Uki and the Outcasts

by Kieran Larwood

  ‘I’m sure,’ Uki said. Then, trying to use the same tone as Jori, added. ‘But it must be ready for the morning. Your finest work, if you please.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ The smith scooped up the tiny gems then ran into the house, shouting for her husband. Uki turned to Jori with a proud smile on his face to find her gawping at him.

  ‘I was going to put it on my clan’s account,’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell me you were as rich as the Emperor himself!’

  Uki shrugged. ‘They were just little pieces of the crystal the spirits escaped from,’ he said. ‘There were lots of them on the ground.’

  ‘Well, best keep that to yourself,’ said Jori. ‘If word gets out that there’s diamonds or magic crystals buried under the forest, the whole thing will be cut down and torn up before you can blink. Do you have any more?’

  Uki reached in to his pocket and pulled out the rest. There were five tiny crystals in his paw, twinkling in the pink sunlight.

  ‘Keep them safe,’ Jori said. ‘We might need them in future. Perhaps we can change them for coins somewhere. You can’t go paying for things with priceless gems. It tends to get you noticed.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Uki, tipping the crystals back into his pocket. He looked around the other scant buildings in the tiny town. ‘What shall we do now?’ he asked. It seemed a long time until morning, and his senses told him the spirits were still quite far away. Nether didn’t look like a place you would want to spend too much time in.

  ‘That building with the jerboas outside is an inn,’ said Jori. ‘Actually, it’s more like a shack with beds, although it’s better than sleeping on the ground. Just. Let’s get a hot meal and a room for the night. And let me pay. Keep your gems where no one can see them.’

  *

  As they neared the inn, Uki could see that it had originally been a single turf-roofed building that had been added on to with extra rooms here and there, all leaning against each other for support. The stone walls were hunks of lichen-speckled granite, and he noticed one had the rough remains of a carved face and some marks that might be writing. Could this piece have been taken from the Ancients’ ruins?

  He was just about to mention it to Jori when he heard a shout coming from behind the inn. The pair looked at each other, questioning. Was someone in trouble? Was it any of their business?

  The cry came again, and this time Uki didn’t hesitate. He began running around the side of the inn.

  Jori soon caught up with him. ‘This could be a very stupid thing to do, you know,’ she said. Part of Uki agreed but, almost without him realising, his mind had made the decision that he wouldn’t stand by if anyone was being hurt. There hadn’t been anyone there for him when he needed it, and he knew how awful that felt.

  They dashed round the building and came to a splintery wooden shelter with stalls for rats and jerboas. A stable for the inn’s customers.

  There was one jerboa there now, tied up in a stall, and two adult rabbits standing over something on the ground. One of them gave it a hard kick and it yelled. It was another rabbit, Uki realised, and a small one. A little girl. A child.

  ‘Backchat me, will you? Have that, you flea-bitten little rat-riding runt!’ The other rabbit kicked the child and the pair of them laughed. Uki felt that flash of rage again, that pounding of blood in his head.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ he yelled, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. He could feel the power there, coiled up like an angry serpent.

  The two grown rabbits paused in their kicking and looked up. When they saw Uki, they laughed again.

  ‘Look, Nurg,’ said one. ‘Somebody’s cut two rabbits in half and stuck them back together wrong.’

  ‘Come to save your little girlfriend have you? Do you want a kicking as— Oh.’

  The rabbit stopped midspeech and stared at something over Uki’s shoulder. He looked around and saw that Jori had drawn her sword. She had also taken the flask from her belt, opened its silver stopper and taken a tiny sip.

  ‘Care to dance?’ she said, putting the stopper back and carefully clipping the flask to her belt. With her other paw she span the sword through the air. Faster and faster it went, until it was just a blur.

  ‘A dusk wraith!’ The rabbit called Nurg turned to run but fell over his own feet in panic. The other one was slightly braver and pulled a copper knife from his belt.

  Uki was about to call out a warning to Jori, but she was gone. She crossed the stable yard so quickly, Uki didn’t even see her move.

  In the space of a blink, she was at the rabbit, her sword just a shimmer in the air. Cuts and slashes seemed to appear out of nowhere, and then Jori was back at Uki’s side as if she’d never left.

  The rabbit still stood in the yard next to his fallen friend. It was like nothing had happened, until Uki noticed there was now just a dagger hilt in his paw. The blade was lying over by the stable, sliced clean off. There were also gaping holes in his shirt, no whiskers on either side of his face and, as Uki watched, his belt fell away, cut through in three places.

  The rabbit blinked, swallowed and then winced as his trousers slowly slid to the floor.

  ‘Aaah!’ screamed Nurg, clambering to his feet and sprinting away from the inn. The other rabbit pulled up his trousers and followed, crying as he left.

  ‘That was amazing!’ Uki turned to Jori, his eyes boggling. ‘How did you move so fast? And what’s a dusk wraith?’

  ‘I am,’ Jori said. She suddenly slumped, leaning on her sword for support. ‘It’s the name of warriors from my clan. We drink a potion before we fight. It makes us ten times quicker than a normal fighter, but …’

  She patted the flask at her side, then sagged to her knees. Uki grabbed her shoulder. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘This is what happens …’ Jori was finding it hard to speak now. ‘… when you take dusk potion. Feel weak … afterwards. Don’t worry … doesn’t last too long. See to … girl.’

  Uki didn’t like to leave Jori, but the girl who had been hurt was still lying on the yard floor. With several backward glances, Uki hurried over to her.

  She was tiny, he now saw. The size of a five- or six-year-old. She had sandy fur, so short it was like velvet, and big, brown eyes that were blinking up at him. She wore loose leather clothes with glass beads and pieces of bone embroidered on, and she had red stripes dyed into the fur of her ears and cheeks. A plains rabbit, Uki thought. The first one he’d seen. He had been terrified by them, ever since hearing his mother’s stories about his father’s raiding party being killed by a plains tribe. This one didn’t look very scary, though.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Uki asked, and then suddenly wondered if she might speak a different language. He pointed to her and shrugged his shoulders, trying to mime his question.

  ‘Nam ukku ulla,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I speak Lanic, you know. Us plains tribes aren’t savages.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Uki. ‘I didn’t know. Are you hurt?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. In a month or two.’ She sat up, wincing and holding her stomach.

  ‘Are you lost?’ Uki made his voice as gentle as possible, thinking it might be the best way to speak to a scared five-year-old. ‘Are your parents around?’

  ‘I’m not a baby,’ the girl said. ‘I’m ten years old, you know. I’m just small because I got sick when I was little and now I don’t grow properly. And my parents threw me out of the tribe when I was eight. They gave me my jerboa and told me to hop off and annoy some other family.’

  The sole jerboa in the stable turned around at the girl’s voice and made a little neek sound.

  ‘I’m fine, Mooka,’ the girl called. ‘Go back to your oats.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Uki said. He had managed to offend the girl twice in about a minute. He felt he ought to do something to make up for it. ‘Listen. We’re about to have a meal in the inn. Would you like to join us?’

  The girl’s little ears pricked up and she licked her lips.
‘A meal? A hot one? At a table?’ She looked past Uki to where Jori had managed to stand up again. She seemed to have regained her strength but was still swaying slightly. ‘Ooh, I remember her. She’s rich. Yes, I will definitely join you.’

  Uki helped her to her feet, noting that he was a good two-heads taller. They went over to support Jori, and the three of them staggered into the inn for dinner.

  *

  They had crowberry soup to start, followed by roast parsnips in a spicy sauce that Jori said was a plains recipe. Once she started eating, her strength began to come back, although she clutched at her head every now and then, as if it ached badly. Despite that, she also ordered some blackberry wine that tasted quite disgusting and made Uki cough.

  The inn was small, with lots of little rooms leading off from the main hall. It had uneven wooden planks for a floor and several sets of tables and chairs. There was a roaring fire in the hearth, a minstrel playing quiet tunes on a set of pan pipes and there were even tapestries hung on some of the walls. All in all, it was the finest place Uki had ever seen.

  The innkeeper served them at their table, obviously remembering Jori from her previous stay (although he did give Uki several funny looks). He seemed shocked to see the plains girl sitting with them, but she just winked at him and beamed.

  While they ate, she told them all about herself in great detail.

  It turned out that she was a member of the Kalaan Klaa tribe, who lived in the northern part of the plains. There were two other groups: the Sla Neeks and the Uluk Miniki. At the moment, all three were at war with one another, although it sounded like the situation changed on a weekly basis. The tribes liked fighting almost as much as they liked making up and celebrating.

  Since she had left her people two years ago, the girl had mostly been living in Nether. Sleeping in the stable and eating scraps in return for running errands and delivering messages on her jerboa.

  ‘You haven’t told us your name,’ said Uki, as they polished off their parsnip dish.

  ‘I am Lak Kriya of the Kalaan Klaa,’ she said, pretending to bow. ‘But you can call me Kree for short.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name,’ said Uki.

  ‘It means “half a mouse”,’ said Kree.

  ‘Charming,’ said Jori, smiling as she sipped her wine. ‘Does your jerboa have a name that is actually an insult, too?’

  ‘Yes. He’s called Mooka, which means “buzzard meat”. You might have noticed that he doesn’t have a tail. That’s why he was given to me. They were going to use his hide for leather and feed his meat to the birds. He’s still fast, though.’ Kree’s eyes lit up when she talked about her mount. ‘The fastest thing on the plains. It’s just … he just falls over when he goes round corners. Sometimes.’

  Jori surprised them all by throwing her head back and laughing so loudly that the rabbits at the other tables turned round to stare. ‘A rabbit chased out of his tribe for having the wrong coloured fur, an assassin who can’t kill anyone, a pint-sized rider and a jerboa with no tail. What a fine bunch of outcasts we are.’

  Instead of being insulted, Kree laughed along, and raised her cup of wine in a toast. ‘Outcasts!’ she shouted.

  Uki raised his cup too, gagged at the bitter taste, then they all laughed some more.

  ‘You two haven’t told me your story,’ Kree said when the chuckling had stopped. Jori gave Uki a look, as if warning him not to say too much, but something about the bubbly cheerfulness of Kree made him trust her. He liked Jori but her moods could be like black thunderstorms, covering everything in shadow. If there was a chance that Kree might come along with them, it would maybe help balance things out.

  For the second time in two days, Uki found himself retelling the strange series of events that led to him sitting there, in an inn south of the Wall, with two new friends and an ancient spirit nestling inside his head.

  It was still almost impossible to talk about his mother’s death. It ripped open the wounds again, and tears spilled from his eyes on to the table. Once or twice he felt as though the sobs were going to completely overtake him, and he had to stop and breathe deeply. Each time Jori surprised him by laying a paw on his shoulder, and he found the strength to carry on. When he got to the part about Iffrit, the wave of grief became smaller, his mind going back to half thinking it had all been a dream, that his mother was alive and well, firing her latest batch of pots in her kiln. It was as if he couldn’t really believe there was a world without her in it somewhere, even though he knew he was only fooling himself.

  And then he finished the tale off with the rescue of Jori and the beginnings of their quest to track down the remaining spirits.

  Throughout the whole thing, Kree sat motionless, a spoonful of spiced parsnip frozen halfway on its voyage to her mouth. Uki was waiting for the moment when she started laughing, or refused to believe him, his paw ready with Gaunch’s crystal for proof.

  But the moment never came. Instead, the very second he finished speaking, she jumped up on to her chair. ‘A quest! You are on an actual quest, like heroes from the stories! Oh, please let me come with you! I’ll be your guide across the plains! I’ll carry your luggage on Mooka! I’ll sharpen your swords and polish your armour and cook your meals and … and … Oh, please just let me come!’

  Uki laughed and was about to agree, but thought it best to look to Jori first. He was relieved to see the older girl smiling too. She caught his eye and gave a tiny nod of her head.

  ‘Yes, Kree,’ Uki said. ‘You can come with us.’

  ‘Ukku neekneek bulbu bu! Three times three thank yous!’ Kree leapt from her seat to wrap her arms around Uki in a hug, then did the same to Jori. It was the first time anyone but his mother had hugged Uki. It was surprisingly nice.

  ‘If that’s settled, then perhaps we should retire for the evening,’ said Jori. ‘The innkeeper only has one room, but it has two beds if I remember. Perhaps you two could sleep top-to-tail?’

  ‘Oh, thank you for the offer,’ said Kree. ‘But I always sleep in the stable when I’m here. Mooka would miss me if I wasn’t with him.’

  Kree skipped off as soon as the wine was finished, leaving Uki and Jori to share the room. The innkeeper led them there and Jori paid him with a silver coin. She slung her pack on one of the beds then flopped down on it.

  ‘That was the last of my money,’ she said. ‘So it’s a good job you’ve got those gems. We should change one for coin, the next proper town we’re in.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Uki. He climbed on to the other bed and lay back on the straw mattress. It was much softer than the pile of blankets and heather he used to sleep on in his village, and heaven compared to the forest floor that had been his bed recently.

  Jori must have felt the same, as she began snoring almost immediately. Uki got up to blow out the candles and make sure the shutters of the small room were fastened tight, then he curled up in his blanket.

  Now I have two companions, he thought to himself as his eyes began to drift shut. He knew he should be feeling thrilled at the thought, but he couldn’t shake that foreboding feeling of something ominous and evil searching the land for him with its sweeping gaze.

  And when it found him, it would find Jori and Kree as well.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Blood Plains

  ‘I t has to be here somewhere! Search harder, you dolts, or they’ll hear your screams in Eisenfell!’

  Uki jolted awake, the echoes of that terrible, screeching voice seeming to bounce about the room. He looked around, panicked, but saw only the simple wooden walls of the inn. Jori was already awake, washing and brushing her fur. The shutters were open, letting in bright sunlight, and someone had brought a pitcher of fresh water and a washbowl.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jori. ‘You’re awake. So is everyone else in the inn, what with all the noise you were making.’

  Uki rubbed his eyes and blinked. ‘It was a bad dream.’ Except it wasn’t, he knew. Someone, somewhere, had been screaming those very words, an
d he had been there, listening to them. It was as real as Jori, standing in her vest and very short cotton trousers.

  Suddenly Uki realised that Jori’s leather armour was on her bed and she was only wearing her underwear. A blush started underneath his fur, strong enough to turn his white side pink.

  ‘I … um … what … er …’ He looked at the ceiling, the floor, the window – anything to avoid Jori. ‘Have you been here long? I mean, up? Awake?’ Stop talking now, his mind told his mouth, but it kept on making stuttering noises anyway.

  Jori laughed. There was a rustling, clinking noise. ‘Don’t worry, I’m putting my armour back on now. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about: I had my underclothes on. It wasn’t as if I was naked.’

  Uki made a strangled, squeaking noise.

  ‘There,’ said Jori. Peeping over, Uki saw her buckling the last straps of her armour and fastening her sword belt around her waist. ‘Haven’t you ever seen another rabbit getting dressed before? In my clan warren, I used to share a burrow with ten other rabbits. Girls and boys. It’s really nothing to be embarrassed about.’

  Uki wanted to explain that he’d only ever lived with his mother. Every day without her was new and strange and being around other rabbits was strangest of all. Instead he went over to the washstand and splashed his face with water. Lots of water.

  *

  It was not long after dawn, Uki discovered. The innkeeper was the only other rabbit up and he gave them each a freshly baked bread roll for breakfast. They steamed in the sharp morning air as they broke them into pieces in the inn’s stable yard.

  ‘Good morning!’ Kree called, her painted ears popping up from a stable stall. She was jumping up and down, trying to throw a woven blanket over the back of Mooka, her jerboa. Uki could see his sandy fur and the stump where his tail should have been. Two huge ears twitched as Kree went about her work.