Mirage

by Jenn Reese

Hoku stood quickly and grabbed his sleeve. In the filtered sunlight of the tent, the pupils of Nathif’s eyes slitted into lines. “Thank you for saving her,” Hoku said. “I don’t how I can return the favor.”

  “It was not a favor. Healing the body is what I do,” Nathif said. He started to slither out the door, then turned back. “Although I do enjoy a good sandwich every so often.”

  After he left, Hoku grabbed Calli’s bow and Rollin helped her stand. Together, they walked slow as starfish to the “Gizmo Tent,” as Rollin called it, and Calli entered her bow.

  Rollin had already registered her cooling device in the competition. Hoku wished she’d made an effort to clean it up first. A shiny knob and a sleek surface would have made it look so much more impressive than the bundle of exposed wires and grime she’d submitted. Still, it worked. And it used far less energy to put out a lot more cold than the Equian devices. It just wasn’t very exciting. He’d wanted her to enter her mechanical eyeball, but Rollin had just glared at him and screwed something dangerous looking onto her arm socket.

  “I’m going to stay here,” Calli said after she’d gotten her sash. “Rollin and I can be called up to demonstrate anytime today or tomorrow.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry. It feels good to stretch my wings.”

  “Take care of her, Rollin,” Hoku said. “And, Calli, don’t let Rollin start throwing things at the other competitors. She has a bad habit.”

  “Good habit, if you ask me,” Rollin grumbled. “Now, go get that shield working. Pretty pieces of metal that lie there and fizz aren’t going to do Aluna any good.”

  He wished them luck and left, an odd pang in his chest. Maybe he should have entered the tech competition after all. Everyone thought his force shield would win, assuming it worked. No one had ever had that much faith in him back in the City of Shifting Tides. To win something like this — entirely on his own — would have been big. Great White big.

  He changed course and headed toward the Path of Sun rings. He didn’t get far before the smell of sizzling scorpions hooked him and reeled him in like a fish on a line. His feet took him to a cluster of vendors strategically located between the fighting fields.

  “Tadder’s tasty treats, renowned throughout the desert,” a Human man called. “Thunder Trials special, a stick of five scorpions for the price of six!” The Equians crowding his tent laughed. “I kid, I kid. I’ll give you five for six tokens, I mean. That’s how generous I am. After you eat ’em, you’ll want to pay me ten. That’s how good Tadder’s tasty treats are!” The Human, probably Tadder himself, was a burly walrus of a man, with curly brown hair poking out from his head wrap and covering his face from his nose south.

  Hoku’s nose pulled him toward the tent. He squeezed his way to the front of the line, not trying to cheat, just trying to get a better look at the food sizzling on the grill rock. Sometimes being a scrawny Kampii in an ocean of horse-people was a good thing.

  When Tadder saw Hoku, his face brightened. “Ah! A two-legged friend, here to sample my food. Excellent!” He turned to his Equian cook. “Tend the masses for a minute, Jochi.” He motioned for Hoku to join him at the side of the counter. “So, what brings a young Kampii to my booth?”

  “Well, tasty treats, I guess,” Hoku said.

  Tadder laughed. He reached over and plucked a skewer from the grill. “A present for the new Flame Heart.”

  Hoku accepted the gift and bit off a scorpion head. They tasted a lot like shrimp, but better. He moaned in appreciation. “Join us,” he blurted out. “Join the herd. You can enter the Path of Moon and compete in the cooking competition. Your food is incredible. You’re sure to win. You probably hate Scorch, too, right? Won’t be much need for vendors if she ruins the desert.”

  Tadder scratched his beard, and Hoku tried to ignore all the grit and gunk that fell out of it. He ripped the scorpion’s tail off and sucked the meat from the husk. This was the best idea he’d had in ages. If Tadder joined the herd and won the cooking trial, it would almost be as if Hoku himself had won.

  “Thanks for the interesting offer, but no,” Tadder said. “I don’t like the lady or what she has planned, but joining a herd isn’t the answer for me. I’m not Equian, not Aviar, not Serpenti, not Fish-Person or Kampii or whatever. I’m not one of those splinter tribes, those LegendaryTek colonies. I’m Human. We’re a scattered bunch, more ragtag than not, but we’re still proud of what we are, and that’s free. So join your herd and play your Equian games, but don’t expect us Humans to do the same. We haven’t adapted ourselves to live in special places. That makes us weaker when we’re in those places, but we’re not trapped. We can go wherever we want, and we can live there, too. So, yeah. The answer’s no.”

  Hoku found Aluna at Ring Three, standing next to Tal and the Serpenti Okpara. He was going to tell her about Calli, but she seemed so focused on the fight. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her focus.

  “Fire Tail versus Cloud Hoof,” Aluna said. “Fire Tail is allied with Red Sky, and Cloud Hoof is siding with Shining Moon. It’s not supposed to matter, but everyone is saying that the bouts this year will be about more than just bragging rights.”

  Hoku watched the two Equians enter. The Fire Tail woman looked muscular, and her spear seemed nicked and battered. She’d clearly seen some real fights in her day. The Cloud Hoof boy was young, maybe only Aluna’s age. The fight master announced the competitors’ names and herds. The two Equians bowed to each other. The fight master yelled for the match to begin, and all signs of formality disappeared.

  The Fire Tail charged. And screamed. And looked as if she might skewer the Cloud Hoof on the spot. The tip of her spear had been dulled with spongy cactus, but Hoku had no doubt it could do serious damage. The Equian boy dodged, but not fast enough. The spear caught him on the shoulder and twisted him around. He brought his own weapon and swung it in a wide arc toward the Fire Tail.

  Aluna hissed. Hoku could hear her murmuring to herself — and to him, because of their hearing devices. “Slow swing. Predictable. Balance wrong. Leaning forward. He’s watching her legs, not her chest.” She kept at it, narrating the whole fight in a stream of notes. “Good strength, wrong angle. Predictable again. Weak on the left. Favors linear attack.”

  After a while, he realized that she wasn’t talking to herself, but to Tal. The horse’s huge black eyes stayed focused on the fight as she listened to every word Aluna uttered.

  Then it happened. The boy slipped. The Fire Tail drove her dulled spear into his chest, and he doubled over, his horse legs wobbling and shaking. The Fire Tail pulled back her spear and drove it into him again, and a third time.

  “Enough!” yelled the fight master. She cantered into the arena and yanked the Fire Tail away from her prey. “Match goes to Fire Tail. Cloud Hoof, collect your man.”

  Three Equians trotted in, grabbed the boy, and helped him to the medics’ tent.

  Aluna turned to Hoku, her brown eyes glinting bright in the sun. “Is everything okay? I thought you were working on the shield.”

  Hoku kept picturing that Fire Tail thrusting her spear into the boy, as if she were a hunter and he was a tasty bit of fish. If that boy had had Hoku’s shield, the fight might have ended differently. It would definitely have ended without him suffering so much damage.

  He looked down at Aluna’s arm, where the dormant force shield should have been. With a shake of her wrist, she’d be able to summon a glowing aura of force almost big enough to cover her entire body. It only lasted a few seconds at a time, but in a fight, seconds meant everything.

  Those seconds could mean Aluna’s life.

  “Calli,” he said, forcing his gaze back up to her eyes. “She’s awake!”

  “I know.” She smiled. “Not all of us are such late sleepers. Nathif is amazing.”

  Hoku nodded. His brain was already back in the tent, twisting screws and rewiring circuits.

  “Be safe,” he said. “Be careful.” At least until I can get the
shield working.

  She smiled grimly. “I’ll settle for being good.”

  ALUNA KEPT HER THOUGHTS focused and tried to stay ready, not tense. Her brother, Anadar, had made sure that she knew the difference. You wanted to keep your muscles and your mind loose and relaxed, ready to move in any direction, but not anticipating. A tense person carried her shoulders too high, wasted energy keeping her body taut. She’d react more slowly, as clenched muscles were never fast ones. The only time you wanted to tense your muscles, to squeeze them, was in the instant of impact.

  Anadar’s sparring sessions in the training dome seemed a whole world away, but Aluna could almost hear his voice in her head. He’d trained her well, even though they’d had to hide their sessions from the Kampii Elders. Girls couldn’t be hunters or fighters in the City of Shifting Tides. Up here in the Above World, they had to be.

  The fight master whistled.

  “Let’s do this,” Aluna whispered to Tal. Tal tossed her mane and trotted forward with her head held high.

  Her opponent for the first match was an arrogant looking Swift Wind man, probably no more than twenty years old. His hooves clomped continually on the salty flat ground. He wore a bored smile and kept looking at the crowd as if to say, “This one will be easy.”

  Aluna didn’t let it faze her. She was used to being underestimated. In fact, she preferred it.

  She and the Swift Wind bowed to each other, although he did little more than nod. Aluna adjusted her gaze. She normally kept her eyes on an opponent’s waist. All movement started there — if the fighter wanted to have any strength in their blows. You could throw a spear with just your arms, even underwater, but if you didn’t twist your waist for power, it’d be useless.

  And fights were all about efficient use of energy, about having the strength and speed to capitalize on openings when you saw them.

  The fight master yelled for them to begin, and Aluna let her fight-mind take over.

  Her opponent swung his spear in wide figure eights around his body. Aluna hadn’t seen many Equians do this, but it was a staple move among the Aviars. If he was expecting to throw her off her guard, he’d be disappointed.

  Tal danced to the side, as eager as Aluna to take this man out. Spinning your spear meant that it was out of position half the time. She found her opening and swung her spear low, at the Equian’s forelegs.

  He tried to block but was too slow. Belatedly, he jumped back. Equians hated to do that; they considered it a retreat.

  Her spear connected with his right foreleg, but not hard enough to knock him off balance. Aluna pulled the tip back and struck high with the butt end of her weapon, another move she’d noticed was missing from the Equians’ standard tactics.

  The solid, smooth end of her spear smacked into the man’s collarbone. Hard. He stumbled, the arrogance on his face suddenly gone.

  His disorientation gave her time for a slower move. She swept his legs again with the end of her spear that was still close to the ground. She aimed below his knees, not at them. She was trying to topple him, not break his legs and maim him for life.

  Her weapon connected solidly, and the Equian went down in a puff of sand and salt. Tal danced forward. Aluna pulled her spear back and drove it down again, stopping the point centimeters from her opponent’s neck.

  Some warriors thought that power or speed were the ultimate signs of fighting prowess, but Aluna knew it was control. Anyone could lash out with a sword or throw a spear. It was only the true master who could stop her blade before it hit or still her spear a finger’s width from her target’s heart. She hoped the Equians watching understood.

  “Aluna of Flame Heart is victorious!” the fight master yelled.

  The encounter had only lasted seconds, but that was true for most fights. And the faster Aluna could dispatch her opponents, the more energy she’d have to last throughout the day.

  A few people clapped as she and Tal trotted to the edge of the ring and stepped outside to join the others.

  Okpara clamped her on the shoulder and handed her water. “Well fought.”

  She nodded and took a deep drink, but didn’t allow herself to dwell on the victory. There were more fights to watch, more competitors to assess. She and Tal had a long day ahead of them. She reached down and adjusted the straps around her ankles. Her hips ached from sitting in “tail position,” as Hoku called it, but she’d get used to it soon enough.

  The morning became a blur of spears and sand and the sound of the fight master’s voice. By the afternoon, she had a small nick on her shoulder and an undefeated record. Even the Red Sky Equians had fallen quickly beneath her weapons.

  This was another problem with isolation, Aluna thought. Except for the few Equians old enough to have fought in and survived the Venom War, the Equians only ever fought one another. They had little practice fighting someone like her, someone who didn’t follow the same patterns as they did. Someone whose body worked differently and could twist and react in different ways.

  Okpara was faring well for the same reasons. His snake body allowed him to bob and weave in directions that made no sense compared to inflexible Equian bodies. Most of the younger Equians had never even seen a Serpenti, let alone fought one. Tonight they would gather in their tents and discuss the Serpenti cappo’ra fighting style. They would talk about ways to beat it. Today Flame Heart had the advantage of surprise. Tomorrow, when only a few of them were left, they would fight as equals.

  As the sun fell toward the horizon, the fights lasted longer, as tired arms and legs slowed competitors’ movements. Aluna made more mistakes in these later fights — missed openings, dodged too slow. Tal stayed fast and alert, but Aluna sometimes gave her the wrong cues.

  Even so, there were only two warriors in Ring Three that gave her a decent fight — the Flame Tail woman from the first match and a Red Sky man as old as Aluna’s father, but smart and fast. Aluna was sure the three of them would advance. She hoped Okpara and the Serpenti in the other rings were faring as well.

  Hoku and Calli and Dash were out there, too. Thinking of them made her smile. A few months ago, she would have shoved thoughts of them out of her mind, considered them a distraction. A weakness. Now thinking of them gave her strength.

  Aluna’s last fight of the day was a slow, grueling battle against a Sun Haven woman with surprising strength. After a few minutes of testing each other, Aluna feinted low. The woman went for it. Aluna changed her attack and swung a hard, fast blow at the Equian’s temple. She stopped the blow just before it connected, and the woman let out a relieved sigh.

  According to the rules, Aluna could have finished the hit. She’d seen other competitors do worse. Several Equians had been carried from the arena and hadn’t returned for the rest of their fights.

  But Flame Heart needed to win more than just the trials; they needed to win support. At least one member of Sun Haven now owed Aluna a favor. And if Aluna never mentioned it, even better. The Sun Haven woman would try to help her anyway, driven by her sense of honor. Not all victories were won by the stronger person. Some of the most important were won by the smartest.

  The fight master declared Aluna the winner of the match. Aluna bowed to her opponent and headed back to her spot on the rim to watch the last few competitors and stretch.

  WHILE THE REST OF FLAME HEART went to the great bonfire to hear the results of the day’s competitions, Hoku stayed in his tent, lit all his lanterns, and worked.

  He’d gotten the force shield to stop slicing through objects when it was activated, and then . . . it had stopped activating entirely. Despite the fact that it now did nothing, he considered this an improvement. When tech seemed the most broken, it was often the closest to being fixed. At least that was the thought that kept him fiddling and adjusting and squinting his eyes through both the midday and evening meals, and now into the night.

  Eventually the flap of his tent flew open and a horde of flushed faces swarmed inside.

  “Aluna made it to day
two,” Calli said. She let go of Rollin’s arm and collapsed on some pillows near Hoku’s work area.

  “She was undefeated,” Dash said. Hoku could have sworn he detected pride in the horse-boy’s voice.

  Aluna, her entire body covered in the dirt and grime of a day of fighting, waved them off. “All the fighters who made it to day two were undefeated. Onggur, Scorch, Khan Arasen, Dantai — all of us. The fight master said that there had never been such a clear set of victors.”

  “And losers,” Nathif said. “Six Equians are still in the medics’ tent, and one is so gravely injured that he may see eternal dark before the night is over.”

  “Scorch fought that one,” Aluna said, as if it were obvious. She held a fistful of skewers covered in grilled meat toward Hoku. “Thought you might need some food.”

  He was about to say no when the smell hit him. His stomach roared like a sea lion and everyone laughed. Defeated, he put down his tools, sat back, and took the meat. “What about the tech competition?” He ripped into the first skewer and almost moaned. The snake was still warm, its flesh covered in a thick, smoky sauce.

  Rollin grunted. “Made us stand around all day, then didn’t even look at our gizmos. Tomorrow, they say. Lazy four-feets.”

  “There was only one device that looked good today,” Calli said. “You weave it into your mane — if you have one, of course — and it repels insects along your whole body. Whether or not it wins, that herd will have something very useful for trading.”

  “Not if they all go to war,” Aluna said. She hopped to the middle of the tent, leaned against the center pole, and slid down to the carpet. Hoku tried to get a glimpse of her tail, but she kept herself covered — her sleek Serpenti skirt hugged her legs all the way down to her ankles, and her desert boots took over from there. At least she still had two feet. “No sign of Weaver Sokhor, either. Tayan said he didn’t show at the word-weaving competition last night.”

  “He knows that any Shining Moon would attack him instantly,” Dash said. “Khan Arasen and Dantai would kill him where he stood, regardless of the consequences.”