Chapter 26
- Callie -
Crat'ax looks terrible, or as terrible as a young, eight-foot caveman who’s all muscle can look without really making an effort. His cuts have stopped bleeding, but he’s got seaweed in his hair and his loincloth isn’t actually covering much anymore.
I reach up to pick out the strand of seaweed and give him a critical look. “I can’t show you to Theodora like this. Or me, really. Is there anything left of the boat?”
“Probably some of the wood is still afloat, but in pieces,” he tells me. “I saved only the spear.”
I think about it. “Which is closer, the village or the saucer?”
“The village,” he says, confirming my own guess. “The saucer is still a day or more away. In a boat, that is. If we walk, three days. Probably more. The village we can walk to in one day. The land is flat, I noticed.”
I tap my lips. I have zero desire to walk through this raptor-infested jungle for three days. “The dragon is no longer in the cage and can’t make everyone crazy anymore. Can you keep me safe in the village? Can you build a boat in a short time, and then sail it to Theodora?”
To my satisfaction, his eyes don’t light up with relief when he’s presented with the idea of going back to his village.
Instead, he thinks. “A boat like mine, twelve days. Some of the boys are really good at building boats now. They can help. Most of the time will be spent finding and cutting wood in the jungle. But the Dry tribes can do that in exchange for splix. Ten days.”
“And then we go to Theodora as soon as there’s no storm?”
“Storms are rare,” he says. “Probably we can start the next day, after the boat is finished. And we don’t have to paddle the whole way in one go. We can stop and rest on the way if the weather turns bad. We can wait it out.”
I tilt my head. “Are you sure about this? You won’t suddenly say that there’s something important you have to do first? There’s no charcoal firing, or nut harvest, or rekh fight that you must go to before we can set off?”
He taps his lips. “Hmm. There is a tree I wanted to plant in the jungle…”
I glare up at him. “What?!”
He laughs and lifts me, making me squeal.
“No, don't worry. I will not look for excuses not to go. I won’t need to. What do you think your friend wants to do? I’m not sure I can recommend that she live in the village with us.
The men… well, you saw them. They may not behave well with her around. If she’s anything like you.”
“We’ll tell her about the village and the tribe, and then she can make up her own mind. It’s getting dark, my love. Can we go somewhere else?” I nod to Sprub’ex’s body, which can still be seen among the trees.
We walk quickly along the coast until we find a small clearing covered with knee-length grass.
I suddenly jerk as I spot movement in the dark. “What’s that?”
Crat'ax pulls me behind him and shifts the grip on his spear, peering in between the trees at the edge of the mangrove. Then he laughs. “It’s my guide!”
“Guide?” I look out from behind my fiance’s back.
A small creature is slowly crawling its way towards us, clearly out of its element. “Plik!”
We walk quickly towards the little beaver-like animal.
“He swam alongside as I paddled,” Crat'ax says. “When my boat was crushed and I swam ashore, he showed me where you were.”
I kneel by the skirr. “Thank you, Plik. I wish I had a splix to feed you!” I run my hands along his wet fur.
Plik bumps my hand with his snout, then waddles away and dives into the ocean with barely a splash.
“He’s much smarter than we know,” I muse. “I hope he will stay with us. But we have to stay somewhere tonight.”
Crat'ax looks up. “I don’t think it will rain much more, but the trees will drip all night long. Sit here, and I will build a hut.”
He does, quickly setting up a simple lean-to with a floor of huge, thick leaves that we turn around to get the dry side up.
We munch on fruits that I find in the dark jungle, and then we curl up in the hut.
Crat'ax embraces me firmly and keeps me warm while his hardness pokes me in the back. That turns me on, and I want to do more than just sleep. But then I accidentally close my eyes, and when I open them again it’s morning.
There’s nothing to pack, so we just start walking along the mangrove. It turns to a rocky shore and then a short beach, then mangrove again and so on. We don’t speak, just stay silent. None of us want to risk attracting a dinosaur now, when things have fallen into place.
We keep walking all day, just stopping to harvest fruits and eat them standing up. I lean back into Crat'ax’s massive bulk while we eat, and he rests one arm on my shoulder.
“I like it when we are alone,” he rumbles so I shake with the bass. “Nobody to spy on us. Nobody to hear our words. The tribe is important. But you are the center of my life.”
I turn my head to kiss his chest. “And you are the center of mine. It’s the way it should be.”
We walk on.
Night falls, and Crat'ax says that he recognizes the terrain and we won’t have to stop for the night.
Soon after, we’re standing by the bay. The village is a cluster of flickering lights and fires in the dark.
There are soft voices and the occasional bout of laughter.
The smell of grilled splix makes my mouth water.
Crat'ax bellows for someone to come and get us, and soon after, two canoes manned by boys take us aboard and paddle us out to the village.
The evening meal is almost over, but men stoke the fire again and grill more splix while Crat'ax tells them what happened, and I drink fruit juice with a shot of frit in it.
They’re all astounded by the story, so much that a silence falls.
“I would have thought the dragon would kill all of you,” Chief Brun'ax marvels. “But he only killed the outcast and then went on his way. Was he not furious?”
“Who knows what a dragon thinks,” Crat'ax says. “But it is clear from their talk that he and Spru- that he and the outcast were conspiring.”
“Perhaps he freed the dragon!” a boy eagerly suggests. “Because he wanted to hurt us after we cast him out!”
There is a murmur of agreement.
My fiance and I exchange a quick glance.
We have decided that the tribe doesn’t need to know who let Vyrathion out.
If they know the truth, they might never trust me.
I’m not happy about having that secret between me and the tribe, but Crat'ax says that he takes the responsibility for that.
After all, I had this whole dragon situation forced on me.
“Then you were right all along, Crat'ax.” the chief states. “We should not have captured the dragon.”
“Perhaps not,” Crat'ax says calmly. “But that is in the past.”
“In every sense,” the chief says. “Because we are not hunting him anymore. We find that we gained nothing by keeping him in the cage, and that he was in fact a great calamity for us.”
There’s general agreement.
“And now,” Crat'ax says when the main news has been told, “I will ask Chief Brun'ax to prepare a ceremony for Callie and me. We intend to get married. Here, in this village. As soon as possible.”
The tribe is shocked to silence again. Some tribesmen who know what ‘marriage’ is whisper it to their friends.
“Ah,” the chief says, confused. “That would of course be… now, when you say married…”
Gren’ix leans in and whispers to the chief for a while.
When he finishes, the chief beams. “Yes, yes! A wedding, as it is called. A wedding, a ceremony and a feast, after which the man and the woman are forever… forever, Gren’ix?
Really? Are forever joined in marriage. The ceremony shall take place tomorrow?
No? In two days? Very well! Right here in the Circle.
At… midday? Wonderful! Then it’s ordered. ”
There are spread cheers and many smiles. The tribe feels different now—more relaxed, less tense.
“I suppose it could also have been Mek’tor who freed the dragon,” the chief muses. “We haven’t seen him since the evening before.”
“The dragon turned many men mad, it seems,” Crat'ax says solemnly. “Let us leave him to his mischief in other tribes and not try to find the dragon again.”
“Precisely,” the chief says. “Of course, now we know that he went down the coast, to eventually meet the two of you. No man from this tribe may follow.”
It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too.
If Vyrathion continues along that coast, sooner or later he’s bound to find the saucer.
With Theodora in it. But the last we saw of him, he seemed to be going straight into the jungle, like a dark green tornado in the twilight.
Still, I want to get the new boat finished as soon as possible.
“We won’t concern ourselves with the dragon, unless he comes back and starts making real mischief,” Crat'ax says, and then everyone knows the matter is settled. “What is the final tally for our Day of trade?”
They keep talking about tribal matters, and I lean my head on Crat'ax’s shoulder.
When my head slides off and I have to catch myself, the tribe chuckles in a friendly way.
“Your woman is tired,” Carter’ex says. “I think it must be bedtime.”
“Callie is not just my woman,” Crat'ax says firmly. “She will be my wife, but I will also be her husband. We will belong to each other. But she is also her own, and her name is Callie, also in the Circle, also when I am nearby.”
“Of course,” the chief says soothingly. “We know Callie is her own. About that, there can be no doubt. Callie, now that you will marry our greatest man, you are invited to join our Bradek tribe as a full member.”
I straighten and hold back a yawn. “Thank you, Chief. I’ll be honored to be a tribeswoman.”
Crat'ax gets up and takes my hand. “But it’s true that some of us are tired. Good night, tribesmen. Tomorrow we will destroy the dragon’s cage. And then we will build a new boat.”
The hut looks much the same as when I left it. The dress is neatly folded up, and the necklace is carefully placed on top of it. I take it and put it over my head. “Sorry, my love. But I had to show you that I left on my own.”
Crat'ax watches me as I loosen the jumpsuit and let it drop in a soft whisper, the torchlight painting gold along his skin and catching his purple eyes and his pulsating stripes.
For a moment we simply look at one another as two people who have chosen the same path.
He comes to me slowly, and his hands settle at my waist. I rise onto my toes to kiss him first this time, threading my fingers into his hair, and the low sound he makes vibrates straight through me.
The kiss deepens, unhurried and sure, carrying all the danger we survived and all the plans we just made.
When he lifts me and lays me back onto the thick furs, I pull him down with me, whispering his name like a vow, and the world beyond the hut fades away as we begin our first real night as something chosen and forever.