by A. R. Knight
Humanity, I realize, is not rote perfection. It’s not refined and coated with the sheen of eternal tweaking. We’re rough, but strong. Stupid at times, but we try.
“It’s good to be back,” I finally say as we head towards the common house’s doors.
Rather than the wooden portals of Damantum or the hanging cloth shields of Solare villages, these doors look like sheets of light stone, set on hinges along the sides. The opening itself is square, and on the borders, Lunare script reads that any looking for food, for company, will find it here.
“Will we be welcome inside?” T’Oli asks us.
“No idea,” Viera replies. “But I think you can handle yourselves.”
“I have little experience in human combat.” T’Oli squirms up and onto Vee’s shoulders. “What should I do?”
“Let me handle it.” Viera turns back to the stone door, pushes it open, and we head into a wash of warmth and laughter.
The common house floor is dominated by a set of six stone tables, each big enough to seat ten or more, laid out across the main room. In the center, a large black-rock hearth burns coal bright, with the chimney heading up and disappearing into the ceiling. Behind it sits a long counter lined with crude-sculpted stone stools, on which sit a variety of Lunare laborers.
Beverages and food - cooked meats and roasted root vegetables, from the smell - spin by us as a pair of wait staff keep the small crowd fed and drunk. The place is, at best, half full. But it feels like far more than that when everyone turns to look at us. When even the sole musician, a man playing a simple drum near the fire, stops his beat and stares.
Even Viera seems frozen by the response, as if she’s never been the target of so many different inquisitive and suspicious looks before.
I have.
“Hello,” I start. “We’re not your enemies.” Figure that’s a safe way to begin. “We came from the far side, and we’re looking to get back home. A man named Anjo guided us here, and said we would be welcome for the evening.”
“You, maybe,” shouts someone from behind the counter. “But not them!”
I find the man, and he’s a grease-coated cook staring dead at Vee and T’Oli . I notice too that there aren’t many surprises sitting on the faces of the guests. They’re not stunned at the presence of a tall, beaten-but-scaled and clawed creature standing in their doorway. Interesting.
“They’re here to help fight against the other ones.” I’m not sure if the word ‘Sevora’ holds any meaning here, but I have to try it anyway. “They want to fight the Sevora as much as you do. As much as I do.”
“And who are you?” this time it’s the musician asking, the cook in back resigning to a huffy glower. “Why should we listen to what you have to say?”
“Because I lost everything to be here,” I reply. “Because I have everything to gain from helping you. Because I used to be the Empress of the Charre, and now I’m nothing more than a wounded woman who knows what we have to do to survive.”
Now faces are turning to each other, questions are being muttered, and I feel the spotlight turn bright on me. So I think back to when I first stood on the Vaos with Jakkan, to where the high priest taught me how to sell myself to a populace.
Especially one in fear of an advancing, hostile force.
“You have questions. You have fears.” I take a deep breath. Father said cadence was everything. “You have every right not to listen, not to trust us. But if you hear what we have to say, then maybe you’ll understand. Maybe you will see that we mean to help, not hurt.”
The words pour on from there. I stand past the entrance and tell stories, talk about Cobalt, the Oratus and the Sevora. Every time I see the audience starting to drift away as unfamiliar terms and strange ideas roll over them, I slide back to direct appeals. To the idea that humanity must stand together against massive threats. Against things that don’t care if we, as a species, live or die.
When my throat is parched and I feel I can’t speak anymore, it’s the musician that brings me an earthen mug full of bitter stuff. I nearly spit it out after the first sip, but force it down. Beer, I think, and recall Malo’s warning about the Charre peppers; you must be able to eat and drink what they do, if you want their help. If you want to be seen as one of them.
At the end of it, I don’t know if I’ve convinced anyone, but the looks are more curious than cautionary now. One of the waiters, a young boy who seems enthralled with Vee, directs us to an empty table, and that’s where we sit, at last. If not entirely accepted, at least we’re not being attacked.
“Nice work,” Viera says as we sit down. “I thought I’d have to shoot at least three of them before they’d leave us alone.”
“This place doesn’t seem so strange,” T’Oli remarks as we sit down. “Though it has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed this sort of beverage.”
“What sort of beverage?” I ask the Ooblot, who coils up on a stool and hardens its lower half so that its eyestalks and a small puddle spill onto the table itself.
“The one you’re holding. If I might have a sip?”
I glance at the mug. Look at T’Oli ’s puddle. “How?”
“Like anything else,” T’Oli patters. “Pour it on me.”
I lift the mug, tilt it a little bit so that the beer runs up to the lip, and then let some pour over. I’m expecting it to hit the Ooblot and scatter all over the place, but instead the beer simply dissolves into T’Oli ’s skin, leaving a faint amber spot against the white.
“Not so bad,” T’Oli says. “Though it could use cleaner water. More pure ingredients.”
“You’re drinking beer in a cave,” Viera says. “What more do you want?”
The way T’Oli’s eye stalks turn to regard Viera with earnest clarity, I know the Ooblot’s about to answer the Lunare’s question literally. I try to stop that disaster before it starts.
“Vee, what do you think?” I ask.
The Oratus hasn’t stopped moving his head since we came in here. He’s watching for something, and I’m curious about what.
“There’s fear here,” Vee hisses. “It’s a strong smell.” Vee turns back to me, sets his four claws on the table. “We should not stay.”
“What, why?” Viera asks. “After Kaishi gave that speech? They’re not going to hurt us.”
“Look at them,” Vee hisses back. “They are desperate. I do not know the density of your human settlements, but this seems like a large concentration for one this small?”
“Is it?” I ask, taking another stock. Sure, there are about twenty people in here, and maybe a dozen houses in the entire village. That number doesn’t seem too ordinary.
“He’s right,” Viera says, and her voice has a different edge to it now. “Look at them. They’re not locals.”
I can’t tell. Most are wearing the same sorts of loose clothes, boots. Some have bandannas on, others have pistols holstered around their hips. All of them are dirty - and so are we. There’s not an obvious look I can pick out.
“I don’t see it?” I finally say.
Viera’s about to speak when the boy comes by again, asks if we would like anything to drink. Viera orders a round, and when I’m about to ask how we’re going to pay for that, she pulls a small pouch of stones from her pocket.
“Diego didn’t need this anymore,” Viera says at my look, and now that the boy’s gone, she nods towards the cook. “See how he’s acting? How the rest of his staff are keeping eyes on everyone?”
I shrug. “Yes? So?”
“It means they don’t know these people well,” Vee hisses. “A small place like this, every person should be known. This should be comfortable. Instead, everyone is on edge.”
“Why would they be?” T’Oli says after the boy deposits a set of four mugs in front of us. “They have food, shelter, and drinks?”
I’m thinking here. What would make a Charre town this worried? What would disrupt a normal village of Solare?
The answer comes walking over aft
er we get our drinks, a gruff woman flanked by seven men.
“Name’s Celice,” the woman says and I’m struck by how gravelly, how deep her voice goes. “You’re from the wrong side of the mountains?”
I feel Viera move her right hand to her pistol, and I tighten my grip on the beer mug. It’s full, but the mug itself is hard. If I had to throw it, the mug could probably do some damage. But for now, I try not to start a fight.
Especially as I’m still in a world of hurt, and none of us are feeling ready to swap fists with this crew.
“Further than that,” I reply. “We came over there from space, from beyond the sky.”
Celice doesn’t look fazed by that at all. “That’s what they said too. You know what’s happening back the other way?”
“We’ve guessed.”
Vee, for his part, hasn’t moved except to help T’Oli pour more beer on itself. The Oratus seems unconcerned by Celice and her crew. Which, if I was a scaly death-beast, I probably wouldn’t be too worried either.
“It’s worse than whatever you’re thinking,” Celice leans over, plants her hands palm down on the table. “Wouldn’t be surprised if Avril’s lost the first tunnels by now, even with all your Charre and Solare friends trying to help.”
“We’re trying to get there. What we know could help them.”
“If you had thousands more with you, like that one, maybe,” Celice nods at Vee. “Otherwise, all you’re doing is marching to suicide.”
“What’s your point?” Viera interjects. “You didn’t come over here to warn us away.”
“No,” Celice replies. “I didn’t. We left the front on orders. Keep an open chain of Lunare control through the mountains, so that we could retreat all the way out if we have to. Which is where you all come in.”
“What do you mean?”
“We want to go back,” Celice says. “The fighting’s there. The enemy’s there. We’re tried of sitting around this place, waiting. You’re going to be our reason. Our way home.”
I blink. That’s it? They want to escort us?
“Sure?” I say. “That’s fine.”
Celice flicks her eyes to Viera, who shrugs. “Whatever Kaishi says.”
Celice nods, stands up from the table. “Then we’re going tomorrow. Better see the town’s doctor, too. You’re all looking a little beat.”
She’s not wrong. After T’Oli and Viera finish their drinks - I let mine languish - the four of us arrange for a room at the common house and head towards the only sort-of clinic this town has, which amounts to a house with an older couple inside.
What they have, though, are supplies. Wraps and poultices for our cuts, which they wash out and bandage. Ointments for our blistered feet and soaps for our dirty hair. Sandy paste for our teeth to keep them from falling out. Afterwards, we head to the bath house and its spring, thankfully Fassoth-free.
When I finally fall asleep that night, on a hay bed next to Viera, with T’Oli puddled on the floor and Vee curled up on our mats in the corner, it’s the first real rest I’ve had in a very, very long time.
Celice and three of her guards meet us in the morning. She leaves the rest of her force behind as a garrison, and we spend the next few days venturing through tunnels far better lit, signed and marked than before. They’re wide enough for cart trains, for all of us to walk abreast, and even, occasionally, have carved art and paintings on the sides.
I do find myself wishing for the sky, for Ignos to shine, but the closest we get to that are the periodic ventilation shafts, through which, if I listen carefully, I can hear the whistling wind far above.
Celice gives a dire account of the war as we move. The Sevora appeared not long ago in the skies overhead, seeming first like black smudges high above. Then came shuttles packed with creatures nobody had ever seen before.
Here, Celice stops for a second to thank me.
“Why?” I ask. “I wasn’t even here.”
“Because you showed us what was coming,” Celice replies. “You brought the first ones, like him, here.”
I’d forgotten that Sax and Bas visited the Lunare hunting for me. They’d exposed Earth to the new threats from space.
“We weren’t entirely unprepared,” Celice continues. “Avril had contingencies. We were already overtaking the jungle, about to assault the Charre themselves—”
“Wait,” I say as we walk beneath a glittering, magenta-glowing ceiling. “You were attacking the Charre?”
“Of course,” Celice says, as if such a move is obvious. “You were gone. Their leading general, gone. They were in disarray. What better time?”
I want to fire off some insults, spit a bit of fire at the cruelty of taking advantage of people, but then I remember the Sevora in my own head. Ignos, constantly telling me when to push others, to use them and twist their goals to suit my own ends. I’d done that, which is why I became Empress in the first place.
“So the Sevora come and you what, run?” I finally say.
“We offered them shelter,” Celice says. “Damantum’s too wide open, especially for an attack from above. The Charre aren’t stupid - they listen to their priests and come rushing in, along with the Solare tribes we’ve taken.”
“So charitable,” Viera says. “That’s not like Avril.”
“When you’re facing annihilation,” Celice replies. “Every body counts. Those that could wield weapons got them, others we sent deep into the tunnels to secure routes like this one. You might not like Avril, Viera, but she wants humanity to survive as much as you do.
“And it’s a good thing she did, because we didn’t hold long on the outside. Nothing we can do about their... fliers. The ones that come out of the sky and send burning death into us. We’ve been in the mountains ever since, waiting and holding and hoping for a miracle.”
Celice’s expression as she says this shows she doesn’t think we’re it.
I can’t disagree with her. A wounded Oratus, an Ooblot, and a couple of battered humans aren’t going to swing the tide of this fight. At least, not without some help.
18 Bloodlust
Sax charges as he finishes the words. His talons slash the metal floor and he dives at the mirrored Oratus, who doesn’t see it coming.
At least, that’s what Sax thinks for the fraction of a second before the mirrored Oratus shifts ever so slightly, his blurry, flashing scales throwing Sax off his line, making Sax’s claws slide off scales rather than cut deep. The mirrored Oratus takes advantage as Sax flies by, gouging the Sax with his foreclaws.
The Oratus body is all weapon, though, and Sax whips his tail as he falls, gets it underneath the enemy’s talons and sweeps the creature from his feet. Sax’s momentum carries him into the far wall, and the gray Oratus grips, spins, and turns with his midclaws before leaping back at his downed target. Sax lands on the mirrored Oratus, claws raking, mouth biting, and receiving equal treatment in turn. Slashing, stinging pain cuts through Sax, he feels the muscles in his arms and vents tear but Sax doesn’t care - he’s in the bloodlust now. Everything is red and raw energy. Sax going to die, so he’s going to give everything he has for this.
Which is what?
For the first time in his life, a thought stops Sax, and the mirrored Oratus takes advantage, pushes his talons beneath Sax and kicks him off. Sax flies from the middle floor and rolls into the left wall. He feels his energy draining away, his blood pooling on the floor and all he can think of is that he’s given himself for nothing. If he dies here, his mission ends. Losing it all in a fight with a creature that, even if he wins, would cause the Flaum to burn Sax down where he stands.
Sax can’t die for nothing anymore. He has a cause.
“Surprising, but stupid,” the mirrored Oratus hisses, and there’s a slurping sound in his voice now. Sax must have clawed the Oratus deep in the creature’s vocal cords. “You didn’t need to hurt yourself that way. Now I’ll have to fix you up for them to kill you all over again.”
Sax stares at the mirror
ed Oratus, feels the cold metal floor against his head. He wants to talk back, but the act of opening his mouth feels like lifting a ship off the ground. Instead, Sax thinks about Bas. What she’s doing, where she is. If she’s even still alive.
The mirrored Oratus blurs over to Sax, glares down at him.. “For the last time, tell me your plan. Why are you here?”
“I told you,” Sax manages to croak. “The Chorus must be stopped.”
The mirrored Oratus takes his right talon, presses Sax’s throat, and he can feel the claws pushing in. “That’s not enough.”
“That’s all you’re going to get.”
The mirrored Oratus pushes further with his talon, but Sax doesn’t care. What’s more pain to what he’s already endured?
“I thought you were taking him prisoner,” this hiss comes from someone strong and new. Rav. “What do you think murdering an Oratus on my ship will do for morale? They need to listen to me, not think I might be a traitor.”
“I don’t care about your sensitivities,” the mirrored Oratus hisses back. “This creature is a traitor. You should be proud that you facilitated in his capture.”
“Then take him away,” Rav replies. “I won’t have him killed on my ship.”
The mirrored Oratus hesitates, then lifts his talon off of Sax’s neck. “Fine. Help me drag him to mine.”
Sax can’t see her, but he feels Rav look at him. “I don’t think your prisoner’s going to live long enough for a leap. We’ll patch him up, first.”
The mirrored Oratus snorts, but doesn’t refuse.
Rav orders a pair of Flaum to help Sax to his feet. Three more keep their miners trained on him, even though Sax isn’t going anywhere, and they all know it. Sax knows it too; he’s focusing on breathing, and standing and on not giving the mirrored Oratus any more satisfaction. They take Sax along through the hallways, away from the engines and Sax’s last idea. The medical bay’s ruined, so instead they sling Sax into an empty crew cabin, where a Flaum patches Sax’s wounds with handful of bandages and injects him with just enough Stim to keep Sax alive.
