savage 07 - the dark savage

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Let them chew on that. The Band should allow deference to one who does not grasp English as well as they.

  “He has Band blood,” the center Band replies immediately.

  “Aye,” Philip confirms from a horse-length away.

  The Band appears to consider this.

  “And you?” he asks Elise, as though she did not understand straightaway that she is where his curiosity really lay.

  With the females.

  Adahy's fingertips tighten on her shoulder, conveying caution she already possesses in abundance. Elise glances at him, trying to calm him with her eyes.

  “I am—” her eyes shift to her knotted hands and she forces them to untwine. “I do not know from whence I came.” She stares at the Band with a degree of defiance she does not feel. How many times in her past has Elise endeavored to behave with false bravado? Many.

  His dark eyebrows hike. He reminds Elise of Edwin in looks. So many of this clan appear to have eyes like the sun. He is no exception.

  “I am Jessup, of the Clan of Massachusetts.”

  “I thought you were a sea clan?” Elise blurts, her brows coming together.

  He gives a sage nod. “We are further inland than our cousins of Cape Cod, but near enough to be included under that geographical umbrella.”

  “Oh,” Elise answers the odd turn of phrase.

  “You are female, and most welcome.” His glance falls like a lead weight on Adahy.

  His pause speaks volumes.

  “And you, Adahy of the Red Men, who is also Band—are welcome to accompany her.”

  “I do not need welcome, but I accept,” Adahy manages in passable English.

  Ah. Elise knots her hands.

  Jessup leans forward in his hand-tooled saddle, parking his elbow on the horn. “Really? We do not ordinarily receive strange males.”

  “I am not strange. I am Adahy.”

  Jim groans, and his eyes flick to Elise.

  They stare at each other, and Elise's heartbeat begins to speed. She had hoped to subtly instruct Adahy to calm his brusque manner before this introduction, though his raw honesty is the thing which endears him to her most.

  His attitude has the opposite effect on Jessup as his face darkens with the beginnings of anger.

  Philip steps forward, spreading his palms. “Adahy's traditions are not ours. Yet, he is a warrior to the core.” Philip briefly places his fist above his heart.

  Elise sees an easing in Adahy's features at Philip's assurances.

  Calia stomps over to Jessup, yanking the reins from his slack palm. “If I have yet to meet my natural mother, and have been missing these years past, my word for a male who has offered protection and food to me and mine—should suffice.”

  Jessup's lips flatten, and Calia looks like she would like to spit in his arrogant face. “You do not behave as our females,” he remarks thoughtfully.

  “Good,” she says in fierce answer, tossing the reins at him. He catches them deftly, his face tightening at her obvious disdain.

  Vaughn strides to them, clearly asserting his presence to calm exposed nerves. “Calia and Elise have been through an ordeal. They have survived the Yellow Death, Fragment incursions and near-starvation. Let us not dally with introductions, but offer hospitality to the ones who saw them to this end.”

  “Yeah, dickbag,” Jim mutters, and Elise wonders upon the word.

  She presumes it is not a good one.

  “Fine,” Jessup bites out then straightens, flicking the reins to his left with a practiced wrist. “And what of Edwin? Why does he not accompany his sister?”

  Calia folds her arms, pursing suddenly trembling lips. Jessup studies the somber expressions of everyone, the two who flank him patting down the neck of their suddenly nervous mounts.

  “He is gone,” Calia replies softly.

  “Gone?” The Band's eyebrow hikes again in mockery.

  Elise frowns. She is liking this clan less and less.

  Calia's face reddens. “Dead. You understand that, do you not?”

  Their eyes blaze at each other as Philip palms the small of her back. The gesture is not lost on Jessup. He frowns at Philip then gives an expression of silent communication to Vaughn.

  “We will explain all later, when everyone is in attendance. The wretched events do not need to be recounted more than once,” Zaid says emphatically.

  Calia sags against Philip, and Jessup notes the intimacy with a tightening of eyes.

  “Follow us,” Jessup commands.

  Elise notices he does not introduce the Band beside him.

  As though their group is beneath notice.

  *

  Calia tenses when Elise takes her hand, but Elise ignores her reaction. Calia is as prickly as a porcupine when it comes to affection. And Elise is selfish; she needs all the comfort she can get, regardless of the source.

  “I am scared,” Elise admits in a rapid whisper.

  Calia shakes her head as Philip falls behind to walk astride Jim and Adahy.

  Calia squeezes Elise's hand. “Do not be.” Calia's golden eyes meet Elise's own.

  “I do not like this Band's manner. I thought you would be as though a lost treasure had been found,” Elise says.

  Calia glances at her feet as they walk. “As did I. Jessup acts as though we are inconveniencing him.” Calia sighs as the women follow the riders for a silent ten minutes.

  They top the crest of a small hill. “Look,” Calia says breathlessly.

  Elise's chin jerks up from her feet, and a large bone-colored tent appears to breathe with the hammering of the wind off the sea. Elise uses one hand to tighten the cloak at her chest against the stiff breeze that steals her warmth.

  The tent is erected similarly to the teepees of the Red Men, yet much bigger. Tendrils of smoke rise from its center, torn away into the wind the instant they present above the smoke hole.

  Elise holds in a sigh of pleasure. Blessed warmth.

  Calia speaks her thoughts for her, “I think I could stay inside there for a fortnight. My very bones are like iced glass.”

  Elise understands exactly. They have not been warm and dry during the entire trip with the exception of the hot springs some time past. The thought of bathing soon as a possibility fairly makes her salivate with want.

  Warmth first, food second, and hygiene a distant third.

  A large hand lands with weighted comfort at her shoulder. Elise feels the tingle of vague kinship recognition between her and Adahy as a lone feminine figure steps outside of the tent.

  Even from this distance Elise can make out every rigid line of her body.

  What she could not have anticipated is how alike Calia she appears. No, she is not as tall in stature. However the coloring of the two women is so precisely alike as to be mildly disconcerting.

  The woman's eyes are like those of a captured lioness as they roam every bit of her and Calia as they draw slowly nearer.

  The horses part, moving around the tent in a neat formation to what Elise assumes are hidden stables behind the structure.

  Calia stops so abruptly Elise bumps into her, but she does not appear to notice. Her eyes are all for the woman in front of her.

  Adahy and Jim move beside Elise, and Philip flanks Calia's right.

  “We are at the Clan of Massachusetts?” Calia asks, and Elise thinks it is a comment for its own sake. If for nothing more than to break the strange stillness.

  The late winter wind howls between the woman and Elise's party. Fine lines edge eyes that have laughed much. Seen more.

  “Not precisely,” the woman replies. She sweeps a hand behind her at the tent. “This has been constructed temporarily for this celebration by our sister clan of Cape Cod.”

  Why is she not jumping with joy over her newfound daughter? Foreboding sweeps through Elise, chilling her to the tips of her toes.

  Calia blanches, appearing to realize that this woman—who must be her mother—does not yet know of Edwin.

  Eli
se's head dips. This will be a horror of a homecoming.

  The woman lifts her head, searching each face, then gazes behind Calia expectantly. Finally, her eyes comes back to rest on Calia.

  She clears her throat, and Elise and Calia both tense, understanding perfectly the grief that will smother them all in the next few moments.

  “You are Calia, my beloved daughter—thought lost to us forever.” She gives a vague smile.

  Elise's brows pull together at her apathetic reaction.

  Calia awkwardly delays answering but finally she nods her head. There's no battling the obvious.

  Philip's hand moves to the back of Calia's head in a caress meant to soothe.

  But there is nothing to do for Calia.

  The woman must understand something is amiss. After all, why is Calia not running straight at her newfound mother?

  Her small smile begins to falter. “Where is your brother, Edwin?”

  A single tear trails down Calia's face in answer. “The—the Fragment—”

  Calia cannot finish her sentence, and covers her face with shaking hands. She does not need to vocalize what has occurred. The woman pales before their eyes, like milk running out of a cup.

  She sways where she stands.

  Philip lurches forward at the same moment as the silent Vaughn.

  They simultaneously catch her.

  Their hard eyes stare each other down.

  “Could you not have prepared her?” Philip hisses at Vaughn as Calia's unconscious mother hangs between them.

  Vaughn shakes his head, giving a regretful look to Calia. “It was not my story to tell.”

  “Bullshit,” Jim says with conviction.

  Vaughn's eyes find Jim's, and he shrugs. “Just calling it like I see it.”

  Calia drops to her knees, no longer mindful of the icy grass and her fragile health.

  Elise sinks beside her as she weeps.

  Chapter 5

  Ulric

  The Pathway hovers, flicking in and out of existence in a shimmering semi-circle that morphs to oval.

  Brom charges forward, hopping hard on the stump of a tree that so obviously was rolled into position beneath the loose undulating portal.

  He treats the obstacle like a springboard just as the Pathway vanishes. Arms fling out for balance as he misses and drops, rolling smoothly into the one and a half horse-length fall. He punches out of the somersault into a smooth jog.

  Ulric gives a jagged grin, shaking his head. Brom.

  Beside him Tab says, “Is he always that brash?”

  Yes. Ulric nods. “He is the best male at rappelling,” he offers neutrally.

  Tab grunts a comment as Brom circles back to them. He is not out of breath, but invigorated.

  Ulric frowns. It appears as though the Pathway is more difficult to use at night. He voices this and Tab nods.

  Brom shakes out his muscled limbs, looking every bit a Man of the Tree.

  “If you can't gain purchase, none of us can,” Ulric comments in a parched voice.

  Brom smirks. “I can—I just missed my chance.”

  Tab turns, his dark eyes are eaten by the surrounding dark, the moon a slim crescent. “I suggest we move fast—together,” he shoots a look of barely contained tolerance at Brom, “then we can link arms and throw each other inside.”

  “I do not know what branch of the Pathway leads to the women.”

  “Calia made a mention of the sea.”

  Ulric whirls to Brom. “Yes. But there is not a sign that so blatantly states direction.” Ulric cups his chin. “I believe the Traveler—”

  “Jim?” Brom asks.

  “A Traveler?” Tab asks, brows jerking together.

  Ulric briefly recounts what occurred.

  Tab lifts his chin. “Ah, go on.”

  “Yes—Jim. He possessed a device from his world that caused my course within the tunnel to change direction. Thankfully,” he looks at the two men, “I returned to shadows and my fellow clansmen.”

  “That is most fortunate,” Tab agrees, giving a fleeting glance at the moon. No one mentions what would have been Ulric's end if the sun had been shining where he landed.

  They look back to where the Pathway opens into a iridescent portal.

  Ulric is silent as he makes his way to the Pathway. A vague outline, merely a low glittering line plays havoc with the background of an ebony sky.

  “I have never traveled the Pathway,” Tab admits in a low voice.

  Brom chortles behind him, and Ulric casts a glance to silence his energetic second. “And nor do you want to. It is the most singular disruption of the body I've ever had the poor fortune of experiencing.”

  Tab turns. “Mayhap that is too much truth, Ulric. You might shadow-skip, and that affords some protection...”

  Ulric grips the shoulders of the other male. “No. What affords us protection is the creators of the Pathway fashioned it so no harm would befall those of Band heritage.”

  “What of Jim?” Brom asks.

  Ulric bares his teeth, and Tab moves out of his grasp with a nervous jerk.

  Ulric ignores him. “Hopefully, that deceitful Traveler will perish.”

  By his hand or no.

  The other two say nothing, waiting on the portal for the Pathway to solidify.

  Ulric hates the time wasted. The time that the women have been able to move deeper into the protection of the clan by the sea.

  No people are more desperate than the original people of this world.

  The Men of the Tree.

  They alone are the most physically advanced. They are the species destined to survive. Ulric must believe this.

  Brom hisses, his fangs lengthening as the portal loop shines in the moonlight.

  Ulric whips his head at the solidifying oval outline that appears. “Now!”

  The muscles of his legs bunch as he sinks low. Ulric leaps, his fingertips clenching on material that is neither hard nor soft but somehow gives.

  He swings one leg into the portal.

  The roar of the Pathway yanks him deeper into the yawning magnetic mouth.

  Ulric does not forget his comrades who grab one of his arms. He steels himself for the miserable travel ahead.

  The Pathway sends him backward into a spiral, yanking Brom and Tab after him.

  Tab screams in agony as the sensation of fire and ice tear at the very molecular structure of his body.

  Perhaps Ulric spoke too quickly of immunity to the Pathway.

  After all, its mechanics are little-understood.

  *

  Jim

  For shit's sake. Jim groans when the older chick wilts like a flower from the news that Eddie-boy hadn't made muster. He wasn't going to—ever.

  Why did Jim decide to stay here?

  I'm a tard, that's why.

  “Jim?” Elise says at his elbow, and he jumps a meter, hand to chest. “Man!” he yells, and Zaid and Vaughn give him a look.

  “I apologize,” Elise says, flustered.

  “No—it's not you. You just scared the crap out of me.” His eyes slink to the Band duo again.

  Elise blinks. “Oh.”

  She looks on the verge of tears, and Adahy has gone off to meet with someone in charge of this circus, leaving Jim and Philip in charge.

  Jim lightly squeezes her shoulder as their eyes move to the comatose woman laid out on an old-fashioned looking cot of some kind.

  After the fainting episode, Jim figured they'd find out more facts.

  Like where the hell is the grub. But oh-no. Jim's stomach is digesting his spine. And that might not mean Jack to some, but Jim's not at his best when he's starving.

  There's no grief inside Jim for Edwin. He didn't like that the Fragment had beaten him to death. But he didn't seem like he thought for others first. In Jim's view, it'd all been about Edwin, .

  But to see his mom brought so low she'd faint? And Vaughn let Calia tell her mom? To Jim, that news should have been delivered by Vaughn or Zaid.
>
  Or maybe the new clown, Jessup. He's Jim's personal favorite. In fact, with the exception of Philip, Jim's not a fan of the Band. Adahy's different, he's Native American and calls a spade a spade. So he's off the hate hook.

  But Adahy is absent, and Jim and Philip are tasked with the “protection” of the women. That's too much to ask of Jim who's always first in line for an ass-kicking.

  Calia looks like someone kicked her puppy. She's a hard girl, but Jim knows why. She's survived an ass-ton out in the wild filled with Fragment.

  Criminals from Jim's world.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  Elise, Philip and Calia keep at the outer part of the tent. Jim stands by the exit, eyeing the cloth doorway with an almost lustful glance.

  Vaughn and Zaid watch Calia's mother as she begins to stir.

  Thank God.

  Now we'll finally find out what's going on.

  Golden eyes open, running the length of the room. Blinking. That solemn gaze catches on each one of them but lingers over Calia longest.

  Jim's got a bad feeling.

  Calia takes a single, halting step forward. “Mother—”

  She stands, walking slowly to Calia and Jim feels his body tense for flight. He's always been a gut-thinker, despite his PhD in Genetics—Jim's an instinct guy.

  His instincts are shrieking about now.

  “You,” her mother hisses and Calia retreats a step.

  Elise gasps and Philip moves forward as Zaid and Vaughn flank Queen Golden Bitch.

  “What?” Calia asks softly, but not like she wants to.

  “It is you who is responsible for Edwin's death?” A sheen of tears coats hard eyes.

  Calia shakes her head, and Jim notices for the first time that she has grown fragile from being sick, from starvation—from the brutal life that's never given her anything but the back of its hand.

  Jim can't imagine a life that's nothing but a struggle, bearing scars as proof.

  Philip moves to stand between the women.

  “Calia is no more responsible for Edwin's death than your sea coming to shore. It is the Fragment who are responsible.”

  “His people,” Calia's mother says, pointing at Jim.

  Shiiiit. Jim's stomach churns with acid.