by R. Lee Smith
He struck, bounced, and dropped. This time, he lay still.
Olivia stood over him, tensed to spring if he tried to catch her ankle, but he only opened his eyes, looked at her through a glaze of pain, and closed them again.
“I concede,” he groaned.
Olivia dropped back into her body, resisting the urge to haul back and kick him in the head for good measure. She swung around to face the crowd, her eyes blazing. “Now I am done!” she shouted. “The next male that comes for me, I kill!”
Even before the echoes of this threat had faded, Doru’s deep bellow overrode it. “What in the hell goes on here?” He charged into the thick of the commons, hauling Tobi by one arm. He saw Huuk, swelled to his full height and turned to search the crowd for Bodual. Seeing him whole and entirely undamaged, Doru stood back and demanded, “Who is responsible for this?”
Bodual pointed.
Olivia crossed her arms and looked back at Doru defiantly.
Doru blinked at her, looked back at Huuk, then down at Tobi.
“Bam,” Tobi said, staring at the bloody heap of gulla. “Remind me never to piss you off.” She looked back at Olivia. “Are you going to make him yield?” she asked curiously.
Olivia could feel herself wanting to smile at that. “Let go of her, Doru. Tobi, get Tina and tell her there’s been an incident.”
Doru obediently released his grip and Tobi ran off towards the women’s tunnels. Slowly, as if shaking himself from a daze, he looked around and asked the room at large, “Olivia did this? By herself?”
“Unarmed,” someone said.
There were murmurs of assent, then silence again.
Doru turned back to Olivia. “Remind me never to piss you off,” he said, impressed. He moved to get a hand beneath Huuk’s arm. “I’ll bet you’re almost wishing I was here,” he added.
Huuk muttered something thick and incoherent as he was settled on a bench. He reached up gingerly to explore the damage to his left horn, wincing as he touched the exposed nerves near the base.
Running footsteps from the corridor resounded immediately before Tina’s voice could be heard. “All right, let’s make this quick, I’m trying to deliver a Jesus Christ what happened here!” The healer raced to Huuk’s side, unslinging her pack and dropping to her knees. “Tobi, get a light on him! Someone get a towel! Who did this to you?”
“It’s not so bad,” Huuk grumbled, but flinched when Tina’s hand rose towards his head.
Tina glared over her shoulder at Doru. “Goddammit, people, learn some self-restraint!”
Doru folded his arms and looked mildly amused.
His placidity appeared to infuriate her. She whipped around, uncapped a bottle of alcohol and poured it liberally over a cotton ball, then took a swipe at Huuk’s head. When he hollered, she grabbed his good horn and put him in a headlock, cleaning his wounds with curt swipes of her arm and snarling between clenched teeth: “You know, I am trying very freakin’ hard to respect your ways no matter how messed up they are, but if I see just one more male with his head or his hands or his wing bashed in because of this ridiculous pissing contest you people keep starting, I am goddamn well going to let you sit there and be crippled because I have had it! I have four pregnant women, one lady in labor, and one early baby in addition to all the aches and pains of a normal population of giant freakin’ bat-people, and I don’t need this testosterone-spitting, swinging-dick bullshit!”
“I hope you’re listening to this, Olivia,” Doru remarked.
“The next time, the very next time, someone asks me to drop what I’m doing and run off down the mountain to wrap some idiot’s head, I am going to flat-out refuse, so you just better deal with it your damn selves!” She reached for bandages, then paused and shot Doru a puzzled glance. “What do you mean, ‘I hope you’re listening, Olivia?’”
Doru waited for realization to sink in. Tina’s eyes widened first with disbelief, then with shock, and finally she turned and stared again at Huuk. “You let a girl do this to you?”
Huuk scowled, but winced when someone in the crowd laughed out loud. His head dropped and he muttered something too low to be heard.
Tina looked up at Olivia, still struggling towards comprehension. “What in hell for?” she asked.
“I’m getting pretty tired of the swinging-dick bullshit, too,” she said.
Tina traced her eyes over the full extent of Huuk’s injuries, and then glanced once, dubiously, back at Olivia. “Well, okay,” she said, and then said something which made Olivia want to fling her arms around her and kiss her full on the lips. “At least you went easy on the poor bastard.”
Doru’s smile slipped and a number of the closest gullan immediately stepped away from them.
“Little word of advice for you, you big dope,” she added, not unkindly, as she began to wrap the base of Huuk’s horn with gauze. “You know everything you hear about Olivia and Amy and so on, where matters of the pit are concerned?”
He nodded warily.
“Did it never occur to you that this demonstrates that humans are hell and away much stronger than you are?”
Huuk rolled an eye at Olivia, considered her in silence, and finally shook his head.
“Well, we are. Now we tolerate you, because for the most part, we like you, even the stupid ones of you, but I think, and you can jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, Olivia, but I think that we are good and fed up with some of you. So the next time you find yourself tempted to grab you a one of us, ask yourself, Am I being a dickhead? And if the answer is yes, ask yourself, Is she going to appreciate it? And if the answer is no, back off! Are we clear?”
“As water,” he muttered.
“Good.” Tina rotated his wing carefully, prodded at his facial bones, and then stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “Because if Olivia thinks it’s time to start fighting back, then that’s what we’re going to do. Now,” she finished, shouldering her pack. “If you don’t mind, Sarah B. is having a baby and I’d like to be there.” She caught Tobi by the arm and marched away.
Olivia, very much aware of the eyes locked on her, deliberately crossed to the bundle of bear meat and readied a spit. As she sat roasting it, she listened to the gradual commencement of normal activity. Doru came to crouch beside her, looking at her with an inscrutable expression.
“Yes?” she said at last.
“Next time,” he said, “You get the bear, and I wear the teeth.”
7
Three days later, Olivia presented both Levonal and Sarah B.’s newborn son at the same gathering. She brought Liz to the rock, helping her to climb it while holding on to her son, and then called his name to the tribe. There was some confusion over the unfamiliar name, but once Tina explained it was the name of the medicine used to keep Liz from delivering too early, there was reluctant acceptance and subdued cheers of welcome.
Liz leaned over and whispered, “I thought about naming him Benjamin. Do you think they’d have let me?”
“I’m not sure they could have stopped you. Naming a baby isn’t tribe-business, it’s…” Olivia trailed off uncomfortably.
“The father’s business,” Liz finished, not without a rueful sort of smile. “Yeah. Gormuck will be sorry he missed this, all right. I never would have thought it, but I’m kinda sorry myself. I actually miss him. A lot.”
“He’ll be back pretty soon.”
“A month or so, yeah.” Liz sighed, dipped her head to look at her baby’s sleep-contorted face. “I’ve said some awful things to him. I want to tell him how sorry I am. I actually want….” She laughed a little, turned to Olivia and said, “I want to give that man a hug. Can you believe it? I can hardly believe it. When did that happen?”
One of the older male gulla stepped forward, touched his claw to Levonal’s swaddling blanket in welcome, and then dropped awkwardly in a crouch of supplication.
Olivia and Liz exchanged glances, plainly wondering who the intended recipient was meant to be. On the grounds that,
as leader, she was entitled to know everything anyway, Olivia said, “Yes?”
The male stood, and made a curiously emotive gesture with his hands. “Liz,” he said hesitantly. “I’ve seen you before.”
Liz eyed him expressionlessly. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Your name is Hodrub.”
Her recognition seemed to strengthen him. Straightening his graying shoulders, he said, “I’m one of the hunters left to provide for the tribe.”
There was some shuffling among the watching males in the crowd. Hodrub snapped a hot, anxious glance behind him and growled. Turning back to Liz, he fanned his wings a little, and then said, “I would care for you and your son until your mate returns.”
Liz gazed at him, then down at Levonal. “Can I think about it?” she asked at last, tonelessly.
“Yes, of course,” Hodrub said. He opened his belt pouch and withdrew a small cloth-wrapped bundle. “I made this for your son,” he explained, handing it to her. “It’s a gift. Even if…you choose not to have me.”
Liz shifted Levonal so she could pick the bundle open with one hand. Within was a doll-like figure no larger than a human hand, made of rabbit-fur, in the shape of a gulla. She rubbed the soft fur, then sighed and tucked the toy into the baby’s blanket. “Okay,” she said. “Why not? But just until Gormuck returns. You have to promise you won’t fight him.”
“Then let the tribe witness that I do so promise.” Hodrub’s face relaxed in a smile and he took Levonal from her and helped her down from the rock. His horns high, he escorted her to a bench and handed her a bottle of Dr. Pepper.
Olivia watched them settle for a moment before gesturing to Tina.
Tina sighed, looked down into the swaddled bundle that was Sarah B.’s son, and climbed the rock. She faced the tribe stoically and said, in English, “I’m not lying to them.”
“I’ll do it.” Olivia climbed the rock beside her. “Here is the son of Sarabee and Burgelbun!” She waited for the cheers, which were long and heartfelt, even if they did come with a lot of hooking motions. The noise roused the baby long enough for a single half-hearted cry, before continuing: “Our healer says he is strong and healthy. Unfortunately, Sa—his mother…his mother became fevered in childbirth and…and did not survive.”
There were some subdued murmurs, but not many. Sarah’s grave had been dug the night before, and what little grief there had been for her passing had come then. Death on the birthing bench was not uncommon and Sarabee, they all said, was not strong.
“His father is not here to name him,” Olivia finished. “So, I’m open to suggestions.”
The gullan were openly startled by the proposal, but the gathered humans immediately began shouting out names.
“Michael!”
“Oh shut up, you can’t name a gulga Michael.”
“Shut up, yourself. I’m named Anita and I’m friggin’ Chinese!”
“Furball?”
“That’s a little derogatory, isn’t it?”
“Not if he’s furry.”
“Sosara!”
“Oh, that’s original.”
“And it sounds like a girl’s name anyway. Soburg?”
“Still original.”
“Michael!”
As the humans continued to toss out names and helpful commentary, Liz raised her hand as politely as a schoolgirl and Olivia called on her, fully expecting to hear the name Benjamin and prepared to grant it.
Holding Levonal, Liz stood up and cleared her throat. “This may not be the time or the place, but I thought I ought to offer, you know, to feed him.” She rolled her shoulders, either as a bracing gesture or careless shrug, and looked expectantly at her new mate, Hodrub.
Hodrub frowned at the baby in Tina’s arms, a look of far more deep concern than any helpless newborn ought to merit.
Tina and Olivia exchanged glances.
“Boy, that better not be a no I see brewing,” Tina murmured in English.
“No one told me there was taboo against raising the child of a dead woman,” Olivia replied, likewise.
“Nobody tells us any of their damn taboos until we break one.”
“Well,” said Liz, also in English, “if he says no, you can damn well sever this bond right here and now. Someone here has to be horny enough to want me even if I come with a bad-luck baby.”
As they conferred, one of the older men fanned out his wings and crossed the room to stand before them.
“I am Borumn,” he said. “May I address the leader?”
Olivia straightened slowly, placing one hand on the infant’s swaddles. She nodded.
Borumn tossed his horns, apparently unsure how to begin, and said, “I have never taken a mate. I am aging now…it is not likely that I will ever take a mate for my own.” He studied the infant with an expression that strained for stoicism and instead revealed a deep and piercing pain. “I would take this child as my son.”
Olivia started to speak, but Doru stepped up to put his hand on her shoulder. In his mild, deceptively distracted way, he said, “And what would you feed him, Borumn? I have seen you on three hunts since winter. How will you provide for your son?”
Borumn half-turned to seek out Hodrub with a gesture of supplication. “It is true my wings are not strong, like yours, old friend. But if I came to your lair, we two together might manage the work of one younger man. If your mate agrees to suckle my son, my kills are hers.” After that, he only waited, lowering his horns, as if he expected to be sentenced to prison.
Olivia looked around at Hodrub. “How do you answer?” she inquired.
His relief was immediately evident as he fanned his wings out. Apparently, it hadn’t been Liz feeding the baby that made him uncomfortable, but the prospect of adopting it. “I would find this arrangement acceptable.”
Olivia turned her eyes on Liz. “What about you?” Again, there was a muffled wave of whispers at this novelty of asking the female’s opinion.
Liz nodded. “Hey, the more, the merrier.” She glanced meaningfully back at Hodrub. “At least until Gormuck gets back.”
Quietly, not so much as glancing aside, Borumn said, “The mate you take does not matter. You will have the meat of my kills for so long as I live.”
“All right,” Liz said after a short pause. “I accept.”
Tina bent and passed the infant into Borumn’s waiting hands.
The elder gulla cradled the baby, staring deep and long into the dark-furred face, squinted shut in infant’s intense sleep. “My son,” he said. “Sunnu.” Sunnu. Finally.
There were rousing cries of welcome from the humans and mutinous mutters from the gullan. Olivia spoke the name again to seal it and descended from the center rock to throw herself down between Doru and Bodual.
“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any stranger,” Bodual commented as she joined them. “Imagine asking a gathering to name a baby.”
“What would you have done?”
“If I were leader?” He tossed his horns. “I’d have named it myself. The children of the leader belong to the tribe and the tribe’s children belong to the leader.”
“Well, then why didn’t you do it?” she asked, somewhat exasperated. “You’re my mate, too!”
Bodual started and blinked at her. “I hadn’t thought of that. I tend to think of Doru as tovorak. I’m just the supporting pit partner.”
“All right,” she said and turned to Doru. “Why didn’t you name him?”
He punched a hole in a can of Coors and shrugged. “I thought you were doing okay. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded a baby named Mykel, for that matter.” He took a long drink, contemplated the can. “What does it mean?”
She had to think a moment for the right way to explain. “We humans have legends about a god, kind of like your Great Spirit. This god has a…tribe of winged human-like warriors. Michael was the leader of this tribe and the fiercest warrior. His name means ‘spear of god’.”
Doru stared at her. “That,” he said seriously
, “is a good name.”
“Glad you like it.”
He drank his beer. “Mykel,” he murmured. “I like that a lot. I wonder if Tobi would—” Doru broke off suddenly and took a deep sniff. “You’d better go,” he said in a tight voice very different from his usual tone. “Your season is coming on. Easy, Bodual. Pour a little thumperjuice in your nose and sit down. Don’t draw attention to her.”
Olivia left, trying to move quickly but without running. A scattering of gullan saluted her departure and she forced smiles and nods for those who did, but her composure lasted only as long as it took her to get out in the open tunnels. There, she stopped, indulging in a moment of useless wishing that she could hide in the women’s tunnels where everyone thought she’d be going, even if it meant working under Horumn in the kitchens. But the moment didn’t last, and when it was over, Olivia picked up her feet and ran to her secret place.
She had a promise to keep.
8
The Great Spirit was exactly where she’d last left him, flat on his back with his arms comfortably pillowing his head on the bench, with the rather startling exception that he was again blatantly erect. He glanced at her when she appeared in the doorway and sat up, showing his teeth in greeting. His nostrils flared; his smile widened and took on a hungry gleam.
“Come to me,” he said, extending a hand towards her.
Olivia came, somewhat edgily, her spirit self tensed to flee her husk at the slightest provocation. As soon as her fingertips brushed his palm, he closed around her and pulled her flat against him. He turned his face into her hair and drew in a breath, released it in a thrumm, tasted the curve of her jaw. He kept the hand that held her taut behind him, but reached out his other to slip beneath her skirt and between her thighs.
“You’ve been training,” he observed. “I could not have imagined using this power as a weapon against a male. Did you succeed?”
“He never touched me,” she replied. “And I broke his horn.”
“Excellent.” His laughter was like thunder, inordinately pleased at the mutilation of one of his self-professed children. “Very well done, my Olivia.” He released her hand, only to take hold of her waist.