CHAPTER TWELVE | Fiona
It was pretty rare that I ever got this close to the massive, heron-like creatures called braxilk. For any long-range transportation, we relied almost exclusively on Valeria’s shuttle. Unlike Stephanie, who had a braxilk of her own (whom she’d named Harriet) I’d never ridden or even touched one before. Seeing them swan into this part of the valley, huge and graceful on their many legs, was sobering. I could tell Tilly and Nasrin felt the same way, because they were hushed and still, watching the huge alien birds just like I was.
But honestly, comparing them to a bird just didn’t seem to do the big braxilk creatures justice. They were more like a gigantic bird crossed with something mythical, like a dragon. Long-necked and regal, they towered over even the tall alien males. Somewhat like the irkdu back in the Sea Sands, they had a hell of a lot of legs, long and dark blue, as well as six eyes each, their silver pupils somewhere between an Earth reptile’s and a feline’s. They all had similar colouring but arranged in unique patterns, nearly knife-like feathers glinting in shades of dove-grey, violet, cobalt blue, silver, and white. There were no saddles and no reins, and it was a testament to the intelligence and the training of the creatures that they followed every one of Warrek’s commands, coming to a relaxed stop, their big wings tucked up against their sides.
Since there were five braxilk, much like the rounds of archery, the men were split into groups of five. Warrek was speaking to all the men, and by the pointing movements of his arms I guessed he was laying out some sort of path for the race. Oxriel and Zoren listened intently while Dalk brooded with his arms crossed, staring suspiciously at the braxilk nearby.
Why do I feel like this is about to go about as well as the archery did?
Except it turned out I was wrong. Because if I thought the archery round went poorly for Dalk, it was nothing to the braxilk race. This time, all three of our Sea Sand lads were in the first group to race. They were assigned their braxilk and with some cautious trepidation, both Oxriel and Zoren mounted theirs alongside the two Deep Sky men in their group.
Dalk showed no signs of hesitation. He just ploughed forward, stalking towards the remaining braxilk with his tail lashing the ground and his ears laid low. The braxilk took one look at him and squawked. I may not have been an alien animal expert, but there was no mistaking the meaning in a sound like that. It very clearly meant back the hell up, buddy. Its head reared back, its metallic-looking feathers bristling as all six of its silver pupils fastened on Dalk.
Oh, boy.
“If that were a horse, I’d be worried about him getting kicked,” Tilly muttered from Zaria’s other side, watching Dalk fretfully.
“You’re telling me,” I shot back. I gnawed at my lower lip as Dalk paused and then tried to get close to the braxilk again, only to have it snap out its wings in a defensive pose and caw menacingly.
“That is not how you should approach a braxilk,” Zaria said, her voice low with concern. “They do not respond well to anger or aggression in an unfamiliar rider. He should come at it calmly, and speak in low, gentle tones.”
Yeah. Calm and gentle weren’t exactly Dalk’s strong suits.
And the braxilk seemed to know it.
My blood went suddenly icy in my veins, sickly and disorienting, as the braxilk’s sharp silver beak snapped so close to Dalk’s throat that I was convinced I saw the dark spray of black blood arcing out of his neck. I just about fell off the bench with relief when I realized that it wasn’t blood after all, the dark thing dropping limply, but not wetly, to the ground.
Nope. Not blood.
Hair.
The braxilk had bitten Dalk’s braid clean off.
Dalk’s hand shot out to grab the severed braid, but before he could reach it the braxilk snapped its powerful jaws again, grasped the braid in its beak once more, and then with a murderous-sounding growl, ate it.
I stared, mute and dumbfounded, as the giant braxilk swallowed Dalk’s braid – something longer and thicker than my arm! – like it was nothing but a slippery little fish. When it was finished it closed its beak and gave Dalk a feral, triumphant sort of look. Yum yum, motherfucker.
Dalk watched the braxilk, his tail twitching, his back muscles taut, his hair now coming to a choppy, bitten-off end at his shoulders. The braxilk biting off his hairdo didn’t seem to have calmed Dalk down, exactly, but it did appear to at least have given him pause. He regarded the braxilk with what I hoped were new sight stars, because I really didn’t want to see any other parts of him getting chomped.
“Dalk,” I called, my voice queasily hoarse at the thought of his arm or leg getting swallowed the same way I’d just watched his hair go down that feathery throat. “You need to chill out! Don’t come at it so aggressively. Pretend it’s... I don’t know. A woman!”
Dalk’s head swung to me with such force I was surprised his damn neck didn’t snap. The look he gave me was a deeply incredulous (and maybe even contemptuous) one, punctuated with a single punch of a word from his snarling mouth.
“What?!”
OK. Fair. That probably wasn’t the best advice since he seemed to treat everybody, women included, with the same kind of bludgeoning grumpiness.
“Well, I don’t know!” I called back. “You know how to ride an irkdu, so do it like that!”
“An irkdu would not be so flighty and ill-trained as to eat a man’s hair just for the crime of walking up to it,” he spat, stalking back and forth in front of the braxilk as it tracked his every movement.
“Say something nice to it!” I added helpfully. “Maybe it likes compliments!”
Dalk didn’t bother saying What?! this time, though I could tell he wanted to. He stepped up to the braxilk again only to have one big silver and violet wing shoot out and block his access to the creature’s back.
“If you do not mount your braxilk soon,” Gahn Thaleo called coolly, “then your entry will be considered forfeit and the other four will fly on without you.”
If looks could kill, Nasrin would have been sitting next to a corpse right about now instead of a living breathing Gahn. Dalk’s sight stars burned like furious copper flames in his gaze as he faced down the possibility he would once again place last in this round.
“Seriously! Talk to it!” I shouted, drawing his sight stars back to me. I added a sing-song, not-quite-taunting-but-OK-maybe-just-a-little-teasing note to my voice. “Be nice! I know you can do it!”
Dalk heaved himself around to face his braxilk once more. He stood in mutinous silence for a long moment before he finally grunted, so stiffly it was like he’d never spoken a word in his whole damn life, “Hello. I see that you have... wings.”
“I said be nice, don’t just stand there and state the obvious!” I groaned more to myself than to him. But maybe Dalk heard me, because he tried again, his tail tight with discomfort and his hands clenched into fists at his side.
“You also have... legs,” Dalk observed of the giant braxilk. “Lots of them. This is... good.”
Oh man. If Dalk ever did end up with a lady someday, I didn’t know how the hell he was ever going to talk to her if this was the best he could bloody manage. I could practically see it now, him speaking to some faceless woman in the future. Ah. Yes, the Dalk in my head said. My mate. You have arms. And a head. A nice, round head at that. Very good.
He’d probably tell her something about how well-placed her ears were too, the eejit.
“Although I do not see why you should have so many legs if you already have the wings,” Dalk was grumbling now. “Irkdu have many legs because they must move quickly over the sand with their feet. What purpose do all your legs serve?”
“Dalk!”
“They are still good legs,” Dalk amended at my intrusion, but it sure didn’t sound like he meant it, and the braxilk looked even less convinced than I probably did. But at least it didn’t seem like it was going to eat any more of Dalk’s bits. It was watching Dalk with a sort of quiet curiosity, its head cocked and its eyes keen. I wondered how much of what Dalk said it actually understood.
The Sea Sand and Deep Sky men had different accents and spoke slightly different dialects, but ultimately the languages were very close. After getting used to the accent out here I’d had no trouble understanding any of the Deep Sky people. The braxilk struck me as especially intelligent. I figured there was a pretty good chance that this big, staring creature was comprehending just about every stupid word coming out of Dalk’s mouth.
“Warrior,” Gahn Thaleo warned. Dalk didn’t turn around this time, but the irritated jerk of his tail let us all know that he’d heard. There wasn’t much time left and he knew it.
Dalk lowered his voice, and I only caught a few of his next words to the braxilk. “I have a... to impress... let... your back... and eat every last one of my remaining hairs if you want to.”
Whatever the blank bits of the sentence had been, the braxilk seemed to hear and understand it all. And apparently agree, because it finally bent its neck and lowered its wings, granting Dalk access to its wide back. As if worried the creature would change its mind, Dalk jogged forward and then leaped up with perfect power, settling himself in position behind the braxilk’s wings.
Now that he was good to go, he and everyone else were off to the races. Literally. Warrek called out a few commands, and the braxilk arrowed up into the air (the three carrying Sea Sand men a little more awkwardly than the other two). My heart seemed to take flight as well, batting up into my throat on a wild pair of wings as the braxilk all flew deeper into the valley, turning by a sharp edge of stone and disappearing. They were already so high in the air. If any one of them should fall...
But somehow, everybody managed to hold onto their mounts. Not long after they’d taken off, the first braxilk reappeared, ridden by a Deep Sky man, of course. Second place also went to a Deep Sky man. Third place went to Zoren, and we all cheered madly for him as his serious, determined face came into view, pink sight stars tightly vibrating. I let out a whoop when I saw that Dalk hadn’t come in dead last this time. No, he came in a rather shaky fourth place, his face pulled into a grimace as he appeared to bark orders at the braxilk that it may or may not have actually been obeying.
The other three braxilk had already landed, the riders dismounted. Dalk’s braxilk dove to meet them, landing with heavy grace. Dalk barely looked like he’d gotten his wits about him when his mount suddenly angled itself sharply to one side, like a capsizing boat, one wing lifting high in the air and upsetting Dalk’s balance.
A human would have fallen off the braxilk and probably would have broken at least a dozen bones. Shoulder, femur, all the ribs. Poof. Gone. But not Dalk. As the braxilk pitched Dalk off its back, during that sharply destabilizing movement, Dalk somehow managed to get his feet underneath him in a crouch against the braxilk’s spine. The next second, he was airborne, his strong legs bent, knees up near his chest, surprisingly flexible in an impressive leap that went nearly straight upwards. He reminded me a little bit of a cat in the way that cats seem to be able to magically snap themselves up into the air with no warning when they’re startled.
He landed like a cat, too. On his feet.
And then he used those feet to smartly step out of the range of the braxilk’s snapping beak the split second before it got one of his pointy ears.
I didn’t realize just how relieved I was that Dalk hadn’t fallen or otherwise annoyed his braxilk so much that it threw him down onto the rocks or ate him during the race until that moment. That moment when he was safe and sound, feet on the ground, all his bits more or less intact with no new beak marks on them. I felt a bit bad experiencing such relief because Oxriel hadn’t yet reappeared and I’d been so focused on Dalk that I’d barely even noticed.
“Oh!” Tilly suddenly said. “There he is!” She jumped up and held her Oxriel poster high above her head at the same moment that Oxriel rounded one of the mountains and came into view.
The phrase ‘green about the gills’ suddenly sprang to my mind. Oxriel did not look well as he attempted to steer his braxilk down to land among the others. At least his braxilk had the decency not to chuck him off the way Dalk’s had done. If anything, the braxilk lowered itself down for him to dismount with extra care, as if it was worried about him.
Or maybe worried about having to clean Oxriel puke out of its feathers later.
Oxriel slid drunkenly down his mount’s outstretched wing, landing dazedly on his feet and standing there for a moment, weaving, like the ground was moving beneath him.
“That warrior does not seem to do well with heights,” Zaria observed. I knew she didn’t mean anything by it, and hell, she was probably as concerned as I was seeing Oxriel’s brain and balance all out of whack. But I still felt a stab of protective defensiveness for him.
“I think Oxriel is fine with heights,” I said quickly, making sure not to sound too offended on his behalf. I liked Zaria and didn’t want to cause any friction between us. “He comes from a region nearly as mountainous as this one and I know he’s a skilled climber. I think it’s probably just the actual flying bit that’s thrown him off.”
Zaria absorbed this with quiet thoughtfulness as the next five warriors – all Deep Sky men – mounted the braxilk for their race. Predictably, nobody pissed off their mount or got their hair sacrificed to a braxilk’s beak in this round, and the race got underway much quicker than the previous one. The next two races afterwards also went quickly, and soon enough the braxilk were allowed to wander off, presumably to go grab a snack that didn’t consist of a very grumpy man’s braid.
Gahn Thaleo stood. Tilly, Zaria, and I all looked up at him. Nasrin kept her gaze focused forward.
“The first two events of the vaklok are concluded,” Gahn Thaleo said. “The ceremonial meal will now begin.”
I expected the competitors to come this way – all the food was currently laid out on a flat stone in a shady spot beside the bleachers – but they didn’t. Instead, they all just sat down where they were. That left Oxriel, Zoren, and Dalk as the only men standing. They looked at each other for a moment, as if trying to figure out what to do but not wanting to ask the Deep Sky men. It was funny, and more than a little cute, the way the three of them spoke some furtive, wordless conversation of confusion in that moment. They may have had their differences, coming from different tribes of the Sea Sands, but at least out here they considered each other allies if not exactly friends.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Dalk who made the first move. He didn’t sit down, but turned himself towards the food and started to walk. Zoren and Oxriel looked like they were about to follow when Gahn Thaleo held up a hand then sliced it down through the air.
“No,” he said, freezing Dalk in place, “the competitors do not fetch their own food during the vaklok. The traditional meal is to be brought to them,” he turned his gaze down to Nasrin, then over to Tilly and me, “by the new women.”