by Helen Allan
Megan nodded. “He is a good friend, Sorrow, and arty and flighty as he might seem, he will always have your back. You can rely on him to have your best intentions at heart.”
“I know,” Sorrow nodded, “I’ve given him a task at the moment, a difficult one. For a French lothario from the 1800’s he doesn’t seem to have any problem at all adjusting to however strange it gets over here.” She bit her lip in consternation. “I’m beginning to realise Mum, I may be good at healing people,” she paused, “but I’m no good at thinking on my feet about survival.”
“Yes, you are,” Megan said, her brows furrowing, “you are a survivor, honey. You did well for yourself for two years on that planet before I landed there.”
“Yeah,” Sorrow snorted, “I married a psycho alien who I thought I could change. A murderer who killed my baby and now is probably planning to hunt me down and gut me.”
“Look at me, Sorrow,” Megan said suddenly, staring down into the camera.
Sorrow raised her eyes and looked at her mother.
“You are only 19. Anhur was your first relationship; you had no point of reference to model a marriage on, being raised by a single mum. We all grow and learn. As I said to you, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Anhur turned out to be your first frog. Live and learn. There is no point depressing yourself by second-guessing what you did or didn’t do – and you have plenty of time to marry again if that is what you want to do.”
Sorrow nodded. “I know Mum. I guess I was overly optimistic. I thought I could change him, but I knew, I guess, deep down, that you can’t change people.”
“How are you coping? With everything?” Megan asked quietly, “it’s alright, we are alone, Ceda has gone to practice some weaponry.”
“I’m OK,” Sorrow sighed. “The Sin attack almost every night. We lose a few people each time; they lose more though. Mum, I’m thinking of going to Khalili, I’m going to ask him to join us, to form an alliance with humans.”
Megan frowned. “What do you hope to gain from that?” she asked quietly.
“I’m not sure,” Sorrow shrugged, “I still want peace between all the groups; Humans, Sin, Earthborn, I guess I thought I might start somewhere. Han has been spending time with Jess; they say they are in love.”
“Honey, Han was virtually raised by me, but Khalili is nothing like his son, he is, well, primitive. I lived with them for some time, I never fully trusted him, you shouldn’t either.”
“I’ll keep that in mind Mum, love you.”
“I love you too. I wish there was a way we could stay in touch.”
“Next February,” Sorrow promised, “I’ll jump back next February, Mum, that’s only about eight months away now. But hey, uh, in the meantime, can you do me a favour and see if you can find out something about Anhur?”
“What, love?”
“Something is confusing me about the collective memory. He calls himself Earthborn, but, I’m not sure he was. Can you find out for me please if he did live on Earth at some point? I think he must have been born on another planet, even though he was conceived on Earth. I can’t make head or tail now though of where he was born, or where he has lived.”
“Do you really need to know?” Megan frowned.
“Well, it might help prepare for his attack, and it might help me understand his motivations. Know thy enemy and all that.”
Megan nodded and blew Sorrow a kiss, she caught it mid-air and transferred it to her cheek. Her mother’s worried expression was not lost on her as she signed off and programmed the ship to take itself to the mountains.
Exiting the ship and watching as it instantaneously rose into the sky and disappeared, Sorrow heard shouts from beyond the wall and grimaced. Making her way up the stairs to the top of the Keep’s walls she looked down at Etienne and his fourteen captives, tied tightly in a line with rawhide.
“What seems to be the problem, French man?” she called down to her friend.
Etienne, dressed as ever, flamboyantly, in a frilly white shirt, tight tan-coloured leather trousers and a red cravat, flicked his whip at the captives and looked up at Sorrow in annoyance. She couldn’t help but smirk. She had brought clothes with her, of course, but they were practical; Jeans, t-shirts, jumpers, sturdy shoes. She alternated between these, the gowns favoured by the Earthborn when she was alone in her room, and the hunting spacesuits favoured by the Earthborn men that she had found in the pod locker. These she was reserving mostly for expeditions outside the fortress that might entail fighting. They changed colour to suit the terrain, blue, white, brown, green, and were armoured and tight-fitting, adjusting themselves to the size of the wearer as they snapped into place. Each came with a helmet that allowed communication between other suit wearers.
Etienne, however, refused to “dress like a philistine or a space creature” no matter where he travelled. He favoured brightly coloured cravats, jodhpurs and well-cut dinner jackets. He was something of an oddity wherever he went, but especially in the Keep, made up of people in home-spun wool and natural-dyed linen. Nevertheless, being tall, handsome and well-buit, he was naturally a big favourite with the women. She grinned down at him as he waved his hands in annoyance.
“Animals,” he said angrily, “they are untrainable animals. You say capture them, put them to work on the walls, yet here they sit, refusing to move, trying to bite the other workers at every opportunity. I cannot, I will not, waste any more time trying to train them. Mon Dieu look at this, I mean just look at this.” He held up his arm to show where his shirt had been torn, bloodstains surrounding the tear indicating he had been bitten.
Sorrow grimaced. She had tasked a handful of men, led by Etienne, with capturing some of the Sin who attacked the walls each night and turning them into labour, to help fast-track the building of the town walls. She had taught Etienne some rudimentary Sin language and hoped he could persuade the captives that slavery was preferable over death. So far it was not working out well.
Grabbing a rope, she shimmied down the side of the keep walls and approached the line of Sin. Many had wounds from the initial battle, arrow and spear wounds, cuts and gouges. But they were incredibly hardy creatures, not prone to infection, or so it seemed.
She paused by Etienne and lifted his sleeve, raising an eyebrow at him and smirking at the tiny scratch on his forearm. Leaning down she gave it a quick kiss.
“All better.”
He rolled his eyes in exasperation as she patted him on the shoulder.
Turning she walked to the largest Sin in the line, addressing him in his tongue.
“Sin, you have been captured. You will be put to death if you do not work to build our walls. We will not mistreat you, but you must work.”
One of those in the line laughed harshly.
“You will not make us your slave, Earthborn scum,” he said, “we will eat these humans,” he nodded towards Etienne, “and then we will eat you.”
The others in the line laughed harshly, some looked her up and down and licked their lips.
Sorrow turned on her heel and left.
“Plan B,” she said over her shoulder to Etienne, “lock them up, I’ll be back in a week.”
Etienne threw his hands up into the air.
“A week?” he shouted to her retreating back.
She didn’t answer.
7
Sorrow sat opposite Khalili and studied him in the same way he studied her.
She was tall, but he was taller, towering a head above her, broad-chested, muscular. Although he had the same tusks she had seen on other Sin, and the same curved teeth, he didn’t seem as dirty or dishevelled as those Sin who attacked the fortress.
His tent home was neat and tidy; it smelled like the woods, earthy, fragrant. She had been here for three days now, trying to forge an alliance with this Sin, but she didn’t feel she was getting anywhere. So far, he had locked her up and stared at her, despite the fact she had walked into his camp unarmed and bearing gifts.
>
As they sat this morning in stalemated silence, she noted that he had, just as his son did, tattoos that swirled over his torso and blended with the thick hair that covered much of his body. Han had told her those tattoos denoted his hereditary status as a ruler of a clan. He said it would be a great honour for another leader to kill his father and gain his title. Each clan was, by strength only, the owner of an area of forest. Now that his father’s clan was all but gone, he and his remaining tribesmen were hunted constantly by the stronger tribes, keen to control the woods in this sector. The only advantage Khalili’s tribe had was that they did not rely on human meat anymore, as the other tribes still did, so they had less need to leave the cover of the forest and expose themselves to attack.
Khalili sat silently opposite her, sipping his drink and watching. Since her arrival he had kept her confined to his tent, deigning to speak with her for a few minutes each day, always asking the same questions.
He set his cup aside and leaned towards her, his elbows on his knees.
“What would I gain, from such a deal?” he asked, his black eyes holding her blue gaze steadily.
Sorrow sighed and looked at the tent roof.
“I told you. You and your Sin would live, protected by the town walls, as the humans would, safe from attack from the other Sin and the Earthborn; you would have a ready supply of goat meat.”
“And what do you gain from this so-called alliance?” he asked, his eyes narrowing at her annoyed frown.
“Seriously? Are you deaf? I want to forge an alliance between all three races, especially given that we are all related, strangely. I need you to help swing the other Sin, the ones we capture, towards not eating humans. I want you to get them to follow your lead, to learn the history of the planet, before it is too late.”
“And why would it be too late?” Khalili frowned.
“Because there is someone else, a God, an alien, one of the type who first took over this planet. He plans to come here and destroy all the Earthborn.”
Khalili smiled. “I like this plan.”
“No,” Sorrow said, rising and standing over the still seated Sin, “you also carry the Gods’ genetics; they will destroy your race too. Hasn’t that sunk in yet?”
Khalili rose also, anger replacing his, up-to-now, reasonably neutral expression.
“Do not stand over me, woman,” he growled.
“Well don’t act like a fucking idiot then,” Sorrow spat back, the words escaping before she could take them back.
Khalili drew back his hand and struck her hard across the face, sending her sprawling backwards onto one of the low timber beds lining the wall of his tent. Without pause she bounced up and threw herself at him, punching him in the nose and twisting to knee him in the balls simultaneously.
He gasped and doubled over with pain, but recovered quickly, crouched and ready to attack again, his eyes narrowed and fixed on her face.
Glaring at him, she wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You will never touch me again,” she hissed.
“I like not your plan,” Khalili said, baring his teeth at her and rubbing his nose where she had hit him, “I like not your face.”
Sorrow laughed.
“You can talk, you ugly mother-fucker.”
Khalili raised his hand again, his eyebrows shooting up as she adjusted her stance and didn’t flinch.
“Do it,” she said in a deadly quiet voice, “I’ve wanted to kick your arse for days.”
He stood perfectly still and considered her for a second. “You will stay here,” he growled, turning and pushing aside the flap to leave the tent.
Sorrow sat down heavily on the bed, listening to his retreating steps and his shouts to his guards.
‘Plan B is not working,’ she thought ruefully, tenderly feeling her face where he had struck her, ‘Mum, what have I got myself into?’
This was only the second time she had ever been hit by a man, and she seethed in anger and frustration. Her mother had never struck her as a child, had shielded her in fact from any forms of violence or any of the abuse that she, herself, had been subject to as she grew up. Megan had made sure that Sorrow knew she was safe, loved and supported in anything she set her mind to do. Sorrow suspected that was part of the reason her mother had never dated. Not just because she carried her love for Franklin tucked inside her heart, but because she didn’t want to risk bringing anyone into her daughter’s life, anything that might cause upset in even the smallest way. Sorrow had grown up knowing she was the centre of her mother’s universe and supported in every facet of her life. But she was beginning to realise this was a double-edged sword because while on the one hand, she was resilient, emotionally strong, confident – on the other, she was sheltered and easily shocked by the vagaries of life. She suspected this was why she was having such a hard time admitting Anhur was not the man she thought he was. But even he, so violent in his love of blood sport and hunting, had never raised his hand to her during their 18 months of marriage. His striking her when she returned to the planet had shocked and appalled her so badly, she had not thought to retaliate, her only thought for that of her unborn child.
Now, sitting in this tent, she was furious that this Sin had dared to assault her, but glad that her martial arts training had kicked in straight away. More thoughts of revenge swam one after the other through her mind; she wished she had kicked him harder.
Her brooding was interrupted by a Sin woman, one of the few left in the tribe, bringing in a bowl of warm water and a cloth.
“I am to tend your face,” the woman said brusquely.
“By whose order?” Sorrow asked, surprised.
“Khalili.”
Sorrow gritted her teeth and took the bowl of water from the woman. As she did so, she heard shouts from outside and the sound of running feet. The woman who had brought her the water turned and rushed outside. Sorrow heard more screams and the ringing of sword on sword and stuck her head out to see one of her guards dead at her tent entry, the other fighting for his life against two, much larger Sin assailants.
Without thinking she picked up the dead guard’s swords and plunged into the fight, her training coming to the fore. If there was one thing in her life that her mother had insisted on, it was that she be trained in all forms of self-defence. Megan had told her it was just a precaution. But they both knew that, given her heritage, one day it might be a necessity. Sorrow, from a young age, had practised deadly arts alongside those for healing. While her everyday children’s games had featured all the usual dress up dollies, pretend doctors and tea parties, they also featured elaborate role-playing scenarios where she hacked, punched, kicked, sliced and shot imaginary foes with deadly precision.
Her mother may have protected her from ever needing to use these skills, but she had always insisted the techniques be kept up with regular training. Sorrow was beginning to realise her parent had more foresight than she had ever given her credit for, as she swung into action with all the practice and grace of a Ninja. Her swords sliced and stabbed, her legs incapacitated with swift kicks, knives were thrown with sharp and deadly accuracy, and the bodies piled up around her.
By the time the fighting was over Khalili’s tribe had been reduced to just a few staggering individuals, weaving their way through the enemy bodies that lay three deep - finishing them off with a few final blows. One of those that remained standing was Khalili, but not for long, his stomach wound so serious, he swayed like the walking dead.
“Take those of my tribe who are left,” he ordered Sorrow as he staggered towards where she stood, clutching his spilling entrails. “Lead them to your walled fortress. Tell my son I understand his choice but will never approve of it; he must choose again.”
Sorrow dropped her swords and caught him as he fell towards her, his weight bowing her back. Calling for help but receiving none, she dragged him into his tent and began to treat his injuries.
She watched him sleep, naked on his
back, his breath rising and falling, and wondered yet again how it could be that he had survived such a horrific wound when her operating utensils had been so rudimentary. An injury like the one he had sustained would have killed a human instantly, but the Sin were strong.
In all, at least 50 large warriors had descended on the small community just as it began its morning rituals, the fog from the previous night still clinging in the air. Of those, Khalili’s tribe, or what remained of it, had burnt 22 enemy bodies – the rest of the attackers had disappeared back into the forest, probably to return once they regrouped. The surviving members of Khalili’s tribe had to leave before the next attack.
Sorrow had helped tend the wounds of the remaining community members and had passed on their wounded leader’s instructions. The tribespeople, mostly women with small children who had hidden during the fighting, were virtually all packed, but she knew Khalili could not yet be moved and would need to stay behind.
Hearing the rustle of the tent flap she looked up as Han entered. He grimaced when he saw there was no change in his father’s condition.
“Will he ever wake?”
Sorrow nodded. “He will when his body is ready. He has a massive wound; no human could have survived a sword injury like this. He is very strong.”
“Yes,” he nodded, concern still written all over his face.
“Are you ready to go?”
He nodded. “Our tribe is packed. All that remains is to move this tent to a more hidden location. You should be safe if the survivors of the attacking tribe return – they will see the empty campfires and believe we have run.”
Sorrow chewed her lip.
“Han, your father said something to me before he collapsed. He said to take all your people to the fortress, but he said something else, he said, hang on, I want to get the words right; ‘Tell my son I understand his choice, but will never approve of it, he must choose again’ - does this make any sense to you?”
Han snorted. “Even in death, Father, you bastard!”
