G. Howell, page 17
“Why does it worry you so much? You have killed before:Many times.” “Tahr… ” I didn’t quite know how to say it. “Before I came here I had never even seen a death. I certainly had never really expected I would have to kill. It… ” I broke off with a dismissive wave of my hand.
She was amazed. “But a warrior… how could you not consider the possibility that someday you may have to fight? to kill?!”
“I had considered it, but I never really expected that I would have to.” I ran my hand through my hair and rubbed my neck as I wondered how best to explain. “Our ideas of armies are most probably different. You use yours as a… deterrent? To make other Realms respect your borders and lands?”
“Yes,” Tahr said.
“My people do not rely so much upon their individual warriors for that,” I said. “There are… agreements between Realms to make sure that no small Realm is abused.”
“This does not make much sense,” Tahr mused.
“I do not know how to explain it fully,” I confessed. “I am not entirely sure that anyone does.”
“Politics are the same for your kind, huh?” she smiled. “But what does that have to do with a soldier not being prepared to kill?”
Damnation! There were some things that I really didn’t want to talk about. The Damocles Sword of nuclear weapons one of them. Finally I sighed and said, “Our warriors are not… always warriors. Most of them are civilians who serve a short time in the military and there are many other skill that are taught besides simply fighting. I was one of those trained among to… look after vehicles and distribute supplies. Things like that.”
“A [quartermaster]?!” Tahr looked astonished. “I had always thought of you as… as being of a higher ranking.”
“Sorry,” I said, feeling slightly hurt. “We have a large army. Someone has to do the dirty work.”
“True,” she agreed, still sounding disillusioned. “How large?”
“Around about… I think your number is, million?”
Tahr’s jaw hit ground floor. “A million? A thousand thousand?!” she squeaked. “K’hy, there are not that many warriors in all the armies in all the Realms!”
“Then you can imagine the difficulty in supplying it.”
There were questions flitting across her face like flies over a sheep’s carcass. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times then turned her head to stare out straight ahead. Finally she glanced sidelong at me, “Were you good at your job?”
“It was a living,” I said.
Still the questions lurked just beneath the surface, but she choked them back. Instead she said: “Then when you killed, it was the first time in your life - for me. Was it worth it?” I stared back at her then chuckled. It turned into a cough. “I believe so.”
Or was it?
Maybe if I had stayed by the truck the Portal would have come back. Maybe I could have stayed up in the hills, away from alien politics and fighting. Maybe… There were too many maybe’s. I was in it now, in it way over my head. Riding with an exotic, high-ranking alien female, hunted, future uncertain but not looking very good. Tahr said this was the main road from the Bay Town district to Mainport. Well, she called it a road; all I saw was a strip where the grass had two parallel ruts in it, a typical Sathe highway. E. T. A. at Mainport: one week, maybe a little longer.
When asked why we weren’t going back to the ship, Tahr asked me what I would do if I was a captain on a ship that was running a tight schedule to make port before the Autumn storms set in, and had just lost a quarter or more of its crew. Would you waste time searching for two careless passengers who had gotten themselves captured by bandits after paying half the fare and leaving behind a pack full of unique trinkets worth a small fortune?
Neither would I. ******
The storm blew up on our fifth day on the road.
These past couple of days Tahr had been restless, with an agitation I couldn’t explain and she denied when I asked her about it. Now with the thunderheads brewing on the horizon she was even more distracted.
“I think we should make camp soon,” I suggested, watching the darkening sky. “Huh?..” She looked at me with a glazed stare, then she blinked and her eyes focused. She looked at the sky. “What did you say?”
“I said we should make camp, it is going to urinate down.”
“What… Oh… yes, you are right.” Her muzzle wrinkled as she judged the massive thunderheads looming on the horizon like the prows of titanic ships. “If I remember… I think there should be a good site a few kilometers ahead. We might make it in time.” She squirmed on the seat, scooting her butt across the plank.
“You are twitchy. Are you all right?” I asked.
She looked at me in a funny way. “Yes, I… I am fine.”
She turned back to the llamas. I thought I heard her muttering something to herself, something about ‘it being already’, but the wind garbled and tore the words. I shrugged it off.
The wind picked up to the accompaniment of distant thunder and several fat drops of rainwater spattered onto the wooden bed of the cart. I grabbed a sheet of canvass from the back (one of the shelters that the gulf soldiers would no longer be needing. We also had a small armory of ‘liberated’ swords and crossbows) and went to sit by Tahr, lunging for handholds as the cart lurched over the rough track. I felt a twinge in my chest as the scarred skin there moved.
“Move over a bit.” I sat beside her and held the heavy material in place over us. It kept the rain off as we kept moving.
Thousands of years ago, two huge slabs of granite had fallen against each other forming an upside down V shape, blocked at one end. Plants had grown atop them, sealing the gap where the two monoliths met. The floor of the resulting cave was covered with a variety of stones, but these had been cleared away by Sathe travelers who made good use of this convenient shelter, leaving clean sand. Fires had been lit at the mouth, always in one ring of fire blackened stones. The walls had been decorated with Sathe graffiti drawn in charcoal: strange Ideographs and hieroglyphics.
It was pissing down when we finally arrived, the canvass soaked and rivulets of mud streaming down into the road. Tahr made for the cave while I unhitched and tethered the llamas, dodging a spray of saliva as one of the bastards spat at me. Let me tell you, until you’ve smelt wet llama fleece, you haven’t smelt anything. I wished I had a wet dog along to freshen the air.
There was a small stack of dry wood and kindling in the cave. Not enough to last the night. The pair of us braved the downpour and dashed out to retrieve more to stack and dry off. We were both soaked to the skin, Tahr dripping and trying to shake herself dry, looking so miserably bedraggled I had to laugh. She favoured me with a sharp white smile, then a playful cuff with a muddy paw. Chuckling, she went to stack the kindling. With some aid from my lighter a bright blaze was soon crackling in the hearth.
“Home sweet home,” I said cheerfully, glad to be out of the driving rain. Thunder rolled across the hills outside and the light faded quickly.
Tahr had found herself a warm spot and was just sitting, staring into the sheets of rain. I sat down on the sand beside her. She smelled strange… not the usual kind of musky; a distinct, almost-spicy smell just on the edge of detection. Wet fur I guessed.
“Tahr, do you think… Tahr? Hey, Earth to Tahr, come in space cadet.”
Her head whipped around and those big eyes fixed on me. “Huh?. . What is it?” “I’ve been thinking… About using a sword. I mean, I am going to have to learn sometime. Can you teach me?”
“You do not know how to use blade?” She sounded incredulous. “No, of course you don’t.” She rubbed at her face, smearing her hands across her cheeks.
“I never thought that I would need to know how to use one. They are not very popular in my world.”
“You have told me before,” she sighed. “Yes, I shall be happy to teach you.”
“Great! Shall we get started?” There were swords in the back of the cart, I started to get up.
“No, K’hy, no.” She gave me a sidelong glance then flicked her gaze back to the rain. “I… not now. You choose your moments! Can you not be patient?!” She almost snapped out the last words. Then looked surprised, then chagrined. “I am sorry,” she mumbled. “I think I need to sleep.”
Was she trembling? or was it just the flickering light? I didn’t say anything as she stiffly climbed to her feet and moved further back into the cave to where we had laid bedrolls on the soft sand, out of the reach of any streams of water that might find their way inside.
A fork of lightning seared the clouds outside. I stared at it long after it had vanished, the after-image imprinted on my retina. It reminded me of the Portal that had brought me… us here. I thought about Tenny Dalton for the first time in a long while.
A night out on the town during leave, visiting the nightclubs. Sometimes there were girls, and they…
Nooo! No more girls. No more women! Nothing!
I shuddered.
And Tahr was pissed at me for some reason.
Thunder cracked and rolled.
If the weather cleared up during the night, we could get an early start in the morning. Perhaps things would look better then. I kicked a log into the fire; it lay sputtering, flames licking around it as I stripped off my boots, fatigue pants, and jacket, left them lying in a pile and wrapped myself in sheets of canvass: uncomfortable, but warm.
Tahr was lump under her cloak. I could tell she was still awake, and tense.
“Tahr?”
She didn’t answer.
“What is wrong? Is it something I said? What?”
When she rolled over, her eyes reflected firelight: two shimmering green points of liquid emerald. For a few seconds she stared at me, then sat up, gathered her cloak about her shoulders and came over to me, kneeling less than a meter away, watching me. The musky smell about her was strong. Now I realised it wasn’t wet fur. “K’hy, I… I did not expect my Time to come so soon.”
What the hell was she talking about? Time? The way she said that… was she ill?
“Tahr, what… I do not understand.”
She squirmed uncomfortably and explained. “It is the season for my Time. I am ready for mating.”
My wheels spun for a full second before that clicked. “You are… Holy shit ! You are in…estrus?”
She saw the confusion on my face and moved back slightly, surprised herself. “You do not… Oh. Your females… Do not tell me: they do not have Times, do they?”
I shook my head.
“Oh,” is a good transliteration of her next noise. Then: “No wonder you are so… It is all new to you. I am sorry if I hurt or offend you… you do not know what it is like.”
“There is nothing I can do?”
She glanced sharply at me, then tipped her hands in a shrugged. “I do not think so. It… It is a hard thing to describe. Sometimes hot, craving, siskrtch; An emptiness, a… a… ” She hunted for words, her hands writhing about each other.
“An itch you cannot scratch,” I suggested. I had a feeling that I did understand.
“Yes, that is… it.” Her eyes started to lose their focus again and she shook her head wildly, sending her mane whipping about her face. “Uhnnn… If I am impatient with you, please try and understand.”
“I will remember. Good night, Tahr.” I rolled over, away from her. After a few seconds her voice murmured:
“Good sleeping, K’hy.” ******
Tahr twitched violently in her sleep, like a dog chasing something in its dreams, the small mews and snarls she voiced reminiscent of a wild animal.
I leant over her, touched her shoulder and gently shook her then tried to duck as she swung wildly, backhanded, catching me across the ear and I went over backward with my head swimming. When my vision cleared, Tahr was kneeling over me, her hands fluttering with indecision.
“Ow, Goddamn, you’ve got a good left.” I sat up rubbing my temple. Lucky she hadn’t had her claws out.
“Saaa! Scthe n’sert ctsre a’n kreths … ” she started off in a babble I couldn’t follow at all, then abruptly buried her face in her hands and looked up again. “I am sorry, K’hy, I could not stop myself!” she raked claws through facial fur and mane. “This is the first Time I have been through with no-one around. I cannot… “
“All right,” I tried to soothe her. “Do not worry about it.”
She flowed to her feet and paced, tossing her head back and forth. A bolt of lighting flashed outside, illuminating her in relief and she froze to stare at the flash like a possum caught in a car’s headlights. I could hear her murmur, “You do not know what it is like, alone… ” she broke off and turned to stare at me. My jaws twitched in a tight little smile and I saw her ears wilt as she realized that she was talking to a being who was one of a kind in her world.
Yeah, Tahr. I know. I understand. I had known it these past months. I had lived with it; More alone than she would ever be, could ever imagine.
“Oh, K’hy… strange one. If this is what it is like for you every day… ” She let it hang and was silent. In the darkness her eyes were shadows trying to read my brown ones.
There was nothing I could say. I just looked down at my hands, feeling so awkward. Rain hissed outside, drowning the sound of her footsteps on sand, but I heard fur rustle as she sat down beside me on the soft sand, leaning against me, and I instinctively put an arm around her, feeling her warmth and solidity in the dim firelight. Her musky scent hung heavy on the damp air; it brought back memories of hot nights back home, women.
Tahr was motionless against me, breathing softly, her head leaning on my shoulder. I tensed when I felt her move, kneeling beside me. Fur brushed against my arm, hands moving, looping around in a warm embrace, a warm breath against my ear, then sharp teeth bit gently into the juncture of shoulder and neck, just hard enough to be felt, a rough tongue rasped after.
“Tahr,” my voice cracked. This was… It was leading… I knew where it was leading and it set emotions into conflict: fear and something else.. “Please… think.”
“I have,” she rumbled in my ear, her voice deep; almost a purr. “I have thought most carefully.”
“But we are not… I mean… You are a Sathe… “
“And you are not. I had noticed.” Hands stroked my hair. Thunder rolled outside. The rain picked up and the fire flickered as a cool wind blew through. She moved, looking up into my face. A single rough finger pad stroked down my cheek. “H’man. I know what you are.”
The wind blew again. I shivered violently and hung my head. “I… I do not want to hurt you… “
I think she smiled then: “I know,” she whispered, soft tones like the moving of air. “You could never hurt me.”
Again I shivered. It was the cold, I told myself, not that knot of agony inside… how could I lie to myself? “I am afraid.”
And now she cupped my face in her hands, holding me when I flinched, bent my face toward her muzzle. Delicately she licked my eyes with the tip of her rough tongue. That felt strange: tickling, oddly comforting.
“Tahr… ” I suddenly needed more air.
A furred finger crossed my lips to hush me.
Her hands lowered, sliding down my neck and across my chest, then hooking my shirt and sliding it off. Confused, I didn’t resist. That familiar tension inside kept me trembling, uncertain, not knowing whether to run or reciprocate, a shiver when she nuzzled gently at the hollow of my neck. Seemingly of their own accord my arms went around her, holding her close, feeling her heartbeat, her breathing, my face to the dusty sunlight of her mane. She made a low noise: not a purr, not quite a growl and I released a shuddering breath into the encompassing warmth of her fur.
Then her hands were in my waistband and - somehow - my shorts were lying on the sand and we were kneeling before the fire; touching, exploring each other in ways infinitely more intimate than we had ever done before, in ways I’d never dreamed of. Her fur was so slightly coarse and exquisitely pleasurable as she moved closer and wriggled against me, warm, muscular, embracing me as I hugged her close, claws digging into my back. My fingers combed through her fur, across her back, her breath hot past my ear. As sensitive as a woman… No, she was a woman… No… I…
We tried. And it was confusing. I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know what she wanted. For what seemed like breathless years we were writhing on the sand, gasping and yelping and fumbling, fur twining between my fingers and her claws nicking my back. Like the first time I’d ever been with a woman all over again: that same clumsiness and uncontrollable excitement that sets your heart pounding with an intensity even running for your life can’t match. But there hadn’t been the fur then, nor the claws or teeth nipping at my chest and arms.
Hugging her, her back arched, spine hard against my chest, arms around her rubbing across her chest and the bumps of her leathery nipples, her hands caught at mine, head twisting to nuzzle my neck and then she knelt beneath me, down-covered rump raised and wriggling. I hesitated, unsure, then she was there to guide me, into alien heat. I heaved a shuddering breath and she gave a yelp of what could have been surprise. Warmth and silken, strong, and strange muscle enveloped me. She shifted to and fro beneath me and I was moving also, through a chaos of darkness, flickering firelight and flashbulbs of lightning and familiar sensations that were still like nothing I’d felt before. Eyes closed and hands clenched in fur. The scent in my nose was heavy and musky: the smell of sex and there were moments of heat, of slipping, clenching hands in fur, warm moving encompassing everything.
When everything became a blur of pleasure that turned to an explosion of heat - the culmination - Tahr’s cry of release rose, echoing in competition with the storm outside.
We lay spooned together for a time, my sweat forming a sheen on my bare skin, fur adhering in sticky clumps. Tahr stirred against me, twisting to nuzzle my chin and lick my neck. “Hai? K’hy?”
“Hmmm?”
“Again?” she murmured, reaching back to rake her claws lightly up my hip.
“Hnnn? Already?”
“A,” She rolled over, hooking arms behind my neck and drawing me closer. I could feel her breath on my cheek, rough tongue lathing my chin: “Please?”
