The Lord of the Plains

by Sarah Chapman

Chapter 85

  ‘There are ehlkrid out there much stronger than the ones we’ve been fighting.’ Riley was saying to Aerlid. It was a few days since the jellyfish had attacked. Aerlid spent most of his time trying to heal Karesh. But he still had to take care of the other wounded. Riley herself had not yet fought, on Aerlid’s instructions. The tired, aching feeling was better, but not entirely gone.

  ‘We can’t do this forever Aerlid.’ She continued. ‘I want to talk to the Ehlkrid King.’

  ‘No, Riley, I will not help you with that.’ Aerlid snapped. ‘You talked to Andalla, I assure you the Ehlkrid King is no better!’

  ‘You may be right. But I need to try. We can’t do this forever. Besides, if we don’t deal with the ehlkrid, Andalla will come and do it for us.’

  ‘Why don’t you try talking to the ehlkrid who attack us?’ Aerlid jabbed snidely, anger and irritation shining through his tiredness.

  ‘If it was just myself fighting them, I would, Aerlid. But I can’t try and have a conversation while my gemengs are fighting. Please, I must try.’

  ‘No. No I will not. I fetched Andalla for you. If you had any brains that should have told you how hopeless this is! No, and I will hear no more about it!’ and Aerlid spun on his heel and stalked off.

  Riley was frustrated, but not surprised. There was nothing she could do. She didn’t know how to contact the Ehlkrid King herself, and pushing Aerlid wouldn’t have achieved anything.

  And so everything continued as normal. They fought, the gemengs died. The numbers that died each night were small, but most nights, they lost a few. The numbers were building up, even though Aerlid was such a good healer that deaths only occurred if an ehlkrid did something like decapitate a gemeng. Still, if this went on as long as Aerlid thought it might, for years, eventually, they would lose. Aerlid had reduced his healing with little encouragement from Riley; fixing her and Karesh had drained him. The effect on the number of wounded was obvious, only giving Riley more incentive to find a way to end the fighting sooner rather than later.

  The scouts sent out to find where the ehlkrid hid during the day were still unsuccessful. The scouts were not supposed to fight the ehlkrid, just find them. About five gemengs were in each group. If they did stumble upon the ehlkrid, there was no reason to think they wouldn’t attack during the day.

  Karesh slowly healed. Aerlid could not focus as much on him as he would have liked, and so the process was much slower than it could have been. But he was alive, and he could walk and do other work, besides fighting. His wings no longer worked and his back and shoulders, and by extension his arms, were weak. Aerlid thought he would be able to fix his wings eventually. One day.

  The humans visited one more time.

  ‘Do you want to see the ehlkrid?’ Riley asked as the group was getting set up in one of the caves. A few of the people were the same as last time, some were different. There were more than last time too.

  The leader nodded. ‘Yes, we won’t attack them, but we wish to observe the fighting.’

  ‘Fine. But make sure you stay out of the way.’

  ‘Of course. Is it alright to have another tour of the caves?’

  ‘Why?’ Riley asked, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘We’d like to see how you managed,’ he replied politely. This man was friendlier than the other woman had been. ‘If things go badly in Astar, we may need to move back into the caves. Unfortunately, we have forgotten how to live there.’

  ‘Alright.’ Riley said slowly, thinking of what she could show them without putting her own people in danger. ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘You have the time?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘I’ll make the time, there aren’t many here that can speak your language.’

  ‘Thank you, we appreciate it.’ he replied pleasantly.

  True to her word, Riley found the time to show them around. She also posted ‘guides’ around the cave the humans were staying in. The excuse was to prevent them getting lost within the caves, but really Riley didn’t want them wandering off and mapping the tunnels.

  After the tour and a night looking at the fighting Riley went to speak to them again, expecting to say her goodbyes.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ Riley asked.

  ‘Everything you are doing is excellent. You’re being very helpful.’ The man smiled.

  Riley observed him a moment longer.

  The man just smiled in response. ‘Will you be able to give us another tour?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve already shown you everything.’ she smiled.

  ‘Yes, I know. But it’s nice to wander around instead of staying cooped up here. I’m afraid we haven’t finished observing the fighting.’

  ‘Hm, alright. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to do that myself. I can send some gemengs with you, are you alright with that?’

  The man nodded.

  Again, she was surprised. Surely they should be more nervous than that?

  But she said, ‘I’ll organize it then.’

  She left and went to find some guides. She was very clear in her instructions to the chosen gemengs; the humans weren’t to see any more than she’d already shown them.

  ‘And tell me if they do anything strange.’ Riley added.

  Turak watched the humans closely, his arms crossed across his broad chest. To him, everything the humans did was strange. So he was going to tell the Master everything they did.

  Not all of them were with him, worse, they all looked the same, so he counted and made sure none snuck off.

  He didn’t understand their words. They talked a lot, quietly and in groups together. As if they didn’t believe that he really didn’t understand them.

  Seeing them all bundled up in a group again he suddenly walked towards them very quickly.

  ‘What are doing?!’ he demanded. Of course, they couldn’t understand.

  Still, they spread apart, looking at him in fright.

  He grinned, bearing his teeth. It was then that he realized one was missing.

  Quickly he looked around. ‘A human is missing!’ he called loudly, alerting all the gemengs nearby. He wasn’t the only one watching them after all.

  The other gemengs sprang into action. The humans were looking a little haggard.

  A few long, tense moments later Turak heard a growl.

  He turned and saw another gemeng holding the missing human.

  ‘Bring him here!’ Turak declared, one eye on the other group.

  The man was very pale. In his hands he was holding a good sized rock. Turak frowned at it.

  The man smiled and carefully put it on the ground.

  Turak glared at him a moment longer than shrugged. He pushed the man back to the rest of the group. The whole lot of them were scared.

  Turak smiled at that. No matter how strange they were, it was good to know they could recognize strength when they saw it.

  That evening, Turak made his report to the Master.

  ‘He disappeared and was holding a rock?’ Riley asked in surprise.

  Turak nodded. ‘Perhaps he was going to try attacking me with it.’

  ‘That would be a very stupid thing to do.’ Riley frowned.

  Turak nodded and smiled.

  ‘Hmm…’ Riley could not figure out what that meant. Maybe it meant nothing.

  Either way, Riley made time later that day to go examine the place the humans had been. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, and she looked carefully. Just caves and rocks. She even picked up the rocks, checking them for any strangeness which was beyond her ability to imagine.

  But the rocks looked and felt like rocks.

  And so maybe it all meant nothing.

  The humans stayed perhaps a week after that. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Riley was pleased to see them go.