by Guin Archer
“You should have fled to the sands, Io. It would have saved you far better.”
How was I supposed to know that? Every time I reawoke on this fucked up world, I was put through hell and killed. Everyone seemed to be afraid of me in the North and it only got worse with every resurrection. If I didn’t mask myself with the dyes and tar, I got my throat slashed before I even had a chance at a proper ‘how do you do’.
Beyond that, I didn’t yet know if the Udon was any better for me. It looked nice on the surface, but there was a saying about not judging a book by its cover. In my experience, it was better not to judge a book by its first few pages, either. You could be duped into a shitty read with a good chapter or two and then suffer reader’s remorse.
I was fearing that remorse right about now.
Ruune’s fingers nudged the undersides of my breasts as he reached around to check the fit of the bodice. I stiffened up and glanced at his face over my shoulder. His eyes gave nothing away, but after last night’s conversation…
His fingers seemed to linger longer on my ribcage than normal.
Mari’et watched the stilted interaction keenly. I know she did because I watched her lips pucker a little around her dainty tusks. She didn’t say anything about it, though. Instead, she urged me to climb off the pallet. Walking backwards, she led me to the low table that had been set up with a spread of breakfast foods. Eggs – a weird, orange egg from a squirrel-chicken hybrid of this world – and jerked steak from a Lorun. Porridge. Lots of bread. Jupango, too, which was a flatbread stuffed full of some sort of mushroom, meat, and muted spices.
Now that I was moving, I felt kind of shaky. Pretty weak, too. I fell onto one of the plush pillows with a groan and tucked my legs off to one side. I half-sagged into the edge of the table. My hands caught the edge of it and only its weight and the thickness of the rugs caught it from sliding away. The filled cup of juice on its surface rattled before rolling off and onto its side.
Shree hurried to clean it up.
“You used far too much of your power, Io,” Mari’et chided me while randomly filling a plate with food and pushing it in front of me. Her other hand rubbed along my back soothingly. “I told you this before. You must be careful. Healing is a gift, but it does not come without cost.”
“No shit,” I groused in English, dropping my head onto my arms on the tabletop for a few minutes. Switching back to the Tongue as I rolled my cheek, I gazed at Mari’et. This close, I could see how haggard she still was. No amount of healing was going to fix everything for her…because our magics were for physical pain, not psychological. “Tell me what happened after Blackburhn.”
The healer shuddered and pulled her shift-dress tighter around herself. She wasn’t topless like the other women and wearing long skirts. Instead, she had on a tunic-styled dress that fell to her knees with a loose tie around her middle. It was plain and sack-like. It billowed on her now-thinner frame. Whereas I’d gained some much needed weight, she’d lost quite a bit.
“Please,” I begged hoarsely.
If anyone knew about what it was like needing to talk to someone, it was me. I never had the opportunity, though. No one was ever there who wanted to hear what was happening or did happen to me because they had their own sob-stories. They had their own worries for their futures.
And I simply didn’t have long to tell my tale before it all ended anew.
“Leave us,” I ordered the others. If they left, Mari’et would be more comfortable. They wouldn’t be, being banished from my side and all that nonsense, but their absence was needed right now. Plus, they were only a tent away. They were in shouting distance…along with many dozens more pillau of other Lubrei, if it came down to it.
I was never completely alone.
My ladies’ faces were mutinous, but they behaved with more decorum than I could scrape together with a lifetime of patience and practice. They shot to their feet with more force than was really necessary and strode – sulked, the big worrywarts – from my pillau. They stood mere feet away from the mesh, inner netting, obviously unwilling to budge any further. I’d take what I could get. Their outlines were shadowy from the thickness of the net, so it was sufficient enough to at least pretend they weren’t there.
“Yakpa, Mari’et. Talk to me, please.”
The healer wilted next to me and it was off-putting to say the least that a woman of previous regality and strength could be brought so low. I never saw her slouch.
Then again, I wasn’t any standard to go by. I was a tattooist, for Christ’s sake! I had bikers and their crews frequent my shop. I marked up sorority girls and gang members alike, provided they could afford my services. I was inundated on a daily basis by news reports via television and social media about the crimes that happened all across the world. I had movies to desensitize me to the disturbed reality of people.
Mari’et had been comparatively sheltered from the depravity I knew living beings were capable of.
She picked up a slice of jerky-steak and chewed it slowly. I could see her thoughts reeling around in her head. She was trying to gather up her memories and make sense of them. Or maybe she was compartmentalizing them so she wouldn’t break down? God knew I’d been doing that all along. It’d make sense, too, that she was cramming everything down and away. If she hadn’t, there was a good chance she’d have lost it when she woke up in my arms.
I did a couple times early on. I’d wake up screaming and I’d just keep screaming until I had no voice left. That always pissed the Masters off.
“I was close to Lutau. I thought I could make it, but I should not have been out in the open.” She smeared the spice and sauce coating the steak between a few fingers and stared at the mess unseeingly. “The Udon was far away from Blackburhn by that point. If they were closer, I might have been spared. All know to fear the Udon.”
No shit, honey.
I reached out and placed my hand firmly over her wrists, guiding her hand down when she got lost in her fidgeting fingers. She looked at me like she forgot I was there for a minute.
“They were kutters. Ones like Mathai. They were gathering Lubrei to load onto ships to go North. We Lubrei are the best laborers, you know.” Her long, claw-like nails tapped the wood. “They did not want labor from me. They wanted my flesh. I…am an attractive biis’a. I have never hated that fact more.”
Yeah, I understood what she meant. All too well.
“You were at my shoulder, Calliope. You were at my shoulder that day. I saw you and how strong you were, how you never allowed Mathai to win. I would do no less.” She let out a mirthless chuckle, then huddled in on herself. I couldn’t stand seeing her so broken up, so forced myself upright and over to her. I urged her to lean into and onto me and, just like that, she started to cry. “I fought. I fought. I did not let them do anything to me. I fought.”
“I know you did,” I whispered back sorrowfully. As I rubbed my hand over her back, I could feel the hardened scar tissue from the welts I’d healed with my power. Some of them had been ‘old’, but many of them were new. Ill-behaved slaves always earned more lashings than the meek ones.
That’a girl, I thought with pride.
“B-but it did not stop them. They still took what they wanted from me. I am…I am not a free biis’a anymore. I am kut.” She sniffled into my stomach where she’d dropped her head in my lap. Her arms gripped around my waist desperately. “The other kut…they were sick with the Bite. I was too weak to help them and it spread. It spread so fast, Io. Even the kutters dropped from it. Then we were here and it kept spreading.
“They left us shackled in pens for a time. I do not know how long. I cannot know. I only know we were waiting to either die or be culled.” She sobbed against my bellybutton. “The other kut…they were beasts, Io. The delirium made them rabid. They touched me and some of the other biis’a. They…they…”
“Shh,” I hushed her words and petted her scalp and back. Her body was wracked with her sobs against me.
&n
bsp; While I let her cry herself out, I felt a niggling of guilt for blaming the Udon – and Kor – for her pain and shame. While I didn’t doubt they would’ve made her a slave for them if they’d gotten to her first, she might’ve had a better lot with the Horde. My own slaves were overtly subservient and submissive to the Zikta and I knew they suffered punishments, but I hadn’t seen the same cruelty doled out as I received during my other lives with the slavers – the kutters.
Still, I did blame the Udon. If they’d just stayed out of Blackburhn and not raided the port-city, Mari’et never would’ve been made a slave.
Don’t sit on your fucking high horse, Io, my inner voice hissed at me. Why did the Udon fall on Blackburhn to begin with? Huh? It was because of you! If you hadn’t run from that Zikta and the Mahzri at the stables, none of this would’ve happened to Mari’et.
Bile touched the back of my throat.
It’s my fault.
“Uum Taytani,” a voice hissed harshly by the doorway. Ruune was halfway ducked into the pillau and his eyes were wide. “Forgive me, but the Tohtahk comes. You must begin to eat before he arrives. Please.”
His darker than dark eyes hit Mari’et on my lap, now down to quieter snuffles. His shoulders slumped in pity before he visibly shook the softer feelings off. When he looked at me again, I both saw and heard the steel in him.
“She must be off Your lap, Innintani. The Tohtahk would not like to see Your new kut taking advantage of Your kindness and mercy.”
Because he’s a jealous fucking douchebag.
The retort was on the tip of my tongue and screeched through my mind, but I bit my lips brutally to contain it. I felt like enough of an asshole for condemning the Udon for everything and I didn’t need to add to that by lashing out at the man that’d been more considerate of me than I’d thought any warrior of this world capable of.
Instead…
“Who called him?” My tone was deadly quiet. Ruune flinched.
“You are watched by all, uum Taytani. It could have been any…”
“Ruune! Who. Called. Him?”
“Tan.” He didn’t vocalize the name, but I could read it on his lips and in his eyes. My own pursed as I began to gently ease Mari’et off of me. I caressed her cheek briefly before gesturing towards Ruune.
“Would you be comfortable with Ruune, my friend? He is half-los’kah.” When she stiffened, I smiled sadly. It would take time for her to get better. Time and patience. “You do not have to. Here; stay here and attend me. Ruune, come in with the others. Be busy.”
Ruune made a noise to the others and they came flocking in, hurrying to get about their duties. I tried not to glare at Tan. I really did.
Me and her were going to need to have a talk about the old adage of ‘snitches get stitches’.
Chapter Thirteen
As everyone busied themselves with packing up the Udonak, I used their preoccupation to slip back off to the gates where the Bite-riddled slaves were being kept.
Sekhmet was a pissy beastie, of that I was sure.
She fussed and barked and was, on the whole, a royal fucking bitch to everyone in her way while she served as my reluctant mule to where I wanted to go.
Arguing with a Mahzri was something straight out of a Three Stooges skit. She allowed me onto her back and as far as the edge of the Udonak until she realized I had no intention of going anywhere near one of the pools for a swim or to the bazaar. At that point, she stuck her three-toed feet into the sand like she’d rediscovered gravity and it was eight-hundred times stronger than it ever had been. She went so far as to turn her head on her long neck and glare back at me. Impressive since she had no eyes to glare at me with.
I smiled cheekily at her.
“I could go by myself,” I told her in a sickly-sweet voice that my Ma said could drive a saint to drink.
When I moved to get off her back, she barked at me angrily.
Io: 1. Sekhmet: 0.
Besides snapping at every poor soul who dared to cross her path, Sekhmet chittered at me in a clearly aggravated fashion. If I wasn’t on her back and at such a bad angle, I expected her to start giving me the parent-patented finger-wag in my face. Even my massaging her back didn’t do anything to calm her ass down. She was in a snit.
The guards, this time, didn’t try to stop my entrance. They just stepped out of our way with locked jaws and upset painted across every inch of their giant bodies.
Tough noogies.
The number of slaves left behind the wall was low. Very low. I didn’t want to think about what that meant. Best case? I healed more than I thought I did. Worst case? There were hundreds about to be tossed onto a pyre with the dead.
I shuddered internally at that grim acknowledgement.
My chiming bells, just like with everyone else, brought the slaves’ rapt attention to me. Without me even needing to ask, a line was being formed while Sekhmet dropped to her stomach so I could get down more comfortably.
I unhooked the drawstring bag I’d secured to her saddle before rounding to my girl’s front. She had her forward legs crossed primly and I sat on one upraised foot. She allowed me to use her front as support while cupping a claw around my middle to keep me firmly planted on her. I could’ve gone to a low, stone wall and sat there, but I wasn’t going to push any more of her buttons than I already had.
There was something to be said about knowing one’s boundaries.
I don’t know how long I sat with the slaves, healing even the tiniest traces of Bite – and other sicknesses – I could find on and in them. It was a while, though. I had to raid my satchel of uropa and pink juice, Sky-nectar, more than a few times for the boost of energy both gave me. They were both saturated with sugars or caffeine or both and those natural chemicals worked like a recharge to my body.
Most of my ‘patients’ scraped the ground with their hands and noses as they bowed away from me once they were taken care of. Without a doubt, I’d saved a bunch of their lives.
The appearance of Gishtak beyond the wall was a little startling.
The Bite wasn’t exclusive of anyone. It leeched in mercilessly and killed indiscriminately. It passed from skin-to-skin. It wasn’t airborne as far as I could tell in my time on Intau, but I wasn’t a doctor. I was just a healer with literally magical hands.
Word of what I was doing must’ve passed from mouth to mouth across the settlement because, by the time I’d cleaned the auras of the remaining Bite-taken slaves, I had a new and much shorter line of Gishtak. Most were adult men, some women, and a handful of children. Two-dozen at most. I summoned a smile for them all, leaned back into Big Mama even more heavily, and did my thing.
The palms and pads of my hands were noticeably red by the time I had no one left to look after.
“Biis’a!” I flinched at that irate shout and leaned around to see Kor charging for me.
I was in trouble. Again.
“You foolhardy, stubborn biis’a!” Ignoring Sekhmet’s warning chomp near his ear, the Tohtahk bent at the waist to pick me up roughly. He moved with his graceful, predator’s gait and with the speed of lightning as he all but slammed my ass down onto my girl’s saddle. He climbed up behind me and snarled at her to stand.
She didn’t. If I thought the glare she gave me earlier was bad, the one leveled on him could’ve turned diamond to dust.
Kor roared.
I giggled.
“You,” he sneered down at me, the arm looped around my back to keep me pinned to his front shaking in reprimand. “You keep silent.”
Suck my non-existent dick, asshole.
Only once Kor visibly pulled himself under control did my Mahzri stand. It was obvious she was doing so only because she wanted to, not because the warlord demanded it. She walked us back through the gate – Hathor waited there to ‘kiss’ her daughter goodbye – and across the settlement, all the way to the place where the Udonak had been only that morning. It was gone now.
Sekhmet picked up her pace, trumpeted until sh
e heard an answering call from in the distance, and bolted for the black-sand desert.
“You do not listen, uum Pasha. You do not obey.” This Kor said through gritted teeth. His body around mine was tight. “I am Tohtahk! None have bested me. I won my skol and my utakta through many seasons of strife. Yet you, the frailest of biis’a with the softest of souls, threaten to destroy me with your willfulness. You will kill me, uum kisa-uu.”
“That is not my aim, great Tohtahk.” Somehow, my own voice dropped to a tender rasp as I spoke up to his riotous face. I had to suppress the urge to trail a finger along his tautened jaw and tease it. “But you cannot keep me locked up.”
“You think not?” His words and tone were threat.
“I know not.” Mine were a flat promise.
I sighed. “Sekhmet listens to me. The other Mahzri, too. Do you think, no matter how many of your Zikta you put on me, that you will be able to keep me from being where I want to be? Kor, even if I am alone, I cannot be kept caged. I will find a way to be free no matter what that entails.”
Hard to believe he could, but he stiffened even more. Rage clouded his aura.
“You will not leave me!”
Oh Lord. Save me from the primitive minds of men.
I made myself reach out to stroke his bare chest comfortingly. Only one bar winked at me in the sunlight. His other nipple was bare but for a healing scar where I’d clawed the other piercing out. A guilty niggle of feeling wormed its way into my heart and I peered up at him through my lashes to apologize.
“Forgive me.” I trailed a finger beneath the wound so he’d know what I meant. A shock of heat oozed from my fingertips to finish its healing. “I was terrified. I would have done anything to escape and…well, I beg forgiveness for hurting you.”
One of his big mitts, extra finger and all, landed over my hand. He applied pressure until my fingers and palm were splayed out over his hot skin. My hands were so sensitized from the healing I’d done that I could feel his blood flowing beneath our skins; could mark his slow heartbeat drumming away steadily.