by Narro, B. T.
My sister knows something that I don’t. The world is coming to an end! Under different circumstances, Effie would’ve thought of a joke. “How is it you know that?” she asked instead.
“You haven’t heard of them?” her sister asked in return. “Steffen’s right, you should read more.” Gabby had to take her victories whenever she could, Effie understood that, but she still wanted to smack the smug grin off her sister’s face.
Reela spoke before the thought became more tempting. “That doesn’t tell me why they’re important.”
“Most chemists have heard of the Slugari because of their connection to the caregelow flower,” Steffen explained. “It’s a remarkable form of nature that’s rumored to be a necessary ingredient for a few treasured potions. Evidence suggests that Slugari colonies exist in Ovira. However, they’re hidden underground. If that’s true, then the only way they could possibly survive is with caregelow plants. Find the Slugari and you find the caregelow plants.” Steffen jerked up his head. “I just thought of something. Effie asks of war, you ask of Slugari. It is possible they’re related! Oh, but I said we shouldn’t speculate on it any further.”
Effie rolled her eyes and found Reela doing the same. “Why don’t you finish your thought, at least?” Effie asked. “Then we can be done with these topics.”
He nodded submissively. “Someone told Reela that he’d heard we’ve discovered the underground colony of Slugari. If we really did, this information would be invaluable to the Krepps, worth going to war for even.”
Unlike Slugari, everyone knew of the Krepps. Effie had seen drawings, even read about them. She thought of them as reptilian men because of their lizard-like heads and their scaly skin. The Krepps had been scattered along northern Ovira long before Humans arrived, and that’s where they’d remained.
“Why would the Krepps care about a bunch of small Slugari hiding somewhere?” she wondered aloud. “The Krepps are taller and stronger than Humans. They can’t possibly be threatened by something half our size.”
“Krepps aren’t threatened by Slugari. Krepps eat Slugari,” Steffen said. “They hunt many animals, but nothing compares to their hunger for Slugari. It’s an urge incomparable to anything Human, from what I’ve read—some instinctual craving. The Krepps’ sole purpose of living is to eat Slugari, which is why the Slugari have resorted to hiding deep underground. If we know the Slugari’s location, the Krepps would surely fight with us in exchange for it, but…” Concern suddenly made his mouth go flat. He took a breath before continuing. “But by revealing the hidden Slugari colony to the Krepps, we’d be assisting in the extinction of an entire species of intelligent beings. The Slugari aren’t just some brainless animal. They talk, read and write, and they live and die by rules within their community. I’d even argue they’re more civilized than the Krepps that hunt them.”
Effie shared a solemn glance with Reela.
“Talk of war and massacring a species to extinction—this party certainly has been fun,” Reela quipped, sounding a bit annoyed.
“It’s merely a theory,” Steffen muttered, lowering his head. “I don’t wish to upset you. This is why we shouldn’t speculate.”
“The encyclopedia is right,” Effie concluded, hooking her arm around Reela’s to comfort her friend. Reela placed her free hand on Effie’s wrist, giving it a light squeeze that sent a wave of relaxation through Effie.
This wasn’t the subject matter Effie was used to on a night out. It reminded her of the history lessons her father had subjected her to as a child. Nothing was more sobering than hearing about Kyrro’s past, which was basically just a cycle of battles for kingship: First this guy was king, but everyone hated him, so this guy formed an army and took over, but he was hated even more, so someone else formed his own army and took over. She could never remember the specifics or the names of the kings a week later, so she found no point in it.
“Where is Cleve?” she asked in an attempt to change the subject. “That was a lot of sakal. We should keep watch on him.”
“He nearly got in a fight with Alex,” Reela answered.
It was Effie’s turn to joke. “This just keeps getting better.” At least he’s finally acting like a warrior. It wasn’t that she wanted him to, though. It was more that it was strange to expect something of someone, only to find he acted completely different.
“It may have had to do with what I told him,” Reela continued, “but in the end he and Alex appeared to resolve whatever it was. They hugged like you would expect two drunken men to hug.”
Rough and sloppy, came to Effie’s mind, which regrettably reminded her of the night she’d lost her virginity.
“What could you have told him to cause a fight?” Effie asked. Usually Reela caused men to get upset with her, not each other.
“I got the sense that Alex desperately wanted to tell Cleve something when they first met, and that desperation never faded. So I pulled Cleve away to let him know about it. Later, I watched him confront Alex while that chemist spoke to me of Slugari and other chemist-like subjects that I didn’t care for. Whatever Alex said, it must have shocked Cleve because he became quite aggressive, at least until they talked more and resolved whatever it was.”
“That’s stranger than a chemist with a sword,” Steffen said. Gabby smacked him in the stomach with the back of her hand. He gasped and wheezed as a result.
“I told you not to use that stupid line,” Gabby told him.
“It’s funny,” he replied defensively, regaining his posture and fixing his shirt.
“But you’re a chemist. It’s insulting. You should say something like, ‘That’s stranger than a warrior making a potion.’ ”
“That’s terrible,” Steffen said.
“It truly is,” Reela agreed.
Effie unhooked herself from Reela. She decided to check on Cleve, catching some of Steffen’s explanation to Gabby as she walked back toward the house. “There are many problems with it,” he argued. “Some chemists actually do try using a sword, only to look awkward and strange. Warriors don’t care for making potions…”
Once inside, Effie found Cleve asleep in a chair. She shook his shoulder, yet he didn’t awaken. It felt like trying to shake a tree loose from the ground. She faced him to grab each shoulder and shook hard enough so that his head fell to his chest then bounced back to life.
He groaned. “I feel dizzy.”
“Too much to drink. I’ll help you get back home. You need to get up, though. You must be twice my weight at least.”
He pushed himself upright. She put an arm around his torso to help him balance, but he must have misjudged how much weight she could support because he leaned on her with what felt like more than a hundred pounds. She screamed as the floor came at her. But in the blink of an eye, a disorienting yank on her arm pulled her upright.
It took a few frantic breaths while she stumbled to realize that somehow Cleve had managed to stop his own fall and catch her as well. She glared at him in disbelief, for he looked to be having difficulty staying afoot.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you fall,” he mumbled. “I won’t put that much weight on you.”
Reela came to his other side with an excited smile. “I saw that. In a moment he was more sober than anyone here. Yet look at him.” She laughed and put an arm tightly around his torso. “Can’t even stand straight.”
Now Reela’s touching him? Effie couldn’t remember the last time her friend had thrown an arm around a man, especially a warrior. Sure, she would give a friendly touch to Steffen every so often, but the way Reela looked to be holding Cleve as close to her as possible made Effie wonder.
Cleve mumbled with a wide grin. “Let’s go home.”
Outside, Steffen and Gabby joined them. They directed a few questions at Cleve, only to be answered with, “Let’s talk tomorrow” in the same mumbled voice.
Effie tried asking, “What happened between you and Alex?” With that, Cleve’s grin faded and there was no reply.<
br />
By the time they’d arrived at their door, Cleve had pushed himself away from Reela and was at least stumbling on his own.
“No more sakal,” Effie heard him whisper as she watched him flop face first onto his bed.
Something caught her eye before she passed his room. Even in the darkness she could see that it was the floorboards under his bed—they had been removed. She used Bastial Energy to create white light from her hand for a look.
There’s no bow, she realized.
“Cleve, your bow is gone. Did you move it?”
The only response was the sound of his breathing flowing in and out. He was already in a deep slumber. Tomorrow is going to be a bad day, Effie thought.
Chapter 11: The Army of Krepps
ZOKE
It had been two years since Zoke was given the task of overseeing discipline against all Krepps. In that time, he’d grown no more than an inch, coming up only to the shoulders of other adult Krepps around his age of pra durren—four, which meant it had been four years since the shedding of his birth skin, the painful transition into adulthood.
Besides Zoke’s height, however, he looked like any other Krepp. His face was longer than it was tall. His nose consisted of two holes above a lipless mouth that wrapped nearly around his entire head. His scaly skin was dark gray and tougher than the old leather that the Krepps wore to cover their privates. The claws on the ends of his ten fingers and toes were short and sharp. He walked with two legs on bare feet, and his body was thick with muscles, even at each bend of bone.
The Krepps had lived in Ovira longer than their limited history books had to tell. The Humans had appeared nearly two hundred years ago, Zoke had read. In that short time, the Humans had built cities and grand castles behind the mountains to the south. It was written that some could even cast magic. But history had no tales of battles between Humans and Krepps, and for good reason. Krepps towered over most Humans and weighed almost twice as much. Luckily for Humans, the Krepps had no reason to travel as far south as Kyrro.
To Zoke’s understanding, Krepps hadn’t changed much throughout the years. Though never skilled builders, their ability to hunt and kill remained unparalleled. Even Zoke, at his lesser height, possessed enough power and skill with his treasured sword to easily slay any other creature known to him. The major difference for present-day Krepps was that all tribes had merged only recently into one army under the leadership of Doe and Haemon—two monstrous Slugari driven by revenge who shared the Krepps’ near fanatical drive to find the hidden underground Slugari colony.
The week was nearly over, so it was time for Zoke to gather the Krepps who’d failed to fulfill their duties to the tribe and bring them to the judgment chambers for punishment. To make his presence known, Zoke clawed loudly at the cloth shielding that hung in the doorway of the first hut.
“Leave us,” a female Krepp snorted in reply from within.
As much as Zoke wanted to, he couldn’t leave them. His task wouldn’t allow it. So Zoke pushed through the hanging door and drew his sword. He found doing so made the process easier. A quick look around the small hut was all he needed to see that no male Krepp was inside.
“Where is husband to you?” Zoke asked in their language of Kreppen.
The mother Krepp was stitching a tear in leather pants not unlike those that Zoke wore. It had a long gash from the thigh to the shin. Her daughter was seated next to her, soaking a leg in a barrel of warm water. Neither would look in Zoke’s direction.
“What do you want with him?” the mother asked, keeping her eyes as low as her tone.
Zoke sheathed his sword. “Your family didn’t complete your weekly tasks. Now the oldest male needs to visit Vithos for judgment.”
The mother lifted her gaze for a long examination of Zoke, clearly thinking of an excuse. “Daughter was cut deeply. She couldn’t pick her share of kupota yesterday. I couldn’t either because I needed to care for her wound. Husband is in the field now, doing what he can.” She spat toward Zoke, then looked back to the pants strewn across her lap. “Not that you care, gurradu.”
There was no reason to stay, so Zoke left, but not before turning his head to say, “Endure.” He waited a breath for a reply but received none.
Zoke was used to being addressed as gurradu by now. The real gurradu were nose plugs made from oily rags. They were used to punish misbehaving child Krepps. With gurradu in, even the most delicious meat would lose its taste. Zoke was born with the rare inability to smell, and the inescapable nickname came soon after.
As instructed, Zoke did find his quarry at the kupota field, and the husband spat at the sight of him. “I’m getting your plants now,” the husband said, lifting a claw to point at the bucket next to him.
Zoke investigated the bucket of hacked and peeled kupota plants and frowned, knowing what could come next after he delivered the bad news. “They should have been delivered last night, and you don’t have enough here. Bring what you have to Vithos. Explain the situation with wife to you. The rest is up to the Elf.” Zoke had never met this Krepp before so he kept his hand ready on the hilt of his sword. He gave the same warning as he did to all first-timers: “Remember not to lie to him. He’ll know.”
“Fine, small gurradu.” The Krepp threw down his shovel and, thankfully for Zoke, followed him to the judgment chambers without a fight.
It was the most-fortified building in the encampment, a strong wooden structure that put the huts for each Krepp family to shame. It housed Vithos, an Elf who passed judgment on every deserving Krepp.
On the way there, Zoke received many condescending looks, some from Krepps who knew he would visit them shortly, the rest from others who knew nothing about Zoke except his reputation.
When they reached the judgment chambers, Zoke scratched on the wooden door to make his presence known. It opened from within, and Zoke stepped aside to let the accompanying Krepp through.
“Endure,” Zoke told him.
“Endure,” the Krepp replied with more fear than disdain. The door was shut behind him.
The day was young and Zoke would be escorting many others, so he tightened the lace on his official disciplinary cloak and made his way to the house of the next family on the list. It would have been easier to gather them all at once, but there was too much danger in that. It wasn’t uncommon for Krepps to react aggressively when he tried to bring them to the judgment chambers. If there were more than he can handle, they easily could take control—a dangerous thing to lose.
Eventually, the rumblings of his stomach notified him that lunch should be soon. By then, there was only one more family who didn’t meet their quota. But on his way to their hut, someone tugged on his cloak from behind to stop him. “Zeti needs your help,” a soft voice said. Zoke turned to find Grayol, a friend of his sister. Zoke knew him as a boy Krepp who still had several years before the shedding of his birth skin.
“What’s wrong?” Zoke asked earnestly, leaning down to match his eye level with Grayol’s. It was unlike Zeti to need anything from Zoke, so it wouldn’t be wise to ignore the summons.
“She can barely stand. She says her whole body aches.” Grayol was careful to speak quietly, as if he was afraid to hear himself say the words.
The beginning signs of her shedding, Zoke thought, straightening his back. Nothing to worry about. “She is twelve—pra durren.” Zoke kept his voice calm to help ease Grayol’s worry. “Twelve years she’s been alive without shedding. The time fits. Tell sister to me she’ll finally be a woman soon. It’s a slow process that’s very painful, but I’ll come by soon and prepare janjin plants for the pain.”
Grayol’s face remained pinched with panic. “She says it really hurts, and she’s much stronger than I am.”
“It will hurt even more later, but she needs her new skin to continue getting stronger as an adult.” Zoke thought that would be it, so he continued forward, but Grayol kept pace with him.
“Will the same happen to me?” the young Krepp asked
with a wince of fear in his bright yellow eyes. His long mouth was curled down at the edges.
“How old are you, nine—pra durren?” Zoke guessed.
Grayol nodded.
“Then you have two or three years before the shedding of your birth skin, but don’t be frightened of it because you’re not a man until your pra durren is completed. Krepps don’t show fear, we endure.”
Grayol stood up straight and pushed out his chest. “Endure,” he squeaked out.
Zoke heard the sound of another Krepp spitting toward him and felt hot saliva land on the top of his bare foot. “Grayol, don’t listen to this gurradu. He’s small and weak.” Zoke lowered his shoulders in disappointment when he saw it was Dentar, an associate of his father. “Father to Zoke tells me his weak son is pra durren—four, but look at him.” Dentar lazily waved a claw at Zoke. “He’s still the size of a boy because he doesn’t enjoy meat like a true Krepp.”
“I don’t have time for you,” Zoke said. “Grayol, you shouldn’t waste your time with him either. Go to sister to me.”
Grayol ran off without a look back.
“Always busy with the work of the Elf. No time for your own race,” Dentar said with a false smile, letting his sharp teeth catch the sunlight.
“We all serve Doe and Haemon, and the Elf serves them. If you don’t agree with their rules, then you can leave the tribe. Leave me no matter, though.” Zoke drew his sword and pointed it at Dentar.
“You kill a couple Krepps with that thing and think no one will stand up to you?”
“Yes.” Zoke held his weapon still, hoping Dentar would draw his. His father’s associate was a head taller, but Zoke knew Dentar’s skill did not match his own.
Dentar checked to see if other Krepps were watching and found no audience. He forced a wider smile and grunted as he left.
I hope I find your name on this list someday, Zoke thought, sheathing his weapon. Delivering Dentar to the judgment chambers to watch him try to talk his way out of a burning would be like finally scratching an itch that had been impossible to reach.
