Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

  Sudjummar caught her wrist and thrummed sleepily. “I’m sure I could spark a memory with a little effort.”

  Amy giggled again, looked at Olivia for help.

  “She’s playing a joke on you, Sudjummar.”

  He released her at once, flustered. “Oh, sorry.” He watched her leave, then turned to Olivia and said, “What was that all about?”

  “Amy was just telling me how time passes.”

  “Time is such a trick, isn’t it?” He wrapped an arm around her waist and rolled onto his back, draping her easily atop him. He crooked his other arm behind his head and thrummed at her. “Best to make the most of it.”

  She considered it. His easy-going morning arousal had sparked her power, but after so many sessions with the Great Spirit, she could control it. Still she was tempted; she hadn’t once been with him without that power boiling through her, and it might be nice, she thought, just to relax and make love. And he might think it was nice, too, not to end up in half a coma.

  “I have things to do,” she said at last, and pulled back out of his reluctant grip. “And so do you. I keep you in this pit too much as it is. That pile of broken tools in the forge is almost as tall as I am.”

  He growled, rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. “Oh all right. Leave Somurg with me.”

  Olivia had been gathering her baby-supplies preparatory to pawning Somurg off in the women’s tunnels. Now she glanced cautiously back at him. “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. We get along just fine, don’t we, cousin?” He scooped Somurg out of his cradle and nipped lightly at the baby’s nose. Somurg immediately punched his uncle in the eye and giggled. “And he’ll give me something to do when I get bored trying to catch up with work.”

  “But you’ll—”

  “Bring him to you for feedings, yes. And if I can’t find you, I’ll give him to Amy.”

  She came to kiss him. “Thanks. I know it’s overprotective—”

  He laughed. “There are worse habits than insisting on nursing your son. Oh, if you see him, tell Doru I’ve got his spear done,” he added. “So he won’t have to come down and break the other wing after all.”

  She promised, gave the sensitive patch between his wings a scratch for goodbye, and left while he was still growling after her to come back and finish what she’d started. She stopped by the women’s tunnels only just long enough to make sure Liz was all right, and only then because it was on her way and she could borrow an empty backpack or three from Tina, who reminded her patiently three times about the syringes in the course of a two-minute conversation.

  Then Olivia took herself out to the common caves, catching the band of gullan males and the two human huntresses on their way out for the night. “Doru, can I borrow you?” she called.

  He had been sighting down the shaft of a spear with an expression of deep dislike. He tossed it aside immediately on hearing his name and trotted over eagerly. “Is my weapon ready?”

  “Yes, you can pick it up anytime, but I was hoping you’d take me into town again.” She gave him her most winning smile.

  His grin widened and he hauled his body back to its most impressive posture. “Same place?”

  “No. We just need a few things.”

  He deflated slightly, then tossed his horns at the hunters and told them to go on without him. “Hodrub, stay with Sarahjay,” he added sternly. “And Sarahjay, dammit, stay with Hodrub! Mudmar, you lead the hunt. Get another goat for Horumn.” He started to turn towards Olivia, and then swung back one last time. “And Tobi, for Urga’s sake, if you drop your spear again, stop fighting and call for help! All right?”

  “Got it!” Tobi sang, saluting him. She wore her spear in a sling across her back, and as she ran out towards the chasm entrance, she drew her own pair of climbing spikes and slipped them over her small hands.

  Doru shook his head slightly, watching her go. “Lost her spear in the last hunt,” he muttered. “Jumped a rogue stag with those ridiculous little metal claws. Head on.”

  “Was she hurt?” Olivia asked, appalled.

  He bared his teeth, looking mildly chagrined. “No, actually, she killed it. Which means I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “I didn’t even know she had a set.”

  “You thought you were the only one?” He chuckled. “Let’s see, who else has them? Sarahjay, of course. Amy, I think. Tina, and I know Liz used to have some, but I think she gave hers up after she got heavy.” He indicated a full belly with one hand. “Of course, Vorgullum offered them to all the humans after he saw how quickly you took to them—all but the Beast, that is—but not many were interested. And why not, we were always willing to carry them before, and there aren’t as many long drops in this new mountain.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  He hooked his hand into claws and brought them up before her eyes. They seemed pointier than she remembered them being. “They need wearing down,” he explained. “The flightless males are having an even worse time. It’s not a bad mountain,” he said grudgingly. “And I suppose it’s better for the humans, easier to reach the baths and all that, but I’ll be glad when Vorgullum says we can return to Hollow Mountain.”

  “And if he never does?”

  He shrugged his wings and shoulders in the same movement. Then he grinned. “If nothing else, at this rate we’ll have enough babies to start a whole new tribe in a few years.”

  He walked her to the entry and held out his hand expectantly, shaking his head when she showed him her climbing spikes. “Yours don’t need wearing down, and I’ll feel better if you’re in my arms.”

  She sheathed her spikes unwillingly in her belt pouch and climbed onto his chest, locking her hands around his neck. “You let Tobi climb it,” she observed, aware that she sounded sulky.

  “I can’t stop Tobi,” he said, laughing, and started up. “But she’s like a little snake…a senseless little snake. And I’ll tell you this—if Tina ever knew she was climbing this wall on her own, she’d have my wings off.”

  “You know I came down on my own the very first night we found it,” she reminded him.

  “Good for you,” he replied blithely. “But I bet you a box of thumperjuice you went back up in someone’s arms.”

  This was true. She scowled.

  “Well?”

  “I had some help,” she said vaguely.

  “Ha! I’ll tell you what kind I like best when we get to the hive. I’ve come to respect you a great deal,” he added, giving her back a pat on his way to find another clawhold. “But there’s independence and utter stupidity. We don’t let our own young climb out until after they’ve fledged.” He trailed off into wistful silence, thinking, no doubt of the fledging season to come.

  They gained the aerie and he pushed her helpfully over then sprang up beside her and opened his wings. He scanned the tree line, grumbled something under his breath about Mudmar’s formation, then turned and peered out at the distant lights of human habitation. “I suppose you need a whole hive and not one of their dens,” he said. “All right, come here.”

  He bent down a little so she could hop up and lock her arms around his neck again. His hands encircled her waist and then he leapt out over space, dropping low in a glide over the tops of the trees. He swept his eyes over the ground mechanically, grunted when he spied a small band of elk, then arched up and curved away towards the outlying town.

  “You should learn to hunt,” he said, ducking his head against her ear to be heard over the roaring wind of their passage. “You’d be good at it. And I could use the help. Vorgullum has forty-three hunters with him. I have eight and a handful of elders. And Tobi’s efforts notwithstanding, we’ve had to rely more heavily on our stores than I’d like, and there’s not that damn much in our stores in Dark Mountain.”

  “Why don’t you ask the other gullan females?” she shouted.

  “I have! The same night, the same hour that Vorgullum left, I was in the women’s tu
nnels with an armload of spears! I only found three willing to try and not one of them could get off the ground without help. I put them with the humans, but when the game bolted, Tobi and Sarahjay charged forward and all three gullan dropped their spears and ran screaming. Our own fault,” he snarled sourly, and shook his head. “Maybe little Smugg will join me in the skies, but those other females are useless. I couldn’t put a spear in their hands again if you ordered them to take it. And believe me, if I thought it would make a difference, I’d ask you to order them. Eight hunters—six gulla and two humans, and I hate to admit that the humans consistently bring back more food. Even if they find no game, they’re expert raiders.”

  He was swooping low over the outskirts of the city now. “Tell me where,” he said, banking towards the commercial lots.

  She twisted as best she could to see, and let go his neck long enough to point at one of the grocery/drug/souvenir shops so prevalent in small towns. This one was called Big Bill’s Corner Market, and had a giant plastic statue of a lumberjack in the parking lot. “That’s good,” she said.

  “That’s still active, but we can wait,” he said, but touched down on the roof and set her on her feet. “This is a good place to raid. I come here a lot.”

  “Do you?”

  “Oh yes. They’ve got bigger places around, and when we really need food, we tend to raid those more than this one, but I like this place best. Best damn thumperjuice in the whole world. And it has light-makers, and some of those coverings you humans wear, and these.” He hooked a claw in the strap of her backpack. “And the jars the females use for storing herbs, and pots and pans and metal knives and just all sorts of useful things. I love it here.”

  He hunkered down comfortably to wait out the closing of the store and she sat down facing him and drew her knees up to her chin.

  “Tell me of your Somurg,” he invited.

  “Well…he’s little and noisy and hungry all the time,” she replied. “He’s also messy and wriggly and extremely loud when he wants to be. But he’s soft and warm…and when he isn’t spitting up on himself, he smells wonderful. He’s started grabbing at things he wants, and since I’m one of those things, I’ve got a good patch of scratches.” She opened the front of her leather vest slightly and showed him the upper swell of her breast.

  Doru hissed sympathetically. “I hope you’re treating those. I’m old enough to remember what babies like to hold in their grubby paws.”

  She fastened her vest, nodding. “If those claws get much longer, I’m going to go after him with one of Sudjummar’s files.”

  “To have such troubles,” Doru murmured. He growled in the back of his throat and ran his claws over the gritty rooftop in small, discouraged circles. “Tina has agreed to go to Gullnar when she’s in season, and when he gets back, of course. Tobi said she would come to me, but she hasn’t. I could push the issue if I wanted…but I won’t.”

  “Vorgullum is bringing more humans.” The thought still stung. “You could take one.”

  He was shaking his head. “Not until he commands it. And he will, I know it, but not this time. He has enough goat-headed males biting at his ankles. It will be years before he gets to them all.” He contemplated this, staring up into the rain. “But he will. Truth, we’ve lived under the shadow of slow death so long, it’s hard to imagine finally being free of it.”

  “And all it took was the lives of one or two hundred humans,” Olivia said with quiet bitterness. And Bahgree’s blessing, once the Great Spirit had his way and Olivia had given up her mortal life.

  “Fewer by far than it’s cost us,” Doru was saying. He stood and paced to the edge of the roof, looked down at the thinning parking lot. “How’s your mate holding up?”

  “His wing has healed…as much as it’s going to, at any rate.” She considered his broad back. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “It escaped no one that you chose to spend your season apart from him. I…understand that humans don’t appear to find their season as enjoyable as gullan females.” He sounded puzzled by this, but doggedly continued. “But the clear message you sent was you don’t want to share his pit.”

  “Not that it’s anybody’s business but my own,” she said tightly, “but Olivia Issagul is certainly living up to her reputation.”

  He glanced back at her, a shadow of doubt in his eyes. “Olivia, perhaps you have forgotten, but we gullan can scent the musk of coupling, and you haven’t worn it in some time.”

  Olivia opened her mouth to argue, remembered the sensation of power, drawing in the essence and scent of her partner as he lay atop her, and frowned instead. “Sudjummar’s forge is practically right next to the baths.”

  “I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m saying it to spare you, and to spare him. Thugg is working himself up. He’s not young and he’s not too smart, but he’s strong and he’s determined…and he thinks you might be amenable.”

  “Not another blood challenge,” she groaned.

  “Thugg? I doubt it. It isn’t considered terribly fair to bring blood down so soon on a male who’s had his wing broken in the last fight. Thugg’s a lot of things, and not all of them good, but he’s fair.” He studied her obvious distress with an expression of frustrated sympathy. “If it makes you feel any better, Damark is having the same problems and he’s none too young to begin with.”

  “Blood challenge over Amy?”

  “Believe it. You should hear some of the things Kurlun says she can do. But it sort of takes the wind out of your wings to square off against Damark and hear Amy shout for him to rip your stones off. Helps to know where the female stands, so to speak. But of course, Amy isn’t leader.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Yes, you are. I know, we’re supposed to pretend we all believe Vorgullum made his brother tovorak so that he could give you to him. Ha. Sudjummar stands tall because you made him tall and for no other reason.”

  He returned to her side and extended one wing around her to keep the rain off. She huddled against his side, grateful for the heat of his body. “Would it make any difference if I stood Sudjummar up in front of everyone and called him leader?” she asked.

  “Absolutely it would make a difference. He’d be half-killed before the words were out of your mouth. Sudjummar is flightless and crippled.” He lowered his horns slightly. “Which is a pounding shame, because he’s as clever as his brother and far more patient. There are times, Olivia, when I want to seize some of the thicker heads in my mountain and bash them together.”

  A number of cars were starting up in the parking lot. Doru half-rose and twisted his head to see. “Not long now,” he said. “The humans inside need a little more time to sort themselves out. Then we can go in.”

  “Doru, what can I do to make the others back off? What can I do that I’m not already doing?”

  He exhaled through clenched teeth, looked down at her grimly. “You’ll hate me if I answer, so I’m not going to.”

  “Vorung may never be able to use his hands right again. You’ve lost one hunter already; do you want to lose Thugg, too? Tell me.”

  He closed his eyes, opened them to look up into the rain, then turned and faced her again. “Leave him,” he said darkly. “If you won’t take another mate, then wait out Vorgullum’s return in the women’s tunnels. Hard, yes. Unfair. But it will keep Sudjummar alive.”

  “Right, and send every male with the slightest ambition down to pester me whenever I try to leave. How am I supposed to get anything done?”

  “I said you wouldn’t like it.” He turned his face back to the sky. “You could try coupling more and taking less baths. Couldn’t hurt. And you need to spend your next season in his company.”

  “Impossible,” she said.

  He looked at her intently.

  “For reasons I could not begin to explain,” she added.

  “Are you meeting with someone in secret?”

  “Not in the way you mean.”

  The corners of hi
s mouth curved slightly. “How many more meanings are there in that? You are, aren’t you? Hm. Is it Logarr?”

  “What is this, Twenty Questions?” She paused. “Why would you say Logarr?”

  “I expected him to challenge long before now, the way he watches you. Are you meeting with him, to prevent him from fighting Sudjummar?”

  “Oh, and is that the next piece of advice you have for me?” she demanded. “Just sleep with every male who might challenge Sudjummar?”

  He recoiled, plainly startled by her vehemence. “No, of course not!”

  “Just the ones looking for blood challenge, is that it? You know what, my sex life is none of your goddamned business! You’re as bad as the rest of them!” she exploded, very dimly aware that this was both untrue and unfair. “Sniffing around to see when and with you and how often! Why the hell should I have to defend myself in the first place?”

  He inched away from her, this great hulk of a gulla, and showed her his empty palms. “Easy, Olivia.”

  She was not mollified. “Yeah, that’s right. Easy Olivia! Well, you can take your suspicions and your advice and pound them both right up your ass!”

  She stalked away from him to the furthest edge of the roof and sat, glaring into the trees.

  Time crawled. Below them, two more people left the store, called goodnights as they got into their separate cars, and drove off. Somewhere in the night, a dog started barking.

  She began to feel a little ashamed of herself. And then more than just a little.

  “I’m sorry,” she grumbled.

  “I’ve heard worse,” he said mildly.

  “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.”

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all.” A note of baffled frustration crept into his tone. “Humans are so touchy about coupling. Like it has to be some sort of evil secret.”

  “Well, you gullan don’t exactly mate right out in public.”

  “No, but we talk about it. Tina says, privacy. Privacy means you keep such things quiet.” He shook his head as if in disbelief. “The only things we keep so quiet are unpleasant ones. Don’t humans like sex?”