G. Howell, page 10
In the shelter of a wagon I sank down, curled up and buried my aching head in my arms, sobbing myself to sleep. As I slipped into the muzzy darkness bordering on nothing, I thought I felt a soft paw on my shoulder. ******
The morning came with daylight forcing its way under my eyelids. I groaned and sat up, rubbing small granules from my sore eyes. My head still throbbed, but not as fiercely as the night before. I ached from sleeping on the hard ground. Sometime in the night, someone had wrapped me in the anodised survival blanket.
It was a calm morning. Dew still lay on the ground, slowly evaporating into a thin mist. Birds screeched at each other in the treetops. The sun was a white glare on the horizon, and two five-foot cats fixed breakfast while four more snored away under blankets.
Char and Hymath looked up as I approached. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Good morning, Hymath”
“Is it?” The small female slowly stirred the stew. “You are feeling better? I had not expected something like you to react like that.”
I shrugged. There was a pregnant silence. Kharm broke it by moving under his blanket and muttering something. “How is he?” I asked, moving over to kneel beside the young mercenary.
“He woke for a short time last night,” Hymath instantly responded, obviously glad of the distraction. “And his wounds do not seem to be getting any worse. It is still too early to tell.”
I lifted the bandage on his arm. He stirred as I moved the limb. Well, he seemed to be stable: I couldn’t see any dirt or fur in the scab and the surrounding skin looked a healthy tone. His breathing looked normal for a sleeping Sathe. He was hot, but I’d noticed their body temperature was a little above my own. I didn’t think he was running a fever.
He would live, but for a time he would be in considerable pain. That was something I couldn’t do anything about.
When time came to leave, he was cautiously and gently lifted onto the wagon. I hated to move him, but I had to agree with the others’ decision; waiting around could be unacceptably risky. The lurching of the wagon caused me almost as much pain as it did Kharm. My head still felt like an eggshell filled with nitroglycerine. I suffered in silence, trying not to groan when a wheel went one on one with an exceptionally deep rut in the road.
The foothills were behind us and now the land was broad, rolling vales and plains swathed in dense semi-continuous forests. Copses of trees defended their own individual territories, fields of grass and small shrubs in between; like no-mansland.
Something landed in the hay beside me. I turned my head to squint at it: the M-16. “Yours,” Tahr said shortly.
“Thank you,” I nodded and picked up the rifle to examine it. None the worse for wear, but the magazine was empty and the selector was locked on full auto. She’d emptied the weapon.
“Did you have a reason for not telling me what that was?” asked Tahr.
“I wanted to… understand, to learn about you,” I said. “I did not want you to be afraid of me.”
Her muzzle wrinkled. “Because your people are more powerful than ours?”
I shrugged. “Uh… Sort of.”
She scratched her elbow with a delicate claw and looked around at the passing trees. “K’hy,” she began without looking at me, “is there a reason you are here?”
The wagon lurched and I grabbed for a support. “I do not know. But if there is I would very much like to know what it is.”
Her pupils abruptly went to pinpricks. “What I mean is did you come here to examine us? to watch us?”
“No!” I shook my head. “You think I am a… a… “
“[Spy]?”
“Jesus H… Why the hell do you think that?! I have told you the truth: I am lost!” Hymath was still facing forward, watching the bison, but her ears had rotated backwards, toward us. Tahr seemed not to notice. “You say that before you met me, you never knew that Sathe even existed. If you come from the west, you would have to pass through at least one other Realm: there is no way that you would not see another Sathe!”
I hung my head, then looked up. “That is very good, Tahr.” Her ears twitched and I also smiled: “But you forget. I never said I came from the west - that was you.”
“But you… you never saw a Sathe before me?”
“No.”
“Then where did you come from? Did you simply appear in the middle of the Eastern Realm?” She gave a disgusted snort and started honing her claws against the bench. I swallowed and stared at the strands of wood curling away from her claws. A threat? I wasn’t sure. “Will you at least show me how to use your weapon properly?”
Still watching her claws shredding the wood, I nodded. Tahr watched me pushing cartridges into the magazine.
“When these are gone, that is it. No more.” I had about two hundred and sixty rounds left. I showed her how to insert the magazine, then pulled it out again and handed her the rifle.
“Should that not be in it?” she asked, pointing at the clip.
“I just want to see how you hold it,” I said. She uncertainly raised the rifle to her shoulder. The M-16’s not a big weapon, but it was still awkward for her diminutive stature. I shifted around until I was behind her, my arms lightly around her to help her adjust her grip. I could feel her twitching and tense; her fur bristling, muscles bunched like springs.
“No,” I coaxed. “Relax. I will not bite… That is better. Pull it into you shoulder. Now press the trigger - that… Yes. Use your whole hand.” I put my hand around hers and showed her how to squeeze the whole grip.
It didn’t take long to show her the mechanics of the weapon, but proficiency comes with practice - hands on experience - and I didn’t have enough ammunition for that.
“And your warriors are all armed with these?”
I nodded.
“Such a force would be [invincible],” she said.
“Until they meet a force armed in the same fashion,” I retorted. Tahr looked surprised, then thoughtful.
Eventually she said, “True. It is a [ ] device, but only when the wielder is ready. If Hymath had not helped you, you would be dead.”
“What?”
“If Hymath had… “
“I know what you said, but I do not understand. What happened?”
“Do you not remember?”
“Uh… I remember I was on the ground, then something happened. I thought it was you.” I rubbed at the shoulder of my shirt, the spot Sathe blood had stained black. I glanced to where Hymath sat in her black cloak, the hood back, her ears occasionally twitching as insects buzzed around them.
“That was Hymath, she is [scirth],” Tahr explained. “A special fighter. Like Born Rulers they are trained from the time they were cubs in the use of a variety of weapons and [techniques] known only to them. They are usually employed as mercenaries or bodyguards… And they are very, very good at their work.”
I took some time to translate and mull over this information, then clambered up front to sit next to Hymath, grabbing at available handholds as the wagon lurched over the potholes the track seemed to be made of. The driver’s bench was simply a plank with a backrest, the whole thing perched at the front of the wagon, much like the wagons you see in western films. Hymath glanced up as I swung up beside her.
“Hello, bald one.”
I let that lie. “I want to thank you,” I started awkwardly. “I want to thank you for what you did… ah… maybe I can repay you someday.”
Her ears flickered in a smile. “Maybe you already have, ah? You repaid me several times over I think. I couldn’t fight them all.”
She was quiet for a time, then spoke again. “Why is the Gulf Realm so interested in you?” she asked.
“In me? I do not understand.”
“Why else would they risk an [international incident] by coming this far into our Realm unless they were in pursuit of something extremely valuable to them,” she said. “Would the [ ] in the [ ] know if they took you?”
“The what in the what?” I asked. “I do not understand! I cannot value to… be of value to them!”
“Who else?” Hymath said, then her muzzle wrinkled as her lips pulled back. She half-glanced back at Tahr, then lowered her voice. “Tahr… is her clan name Shirai?”
“I do not know,” I confessed. “She has not told me.”
“You are bound for Mainport?”
“Yes.”
She twitched the reins and gave a low, warbling hiss: “Srrraaa. It is her.” I half turned in my seat to look back: Tahr had her back to us, idly watching a small bird catching insects on the wing. Her ears were relaxed, but I wondered just how much of what we said she could hear. “Hymath,” I was concerned. “You will not… “
“I will talk to whom I choose,” she interrupted smoothly, correctly anticipating my request.
I was silent.
“But I am choosy about whom I talk to,” she finally said with a small twitch of her ears. ******
The remaining two days passed slowly, the muggy hours dragging on under the unchanging slow, southern sky. It was a tedious and tense time. Tahr was nervous, and it seemed to rub off on the rest of us.
Kharm’s recovery was slow, and for a couple of days was only able to hold liquids, but thankfully his wounds stayed clean. It was a shock for him to awaken to find me tending his bandages, but after Tahr and Hymath persuaded him not to shred my face and to get off me, he settled down and became quite amicable.
I kept up my language lessons and continued to learn just how similar and just how really alien they were.
And they learned more about me…
“Tahr, how old are you?”
Sprawled out in the beside Kharm, she cracked an eyelid open against the sun and lolled her head to look at me. “Sixteen years of age, K’hy, soon to be seventeen.”
WHAT?!
I stared at her, then echoed, “Seventeen?!”
“Yes,” she looked slightly puzzled. “Seventeen. There is a problem?”
“So young,” I blurted. “Just a cub!”
Hymath laughed.
“A cub!” Tahr stared at me, her fur beginning to bristle. “K’hy, I came of age three years ago! How can you call me a cub!?”
Oh, shit. I grimaced awkwardly. “I am sorry. I did not mean it like that. It is just… to me you seem very young.”
She growled and brushed at the upright fur on her shoulder. “Alright, strange one, what about you? How young?”
“I am twenty one years.”
She blinked. “And you are definitely no cub.”
I stared at her. “By our ways I am. How long do Sathe live?”
“Some have been known to reach five and forty years.”
My mind spun wheels for a few seconds before it got a grip on that. “Forty five?!” I choked.
“Yes.” She blinked. “That surprises you?”
“Tahr, humans live to about eighty, and one hundred is not that rare.”
Silence. Wide eyes.
“Truth?” Tahr said. “No [joke]?”
“Truth.”
“H… How can you live so long?” Kharm finally asked.
“Our… our knowledge, our medicines help.”
“Then you would know your great grandsires,” he murmured in an awed voice.
“Yes.”
“What were your’s like?”
“Ah,” I looked away. “Most do; not I. I lost many of my clan and family when I was a… cub. An accident. We have those too.” I shrugged.
It was an uncomfortable silence this time.
“How many h’mans are there?” Kharm finally asked, if only to change the subject.
Oh God, I didn’t know the numbers to tell them. I pondered for a few seconds then said, “I think that our largest city would have more humans than there are Sathe in this world.”
I barely had time to realise my mistake before Tahr pounced on it:
“What do you mean, ‘this world’ ?” Tahr demanded, leaning toward me. “Where, K’hy? Where are you really from?”
Oh shit! The cat was out of the bag, literally.
“K’hy?” Tahr prompted as I hesitated.
“Hey, have I told you about the time… “
“K’hy!” This time her claws came out. “No games!”
“Do really want to talk about this here?” I asked.
“Yes. Now! Talk!”
I looked around at the Sathe faces staring at me and swallowed hard. It would have to come out some time, and if I satisfied her curiosity she’d stop pressing me.
“Very well. It was night… “
I told them everything I knew.
There was a long silence when I finished. The creaking of the wagon and the scuffing of the llamas’ hooves were loud noises in the stillness.
It was Kharm who broke the silence. “Well, a tale like that… It is so incredible I do not think you could be lying.” Then his ears twitched and he added, “All those bald hides. I think I would not like to live in a land like that.”
Tahr said nothing. She watched me from under half-closed eyelids with what may have been pity… or something else entirely. ******
The Chesapeake Bay was different in the twilight.
It was quiet, still. There were no pleasure craft on the water, no sounds of traffic, none of the multitude of lights that normally cover the water. None of the details that man had added: the houses, offices, and other edifices man raised for himself. Instead the bay was clear and clean, surrounded by woodland swarming with wildlife.
Bay Town sprawled on the southern bank of the Potomac, near the estuary where the slow river entered the huge bay - an asymmetrical mass of red-tiled roofs, walls, and towers behind the protective embrace of crenellated battlements catching the last light of a setting sun.
Much larger than Traders Meet, the town was an interface for the traffic of land and water. A place where goods were traded and travellers could buy passage, be it a ferry across the Potomac or transport on to another Sathe port by sea or land.
The entire northern quarter of Bay Town was dockside. Wooden wharves embraced by sea walls stretched out into the bay to where ships were moored. A small forest of masts were gathered around the docks; small wooden scows and fishing vessels tied to the larger seagoing ships.
To the south and west the entire town was surrounded by farmland. A lot of farmland devoted to cattle, others planted with crops, others left fallow. They wouldn’t have farming machinery which would explain why the farms were so small and why there were so many of them. Easier for many to manage smaller parcels of land, especially when engaged in continual battle with the wilderness that threatened to overrun their farms and their lives.
Although not nearly as large as the average American town, Bay Town was swarming with Sathe. I estimated about four to six thousand. The town was a maze of broad streets leading to a central marketplace like spokes on a misshapen wheel, with countless small alleys connecting the streets. On all sides the rough buildings leaned over the streets as if trying to rest their gables against each other, none more than two stories high and with small windows, some with rough glass in them.
Stores, smithies, stables, coopers, carpenters… a hundred and one kinds of small businesses slotted in among homes and dwellings. The smell wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Tahr explained that they had a sewage system flowing under the streets. There were many public toilets and fountains where residents could dispose of nightsoil and get fresh water.
Even though I lay low in the back of the wagon and tried not to attract attention we still drew stares as the wagons clattered through the streets of the outer town, headed toward the docks.
The warehouse was a large building with stone walls with a few small windows and a wooden roof. There was a shop connected to it with a sign above the door. Dim light from lanterns shone through the small windows. I didn’t know what the sign said: I still didn’t know how to read the chicken scratchings the Sathe called writing.
Char wearily dropped from his wagon and pushed the door open. Shortly later a group of Sathe emerged, grumbling and yawning and scratching, and started working at unloading the supply wagons. Another Sathe - obviously in charge - appeared, carrying on a animated conversation with Char.
“All right, K’hy. This is where we make our own way,” Tahr told me and helped gather my gear. I noticed she took the rifle and knife along with her sword and crossbow, slinging the rifle and bow over her shoulder. Armed like that, she didn’t look like someone to be trifled with. The pack was surprisingly heavy as I slung it over my shoulders. I didn’t remember it weighing that much.
Anyway, Hymath took a couple of minutes to say farewell to us, clapping Tahr on the shoulder in a gesture that startled me with its humanness and wishing her luck. Me, she patted on my arm as she passed, then the black-cloaked mercenary set off toward the centre of Bay Town with a confident stride.
I would be seeing Hymath again.
Tahr looked around, then caught Kharm before he also vanished into the town. “Kharm, do you know a place where we could get a room around here?”
The guard looked at me and rubbed his prominent jaw dubiously. “Any place would take you, but K’hy… The only place I can think of that might accept him is the Reptile, they get a lot of trappers with their animals passing through. They would have the facilities… “
I gave Tahr a pained look.
“I am sorry, K’hy,” she sighed. “All right, I think that will have to do. Where is this Reptile?”
Kharm snorted and twitched his ears. “Along the docks, that way. It is comfortable, nothing more,” he said and gave directions and Tahr thanked him then set off with me in tow. Looking back I saw Kharm staring after us. He hesitantly returned my parting wave and with a final pat at his scabbard, followed Hymath into the town.
The roughly paved streets were very dim and full of shadows. Of course there was no lighting. The inn so delicately called the Reptile was located in the southeast corner of the town; in the cheap sector not far from the wharves.
The wooden sign hanging over the door was illuminated by the orangish light that spilled out of the open portal. An unidentifiable lizard lay basking under a stylised sun while indecipherable ideographs were dotted beneath. From inside the building the sounds of a stringed instrument drifted outside: methodic scales that never quite sounded right,, eerie. The hairs on my neck crawled. Tahr stopped and petted her fur smooth.
