Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Robert Brady

  “I think my father is younger than you, gaffer,” the brown-eyed one said.

  “I think he should have done to you what I am about to, and made you a better man,” Jack returned, and threw his furs behind him.

  “What is going—is that our Mountain?” Melissa heard Glynn’s voice behind her.

  She turned and there stood Glynn and Xinto. Glynn actually had to put her hands on Melissa’s shoulder to keep her from bolting into the ring that had formed.

  “Ware, Raven,” she said. “This is between the males. You cannot stop it now, and you cannot change it. This is in—”

  “If you tell me this is in the nature of Men, I will stick you,” Raven hissed at her with uncharacteristic anger. Xinto actually chuckled, like this was funny.

  “Once one Man started fighting, they all want to,” Xinto said to Glynn, then he turned to Melissa.

  “She is right,” Xinto said to her. “He is an older Man, and he is finding himself, Raven. He called for this, not the other. Even if he loses, he will have fought. Do your best now, as a woman of Men would, and support him, and clean his wounds if he fails.”

  Melissa looked down at Xinto, and she felt her brown eyes brimming.

  “You—um—believe this?” she asked, stumbling on the language.

  “I do.”

  She straightened. Bill stepped from his furs, toward the younger man, and the younger came to meet him.

  Melissa straightened. “Kick his ass!” she shouted.

  Bill turned, surprised. He searched the crowd and found the three of them.

  “Kick his friggin’ ass!” she shouted. They wouldn’t know the expletive here, but Bill would.

  He grinned wolfishly and charged.

  Melissa could hear her heart pound in her ears as the two Men closed.

  Bill was bigger, but older and slower. The other seemed to be a Volkhydran with a terrible scar on his face, and just looked mean, like a killer or a judge. He fought stripped to his leggings, his feet and chest bare, revealing the dimple between his hipbone and his abs. The waning light gave his skin a ruddy hue, tight over a hard body, marked here and there with scars less severe than the one on his face.

  Before meeting Bill, this would have been ‘her type,’ rugged and gorgeous, mean and handsome, the kind of man who would love her and hurt her at the same time.

  Bill let him close. The younger man moved deliberately, his face unexpressive, his almost beautiful brown eyes focused on measuring the distance between them, trying to get Bill to strike first.

  Bill didn’t fall for it. He held his fists before him—no karate or kung fu or anything else—a bare-knuckle fighting stance to hold the other at bay. The males, and a few women, who gathered to watch started shouting for action.

  Finally, the smaller man did some sort of head-bob, then ducked under Bill’s fists to deliver a punch, another, and another into Bill’s exposed abdomen. Graceful as a dancer, he skipped away from Bill and then ducked back in, under his guard, jabbing away while Bill swung on air again and then again.

  Bill’s belly shook but it didn’t seem to faze him. A half-smile twisted his beard when the younger man made a third attempt. Just as the other man’s fist touched him, Bill hammered down into the side of his face with a meaty left, moving him to line up with Bill’s right. He took the younger Man straight between the eyes with a heavy right, the ‘thud’ resounded through the suddenly silent crowd.

  The younger Man stepped back and shook his head to clear it, a look of surprise seeming out of place alongside the scar. Bill followed up with a swing at the jaw. The younger ducked at the last moment, then caught Bill for one, two, three to the ribs with a firm right fist, holding Bill’s arms at bay with his left.

  Or so he thought. Bill reached a long arm out past the younger man, and wrapped up his head and one arm under his own. Now the younger man’s face was pressed to Bill’s flabby stomach, his arm pinned, and Bill started pounding the back and kidneys with his free right hand.

  Melissa saw the stress on Bill’s face, the sweat streaming into his eyes, his beard, running like a river down his belly. The blows were telling but the other’s body was hard—his knees might be shaking, but he dug his toes into the ground, trying either to break free or to bowl the older man over.

  The crowd roared its appreciation.

  Finally a hand came up, and Bill gave a shout as the other man turned the fight dirty.

  “Oooo,” Xinto winced. She heard other sympathy groans, even from the women. Bill gave something like a roar and, changing his grip; he reached out and took a fist full of the back of the other man’s pants.

  Melissa couldn’t help thinking, ‘Kind of stupid to give him a wedgie,’ before she realized Bill now had the man by the back of the neck as well. With another roar, Bill raised the struggling man over his head, took a step forward and slammed him like a rag doll onto the ground.

  The younger Man moved to get a foot underneath him, and Bill lumbered forward to kick him in the ribs, flipping him onto his back. The younger Man looked up wild-eyed, not knowing what had happened, and Bill seated the instep of his boot on the other’s neck.

  “Had—had—had,” he panted, and squatted down, getting his wind, putting his elbows on his knee, his weight on the Man’s neck.

  “Had enough,” he asked finally.

  “Uck, uck,” the younger gasped. He reached for the boot, tried to punch the leg, but found nothing. He arched his back, his abs straining as he tried to reach for purchase with his feet. His face had turned purple when he finally slapped the ground three times, counting himself out.

  The crowd cheered. Bill stepped off of him and magnanimously reached down his hand to the younger. That one rubbed his throat for a moment, looked grudgingly up at Bill, and finally took the extended hand.

  Glynn gave Melissa a gentle push in the back. “Go,” she said.

  She turned. “What?”

  Xinto intervened. “Run to your champion,” he said, “throw your arms around him and give him a victor’s kiss. It is what a woman of Men would do.”

  Melissa didn’t need to be told twice. She hiked up the front of her skirts and ran to her sweating guardian protector. Not even giving him time to let go of the other man’s forearm, she threw her arms around his bull neck, lifted up her heels and rammed her tongue into his mouth, tasting his sweat and his hair and some dust from the ring, and every bit of Bill that she could swallow.

  He swung her, and despite herself she felt like a little girl—a very excited little girl, at that.

  He broke the kiss and she looked into his eyes, feeling his breath on her face, the stink of beer and the sweet smell of victory. “My hero,” she swooned for him.

  He grinned like a little boy, his arm around her waist now, her feet still off the ground.

  “Your woman?” the younger asked.

  Bill looked away and put her down on the ground. She clung to him, his sweat soaking her bodice. “Mine,” he panted. The younger, though beaten, seemed less winded. Bill’s face stood out redder.

  “Explains plenty,” he said, in the language of Men. “She is no Volkhydran, but then I never saw a Volkhydran who looks or fights like you.”

  “In Uman, if you can,” Bill said. “I am trying to learn the language.”

  “In Uman,” the younger said, “because you can’t speak Volkhydran, can you?”

  “I think you know he cannot, Sirrah,” Glynn said, approaching them. Xinto had been left behind, running between Men and Uman, collecting coins. Jahunga approached from the opposite direction, a smile on his face and a spear in his hand.

  “So he is one of yours?” the younger Man asked. “I should have known.”

  “I assure you, Sirrah,” Glynn began.

  “You know him?” Bill asked. He didn’t look happy, but the color started returning back to his face.

  “He is Jerod the Bold,” Glynn told them. “And I am told you are Jack, now?”

  Bill—Jack—nodded. Me
lissa had just gotten used to the Mountain, but this fit him better. He looked like a Jack.

  “Another one running from that friend of ours?” Jerod asked.

  “Indeed.”

  Jerod extended his hand, and Jack tried to take it. Jerod reached past the older man’s hand and took Jack by the forearm. Jack did the same, and Jerod looked into his eyes.

  “You remind me of that mutual friend,” he said, in the language of Men. “And I got to know him pretty well. I think you need to tell me more of what I am involved in here, Uman-Chi, or I might have to leave you.”

  “Well, if you do, then I’m going with you,” Xinto said. “Because you just made me a lot of gold.”

  “I think I made you that money,” Jack said, his arm still around Melissa. She couldn’t help feeling ten feet tall right then. He’d become so vital now, so alive. It may be a stupid, girly thing to feel, but for whatever reason, her man would have a hell of a night tonight.

  “You will get your quarter,” Xinto said.

  “My half, you mean,” Jack said.

  “Half?” Xinto gasped. Glynn turned to the hostel, the rest of them, Jahunga included, following. Jerod looked Jahunga up and down once, then shrugged and followed, scooping up his clothing as he went. “Why would I give you half?”

  “Because I can smash you,” Jack said.

  “He can smash you,” Melissa noted. “Where we are from, he would get eighty-five coins of a hundred.”

  She didn’t know how to say ‘percent.’

  “Remind me not to go there,” Xinto said, and handed a fist full of coins to Jack. One of Jack’s possessions now was apparently a coin purse, because he emptied them into it.

  Raven watched Jerod using his furs to blot the sweat gleaming on his chest and upper arms. The leggings twisted on his hips, revealing first the left then the right dimple between his groin and abs. He shook his hair once, and sprayed them all with his sweat. Two tiny drops landed on her lower lip and, holding the image of him in the corner of her eye, she swallowed them rather than wiped her mouth.

  He ignored her, another man’s woman. That might be the proper thing to do, she supposed, but it made her hot as a June bug.

  * * *

  Glynn just sniffed at the idea of eating at the board in the common room. They took a room for her, and Xinto and Jack each secured their own.

  “We could get by with half the rooms, or a single room, even,” Xinto complained. They had collected in Glynn’s room, the largest of the three. Jahunga would stay with the other Toorians, and Jerod had his own room as well.

  “Um…no,” Raven said. She had loosened the back to her dress and was pulling on the bodice, letting the cool air find her skin. The males peeked guiltily down her bosom.

  Glynn shook her head. She’d sung her song for Jerod and Jahunga, and they had made the obligatory ‘why is it in my native language?’ comments.

  “And you think we are each some part of this song?” Jahunga said. “I see no place for me, nothing about it that says, ‘Jahunga.’”

  “I don’t think you are the one who fights as does the sun,” Xinto said. “I am the foreigner among his kind. Glynn is the noble, young and old.”

  “I’m the Hero,” Jerod said, almost sullenly.

  Glynn watched him. She’d known the truth of that already, but that he should know it surprised her.

  “You’re a hero?” Raven asked him, with the bluntness of Men.

  “A person’s privacy is their own,” Glynn reprimanded her gently. “It is sufficient that he is the Hero.”

  “Do we not want to know why?” Jahunga asked the rest of them. He seemed an acceptable Man. His muscles stood out carved like a statue. He bore his spear with him, a wood and steel device common to his people, and a three-pronged piece of bone through a piercing in his left ear. She’d been mildly surprised that ‘Jack’ could defeat Jerod, she’d be stunned to see him humble Jahunga.

  “You probably already know why,” Jerod said. “It isn’t important—I’m the Hero.”

  “And I?” Jahunga pressed. “I have led a heroic life, and my fate was foretold by the seers on my birth. They told my father that I would be everything that is Toor, but that I would not die there.”

  “That must be a comfort to you, now that you’re here,” Xinto noted.

  Jahunga shrugged. “Death is the only promise Life keeps,” he said, philosophically. Glynn had to admit the statement as profound, coming from a Man.

  “I don’t suppose you elude prying eyes,” Xinto asked him.

  “I know nothing past the stealth of the forest,” he said. “Keep low, move quiet.”

  Xinto poked Jahunga in the upper arm with his finger. “Not the untouchable one, then,” he said.

  Jahunga smiled, and he pointed to the tiny knife in the top of Xinto’s boot. “Try with that thing, little man.”

  Xinto shrugged. He pulled the dagger and he pushed it at Jahunga.

  The point of the dagger stopped at his skin. It didn’t leave an indentation, it just stopped there.

  Xinto leaned his weight against the blade. It made no difference.

  “The bone in your ear?” Glynn noted. Jahunga nodded.

  “The kafeara bird, which is in deep Toor,” he said. “It cannot be struck by any implement crafted by living hands.”

  “Then how did you kill it, or did you find it dead?” Jack asked.

  He called himself, “Jack,” now. Glynn approved of this change. Mountain was just too strange—a name that others would remember. Jack was common enough where others wouldn’t recall it if asked.

  Jahunga grinned a wide, jovial grin. That he’d trained as a warrior there could be no doubt, but she didn’t see warrior meanness in him.

  “When they die, the light of the next dawn burns them to dust,” he said. “I caught the kafeara in a net, and then drowned it in a shallow pool. When the sun struck it on the next day, the water took the heat of its burning, and the bones partly survived. I drove this one through my earlobe, and there it remains.”

  “And now you’re invincible?” Raven asked him, the innocence of short-lived Men on her.

  “I am unbeaten,” Jahunga admitted, and didn’t look at her. “I don’t know that any warrior is invincible.”

  “And that is what we must remember,” Glynn said. This, she felt, was the time to rally them to her cause, to get them to the revelations they must make to follow her.

  “The Emperor is powerful, but in the end, nothing more than a Man,” she told them. “And like any Man, or Uman, or Uman-Chi, he can be defeated, if we are but to learn how.”

  Jerod sighed and threw her a dark look. “It’s not a matter of defeating the Emperor,” he told her. “That’s pretty obvious.”

  “It is?” Xinto asked him. “Because, I didn’t see it.”

  “Your own song says we’re too late for victory,” Jerod said. “Our goal is to win, but we don’t know what we’re winning yet.”

  “You claim the Emperor plans a conquest?” Jahunga asked. Xinto nodded.

  “The Trenboni are so convinced of it, they are siding with Eldador,” he said. Glynn looked sideways at him.

  “The politics of the Silent Isle are not a part of this discussion,” she informed him.

  Jerod laughed. “And there you are, claiming to be so focused on this mission, still trying to keep secrets.”

  “So sayeth the hero, reputation unknown!" she cast the accusation back at him.

  He turned sullen and crossed his arms over his breast.

  This went poorly. She’d seen a day when the wisdom of an Uman-Chi would have been enough to rally them. That day had passed.

  “For Fovea, Fovea, then must they live and die.

  Fight the battle from within

  With a champion from outside.

  You shall be the weapons

  The tools of men and gods

  Who come too late for victory

  And win despite these odds.”

  Raven sang th
e words, and sang them sweetly. She almost seemed to choke on the last line, and could not continue to the refrain.

  She stood, and she looked out the window while their eyes followed her. She seemed to focus on something outside for a moment, then she turned and faced them.

  “I’m the champion,” she said.

  “A woman?” Jahunga scoffed.

  Jerod just snickered. Bill straightened and Xinto’s eyes searched all of them.

  Glynn had seen more than sixteen decades of males who believed they were the source of all great deeds and she’d learned to accommodate them. Males were most easily handled when they thought they had the right of things, regardless of the truth, however glaring.

  “I’m the one from outside,” Raven said. She seemed almost distracted now. “I don’t even come from this world.”

  “A goddess?” Jahunga asked, looking at Glynn.

  She shook her head. “I summoned her here with Jack the first time I sang the song. Nothing like it has ever happened since.”

  Jerod was leaning back against the room’s single bureau, his arms crossed over his breast, shutting them all out. “He doesn’t fight like a god,” he said.

  “I fought well enough to humble you,” Jack said.

  “Maybe you’d like to go another time around,” Jerod snarled at him, putting a hand on the floor to push himself to his feet.

  “Gentles, please,” Glynn began.

  “Stop it,” Raven said, stepping away from the window, turning to face them. She didn’t shout it like an order, she barely asserted herself, but both Men subsided. She crossed the room and put herself between them.

  “We agree we have a battle to fight?” she said, and swept the room with her eyes.

  Jahunga nodded, Xinto sitting next to him did the same. The other two males looked on and Glynn said nothing.

  “But while we’re too late for victory, we can win,” she continued. “So…there is a difference between winning and victory.”