Human

by Hayley Camille

  “My condolences, boyo. For what it’s worth, so’s the rest of the damned planet,” said Orrin.

  “Touche.” Phil continued his half-eaten lunch while Orrin considered their conversation. If such massive amounts of rare earth metals had been removed from South East Asia, surely there would be serious environmental ramifications. And what of Flores? The evolutionary adaptation of magnetite in the hobbit brain suggested that their homeland was a sinkhole of valuable metals as well. If those deposits were gone now, strip mined away, as Phil had said, how had that affected the magnetic fields surrounding the area? Or the hobbits themselves for that matter?

  There were too many unanswered questions and Orrin rubbed his chin, feeling entirely out of his depth. It was intriguing though and he determined to find out more. After a short while, he looked at his watch.

  “You’d better leg it,” Orrin said. “My lecture notes are on the desk by the door.”

  Phil scowled towards the door and the stack of papers he’d been trying to ignore. “How long are we going to keep this up Orrin? I’m not qualified or experienced enough to be teaching these classes for you. Third year quantum physics? I didn’t even specialise in that area.” He looked genuinely intimidated.

  “You’re doing grand, Phil, I trust you implicitly with this.”

  “It’s not about trust!” Phil argued. “If the Chancellor found out you’ve been skipping lectures and sending me to teach instead…”

  “Well what else can I do?” Orrin thumped his hand flat on the desk in front of him and turned away. “I can’t just turn up to the Chancellor’s office and tell her I sent a woman into the Stone Age! She’d have me committed or fire me on the spot. Either way, I’d be out of the lab and I need to be here to make this right. I can’t say I need sick leave, because I’m here everyday, and every night for that matter.” Orrin scraped his fingers through his scalp. “My only choice is to bunk off so I can keep figuring this out and get Ivy back. I’m running out of time, man.”

  Phil scowled. “There are hundreds of students getting an unqualified substitute everyday. Something’s gonna give, you know I can’t keep this up.”

  “Please Phil. I need you to do this for me,” Orrin begged.

  “You’re going to get found out and we’ll both be in major shit,” Phil said. “My future career prospects may not be as important to you as your love life, but they damn well are to me!”

  “It’s only another week. It has to be you. You’re the only one I trust to cover me.”

  “Well, maybe you’re too damn trusting,” Phil scowled. “Maybe I don’t want to jeopardise my career for you.”

  Orrin’s shoulders sagged. “You’re entirely right and I am sorry. But I need you to do this for me. I owe you big time.”

  “You’re damn right you do.” Phil picked up the stack of papers and data drive waiting on the desk by the door. “Just don’t be surprised when this all comes crashing down on you. Because it will.” He left.

  Orrin’s eyes stung. He walked back to his monitor and sat down. For a long time, he stared at the open document without really seeing it.

  “I could give those lectures for you.” Dale’s timid voice sounded hopeful. “I aced Quantum Physics last year.”

  Orrin looked up, surprised. Once again, he’d been so involved in his discussion that he’d forgotten Dale was in the room.

  “I know you aced it, I was your lecturer.” Orrin smiled apologetically. “The truth is though, I need someone to get up there and convince those kids that he’s meant to be there. They’d eat you alive.”

  Dale’s face fell but Orrin pushed on, feeling obliged to justify his choice.

  “I just can’t risk any questions. Phil’s nothing if not confident, and he knows just enough to get the job done. If any of the students reported this to the Chancellor, well, I’d be looking for a new job and as for Ivy…” It was too horrific to consider.

  “Yeah, I know.” Dale disappeared behind the monitor. “I’ll just keep running these simulations then?”

  “Thanks Dale, I appreciate it.”

  Dale returned silently to work. A minute later his mobile phone startled them both. It was the first time Orrin had ever heard it ring. Dale pulled it from his backpack with a frown.

  “Yes, this is Dale Brennan.” His cheeks reddened. With a nervous glance to Orrin, he left the room to take the call.

  Twenty men broke the river’s edge spraying clouds of white water in their wake. They were tall and intimidating and for a moment Ivy almost forgot she was one of them; their equal in size, if not strength. High cheekbones framed their glinting eyes and wiry, rippling muscles shifted beneath their skin. The men shouted, waving spears and sharp blades as they ran. They were furious.

  Six sapien women laden with baskets, stumbled on the wet rocks with their heavy loads, wide-eyed and terrified behind the men.

  Ivy ducked low, pulling Leihna to the ground beside her. She brushed the grassy veil aside, barely breathing as the karathah hunters shadowed her family. The red-beaded man led the charge and now he stepped forward, towering over Krue with clenched fists. The old man was still kneeling by the stegodon’s head. Blood was splattered across his stony expression. Ivy could feel Leihna trembling under her arms. Ivy’s hand went reflexively to her neck. This man had already tried to kill her twice.

  Ivy struggled to stop herself from leaping to her feet. In the deepest pit of her gut, she wanted this red-beaded man dead. Every lost face was etched in her memory; each poisoned hunter that had bled from the inside out and the burnt and suffocated victims of his arson. This man was ultimately responsible for all of them. Ivy hated him.

  The red-beaded hunter was yelling. His body was hard and unyielding but Ivy realized his eyes had no fire in them. They were calculating. For all the emotion he inferred, the man was perfectly calm inside. He’s not really angry, Ivy realized, shocked. Even still, his hands were curled into fists and he punched the air. The karathah responded with curses and shouts of fury, following his lead.

  The women seemed to be carrying butchering equipment like Filhia and herself. They had come to hunt, and their quarry had been stolen. Ivy guessed that the stegodon herd would be far gone now, critically aware of the danger lurking here and wary for weeks to come. The element of surprise had been ruined; the karathah would have to track further, for days, weeks even to find them again. Even then they may not succeed. There’s no better justification for a fight.

  Leihna clasped Ivy’s wrist, pressing the warm amulet into her skin. She suddenly looked much younger than her twelve years. The bravery she had shown only minutes before in face of a stegodon had dissolved in light of an adversary so much more deadly.

  “This isn’t their territory, we have always hunted here,” Leihna said.

  Ivy smoothed the frightened girl’s hair back from her forehead, trying to seem braver than she felt.

  “Well it seems they consider it their territory now.”

  Leihna blinked back tears. “Am I going to die?”

  Ivy’s heart raced and she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily. She could feel the tingling of fear and adrenaline creeping through her veins. She gritted her jaw.

  “No, you’re not. I won’t let them touch you,” Ivy said.

  Leihna nodded and resolutely smeared away the tears that escaped.

  Ivy strained to see through the swaying grass again. Injured pride was drawn on the faces of the youngest karathah hunters at the prospect of returning home empty-handed. The red beads rattled as their leader yelled to his comrades and sweat shook from his skin. The men responded with shouts of affirmation, spitting and cursing at the hobbits. Ivy’s hand moved reflexively to her neck again.

  The hobbits, despite their size, were built with a brute strength far superior to a human man. The sapiens were bigger, faster and more agile but the hobbits outnumbered them here. Ivy wondered if the odds might be evenly matched.

  The sapiens pushed forward, yelling, but the red beade
d hunter held his hand up. They stopped. The leader’s eyes flashed at Krue and narrowed. Krue stood up, slowly and defiantly. His knuckles were white around his butchering blade and pure loathing was set into his face. The old man seemed barely contained in his own skin.

  Suddenly changing tack, the red-beaded man threw his head and shoulders back and laughed. It was a derisive, cruel laugh that belted across the grasslands. With slight hesitation, his men followed suit. The red-beaded hunter gestured to the size of his adversary with clear contempt then bent forward, with glittering eyes and kicked Krue roughly away from the stegodon carcass.

  Krue fell onto his back to a chorus of karathah laughter. He scrambled to his feet and faced his attacker squarely, teeth bare with silent ferocity. His shoulders were high and pulled forward.

  Ivy’s heart swelled at the sight of him. As miserable and distrusting as he had been to her, Krue was defiant and proud in the face of his enemy. But the futility of his defence doused her courage like a bucket of cold water. Even at full height, the top of Krue’s head barely reached the man’s rib cage.

  A handful of karathah men stepped forward with butchering blades.

  A dozen hobbits pushed forward with their spears ready to defend. Kari and Kiran, the two boys that had been attacked with arrows while trapping birds with Terap stood bravely among them.

  “Fight them!” Krue’s screech echoed in her head through Leihna’s thoughts.

  “No!” Xiou’s plea from beside Krue was hoarse with emotion. “We can’t win this way!”

  Ivy knew Xiou’s appeal was not cowardice. She could feel Leihna’s heart drumming against her arm. If the girl died, it would break Shahn’s heart, and that in turn would break his.

  “They have taken enough from us!” Krue yelled. “This probech is ours, this territory is ours! We will fight!” He threw himself at the red-beaded hunter, thrusting the stone blade he held towards the man’s thigh. But not fast enough. The man snarled and swung his arm around, revealing a thick wooden club he’d had hidden behind his back. Ivy heard a sickening crack as it collided with Krue’s shoulder. He fell to the hard earth, crying out. Xiou rushed forward to Krue’s defence.

  “Xiou! No!” Ivy scrambled to her feet, desperate to spare him. Before a second passed, she knew it was a mistake. The war cries of the karathah choked to dead silence. Their bravado fell away, replaced with utter terror. One woman fell to the ground, spilling her basket. Others wailed, frozen between action and fear.

  Ivy knew what they saw. Every part of her screamed alien - from her bright emerald eyes to her blazing red hair and deathly pale skin. She was gruesome in their eyes; far from the dark, lithe beauty of their own women.

  The red-beaded hunter slowly inclined his head, making eye contact with a young boy half-hidden behind the group. He looked barely twelve. The man muttered something to the boy and then gave a quick nod. The boy turned, bolting back toward the river crossing alone.

  Then, Ivy found herself looking directly into the hunter’s eyes for the second time in as many weeks. The corners of his mouth curled into a grin. His eyes locked onto the amulet dangling from her wrist and without looking away, his war cry hit the air.

  The karathah rushed forward with strangled shouts.

  “Run! To the forest! Go!” Ivy dragged Leihna to her feet and pushed her away as the girl willingly lost herself in the grass ocean out of sight.

  The red-beaded hunter leapt toward Ivy.

  She tightened the hold on her spear and bolted away. A deep rumbling shook the earth and a sharp blow caught her back. Ivy landed with a thump on the ground.

  The red-beaded man landed on her and spun her onto her back. The blade of his knife broke the skin on Ivy’s chest and she hissed in pain. Ivy brought her elbow hard into his jaw, kicking wildly. She swung her legs and knocked him off her hips then rolled over, scrambling to get away. A strong hand caught her bare ankle and the man threw himself forward, covering her entirely with his body. His fingers groped roughly against her skin and for a split-second her thoughts petrified at the prospect that he might rape her. She slammed her forehead forward into his and his face swam before her eyes. The man growled in pain and anger, then reached sideways grabbing Ivy’s wrist, wrenching it toward himself and meeting it with the knife. His face was twisted as he struggled against her, trying to sever the connection between Ivy’s amulet and her wrist. The leather knot began to fray as a slice hit its mark.

  Ivy reacted on impulse. She smashed her forehead down as hard as she could again, this time into the man’s throat, then back up. She heaved her shoulder bone forward, pushing him back and punched his still broken nose with the heel of her hand. She was rewarded with a spray of blood to her face. She slammed her knee up hard into his abdomen and the man crumpled on top of her, winded. Ivy pushed his chest off her own and scrambled to kick away the dead weight of his curled legs. She threw herself onto her belly, dragging her knees through the grass.

  Suddenly a searing pain tore through her thigh.

  Ivy spun back around. Her hide skirt was ripped down one side. The red-beaded hunter was attached to her naked leg with a cruel leer on his face. The stone blade was fisted in his hand, its razor’s edge knapped for the inch-thick hide of a stegodon. He’d sliced through her like a knife through butter. Blood streamed from the deep cut drowning her ivy leaf birthmark in red. White flecks began dancing across her vision.

  With a rush of fury and adrenaline, Ivy kicked the gloating man’s face as hard as she could. She staggered to her feet. His club had fallen to the grass beside him and they both lurched toward it at once. Ivy grabbed it first, heaving back and smacking it into his ribs with a sickening crack.

  Ivy threw the club across the field as she ran, limping as fast as she could go. All around her were shouts of pain and vengeance.

  For the first time, the hobbits were fighting back.

  Ivy saw flashes of dark skin within the grass and lithe, sinewy hunters towering above it. Krue was not far from her, with five huge men bearing down on him. His knife flicked lightning-fast from his fingers. One karathah fell. Krue spun around, catching Ivy’s eye for the tiniest moment before hurling his spear into another man’s gut. He shouted to her over his shoulder as she ducked past. She had no translation, but his meaning was clear. Fight! Fight, Hiranah! Grabbing the dead man’s club from his hand, Krue turned to face the remaining three.

  “Krue!” Ivy screamed. The three hunters imploded their strength onto the old hobbit in unison. He crumpled to the ground. Ivy turned away, mute with horror.

  Fight. Find the girls. Pain is nothing. Ivy pushed down the bile rising in her throat and blocked out any other thought. She took off again, chancing a glance behind as she ran. There was no sign of the red-beaded man. Her feet caught a lump in the long grass and Ivy smashed face first onto the ground. With heaving breaths, she struggled back to her feet.

  It was Rinap. Her dark eyes were huge with pain. She was shining with sweat as she twisted in jerky movements. With a muted cry, Rinap yanked an arrow from her own arm. She got to her feet, panting.

  “To the forest, Rinap! Run!” Ivy screamed, trying to pull her away from the chaos. But Rinap had her eyes set on something else. She wrenched away from Ivy’s grip and ran in the opposite direction. Finally, Ivy saw what Rinap had already known - a sapien hunter was dragging a small body in the direction of the river. Ivy’s feet were moving before her mind caught up. Filhia kicked and screamed as her captor yanked her through the grass. Even with a punctured arm, Rinap’s eyes were only for her little sister.

  “No!” Ivy’s long strides passed Rinap’s vehement speed, all pain forgotten. From the other direction came two more would-be saviours, but not those Ivy anticipated.

  The young karathah women from the trade offering ran as fast as Ivy. They yelled hysterically through their tears. The older girl was fastest, with strings of turquoise feathers whipping her face and dark hair that flew out behind her. They caught up, grabbing at Filhia and t
rying to pull her away. Their voices grew hoarse as they pleaded and clawed at the man’s arms.

  As the feathered woman caught his wrist, the hunter spun back, cursing at their insistence. Ivy had no idea why they were trying to save Filhia from a man they clearly knew, but had no time to consider it. The turquoise feathers took flight as he knocked her away and she fell sprawling to the ground. The other woman stepped back, cringing.

  With lightning speed, Rinap drew back her spear and rammed it toward him. She missed, scraping his ribs. He shouted and threw Filhia to the ground, leaving her gasping for air. Pulling a club from the back of his waist belt, the hunter swung wildly at Rinap. He found his mark. Ivy heard a snap and Rinap’s feet left the ground.

  She was dead before she landed.

  “No! No! This isn’t real!” Ivy leapt at the man, tears blinding her and hatred spilling from her mouth. He aimed a kick to Ivy’s punctured thigh and it exploded in pain. She fell backwards, screaming.

  The hunter grabbed Filhia by her hair and dragged her over the river edge.

  Ivy pulled herself up, curling her fingers around Rinap’s spear, fallen to the grass beside her. There was suddenly no thought, no time, no hesitation. Ivy’s body and everything around her slowed as she drew her arm back with all the force she could muster. Then the moment broke.

  Ivy rammed the spear through his chest.

  Shock muted her senses. Take them home. They need to go home. Ivy acted on reflex, heaving Rinap’s broken body over her shoulder. Filhia lay by the river, unconscious but breathing. The woman with the turquoise feathers picked the little girl up. With quick, soft movements, she lay Filhia across Ivy’s arms. She stepped behind Ivy, cradling Rinap’s face between her hands for a brief moment, and then with tears spilling down her face, the woman with turquoise feathers pushed Ivy away.