To the left of King Nkosi, on a smaller, albeit just as ornately decorated chair, sat Queen Cacile, the Scatter who'd called Belirand on me. Surprisingly, at the King’s right side stood Thabini, the young Scatter who'd help me escape to the healer's hut on the river delta. When I caught Thabini's eye, he nodded in acknowledgement.
A few meters to the king's left stood two humans wearing military uniforms more formal than any I’d seen so far. Where the clothing worn by the royals was immaculate, the soldiers’ uniforms were clean, but well worn. The larger of the two was a bear of a man at two meters and one hundred forty kilograms. With light brown hair and a thick beard, he returned my glance with an icy stare.
"Liam Hoffen, I am King Nkosi of the Scatter people," Nkosi unnecessarily announced. "You have met Queen Cacile and Prince Thabini. In that human matters are the domain of Bell-e-runde, Colonel Chappie Barto is also in attendance."
Nkosi looked over to the two humans. An ingenuine smile crossed the large man's face as he tipped his head in acknowledgment. "As is spelled out in our treaty," Chappie Barto agreed in a voice much higher than I had expected. The oddity barely registered, most likely because I was too worried about being tried for murder.
Nkosi turned from the introductions and looked down at a scroll that he held in his lap. "Liam Hoffen, you are charged with the willful murder of Jared Thockenbrow. Do you have anything to say in your defense?" he asked without warning.
I was taken aback at the simplicity and directness of the question. I was expecting to sit down, maybe confer with some sort of council, form an argument or some sort of defense strategy – anything.
"I did not murder Jared Thockenbrow," I finally managed.
"Do you dispute stabbing him with this iron knife?" Queen Cacile asked.
"I do not," I said. The answer brought a frown to her face, but she recovered.
"Then you admit to murdering Jared Thockenbrow?" Thabini asked.
"I do not," I said.
"Explain yourself," King Nkosi said.
"When a maracat attacks you in the wild, is it wrong to defend yourself?" I asked, glad to actually be getting into my rather well-crafted defense.
"Yes," Nkosi answered simply.
My mind reeled at his unexpected answer. A quick glance to Chappie revealed that his stare had transformed to a triumphant smile.
Nkosi continued. "By placing yourself within the maracat's domain, you have submitted to its rules. By not listening for its approach, you have ignored basic woodcraft. And by not finding shelter before it is too hungry to be deterred, you have placed it in grave danger."
"Jared Thockenbrow shot the golden gigantus upon which I rode," I said. "I could not have anticipated his willful and hostile act. Jared Thockenbrow also shot my brave companion, Lifa, who attempted to intercede on my behalf, and he shot the young man Langa. When Jared Thockenbrow shot me with his blaster pistol, I had no choice but to stop him. That is not murder."
"In that Jared Thockenbrow is deceased, his actions are not in question today," King Nkosi said. I heard a coarse whisper and snicker between Chappie and the man who stood next to him. While I didn't catch it entirely, the two men seemed to be commenting on Nkosi's inability to question their actions at any time. "You admit to having killed a man. Do you have anything further to say in your defense?"
"A question?" I asked.
"It is allowed."
"Why do your guard wear swords if they are unwilling to defend your citizens? I had to listen to the Belirand guard behind me rape the poor woman who brought me food and no one did anything to defend her. Did she make a bad choice to enter Belirand's domain? What about Langa? Should he have anticipated that Jared Thockenbrow would be drunk and shoot at birds passing overhead? What about Lifa’s daughter? She witnessed her father's murder," I accused angrily. "No. Don't answer. Belirand is raping and killing your people while you stand idle. Wake up, man! Evil is among you and you dress up in your pretty cape and pretend to be in charge."
"The prisoner will be silent!" Nkosi yelled, his pale face turning beet red.
Chappie laughed, unable to restrain himself. "Stop fighting it already," he said. "The decision's been made and I'm tired of standing around."
"Father, I must speak." Thabini had grown more and more agitated during the proceeding.
"Speak, son. I should not allow this murderer to anger me so," he said.
"Once the Scatter people were a noble and powerful people. We hunted. We fought. We grew. But over time, we discovered that we were able to live in harmony with nature. More and more, the swords we carried were a simple decoration, the bows we carried merely a pastime. One day many hundred years ago, Bell-e-runde arrived, asking to trade with us. For a short time this was good for all peoples, Bell-e-runde and Scatter. More Bell-e-runde people came and Bell-e-runde people spread to the stars, all the time not sharing with us their technology."
"Careful, son," Nkosi said. "You may repeat our history, but we will not insult our friends of Bell-e-runde.
"Are they our friends, Father?" Thabini asked. "Jared Thockenbrow will not be missed. He has murdered many Scatter and hurt many more. He preyed on the youngest of our women and when drunk, had little hesitance in killing anyone near him. Yet he was never questioned as Liam Hoffen."
"That is enough, Thabini. You will leave now," Nkosi said. I expected anger, but instead the king seemed sad as he bowed his head and pointed to the door.
"You do an evil today, Father," Thabini said. "I am sorry, Liam Hoffen. The Scatter people have failed you."
"Finish up already, Nkosi," Chappie growled, obviously annoyed at Thabini's outburst. "You best get that son of yours in line. I heard treason in his speech. It'd be a shame if Bell-e-runde had to start fixing your internal issues in addition to everything else we do around here."
"That will not be necessary," said Nkosi, king in name only. Holding his chin up, he looked directly at me. "Liam Hoffen. You are found guilty of murder and will be transferred to Bell-e-runde in the morning for punishment."
Chapter 14
Up the Voltage
I barely remembered the walk back to my cell or how I received the multitude of bruises I later found on my abdomen and legs. Vaguely, I recalled the Bell-e-runde soldiers dragging me from Nkosi's chambers after using heavy batons to encourage my quick and quiet departure. An hour after the trial, as I sat in my cell inspecting my wounds, the door to my cell opened and without warning, Colonel Chappie Barto strode in.
"You're not Highborne," he stated. It didn't escape me that he entered by himself. While I suspected there were soldiers outside, he'd made an interesting judgment call.
"That so?" I asked.
"Doesn't seem like you understand just the kind of trouble you're in, Liam Hoffen," he said, pulling a thin, telescoping club from the side of his pants and snapping it to length. "That tech on your face; subtle. I can imagine why my boys missed it, but not Ol' Chappie. Nothin' gets by me."
Quick as lightning, his club flicked out and caught me on my left arm. I yelped and jumped to the side. "Frak," I answered. "No. Not Highborne."
"See, that wasn’t so hard," he said, grinning. "Confusing. You look like you been living wild. But you got this tech."
I blocked his right hand as he reached for my earwig and he swung his club around with his left. I wasn't about to take another hit so I twisted into his body and brought my elbow around into his face. I'd been in plenty of scrapes and had trained hard in hand-to-hand. Chappie was strong, but he had none of the agility I was used to from my normal training partners. I'll admit, it felt good to hear the crunch of bone as my elbow made contact. Chappie roared with pain and I grabbed the club from him as he crumpled to the ground.
While he might have had a hidden weapon, I hadn't seen any evidence of one when he'd entered the cell. I didn't have time to search him, so I sprinted toward the cell's entry only to be met by the two soldiers who'd been watching me during my stay. Surprise was on my side and I flew in
to action, first throwing a back-round-house kick into the face of the closest guard. I quickly moved to the second with a slash of the weighted, telescoping weapon Chappie had so thoughtfully provided. The two soldiers went down quickly, but my strikes weren’t strong enough to put them down for long.
I grabbed for one of their holstered weapons just a little too late. I heard the slap of a boot on the cell floor behind me a fraction of a second before Chappie's hundred-forty-kilogram frame slammed into me, toppling me to the floor. I twisted, freeing my arm and managing a rabbit punch toward his throat. Missing by millimeters, I connected instead with his jaw. Without hesitation, Chappie reared back and smashed his forehead into the side of my face.
There's a saying I’ve heard that goes something like no one wins in a head butt, but in Chappie's case I think there might be an exception. I'm sure it hurt him plenty, but I saw stars and was stunned beyond any ability to react. I felt a big fist slam into my side, followed by another. The soldiers, who I'd temporarily taken out of the action, recovered and soon three men were kicking and punching me. The only thing I could do was to cover my head with my hands and curl into a ball. Even so, I heard my ribs crack as the beating continued without mercy.
"That's enough, boys," Chappie finally said, panting from the exertion of beating me senseless. Powerless, I felt rough hands pull at my hands. I looked up just in time to see Chappie grab my earwig and rip it from my skin.
I tried to push myself away from him, which only earned me a broad hand slap to the side of my head. I'd never been beaten so badly and was amazed I’d remained conscious.
"Where's your ship, Liam Hoffen?" he demanded. "Folks back in Sol think you might be the same guy who caused a heap of trouble so many years ago. Said you oughta be an old man, though, but you're not, now are you? They asked if I got yer name right."
"No ship," I said, spitting blood onto the floor as I tried to speak. "Not old."
"Could have made this easier on yerself," he said in a low voice, crouching next to me. "Handed Chappie a right good thumpin' though. Get some respect for that, you do."
He stood, pushing off his thighs with giant hands. "Toss him back in his cell. We'll come back for him in the morning. Almost feel like I need tah thank yah. Haven't had a good throwdown in forever. Gonna need me some pretty company tonight."
Without the earwig, his untranslated words sounded strange and I realized Chappie's spoken language was very close to what I'd grown up with. I filed the information away as the soldiers dragged me back into my cell and closed the door, locking it.
I lacked the strength or the will to move from the spot where I’d been dumped. Each breath or movement of my chest hurt. Worst of all, I periodically coughed up blood, each cough feeling like someone was stabbing me with a knife. Just a few nights before I’d been wondering if I could feel any lower. Unfortunately, I had my answer.
Mercifully, I passed out. As if from a great distance, I became aware of a gentle yet persistent rocking of my shoulders, the pressure increasing until my ribs exploded in pain. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing and was only dimly aware of another person's presence beside me.
"Who is it?" I whispered, only to feel two small, thin fingers press against my lips.
"Aferago." It was a female Scatter's voice. I couldn't see her face, but recognized the voice as belonging to Bongiwe.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered, even more softly.
"Bongiwe," she said. "Per tara aferago."
I nodded, knowing she could see my movements even if I couldn't see hers. I tried to push against the ground with my elbow and sit up, but pain in my battered, swollen joints prevented me from making it upright. Bongiwe reached around and grasped my side in an attempt to help. Her small hand found a sensitive spot and I flinched, causing her to adjust. Finally, with a lot of help, I made it to a standing position.
Dim light from the hallway outside the cell illuminated the open door. Bongiwe whispered aferago into my ear. Smelling freedom, I struggled forward, each step more painful than I could describe, but I was not to be deterred.
Once outside the cell, I started to turn toward the passageway leading deeper into the building. "Nis," Bongiwe whispered, turning me. I resisted, certain we would find soldiers in that direction.
"I can't fight," I whispered back. My words earned me another finger to the lips.
In that I had no plan of my own, I followed her direction. As I shuffled forward, I tried to muster the strength to think up some sort of defense should one be needed. Not only were several of my ribs broken, but my knee had been badly twisted. Throwing a punch and kicking were out of the question and I had no other ideas.
It seemed to take forever to get to the end of the twenty-meter-long hallway. Bongiwe rapped lightly when we arrived at the heavy wooden door. I was expecting a big group of soldiers on the other side.
"What? Who's there?" a surprised human voice asked.
"Fetma," Bongiwe answered seductively, after urging me to stand next to the stone wall. At the sound of a wooden bar being removed from the other side of the door, I looked back at Bongiwe in shock. Our prison break was about to go completely south. There was just enough light for me to make out a thin smile on Bongiwe's face as she reached into a leather pouch at her waist, extracting a bulbous green plant.
"What's going on?" a soldier asked, before the door was completely open.
"Per tara fetma," Bongiwe answered.
The door swung wide and the soldier looked startled as his eyes fell on me. Using the surprise, Bongiwe wasted no time in mashing the plant she held into the man’s face. At first, he screamed. A second later, the sound was cut short and he fell forward across the door's threshold either dead or unconscious. Either way worked for me.
"Oh, no you don't!" A second soldier jumped to his feet and unholstered his blaster pistol. It was just my luck, the man was ridiculously quick at extracting his pistol.
Bongiwe jumped toward him, her speed as impressive as her graceful moves, but the man needed only a fraction of a second to move his arm up. A blaster bolt caught Bongiwe on her right arm as she reached for the man’s face with her poison pod. She screamed in agony as the bolt tore through her shoulder, nearly cleaving off her arm.
I had no strength to help Bongiwe and my mind spun as I tried to come up with something useful to do. The ease with which the soldier had cut her down made me sick. There was no end to what these Belirand thugs would do. An idea hatched in my mind and I allowed myself to fall over the prone guard. The move was partly an act and partly inevitable based on how the last few days had been going for me.
"Hey, get off him!" The guard sounded more offended than threatened, so I must have been convincing.
He was too late. While the fall caused immeasurable pain, the pain served to focus me. I’d landed right over the unconscious soldier's hand and the blaster pistol he still gripped. I twisted the pistol around and – upside down, backwards, and with the man’s hand still firmly attached – fired a shot. The guard figured out just a little too late that I had some fight left. He pulled back as the bolt went wild, missing him not by that much. Practical experience had taught me that it's one thing to shoot at an unmoving, unarmed foes. Adversaries who returned fire were another thing entirely.
Unnerved, the soldier squeezed the trigger and ended up burying two rounds into his friend's backside. I've been shot at more times than I can recall. While I had no desire for a repeat, I didn’t find the idea all that unnerving. With patience borne out of sheer force of will, I extracted the weapon from the soldier's grasp and returned fire. This time the blaster bolt found home.
"Bongiwe!" I said, dropping the blaster and willing myself across the floor to where she lay unconscious. There had to be a liter of her blood on the floor by the time I got there. I grabbed at the bedding nearby and pressed a large wad into the wound. I hated the idea of the infiltration of germs, but if she kept bleeding, she wouldn’t survive long enough to have an infection.
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"Liam Hoffen," a male Scatter said. Prince Thabini and a second male stood in the doorway. I did a doubletake when I realized the man was Hambo, the young elf who'd helped me in the mountains. They rushed to Bongiwe's side.
"She's hurt," I said. "Shot."
"Aferago," Thabini said, lifting Bongiwe and causing her to stir with a groan of pain.
Hambo rushed to my side. Seeing that I was also injured, he gently but firmly helped me stand.
"Per tara," I said, not one-hundred percent sure I knew what I was saying. I was thinking the translation was either go quickly or go quietly and I was good with either. My attempt at his language earned me a grin from Hambo, but no obvious concern or haste. I winced as he moved me toward the door, his hand touching my broken rib.
From the position of the first moon of Fraxus, I determined it was well past the middle of the night and we were probably two hours before the rise of Fraxus' star. The air was cold and I shivered as I realized I wasn't dressed for this. The cold, however, turned out to be a boon. Not only did the cold dull my body’s throbbing, but the smell of fresh air and the potential of freedom helped me set aside my pain.
As a group, we ran across the broad courtyard illuminated only by the bright first moon. At the far end sat two Belirand cutters and a large, heavily-armored sloop. I recognized the cutter used to capture me at the healer Nothando’s home. The second, longer cutter was in considerably better repair and sported twin blaster turrets. The armored sloop was well lit and bristled with armament. It didn't take much imagination to guess that the sloop belonged to Chappy.
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