He talked like he was someone important too. ‘We’re glad someone could finally find the time to come south and deal with this problem. Though I was expecting…’ His gaze swept around the collection of women sitting around another of Kana’s magic fires as he considered his choice of descriptor. ‘Warriors,’ he decided upon.
‘Rain is a swordswoman,’ Constance said, ‘and Kana is both a powerful mage and adept with her staff. We are all quite capable of beating off a group of lizards.’ Clearly, she had decided she was not going to take lip from some old man hyped on his own meagre status. ‘If you’d prefer, we can head back to Alabeth and you can wait for some warriors to decide to come down here.’
‘You’re here now.’ To his credit, Tolar was not changing his attitude much.
‘We are. Perhaps you can tell us what’s been going on.’
Tolar frowned, leaning in toward the fire as though the memories were unpleasant. ‘It started around the second week of Anokarte.
Dracs came here in the evening, just as it was getting dark. They burned a few houses, killed those who fought them, but they mostly just scared everyone. We have trouble with them now and then. They steal cattle mostly. It’s unwise to go near our southern border alone. We’ve lost people to them once in a while due to that. They’ve never attacked the village before. Four days later, they returned. This time, they wanted to talk. They said we’d give them tribute. Meat. If we didn’t, they would come back in force and finish what they started.’
The old man looked up at Constance’s face. ‘We’re fishermen and farmers, not fighters. Or, the few fighters we had were killed in
the first raid. We can’t fight them off. That’s why I called for help. We need rid of them. Whatever it takes.’
‘When are you expecting them to return for more of their
“tribute?”’
‘In the next couple of days. No more than four.’
‘Then we’ll meet them when they turn up. In the meantime, we’ll need food and firewood.’
Tolar frowned. ‘You’ve got fire already.’
‘Kana is keeping that up with magic. That’s magic she can’t use to defend the village when the dracs return. We need firewood.’
‘We use peat from the swamp. I’ll see to having some brought. Can you cook for yourself, or will you need someone to do that for you?’
‘If you supply the basics,’ Mimi said, ‘we can do the cooking.’
~~~
It was bedtime and Kana was watching Rain. Rain was looking uncomfortable. Everyone was undressing to at least some extent for bed. They had a roof over their heads and sleeping in your clothes was not the best of ideas. Sleeping in leather armour, which was what Rain appeared to be debating, was an even worse idea. They had slept in their clothes when they had arrived that morning, but now it was decision time.
‘Uh, there’s something I need to say,’ Rain said after several more seconds in inward debate. ‘Something I need to tell Kana and Aneshti. Constance and Mimi already know…’ She trailed off, frowning.
‘Is this about you being born a man?’ Kana asked.
‘She… What?’ Aneshti said. Aneshti had been one of the first to strip. She claimed it was far too warm for an ice elf and had been contemplating lying over her blankets.
Rain was wide-eyed and staring. ‘How…’
‘How did I know?’ Kana asked. ‘Well, lots of things. You never bathe with the rest of us. You don’t seem that shy and the excuses have been getting tired. When we camp, you always sleep in as much clothing as you can or wait until it’s dark to undress. Again, shyness didn’t seem to cut it. The way you walk isn’t quite right. Women’s hips are different from men’s and I’ve known you long enough now to say that you walk like a man trying to be feminine rather than a woman trying to be masculine. And your chest is flatter than any woman I’ve ever met. You’re
flatter than I was when I first came to Soken and that’s saying something. I figured you’d say something eventually.’
Rain, still dressed in her leathers, settled onto her bedroll.
‘You, uh, don’t seem to be… concerned about it.’
Kana grinned. ‘Why should I be?’
‘Well, a man who pretends to be a woman. A man who wants with all his heart to be a woman. That’s not–’
‘Yeah,’ Aneshti said. She had decided that being under her blanket was a good idea. ‘That’s not… usual.’
‘I’m not originally from Soken, remember,’ Kana replied. ‘Being born feeling like you’re the wrong gender is… Well, it’s not common in my world, but it’s not that rare either. It’s better back there because there are surgical ways of changing someone’s sex. I mean, it’s not perfect, but you can at least look like the gender you feel you are. Here, I guess you’re stuck. I used to know someone at school with the same problem. Not well. We weren’t best friends or anything, but I saw her struggling with coming to terms with who she was and what she wanted. This is why you left Skangar, right?’
Rain nodded. ‘I needed to get away. If I was somewhere no one knew me, I could be who I wanted to be. You’re not so good with this, are you, Aneshti?’
‘No,’ Aneshti admitted. She gave a sigh. ‘It’s mostly surprise.
It’s not like you’ve tried anything inappropriate before now, so why should I worry about it now? I’ll just take a little time to get used to it.’
‘There’s nothing to get used to,’ Kana said. ‘Rain is still Rain.
You know something about her you didn’t. Aside from that, she’s still the same person you knew before.’
‘I suppose… I’ll sleep on it. Tomorrow, I’ll probably have forgotten I’ve got a problem.’
‘And for now,’ Constance said, ‘get undressed, Rain. You know how much you stink if you sleep in those leathers.’
‘Thanks,’ Rain replied as she began to undo buckles. ‘It’s always nice to have someone willing to tell you you smell bad.’
‘I live to serve.’
22 nd Ankarte.
Fish. The people of Gareea appeared to live on a diet of fish, bread, and potatoes, but fish was definitely the primary component of their diet. It was winter and the grain and potato stores were being rationed out to be sure they lasted until
summer. The dracs’ ‘tribute’ was not a drain on those since dracs were carnivores. To be precise, according to Aneshti, they ate meat and some varieties of fungus found in damp conditions, hence their preference for wetlands. The villagers were working hard to get fish in from the sea, because that meant they did not have to turn over so many of the cattle they farmed, most of which were there to provide milk and only becoming beef when they were too old for milk production.
Luckily, Mimi was a fairly accomplished cook and could make fish and potatoes into something which was moderately edible. There was also porridge for breakfast, though for some reason it tasted of fish. It was decided that Kana would engineer a few stews now and then to break from the piscine fare. The alternative was likely to be insanity, or possibly growing scales.
After lunch on the second day, the party split up to take a walk around the village and plot possible defences. Kana went out with Aneshti and they started off by walking through the centre of the village.
There was not much of a centre to walk through. There was a circle of large stones in the middle of the settlement and the area within was kept clear of grass. There was evidence of burning in the soil, but it looked to both Kana and Aneshti like that was unrelated to the burned huts.
‘Bonfires?’ Kana suggested.
‘Seems likely,’ Aneshti replied. ‘There are a few wooded areas toward the mountains. I’d imagine they could manage a good fire once or twice a year.’
‘And they had one at new year, despite the dracs.’
‘Not doing it would risk even worse luck. There are things abroad on that night that you don’t want hanging around once the days start getting longer.’
‘Fair enough.’
Kana wandered over to one of the burned-out spaces where a hut had been. There was the floorplan of a hut just like the one they were using, but the only remnants of a building were a few blackened stumps and the darkened soil where ash had soaked in. ‘Does anything about this strike you as wrong?’
‘Um… Well, it looks like the occupants got out. Or maybe the bones were taken away. Doesn’t look like anyone even tried to put the fire out. I mean, there’s basically nothing left. What are you seeing?’
‘I’m seeing a drac raiding party rushing all the way into the middle of the village before deciding that they should set fire to some buildings. If they’d shot fire arrows into the village, I’d expect more random burns. Magic doesn’t fit either. For some
reason, instead of setting fires on the way through, they waited until they got here.’
‘Maybe there are other burned huts and we just haven’t seen them.’
‘Maybe. We’re walking around anyway… Except we were taking the north side and the dracs probably came up from the south. We’ll see what Rain has to say when we get back.’
~~~
‘No, there was nothing damaged outside those few in the middle,’
Rain said. ‘Yes, I thought it was a bit weird.’
‘If you’re going to sow fear, you don’t keep the terror tactics to one small area,’ Constance agreed.
‘Unless the precision was part of the terror,’ Kana said. She held up a hand. ‘I don’t know why or how, but maybe there was something about it that was particularly frightening. Uh, like, maybe they were saying “look, we can hit you anywhere we want, and you can’t stop us.” I just can’t think how a drac raiding party could be worse for burning just a few select huts though.’
‘Unless there was something else.’
‘Yes,’ Mimi said, ‘but wouldn’t Tolar have said something if the dracs had a secret weapon?’
‘Probably. I’d certainly hope so.’
‘We could ask,’ Aneshti suggested.
‘If he didn’t volunteer the information, he’s not likely to give it if we ask.’ Constance shrugged. ‘It’s either nothing or it’s something we’ll have to deal with if and when it turns up.’
‘That’s a terrible way to run a campaign,’ Rain said.
‘I know, but it’s what we’ve got. We need a plan for dealing with the drac tax collectors when they turn up. Let’s go over what we have and see what we can come up with.’
23 rd Ankarte.
Dracs were humanoid lizards about the same size as a human, but clearly not human. They had scaly, brown skin which was paler across the chest and stomach, tails, clawed hands and feet, and snub-nosed heads like a Gila monster or something. They walked on their toes. They wore simple leather aprons to cover their genitals. Kana assumed they had genitals, otherwise there would be no need for the loincloths.
You could tell a lot about a monster from its eyes. Dracs had yellow eyes with slit pupils, but the important point was that they were on the front of their heads. Dracs were predators.
Their weaponry seemed to fit with that idea too. They carried short bows and spears. A couple of the ones marching into the village from the swamp also had short swords strapped to their hips which appeared to be bronze. The dracs had never learned to make iron or steel weapons, but they had no trouble using stolen ones.
Eight of the creatures were in the tribute party. They arrived in two columns of four. While leadership was not absolutely certain, one of the ones at the front was wearing a sword which looked to have some quite ornate carving on the hilt. Kana figured that was the leader. It was that one who spoke when Constance, flanked by Kana and Rain, stopped the lizards once they were past the first couple of ranks of huts on a reasonably broad path which led to the village’s centre from the south.
‘What is this?’ the drac leader said. ‘Where is elder?’ The thing’s accent was so heavy that Kana had trouble understanding it. Its grasp of Alabethi was clearly rudimentary, but the lizard was also speaking it with a jaw structure not designed for human speech.
‘Tolar won’t be coming,’ Constance said. ‘We are the renegotiation team.’ It seemed unlikely that the thing would understand renegotiation, but it was still a good line.
‘No negotiation.’ Maybe it did understand. ‘Give tribute. Or else.’
‘Not happening.’
The next thing out of the drac’s mouth was, perhaps, to be expected. ‘Kill them!’ What Kana was surprised at was that the words were in Alabethi; the stupid lizard wanted them to know it was ordering their deaths. The fact that he was reaching for its sword made things fairly clear anyway.
From the drac party’s flanks, one ball of rock and another of ice flew out to hit the drac rearguard. The results were unpleasant, for the dracs concerned, as the projectiles shattered ribs and ploughed the fragments into internal organs, and tossed the lizards into each other to further crush bones and rend flesh.
Aneshti and Mimi began readying the next pair of projectiles as confusion began to hit the dracs; now they were dealing with threats from three directions and there was no immediate way to tell which was worse.
The drac leader decided that he was more worried by the threat in front of him and started a charge toward Constance. He had about five metres to run and Kana was not going to give him a shot at her party’s leader. She brought her staff down as though holding
a firehose. ‘Flame Jet,’ she said. A red magic circle opened up at the end of her staff and a physically impossible stream of fire burst out of it to hit the drac in the chest. There was the sound of sizzling flesh and the lizardman let out something between a scream and a roar before falling to the ground, skidding on the damp grass.
Meanwhile, Constance was stretching out her own staff toward the lizards, and a circle of dark hue appeared under them, swirling and rising rapidly as she gave it a name: ‘Fear!’ The result was not quite as dramatic as one might have expected. No one ran screaming from the village, at least not until Kana’s stream of fire swept toward the next drac in line. Then he let out a shriek and threw himself backward out of the way of the stream. He collided with the drac behind him and both of them went down, which meant that Aneshti’s second ice ball flew over its target.
Mimi’s ball of stone hit home, however, and the resulting corpse fell onto the two downed lizards and that was all that was needed.
The remaining four dracs ran, scrabbling in the dirt in two cases, back the way they had come, out toward the waiting marshland where they lived.
‘Do we let them go?’ Kana asked. ‘I can probably drop a Fireblast on their tails.’
‘Let them go,’ Constance said. ‘They’ll take the message back that this village is protected.’
‘And you think they won’t come back?’
‘I’m not sure. Rain?’
‘I’m not sure why I’m here,’ Rain said, sheathing her unused sword as she did so. ‘As for the dracs… I’m not sure either. We’d better start patrolling tonight. If they do come back, they’ll probably want all the advantage they can get. Or they’ll come in force, but then we’ve got Kana’s big spells, so if we can spot them coming, she can destroy half of them before they get close.’
‘No pressure or anything,’ Kana said, frowning.
‘Nah. We’re just counting on you to save our bacon.’
‘Right. Nothing major then. We should be fine.’
24 th Ankarte.
‘Something’s definitely not right,’ Mimi said. ‘The entire village looks like they’re living on their nerves.’
‘They’re waiting for some sort of reprisal from the dracs,’ Rain said, ‘but they saw how we dealt with the ones yesterday and they seem a lot more worried than I’d expect.’
‘Has anyone seen Tolar today?’ Constance asked. It was midday, or thereabouts, and they were eating lunch in their hut. It was fish stew. Mimi was trying a new recipe one of the villagers had suggested, but the primary benefit appeared to be that they could rehe
at what was left over for dinner. When no one answered the question, she went on. ‘Apparently, he lives in a farmhouse outside of town and he doesn’t seem to have been in for a couple of days. I’m not saying I don’t trust the old bastard but… No, actually, I take that back. I don’t trust the old bastard.’
‘He does have the look of a travelling merchant about him,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m not sure there’s much we can do about it though.’
‘Just be ready for anything,’ Rain said. ‘I’ll scope out some good spots to watch from later. And we should probably grab some sleep this afternoon. I think it might be a late night.’
~~~
‘So, there was something I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Kana said.
‘Since before I found out… about your gender feelings, actually.’
Rain, who was walking the southern boundary of the village with her, looked a little disquieted, but she said, ‘Go on.’
‘Well, you remember when we were in Hillock and Constance got drunk and you ended up spending the night with her and Mimi?’
‘I remember.’
‘The next day, you seemed like you were unhappy about it. But I also got the feeling that wasn’t the first time… A-and now I’m wondering whether it’s related to… you know. If you don’t want to talk about it then, just say.’
Rain let out a sigh. ‘It’s complicated. It’s partially my “gender feelings,” as you put it. It’s partially just Constance. Not even anything she really does… Okay, it’s something she does, but it’s like asking the wind to stop blowing. When she wants someone, she has a habit of getting that person. And, don’t get me wrong, she’s really good in bed and I enjoy every minute of it.’
‘But afterward…’
‘But afterward I feel used. She makes me feel like a man, or act like one. Kind of. She knows I don’t like it, but she gets drunk…
The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Page 22