He meeped. “My dream!” he whispered through gritted teeth. “In my dream, I don’t eat bugs.”
“Bug? No! This is a Chroan. What is a bug?”
“That!” he whimpered as he pointed to the hideous thing on the stick. “That is a bug and I don’t eat them! I can’t.”
“Oh!” Pink Hair smiled. “You must be fertile! I cannot eat the Chroan either!”
“Fertile?”
“Yes! Like me! I guess that means that I can’t even think of touching you. You are too much temptation for me, but I must take you with me.”
Gray blinked as he/she rose to his/her feet, the long robes swirling around his/her ankles, and walked over to the edge of the firelight. He/she tossed the stick out into the darkness beyond.
“The older Chroan will devour that one and there will be no waste. But in the meantime, I have something for you to wear until your garments dry. The robes compliment your eyes, Gray. And while you are dressing, I will prepare you some roots and bulbs.”
“Roots and bulbs? Robes?”
“Yes! And then we will discuss where you come from. You speak oddly, but you are fertile so you must be important to somebody.”
With that and a swirl of dark blue robes, she turned and walked away, leaving a befuddled Gray behind muttering the one thing he could think of.
“Please wake up, please wake up, please wake up!”
Chapter Five
The purple-blue robes fit him, though they were a few inches short. And they were made of some material that he had never felt before. It was silky, almost like good satin or silk. But it seemed to be as sturdy and breathable as cotton or linen. Despite himself, he was impressed as he admired the rich dark color in the firelight.
As far as hallucinations went this one was pretty fantastic. But there still was that matter of him waking up, something that had yet to happen. He wondered what that meant.
“Pretty.” He jumped at the husky voice, turning to face the he/she who’d spoken. Pink Hair was gazing up at him admiration as she took in his form draped in the purple-blue fabric.
“A bit short. You would think that my subconscious would know my inseam size and my height.” But then, he wasn’t wearing pants or underwear under these things. He sighed ruefully as he contemplated his mental state. It had to be pretty bleak for him to think up this arid dreamscape complete with the husky voiced person of undeterminable sex.
“You speak strangely. But then as strange as you look, I guess that is excusable.”
“You think I look strange?” he asked, incredulously. He tossed his hair over his shoulders and placed his hands on his hips to glare at the pink-haired one.
“Whoever heard of black hair?” Pink imitated his pose as she stared back.
“Well, whoever heard of someone with pink hair and yellow eyes?”
“It’s a common thing,” she retorted. “My father had yellow eyes and I am told that my breeder had pink hair.”
Before he could respond, there was a squeak and something latched onto his leg. He lifted the leg in question, peering to see clearly in the dim light, and choked. It was one of those things. Those things that had been roasting in the spit. And it was attached to him. Again he felt faint. “What is that?” he gasped as he gave his leg a shake, hoping to break the thing free, but it held fast.
“Chroan.” She sounded exasperated. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Chroan?”
“It seems to be attracted to you,” Pink mused, looking puzzled as the tiny pink bug attached itself to the strange one. “Maybe it is your unusual smell.”
“I smell unusual?”
“Like sweet spice,” she agreed sagely as she watched the little Chroan cling to the man, and his attempts to shake it off. “Where do you come from, stranger, that you do not know even the simplest of things that our children know for survival?”
“Baltimore, Maryland,” he snapped. “How about you?”
“I come from the mountain villages at Chornth. Where is this Baltimoremaryland you speak of?”
Gray paused in his mad dance to shake the disgusting bug from his person. Instead he took a really good look at Pink. “Okay,” he fairly growled. “What are you? Are you a man or a woman?”
“I…you can’t tell?” Her hands went to her hair, to her face, to the jewel that sat in the middle of her forehead.
“Okay, you’re a woman.”
“You can tell now?” She sounded even more confused, still checking her person.
Gray snorted. “Only a woman would fret over her hair and face like that. You’re a girl.”
“Yes, I am. And you are male, with a large cock that hangs low between your thighs and is bare. I thought that all men had hair when they reached maturity. That is what my father told me.”
“The hair…” He blinked a few times and then an almost shy blush lit his face. “I, uh, I shave.”
“Shave?”
“I remove the hair. Okay, this is too much. Who are you and what have you done to my mind? I have to be…”
“Asleep,” she cut him off. “I have heard that litany fall from you lips before. You are not asleep.”
“Prove it!”
She walked over to him and socked him in the stomach, as hard as she could. Which was considerably hard as she had been a rancher and a worker all of her life.
Gray’s eyes widened as he automatically tightened his stomach to absorb the blow, but the strength behind it was enough to give him pause. Slowly, the realization dawned that he was no longer drunk, that something strange was going on, and that he was definitely awake. A figment of his imagination would not actually cause him pain. “Okay,” he sighed, finally believing what his senses were telling him. “You proved it.”
Her face broke into a huge smile as she again motioned to an area just below his waistline. “Your cock?” she asked. “Is it real and normal?”
“If you’re real, you have to have a name. What is your name?”
“My name? Gethla. And yours is Gray.”
“Okay, Gethla. First things first, get this thing off of my leg, please show me some food that doesn’t have more legs than I do, and please tell me where I am.”
Chapter Six
Gray picked at the boiled tubers in the bowl that Pinky—Gethla—handed him. They seemed, to his shocked palette, little better than that cooked bug.
“Fresin root. Very good for you. Good for the bones and for potency.”
Like that was an endorsement to eat the white blobs. “Thank you.” He lifted one tuber from the bowl and did something he always criticized people for—lifted the root to his nose and took a hard sniff.
A giggle pulled him from his scientific experiment. He eyed his hostess as she covered her face and tried to hide the mirth bubbling up inside her. “You are funny, Gray. As well as having a large cock. You must have a lot of partners, though I have never heard of a male breeder.”
“Now wait just one minute,” he responded, sitting straight up and tossing the tuber he held to his pet roach, as he called the Chroan, who devoured it and seemed to wriggle in enjoyment as it stared at its captive human. “I don’t breed anything.”
“Then how do your people survive? And the jewel in your stomach, is that not a sign of you virility?”
“No! It’s an ornament. It's body jewelry. I was not born with it as you were born with your…jewel.”
“I understand. So your women carry the jewels?”
“Not any that would get them to have children. Then again, I guess that depends on the size of the jewel you offer.”
“I do not understand.”
“No.” He lifted another tuber, took a deep breath for courage, and shoved it into his mouth. Then he blinked in surprise. The tuber was pretty good. It tasted almost like chicken.
“No?”
“This is good,” he said, losing his train of thought, before remembering what he was saying. “And no, there are no jewels to determine potency. Men and women
decide when and with whom they have children. And if the couple has problems bearing, then there are measures that can be taken to ensure offspring.”
Gethla stared in amazement as she listened to Gray’s words. This was unheard of. This was amazing. This was too good to be true. If she could go to his village… But no. That was not an option for her. She had to help her people. “I envy your people, Gray,” she said with a soft sigh, her eyes downcast as she worried a small slip of her robe between her fingers. “Ah, the freedom…”
“You’re free, Gethla. Look at you, roaming the countryside of this place and doing what you want to do. A lot of women from Baltimore couldn’t handle that.”
“What I do, I do because I have no choice, Gray. And soon, even this welcome task will be taken away. Soon, it will be time for me to take my place as the village breeder.”
“The village breeder?”
“I will bear many children for the men of other villages, Gray, to increase their progeny. This jewel means I am fertile, and therefore many will pay for me to bear a child.”
“What?” Gray leapt to his feet, staring at Pinky with horrified amazement.
“I am fertile. It is my destiny to bear children to increase the population of my people. It is what I was born to do.”
“That’s insane!” he roared. Pity for the vibrant young woman overwhelmed him. “What about your rights? What about what you want?”
“Rights?”
“Your God-given ability to choose!”
“But God chose for me, Gray. He created me with this jewel in my forehead and therefore decreed what I must do for my people.”
Before he could comment further, there was an uneasy rustle from the group of bugs that were beyond the light of the fire. “What is that?” he asked, turning to stare at the still unseen hordes of bugs, praying that she wouldn’t light a light and force him to see the mutated things.
Instantly, she was on her feet, a streak of pink until she pulled the folds of her robe over her head. She blended into the night as if she had never been, investigating and leaving Gray standing there, wondering what was going on. “Gethla?” he hissed. It just didn’t make sense to yell when you had no idea who or what could be listening in. “Gethla?”
Then she was at his side, emerging from the darkness as if she were a phantom phasing in, and gripped his arm, her yellow eyes narrowed in anger. She said one word that shook his world and tested the limits of his disbelief. “Rustlers.”
“What?”
“Rustlers! They are after my herd!”
Gray shuddered. “They’re only bugs! Let the rustlers have them!”
“They are important to my people! Next year’s breeding stock! Food for the winter! Beasts of burden and tools to help us exist, Gray. I have to save them!” With that, she gave a piercing whistle, looking expectantly into the dark.
When after a few seconds nothing happened, Gray relaxed, but he let down his guard too soon. With barely a sound, a huge pink and white thing—a cross between a tarantula and a roach—appeared at her side. It was easily as large as a horse and carried on its back something that looked like a thick saddle. Its small round head was low to the ground, but at least four sets of beady black eyes honed in on his person and stayed there.
“What the hell is that?” he shrieked, staring in horror at the biggest bug he had ever seen.
“Zy!” she hissed as she climbed onto its back and reached out a hand for him to grasp.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” His voice squeaked in disgust as he stared at the monstrosity of a bug. He could feel the phantom crawlies running up his arms as he shuddered and rubbed his arms.
“Gray, we must hurry!” She guided the bug around him, clucking at it, making it use two of its rear legs to kick sand on the fire.
“I am not getting on that!”
Then the first dart flew past his head, narrowly missing his nose.
“Okay!” He leapt for the—Ick—bug! like he was the Lone Ranger leaping on Silver.
Chapter Seven
Gethla jerked the strange one, Gray, in front of her on the saddle, easing back to make room for him. There was little time to waste. The rustlers would do whatever they could to get their hands on a valuable herd like this one, and they would run over anything that got in their way.
Grunting at the time it took for Gray to mount up, she reached behind her, into the concealing robes, and pulled out what had to be the mother of all bows.
“Where were you hiding that?” Gray gasped as another arrow zinged past them. He ducked low and tried to see into the darkness that Gethla seemed to be able to see through. Gethla didn’t answer, but pulled back on some unseen string and a bolt of pure energy exploded from the arc of the bow.
“Damn,” Gray all but screamed as a huge explosion sounded behind them. There was a high-pitched squeal and then the sound of many soft footfalls. “What did you do?” Gray cried out as he tightened his grip on the saddle and tried to forget that he was riding a huge reason for Raid.
“Scattering them.” She turned back to release another energy arrow. “I just hope the Chroan don’t scatter, too.”
“Scatter?”
“The vibrations!” she explained as another arrow whizzed passed them.
“How many are there? I was sure there were only two!” She released another arrow then turned again to guide the bug across the desert-like plains. Gray looked down, catching an impression of the land passing at a frightful rate, then slammed his eyes closed, vowing not to look again.
“There are more!” she hissed. “And they are going for the herd!”
She tugged on the reins, spinning the bug around with a gut-wrenching twist, and seemed to aim toward something unseen. Gray found a good handhold and tightened his legs around the bug’s body as they shot off in the direction of what he assumed were the rustlers.
He could feel his anger building. What kind of vacation was this? He got drunk, he got half drowned, and now his hostess was being attacked by bug rustlers!
“What can I do?” he growled, his words easily heard over the nearly silent footfalls of their mighty steed.
“You?” Gethla asked, surprised. She had been alone for so long, doing things on her own and surviving, that she never even considered asking for help. But if the strange man was offering… “Can you guide Zy?”
If he could guide her mount, then she would be better able to target the rustlers and stop them from scattering the herd. If the herd stampeded, they would lose precious fat and nutrients, as well as maybe even losing a limb or two.
Not to mention the loss of life that occurred when instinct tried to force a being that was too large to scamper up walls in a more vertical direction. At every stampede, there were at least a few casualties of genetic imprinting and that would not do. Every Chroan was needed to see her people survive through the long and brutal winter.
“Guide? Damn right.” He was proficient in horseback riding, and this couldn’t be much different.
Almost instantly the strange set of reins were tossed into his hands. There were four leather straps as opposed to the usual two. But he gave all four of them slack and snapped them sharply. “Ha!” he shouted, spurring the bug on to speeds so fast that the wind stung his eyes and chapped his lips.
This was kind of fun. If it wasn’t for the silent pass and the odd gait from the lurch of multiple limbs, he could easily forget that he was riding in essence, a huge bug. But thinking those thoughts reminded him that he was terrified of bugs, so instead he concentrated on trying to see the terrain.
As he squinted into the darkness, he ignored the occasional whoosh of the energy arrows that Gethla seemed to sling with glee, and tried to make out a landmark or something. Then in the distance, he could have sworn he saw a lighter patch of darkness move toward the right. Trusting his instincts, he pulled the reins and the responsive animal sped off in that direction.
“Yes, Gray!” Gethla whispered, her delight obvious. “Yo
u’ve spotted the leader! If we get him, the rest of the band will disperse!”
Again, she fired at the disappearing blob of darkness, driving him away from her precious herd and trying her best to break up the band. “Yee ha!” Gray growled, fast on the scent of the leader now.
When her battle became his, he had no idea, but the thought of catching that rustler and giving him what he deserved took over his mind. The male instinct to capture and conquer and punish all that did him wrong was flying high in his mind. The world disappeared, all except for his goal—stopping that man before he hurt his kind Pink Hair.
Closer they came upon the retreating man, his steed in no way a match for Gethla’s Zy. “Yes!” Gray hissed, kicking their mount in the sides, driving it forward at a faster rate!
Just as he could make out the deep purple of the bandit’s robes, there was a huge muffled boom and Gethla let out a shriek of dismay. “The herd!” she screamed, losing interest in the escaping thief. “They’re scattering the herd!”
Without thinking, Gray jerked hard left on the reins, making the bug rear before it spun at dizzying speed and reversed its direction. In desperation born of fear, Gethla draped her bow over one shoulder and wrapped her arms around Gray, praying they would make it in time.
The ebony sky began to lighten into a deep royal purple as they raced across the land, the landmarks missed in the dark beginning to take on a hazy shape as they raced forward.
As they crested the rise of one hill, Gethla let out a pained gasp. “No!” she cried as she surveyed the valley below.
Pink, yellow, purple, blue, the huge Chroan trampled each other in an attempt to escape the sonic boom someone had loosed on them. Some scampered up the dark, almost black, face of the mountains, to tumble onto their backs, legs flying up in the air, their high pitched clicks filling the cool dawn.
Gray stared and tried to hold in his stomach, which was trying to forcibly eject itself through his mouth, as he watched his greatest nightmare unfold before his eyes. The biggest bugs he had ever seen seemed to be vying for escape routes, trampling over everything that got in their path. Their clicks and squeals were awful to his ears as the sight of the repulsive things froze him in place.
Threshold Volume 2 Page 12
