by Leith Briar
It’s soft and... leathery. I run my fingers over the thing, feeling liquid inside it.
“What is it?” one of the other women speaks up, inching closer towards me. What light there is inside the wagon is dim and I can barely make out her features.
“I think it’s water.” Feeling a lid of sorts, I twist it open and hover it under my nose.
It smells like leather and maybe the faintest hint of something sour. It could be poison, or curdled. It could be disgusting. But honestly I’m so thirsty I don’t think I care.
I hold the thing to my mouth and tip it up, feeling countless sets of eyes on me.
Just as I do, the wagon thing jerks forward and saves me from any more hesitation.
The liquid is bitter, the sort that makes you want to pinch your cheeks and screw your face up. It’s like a cross between an orange and the darkest chocolate known, with the consistency of milk.
But my throat feels instantly better. I would drink the whole thing down at once if it wasn’t for the thirsty eyes practically boring holes into my skull.
I pass the leather flask on to the next woman, who snatches it out of my hands.
“Oh my god... water,” a woman exclaims, like we’ve just won the lottery.
I shake my head. “It’s not water. But it’s not disgusting either.”
“Sophia?” A woman sitting across from me speaks up. Her head looks from me to the water flask and back to me again like a pinball. She has light brown hair with bleached highlights and killer roots.
“Megan?”
She smiles before checking the location of the flask that’s still making its way towards her.
“You two know each other?” The woman beside her asks suspiciously. This one looks a few years older than me. She has red hair and a scattering of freckles across her cheeks.
“No,” I tell her. “We were in opposite cubicles on the plane.”
“Plane?” Another woman speaks up. She’s in the far corner of the wagon. There is not enough light over there to make out her features, and she has a hood pulled up covering her hair. “I know what I saw, and we weren’t in no plane.”
Her accent is American, from where exactly I can’t tell... but it’s at odds with the rest of ours, which are a mixture of British.
“What do you mean it wasn’t a plane? What did you see?”
She pauses for a long time, and the rest of us watch her warily as she stares into space.
“I don’t know. All I know is I never seen nothing like that in my life.”
* * *
Time drags by until I lose all sense of the meaning. After the revelation from the American woman, none of us spoke. Not even Megan, who I thought was somewhat of a friend. There’s a woman beside me who sobs quietly until her tears run dry. Then she rocks herself back and forth for a while, and the sobs eventually begin again.
I must have dozed off in between the jerks of the wagon. When I came around the bright pinkish light sneaking in through the slats had vanished, replaced with a pale white one.
Night time, I imagine.
And with it the drop in temperature.
The wagon jerks to a halt and without the noise of the wheels running over the dirt, I hear the shuffling of people sitting up. The woman beside me tucks her legs into herself, as if somehow making herself smaller will save her.
I’m right beside the opening — there’s no hope for me whether or not I tuck my legs in.
The door creaks open and a man like none I’ve ever seen before stands in front, the width of him almost blocking the entire exit.
“Pssssssss,” he says, nodding to the side.
I take a second, but it eventually clicks. He’s letting us out to relieve ourselves.
We all look around at each other, as if waiting to see who will go first. With the door open there is moonlight now, giving everyone near the door — including the man — a silver glow.
I look him over quickly. If I survive this, I want to memorise the face of the bastard who took me. Age: thirties. Hair: long and dark. Eyes: I can’t tell, not in this light. But he has a scar on his face, so large I could class it as a disfigurement. Long strands of hair cover the worst of it, but it peeks out at his forehead and crosses over his eye, leaving him with only part of his eyebrow. Height... I slide myself over and let my legs hang down from the wagon. I can’t tell his height from here as I don’t know how high the wagon is.
My legs nearly buckle from my weight as I hop down into the dirt. It’s freezing beneath my bare feet, so at odds from the roasting hot earth of earlier.
Height:
I look up at him, my neck craning because I’m standing so close. Surely not? I check his feet — he must stand on a platform, a box, something — but all I see is two big black boots planted firmly on the ground.
Height: seven foot.
He peers down at me, his expression impatient, and then flicks his head in a sideways direction. “Ir”
And then he looks back up into the wagon. “Ir!” he barks. I hear the shuffle of bodies and almost stumble backwards at the sound of his booming voice.
Go? Now? Move? It could mean anything, but I’m guessing all of them would be correct.
Looking around, I see nothing. Just a vast plain of desert without sand. Just dirt. Black dirt for as far as the eye can see. I check the sky. I can usually spot Orion, at least that might tell me what hemisphere I’m in.
But the second I look up is the same second I do stumble.
No Orion.
No north star.
I don’t think I even notice the stars.
There are three moons and the crest of a whole other planet in the sky.
I try to comprehend that for a long second, but nothing I do makes my brain understand. What I’m seeing just isn’t possible. This doesn’t happen.
This can’t be real.
But I’ve never known dreams to be this vivid. I’ve never physically hurt myself in a dream. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything in a dream either, and yet all of those things have happened in this dream.
There is only one word to describe the feelings swirling around my head as I gaze up at such an alien sky.
Fuck.
* * *
I’m so hungry that I’m beyond the stage of hunger. I’m beyond the stage where your stomach growls, beyond the stage where you are sure you will be sick if you don’t eat. All I feel inside me is nothing.
I’m numb.
No one has said a word about what I know we all saw outside.
I half expected tears, screams, panic... I thought that would have been my reaction. But the moment we all got back inside the wagon, I didn’t want to be the one to break the stunned silence that washed over us.
I think we must have all felt the same way.
Why scream? Why panic?
What would be the point in any of that?
The middle east... at least we would have maybe a five percent chance of being rescued. A glimmer of hope. Something to hold onto, something to cry over, something to panic about.
We’re not in the middle east, though. We’re not even on our planet. There is no glimmer of hope, there’s nothing to hold on to.
And panicking sounds like the biggest waste of energy there is.
And I’m already so tired.
The wagon stops again just as I feel my eyes closing. The woman next to me, the one who was sobbing earlier but has long stopped that, was huddled in close to me and sharing what little warmth she had. She sits up now. We all do.
The door opens again, and the man is back. His eyes search the wagon before finally landing on me.
“Thu,” he says. This time he doesn’t look bored or impatient. This time he looks angry. He lifts his hand and then gestures me forward with a huge pointer finger.
My stomach hollows at his gesture. The woman next to me grips on to my hand and squeezes. I don’t know her, nor do I know her name but in that moment I’m so grateful for her and that li
ttle squeeze.
What the fuck is he going to do to me?
I don’t get time to deliberate any further, because he grabs a hold of me and rips me straight from the wagon.
I fall to the ground with a thud and see him taking a step back, as if he’s offended I might kick the dirt up onto his boots or something.
He doesn’t reach down to help me, so I have to do it myself. I slowly get myself up and stand there beside him while he slams the door closed and thumps hard on the wood twice. The thing lurches forward instantly, taking with it everyone except me.
Why me?
I spin around. Where are we?
There’s people all around, dressed suitably for the cold night in thick clothes and heavy boots. Black stone buildings with thatched roofs rise around us, and where there should be streetlights there are only small fire-pits, some with people huddled around them.
I say people, I mean men.
My eyes flit around as I stand there shivering. Where are the women?
And why is everyone so fucking huge?
I feel like a mouse looking around inside a mansion — everything around me is large and oversized.
The man drapes a heavy dark cloak over me and arranges the hood so I’m completely covered from head to toe. “Thig,” he says, taking a hold of my shoulder and pulling me forwards.
I guess that means come.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask before I’ve considered if I even want to know the answer.
The man looks straight ahead, not bothering to reply.
I look him over. He’s wearing fur around his shoulders, thick and as black as the night’s sky. Well, the Earth’s night’s sky — not this planet’s. This planet’s sky is brighter than I’ve ever seen Earth’s.
Which leads me to wonder — as he drags me across a courtyard cobbled in black stone — where am I?
How is all this possible?
I mean, I know my physics. I know it’s practically impossible that Earth is the only planet in the whole of space capable of life. I know deep down that aliens probably exist somewhere. But these aliens look so similar to humans. They’re bigger than any human I’ve ever seen before, but the one standing next to me, despite all the scarring, has a human face.
My thoughts are cut short when we arrive at a huge wooden double door. There is a portcullis above it, the type you would see over an old medieval castle. I was too busy looking at all the surroundings to notice where we were headed. Idiot.
The man beside me says a few words in a language I don’t understand to the man who appears to be guarding, and then the two doors swing open.
All at once, he rips the cloak from my body and pushes me through the door with such force that I stumble, landing face down on a hard wooden floor that’s sprinkled with hay and smells like a mixture of herbs.
The noise inside was at unbearable levels, chanting and thudding and laughter. But as soon as my head lifts, it stops completely.
Silence.
Complete and utter silence.
I never realised how scary the sound of nothing can be until right now.
I look around, trying to take in everything all at once. The stone walls are dark and look soot covered, the shadows across them dancing from the light of countless sconces. Above my head, there is a wooden candelabra hanging from the high ceiling with ropes, but the light from it seems to get lost somewhere in the cavernous roof. People stand and sit around long tables, always partially hidden by shadows.
All except one.
This one sits on a chair on his own. A huge chair, high on a platform. I can sense from the way he sits that he must be important — a leader, perhaps.
I take him in from where I’m still laid out flat on my stomach. Like the others, he is dressed in black from head to toe. A thick piece of fur wraps around his shoulders and hangs open lazily across his bare chest, revealing tanned skin. Everything about his posture is casual, as if he’s feigning boredom, but his face betrays him. His face is sharp and hard — handsome, but in a brutal way. His dark hair is cut so short at the sides, it blends in with the shadow on his jaw. He too has a scar on his face, though much smaller than the guy I’m now calling Scarface. His lips are full, and just as my eyes rake over them I notice the movement.
His hard face has changed to a smirk.
He looks from my face to somewhere above me — what I can only imagine is the man who brought me here.
The pair converse for a moment in a language I can’t understand. The man behind me gives a one-word answer, and the man sitting on the big chair laughs.
Within seconds, the whole room is roaring.
Sensing the distraction, I shift position on the straw covered floor and push myself up, using my elbows first and then my hands.
The room goes silent again and the man in the chair’s gaze focuses in on me.
I feel it everywhere... my legs, my arms, my breasts. Every piece of me is inspected by him from afar, like he’s picking out a horse.
Another sentence in that harsh foreign language. Another roar of laughter.
The leader clasps his hands together, immediately stopping all noise, and says, “Mo leabaidh comhla rithe.”
Chapter 3
Colm
“My bed with her.”
Brody nods and drags her away.
I forgot how tiny female humans were.
The girl with the foreign name I can barely bring myself to pronounce is so small she will probably not reach the middle of my chest if I stand up straight.
That is what the joke had been about.
She might be small but she seems well developed — hips wide enough for the countless sons I intend to put inside her, tits ample enough to feed them. In that sense I guess I got lucky, but I would have still chosen her despite all of that.
It would have always been her.
Granted, I had to wait a few years longer because of that choice, and many were not happy about that… but I intend to make up for the lost time.
I just hope for the McCaig girls’ sake it all works out.
She seemed defiant enough. She was not a trembling wreck when Brody marched her out of the hall. I will not deny the surge of jealous anger that ran through me when I saw the lack of clothes she was wearing. Everyone was staring at her, and I had to fight to keep my arse planted firmly on my chair. It is completely improper for a woman to show that much of herself, but it did not seem to phase her at all. She crossed the room with a defiance I found admirable, her head tilted back slightly and her chin sticking out. She had courage. A fire inside her, burning from within. I have heard enough stories about the old days to know that is a good omen. It means your sons will be brave.
My own mhathair was fearless, so I have been told, and they called my father the devil before anyone ever gave me that name. And they gave me that name before I became what I am now.
Diabhal.
People used to whisper it and cross themselves when they saw me coming. Bairns would hide behind their mother’s skirts, and I would wink at them — if they were pretty — as I walked by.
But that was a long fucking time ago now. I can not even remember what a woman smells like, let alone how to behave around them.
Not that it matters with the McCaig girl.
After all, I am not here to impress her.
I am pulled out of my thoughts as Brody walks back into the hall. The rest of my men have long returned to their horns of Uisge-Beatha. And why not? ’Tis a night for celebration after all. Where I lead, the others will eventually follow.
“’Tis done?”
“Aye,” he says, nodding his head. “’Tis done.”
“And the girl, she put up no fight?”
When he does not answer straight away, I glance up to where he stands and catch the amusement in his eyes.
“You will find out when you retire,” he says with a nod.
I shake my head and fight the smile growing on my face. I can sense this girl will
be a perpetual pain in my arse — brave sons or no. “I think I shall stay a while longer.”
Brody chuckles as I raise my horn and wait for one of the Balachs to come and fill it. We call them boys, but they are not really. There are no children here — at least not in our settlement. It is merely the name we give to the half-men who were never conditioned like us.
The Balach fills the cup and bows his head as he retreats.
“Slainte,” I say to Brody, raising my horn while he does the same. The liquid burns all the way down.
“Slainte.”
“Sit,” I tell him. “You must be weary from your travels. Tell me, how is our Earth these days?”
Brody does as he is told, grabbing a chair from the nearest table and pulling it beside me.
“It has changed vera much. More than I have the words for. You may have better luck asking the Scouts. They have the words to describe it better than I ever could.”
I laugh at him, though I suppose he is correct. The Scouts tell us tales from time to time, but it is never really enough.
“Aye, I will do that. Tell me of the girl, then. Tell me of her home.”
Brody shifts uncomfortably, and it does not go unnoticed. “I fear there is not much to tell.”
“Enough to bring about a reaction, though?”
He glances up at me and shrugs. “Her room was the same, but not the same. The grandmother she lived with was gone.”
I sense he is keeping something from me… dancing around some important detail. It does not take me long to work it out.
My hand grips around my cup and my jaw clenches tight. “You found her with a man? I knew we should not have waited so long. I should have taken her and raised her here. She could have lived with Winona until she was of age.”
“No, no. Not that. There was no man.”
I let out a breath of relief at his words, but still curiosity pricks me. “If there was no man, then what is it?”
“She… she was…” He clears his throat before continuing. “She was naked as a babe.” He swallows and looks down at his cup, before putting it to his lips and taking a long chug from it.
