#2
“There has been a rock fall,” he says, pointing at a pile of gray rocks, a few have split open revealing sparkling lilac innards. “We will have to climb over it.”
“But…is that safe?” We are at a great height.
“I doubt it.” He moves forward and begins scrambling upward. His muscles flex and dance beneath the surface of his flesh. His long strong legs gain height with ease and he uses his tail for balance.
“Come on, Tammy, you can do this,” he calls.
I steel my determination. If he can do it so can I.
Using the blunt end of the spear as a walking aid I follow. I’m much slower and I double-check every foot-hole and grip but soon I’m on the other side of the slide of rock and looking out at a new valley. It’s a patchwork blanket of yellow and red and green. “Wow, that’s nice.”
“That is where the Jakarty grow crops. We are very proud of it, the land was barren when we got here, now it is productive.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You are?” He turns to me.
“Yes, being self-sufficient is always impressive.”
He doesn’t reply but I know he is enjoying the compliment I have given the Jakarty.
Wait, what am I doing. These are the bad guys. They stole me away from the life I was promised.
“Stop. Get down.” Suddenly he grabs my arm and pulls me low to the ground. He squats next to me and gestures forward. “There,” he whispers. “Can you see them?”
“Yes.” It’s impossible to miss them. Two huge eagle-like birds, their feathers every shade of purple that can be imagined, their tails big and fanned and their beaks sharp and lethally pointed. “But there are two of them.”
“One each. Which one do you want?”
“What? You want me to spear one, from here?”
“Why not?” He slowly retrieves an arrow and secures it onto his bow. “They may have young and that will make them extra fierce. Whatever you do, don’t get near their beaks or claws, they have poison on the tips.”
“What? Poison?” As if the damn things didn’t look menacing enough.
He stands and fires an arrow. As he does both birds see him and swoop into the air, not to escape but for a diving attack on us.
I dodge to the right, fall to the ground and use a rock for protection. A bird calls furiously and, claws outstretched, looms my way.
Quickly I prod at it with my spear tip, catching its wing feathers.
It’s beady eyes glare and it screeches, but luckily it lifts up into the air again.
“Did you get it?” I ask, rolling to my front and then half standing. I brush at the grit on my knees.
“No, I missed. Did you get one?”
“Nearly.”
He kind of grunts, raises his tail, then aims another arrow.
The two khans are coming back. They seem furious now and as intent on hunting us as we are them.
Fear grips me and I tighten my hold on the spear. The thing is bigger than me, heavier too, but at least I have a weapon.
Dan-Y fires. He lands on target, right in the chest of the bigger bird.
It twists and squawks, a hideous loud sound that pierces my ears, then flaps toward Dan-Y.
He’s aiming again. Another arrow. He’s fast, his face is a picture of concentration. Every muscle in his body is tense, poised for action, and his feet are planted firm…he means business.
“Shoot!” I call as the injured bird lurches toward him, claws spread as though to sink deep into Dan-Y’s flesh.
It’s a whole other second before he does, and then I see why. The bird, our prize, would have fallen over the side of the cliff, irretrievable if he’d shot a moment earlier.
As it is, there is a colossal thump as it lands by his boots, beak open, eyes staring unseeing at the sky.
“You got it.” I stand.
“Get down.”
A violent gush of air beside me. I spin.
The other khan is right there. So close I can see its yellow waggling tongue and its dark pupils.
I scream, draw back my spear, and aim for its chest. At this point it’s the bird or me. And I’m not ready to die.
The spear sinks in much easier than I’d expected through feathers, flesh and to organs. The heart I am presuming because it stops dead in its tracks. Entirely impaled on the spear.
Which instantly becomes far too heavy for me to hold and it falls to the ground. I go with it, reluctant to let go of my weapon. I land, face to face, with the dead bird, a rock digging into my side.
“Tammy!”
I release the spear and scrabble backward. I was too close to that poison beak for comfort.
“Are you hurt?” Dan-Y is at my side, his hands all over me as though checking for injuries.
“No, no I don’t think so.”
He helps me stand. I let him. My knees are shaking and a tremble has made itself at home in my belly. I’m not sure my heart can go any faster.
“Are you sure?” He is scanning me head to foot and has hold of my shoulders.
“Just…that rock got me, I’ll have a bruise but…I’m okay.” I look at the bird. “And I killed one.”
“You did!” He shakes his head. “And fast too. It took me over an hour on my first khan hunt.”
“Well I didn’t have much choice. It was coming for me.”
“I shouldn’t have brought you.” He suddenly draws me into a hug. “You could have been killed. You are much too precious for that.”
I lean on his strength and take a deep breath, inhaling his outdoor, freshwater scent that is becoming familiar. “And miss all the fun, Dan-Y. No I’m glad I came.”
He chuckles. “You really are a pink-haired wonder, you know what. A complete enigma. A riddle I want to solve over and over.”
I pull back and look up at him. He has a dash of dirt on his cheek and his horns are sparkling.
“I can’t imagine not taking you from Athos’s land,” he says. “Not being here, now, with you. It’s our destiny.”
I look into his eyes. He believes these words. Really believes them.
“The sky god Butan works in ways we cannot always understand.” He cups my cheeks. “Why our females died, why you chose to travel to another galaxy, why those two birds didn’t kill us today instead of us killing them. That is all fate, we must accept it, and work with it.”
I believe fate is a string of choices, but Dany-Y is so earnest, so resolute that I say nothing.
A screech in the distance.
He snaps his attention to the sky. “We should go.”
“There’s more?”
“There could be soon. And they will be furious that we have killed some of theirs.” He releases me and grabs the khan I brought down. He holds it by the neck. “Let’s get back to the cave. We will eat well now, there is much meat on these birds.”
The scrabble back over the rocks is even harder with our loot in tow. Three times Dan-Y pauses to help me. My bird is just so heavy.
Eventually we arrive back at the cave.
“In the container, you will find small black beans. Soak them and we will cook them to go with the meat.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I will butcher these creatures, away from the entrance, we do not want to attract other creatures.”
I nod and do as he asks, somewhat relieved to have the cave’s roof over my head which means I don’t have to keep looking up to check for incoming khans with their claws and beaks out to get me.
The beans are small and dry so I put them in a vessel of water.
After coaxing the fire back to life I stand and stare at my new, hopefully temporary home.
My thread must be here somewhere. It is my only way to contact Tammy and call for help by revealing my location.
I start checking all the crevices and cracks, tip out a box that contains an assortment of eating utensils, knives, and scraps of flint. Nothing.
Dan-Y’s sword is leaning against the wall and I feel around the hilt wondering if it’s there. No.
Perhaps he’s hidden my thread near the food. I rush to the back and start scrabbling around. It feels futile but I have to do something now that he has left me alone. I am hot and my heart clattering as I find a small gray box. I glance nervously at the cave entrance and flick it open.
Inside are two locks of deep purple hair, each tied with a pink piece of string.
I suck in a breath. I know exactly whose hair it is. Who they belong to. Dan-Y’s mate and daughter.
A noise behind me, a shuffle and a bang.
I snap the box closed and tuck it away, beneath a bag of something crunchy.
“What are you doing?”
I spin around, my cheeks flushing. I hope he doesn’t notice in the dim light.
“Food, sorting out the food.”
“The beans are soaking.” He gestures to them.
“Yes. Yes. I wondered if we needed anything else.”
“No, this will do.” He holds up a strip of pale raw meat. “I have stored the rest in a cool place. But it will have to be dried out in a few days.”
“Yes. Yes of course.” I straighten my sweater and stand up straight. “I will help.”
He says nothing as he sits and begins skewering the meat onto a makeshift spit.
I approach him from behind, thinking of the two locks of hair and the enormous extent of his loss.
I think of the box of knives and other tools, the spear and the sword.
Right now, if I had any one of those things in my hand, I could stab him in the neck, the back, the vulnerable dip beneath his ribs.
But why aren’t I even trying?
Why doesn’t he even think that I might?
I sigh and sit on the rock at his side and look out at the hot day. “On Earth,” I say. “I worked in a beauty salon.”
“Makes sense, you are beautiful.”
I laugh, a sudden giggle that catches me off guard. “What?”
“You are beautiful, of course that was your work, beauty.”
I smile and watch him preparing our evening meal. “It’s not like that, it’s helping other people be beautiful.”
“Talking through their mistakes?”
“Er no.” I am confused but then I realize what he means. “No, beautiful on the outside, not the inside. Hair, skin, makeup, that kind of thing, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“I’ll explain. I helped people look how they wanted to look. So say someone came in, wanted purple hair, lots of piercings, a few tattoos, I, we could help them achieve that.”
“It was your profession? I know that word.”
“Yes, my profession, a beauty technician.”
“And did you enjoy it, making people beautiful?”
“I enjoyed helping people be more confident.”
“So you were treating the inside of them. The soul.”