Once Stolen

by D. N. Bryn

  I slam the engine’s start knob, and Thais grabs the driver’s lever. We shoot forward. The fishers knock into us from behind, and Thais bounces in her seat. I coil my tail around her, holding her in place, and latch onto her shoulders.

  Wolf props his spear gun up for another launch, the tip bloody with the dead human’s insides, his aim low enough that it would have to go through the bulk of my muscles before having a chance of hitting Thais. As he pulls the trigger, I shove Thais’s steering arm, jerking the boat to the left. The spear sails harmlessly by.

  Thais elbows me in the side, fighting to poke her head over my back. She yanks one hand out from under mine to sign half a mangled, “Do you want to drive or should I?”

  Insults spring to mind, but a jump in the boat knocks them out of me, and me off of Thais. I unfurl part of my tail, grabbing the center seating instead. The speed blurs my senses. I judge our path based on my knowledge of the trees and my fear of our pursuers, pointing out directions in quick succession.

  The fishers slip just out of sight as the light dims. The thickening canopy looms far overhead, blocking out the evening rays. Mist pools in nooks and wells like a living beast, rising to consume the Murk and—if the weather is right—the rivers beyond it.

  The branches rustle above. Leaves rain in a little storm of green. A giant black feather falls with them.

  My heart picks up speed. “Faster!”

  Thais waves one hand in a motion I can only interpret as distressed ire, but she wiggles the lever. Somehow, she presses it down a little farther. The front of the boat lifts clean out of the water, nearly blocking the branches that churn along the side of our curving rivulet—churn from the motion of something huge and sleek. My muscles scream run.

  I crash into Thais, slamming the lever to one side and diving us into a mist-cloaked offshoot that veers away from the shifting brush. The fog overtakes us, turning the world into a ghost, and us to mere memories. I cut the fan.

  “If we don’t move, it won’t find us.”

  “What won’t—”

  I clamp my hands over Thais’s and slow my breath until my soft exhales no longer stir the thick haze of white. Thais mirrors me. Our boat slides to a glide, then a stop. Stillness descends.

  The vibration of a giant fan still prickles my ridges, so much like an after-feeling that I can’t place it as real until its form blurs through the white wall. My hands freeze around our steering lever. I wrap my tail tightly around Thais as the oncoming fisher boat collides with us.

  EIGHT

  The Hunters Become the Hunters Become the Hunted

  Different isn’t bad.

  But sometimes bad is bad, and the different is irrelevant.

  Basically, boat humans are dumb.

  LILY AND WOLF’S BOAT crashes into us, and the wood of both vessels crunches inward. The sudden impact flings Thais and me headfirst onto the fishers’ deck. I cling to her. We roll across the dark wood of their boat, part of my tail slamming into Wolf.

  There comes an instant that could almost be stillness, if stillness were a type of existence instead of a lack of motion. Our crushed boat, far more decimated than the fishers’, slips beneath the surface while the fishers’ engine putters, then dies entirely, the vessel gently tipping toward a river grave as water spills into the gash we made in its front. Through it all, Wolf and Lily stare at me, so stiff they could be made of bark and wood. Through the fog to our right, branches rustle.

  “Stay,” I sign, so sluggishly it barely counts as a word anymore.

  But the fishers don’t know the Murk like I do, and, probably, they don’t care. Wolf scrambles toward his spear launcher.

  A feline blur of green and black shoots through the mist, feathers and fur ruffling, giant paws extended and gleaming white teeth bared. It snatches Wolf’s shoulder in its jaws and carries him into the grey. The vibrations his lungs produce make my stomach sick.

  The water spilling into the cracked end of the boat splashes over my tail and onto Lily’s boots. She sways from one foot to the other, twitching like she can’t decide whether to launch for Thais or rescue her brother. With his cries still rattling the air, this doesn’t seem quite the time to bring up how Thais did in fact save him barely a day ago and the fishers should very much repay us in turn, please and thanks.

  It matters little, because as her brother’s vibrations fade, her focus directs firmly onto Thais and me. She steps toward us.

  I bare my teeth. “So, coming south just for the murder and butchery wasn’t enough for you. You’re trading in fancy rocks now too?” As I sign, I slide in front of Thais and nudge her toward the side of the boat, hoping she has the sense to swim for the nearest roots.

  Lily’s lips turn up, but the scent she gives off holds only bitterness. “You barbarians, you could change so much of the world with these ignits—you could make things better, lift up your heroes, decimate your villains—but here you poke them into simple machines and gamble them around without a thought.”

  “So, you’re going to take them, then, is that it?” I snap. The thought sears into me, dark in a way that settles behind my eyes and turns the world red. After all the boat people have stolen from the Murk, here comes this northerner storming in to demand the rest. But the rest is mine.

  “You can’t have them!” Thais adds, as blunt and obvious as always.

  Lily’s teeth almost glow in the dimness. “Don’t worry. I’ll put them to better use in the north.” A dagger flashes in her hand.

  She swipes for me. I dodge, whipping my tail around her legs and leaning away from her blade. Her dagger slices the air where my heart had been. I tighten my coils, working them up her waist. But as I prepare to dive with her into the water and cut the blood from her brain, the feline form leaps back through the mist—a dreaded penajuar, giant and black, three times as large as a jaguar, its feathered mane flaring and its dagger-long claws extended.

  I drop Lily as it swats her with its great black paws. She flies into the mist, splashing to the river between the roots. The penajuar vaults after her.

  Thais wavers at the edge of the fisher boat, the water up to her knees as the vessel sinks. “You’re a scary predator, right?” Her hands fly through the signs, blurring them together. “That cat won’t eat us.”

  “The elder boiuna are terrifying, but I’m so tiny even humans hunt me. I can’t fight a penajuar on my own!”

  She hits my shoulder. “You’re not on your own, you have me, you coward’s piece of—”

  I catch the rustle of the trees just before the penajuar pounces. Grabbing Thais around the waist, I yank her into the river. Her chest vibrates as she shouts or screams, likely some kind of insult. I return it with a one-handed fuck you and shove her toward the nearest roots.

  The penajuar hits the sinking black boat, and a rush of water floods in under the monster’s weight. Feathered mane flaring, it scrambles in surprise, knocking into the engine. Its sleek dark fur turns it into a shadow in the thickening mists. Beyond it, I sense no frantic boat-human motions, only a couple small manatee-like creatures escaping the area with great flipper paddles. The fishers must both be dead.

  Thais climbs up between two thick roots, clutching a branch like a sword. I try to join her, but my tail catches around a bundle of netting from the fishers’ half-sunk boat. My insides crinkle and I clutch my ignit, wriggling. The penajuar’s ears swivel toward me. It boosts itself off the boat’s engine and lands on the roots in front of Thais. Its tail flicks as it prowls, haunches tightening.

  A barrage of exclamations fight to jerk my hands around, no mixing with stupid boat human and oh, muck, my heart churning them into one panicked scent that burns through my lungs.

  Thais prepares her branch, lifting it to swing. A leaf falls on her head. From the canopy drops a human, their leather shoes making no vibration when they land in a crouch in front of Thais. Slips of metal-embroidered leather cover their left forearm, palm, and first finger. With it, they hold two small activa
ted red ignits. They drop the stones into jars attached to their flaring boiuna-scale shorts. Steam boils out.

  A ghastly smell accompanies the vapor. I gag, clutching my necklace. The penajuar’s maw wrinkles, and it stumbles, rubbing a paw over its nose. Thais grips her branch tighter. She steps forward, but I grab her ankle, yanking her between the roots. Her chest vibrates.

  “Stay down!” I sign.

  The human slips off two pairs of curved shell bracelets. They clamp the shells together, stepping toward the penajuar with knees bent, placing the ball of one foot delicately in front of the other. The penajuar’s feather-tufted ears snap back. I feel its pain, the sharp vibration of the shells ringing along my head ridges like gunshots.

  The penajuar shakes its feathered mane, throat rumbling. But it refuses to back down. The human slides their shells seamlessly back around their wrist, trading it for a crossbow of dark polished mangrove wood from their back holster. They fire a bolt fitted with green and brown feathers. The projectile sinks deep into the penajuar’s chest. Dark blood drips from the wound, and the beast roars.

  It won’t be enough. The knowledge touches me like the kiss of an elder. No one our size can take down a penajuar alone.

  I scramble my senses together and lurch back into the water. The sunken cartel boat Thais and I stole rests peacefully against the riverbed, a curious fish already explor-ing its crannies. I swim straight for the engine. Carefully, I press my clingstone to the two quarter-charged ignits resting in its center. Both of them come out when I pull. They thud a steady beat into the water, heating the layer just around them so near to boiling that I can barely hold on to them as I burst back to the surface.

  The change in our situation hits me instantly, sharp with the smell of fear and fury and the shakings of a proper fight. Thais lies beneath the penajuar, pinned to a hollow between the mangrove trunk and its knitted roots. Only the branch shoved in its mouth stops it from tearing her open. Bolts graze it from the canopy, but it twists too quickly from side to side, forcing the human hunter to make precarious shots to avoid hitting Thais by accident.

  A tremble runs through my hands. I grab the penajuar’s tail feathers, pinning them between a root and a piece of driftwood. As it bucks its hips, I jab the active ignits into its fur. The stones sizzle it a nasty welt. It shrieks, its eyes rolling. The human leaps from the branches, their crossbow already loaded, and lands gracefully on the penajuar’s shoulders. They fire three bolts into the back of its head before vaulting off.

  The active ignits fly from my hand as the beast teeters, claws scraping wood. Then it collapses. Its back heaves in a final great breath, and the penajuar goes still, a mound of cooling flesh and dark fur and giant green feathers.

  The human fidgets beside it, their own chest rising and falling heavily. They stand at least a head taller than Thais, their torso slender and their bare arms and legs thick with undefined muscles. Even in the twilight, their brown skin gleams of red undertones. Black makeup elongates their slim curved eyes, every line of their face contrasting the hard angles of the boat humans with fluid soft shapes. A boiuna-scale vest clings to their chest, buried beneath ropes of orange and green beads, strings of feathers, and strands of their dark straight hair.

  Their gaze drops to the dead penajuar. They crouch, and their hands fall through a death proclamation. “We are all one in the mist. Though your death was not foretold, it will not be in vain. You bless us with your life. May your kin be blessed in turn.”

  The penajuar’s face seems to bob in response as Thais shoves it to the side and climbs out from under. She shakes. Her fingers ball into fists.

  The sight of her breaks something within me, like a reed pulled too far. “You damn piece of—of muck! What the fuck did you do to make it attack you?” My cruder signs blend with the others, creating a language all its own.

  “I hit it! I had to do something, Cacao,” Thais snaps back, her lower lip trembling.

  “You weren’t supposed to engage!”

  “Why not? You vanished, and the strange person was fighting like—like some crazy heroic jungle warrior. I had to help.”

  “Silt streams, Thais, you can’t help in things like this. You’re not a Murkling. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because you might be a little river-born human who thinks they’re so brave and strong out there in the soft graces of the rivers, but there’s real danger here! The Murk will eat you alive, boat shit.” The words slip from some constricted dark center of my heart. “Don’t fuck up like that again.” I bare a hint of my teeth. “If you die, I don’t get my ignits.”

  That’s all this is about. That’s all I want. Not Thais, not her touch, not her haunting eyes alight like my precious stones. I don’t not want Thais to die because I don’t not dislike her. I run those ideals in circles until whatever else I feel sinks under a layer of nonsense.

  All the while, Thais’s face shifts through a series of tight wet expressions. She shoves her shoulders back, but they tense again as she fires a few sharp signs, “I just wanted to help.”

  She swivels toward the Murkling human, who examines the dead penajuar, their back to us. Thais signs a hello, her mouth moving in tandem. They ignore her. She steps toward them, repeating the greeting. The human doesn’t look up until she enters their periphery. Their chest vibrates, and they spring a few steps back, bobbing uncomfortably. Their gaze meets mine. We both look away like the visual touch is a poison.

  “I’m the Bittersweet Earth, male, he.” The signs tingle along my fingers, missing something. I point to Thais. “She—the One Who Drums, undecided—calls me Cacao.”

  They give a little nod. “I am the Way the, um, the Mist Falls in the Morning, all, and, uh, they.” Their hands stumble between certain words, like a beat of hesitation.

  Thais stares at their signs with a tight brow. “What did that mean?”

  “They’re . . .” I pause, because the boat human’s dialect has no word for the ways the fog moves. Finally, I just sign the name again, drawing my fingers smoothly in an expanding circle. “Xera—that’s what they’re called. They’re both boy and girl.”

  “Is there something wrong with them? Are Murk humans like boiuna, without any hearing?”

  I shrug. “There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re probably just deaf. It’s common here.”

  Xera nods. “Yes, that’s—that’s me. Deaf.” They pause only a moment. “I must tell my councilors to send collectors for this penajuar. Someone else will, um, come help you.” Their light feet spring them along the roots in the direction of the deepening swamp.

  Panic grips me. “Wait, wait!” I wave my arms, tearing in front of them. “You’re from the Bright Bark village, right?”

  They nod.

  “Don’t tell them about us.” I realize how uncomforting that sounds once I finish signing it.

  The corners of Xera’s curved eyes narrow. “Why?”

  Because you’ll tell a single councilor, who will tell the other councils, and they will tell the elders, and the elders will come rip every scale off my body and make it into a very nice pair of shorts for some other Murkling to wear. I choose a different version of the truth. “My first forebearer is an elder. We aren’t on the best of terms right now.”

  “I understand.” Their gaze bounces between me and Thais. “But you are odd, from the, uh, river. You do need help.”

  “No. We’re fine,” Thais cuts in.

  I sign larger to block her out. “We’re trying to get to the coast, but the boat we stole from the river cartel sank.” Along with the fisher boat and probably those ignits with the clingstone the damn penajuar shoved from my grip, because I can’t see or feel them anymore. “If you have lodging and food for this one,” I point to Thais, “that would help. But we don’t want to cause any problems.” Or be pointed out or noticed by anyone, at all. I’ve somehow stayed in the respectable lanes of proper conversation so far, though, so I hold the last bit in. I can’t break down yet.

  T
he stink of Xera’s vapor has faded enough that I can finally make out their scent name, their indecision riding on a smell like cracked nuts and wet bark. “Then, you come with me,” they sign finally, slow and a little twitchy. With that, they turn, continuing along the roots, their footsteps so light I sense no vibrations.

  Thais grabs my arm. “You don’t trust this Xera, do you? They seem twitchy. What if it’s a trap?”

  I shrug. “They’re a flighty person.”

  If they suspect my crimes, running away now will just confirm things. Besides, if Thais continues without food, she might not recover from her next poison spasm. And a village means boats. Boats we can steal.

  “Come on, we’re losing them,” I add, sliding from one root to the next.

  Thais’s throat vibrates, but she follows. Her bare toes point as she jumps over the gaps, her arms swinging out like a bird taking flight. “I don’t like this,” she signs. “How can that flinching coward be the same warrior who took down the penajuar? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not everyone who’s brave is loud about it,” I reply, giving an eye roll for good measure. “Being able to shut up is a virtue. You should try it sometime, boat shit.”

  A whiff of her annoyance catches in my nose slits when she shoves past me. She bounces along the roots as though pounding out an angry beat, but her feet slip in the darkening landscape. After plunging into the river one too many times, she finally sticks to my side, her arm wrapped around my elbow like she might squeeze the blood from it.

  “What’s this thing with the council?”