcropping of black rocks just as the sun was setting behind us in a sky like raw meat. They were a jumbled collection of natural stone towers sticking out of the top of a low hill like teeth growing from a tumor. They ranged from tree height to higher than a five story walk-up, and were split and crumbled like rotten wood. Boulder crumbs the size of Volkswagens were piled up all around their bases.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee wound us through the rocky maze to a wide clearing somewhere in the middle. There was a scorched ring of stones in the center filled with blackened wood and ash, and surrounded by sun-bleached bones. This was obviously a regular campsite.
I could see Sai scanning for the rock that looked like an uklan’s head, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when I saw him relax. He nodded subtly off to the east and I snuck a look. One house-sized rock did kind of look like a lizard’s noggin. We spent the rest of sundown trying not to look in that direction.
Our murderous buddies made a big show of setting up the camp, building the fire, helping us with our bedrolls, and cooking up another big feast. It occurred to me that the fuckers were fattening us up, and that tomorrow night we were going to be the main course. Tweedledee grinned at me. “You eat good. Long trip tomorrow.”
Yeah, through his lower intestine. I suddenly knew how Hansel and Gretel felt when the wicked witch gave them the grand tour of the oven. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
Pretty soon, too soon, it was time for bed. As I lay down, an army of doubts invaded my mind. What if we’d beat Handsome and Kitten here? What if Sai had picked the wrong rock? What if I couldn’t carry Sai and jump at the same time? Panic rose. I was sure our boys would hear my heart beating, even over the crackle of the fire and the train whistle of the wind through the rocks.
It wasn’t my heart that gave me away. I forgot these guys were animals. They weren’t all experts like Blind Ghost, but they could smell fear.
“Why you scare?”
Tweedledum had been banking down the fire when he turned. He took me by surprise.
“I... Animals. I thought I heard an animal.”
He laughed, showing too many teeth. “Animal not what you need be scare.” He went back to his side of the fire, still chuckling. I let out a sigh of relief.
Sai and I lay down and waited for the perfect opportunity, though what that was supposed to be I don’t know. It was like a bad comedy. The Aarurrh were faking sleep on their side of the fire. We were faking sleep on ours, both of us waiting for the other to drop off. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to do something or I was going to scream. The perfect opportunity wasn’t coming. I’d have to make an imperfect opportunity.
I rolled a little toward Sai. “Go pee.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Go piss, dammit! Then wait for me.”
“Ah, a ruse. I understand.”
An Aarurrh head raised. Damn animal hearing. Sai stood up. The Aarurrh were on their knees instantly, grabbing for weapons. Tweedledee barked. “What?”