Before Leena could answer, Balam called from the other side of their campsite.
“The rabbits are as palatable as they'll ever be, Hero, and I fully expect that you'll concede our wager with the first bite.”
Leena did not have the opportunity to answer Hieronymus's theories on continental drift, nor Hieronymus to sample the jaguar man's culinary treatment, for at that precise moment the trees to their immediate south exploded with a thunderous sound, and some massive shape thudded to the jungle floor only a few short meters away.
Hieronymus was on his feet at once, expertly stowing his map back in its tube and his globe back in its case in a matter of heartbeats, his hands then flying to the saber at his side, all before he'd even had a chance to register what the danger might be. By the time Leena had reached a standing position, Balam was at her side, knife drawn, and fangs and claws bared.
It took Leena's eyes a brief moment to adjust to the gloom, having stared so long in the direction of the firelight, but the dim illumination cast by the still-flickering cook-fire aided somewhat.
There, only a few meters before them, hulked the massive form of a sloth, but not like any sloth Leena had ever seen, in life or in photograph. Laying supine on the ground, its muzzle pointed towards them, eyes blazing in the flickering firelight, this sloth was easily two meters from belly to back.
“What is?” Leena said, almost unable to breathe.
The sloth climbed slowly to its hind legs, standing almost as high as the surrounding trees, and brandished claws almost as long as Leena was tall.
“Trouble,” Hieronymus said simply, and tightened his grip on the saber.
The giant sloth towered over them, standing six meters or more from nose to tail, covered in long, shaggy brown hair. Lumbering forward on its thick hind legs, its enormous weight counterbalanced by a massive tail, it swatted at the air before it with long claws and lifted its deceptively docile-looking snout to emit a fearsome, rumbling bellow.
“Sloth eat plants!” Leena objected, scrambling backwards, keeping as far from the reach of the enraged creature as possible.
“This one doesn't appear to be particular,” Hieronymus said out of the side of his mouth, sidling to the left while Balam slid to the right, flanking the beast.
“Mad beast,” Balam shouted back, his tone as clipped and to the point as his choice of words. “Bloodlust.”
The giant sloth's black eyes followed Hieronymus and Balam as they circled around to either side, its snout pointing first at one, then at the other.
The sloth chose Balam, lunging forward and sweeping towards the jaguar man with both of its forelegs, its claws splayed out like a deadly fan. The jaguar man, with a lithe agility that brought to Leena's mind the wild cat he resembled, leapt a meter straight up in the air, high enough that the vicious claws of the maddened beast sailed unimpeded beneath him. Landing nimbly, he slashed out at the sloth's forearms with his knife, and though the blade did not bite deep, it drew blood, the pain serving only to make the beast more enraged still.
The sloth bellowed again, its maddened bloodlust increased. Its torments, though, were not through. With the beast's concentration on Balam, Hieronymus dashed forward and slashed at its left hind leg with his saber, cutting far deeper than Balam's knife had done. Hieronymus's blade came away slippery and gored, and the giant beast bellowed with rage. But, pricked on one side and sliced on the other, the sloth showed no signs of retreating, no indication that it was losing its balance or inertia.
The sloth now turned its attention to Hieronymus, the most noisome of the two pests prodding it. As it had done before, it lunged forward, and swatted at Hieronymus with the claws of both forepaws outstretched and deadly. Lacking the jaguar man's dexterity, Hieronymus danced back out of reach as quickly as he could, but not quickly enough. The leading edge of the claws ripped his shirt to ribbons and carved wicked gashes across his chest. Hissing with pain, Hieronymus swung his saber in an ineffective attempt to parry the beast's attack, and staggered backwards.
Without wasting a breath to speak, Balam rushed forward, sinking knife and talons into the thick tail of the giant beast, his fangs bared, eyes wild and flashing.
The giant sloth reared up, mouth wide and howling with insensate rage, twisting to one side and the other, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the jaguar man from its tail. Hieronymus shouted, trying to get the great beast's attention, and Balam, digging deeper with knife and claw, began to roar.
The deafening din was brought silent by a single sound.
BLAM.
One of the sloth's black eyes blossomed into a red bloom, and the beast's horrible bellow was immediately silenced. The sloth jerked upright for a moment, twitching slightly, and then crashed forward, its massive form falling to the jungle floor with a sound like distant thunder.
Hieronymus, his saber still held high, and Balam, fangs bared, both turned to regard Leena, who stood holding her still-smoking Makarov pistol in a two-handed grip, her legs wide in a firing stance.
“Trouble solved,” Leena said.
“What was the meaning of that?!”
Hieronymus, grip white-knuckled on the hilt of his saber, advanced on Leena, his eyes flashing.
“What mean you?” Leena slowly lowered the barrel of the chrome-plated semiautomatic, her expression confused.
“A needless waste,” Balam said from the other side of the fallen creature's ponderous bulk, cleaning his knife and claws on the sloth's shaggy fur.
“You mourn beast's death?” Leena asked, disbelieving. She'd hardly taken the two for sentimentalists, to weep and wail when an animal met its just demise.
“Of course not!” Hieronymus snapped, slicing at the air with his saber to sluice the blood and gore from the blade, and then slamming it into its sheath in one smooth motion. “But you've wasted valuable ammunition when Balam and I had very nearly driven the beast away.”
Leena tilted her head to one side, and regarded the parallel wounds on Hieronymus's chest quizzically.
“This is nothing,” he said, following her gaze and prodding at the gashes with an outstretched finger. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. The volume of his voice dropped, but lost none of the fire in his tone. “A bit of bandaging and a little time and they'll be nothing more than scars.”
Without warning, Hieronymus reached out and snatched the Makarov from Leena's loosened grip, and shook the firearm barrel-first in her face.
“But once you fire the last of your rounds from this”—he gestured with the pistol—“you are that much nearer to never firing another round again.”
Leena, her expression hard, held out her hand palm up.
“Pistol mine,” she said.
“It might be better for all if you kept it, Hero,” Balam said, stepping up behind his companion.
“Look,” Hieronymus said with a shake of his head, laying the Makarov on Leena's outstretched hand. “Firearms are thin on the ground in this world, and ammunition hard to come by. Metal is a scarce commodity here, and there are few willing to spare even the basest lead in the manufacture of bullets, slugs, and shot. Most of what ammunition we have, we find ready-made, having fallen to Paragaea through the gates from Earth.” He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm. “Shoot, but only if your life depends upon it.”
“And sometimes,” the jaguar man interjected, “not even then.”
“But in fight with his people”—Leena pointed at Balam, her eyes on Hieronymus—“you had pistol in hand. Not to shoot?”
Hieronymus smiled slyly. He drew his pistol from the leather holster at his side, and regarded it with an expression bordering on love.
“Sometimes the signifier of a thing serves the same purpose as the thing itself,” he explained. “And by brandishing a pistol I introduce into my opponents' calculations the thought that I might have occasion to fire it. Usually the threat itself serves my purposes well enough that I need not often pull the trigger.”
�
�Mauser,” Leena said, looking at the pistol in the flickering firelight. “C96.”
“Why, yes it is,” Hieronymus said, somewhat surprised. “When last I sailed the oceans of Earth, single-shot muzzle-loaded firearms were the pinnacle of human achievement, but I have seen such wonders in my years in Paragaea. This pistol was a spoil of war, taken off a brigand on the city of Drift, just as my saber was won during the Battle of Calabria back on Earth, taken from one of the French general Massena's fallen hussars.” He held up his pistol, looking it over admiringly, and then slid it back in its holster. “So I take it you're familiar with this brand of weapon?”
“First saw one, Battle of Stalingrad.” Leena's face darkened, and she drew up straight. “First firearm I shoot. Then, I only five years old.”
Hieronymus's face took on a quizzical expression, and he made as though to speak, but anything he'd been about to say was interrupted by the rumbling death rattle of the giant sloth. Although its brain had stilled a few moments past, it seemed as though it had taken the rest of the body a short while to catch up.
With Balam in the lead, and Leena bringing up the rear, the trio drew near the felled beast to investigate.
“You were right,” the jaguar man called back to Leena, over his shoulder. “The great beasts typically eat only plants and leaves, scavenging meat from carrion rarely if ever, but they will not attack if they do not feel threatened.”
“Any animal will fight to defend itself,” Hieronymus said, pointing to the sloth's shaggy back. During most of the encounter, the bulk of the great beast had hidden its rear quarters, and only now as the trio approached its prone form were they able to see the knives and spears bristling in its hide. The wounds were somewhat fresh, from the looks of them, no more than a day or two old.
“Those are the hunting implements of the Sinaa,” Balam said, disgusted.
“Balam's own people,” Hieronymus said in an aside to Leena.
“I remember,” she answered, shuddering.
“These Sinaa were foolish indeed,” Hieronymus said. “Everyone knows that a full-grown giant sloth is virtually indestructible.”
“These the same Sinaa who capture Leena?”
Balam nodded. “Most likely.”
“Why, then?” Leena looked from the countless spears and knives in the beast's hide, to the jaguar man at her side. “Why males of your kind hunt beast, if it cannot be killed?”
Hieronymus and Balam both turned to her and, after a long second's pause, burst into laughter.
“The hunting party would not be flattered to hear you say that,” Balam said, leonine laughter rumbling deep in his chest, a somewhat unsettling sound.
“Or perhaps, my friend,” Hieronymus said, clapping the jaguar man on the shoulder, “it is you who should be offended.”
Balam looked at him, and for a moment Leena thought they might come to blows, but then their peals of laughter rippled out again, even more boisterous.
“What?” Leena said, looking from one to the other. “What is funny?”
“Little sister,” Hieronymus said, laying a companionable hand on Leena's shoulder. “I'm afraid to say that Balam is the only male of his kind that you have seen.”
Leena, confused, crossed her arms over her chest, scowling.
“In my culture,” Balam said, trying to control his laughter, “it is the females who are the principal hunters, with the role of warrior falling to the males.”
Leena's eyes widened with understanding.
“But if we should happen upon any of your captors again,” Hieronymus said, unsuccessfully trying to stifle his chuckling, “I should be obliged if you pointed out to them that, in your eyes, any one of them could pass for a male.”
“It would serve the bitches right,” Balam said, and exploded into laughter again.
Not wasting the opportunity at fresh meat, Balam and Hieronymus worked half the night to hack hunks from the giant sloth's fleshy tail, and then cleaned and dressed it. Hieronymus pointed out to Leena that in perfect circumstances he'd have preferred to smoke the meat, but that in view of the need to reach their destination in short order, salts and spices would have to serve as the necessary preservatives.
When morning came, Balam had treated several kilograms of the marbled meat, wrapped it in broad leaves, and stowed it in his pack. They were able to break their fast, though, with fresh strips of sloth meat, grilled over their cook-fire until the juices flowed. The resulting flavor was strange and somewhat rangy on Leena's tongue, but no less a welcome diversion from the meaner fare of the past days, for all of that.
In the daylight, they were able better to see the extent of Hieronymus's wounds, and having finished with the morning meal, Balam set about cleaning and dressing the gashes dug into his companion's chest.
Sitting by the cooling embers of the cook-fire, Leena saw that this was hardly the first injury, or even the hundredth, that Hieronymus had suffered. His back was a crisscrossed nest of scar tissue, lines and curves of scars spelled out strange sigils on his chest and arms, and on his lower abdomen was what appeared to be the remaining marks of a gunshot or puncture wound. She'd seen the faint white scar that ran in a line from his right eye, across his temple to his left ear, but had entertained no notions that that was just the figurative tip of an iceberg of ancient wounds.
The tracks of time, though, had left other traces on his flesh. On his left bicep was a spiraling black tattoo, similar to that Leena had seen in photographs of South Pacific islanders.
“There's another one,” Hieronymus said, startling her. He'd seen her gaze lingering on his tattoo, and was smiling slightly. His smile faded to a wince at Balam's less-than-gentle ministrations, but his eyes still twinkled. “The other indicates my status as Family in the nation of Drift. But I'm afraid I'm not quite comfortable enough in your presence yet to show you that one.”
“Trust me, woman,” Balam snarled, not looking up from his labors. “You don't want to know where he's got it hidden.”
They struck camp and set out, continuing along in their roughly northern direction for all the daylight hours, their every attention on the path ahead.
By nightfall, through the breaks in the tree line, they could see the sky glowing dimly red to the north and east of their position, the lights of some large city. Hieronymus smiled, and pointed ahead.
“Laxaria.”
The next morning, after a simple breakfast and a few short hours' trek through the final stretches of jungle, they reached the main road. It was hard-packed dirt, and ran from east to west.
They continued on to the east, following the main road, and near midday came upon a company of half-sized humans driving aurochs along before them. The small beings, with arms reaching down to their knees and wide mouths across their small heads, wielded S-shaped boomerangs, and bristled at the trio's approach.
Hieronymus approached the small beings with his hands held palm forward before him, and said, “Ebvul das letdak.” He paused, and then added, “Mat odat Sakrian?”
One of the diminutive creatures stepped forward. Standing just over a meter high, he was the tallest of them, and seemed to be the leader. He shook his head, and in halting syllables answered, “Elum odat Sakria.”
“Dakuta,” Hieronymus said, smiling beneficently. “Elar ata uk etvam. Erre kad mat, at Laxaria.”
The little creature turned and exchanged a few words with his fellows in a language of long vowels and halting consonants. At length, he turned back to Hieronymus and nodded.
“Dakuta. Uk etvam. Erre.”
The small creatures, waving their long arms to drive their aurochs ahead of them, moved to one side of the road, giving the trio a wide berth as Leena and Balam followed Hieronymus down the road and past them.
When they had gone a few hundred meters, safely out of earshot of the small creatures, to say nothing of the range of their S-shaped boomerangs, Leena grabbed Hieronymus's elbow.
“What those short men?” she asked.
“There are many races of men on Paragaea,” Hieronymus answered, glancing back over his shoulder at the small creatures following a safe distance behind, driving their aurochs before them in a cloud of dust. “Even leaving out the number of metamen like the Sinaa, and other sentient beings. The half-sized men behind us are the Sheeog, who are rarely seen out of sight of their mound homes in the deep forests, but come to town only to sell their domesticated aurochs at market.”
As Hieronymus spoke, they came about a slight curve in the road, and the forest gave way to wide, flat plains. There before them lay a grand city, stretched for wide kilometers in every direction, encircled completely by high walls. The road upon which they walked joined with several others just beyond the walls, indistinct masses of people and vehicles coming into and out of the high gates.
As they drew near the city walls, Leena could scarcely believe the types of beings streaming in and out of the city gates. The jaguar people and half-sized men were the least of them. There were beings walking on two legs like men, but who had the characteristics of lizards and birds, dogs and birds, and more combinations than Leena could comprehend. Beings that looked like humans in every respect, except that they towered almost a full foot over Leena. Strange beasts, too, and vehicles and conveyances the likes of which she had never seen. All jostling for position as a half-dozen roads converged at the city gates, all hurrying either to enter the city, or leave it behind.
Into this confusion of creatures and cultures Leena walked, her head spinning.
Paragaea Page 5
