CHAPTER THREE
MONSTERS!
At first I thought they were horses and riders—okay, not horses, but some kind of powerful animals carrying big, shaggy riders. There were definitely things with four legs galloping in the dust cloud, and hairy arms hefting big-ass spears and swords, but as they got closer I got the next big shock in a long day of big shocks. Horse—or whatever—and rider were all one animal!
They reminded me of those horse-man things in Fantasia. Whaddaya call ’em? Cen-somethings. Except these weren’t cute. Not by a country mile. The horse-part was more like an extra large tiger, low to the ground and striped yellow and eggplant purple. It had a thick, Komodo dragon tail at one end, and a squat, upright man-body at the other. Their back legs were like a cat’s, strong and springy, with padded paws that left footprints bigger around than a Frisbee. Their front legs had what looked like big, lumpy clubs on the ends. I couldn’t make out any more detail than that with all the dust and movement.
Their heads were huge, with wide, blunt faces like a bear’s, except tiger-striped like their bodies. The striping went up into thick dreadlocks, some yellow, some purple, that hung down their wide backs.
Even with the swords and spears in their hands it took a minute for it to sink in that these weren’t animals. I mean they were, but they were people too. Okay, not people, but another race. You know what I mean. Real aliens this time. Not guys who looked like some guy in a band with a little purple make-up. I got it when I noticed the beads and bones woven into their dreads. Apes might pick up clubs, but jewelry don’t interest them much. For a second I thought that might be a good thing. If they weren’t animals maybe we could negotiate, right? Then I saw some very human-looking skulls around the waist of one mean-ass mother. So much for the “We’re all cousins under the skin” approach.
I’ll give Sai credit. He didn’t run or burst into tears. He took a sword from one of his dead buddies and painfully got to his feet. He could hardly stay upright he was so weak, but he set his jaw, used the sword for a prop and made like he wasn’t going to budge.
The cen-tigers slowed as they neared us, circling us and the coach like a bunch of bikers intimidating some nice couple who’ve broken down in the middle of nowhere—not that I know anything about that kind of thing. The leader, a huge, scarred thug with a leather eye-patch over one eye, stopped in front of us. He was about eight feet tall, and smelled like the world’s dirtiest cat box. Then, like we weren’t already impressed, he reared up on his hind legs and dropped his tail to the ground to make a stable-looking tripod. Now I got why his front “legs” looked different than his back ones, and why some of these boys had two, three and even four swords strapped to their backs. Their middle limbs were some kind of multi-purpose leg/arm, and those lumpy clubs they ran on were fists with thick, callused knuckles.
Pretty snazzy—four legs when you needed speed, and four hands to swing swords with when you needed to fight. If I hadn’t been so worried about keeping my skin intact right then, it would have been fascinating. As it was, I spent the time multiplying hands and swords and cen-tigers and coming up with some really depressing numbers.
Sai stepped forward, raising an open hand in what would seem to be a universal sign of peaceful intentions. “Hail, noble Aarurrh. Forgive our trespass. We were forced into your lands by our enemies. Please take what you will of our supplies and... and our dead, but leave us to withdraw and seek vengeance on these cowards who drove us to violate your borders.”
It seemed like a pretty good speech to me, but One-Eye didn’t think much of it. He spat insultingly close to Sai’s feet and scratched himself with his left middle hand. “Aarurrh not care why you here, insect. This Aarurrh land. You pay.” He had a hard time talking Sai’s talk. It was like his mouth wasn’t shaped right to make those kinds of noises. “You be slave for women until die. Then meat like these.”
And with that he signaled to two flunkies and turned away to supervise the looting. He barked at his men in some lingo that sounded like a bear gargling razor blades. I didn’t understand a word. So, my universal translator wasn’t universal after all. That sucked.
Not that I needed a translator to tell me what he was saying. He motioned to some guys to grab boxes and armor, and had others start cutting up carcasses. I almost lost my cookies when I saw that they were choosing their chops and spare-ribs from both birds and men.
I tried to catch Sai’s eye while our guards were putting away their swords and unhitching coils of rope. If we were going to try something now was the time, but Sai was already putting down his sword and holding out his wrists. Wounded and out of it like he was I guess that was the smart thing to do, but I felt a little let down.
The flunkies tied him up first. Nobody was watching me. These guys had no idea what my earth-strong muscles could do. If I jumped, and kept jumping, I just might get away. But while trying to decide if I could live with myself if I left poor Sai behind, and wondering how much he’d weigh me down if I slung him over my shoulder, the flunkies finished him up and grabbed me.
It probably saved my life. As they were making me look like something from Bondage Babes Monthly, I noticed some nasty little bolo-thingies hanging from their belts. I might have got a jump or two on them, but it was a good bet they would have brought me down, maybe permanently. I decided I should keep my jack-rabbit impersonation to myself. I played meek and mild as they threw me and Sai face down over the haunches of two junior members and cinched us in place with belts.
Soon after that all the baggage and dressed meat were loaded up and tied down. One-Eye gave a roar and we were loping in double file over the endless blue prairie.
***
There’s a way to ride a cen-whatever-they-are. I’ve seen pictures. This wasn’t it. My arms and face hung down one side of the smelly bastard’s flanks, my legs down the other, all getting whipped by the springy stalks of the blue grass while my nose and eyes filled with gritty, alien dust and my internal organs got a brutal shiatsu from bouncing up and down on the cen-tiger’s butt.
It was a long ride. The too-big sun was burning the snow caps of the far mountains candy-apple red when we finally cantered past a pair of armed Aarurrh look outs and down a trail into a wide ravine with a stream winding through it.
I was barely conscious. The endless pounding gallop had jumbled my brains to cream of wheat, so I only got impressions: trees like droopy palms hanging over the creek, a sea of leather tents spreading to the canyon walls, the smell of meat and shit, pony-sized cen-tiger kids and cen-tiger chicks with four boobs to go with their four arms trotting alongside the column staring at us, the feel of cool air as we left the dry dust of the plains. I couldn’t imagine how Sai felt. Maybe he didn’t feel anything. Maybe he was dead.
We stopped in the middle of the camp so One-Eye could report in with some cen-tigers standing outside a big tent. I should have been taking in details. This was the enemy’s camp. I should have been noting defenses and escape routes, figuring out the chain of command, but it was dark and I could barely turn my head, let alone focus my eyes. I got nothing. My old CO, Captain MacFerson, would have been disgusted with me.
When One-Eye was done gabbing he dragged us off to a pen filled with animals that looked like those jungle pig things with the floppy snouts, only orange and shaggy and with six legs. They backed into the far corner of the pen, making an annoying “Keee keee keee!” sound and rolling their eyes. One of One-Eye’s flunkies untied my bonds, which started an agonizing attack of pins and needles, and left us alone.
Finally a chance to check on Sai. His bandage was solid with dried blood and he was out cold, but he was still breathing. I couldn’t do much to help him. I could hardly help myself. In fact, blissful unconsciousness was about the only thing that held my interest just then, even though, with all my aches and pains, I didn’t think it would be possible to sleep.
***
The next thing I knew I was being rudely awakened. It was morning. One-Eye was dragging me and Sai out of the cage by our ankles. He turned us right-way-up, knocked the dust and pig shit—or whatever it was—off us with his big paws and shoved us ahead of him. “Go.”
I could barely walk, I was so stiff and sore, but Sai could barely crawl. I got an arm around him and limped him through the crowded camp, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “How you doing, Sai? Anything broken? I mean anything new?”
He didn’t look up. “It matters not.”
I didn’t like his attitude, but we couldn’t talk anymore. We’d reached a tent. The tents of the camp were pretty much all the same, tall, five sided teepees made of a patchwork of stitched together skins (some of them too purple and human-looking for my liking) with various bits of caveman decoration, bones, skulls, feathers, painted stick figure symbols. This tent was like all the rest, if maybe a little better taken care of.
One-Eye pushed us through the flap into the smoky dimness and I found myself face to face, or actually face to boobs with my first up-close she-cen-tiger.