The Scarlet Cavern

by Michael Dalton

  I was the only father they knew. But Richard had fathered both of them.

  I eventually confronted Jacqueline. There had been a lot of angry yelling and screaming. In time, we came to an agreement. She would never tell the kids the truth; I would never challenge their paternity and would keep them on my life and medical insurance policies. Jacqueline and Richard, despite his income, had expensive tastes and needed my support.

  But I knew Richard had been pressuring her recently. She asked me a couple of times if I still felt the same way. If my support of them was a burden. He wants us to be a real family, she said.

  Had I been in Richard’s position, I would want to claim the children I fathered too. As much as I despised him, I knew that.

  If I were to disappear, I knew they would tell Cassie and Hunter eventually. The longer I was gone, the more certain that would be.

  I threw back the last of my massit and stood up. I needed to clear my head.

  I stepped out into the courtyard of the rooming house and began moving through the kendo kata I still remembered. I’d been meaning to take it up again, but the muscle memory was still there. Kendo kata normally require two people, but I did the best I could on my own.

  I’d been exercising for only a few minutes when I saw a black form running toward me out of the woods. I had a moment or two to realize two things: It was the same creature I had seen following us, and that creature was another linyang assassin.

  But unlike the mercenaries, she was alone, carrying only a crystal sword.

  She leapt into the air as she closed, and I brought my katana up to block her, parrying her strike and stepping to the side. She landed cleanly and spun around, swinging her sword at me again.

  She was fast, almost too fast for me. It took all I had to backpedal and parry her flurry of strikes. Unlike the last fight, I had only part of my armor on, and her blade looked sharp enough to slice my arm off with a single blow.

  But I had a couple of feet of reach on her. She was small, shorter even than Ayarala, and her blade was at most two feet long. I kept the katana in front of me, slicing and parrying as best I could without creating an opening.

  Then she sprang backwards, spinning her sword around a few times. As I took the moment to get my bearings, I realized she was gorgeous. Not in the ethereal, supermodel way Ayarala had, or the exotic, quasi-dangerous beauty of Kisarat. No, even with the cat-like ears and long tail, this girl had the kind of face that made you want to throw her down and fuck the daylights out of her.

  She had hair like polished obsidian, held back in a braid, and a sizable chest despite her lithe, athletic build.

  Jacqueline and I had a couple of cats early in our marriage. Fighting human-sized cats was maybe the last thing I wanted to be doing.

  “What do your people want with me?” I yelled. “I’ve done nothing to you.”

  “You are a monster!” she screamed, and leapt forward.

  I deflected her strike again, but this time she used her free hand to swipe at my face, claws out. We got tangled up together, and four white-hot lines of pain erupted on my left arm as she made contact. But I hooked my arm around hers and flung her through the air behind me.

  A different opponent would have fallen prone, but instead she deftly twisted her body in mid-air to land squarely in a three-point stance. I felt the blood starting to run down my arm.

  We threw blow after blow at each other for several minutes. She was too fast for me to hit, and her sword wasn’t long enough to get past my defenses.

  Finally, she fell back again, glaring murderously at me as she panted for breath.

  “Where are your friends?” I asked. “Last time you weren’t interested in one-on-one.”

  “I am alone. I fight with no one.”

  I noticed only then that despite her dark attire, she wasn’t wearing the same sort of outfit the mercenaries had.

  “Who are you, then?”

  “I am your death.”

  Just as she leapt at me once again, I heard Kisarat’s voice screaming in anguish.

  “Narilora, no! What are you doing?”

  The name was familiar, but I was too focused on defending myself to place it immediately.

  “Treasonous wretch!” the linyang screamed. “Have you given yourself to this abomination?”

  “I did not betray iXa’aliq! He slew him in fair combat!”

  Then it hit me – this was iXa’aliq’s other wife, the one who had left him before I got there. What the hell was she doing here?

  “Will, please don’t kill her!” Kisarat cried. “She doesn’t understand!”

  “He will not!” Narilora replied.

  I realized as I fought to parry another wicked strike at my neck that I had to change my tactics. All it would take was a single blow from her razor-sharp blade to incapacitate me, if not decapitate me. My advantages were size and strength, and I had to start using them.

  I backpedaled away from her, waiting until there was an opening to counterattack. Then I struck at her from above, forcing her to lift her blade to block me. As she did, I turned and threw a sidekick straight out at her.

  She wasn’t expecting it, and I connected squarely with her chest. The impact sent her tumbling backwards, and I pressed my advantage. She recovered almost instantly, somersaulting backwards onto her feet and springing back into place.

  I pretended to throw a downward cross-strike at her with my katana, but it was a feint. I deliberately missed her while continuing my spin into a hook kick. She had come up intending to take advantage of my over-commitment to the strike and didn’t expect to see my foot coming around at her head.

  I connected hard, sending her face first into the dirt. But even then, she recovered immediately, getting her sword up to defend herself.

  I struck down at her blade as hard as I could. Our swords came together at a 90-degree angle. There was a loud crack, and her blade broke under mine.

  It didn’t shatter, though. The core held together. But her sword was now several useless pieces connected by a fibrous center. I stepped forward and set my foot on her chest, laying my katana against her neck.

  “Kisarat has asked me not to kill you, but if you make me do it, I will.”

  Narilora struggled briefly against my foot, trying to bring her ruined sword around. But as she saw what was left of it, the fight seemed to drain out of her.

  She dropped the sword and went limp on the ground.

  “I yield.”

  I stepped back. Narilora sat up onto her knees, not looking up at me, then fell forward onto her arms, prostrating herself.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, but then Ayarala was at my side, gripping my arm.

  “You defeated her,” she whispered. “It is their way. You must claim her now, or she will take her own life in shame.”

  Holy shit.

  But, okay. Another girl for my entourage. At least she was as cute as the first two. I took a long breath.

  “I claim you.”

  “I will serve you, my tsulygoi,” Narilora responded.

  But she sounded quite unconvinced. She leaned back, looking up at me, but stayed on her knees.

  “You were trying to kill me.”

  Ayarala squeezed my hand.

  “I don’t think you realize how you appear to people of our world, Will,” Ayarala said. “The tallest female I have ever seen was not as tall as you, and certainly nowhere near as large. I was terrified when I first saw you, before you talked to me. You fought a busang and killed it with barely a scratch. I was certain you would kill me too.”

  Narilora gasped.

  “You killed a busang?”

  “He did. He cut off its head with his sword. I saw him do it.”

  I looked around at them. “She said it was a young one.”

  “The young ones are the most dangerous,” Narilora said. “They are fast, and fight without fear. An old busang will flee a fight it may lose. Young ones will fight to the death.”

  “Y
ou’ve fought them?”

  “In groups, with spears and nets. To fight one alone, with just a sword, would be suicide.”

  “He is the makalang,” Kisarat said.

  “The makalang is a myth!” Narilora screamed at her. “I am sick to death of your obsessions!”

  “Then what is he?”

  “He is . . .”

  “What is the makalang said to be? Tall. Large. Handsome. A great warrior. He defeated you, and you make as much about your skill with the sword as I do about the makalang.”

  Narilora seemed to notice Ayarala for the first time.

  “And who are you?”

  “I am Ayarala, of the dwenda and Will Hawthorne, who is my tsulygoi. I have mated.”

  “You believe him to be the makalang?”

  “I know him to be. He came from the mountains, from a cave filled with crystals. He came to this world knowing nothing of us. Everything he has said and done tells me he is it.”

  Narilora regarded me in growing awe. Her eyes ranged over my body, finally settling on my groin.

  “And he is everything the legends say? Truly?”

  Ayarala squeezed my hand again.

  “Show her.”

  I groaned.

  “Is it that much a part of the myth?”

  “Yes,” all three of them said instantly.

  Sighing in defeat, I reached down, unzipped my pants, and extracted my dick.

  Narilora let out a sharp hiss and sprang backwards. Her tail had puffed up to twice its previous size. Then she glanced back and forth between Kisarat and Ayarala.

  “How?”

  “It is not as difficult as it may appear, nor as unpleasant,” Kisarat said. “In fact, it has been the source of the most intense pleasure of my existence.”

  Narilora looked up at her, then slowly began to relax as I buttoned myself back up.

  “You would not lie about this. I know how obsessed you are with the makalang. If he fell short of your insane fantasies, you would . . .”

  Kisarat looked at me, then back at her.

  “He has not. He has exceeded them.”

  Narilora rose to her feet. She stepped toward me, reaching out. Her fingers came to rest on the scratches across my breastplate.

  “The busang did this? And you live?”

  “Yes.”

  She trailed her fingers down the scratches. Then she dropped to her knees again, pressing her head against my thigh, taking my hand from Ayarala, and squeezing it between hers.

  “You are truly the makalang. I will serve you. My body is yours. Lead me.”

  The reticence I had heard a minute earlier was completely gone now. I put my free hand on her head. The feel of her ears was so much like the cats I’d had that I instinctively began scratching behind them.

  Narilora looked up at me, her green eyes moist. She pressed her head back against my hand.

  “I am Narilora, of the linyang and Will of Hawthorne, who is my tsulygoi. I have not mated.”

  I kept scratching her ears, and she sighed.

  “You will,” I said.

  Chapter 11

  It turned out that Narilora had been following us since I showed up at iXa’aliq’s house.

  “But you left,” Kisarat said. “Why did you care?”

  “He would not mate with me. But there were no other males to offer myself to. When I tried to return to my clan, they scorned me and drove me off. So I returned. But I did not know what to do. I was still considering returning and begging forgiveness when you appeared.”

  We were heading down the road again, Ayarala and Kisarat up in the front of the wagon, while I lay low in the bed in case anyone came the other direction. Ayarala had patched up the scratches in my arm. Narilora was on the other side, nursing the bruises I’d given her. She’d brought a lumpy bag with her that was at the end of the wagon.

  “You were there when we arrived?” I asked.

  “Yes. And when Kisarat emerged with his body, throwing him into the woods like a sack of trash, I only saw the end of my chance to mate.”

  “Did you take the body?”

  She nodded, sighing.

  “I hated him, but I could not bring myself to leave him there for the busangs. I took his body and burned it that night.”

  “If I had known . . . I didn’t intend to kill him. It just turned out that way.”

  Kisarat had explained what happened at the end of our brief conversation with iXa’aliq.

  “If he attempted to poison you, you had every right. A strong tsulygoi may take what he desires from a weak one.”

  “Did you fight iXa’aliq before he claimed you, like you did with me?”

  She fought back a smile for a moment or two before giving me a sultry look from under her long eyelashes.

  “Had I fought him like that, he would not have survived more than a few breaths. No. I made show of doing so, and then yielded. My goal was to mate with him, not kill him.”

  Narilora’s attitude toward me had swung about 180 degrees, from passionately wanting to murder me, to passionately wanting to . . . well, I suppose we would see about that. But she settled immediately into being part of our little band.

  “This world has proven more dangerous than I would have expected,” I said. “You’re only about the seventh or eighth thing that’s tried to kill me or capture me since I got here four days ago. We could use you on our side.”

  “I am yours. But I have no sword now, Will. You saw to that.”

  I reached around into my backpack.

  “Well, there’s this. I guess it’s of more use to you than to me.”

  I drew iXa’aliq’s sword out and handed it to her. Narilora’s big feline green eyes swelled even larger when she saw it.

  “You took it,” she gasped.

  “Ayarala said it was a fine blade.”

  “It . . .” She stared down at it in awe. “There is no finer make. This was what iXa’aliq used to keep me with him. He said I could have it after we mated, knowing I would stay for it. But in the end, even this was not enough.”

  She drew it from the scabbard and held it up toward the sun, turning it this way and that to catch the light. Rays of spectral colors sprayed across us.

  Then she sheathed it and looked over at me.

  “My sword is yours, Will. My sword and my b–”

  “Yeah, I know, I got it the first time.”

  She gave me another lingering look and crawled slowly across the wagon bed, lowering her head and pushing against me.

  One of the cats Jacqueline and I owned had decided I was her human, and so she usually came to me first for attention. She had a habit of head-butting me affectionately in the exact way that Narilora was doing now.

  “Do what you did before, with my ears.”

  I put my hand on her head and began gently scratching behind her ears. She was bigger than my cat, but the same idea seemed to hold. She settled against me, head in my lap and the rest of her curled over my leg.

  After a few moments, I felt a low vibration growing between us. I briefly thought it was coming up from the wagon, like we were riding over an uneven stretch of road.

  Then I realized Narilora was purring.

  She lay there as I played with her ears like I had with my cat. The vibrations grew stronger, rising and falling with her breathing. I stretched out and just enjoyed the feel of her next to me. Her tail twitched slowly back and forth behind her.

  As we lay there, I could feel our emotional link growing as well. And I was a bit surprised to realize that, right now at least, she was perfectly happy and content in the way only a cat having her ears scratched could manage.

  Eventually she stretched out, rolling over to look up at me.

  “My mother did this with me, when I was young. But not for many talons.”

  “On my world, we have small animals somewhat like linyang, kept as pets. They enjoy the same thing.”

  “That is interesting.” She smiled. “You seem strangely conce
rned with the emotional state of your wives, Will of Hawthorne.”

  I still felt a twinge at that word, but I let it go.

  “We have a saying where I come from. ‘Happy wife, happy life.’” Not that it had worked for me.

  All three of them laughed.

  “That is a thing no tsulygoi on this world would ever say,” Ayarala said.

  “Or even think,” Narilora said.

  “They would regard the very idea as insanity,” Kisarat said.

  “That is because so many of them are so weak and foolish,” Narilora said. “Females fight to mate with them, so they need do nothing to attract them. There are so few of them now, they need not even compete with each other. So they care nothing and do nothing.” Then she looked up at me. “For a strong tsulygoi who was concerned with my needs, Will, I would do anything. Anything.”

  Ayarala and Kisarat murmured their assent.

  “This world is dying because of their weakness. Ayarala, how many children have been born to your clan in the last ten talons?”

  “Not many.”

  “It is the same with the linyang. Kisarat, we have discussed this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fewer children than our mothers’ generation, and fewer still than our grandmothers’.”

  “This is why the legend of the makalang is so strong?” I asked.

  “Does that surprise you? You have seen a Taitalan male, and in truth iXa’aliq was stronger than most.”

  “No.”

  Rant apparently over, Narilora closed her eyes and flopped back against my lap.

  I kept stroking her head and scratching her ears, feeling her purring against me. I didn’t want to call her tiny, because she had a body like a coiled spring. But she was the smallest of the three of them, even though I knew from our trip through the village that she was at worst a bit below average-sized for this world.

  Still, she had an ample chest by Taitalan standards, and the tight jumpsuit she had on did little to conceal it. There was a single button right between her breasts that I wanted to undo, but it looked like it was on the verge of popping loose on its own anyway.

  Narilora noticed me staring and looked down at the button. Then she reached up and undid it. Her cleavage swelled apart, and the opening of her jumpsuit dropped down a few inches. She smiled up at me. Seemed like this connection went both ways.