“In any event, I am Sebek, and these here with me are the elite riders of the terror birds, handpicked from my township to join me on this hunt.”
The company looked around them uneasily, as on their mounts the ferocious-looking Tannim towered full meters above them.
“You look stricken, my friends,” Sebek said, chuckling. “You act as though you have never seen a Tannim before.” He turned to Balam, waving his arm expansively. “Come, my metaman brother, surely you are familiar with your crocodile cousins?”
“I know of your people, Sebek,” Balam said guardedly, “but I have never met one of the Tannim in person.”
“I visited the townships of the Tannim,” Benu said, raising his hand, “if that's of any assistance. But that was many centuries ago, and then only briefly.”
“Well,” Sebek said, clapping his hands. “Whatever your feelings at our initial meeting, know that we Tannim are no threat to you. We are always glad to see outlanders, as our remote townships so seldom get visitors. And I was so impressed by the martial displays of your Sinaa and his woman on the sandbar that I would like to welcome you to our township as honored guests at our fete this very evening.”
“I am no one's woman,” Spatha said, glowering beneath her knitted brows.
“Charming,” Sebek said, teeth bared in a crocodilian smile.
The morning journey through the mangrove swamp was almost like a strange, fevered dream. Each of the company rode pillion behind one of the Tannim, atop the massive terror birds. With their long necks and powerful legs, the birds were able to cover distance with an alarming speed, even over such difficult and irregular terrain as that found in the mangrove swamp. The long strides of the terror birds produced a kind of rocking motion that lulled the riders into a torpor, but when combined with the heat of the morning and the piquant smell of the fresh kill strapped before each rider's saddle, the result was a kind of unsettling miasma that clouded the thoughts and left one feeling uneasy.
They came upon the Tannim township where the mangrove swamp met the dry land of the coastal plains. It was a small village of low, round-topped structures, none standing more than four or five meters tall, arranged in a semicircular arc around a central clearing, in which the preparations for the night's festivities were already under way. The townspeople were surprised to see their hunters arrive with visitors as well as fresh meat, but not alarmed, and they welcomed the company with open arms.
Once they had recovered from the torpor of their morning ride, the company quickly found their footing, and soon discovered that their hosts were not nearly so alarming as their ferocious mien might suggest. For all their terrifying appearance, they were a boisterous, affable people, and the company was quickly put at their ease. Soon even Spatha was lounging in the plaza, sipping on fermented fruit juices and laughing at the hunting stories of their Tannim hosts. Kakere, for his part, eyed the spirits with obvious thirst, but managed to forbear.
Leena had cause to doubt their good fortune. There had been, in her experiences traveling across the face of Paragaea, no unalloyed joys, and she found that she invariably expected some adversity to follow close on the heels of any fortuitous turn. With the fall of night, though, the fete began, and still the sky had not fallen in on them, and Leena began to relax. Perhaps this night would be an exception to the rule, and they would pass a few relaxing hours in the company of these pleasant folks, and then continue on to their goal rested and rejuvenated.
Then, when the main course had been served and consumed—some kind of large river rodent, similar to a capybara—Sebek called for the night's entertainment to be brought forth, and a pair of Tannim rushed into the darkness, to return a short while later with a wheeled platform, on which rested a dolphin. Its fins and flukes were cropped back, and its back was covered in crisscrossed white scar tissue, and only the buckets of water its handlers dumped onto it from time to time kept it from dehydrating completely.
The dolphin, it transpired, had been trained to perform tricks on command. And so, in response to orders from its handlers, the dolphin rose up on its belly, or jabbed its snout comically in the air in a mock duel with one of its handlers, or else barked out a rough semblance to a popular Tannim folk tune through its blowhole. The performance lasted for the better part of an hour, while the dolphin quietly whimpered between each trick, moaning piteously.
The Tannim clattered their teeth—their form of applause—uproariously at every cavorting move of the dolphin, while the company looked on somewhat uncomfortably, whispering to one another behind their hands, except for Kakere, who sat in stock silence, eyes smoldering behind the folds of his damp robes.
With the conclusion of the fete, the company was escorted to apartments in one of the round-topped structures that ringed the clearing.
“Consider these apartments yours for as long as you need them,” Sebek said as one of his Tannim started a fire in a pit at the center of the common room. The room was ringed by five doors leading to small chambers, separated by hanging curtains of beads.
“Your hospitality is most appreciated,” Hieronymus said, bowing slightly. “We'll most likely be on our way with the morning's first light, but the prospect of sleeping indoors tonight is an appealing one.”
“Particularly if we don't have to worry about rising tides or advancing armies of giant ants,” Balam added, grimacing.
“Is there anything else you require?” the fire-lighting Tannim asked deferentially.
“No, I think we should have everything we need,” Leena answered.
“In that case,” Sebek said, clacking his teeth together with a note of finality, “we'll leave you to your rest.” With that, he and the other Tannim turned, and strode back into the night.
“Mannerly for such fearsome-seeming creatures, aren't they?” Benu observed, pacing the circumference of the room.
“Thou shouldn't be fooled.” Spatha watched the doorway through narrowed eyes. “Our hosts may be properly schooled in manners, but they also have been quite well trained in the arts martial. The two I fought in the mangrove might have done for me, had they their better wits about them.” She paused, and turned to look at Benu with an accusing glare. “To speak of which, why didst thou not come to our aid, artificial man? I saw proof of thy strength in Masjid Empor, when thou clunked two constables insensate to the ground. Were thy attentions better served elsewhere while the Sinaa and I earned our new wounds?”
Benu shrugged. “You seemed to have matters well in hand. I suppose if things had taken a fatal turn, I could have intervened. But as it was, I was fascinated by the giant ants which swarmed out of their burrows. I found their level of organization and coordination remarkable. I've long known that ants communicate not only by brushing antennae, but by secreting pheromones that drift on the air, but I'd never before seen such a coordinated attack on such a large scale, over such a short span of time. It was almost as if—”
“I'm sure this is fascinating to someone,” Balam said, stretching his arms to either side as his face split with an enormous yawn, “but I for one am for bed.”
“As am I,” Hieronymus said, unbuckling his sword belt and swinging his pack off his back. He parted one of the beaded curtains with his hand, and glanced over his shoulder as he ducked through into the chamber. “Pleasant sleep, all. And may the only giant ants we encounter tonight be in our dreams, at worst.”
Benu shrugged, and took a seat near the fire pit. “I needn't occupy one of the rooms to rest my systems,” he said, “so the rest of you may take a sleeping chamber apiece.”
Spatha did not respond, but slipped her baldric off her shoulders and disappeared through one of the curtains. Balam made for another, and Leena paused for a moment, glancing over at Kakere.
The Ichthyandaro had not spoken since the fete, not since the night's “entertainment” had been wheeled out. Now he lingered by the open door, glancing out into the night.
“Kakere?” Leena asked. “Is there anything the matter
?”
The fish man turned around, his expression unreadable through the folds of his robes. “No, nothing,” he said, his voice muffled. “Just…just going for a walk.”
Leena shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, and stepped into the remaining sleeping chamber as Kakere slipped out into the darkness.
Leena lay on a woven mat within the sleeping chamber, firelight filtered through the beaded curtain playing on the ceiling and walls. Her arms, legs, and neck ached, as they seemed to always do these days. Since they had left Laxaria, long months before, she had been in constant motion, whether by foot, or airship, or horseback, or ship. Always moving, but in her darker moments, she feared that she was only running in place, and that all of her exertions were not bringing her any closer to home. Would she wander the wide world of Paragaea for endless years, as Hieronymus seemed content to do, never returning to fulfill her duty?
The firelight danced on the ceiling overhead, and when Leena finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she dreamt of flames.
Leena awoke to shouts of alarm, out in the township. She leapt to her feet and, grabbing her sword belt and holstered Makarov, raced out into the common room. She had been asleep for only a few hours, and through the open door she could see that it was still full dark outside.
Benu was on his feet, standing near the entrance and peering out into the darkness intently, and as Leena rushed to stand beside him, Balam, Hieronymus, and Spatha issued forth from their sleeping chambers to join them. All of them, Leena included, were barefoot and in various stages of undress, but all were armed and ready for action.
“What are we looking at, Benu?” Hieronymus asked, hand on his saber's hilt.
“I'm not certain,” Benu answered, glancing over his shoulder, his opalescent eyes glittering like gems in the firelight. “First came a single voice, shouting for someone to stop, and then sounds of violence, and shortly after a half-dozen or so voices calling out for assistance.”
Spatha glanced around the common room, her gladius drawn and in her hand. “Where is the fish?”
Leena looked from Spatha back to the open door. “He stepped out when we all went off to sleep. He said he wanted to take a walk.”
“Well, his walk hasn't yet brought him back here,” Benu said.
“That is an unpleasant sign,” Balam grumbled, popping the claws of his hands, retracting them, and then extending them again nervously.
“Thou hast said a mouthful.” Spatha scowled, tightening her grip on the gladius.
“Come on.” Hieronymus pushed past them, hurrying into the night, leaving his saber sheathed but with his hand still resting on the hilt.
They followed the shouts, and came upon a crowd of Tannim gathered a few meters beyond the arc of buildings, a short distance from the pens where the terror birds were kept. Flickering torchlight lit the scene, casting dancing shadows on the ferocious countenances of the crocodile men.
At the center of the jostling crowd, they found Kakere, standing unrobed and naked in front of a glassed-in case. At the fish man's feet lay the fallen form of a young Tannim, while in the case the still form of the dolphin floated in blood-clouded waters.
Kakere looked about him, his black eyes wide and frightened, as the Tannim called for his blood.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sebek called out, joining the throng. His hungry gaze took in the scene in an instant, and then his eyes settled on the face of the Tannim lying lifeless in the dirt at Kakere's feet. “Sobek,” he said in a quiet voice, his toothy mouth clenched tight.
“Kakere!” Hieronymus said, stepping forward and interposing himself between the Ichthyandaro and the mob pressing ever closer. “What transpired here?”
Kakere looked from Hieronymus, to the lifeless dolphin in the red-stained water, to the jostling mob of crocodile men, and back.
“He told me to do it, you see?” the fish man began. “I came to speak with him, to join him in the water and exchange sounds as his kind and mine have done beneath the waves since time immemorial. He told me he'd been captured in his youth, beached on a sidebar by the retreating tide, and found by a company of Tannim hunters.”
Kakere's eyes flashed angrily for a moment, and he looked around him at the gathered throng, kept from attacking the fish man only by reproachful glances from their leader, Sebek, who it appeared wanted to hear Kakere's testimony before proceeding.
“The Tannim kept him in bondage all the years since,” Kakere went on, looking back sorrowfully at the state of the dolphin in the tank. “His fluke and fins crippled by his cruel handlers, he knew he could never survive again on the open seas, and that escape was not an option. So he begged me to release him from his torments.”
Kakere held up a bone-handled knife, of the type used by the crewmen aboard the Acoetes Zephyrus, its blade slicked with blood.
“And Sobek?” the leader of the Tannim said in a faraway voice, pointing to the dead crocodile man on the ground.
“Oh,” Kakere said absently, and looked at the bloody form at his feet. “It was…I didn't mean to hurt…He came upon me as I was carrying out my grisly task, and…Well, I had to kill him, in order to finish matters with the dolphin.”
“You…” Sebek began, and his words choked off in his throat. “You killed my nephew Sobek in order to euthanize a dumb beast?”
At this, the Tannim whose numbers swelled by the moment began to howl for Kakere's blood. One of them, bolder or more impetuous than the rest, pushed past Leena and Balam, rushing towards Kakere with murder in his black eyes.
“No!” Spatha leapt in front of the charging Tannim, taking out a slice of his shoulder with her gladius as she moved past him.
Spatha landed in the dirt before Kakere, the point of her gladius held high, crouching in a martial stance.
The Tannim whom she'd nicked gripped his wounded shoulder and bellowed with rage as two more rushed forward from the crowd, talons out and grasping. Spatha dealt one of the two newcomers a ringing blow to the head with the flat of her blade as the other tackled her to the ground.
“Spatha!” Leena shouted as Balam and Hieronymus charged forward. But before either of them could reach Spatha's side, the Tannim with whom she wrestled had clamped his vicious jaws on her shoulder and neck, and when he pulled away, her side was left a red ruin from her jawline to her upper arm.
Balam hauled the Tannim to his feet, his jaws dripping red with gore from Spatha's wound, while Hieronymus stood astride Spatha's supine form, turning his blade's point to the other two Tannim, who even now were regaining their footing.
“Cease fighting!” Sebek called out, his voice booming. “Stand down.”
The Tannim immediately backed away, stepping back into the circle of Tannim who thronged about the scene. Balam kept in a ready stance, his eyes wary and watchful, while Hieronymus knelt at Spatha's side to check on the extent of her wounds.
“Your woman's wounds are doubtless fatal,” Sebek said to Hieronymus, stepping forward, “and she will not live to see another nightfall. And so the blood debt of Sobek, my own nephew, has been paid.” He turned to Spatha, who lay bleeding into the sandy ground. “The Tannim that you marked will survive, and will carry their scars as a lesson never to underestimate an opponent.” He took a step back, his gaze encompassing the whole company. “You are free to go. But know this. The hospitality of the Tannim is at an end, and if any of you are seen again in the vicinity, our next meeting will not be as cordial.”
Leena and Benu were sent to retrieve the company's articles from the apartments, and by the time they returned, Hieronymus and Balam had constructed a rough stretcher upon which to carry the moaning form of Spatha Sekundus. Kakere, meanwhile, had retrieved his robes from the ground beside the glassed-in case, and dressed himself, the robes now stained faint red by the blood-soaked waters of the tank.
Leena checked her pack while Hieronymus pulled on his boots, and Balam strapped on his harness and secured his pack on his back. The crowd of Tannim
had thinned, most of them following Sebek as he carried the lifeless body of his departed nephew away from the scene, but some still lingered on, casting angry glances at the company. If they were not away quickly, there might still be additional bloodshed, despite Sebek's orders to the contrary.
“I'm ready to go as soon as you are,” Leena said impatiently as Hieronymus and Balam positioned themselves at the head and the foot of Spatha's stretcher. As they lifted her slowly into the air, Spatha coughed, a sick, sputtering sound racking her chest as blood-flecked foam collected at the corners of a mouth twisted in agony. The rough compress of shirts and blankets Benu had wrapped around her ruined shoulder and neck was already soaked through, glistening black with blood in the flickering firelight.
“Let's go,” Balam said urgently.
“You'll get no argument from me.” Hieronymus glanced over at Kakere, who stood now clad in his robes, but with his head and neck bare. The fish man's expression was confused, disoriented, his eyes lingering on the mangled corpse of the dolphin in the tank, and on the bloodstained sand at his feet. “Kakere,” Hieronymus went on gently. “Let's be away from here, shall we?”
Kakere nodded absently, and followed along as Leena led the company out into the humid night, away from the township and into the wilderness.
Once they had journeyed far enough from the township that they felt comfortable stopping for a brief span, the company took the opportunity to check on the full extent of Spatha's injuries. Benu was motioned over to inspect her wounds by firelight, after Hieronymus had lit a fire in a small clearing.
“The news is bad,” Benu said after a few moments, “but not quite so grim as the Tannim leader seemed to believe. Spatha's injuries are fatal, no doubt, but her remaining lifespan can be measured in days, not in hours.”
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