Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
M ax’s sensory hairs stung from the charged air, and he knew the spinner had shifted direction toward the barge.
“Crouch and assume position! Hands over ears. Close your eyes!”
The barge smashed against the bank from the gusts, then strained at its ties as the spinner struck. Sheets of rain pounded the deck in its wake. Max shoved away a water barrel pinning a poleman against the rail. The man’s chest was crushed, his eyes sightless. Max shut out emotions and coldly assessed the topside damage.
The cargo strewn about the deck had banged up his soldiers. The uninjured who had not closed their eyes at the strike staggered blindly on the rolling deck. The men napping in their hammocks between shifts were wrapped like cocoons from the gusts and cursing to break free.
Max’s priority was rescuing the men flung overboard. The eels and fins had fled to the bottom, giving the soldiers minutes to swim to the banks if they were conscious—hopefully, the inner bank. Max’s soldiers were worthy studs, and he’d glimpsed three ferals chased out of the vines by the spinner.
He pulled up an archer clinging to the outside rail and shouted at him to tell the others of the feral sighting. His captain was up and ordering all able-bodied men to stabilize the ties and throw ropes to the men in the water.
Miller staggered over with a bleeding gash on his forehead. “Sir… your cabin…”
Max brushed away the rain falling into his eyes and swept his gaze across the stern. The storm had toppled the stern’s watchtower, smashing it through his cabin’s roof.
Cold detachment fled. His heart pounded. Tiny knives stabbed his gut.
If Quiggs wasn’t killed outright, he was injured. If he was pinned on the floor, he could drown in inches of water from the rain pouring down. Beau was on tower duty. As nimble as he was, Beau would have leaped free when the support snapped, then gone after his Quiggs.
Goats bleated in the distance. He peered down over the rail. The raft holding a pen had broken its ties to the barge and floated ahead, crashing against the outbank. The ferals had dragged it from the water. One hopped inside the pen, snapped a goat’s neck, and threw its body over her shoulder like a fat pillow to her two waiting sisters. His archers spied the ferals, but their shots fell short in the wind and rain.
The female in the pen chittered excitedly, hefting a scrawny white goat lying limp off the back edge of the raft. She placed it on the ground and snuffled the soaked white nightshirt and bristly head. Not a goat! Quiggs had escaped his cabin and had somehow fallen overboard.
Ferals showed no mercy for unworthy males. The female lifted him by the neck, deciding he was food. Max watched with helpless, crippling rage.
A furious yowl split the air. Beau heaved himself from the water over the lip of the canal by the raft. The female did the unthinkable—she dropped Quiggs and backed off without displaying her claws, letting Beau crouch defensively over his friend. The other females dropped their goats and rushed to their sister’s side. Staring at Beau’s dripping body, they hunkered out of reach of his claws. Had they wanted to kill him, he’d be dead.
But Beau was a worthy male. A prize. Like winning a concubine.
From the way the three females chittered, like winning ten concubines. They thrust out their small taut breasts and lifted their modesty pieces to expose the swollen folds of flesh. They showed off their strong fangs. When Beau didn’t sheathe his claws, they stood and displayed theirs, waiting for him to choose. Mate or die.
Three females riveted by feral bait—Beau could defeat them with a little extra help.
Max jumped atop the rail, gathered his strength, and leaped to the bank. He landed on the muddy ground, his double-jointed soles correcting his balance as he raced toward Beau with his claws displayed.
Before he reached Beau, more females slid from the vines. Up close, they all had the flattened forehead and wider build of the advanced species. Outmatched, Max dropped his hands at his sides and walked the last few steps to stand beside Beau. What he needed was time for his men to lower a boat with archers.
“Is Quiggs alive?” Max asked softly.
“Yes. It is your seed on him,” Beau replied, equally softly. “The scent confuses them. The female could have snapped my Quiggs’s neck, but she hesitated.”
The ferals moved aside as an older female with a heavy necklace of teeth and a modesty piece came out of the vines. Tattoos dotted her arms, and her gray hair fell to her waist. Her small sagging breasts had suckled young who had since suckled their own young. Her hips were spare, her legs sinewy, her belly pleated from babies.
“A grandmother,” Beau said. “Harm her, we die slowly. They will torture Quiggs, then eat him while we watch.”
Max spared a look at the barge. No boats lowered yet. His voice without inflection, he said, “You’re faster. Pick up Quiggs and leap into the canal. Swim to the other side. I’ll follow if I can. Maybe the eels are still hiding at the bottom after the strike. If not… better to feed the eels than ferals.”
“We will not reach the water, my commander.” Beau sounded absolutely certain.
The chitters stopped as the grandmother’s slanted yellow-green eyes examined the men. She gave a pleased chuff, and her claws sheathed. She squatted by Quiggs and snuffled his crotch. When she pulled up his nightshirt and found a normal human penis, her lip curled back in derision. She squeezed and fondled his genitals.
Beau stood passively, hands loose at his sides. “Do not show fear.”
Max couldn’t stop his claws from displaying. His breathing heightened, but he stood motionless.
The grandmother stroked Quiggs’s throat. She tilted her head at Max as if daring him to stop her.
Max glared his hatred at her. “Beau?”
“If she snaps my Quiggs’s neck, I will gut her, and you will swim across the canal.”
The grandmother chuffed, then slung Quiggs around her shoulders like a cape, standing straight and balanced as if she carried a paltry stem of vines. She backed up to the fringe, her eyes challenging Max before she spun around and ripped a path for the others to follow.
Max and Beau glanced at each other before trotting behind her. She was using Quiggs as bait to lead them to the breeding den. The others followed, easily hefting a dead goat under each long arm. More females joined them, some carrying dead soldiers. Max hoped the men had drowned first. Whenever he or Beau followed too closely to try to examine Quiggs’s injury, the grandmother hissed back at them.
The old one guided the raiding party toward the charred path of the spinner. Max sprinted over the flattened ground, careful of the tough silvery tendrils already shooting out to repair the damage.
The grandmother stopped, tilting an ear toward the tall vines to the left. She listened for the high-pitched cries of a sentinel to guide her to the den .
Max looked behind, surprised at the distance they’d sprinted. Here the vines changed, sprouting thick stalks that formed a base to support a tall dense canopy. Now the deep outland began, untouched by grazing and harvesting. The purple leaves grew broader, their silvery undersides secreting a vapor which caused men to go vine daft in a day without water. The key to survival if lost was drinking plenty and following the sun—mostly hidden by the canopy, making navigation treacherous. If you fell asleep, the vapor induced a dreamy euphoria. The small animals inhabiting the thick ground cover would nibble away while you dreamed of a lover’s caresses.
Quiggs moaned, and the grandmother silenced him with a harsh shake. Max vibrated from the tension of holding back. Beau gripped his arm to prevent a fight that would only end in a slow death for Quiggs.
A distant sentinel’s high-pitched cry split the silence. The grandmother returned the cry and plunged into the older vines. Max estimated the time of day and checked the position of the sun with respect to the canal. The further they traveled, the chance of him finding his way to the canal without going vine daft was slim.
Over the next two hours, cries were exchanged in what seemed like a zigzagged path beneath a cloudy sky, leaving Max unable to map a direction to the canal. The vines had repaired the trail, and he had no hope of an expedition catching up to them.
The grandmother finally halted for a rest and turned around to face the men. Her gaze fixed on Max as she lifted Quiggs high off her shoulders as if to dash him to the ground. She had lured them into the deep outland using Quiggs as bait. He had served his purpose. Quiggs was now food to divide among them while they rested. The other females dropped their burdens and watched.
“My kill,” Max breathed the words.
“Wait. She tests us.” Beau dropped his pants exposing himself. He turned a slow circle, giving everyone a good look at what they were missing before pulling up his pants. He bared his teeth at the grandmother, challenging her if she harmed Quiggs .
A pungent scent filled the air. Mating heat. The females chittered anxiously. A few postured in submission before the grandmother, begging mercy for the worthless male she held in order to keep the worthy one happy. The grandmother stared coldly at Max.
Blushing, Max dropped his pants showing them what else they’d miss if their leader killed Quiggs. The scent intensified. He pulled up his pants and bared his teeth.
The grandmother chuffed approval. She placed Quiggs gently on the ground, then seated herself, cushioning his head on her lap. The posturing females jumped up and disappeared into the vines. They were the tallest with well-developed muscles.
“What now?” he asked Beau.
“We sit and rest and wait for a sentinel’s cry.”
Max was hungry, but he had swallowed mouthfuls of rain while they had sprinted. His head was clear.
A young female with no tattoos on her tawny skin sidled up to Beau, sitting cross-legged beside Max. Without warning, she reared a hand to slash him. The grandmother was there before the claws struck and cuffed her hard. The young one slunk away.
Max jumped to his feet, thinking a mating frenzy was heating up.
Beau pulled him back down. “A female scratches a worthy male to show others she will fight for mating rights.” His lips twisted. “The old one makes her wait until all breeding females are gathered in the den to look at us. They will pick a male and fight for him. The last six standing win mating rights. After the young arrive, the females and the father separate from the others to form a new family.”
“I can’t… I can’t father children with them… not even to save Quiggs.”
“They will torture him if we refuse mating rights. My commander, one of us—whoever is closest—must kill him quickly then.”
“How long do we have?”
“The matches will begin after we reach the den and will take days if there are many females interested in us. My Quiggs thinks their breeding den has tunnels to the engineering room and to the shelter of our ancestors. When he wakes up, I trust my Quiggs to explore the den and choose a tunnel for our escape.” Beau chortled. “Ferals do not understand doors. We will lock it behind us and travel the tunnels.”
If Quiggs awakened in the den with his full faculties alert, Max felt a glimmer of hope. His baby cadet always figured a way out.
A splat of something yellow and squirming landed on Max’s thigh. Fat ant larvae. The Border Patrol considered the larvae a delicacy after a week of rations. The female gifting him crouched near, watching his reaction. Max swallowed it in one gulp, then favored her with a smile. Her flanks quivered with the need to scratch him. A hiss from the grandmother warned her off. Instead of posturing in submission, the female stood tall with her head held high. She bared her fangs at her sisters before strutting back to sit atop a dead goat.
Beau was less fortunate. He got a fat vole in its death throes. Shrugging at Max, he skinned and ate it.
A sentinel’s cry pierced the air. The brief rest ended. As a reward for their good behavior, the grandmother permitted Max and Beau to take turns carrying Quiggs.