Merkiaari Wars: 01 - Hard Duty

by Mark E. Cooper

  Shima could have killed this warrior easily from where she was, but that wasn’t the plan. She had to save them all, not just one injured male, and to do that she needed Kazim and Merrick to do as she had bid them. It shouldn’t be long now.

  Shima used the trees to move ahead of the column and circle around, scouting the problem from all sides. This wouldn’t end bloodlessly she decided, not entirely unhappy with the decision. If she could see a way to save the prisoners without fighting, she would use it. She meant what she said to Merrick. Anything could happen in a fight. The only way to ensure everyone’s safety was not to fight, but that wasn’t an option now. With two warriors so close together and near Merrick’s father, she couldn’t possibly spirit him away without being seen.

  It was nearly time. She readied herself by removing her visor and securing it on her harness. She hadn’t forgotten the desperation she had felt when she thought she had lost it, and hadn’t yet found a solution to let her wear it in the kind of fight she was anticipating here. She had never used it while hunting with Tahar, and although this was a different kind of hunt, she wouldn’t need her eyes to find the aliens. If all went well she would have the advantage regardless. She had planned for it at least.

  The first explosion took even her by surprise, but she was falling upon her prey just moments later. The flash as the energy cell exploded blinded all within sight of it, but not Shima. Her eyes were so bad in the dark without her visor that she could have stared right into the explosion without discomfort. Not that she was going to do that. She was busy killing her prey.

  The Merkiaari she landed upon had no time to scream. Shima landed on his back already reaching around his neck and ripped his throat out with the claws of both hands. He was already choking on blood and dying as she sprang away directly at another alien shaped blur. More flashes lit the trees and plunged them back into deep shadow as Kazim and Merrick threw beamer cells and shot them, causing them to explode. Beamer cells contained enough energy for hundreds of shots. Liberating all that at once made for an energetic display. Flashes of light lit the night, making shadows leap up and cavort amongst the trees. Mere moments later, the trees were plunged back into darkness all the deeper for the brief display.

  Merkiaari roared in anger and surprise, firing indiscriminately into the trees at targets they couldn’t see. Trees soaked up the damage, some cut in half beginning a majestic fall, but the forest was dense and they couldn’t complete their descent, branches tangling with their brothers.

  Shima disembowelled her second alien, not slowing to watch him die. The scent of Merkiaari and blood made her rage, and Shima let it take her. It was a liberating and fearsome thing, allowing her primal self to come to the fore. This must be what her earliest ancestors felt when the clans fought each other before the Great Harmony.

  The fight/kill reflex of her people tunnelled her vision and clamped her ears tight to her head. Her muzzle gaped wide, her lips rippling back exposing killing teeth. She screamed her rage into the night sky. It was her battle cry, her first ever, and was the scream of a hunting Shan giving challenge to all enemies within hearing.

  Shima was essentially blind now, but as her father had maintained she didn’t need eyes to hunt her prey. She had the Harmonies. She sought out the insane mind glows using her gifts, and raced madly into the trees aiming for the knot of alien mind glows. Behind her, she left two dying aliens and a bewildered Shan male in her wake.

  Shima slashed into the aliens, darting between them and splashing blood in all directions. Not stopping, she raced into the trees and circled back to attack from another direction over and over, whittling the enemy down with quick hit and run strikes; none of them instantly fatal, but all debilitating and confusing. Merkiaari weapons raved chaotically, blasting the trees to kindling as they sought targets that were simply not there. They did not know a lone Shan female was responsible for the carnage.

  More explosions and flashes of light courtesy of Kazim and Merrick lit the dark, and suddenly Merkiaari were falling to beamer fire as well as claws. Shima was lost to the madness. She danced in the dark amongst the trees. Strike, strike, jump, spin and slash. Alien blood sprayed, she spit it from her mouth and screamed her challenge again, but this time it was not answered by weapons fire.

  Silence.

  Spinning on the spot, claws still extended, Shima barely had time to close her fists. Her attack thudded home into Kazim’s belly and he folded with a grunt of air expelled. He fell to his knees groaning. Shima stood tall above him and screamed one last time, arms held wide with claws extended. It was not a challenge, but a cry of victory.

  “Shima, it’s done. You killed them all,” Kazim said gently. He didn’t try to stand, perhaps realising that in her maddened state she might take it as a challenge. “It’s over.”

  Shima glared down at him, panting hard and still raging in her thoughts, but his words almost inaudible with her ears still tight to her head began to make sense. Over? It was over already? She blinked trying to see into the trees, but it was so dark. Dark? Her visor!

  She reached for the visor still secure on her harness, but paused staring myopically at her hands. Her claws were thick with blood and bits of meat and alien fur. Her hands were dripping red onto the ground. She peered down at herself, forcing a semblance of calm into her thoughts and her tunnel vision began to recede. Her pelt was matted with blood, and she swallowed remembering the fight at last.

  Shima’s ears struggled up, and swivelled at a sound behind her. She spun falling automatically into a defensive crouch, but this time she found more of her people staring at her. Merrick’s mother looked upon Shima with a kind of fascinated horror, her cubs though were frightened. It made Shima want to hide her bloody face. Merrick’s father bowed to her when she met his eyes, and Shima bobbed one back quickly in reply. He shouldn’t bow to her that way. He was older than she and surely wiser. He was due her respect, but he didn’t seem to see it that way.

  Shima looked beyond her audience and into the trees, not finding whom she sought. “Merrick? Where’s Merrick?”

  “I don’t—” Kazim began to say.

  In a sudden panic, Shima reached out with the Harmonies and found a lone Shan mind glow. It was dim and fading. “He’s hurt!” Shima shouted and dashed into the trees.

  Shima found Merrick amid broken trees on his back blinking into the night sky. He still had his beamer, and he made her proud by aiming it steadily in her direction as she rushed toward him. He lowered the weapon when he saw who she was.

  Shima crouched over the youngling, looking for wounds and found one. A huge splinter of wood had speared him clean through close to the hip joint. Shima chewed her whiskers. She dare not remove it for fear of blood loss, yet he was literally nailed to the ground by it. She was no healer, but the Harmonies had already prepared her.

  He was dying.

  No! There must be something I can do, some trick Tahar taught me, or something Sharn said about blood loss. Please... Ancestors help me!

  “My father?” Merrick whispered.

  “Lives,” Shima assured him. “All of them. You saved them, Merrick. You did. You will make a great warrior one day.”

  “No,” Merrick said, his voice already fading as his heart pumped what little blood he had left onto the thirsty ground. “I was a coward. I ran away.”

  Shima’s eyes burned and she clutched his hand in hers. “No young warrior, no. Your ancestors sent you for help... you came to get me, you see?”

  “You think so, Tei? I don’t want to die... a... coward...” Merrick’s hand released Shima’s and his eyes stared at the sky unseeing. His mind glow faded to nothing.

  Shima stared into his face, burning the image of the youngling she had failed to save into her memory. He was dead. It was her fault. She had taken him under her protection as she had Kazim, and failed him. What had she been thinking, bringing two untrained males into this? Worse, what had possessed her to bring a youngling? Kazim at least was adul
t, able to make his own decisions, but Merrick...

  “Merick, please forgive me...”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Shima.” Kazim said. He was half carrying Merrick’s father and that slowed his approach. “He was a warrior, and you were his Tei.”

  “Don’t...” call me that. Shima didn’t say it. Merrick had been young, too young, but he had chosen her to follow. The knowledge cut her all the deeper for she had proven unworthy of him. “Just don’t.”

  Shima took the beamer from Merrick’s other hand and holstered it upon her harness, before rising to her feet. She braced herself to meet Merrick’s father’s eyes, and the accusations she was sure would be there. She put her visor on to see them all the better, but the truth was she wanted to hide her own eyes for shame.

  “I... Harmonies forgive me,” tears began to fall and she let them. “I killed your cub. I have no words to express how sorry I am. I owe you a life now and submit myself to your justice. I swear by my clan, my life is yours.”

  Kazim gasped as Shima spoke the old formula, but Merrick’s father had attention only for his dead cub. Behind him, his mate and other cubs arrived and the night was filled with wails of grief.

  Shima let the sound wash over her, and cried silently for Merrick, for Tahar, for her people.

  * * *

  23~Going Underground

  The Wilderness, Northern Continent, Child of Harmony

  They couldn’t take Merrick with them, there was just no way it would have been safe carrying him for cycles to the keep. Shima had hated the thought of leaving him for scavengers, of which there were many on Child of Harmony, but he would have understood the need. Thankfully, his father, Nevin, and his mother, Marsali, took charge of Merrick and they were the practical sort. They knew what had to be done.

  Shima was silent, her ears constantly swivelling listening for approaching danger while Merrick’s parents dug a pit using their claws. They would leave a marker of some kind so they could come back and take Merrick home when it was safe.

  Shima kept her head turning, watching for movement. She had both beamers in her possession again, in hand and ready to fire. She was wired, very tense, and feeling jittery. The Harmonies were screaming at her to move. Leave this place. Go. Go now was the message she was getting. There was no sign of more Merkiaari in the area, and she was watching with every sense she had. She knew they were safe for now, and yet the Harmonies were screaming of imminent danger. She wanted to run far and fast just as the Harmonies urged her to do, but they had to do right by Merrick first.

  Kazim was on the far side of the pit talking quietly to Merrick’s sibs. Kazim had asked Nevin if it was all right to record, and he said it was. It surprised Shima that he had agreed so easily, until she realised he wanted his cub to be remembered. Shima thought the three younglings looked a lot like their mother, but then so had Merrick. Inaki had her mother’s patterning on her flanks, and so did Rahuri. Merrick had that distinctive pattern too. Miamovi lacked the pattern entirely, but she had her mother’s ears. In fact, her head matched her mother’s in shape and feature, not just colouring. The younglings had their mother’s looks, no question, but their manner was all their father. They walked softly like him, spoke with gravity as he did, and Shima felt certain they would take after him in their opinions. At any other time, they would seem reserved, Shima felt sure, but with Merrick’s death, emotions ran high and close to the surface.

  Shima froze for a moment when she saw it, but then continued her watch without a word to the others. It wouldn’t help anything to tell them that Merrick’s kah was standing there watching them. This wasn’t the first time she had seen one, and with the new war just starting, she doubted it would be her last. It would go to the Harmonies soon.

  Shima had seen kah before, but she had never seen one do what this one did next. One moment it was standing near Kazim, the next it was a pace away and in Shima’s face trying to talk. It gestured urgently and tried to say... something. There was no sound of course, and the kah seemed frustrated by that. It walked passed Shima looking back at her with a pleading look when she stared. It held out a hand to her, still with that pleading expression upon its immaterial face.

  Shima was shocked motionless, her thoughts in chaos. Kah didn’t do this! They just didn’t! They weren’t people. This kah wasn’t the youngling she had met so briefly and failed to protect. It was... it was a memory of him, like one of Kazim’s films. That is what she had been taught when her father realised she was strong enough in the Harmonies to see them, and had invited his mate’s favourite sib to visit their home to teach her. Only Tei were ever taught about kah because only Tei were strong enough in the Harmonies to see them, but she was a special case. Strong enough to be Tei, but flawed in herself and unwanted by the clan-that-is-not. Tei’Thrand had been kind to teach the scared youngling she had been, and had broken many an unwritten rule to do it. Such deep knowledge of kah and their link to the Harmonies was held exclusively by the clan-that-is-not.

  This kah was all wrong. It was not playing by the rules, she thought plaintively. That thought was so absurd that at any other time she would have laughed, but not now. There was nothing funny about burying Merrick, or running for their lives from the Murderers, and there was nothing funny about this kah. It... she couldn’t think of it as a he. It wasn’t Merrick, it wasn’t! Despite its strange ways and looking like the youngling, she had to cling to her lessons. It wasn’t him, but it seemed not to know that or care. It acted like Merrick, wanted her attention like he had, and Harmonies help her she felt herself wanting it to be really him. That was so wrong.

  She couldn’t talk to him... it! It was an it, wasn’t it? She couldn’t talk to him with the others nearby, but when she checked they were busy lowering Merrick’s body into the pit. Shima holstered one beamer and gestured surreptitiously behind her back, wanting the kah to move behind a tree. Shima almost gasped when it did what she wanted. They don’t do that, she wailed silently in her head.

  Shima followed it behind the tree and stopped to watch its antics. “I don’t understand.”

  The kah... oh Harmonies, call it Merrick. She was already losing her mind, what difference did it make? Merrick raised his hands and let them fall in defeat. He looked very upset.

  “You can’t tell me, can you show me?”

  Merrick’s face glowed brighter as if suddenly excited. Shima swallowed. He moved away and looked back. His expression asked if she was coming. Shima used her gift to look for danger, and gave herself over to the madness. She followed him through the trees, already guessing where he planned to lead her. Maybe she was asleep and dreaming? She stumbled over a hidden root barking a shin painfully.

  “Not dreaming,” she muttered and rubbed the pain away. “I couldn’t be that lucky.”

  Merrick stopped by the dead aliens and looked at her.

  Shima and Kazim had dragged all the bodies together before deciding to just leave them for the scavengers. They’d had some vague notion of hiding them, but it would have taken too long. Better to bury Merrick and vacate the area quickly than spend time hiding dead aliens she had decided.

  “What?”

  Merrick pointed urgently to one of the aliens.

  Shima raised her beamer, suddenly wary. Had it somehow survived? No, not possible. The Harmonies showed Merrick glowing very brightly and nothing else. They were definitely dead.

  “They’re dead.”

  Merick raised his fists at the sky and shook them. Then he pointed at the alien again.

  “All right, all right... no need to get testy about it. I’ll look at your stinky alien if you will leave me alone and join your ancestors like you’re supposed to.”

  Merrick grinned at her. Grinned!

  Grumbling about getting even more blood on herself, she holstered her beamer and rolled the stinky and definitely dead alien onto its back. Kazim had stripped its weapons and shared them out, just as she had done with the other aliens, so she didn’t expect to
find anything.

  “Now what? There’s nothing here.”

  Merrick crouched near her and mimed undoing its clothes.

  “I am not stripping this foul thing naked!”

  Merrick’s ears went back at that, and he looked disgusted. He gestured slowly and Shima finally understood.

  “Oh, sorry,” Shima said and reached for the flap of material attached to the Merkiaari covering.

  Merkiaari didn’t wear anything like a Shan harness with its loops and pouches, but they still needed to carry things. Like the new aliens, the Humans, they wore coverings they called clothes and those had built in pouches. She undid the flap securing the pocket and reached inside. Her hand felt something and she stilled. Had they missed a weapon?

  “What is it?”

  She looked for Merrick but he was gone. Had he gone back to the others? Somehow she knew he hadn’t. He was truly gone to his ancestors now. Shima looked back at the alien and withdrew the item. It wasn’t a weapon, she was sure of that. She suspected it was some kind of minicomputer. She turned it this way and that, wondering why this thing was important enough for Merrick’s kah to break all the rules to get it into her hands.

  She turned it over and stared at her face reflected in the shiny surface. There were no controls, but if this really was a computer... she touched the shiny part and things started happening. She watched coloured icons and blinking graphics move over the screen. She cocked her head trying to understand the display, and her ears flicked at the nasty alien speech sounds coming from the device. Suddenly things rearranged themselves in her mind. She turned the device ninety degrees and her breath rushed out as the electronic map made sense and she associated the graphics with the real world.