by Calista Skye
But that doesn’t mean I have to be a bitch to this guy.
“Juri’ex?” I call as loudly as I dare.
He immediately turns, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Yes?”
“That flask you offered me… I wonder if I might take a sip after all.”
He gets it up from his bag, opens it, and hands it over.
I sniff the opening. “Will it kill me?”
“Yes.” He’s very serious.
I freeze. “It will?”
He sighs. “Of course. I plan to kill you. Just to make this trip totally pointless.”
“Sorry. I know you’re not trying to kill me.” I take a small sip. It’s fruit juice, pretty concentrated and sweet. And I think it might have fermented just enough to make a whole flask-ful get me into a pretty good mood.
Juri’ex frowns. “Odd.”
“What?”
“Still alive. I thought one sip would be enough to knock you out for good. Better take another one.”
So I do, not least because the juice is pretty good.
I hand the flask back. “I don’t think your death juice works.”
He scratches his chin as he regards the flask in his hand. “It does seem harmless to you. Don’t worry, I’ll find some other way.” He sends me a little smile so I know he’s not being serious. I didn’t think he was, but I appreciate that he’s making sure.
We’re just standing there for a little moment while he looks at me as if he’s going to say something. Then he turns around and keeps going, and I hurry to stay inside his bubble of safety.
- - -
After an hour or so I start to realize that it’s not his bubble of safety that makes things seem a little weird.
“Juri’ex?”
He turns, alert for danger. “Yes?”
“It’s very quiet.”
He looks around again. “We haven’t seen any Smalls or Bigs since the herd of rekh. Even the Tinies seem to be gone. As if this part of the jungle has been abandoned by everything.”
“Is it because we’re getting close to the spaceship?”
He bites his lip. “I suppose it could be. But it has been here for months. I got the impression that those Bigs were running from something. Even the gataganks. I might well be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. Yes, it is very quiet and I can’t remember ever experiencing this.”
We keep going, and I’m about to suggest we break for dinner when we climb a crest and then see the plains and the spaceship in the distance.
“Looks like about an hour’s walk,” I estimate.
Juri’ex chuckles. “From a hilltop, all distances look small. Five hours if we walk in a straight line. Let’s eat something while we have a view to look at.”
We munch on the remainder of the packs, and I give Juri’ex about half of the one he gave me. The rest of the stew I brought I want to save for Delyah.
The spaceship Bune is a dirty white egg-shape in the middle of the swampy plains. The part that contained huge rocket nozzles is still left where the other girls first spotted it, because Delyah only flew the upper two thirds here. The lower parts were too damaged to be of any use. Still, that thing is the size of a mountain.
A knot in my stomach tightens when I see our destination. Soon, I’ll know what Delyah needs a physicist for. It has to be pretty heavy stuff if she can’t handle it alone, because all the girls agree that she is an actual genius. And I strongly doubt I’ll be able to help. I’m a solid B student, not much more. What if everything comes down to me remembering something I should have known? Something that any physics major should know? And because I suck, we’ll be stuck here forever?
“Are you all right?” Juri’ex looks at me with worry in his eyes.
A pained groan must have escaped me at the thought of letting everyone down. “I’m okay. Just… thinking.”
“About your home, where you long to go.”
“Something like that.”
“You hate Xren that much?”
I think about it. “I don’t hate it. I have my friends and my tribe and my village. I haven’t died yet. Not even sustained any great injuries. I don’t hate it. But I fear it. It is a very honest planet. It just wants you dead.”
“Dead or stronger,” Juri’ex agrees. “I think the only way to handle it is to decide to get stronger. To let Xren harden you, like you say the aliens wanted it to harden us warriors.”
“I don’t think I want to be hard. I’m a woman, and we kind of like our softness. If that makes sense.”
Juri’ex takes out his sword and examines it carefully. He treats it as gently as a baby sometimes. “It makes perfect sense. The softness of you women is a wonderful quality. I have noticed it, myself. To live in the jungle and manage to retain some softness… perhaps it speaks of some unseen strength.”
“Some of the other girls do have an inner strength,” I agree. “I’m not sure I do, though. Juri’ex, I have to know. Why is your sword so big?”
He slides a small rock along the edge with a slow, studied move. “A sword is part of the warrior. In my tribe, swords were not plentiful. And the ones we had were somewhat small, for there was no iron nearby. Each one was handed down from one warrior to a younger man. It was the greatest day of his life when a young warrior finally received a sword. It became the center of his life, as it should.”
He puts the rock back and starts polishing the immense blade with a piece of not-sheep fur. “I wanted to deserve a sword of my own, so I did my best to help the tribe. Doing what I was told. Still, it seemed I never got mine. Even after the Stripening I only had a thin bronze knife. But I didn’t ask. I knew I would get a sword. All the worthy warriors got one. And I did my best to be worthy. Hunting in the rain when nobody else would do it. Getting water for the tribe. Standing guard for the Lifegivers. Then I noticed that younger warriors than me, and less diligent ones in my eyes, started to be handed old swords from old warriors in fine ceremonies.”
He finishes wiping his blade and takes a small jar out of his pack. He opens it and dips his finger into it. It comes back coated in grease that he starts to apply to the newly sharpened edge.
“That must have been tough,” is all I can say.
“It was difficult and even humiliating. But still I hoped. Perhaps, the tribe had a special sword in mind for me. Perhaps, I had proven myself so well that they would even gather enough iron to make a new sword for me. It would be a great honor. I’m sure you know how mindless the young can be in their fantasies.”
I think back to some old hopes and dreams of my own. Most of them have long since been soundly squashed. “Oh, I do. When we’re young, we sometimes think we deserve good things. Then it turns out that the world disagrees.”
“Exactly,” Juri’ex says. “And the world disagreed with me. Over a year passed before I dared ask if I would ever be offered a sword of my own. The chief let me understand that the tribe had no such plan. Firstly, my father, who had been dead since I was a toddler, had not been well liked. Secondly, wasn’t I doing fine with my bronze knife? I hunted so well with it, he found. I brought back more meat than even the largest warriors. I should be happy that I was able to contribute so much with so little.”
“What a jerk,” I say. “You deserved a sword more than anyone.”
Juri’ex packs up his grease and lays the huge sword across his knees. “That was my opinion, too. I didn’t say that. I repeated to the chief that a man and his sword is one, and that I would be the only warrior in the tribe without an iron blade. I fear my voice trembled considerably. The chief said that not all warriors are meant for the iron. Some warriors will never be anything but bronze. He urged me to be grateful for the protection of the tribe and for being allowed to call myself a warrior, even though I only had a bronze blade.”
I reach out to gently touch his knee. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I don’t think you deserved that.”
“Perhaps not. It all worked out, possibly in the way the chief had wante
d. It seemed to me that life had lost its meaning if I were not to be given a sword. And I found I couldn’t live with having only a bronze blade, as the only man in the tribe. I couldn’t help noticing that there were swords available, gathering dust as decorations on the chief’s wall.”
“They had some just hanging on the wall?” I exclaim indignantly. “That’s just mean.”
“My father must have been very much disliked. I don’t know why. So, I left the tribe. I wandered far afield until I found a creek with red clay at the bottom. I settled there, by myself. I knew how to extract iron, and I built a kiln to melt the iron ore. Each melt would give me maybe eight or ten small grains of pure iron. But that was enough. It was progress. So, I stayed there for four years, hunting a little for food and then spending the rest of my day digging red clay and heating it.”
“Four years?” I gasp. “How old were you when you left the tribe?”
“I was fifteen.”
“You made that decision at fifteen? That’s crazy.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Probably. I was lucky I wasn’t killed by a Big before I turned sixteen. But there wouldn’t have been much for it to eat. I was all skin and bones, not worth the effort. Well, I eventually found a richer iron ore than the clay. When I finally gathered all the iron together, I realized I had far too much for just a sword. I considered making more than one. In the end, I decided to make this.” He pats the blade.
I realize that I still have my hand on his knee. I should remove it. But I don’t really want to. “You got a better sword than the tribe would ever have been able to give you,” I say, trying to focus on the positive sides. “It’s huge! It must be the envy of every warrior you meet. And you must have become very independent. I can’t imagine living alone in the jungle at age fifteen.”
Juri’ex ponders this. “I was lonely at times. I had many dark moments. But yes, I became independent. After a while, I met Rax’tar and Gir’ex and the others, and we found The Island. So it all worked out for the best.” He says it in a light tone, but his jaw is clenched and there’s no joy in his face.
“But you would have wanted it to be otherwise.”
He sends me a little sideways glance, but doesn’t reply.
“You would have wanted to stay with your tribe,” I continue. “To be given a sword and to be an esteemed warrior of the village. Like you always dreamed.”
“This sword is better than any of the ones in the village,” he says slowly. “It is only mine. I made it myself. It is a part of me in a way that no hand-me-down weapon could ever be. And still I sometimes dream about what it would have been like. The sword ceremony in the tribe. Being accepted as a full warrior. Feeling the tribe’s trust and admiration. The weight of an old sword in my hand. The notched blade, rich in heritage. Now all mine. And you know, I think it would have been... nice.” He squints over at the distant hills, lost in thought. “It would have been nice.”
His voice contains a lifetime of disappointment and the loss of his tribe. I’m starting to understand what that means to him.
And dammit, he deserved better.
“I can’t give you a sword,” I say. “But I can give you this.”
He turns his head towards me, and I grab behind his neck, bend him down to me, and place a kiss right on his lips.
I only meant for it to be a short peck, supportive and sincere. But maybe not this sincere. His lips are surprisingly soft and receive me with tenderness and acceptance, and I kind of melt into them. He smells so freaking good.
I finally disengage. “Okay,” I wheeze and clear my voice. “I bet your old chief never had that. So are we done here?”
Juri’ex replaces his sword in the sheath behind his back. “We should get going. It’ll be dark before we get there.” He gets up and stretches.
Then we’re walking again. We’re soon down on the swampy plains, and Bune is looming in front of us.
Now that I can see it, my thoughts keep going to what Delyah could possibly want with me. And the knot of worry that I might not be able to do what she needs gets tighter.
At least there aren’t any dinos here. I guess the spaceship scares them. Well, it scares me, too. I know that Delyah is in there somewhere, but the whole thing is so huge and asymmetrical and plainly alien that it gives me the creeps. Delyah offered all of us a guided tour of the main parts months ago, but I was quite satisfied to decline.
The swamp is dry, and there are fewer obstructions here than in among the trees. Still, it seems to me that Juri’ex is walking slower. I don’t mind that. I like his company. Of course, we’re not talking right now, but I like seeing his massive shape in front of me and his sure moves when he checks all around us for dangers. And his quick eyes when he looks me up and down and the bulge in his pants twitches.
The sun has just about reached the horizon when the dactyls strike. Like the raptors, there’s a flock of them and we spot them before they can dive down.
We both see them at the same time. Without a word, Juri’ex grabs me around my waist once more and runs to one of the few trees in the swamp.
He puts me down right beside it. “Stay close to the trunk and as low as you can.”
Fine. This time I’ll do my best to not be a nuisance.
The first dactyl screeches and dives, a flying horror with bat wings and too many claws to count. Juri’ex seems to tempt fate by not drawing his sword before the predator is almost right on top of him. Then there’s a metallic zhing and his sword flashes once in the orange light. The screech is abruptly cut off, and the dactyl tumbles to the ground in a mass of leathery wings, teeth and claws.
Another one comes down, seeing no reason to screech. This one is prepared for Juri’ex being armed, but probably not for the size of his sword. Juri’ex slashes once, and the dactyl loses the tip of one wing. That makes it screech, but it’s a scream of anger and pain more than triumph as it beats its wings, spraying blood and trying to go back up.
That puts it right in the path of the third attacker, which gives off a screech of its own while it tries to adjust its dive. But Juri’ex has seen it and cuts a deep gash in its throat.
The small part of my mind that’s not scared stiff calmly notices that he is a master with that sword. It seems to dance in his hands. No wonder he treasures it so much and considers it a part of him.
I glance up. The sky seems to be black with dactyls. It’s the largest mass of them I’ve seen – there must be even more of them than the flock that abducted me and the others the first day on this planet.
I curl up with the hard trunk of the tree at my back. Surely, Juri’ex can’t defeat this many! I’ve heard of Jax’zan’s triumph when the dactyls attacked the alien container with Sophia and the other girls in it, but there couldn’t have been as many as this—
Suddenly, another fear joins the first one. But I don’t know where it comes from. It’s a cold feeling of hopelessness that has nothing to do with the dactyls. It feels like the knowledge of certain defeat, a bitterness that makes me want to cry. And somehow it’s not about the dactyls.
The despair slowly fades, and I open my eyes. I didn’t even know I’d closed them.
Juri’ex is standing there, resting the sword over one shoulder and peering up at the sky with a puzzled look on his face. “They’re leaving.”
I lean out from under the tree to look up. All the dactyls are flying away in a huge mass, and I get the funny impression that they’ve lost their cool. They appear to be making their escape as fast as they can. “You chased them away.”
He sends me a skeptical glance. “One warrior chasing away a hundred irox? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I come out from under the tree and walk up to him. “Maybe they’ve seen sense at last. Warriors are more dangerous than they are.”
Juri’ex gets a handful of leaves and wipes the dactyl blood off his sword, and I’m sure he’ll do a more thorough cleaning later. “After many generations of tribes on Xren? Somehow, I doubt it.
”
I doubt it, too. “Think something else chased them off?”
He replaces the sword in its sheath behind his back. “Who knows? As we say here on Xren, ‘don’t count the notches on a gifted sword’. I’m glad they left, and I won’t worry too much about why. I think we’ll be at our destination in an hour or so. We’ll go in a straight line there from now on.”
I hoist my sack onto my shoulder and follow him away from the tree. Well, I worry about the dactyls leaving. That intense despair – that was what Troga the dragon made us feel when she was close.
I draw breath to tell Juri’ex about the new possible danger. But at the last moment I change my mind. If I’m wrong, it’s just more stuff to worry him unnecessarily.
And the thing about me, as my mother made sure I knew, is that I’m usually wrong.
- - -
The old spaceship Bune looms large over us. Only this close do I realize just how immense it is. And how freakishly alien.
We walk around it until we get to the opening.
Juri’ex stops and crosses his arms over his broad, striped chest. “My mission was to bring you here. Unharmed if possible. Ashlynn, are you unharmed?”
I look down myself. I’m a little dirtier than this morning, but aside from that I’m no worse for wear. “I appear to be.”
“Then my mission is complete.” His eyes give a little neon flash.
He towers over me, a huge man splattered with dinosaur blood. As calm as a cliff in a storm, as confident as a tiger prowling the savannah. A master of his jungle and his gigantic sword. No olympic athlete on Earth has ever come close to the feats and the complete mastery that he routinely and casually displays on a daily basis. He has risked his life too many times to count today. Just for me. And here he is, his job done, ready to go back with no reward or payment.