by Jean Kilczer
An older woman, the tawny fur thin on her pale head and chest, emerged from deeper in the cave and paused.
“This is Anbria, my wife,” Oldore said.
I started to stand up. Anbria wiped a hand across her eyes and smiled, stretching thick lips. I sat back down, smiled, and wiped my eyes with a hand.
She threw Oldore a quizzical look. He chortled and held up my shirt with a few words in his native tongue.
Anbria hooted softly, took the shirt and scratched the top of her head. Her eyes crossed as she studied the rips closely in firelight. Then she wiped her eyes with a hand and disappeared back into the darkness of the cave.
“You'll have to forgive my lack of protocol,” I said, “but we're talking about life and death here.”
He turned the half-finished statue so that the extended hand faced me. “I think you should leave with your people… your team.”
I shook my head. “I'm the only one who can fly the hovair. I'm the only one who knows the tactics of those butchers!” I thought of Sophia. She would not want to leave. If I tried to force her aboard the star ship, Joe and my team would force me there too.
“Still, you are of their race,” Oldore was saying, “a child of Terra. This is not your struggle.”
“You know what, Oldore, I just made it my struggle.” I wiped a hand across my eyes. “I'm sorry if I did that wrong.” I stood up, zipped my jacket, and strode out of the cave.
* * *
That night we feasted on roasted fish, wild nuts and berries, and hot bread from the new ovens, with digestall tablets to keep us Terrans safe. The Orghes' fields had been burned when the mercs destroyed the village, but the Orghes had stored bags of grain and taken them to their new village. I wondered how long the grain would last. Our weapons and vehicles were reassuringly close at hand. The night air was crisp, but warmed by the friendliness of the Orghe people.
Sophia sat beside me, our crossed knees touching, while young girls and boys danced around a blazing fire that held off demon shadows conjured out of black woods.
Somewhere, most likely at the merc base, plans were being devised for an attack, once they discovered this new village. My tel range was about fifteen miles, and I felt no presence save for alien Orghe minds. I glanced around at smiling furred faces. The people had no idea that besides the guards stationed in tall trees that crowded the village, I was also on guard for encroaching mercs.
Galrin staggered between the sitting people and plopped down beside us with three bowls and an animal skin bag taut with liquid. His eyes were red and glazed, and he chortled deep in his throat as he struggled to pry the wooden cap off the skin. Finally he succeeded and the cap flew over his shoulder. He lifted the skin. “I think we will have to finish this now.”
I slid Sophia a glance as Galrin poured ruby red liquid more on the ground than into the bowls.
“Here,” I reached for the skin, “why don't you let me do that?”
“For sure, as a Terran would say.” He watched me pour some liquid into the bowls and waved his hand. “You must fill them or I will take offense.” His lips curled back in a grin and he hooted.
I looked at Sophia. She shrugged.
“No offense meant, Galrin.” I filled the bowls, then fished out two digestall tablets from my newly sewn shirt, gave Sophia one and swallowed the other one.
Galrin lifted his bowl in two hands. “To the bounty of the land and of the sea.” He drank.
So did we.
I thought I had swallowed fire.
Sophia's mouth was open, her eyes wide. “I think I'm exhaling smoke! Is my hair on fire?”
“You must drink again,” Galrin told us. “Quickly, and the fire will pass.”
“I don't think so,” I croaked. The heat in my throat slid down to my stomach, and continued its slide. I felt an instant erection. “Oh my God!”
“Drink more,” Galrin urged. “If you drink more you will feel better.” He handed me my bowl, then gave Sophia hers. “Drink, woman, and quench the fire in your loins.”
“Are you certain, Galrin?” she asked.
“You question me?” He leaned forward. His small eyes narrowed. “And you, Jules of Terra, do you question my Orghe honor?”
“Uh,” I said.
The dancing had stopped. The people silently watched us. “Of course not.” I shook my head and drank pure fire. So did Sophia.
“Oh no,” I mumbled as it began its slide to my genitals. “Oh no!” I felt an orgasm coming on.
Galrin chuckled. “Is that not better?”
“Sophia,” I whispered. My pants were so tight, it hurt to stand up. “Let's get out of here.”
Her eyes glazed over. She threw herself at me with a cry. “Oh! Take me!”
I fell. She landed on top of me and ripped the buttons off my shirt. “I'm yours!”
“No you're not!” I rolled her off. “Not here.” I jumped up and ran for the small cave Sophia and I had been given by Oldore, with Sophia snatching at my jacket from behind. The orgasm came on before I reached the cave. “I'm going to kill that little bastard!” I shouted.
“Galrin!” I heard Oldore call, “what have you done, young snip?”
“It was just a few drops from the Marriage Bowls, sire.”
I heard snickers and chortles from Orghes around the fire as I threw myself into the cave with Sophia close behind.
“I'm going to strangle that little bastard!” I said.
I cannot remember a night like that one. We made love until we could no longer move. I was drained. With nothing left to give each other, we slept away the day.
“May we enter?” a voice called softly from the entrance.
I lifted my head to look out the cave on a darkening day.
“It is I, Oldore, and Anbria. She has brought you food and drink.”
“What kind of drink?” I laid my head back down.
“Nothing more than water with squeezed berries for nourishment and taste.”
“Come in.” Sophia sat up and scratched her head. “I could eat a horse.”
Oldore and Anbria exchanged glances.
“Ou orsh?” She put a wooden tray on the floor between us with two dishes, a skin of liquid, and two bowls. She squatted, inspected my ripped shirt, and hooted something to Oldore.
“If you would remove the shirt again, Jules,” he sighed, “Anbria is willing to sew it again. She found the buttons you lost during your flight.”
“Galrin!” I said between teeth and sat up. “I swear I'll kill that little bastard.”
“Take it easy, Jules.” Sophia put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Was it really so bad?”
Oldore chortled. “First you would save us at the risk of your own life, and now,” he hooted softly, “you swear to kill one of us.”
I stood up and helped Sophia to her feet. “No, Soph, I guess it could've been worse. He could've sold tickets!” I shrugged out of my jacket, took off my shirt, and handed it to Anbria. “Thank you.”
She wiped a hand across her eyes.
Yeah, right! I thought and put on my jacket. Whatever.
Sophia picked up the tray and we left the cave.
Joe and some Orghes had made a table of sorts with a metal panel unscrewed from inside the hovair. Tied cross-branches braced it, and tree stumps he'd burned out with a rifle served as chairs.
Sophia laid the tray on the table and we sat on wobbly stumps to swallow digestall tablets and eat a supper of red meat from a hunt, blue tubers that were spicy and stringy, and bread.
Sophia watched me as I carefully sipped the drink. It was just water flavored with berries. “The taster survived,” I said. “You can drink.”
She gave me a sly look and chewed a tuber. “Do you think it's possible, hon, to die from too much love-making?”
“It nearly killed me.” I watched her chew the tuber. “Soph, it's like an artichoke. Just strip off the soft part.”
“Oh.” She leaned forward. “Jules, I know how you fee
l about eating animals that have been hunted.”
“The fish have been hunted,” I said. “Sometimes you don't have a choice.”
We were finishing our meals when something nagged at my mind. I lowered my shields and tel-probed the darkening woods. Was it my imagination, deepened by the eerie blackness between trees, or the residual effect of Galrin's love potion?
Or something else?
Chancey was busy teaching a circle of young males about weapons. Joe was supervising guerrilla tactics with hidden pits in the road, and traps along the way. Bat was still teaching the women about first aid and the care of burn wounds from beam weapons. Huff was back at the fishing grounds with his new buddies.
“Soph, stay here in the village,” I said. "I'm going to take a jeep and check the outlying areas.
“Do you sense something?” She stood up.
I got up and walked to a jeep with her at my side. “It's nothing specific. Just an uneasy feeling, you know? A pressure on my mind, as though a storm's brewing.”
“I'll come with you.”
I stopped. “I'd prefer if you didn't.” I touched her cheek. “I don't know what I'm likely to meet out there.”
She gave me one of her harder looks. “You get the jeep. I'll get the rifles.”
We had already strapped on our stinglers and I had a new knife for my leg sheath from the hovair's cache of weapons. I saw her talk to Joe as I climbed into a jeep and started it. He watched me drive up to them. I bit my lip. “Joe, I–”
“I know. What do you think it is?”
I stared in the direction of the send, in those darkening woods, if it was a send. Something wicked this way comes, I mentally recited. “Whatever it is, I don't think it's friendly.”
“The mercs?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It's not Terran.” I tel-probed the woods again, as they slid into night. “It's…alien.”
“Chancey trotted up.”Where you heading, Superstar?"
“I'm not sure, Chance. You want to come?”
He rubbed his jaw and stared into the distance. “The woods at night, and armed mercs that want to kill us all. Why not?” He gave me one of his twisted grins. “It can't be as dangerous as my home turf.”
Sophia climbed in next to me. Chancey slid into the back seat. Joe looked around. “These tags know what they have to do.” He unslung his rifle and got into the back seat.
“Let's go,” Chancey tapped my backrest, “before the fur ball shows up smelling like fish and wants to take care of his Terran cub.” He gave my ear a shake. “You're so damn cute. He just can't resist you.”
“Screw off, Chance!”
I was driving under the canopy of boughs when I heard Huff call.
“Wait! For me. My tongue hangs! Wait for me!”
“Dammit,” Chancey said, “floor it!”
“He's part of our team, Chance.” I hit the brake.
The odor of fish preceded Huff to the jeep. Sophia put a hand over her nose. “Somebody hose him down.”
“C'mon, big guy,” I said to Huff.
He climbed into the open compartment behind the rear seats.
“What'd you do, fur ball,” Chancey asked, “roll in dead fish to hide your smell?”
“When are you going to grow up?” Joe asked Chancey.
I sighed with relief. It was good to have our leader back, and keeping a tight rein on Chancey.
I was pulling away again when Bat shouted and trotted up with his medkit.
“I think we're going to need a bigger jeep,” I told Joe.
“Where's the party, y'all?” Bat asked breathlessly.
I stopped and Bat squeezed into the back. I studied the woods and put the jeep in gear. “I wish I knew.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh my God,” I said as a winged creature flitted across the moon like a giant bat.
“What did you see, Jules?” Sophia asked.
“It's… I pointed to the bare moon.”I think it's– “It's what?” Joe demanded.
“What're they doing here?” I whispered, screeched the jeep to a stop, and peered into deep woods. Suddenly the night grew fangs and we were naked. “Shayls.”
Chancey drew in a breath. “It had to be Shayls!”
Huff whined and stared at the sky. He flexed his front paws, extending sharp, curved claws. “They are the spawn of The Pit.”
“What in blue balls,” Chancey exclaimed, “are Shayls doing on New Terra?”
Joe sat back and rubbed his eyes. “Why not? It adds spice to the brew.”
“Probably hired by the mercs,” I said. “Keep your rifles handy. They're ambush predators.”
“What's a Shayl?” Bat asked.
“Something to run from, bubba!” Chancey told him. “They don't eat often, but when they do, everybody runs for cover.”
“What kind of weapons do they have?” Sophia asked.
“They're a non-tech race of lone predators, Soph, I said,”without an ounce of humanity. Their real weapon is their ability to kill without mercy or hesitation, even one another, if the situation calls for it." I thought of Drackin, a Shayl who had helped capture me for that lunatic ruler of Fartherland, General Rowdinth. “They think no more of killing for creds than we think of swatting a fly.”
“They're most likely armed,” Joe said, “by the mercs.”
“Yeah.” I turned the jeep around on the narrow dirt road. “When they fight, it's to the death.” I thought of my battle against Drackin, and drove as fast as I dared back toward the village, praying the Shayls hadn't already attacked. “Kill them,” I said, “and they keep coming until the adrenalin runs out.” Great Mind, what were you thinking when you came up with this one?
The jeep bounced over a rock. “Their last act is to take their opponent with them,” I said. I had followed Drackin's kwaii into geth state after killing him, to offer some comfort. But he'd shrugged me off. He had given no quarter, and asked for none, not even in that disturbing state between lifebinds.
“Born assassins,” Chancey said. “And the bastards can fly.”
Sophia put a hand on my shoulder. “What do they look like?”
“Think ogre,” Chancey told her, “with bone-sharp tempers.”
“Watch out!” I shouted as the whoosh of great wings soared above us and created a wind. I swerved the jeep and took the bark off a tree.
“You forgot to tell us,” Sophia yelled and clung to the door, “that they're fast, too!”
Another Shayl swooped down in front of the jeep. I glimpsed his powerful tawny-coated body, his broad, leathery wings, his muscular arms and legs tucked as he flashed past the headlights. I swerved. The jeep lifted to two wheels and bounced back down, barely avoiding trees head-on. Joe and Chancey fired, but the Shayl was gone into the night.
“Next time,” Joe shouted at me, “hit him with the jeep!”
I raced back to the village. Were the Shayls trying to keep us out here while they attacked the Orghes?
Before we reached the village, I saw streams of blue- beam light crisscross the darkness.
“They're attacking!” Bat said.
“Dammit,” Joe exclaimed. All his meticulous guerrilla traps and pits were useless against flying creatures.
“The hovair!” Joe pointed to it, and I headed there. We would fight them in the sky.
It was a good plan, until the mercs' own hovair soared above treetops, swooped down and blasted our hovair with a series of missiles. Our craft exploded, lighting a scene of fallen Orghes and a Shayl in the dirt.
“Jesus and Vishnu,” Joe exclaimed, “we're grounded.”
Guards stationed in trees fired at wheeling Shayls who sometimes got too close and paid with their lives.
Were Shayls the advance guard, with mercs behind them, or was this a softening-up tactic? With hundreds of square miles to search, how the hell did they locate the village so fast?
Our backs were to the sea. We'd make our stand here or be driven into it.
I slammed on the brakes and we piled out of the jeep.
“C'mon, Huff!” I shouted as he struggled and flopped down from the rear compartment.
“Spread out and take cover,” Joe ordered. “Use your nightscopes. Don't waste batteries.”
I grabbed Sophia's hand and we ran for the cover of a half-built brick oven. Huff galloped alongside on four legs and we slid behind the oven together. Little protection, really, if it sustained a direct hit.
I swept the sky with the nightscope on my rifle, homing in on beam flashes.
“How did they find us so fast?” Sophia asked as she fired into the sky. Huff had both mouse stinglers out and was firing blindly without nightscopes.
“That's a fair question.” I tracked a flying Shayl that disappeared between trees. “I'd like some answers too.”
A Shayl crossed the moon with an Orghe struggling in his grasp.
“Oh no, don't,” I whispered. “Please don't.”
The Shayl released him and he plunged to earth with a scream.
“Oh my God,” Sophia cried. “You're right. They have no mercy. They're just animals.”
The merc hovair hovered out of rifle range and fired into the village.
“Land, you crotefuckers!” I muttered. “We'll give you a welcome you won't forget.”
As though to comply, a Shayl swooped down and landed. He had located the source of our fire and took cover behind a jeep.
“Hold your fire!” I told Sophia and Huff. “We can't afford to lose a jeep.”
The Shayl knew that too and fired at the oven. Top bricks burst.
“Stay here.” I rolled out from behind the oven. Unless these creatures had cat-like night vision, he wouldn't see me or expect me to leave cover.
“Jules!” Sophia called.
I heard Huff whine.
“Stay there!” I whispered and crawled along the ground, the smell of rich dirt in my nostrils as I scraped through pebbles and angled for a view of the hiding Shayl.
There!
Crouched behind the jeep, his wings folded in the green light of my nightscope. I turned the ring tight for a narrow, powerful beam.
Something raked my back through my jacket. I swallowed a scream as claws dug through material and I was rolled to my back. The rank odor of Shayl filled my throat. The creature hissed a foul breath and beat his wing against my chest and head.
