savage 07 - the dark savage

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  They keep to the narrow border of trees, barely the width of two horse lengths. Twilight reigns, violet and blue seeping through the darkening night like smashed berries. The liquid fruit of dusk splashes against a dying sun, muting it to the black of coming night. Ulric and group have traversed the glade an hour ago to reach the border of his clan. They will not burn in the sun's weak rays in this form.

  Ulric's chief complaint is being nose blind. The wind is harsh, sweeping underneath his broad, slightly canted nostrils, stealing his ability to scent properly. The loss of his most acute sense fills Ulric with anxiety.

  He puts his back to the forest border, sensing his elders milling just inside the darkest edges. Their watchfulness eases some of his tension.

  The wind shifts no matter which way they face, playing a game of evasiveness with their senses.

  Brom lifts his chin, trying futility to bring in a sense of surroundings.

  “Nothing—I cannot scent a thing.”

  Ulric scowls. “Nor I.”

  Brom glances at Philip, who has been aloof from start to finish. Ulric cannot blame him, for he had made to overpower the male of the Band. Now Philip shoots a glance of inquiry straight between Ulric's eyes.

  Ulric beckons him closer with a cupped hand.

  The frail Calia, Philip, Adahy, Elise and Jim move into a loose semi-circle to surround him and Brom.

  The wind howls around them. Bitter ice crystals bite along Ulric's skin as though testing its resistance.

  The women huddle against the much larger men to retain heat. Both Ulric and Brom run warm in these forms. So much so the tiny ice particles melt as soon as they strike their flesh.

  “The elders will take you to the trees which have accommodations for visitors,” Ulric's voice rises above the wind.

  “And you have so many who visit?” Philip scoffs.

  Ulric grins, instantly regretting the expression. He forgets the show of teeth as Elise's cringes. “No.”

  “I thought not,” Philip says, distrust still riding every syllable. The huge male turns to peer into the woods, the wind grabbing at the hair club secured tightly at his nape. Wisps of Calia's plaited hair escape, flying with the wind and obscuring her gold eyes. Her throat slits barely open, the wind seeking to infiltrate her body through the secondary breathing apparatus.

  “What's the problem, Ulric?” Jim asks, having studied him while they exchanged words.

  Jim is more astute than Ulric would like, and he ignores the question for the moment, gazing about him, having not urged the group into the woods just yet.

  He has a deep sense of unease. His eyes lifts to the sky, scanning his surroundings. The light covering of hair over his body lifts in the torrid beginnings of a true late winter storm.

  Brom comes to stand beside him and they both carefully scrutinize their immediate surroundings.

  Ulric finally answers Jim's question in his dialect. “If I knew, I'd say. Now shut up so I can think a minute.”

  “That is so bizarre,” Jim says then thankfully, he shuts his mouth.

  The group is spooked, Adahy is quieter than usual, the flap of his coat is partly open to allow Elise inside as a buffer from the wind.

  Their silence is absolute in the whirling wind and ice.

  Ulric closes his eyes, blocking his sight, which is actually his weakest sense.

  His ears prick. Horses.

  Ulric's eyes snap open. He sees nothing, and closes them again.

  Approaching hooves crush ice.

  His eyes flip open once more and he looks to Brom.

  “Horses?” he says in confirmation.

  “What say you?” Philip asks sharply, his hand hovering above his dagger as he looks between them.

  Ulric raises his hand for silence, and Philip, as the warrior he is, instantly stills at the familiar cautionary signal. His brows lower above eyes grown dark with the potential for coming violence.

  Ulric appreciates the quickness of a male willing to instantly defend what is precious, and the extra set of hands.

  His eyes move back to the sky.

  Birds rise from the trees in a black tide of wings and cawing from where their party had just traveled.

  Adahy follows their inky progress as they fly overhead. “They come. The birds would not leave the safety of their roost if not startled from it.”

  Ulric understands Iroquois and answers, “You speak true.”

  Adahy whips his head to Ulric. “You speak my tongue.”

  Ulric nods. But before they can communicate further, the Clan of Massachusetts rides slowly out into the meadow separating the last forest from the largest tree clan east of the great river.

  The scarlet ball of the sun sets behind them, leaving the clan as bloody apparitions of movement.

  “Vaughn,” Adahy says in wonder. “No male could heal the kiss of my tomahawk.”

  “Maybe this guy's just lucky,” Jim says with creeping desperation.

  The one Adahy calls Vaughn is on the forward steed, a loose triangle of warriors of the Band behind him.

  “Release the females, aberration, and you might live.”

  “Oh shit,” Jim says, wiping a brow that sweats despite the weather.

  “Vaughn,” Calia calls out across the flattened dead grass of the prairie, the wind stealing her words as she does. “We do not wish to leave this place. Edwin is dead—my mother is mad with her grief, and not thinking with a clear head.”

  Ulric listens to her as she attempts to reason with the Band.

  It will not be successful. This one—this Vaughn—believes that everything he does is the only way. The correct way. He will not bend, he will not stop.

  Vaughn will need to die. Ulric's hands fist.

  But his demise will occur in an environment that gives Ulric and his people the advantage.

  “Go inside the woods—now,” Ulric says in a low voice of authority.

  “I will not run, with my tail tucked between my legs,” Philip states in reply, his chin kicking up as his fists make the dagger in his hand creak in protest.

  Ulric turns to him. “We shall fight from the forest, where the advantage will be ours. They shall fall, warrior.”

  Philip smiles, baring his teeth.

  Ulric believes under different circumstances he could have liked him, and he turns to face the approaching Band.

  Brom crouches.

  “This is your last chance to leave this place—return to your own clan and not begin an unwinnable war between our peoples.”

  Vaughn leans forward on the horn of his saddle, the horse neighs, pawing the frozen ground in a dance of nervousness, Vaughn naturally shifting with the beast's movements.

  Its wide eyes find the Men of the Tree. The animal knows what Ulric and Brom are, and it fears them. As it should.

  “You are not people, but things. A legend of monsters best left to scare small children into compliance.”

  Ulric's smirk sits awkwardly on the face of his half-ape form. “We are first species, dolt. We evolved first. We are primary. It is you... who is secondary.”

  “Ah...” Jim begins and Ulric whips his hand up.

  “Jim—go into the woods.”

  “I've got a really bad feeling about this.”

  So does Ulric.

  But they retreat into the forest's embrace and something tight loosens inside Ulric's chest as the trees swallow them whole.

  “Leave,” Ulric says to the Band a final time.

  Vaughn slides a long, slim pole of wood out of a tether. He carefully wraps cloth around the end, all the while maintaining a grim eye contact with Ulric.

  Ulric's disquiet deepens to keen alarm.

  The Band behind Vaughn hands something off to him.

  Brom and Ulric exchange an uneasy glance.

  Ulric shakes his head, indicating his lack of what the object might be.

  With the weather dulling his typically sharp eyesight, Ulric cannot make out what it is.

  Vaughn
pours a substance on the cloth and Ulric's nostrils are affronted with the horrible smell.

  “Ah,” Brom says, jerking his jaw back against the odor, and instinctively covering his mouth.

  Vaughn hits what looks like two stones together and ignites the cloth at the pole's tip into flame.

  Realization slams into Vaughn.

  “The forest,” Brom says in a voice drenched with slick fear.

  Torches light like fireflies in summer, blinking on before Ulric.

  He counts five in all.

  Then he sees they are not poles—but spears. Weighted for accuracy and distance.

  The warriors of the Band pull back then expertly throw the sharpened spears toward the trees.

  Toward his home.

  Ulric watches them sail over their heads, his heart thudding painfully.

  “Get our females,” Vaughn commands casually while the spears pierce the forest floor, the dryness of the winter aiding flames that begin to lick the only sanctuary the Men of the Tree know.

  Ulric can hear the screaming of his people even over the storm.

  Chapter 13

  Ulric

  Brom's eyes widen, but Ulric does not need to vocalize what should happen next, or spur him to action.

  His second-in-command turns, leaping with only two bounds to the border of the woods.

  Someone has to protect—and someone has to confront.

  Ulric faces Vaughn.

  He watches as sheets of snow that long to be rain begin to redden Vaughn's skin.

  However, it is not wet enough to dampen the fire that rages behind Ulric's back. The heat of the Band's flame-tipped spears have begun to lick at the dry timber and undergrowth of the home of his clan.

  Ulric doesn't hesitate. He runs toward Vaughn, who complacently sits atop his mount.

  I am alpha of the first species.

  Vaughn will meet true death this day.

  The great warrior of the Band straightens in his saddle. He flicks open the canteen with the smell of a liquid that burns the fine hairs of Ulric's sensitive olfactory channels.

  As Ulric's arms swing open and his powerful legs jettison him forward into the air like a bird without wings, Vaughn swings the foul substance toward Ulric.

  The colorless liquid arcs, splashing against his chest like watery refuse of the finest order. Ulric coughs in acute misery, but latches onto the horse upon which Vaughn sits so proudly perched.

  The steed rears back on its hind legs, neighing in primal fear at the beast that Ulric is.

  Flint is struck, and Vaughn's smile is Ulric's only warning.

  Ulric sweeps his long arm toward Vaughn, tearing him from the saddle.

  Vaughn's flint sparks and he touches it almost delicately to Ulric chest.

  Tenderly.

  With a triumphant roar, he sets Ulric on fire.

  Ulric shrieks into the wind-drenched night and the noise steals his agony as his flesh begins to burn with what it's covered in.

  “What the fuck?”

  Ulric collapses, frantically trying to beat the flames off his chest. Only dimly aware of Jim's outburst.

  All that matters is putting out the fire.

  Jim is suddenly there. He leaps on Ulric's back, smashing his chest against the icy ground.

  The pain grows, enlarging like searing heat on the hottest day of summer in the open meadow.

  Every breath Ulric takes is ravaged by chemicals and fire—his singed flesh.

  He bucks and Jim clings at his back like a tick.

  “Fucker—stay down!” Jim screams beside his ear.

  The pain begins to subside, becoming a sharp, bitter and raw wound.

  Jim slides off and Vaughn is suddenly there.

  They have a moment of keen relief mingled with surprise, Ulric did not anticipate Jim's bravery—nor his stupidity.

  “You're more of a dick than even I knew,” Jim says and scuttles away.

  Ulric tries to move and can't, groaning instead. His body begins to knit the damage as a foot lands on his back and weight presses him back to the icy ground.

  Ulric's lungs deflate.

  Vaughn says to the others of the Band, “Kill him.”

  Jim makes a sound of pure derision and a lull in the wind amplifies it like a pin dropping on stone. “Nope—you freaking coward, come kick my ass yourself. You what—pour gasoline on Ulric? Way to play fair numbnuts.”

  Gas-o-line?

  Ulric's head is fuzzy with the exposure to the chemicals but even now his body begins to heal the issues. New skin forms like a sheath covering a drum, stretching underneath where he lies.

  The foot on his back eases as Vaughn steps over his prone form to get to Jim—who Ulric had determined to hate for all eternity.

  Who he mistakenly presumed was the enemy.

  Jim's future demise unfolds before Ulric's eyes. His hands come loose as he crouches in readiness, while three of the Band surround him from all sides. Jim's almond-shaped eyes slit against the driving wind—and, with his obvious disdain for the approaching Band.

  Ulric's gaze shifts to the great forest. Flames tear through the underbrush, causing the scent of pine to fill his nostrils with something other than the horrible singed perfume from Vaughn's canteen.

  It is an odor he has never presumed to know.

  His eyes meet Jim's for a moment before the first of the Band strike the Traveler.

  His gaze is grim, determined.

  Ulric is impressed, Jim is the strangest human he has ever beheld—and one of the most nimble.

  But he is no match for three of the Band.

  Ulric is.

  His body has healed what it can—only blood will achieve the rest.

  Ulric quietly stands as the Band delivers hard fists to Jim's sensitive organs. Jim retaliates with a speed that is impressive for a mundane.

  Ulric swoops in behind Vaughn, his half-gorilla form bursting like a bubble of flesh and knitting bone. He has thirty percent greater reach, and a more powerful upper body by far. Ulric uses it now, hugging and wrenching the huge Band upwards—locking his arms against his sides.

  Jim's eyes widen at the move, but he goes down when a vicious punch to his lower back takes him.

  Ulric's fangs punch out of his gums and he executes a deep strike where Vaughn's shoulder meets his neck. His incisors tear as he simultaneously drinks.

  Vaughn thrashes—as all prey do. But his gorilla half-form is powerful. Supremely so.

  Movement captures Ulric's eyes as he feeds from the writhing Band. He meets the gaze of Brom from over Vaughn's shoulder as he exits the woods to assist.

  The flames have slowed, yet not stopped.

  Brom gives a low growl as the males of the Band kick a now-broken Jim.

  Brom's humanity sloughs away, and his body snaps, shifts and reforms to his half-gorilla form. Arms and torso lengthen, his speed and dexterity—grow. A fine downy coat of hair flows over his body like water.

  Brom takes them both. His extended reach easily grasps napes as he rotates their heads together with a force that cracks their skulls.

  They go down, woozy from the harsh collision.

  Brom fluidly kneels beside them.

  Tab jogs to their position to join them.

  The men of the tree feed off their enemies.

  Deeply.

  *

  Jim

  Jim groans, trying to sit up. Falls back down.

  I think my kidney's lying around here somewhere.

  It gives out-of-body-experience a new meaning.

  Jim lifts his head, blinking rapidly. Blood runs beside him like small unruly rivers as the only sound above the wind is the suckling of the ape guys taking the Band out.

  Thank whatever's holy. His head falls back against the cold slush.

  After Jim's ridiculous impulse to save Ulric—an example of his brains leaking out of his ears—he'd gotten his ass kicked.

  Again.

  However, it looked as though once the elder
tree guys got a handle on the raging inferno of the forest, and Philip and Adahy were all ocupado with the girls, it left Jim to figure out his white knight routine.

  He did a shitty job, jumping on Ulric like a turtle trying to hump his back.

  Yeah, fantastic Jim-bo. But—his antics put the fire out. Jim wrinkles his nose at the smell of cooked flesh. And it's not that great 4th of July barbeque smell. Nope. It's all cannibal torch time.

  And how was Jim to know that these needle dicks had access to fossil fuel? Hell, it hadn't been used on his earth in more than a decade. How many people from his world were even grandfathered to use gasoline with autos? It had to be in the hundreds. No—this was some coveted shit.

  Gasoline—pfft—Jim can't believe he could even recognize the smell.

  His eyes stare up at the snowflakes falling out of the pewter cauldron of the sky.

  So I'll just lie around here and die.

  Thanks for everything.

  Jim's lungs spasm and he coughs. A spray of blood splatters his t-shirt and makes the snow even more dirty with his escaping body fluids.

  Jim's not dumb.

  He's dying. There's no med kit. The Band dudes? They knew where to hit him. They didn't waste time on sissy slapping. Nope, they went right for all the organ shots.

  None of them have their junk feeling good about now. Jim had nailed every one of those bastards where it hurt most. Gonad take down.

  He feels a crooked smile seat itself on his face. Might as well go out feeling all happy about his accomplishments.

  Except, he didn't get the samples.

  Jim frowns.

  Then two faces appear like clowns above him.

  Brom and Ulric.

  Jim's hazy smile returns.

  Hey guys.

  They appear like clowns because—because their crimson mouths look like a chick got enthusiastic with her lipstick application.

  Jim blinks, his smile slipping.

  No. That's not lipstick—that's blood. And those teeth aren't human, but vampiresque.

  The tree guys are done with their Band snack, and Jim's next in the banquet line up.

  Can't catch a break. Jim opens his mouth to scream and finds he doesn't have any breath.

  Collapsed lung.

  Fucking swell.

  Blood finds its way down his throat. Warmth burns a pathway of fire, tasting like the finest wine, with a kick.