by Avi Silver
It struck her that if she wasn’t dying here on her back, these injuries were probably what had saved her. Assorted vegetation had broken her fall into a series of smaller falls—an agonizing lesson in protection from an indifferent drop.
But I think my clothes got ripped, she thought numbly. Dad’s going to be so—
No. That wasn’t right, was it?
Sohmeng took a long, slow breath in, trying to get the world around her to come back into focus. Rust-coloured vines wound around twisting tree trunks; enormous leaves glistened with dew in the light, shimmered like, like—what was it she had seen?
She raised her hand to her face, amber skin shaved down to scarlet. The silver ring on her finger glimmered cheerfully through smears of blood.
You idiot, she thought, clenching her fist. You absolute idiot.
She sucked in a breath through her teeth, braced herself, and turned her head both ways, letting out a sob of relief when nothing crunched. Slowly, she sat her body up, nauseous from the throbbing deep in her lower back. Her kidneys, maybe? She leaned against a tree trunk, tucking her knees to her chest with great effort, and gazed at the underworld she had fallen into.
Sohmeng hadn’t landed on the valley floor proper, but rather upon one of the lower plateaus that sprawled down into the rest of the jungle. A lucky thing—had she ended up on one of the mountain’s ledges, she’d have been forced to sit there and wait for whatever came sniffing for supper. Monkeys called to each other and insects rubbed their little legs in song, and mist slunk through the rustling leaves to lay moisture gently upon her like a blanket. There was comfort in the way the trees enveloped her, gave the illusion of being cocooned. More like being swaddled than suffocated. For a while she sat and observed, calm.
Until, of course, she wasn’t.
Sohmeng’s ribs burned as she vomited into the soil, the deadly reality of her situation sending her grappling like she was falling all over again—she needed to get out of here, she needed to hide, burning godseye, she was in the jungle by herself in the middle of sãoni territory and no one—
No one was coming for her.
None of the parties that went down ever made it back up. Not the warriors, or the volunteer explorers, or the miserable hãokar. Why would they send someone down for just one girl? Particularly a girl who had caused nothing but trouble? Sohmeng pulled herself to standing on legs of molten wax, grabbing onto rough tree bark to keep from falling, wincing as it split the cuts on her palms.
There was no way up; Ateng was so far away she couldn’t even fathom a way to measure the distance. So down it was.
She made the trek the only way that she could: one shambling footfall after another, searching for any steadying branch that happened to reach out to her. Each step was precarious, alerting her to the bruises that moaned in their pre-life across her body, but also reassuring her that she was not, in fact, too broken to move. But was that a good thing? Surviving the fall was not necessarily a mercy, not when sãoni and poisonous plants and all manner of other dangers lay in the jungle. Her initial luck had only prolonged the inevitable.
And yet, against all reason, she was happy to be alive.
She pushed aside a heavy vine, marvelling at the leathery texture, and couldn’t help but wonder in her delirium if her parents had once walked this way. In her youth, they had spent several phases a year gathering food from Eiji, trading with the other hmun in the network, keeping back the occasional wandering sãoni. After the Sky Bridge fell, they were among the first of the search parties to descend into the land the beasts had taken to swarming.
Had they made camp on this plateau? Had they sought answers from the languages of life all around, thrumming so wildly in the air? Had they also thought this place was beautiful before it consumed them?
Sohmeng stumbled and clutched a tree, spitting up mouthfuls of bile.
Come on, she thought, wiping her mouth with a shaking arm, now is not the time for this kind of swooning. You can survive this. Live now. Panic later.
After all, just because the search parties hadn’t come back didn’t mean that they were all dead. They were sent off with a mission to recover the trapped batengmun from Sodão Dangde and raise the Sky Bridge once again. For the warriors, it was an honour. For the hãokar, who had been exiled for crimes against the hmun, it was a chance at redemption. For the traders, it was just another adventure, this time with higher stakes.
People are resourceful, Sohmeng insisted to herself. They could be alive even now. They could help me. The ancients survived the fall of the Last City of Polhmun Ão—this is nothing compared to the end of the world.
Granted, those ancients had not been surrounded by the recent influx of sãoni, who were quick to devour every meaty thing in sight.
Sohmeng shook her head gently, trying to relieve the soft drone that had begun building in her ears. No, she reminded herself, I said panic later. Right now, I’m figuring out how to stay alive.
She licked her lips, shuddering at the foul taste of apricots and stomach acid. That was it: water. Instead of panicking, she would find water, and she would drink it, and she would clean the blood from her leg and her hands and gods knew where else. There had to be a river around here somewhere; she had seen them from the mountain.
There. She smiled. No need to panic.
And then she heard it.
The sound could have been mistaken for the grinding of beetles’ wings, or the rhythmic snapping of wood, easy to miss in the cacophony of a jungle teeming with life. Anyone else could have kept walking, ignorant of just how long they had been followed. But Lahni Par and Tonão Sol had not raised their children to be careless with their lives.
The feeling struck Sohmeng first in the gut. A prey instinct, activated. The hum of stony clicks suddenly sounded very close and very far at once, a sign that it was coming not from one being but many—the volume grew sickening, punctuated by the beating of wings and the screech of fleeing monkeys.
The roar that broke through the jungle was a sound Sohmeng had heard many times in her nightmares; she felt it like the tearing of a cuticle.
She looked around desperately, suddenly alert with primal fear. What did she have? Some rope, a basket full of smashed eggs, a ring she was apparently willing to die for. She gritted her teeth, grabbing a large stick off the ground, feeling stupid in advance for all the good it would do her.
The humming died down; the silence that came over the clearing was almost worse. It was torture, to anticipate her own death. Desperately, she tried to believe that perhaps nothing was there, that she had made up the danger in her own delirium.
Then they were upon her, and there was nothing left to deny.
The sãoni: like gargantuan salamanders slung low to the ground, their leathery skin night-dark and pebbled. Their flat faces were crowned with pointed head spines, and they had eyes like oracles, deep green and sour yellow, with pupils that were terrifying in their intelligence. The bright stripes along the sides of their thick necks led up to the main event: two rows of tiny, pointed, glistening teeth, competing in fright-factor only with the large sable claws that decorated all six of their powerful legs. Their tails flicked and whirled, hitting the ground with heavy thumps.
Sohmeng Par had hoped never to see a sãoni up close in her life. It had been bad enough from far away, when the Bridge fell; the predators’ calls, the weeping of the hmun backed into the caves, the sick snap of rope as everyone on the Bridge was lost. She clutched her stick uselessly, stumbling backward as more and more eyes blinked open in the jungle. So many of them, silent until they chose not to be.
The largest of the sãoni stepped forward so suddenly that she cried out on instinct. The beast tilted its head, exposing a bumpy neck with purple stripes, before making a noise back at her, flicking its blue tongue between its teeth. Sohmeng’s back hit a tree. Was it mocking her?
From behind the large sãoni came another, smaller and quicker, with bright green throat stripes. It nudged
the large one with a series of chattering clicks and growls, tapping its claws as it stared hungrily at Sohmeng. Without thinking, she reached for her basket, tossing it at them, wondering if she could distract them long enough to run. The smaller sãoni took notice, leaping upon the basket and devouring it whole. The crunch of the weaving made her feel sick.
If only she had the silvertongue plant, like the warriors carried. If only she had fallen while on guard duty, equipped to protect herself. If only she hadn’t fallen at all. If only she hadn’t been so much trouble. If only she had been nice to her brother, helpful to her grandmother, deserving of her parents.
If only her name were actually Sohmeng Par.
So many ifs, and none of them able to save her. The small sãoni was finished with the eggs and hungry for more. Sohmeng raised her weapon in shaking stinging hands and yelled, imprinting her furious indignance on the world around her with all she had left—and the sãoni was encroaching and the growling and shrieking got louder and despite her best efforts to go with grace, all she could think was—
Godless or not, no one deserves to die like this.
Then there came another sound.
It was different from the rest, a growl sized for a smaller throat. The sãoni were undeterred—the smaller green-striped one crouched low, pulling its shoulders back in preparation to leap. Sohmeng braced herself for impact, but the sound cut through the forest again: a shriek, a howl.
The creature it came from bounded fearlessly toward the sãoni, vaulting over the largest one’s head and landing in front of it with another splitting cry. It was human sized and shaped, but its body was covered in scales, and its claws—
Wait, no—she blinked, realizing what she was seeing: a human being, clothed in sãoni skin, yelling with all the fury of a newborn child.
The large sãoni yielded, bowing its head to peer at the defiant creature that stood before it. The smaller sãoni snuck to the side, ready to lunge at Sohmeng, but the human intervened, their voice storm-wild; the animal screamed back, and the human matched it once more, stretching their body to a strange contortion that made them appear larger.
Sensing an opportunity, Sohmeng stepped back—but the pack took notice, rumbling warnings in eerie unison. The human turned and glared at her with eyes that very nearly matched those of the sãoni; their expression stopped Sohmeng in her tracks, leaving her uncharacteristically speechless.
The human hissed, glancing between the mean-looking sãoni with the green stripes and Sohmeng. They clenched their fists, the claws hooked over their fingers curling and uncurling in graceful indecision. And then they turned to Sohmeng with an arch in their back that made her feel horribly hunted.
“I, I’m not—” she started, but the human silenced her with a series of low, menacing clicks. Sohmeng gripped her stick, ready to strike, but then the human—
Started . . . dancing?
At least, that was her best guess. They leapt around Sohmeng in a series of dramatic gestures, making impossible-sounding noises. They hopped and crouched and crawled, and the whole time the sãoni watched in perfect stillness, making no move to encroach further on Sohmeng. Which was more than fine with her.
That is, until the human rushed in and bit her hard on the neck.
“AIE—” she shouted, swatting at them, but they had already yanked back, grimacing. “What under the godseye was THAT?”
“Me saving your life,” the human snapped, roughly pushing back a tooth-lined hood to reveal their face in full.
The striking green of their eyes was emphasized by charcoal makeup that had been smeared from their eyebrows to their sharp cheekbones. Their hair was nearly as dark as Sohmeng’s, but hacked artlessly short. Though they weren’t much taller than she was, their glowering presence made Sohmeng feel like she was being loomed over.
“You BIT me,” Sohmeng squeaked.
“I had to!” They grumbled out a few more nonsensical noises. Sohmeng opened her mouth to start yelling, as was her right, but they shut her down with another glare. “It’s part of the—the courtship ritual. I marked you as a mate so the colony wouldn’t eat you. You’re welcome.”
And just like that they turned on their heel, stalking furiously toward the sãoni, who had become surprisingly docile. The purple one batted at them with one of its mid legs, but rather than drop to the ground in terror like any reasonable human would do, they shoved off the touch, growling in what sounded like exasperation. The sãoni chirped, and the others echoed it.
“Sorry, no, what?” Sohmeng stumbled forward, hesitating as she passed the creatures that were now peering at her innocently—the same creatures that had been hunting her five minutes ago. She swallowed her fear, letting herself be carried by adrenaline alone. “No, I think I need more of an explanation than that.”
“What you need is clear rainwater and some spiceroot before you turn into a walking infection. And seeing as you’re now my problem, I would appreciate it if you cooperated.”
“Your problem?” Sohmeng was feeling a lot of different ways, and none of them were cooperative. “I don’t even know what just happened. Those things were stalking me, and then you popped out and screamed at them and you bit me—”
“I already told you, I did it to save your life!” the human retorted, shoving at an enormous sãoni tail that kept trying to curl around their waist. “You know, it wasn’t great for me either. I don’t even know you, that’s not how I wanted to—ugh. Just . . . come here. Mama can carry you, you’re in no condition to even be standing.”
“Mama?”
The human let out a high click, nodding to the large purple sãoni with the ridged throat. It flattened its head to the ground, seemingly in response. Sohmeng stared in wonder, all of her instincts reduced to so much babbling noise. Or maybe it was just the bloodloss. Or the shock—she was probably totally in shock.
“Who are you?” she asked. Her options for survival may have been limited, but that didn’t mean she was about to follow this freak completely in the dark.
“Just hook your leg here. Mind her cheeks.”
“No, but who—” Sohmeng stumbled on her bad ankle. Before she knew it, the sãoni’s—Mama’s—snout was nudging her. She flailed back, and the human hissed in frustration, taking her roughly into their arms. The pressure on her side made her yelp. Mama rumbled, pupils narrowing on the human; in response they chirped, looking uncertainly at Sohmeng before pressing their grimy cheek to hers.
Nope. No way. “If you bite me again,” she muttered, squirming away to the best of her ability, “I swear on both the gods and my grandmother—”
The human ignored this, hoisting Sohmeng up between Mama’s fore- and mid legs. They settled in behind her, their strong arms firm around her waist as they grasped the sãoni’s neck. Then the pack was moving, faster than Sohmeng’s body was ready for. She scrunched her eyes shut, willing herself not to be sick again.
Several sharp somethings dug into Sohmeng’s back—the small sãoni teeth that were sewed onto the human’s hood. Despite herself, she slumped against them. “Can I at least have your name? I’m Sohmeng Par, by the way. Thanks for asking.”
The human uttered another chirp, this time followed by three clicks; the sãoni repeated it among themselves, a strange chorus barrelling through the woods.
“Great trick,” mumbled Sohmeng, “but seeing as you’re apparently my mate and all, I figure I deserve to know—”
“That was it,” said the human, humour and annoyance tinging their words in equal measure.
“Okay. Let me rephrase. Give me a name I can actually pronounce. One that might give me any idea as to what sort of mate I am apparently the proud new owner of.” After all, without a phasal association or any introductory pronouns, Sohmeng had no idea where to even start gendering this stranger beyond the respectful neutral. What an absurd problem, she thought distantly. What a ridiculous thing to worry about after the day she’d had.
The lull stretched
between them long enough that Sohmeng was confident she wasn’t going to get an answer. She turned her attention instead to the verdant jungle, with its slim saplings poking boldly out of the understory, dwarfed by leaves as large as her whole torso. A great web of vines stretched out high above, reaching farther than she could see. The colony travelled at a solid pace, crossing over bubbling creeks and weaving around enormous trees, their great claws crunching the detritus of the forest floor. Eventually, the movement lulled Sohmeng enough that her eyes drifted shut.
“Hei,” the human said, stirring her from her rest.
“Mm?”
“My name. Hei. Call me Hei.”
It was almost nothing to work with. No hint of phase or gender in sight. But Sohmeng could say it, and that was a start. “Fine,” she mumbled, “Hei.” With a single question answered, her mind’s racing slowed to a shamble, and she allowed her body to relax as much as it could atop the roaming body of Ateng’s greatest enemy.
Call it naïve, but Sohmeng had sort of expected healing to feel better than getting bashed up in the first place.
“Godless night that burns—!” she hissed.
Her wounds had been cleaned out with a mix of boiled rainwater and the sharply-scented juice of a small green fruit. It had stung fiercely, prompting her to swat at Hei more than once. Now, the world’s chompiest healer was rubbing a mess of mashed up herbs into the wounds while Sohmeng nearly jumped out of what little skin she had left.
“Godless, moonless, loveless hãokar, are your hands made of rubble—”
Hei made a little noise, a tapping at the back of their throat, and reached for a swath of what appeared to be sãoni skin, saved in a bag they kept strapped to one of Mama’s head spines. Since they rode off together on the creature’s back, Hei had been subdued, only breaking the silence with their peculiar clicking—talking?—with the sãoni.
