A cold bath in the sweltering, muggy heat of the jungle wasn’t so torturous as it had been at eighteen-thousand feet the night before. Dinner was a mass of gray chunky something dotted with bits of something salty and crusted over with sharp cheese. That was given to us with flat breads to use in place of cutlery and served with what Hoden had called Uhui avocado.

We grew avocado in Heralia, and this was not it. Rather, this thing was bigger than my whole hand and green. It was somewhat avocado-like, though the flesh was a fair bit yellower and had a light buttery flavor to it.

We were joined by three new men who would accompany us to Carthia in the morning, but as they talked, my mind lingered on Miyani. She sat next to Hoden looking around the table and following the conversation with her yellow eyes but saying nothing, and I couldn’t get over her face. She had a round face with wide lips and eyes full of pain and life, the face of a girl who in another lifetime would have sufficed for high nobility who wasn’t afraid to muddy her finery only to laugh off whatever trouble she’d have gotten into.

The dinner table itself was a long slab of gray-black slate set atop cut wooden tree trunks to suffice for legs beneath a canopy of stone roof held up by several stone columns that arched inwards leaving most of the wallspace open to the elements. Several chickens wandered about, and more than once I saw Hoden drop scraps to them beneath the table.

Kelint was one of the three new guys. He was Herali, with the same olive-green skin as us and long, dark-green hair, but his eyes were a lighter shade of green. He was on the shorter side of average, and his face was still filled in with baby fat. He hailed from the Barony of Dignestran. “It’s in Ulum County. Not the city. We’re right across the border from Saen and a good half-day’s walk from the city.”

Ales nodded. “Is that diamond-tree country, too?”

“Yeah,” Kelint confirmed.

Davod added, “and what should we know about you?”

Kelint smirked. “Well for one, I’m a finer shot than the lot of you.”

Geraln huffed. “I’ve got five kren that says otherwise.”

Kelint smiled wide and narrowed his eyes at that. “Cheapskate!”

The rest of us laughed. I watched as Miyani contrived some laughter after everyone else had started.

Kelint turned to Davod. “What about you?”

I answered for him, “tuzubo.”

Miyani giggled quietly, and a genuine smile stretched across her face while everyone else ignored me. Davod shrugged it off and turned back to Kelint. “I’ll put in on that.”

The other two men were Saeni. The short, stout one was named Rock, while the tall, skinny one was Northstar. Northstar was mostly quiet throughout the evening, while Rock seemed eager to join in the banter despite not understanding very well.

Faren spoke slowly to him, giving him time to process each word. “How much… Herali… do you… know?”

Miyani turned to face Rock as well and watched as he listed out words he knew in a thick Saeni accent. “I know a lot word. Uh… wine… beer… cheese… potato… meat… sour bred… cake… honey…”

Faren chuckled. “I’m sensing a pattern, here!”

Rock then turned to Ales, “what… uh… name you have?”

“Ales.”

I answered that, too. “I thought your name was Thisisweird?”

“I’m gonna smack you!”

The rest of the table started laughing, but Miyani furrowed her brow in confusion. She leaned in close to Hoden who whispered something in her ear, then she covered her face in both hands and breathed in deep. Then she faced him and said, “I soly! I soly!”

Ales waved her off and went back to the banter.

Late that evening, I wanted to look for her. I wanted to learn some more of her language, perhaps get an idea of… I don’t know… something. I couldn’t explain it.

After everyone else had gone off to bed, I found a small, candle lantern set with thin white paper, and brought it out to the courtyard. Not that I’d had any idea where she slept. Worse, they said those lizards could see in the dark, and I wasn’t sure how Blue would receive me poking around.

But I had to see her again.

She wasn’t difficult to find. Rather, she and Blue were in the same stall I’d spoken with her earlier, fast asleep. She lay on her back with her head propped up on the creature’s shoulder while his long neck snaked around and rested his head across her chest. Her hand rested on the back of his neck, while one of his forelimbs had nestled in her arm.

The faint candle glow shimmered all over her dark skin. I knew I should have just gone off to bed, but my eyes shamefully discovered the front flap of her loincloth had pulled to the side just enough for me to see thin cloth stretched taut over her sex.

I swallowed and left, having lingered far too long. I should have left as soon as I’d realized she was asleep rather than end up walking back through the courtyard trying to adjust a throbbing erection.

Ogling a girl as she slept—that was perverted beyond redemption.

----------------------------------------

The morning air at the Lake of Doom was thick and muggy, and the day had promised to be the same. There was no sunshine, only thick clouds that slowly brightened from darkness.

Breakfast was a dark gray-brown bread filled with sharp cheese and an opaque red sauce that had a sweet, smooth character I’d never encountered before, all baked together and glazed with a sheen of more sweetness that left a sticky residue on my fingers. That, and kafi. Wonderful, wonderful kafi whose nutty aroma reached out its invisible fingers and lifted me up, carrying me into it like a siren.

I sat down with Davod, Geraln, Ales, and Faren, along with Hoden, and Kelint, Rock, and Northstar. Beside us was a patch of vines that crept along the ground and grew large, green globes on tough, needly stems, while several chickens went through clucking and pecking at caterpillars. Above us, men paced the ramparts while to my left I could see clear across the courtyard through the stone archway of the gate, the open field, and the forbidding jungle beyond.

Rock’s eyes were home to dark circles, and his sandy green hair was left in a sweaty, frazzled mess. “This place is being hated by me. It was being miserable the heat all of the night, I hating to the weather!”

This was a guy who grew up in the desert. Northstar nodded in agreement, Hoden smirked, and Davod leaned into me. “What are they saying?”

It was Faren who answered him. “They don’t like the weather.”

Davod smiled and raised a pastry to them, “I’m with you, man!” Despite the early hour, beads of sweat had begun to form across his forehead.

Geraln sat across from me; his shirt around the collar was already wet. “Gods, this is going to take some getting used to.”

Suddenly, the nearby chickens all scurried about and ran off in every direction; some hid under the table and brushed against my legs. A few seconds later, buckets of rain clattered all over the stone roof above us, splashed into pools throughout the grassy courtyard, falling into a violent torrent and drenching everything around us for about a minute before it stopped again.

Rock sneered at the world around us, the air once more thick with hot, lingering moisture and muttered, “fucking this place!”

I turned to Davod, “He said…”

Davod chuckled. “I know that word!”

Hoden hadn’t reacted at all. Rather, he held his kafi mug with both hands and lingered on the scent before taking a sip. “I forgot to mention, and this is important. Oil your bows. Eupin doesn’t grow here, and the humidity will split the wood. Every morning, don’t skip one day, oil up every inch of the wood. The Na’uhui bows don’t need it, but yours do. Don’t forget that.”

He checked his eyes on myself, Geraln, Davod, and Kelint to make sure we’d all heard him.

I heard a thumping on the wooden drawbridge and turned to see Blue running across carrying Miyani on his back. They darted towards us and had reached our table before I could blink twice. In one motion, Miyani swung her tiny self from his back and stood before us, naked as before, her skin still wet and pixie-cut white hair clinging to her scalp with trails of water meandering down to her shoulders.

I lowered my gaze, half ashamed to look at her after what I’d done last night.

She addressed Hoden directly, “ʒʊʃedɪ ʃɪ’uti… pʊ meziði beŋæ… kemoyeθʊxʊ zaʃi.”

All around me, the other men were staring at her bare chest. I stole a glance myself; black nipples poked out from her dark-green skin. Hoden looked up at her face, not her breasts, and answered her, “te’a’e kemoyeθʊgʌ fayi ʒʊʃedɪtɪtebuɣɪ bevemɪʃa”

Then I mustered up the courage to speak. “Zawa.”

She fixed her bright yellow eyes on me for a brief moment and answered, “zawa!” before turning her attention back to Hoden. “dima zeŋædeʒu kaθiya… ko’o go’ude tisa seŋaʒu xaðʌ vekʊto... ʃʊsi ʒʌgoboseʒu te’a’e beŋæ”

At that, Hoden nodded and set his cup down. “Gentlemen, are you ready?” Then to Rock and Northstar he said the same in Goloagi.

Miyani glanced at the table, grabbed up one of the cheesy fruit bread thingies, and bit into it before turning back to Blue. I needed to say something else to her. “Vukodosa!”

By the time I got the word out, she’d launched herself on top of Blue’s back. She looked at me and smiled before turning around and jetting out the gate as quickly as she’d come.

Geraln’s eyes gaped. “Gods, that thing is fast!”

Davod chuckled while Rock stood, took up his pack, and spoke his mind, “when we can riding one of them?”

My eyes perked up.

Hoden waved his hand in the air and shook his head some. “You don't. Only women ride them.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Why?” Then I remembered Davod didn't speak Goloagi, “how come only women ride them?”

Ales raised an eyebrow while Hoden answered me in Herali. “Men are too heavy.”

That was disappointing; I hadn't considered it, but given time surely I would have. The rest of us tied up little bits of what we’d had left, Geraln grabbed another pastry, and we all headed out towards the gate.

Outside, the ‘lawnmowers’ were busy at work. The same two women we’d seen as we came in were out tending the goats once more. They glanced our way briefly, then resumed their conversation, keeping their eyes to the trees every few moments. There, standing in the grass between parallel lines of packed dirt that made up the road was the same girl we’d seen the day before, the Goloagi runaway slave who’d helped us buy the most blessed mosquito ward, Ranía.

She had on a dark-blue cotton dress set with lace trim that accentuated her hourglass figure yet she was still barefoot, and wore a necklace of opaque red gemstones threaded together by a delicate gold chain. Davod glanced at me with a nervous smile, then stepped ahead of us towards her while she gazed up at his towering figure with the same smooth smile and soft, doe eyes.

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“You look beautiful,” he said. I could tell he was nervous. His bumbling demeanor made him look awkward next to her, but she exuded a polished calmness just the same.

She let out a light chortle of laughter, then responded in the same hint of an accent she’d had the day before. “I have a gift for you.”

She then lifted her hand and showed him a thin wooden box about a hand-span long. He took it and opened. Inside were two small things that looked like darts with thin, hollow bones about an inch long and sharpened to a fine needle adjoined to what looked like a pouch inside a wire mesh. He looked up at her, perplexed.

She explained. “The venom the peðayaŋa use is quite lethal; a simple graze upon your hand and you’ll be dead within minutes. If one of those darts should find you, take one of these and stab yourself in the thigh as hard as you can. Squeeze down on this bladder, here, to make sure the antivenin gets into you all the way. Do that, and you might live. But be careful; the antivenin will kill you much, much worse without the venom to counteract it.”

Davod was wide-eyed and frozen. He looked at me as if to try and mitigate his panic, before returning his attention to her. “Uh… thank you?”

She nodded, still looking up at his face calm as ever.

I stepped close to him, “nuveedessa.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That.”

Ranía’s constant smile grew wide, and she placed a hand on his chest, leaning close to him. “Men who survive here learn the language.”

With that, Davod took in a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair, all the way down to his chest where he twirled a lock in his fingers. “I’ll try.”

As for Ranía, she merely smiled and slowly turned her gaze towards Northstar. “Shadhu pa-ai ga’oso-ene na.”

He smiled, and she turned and started walking away.

I nudged Davod in his side and urged him. “Vukodosa.”

He turned to face me. “Huh?”

“You said help you out, right?”

He nodded.

“Say it. Vukodosa. It means goodbye.”

He nodded, then called after her, “vukodosa!”

She turned and giggled. “I won’t!”

He turned to me with his brow furrowed; I looked away and pretended that hadn’t just happened.

We walked slowly, each of us pretending we weren’t stealing glances at her backside until she disappeared into the trees. Kelint spoke his thoughts, “that is a woman. Gods, that’s a woman.”

“You said it, man!” Geraln echoed.

Up ahead, the thick bush of the forest opened a narrow slit for us to enter but was otherwise so dense with trees that we could see nothing at all. Overhead, the clouds gave me no hint as to the time.

As before, we heard the forest well before we entered. Once through the trees, chirps, clicks, and whistles filled our ears to the accompaniment of insects that blended together. The road was wet, and slogging through the mud added its own difficulties. Strange leaves from plants of all kinds grasped out towards us trying to reclaim the road, and once again Miyani stepped out in front of us, scarcely a few feet from where we were.

“Gods!” Ales exclaimed, holding a hand to his chest. Blue lowered his nose to the ground and traced an invisible line leading off in one direction.

“Lisseŋ,” she said, “no tahk rode. Uŋdastaŋ?”

Davod furrowed his brow, but I spoke slowly, pausing between words to give her time to process each one. “No… talking… between… here… and… Carthia. Yes?”

She nodded her head on each word, then nodded fully. “ti. Yes.”

We all nodded. We could do that. Blue moved his head about, lifting his nose up to sniff at the air only to move his head to a different spot and sniff the air again.

Then she added, “bo.”

We stood, confused.

Then she pointed at myself, Geraln, Davod, and Kelint, and showed us the bow in her hand. “Bo.”

Davod reached behind his back to grab his and turned to the other three of us. “String your bows.” He then turned to Rock and Northstar, each of whom had large, full-body shields slung over their backs. “Get those shields out.”

They looked at one another until Kelint translated for them. Then, their eyes went wide, and they each took hold of a heavy, iron shield set with braces and rivets that in their arms ran from their necks down below their knees.

Miyani looked us over, then led Blue back into the trees. The two Saeni with shields, four of us with bows strung, and the two coast dwellers walked. Ales unsheathed his sword, a light, curved cutlass, but Faren had no weapons beyond a heavy work-knife.

The road began by climbing up a steep hill. All around us, the sounds of the jungle filled the air with a chorus of chirps, clicks, whistles, and that ever-present grinding screech of insects. Birds a multitude of colors hopped from tree branch to tree branch, calling out to one another with the most peculiar arrangements of strange, guttural yawning noises. The hot, sticky air lingered on my skin and my shirt was drenched from sweat; I wasn’t even exerting myself. I looked around, and all of us had the same experience. Rock shifted his shield to his other hand and whirled his now-free arm in a circle; Northstar did the same.

None of us spoke a word.

Kelint walked, glancing wearily from right to left all the while keeping an arrow nocked and ready to draw. The road wasn’t so much packed mud through this section, but sheets of gray-black slate laid out, leaving tufts of grass to fill the gaps while vines crept across the way as tendrils of jungle reaching out to reclaim what was hers. Northstar shifted his shield back to his original hand. Different kinds of trees lined the sides, blocking everything else from view, and all along the sides of the road, ferns and other shrubs fought one another for what scraps of daylight had fallen from the canopy of trees above.

The hill climbed with no hint of visibility or change that we could discern until the road began to descend. Rock and Northstar switched shield-hands again. We were all sweating profusely. Before us, small gaps in the trees that promised a glimpse of a world beyond the thick we traveled through revealed only more trees off in the distance and dark clouds above.

Something whizzed past my face.

Before my mind could assemble the pieces, an animal screeched on my left, and Blue crashed through the trees from my right bearing Miyani with her bow drawn and a second arrow nocked shouting, “XEWEKƱDESA BAYI!”

Silence.

The reality of her sudden appearance began to emerge from the shock with her directly in front of me, easily within arm’s reach. The muscles in her arms and shoulders and all down her back were taut from holding her bowstring back, bulging beneath dark-green skin.

Davod shouted. “You! Come this way!”

He was pointing at Rock and Northstar, showing with his hands where he wanted them to hold their shields. They looked a bit disoriented at first, but slowly the realization of what was being asked emerged, and they came up to crouch side-by-side, setting the lower edge of their shields in the dirt directly in front of Blue and holding them there as a miniature wall.

Blue bobbed his head around them for a moment before crouching low and snaking his long neck up so as to peek one eye over the top edge. As for the rest of us, Davod and Kelint had arrows nocked and drawn, standing half-concealed at the edges of the shield wall while I took way too long to realize that I should probably do the same. Ales stood behind Davod, peeking around him to glimpse at what Miyani had shot moments before, while Geraln stood trembling and Faren crouched low.

It felt as if the world grew quiet. Birds in the trees stopped chirping, random groans, croaks, clicks, chirps, and whistles seemed to die down. Rock and Northstar knelt, their eyes wide and breath heavy, and their hands shook, but they held those shields, one edge overlapping the other.

As for Miyani, her focus was ahead of her. I couldn’t tell how she saw whatever it was she was looking at, but it had locked her attention. She scrunched her body so as to lower herself along with Blue behind the shield wall, but kept her bow fully drawn and ready to fire a second shot.

I heard a muffled grunt followed by a labored exhale.

Again, Miyani yelled at the trees. “zevoŋi! pʊ bayise! dima xewekʊde!”

Another minute passed, and I heard a grunt like someone in pain amid a low grumble, followed by a girl’s voice. “ɣozʌ’ʌ!”

Then, I heard a low, agonized croak followed by slight rustling of leaves followed by a snapped twig. This was then followed by an uneven thumping that trailed off into the distance.

Miyani relaxed, released her draw, and let out a deep breath. The rest of us followed suit. She then reached out to touch Rock and Northstar as if to usher them apart. As they stood, Ales blurted out, “so that’s comforting; our enemy has girls just like her.”

Miyani snapped towards him, “No I gul. I woman.”

With that, Blue lurched forward in the direction of their target and they disappeared into the trees.

Ales pursed his lips at the correction. He was right, though; whoever it was had stalked us and, judging from her voice, couldn’t have been more than ten feet from the side of the road yet none of us had the slightest clue she was there.

The hill descended sharply through more undistilled wildness, and the tension throughout my body was beginning to take its toll. No less, we continued with arrows nocked, swords drawn, and shields facing the forest always. I kept my eyes on the trees. Every now and then a shadow moved or some leaves rustled, which jolted my nerves every time. How many more of them were out there?

Then, the forest changed. Along both sides of the road, troughs had been cut through the mud and filled with standing water, with other troughs leading off in parallel lines broken up by rows and rows of brown-green grass growing in stalks three yards high like thick reeds. Several of those had nodes cut low with some cuts fresher than others.

We passed by something that looked like it used to be a small mill. Stone columns held up the remnant of a roof that had caved in with vines wrapped around strangling what little evidence of human presence it had left, with old wooden tools half rotted out and ferns growing from them. At the corner was a tall, thin pole of a tree with a dense canopy of huge fronds at the top fanning out in all directions. Beneath that, clusters of giant bright-green globes dangled down. Ales stopped and stared up at it.

I stopped, along with everyone else. We all looked at Ales hoping to understand what had captivated him so. He then sheathed his sword and dropped his pack, opened it up, and started digging through it.

Davod looked at him in grave concern. “What’s going on?”

Ales didn’t answer. Rather, he found a coil of rope and let it out to detangle any kinks that had threatened to take hold. I scanned the tall grasses around us; I couldn’t see anything beyond ten feet, and the rustling of the leaves in the wind could have easily been another one of those lizards nearby.

Kelint whispered frantically, “you’re going to get us all killed, man! What are you doing?”

Ales didn’t look at him. “I want one of those coconuts.”

“Let’s go!” Davod urged him. “We have to keep moving!”

Ales ignored him and tied a loop around one end of the rope, then held it in one hand and leaned back, looking up into the tree.

My heart started to race. “Ales?” I pleaded.

He ignored me and launched his rope upwards, catching the loop around one of the green globes, and worked it back and forth to tighten around the stem. Faren then walked up and stood ready to catch it while Ales tugged.

Davod looked at me with deep worry across his face, while Kelint shook his head nervously.

“Alright,” Davod said. “Make a perimeter. Geraln, over there, Caleb you on that side, Kelint, over here.”

And so we stood. I kept watch over my arc with an arrow ready to draw as Faren caught the next coconut Ales pulled from the tree.

“Gods!” Geraln cried out. I turned, and Miyani was there before him with Blue staring up at the tree Ales was working on. She reached out one hand and pushed her palm downwards as though pressing on something. Geraln responded by lowering his bow.

Ales turned to face her and smiled, then nodded to Faren, who took up one of the coconuts and chopped at one end, turned and chopped again, until drops of fluid splattered out, leaving a hole about an inch in diameter.

Blue looked at it and chirped, then stepped towards him, bounding from one foot to the other and letting out more excited chirps.

Faren smiled at the creature. “You want one?”

Blue chirped again. Miyani reached out her hand to take it from him, then held it out for Blue to snake his long neck around and tilt under it while she poured into his mouth. Blue stretched out his tongue to lap up as much of the stray fluid as possible, then yawned wide to grasp the whole thing in his teeth, tilted it up, and held it there while the last drips fell into his mouth.

A part of me knew it was fine to relax at that point. Miyani knew these woods; if she felt safe enough to join us, then it probably was. No less, I kept watch over the tall grass around us with an arrow nocked and ready to draw.

Faren handed the next one to Rock.

Rock stared at it with a look of curiosity on his rugged face. “What is being?”

Ales grinned and prepared for another throw while Faren spoke in Goloagi, “drink it.”

Rock took the green globe of a fruit, shifting his eyes around before gingerly sipping at the edge. “Mmm!” he exclaimed, then tipped the whole thing upwards to pour into his mouth, gulping it down in fits while streams of excess dribbled down both sides of his chin. At last he wiped his mouth with an “ahh,” and shook his head excitedly. He then turned to Northstar and spoke. “Gish a-ato wa!”

Northstar drank with the same enthusiasm. I maintained my position, trying to keep my focus on the tall grass around us, not knowing if another one of those enemies were lurking just beyond sight.

She did have gorgeous legs, though.

Davod drank his, as did Kelint and Geraln. We all got one except for Blue who drank two. Ales reached inside his after drinking it, scooped up some whitish sludge, and sucked that off his fingers before tossing it to the side.

Then, Miyani pointed towards where the road brought the end of the forest into a clearing some fifty yards ahead and spoke to all of us. “Carthia there. Bye-bye.”

Everyone else had walked off, but I lingered. She turned and was about to head back from whence we’d come when I spoke to her. “Nuvidesa.”

She nodded with a smile. “OK.”

“Do you know who was stalking us?”

She furrowed her eyebrows at me and tilted her head to the side. I tried again, pointing back at the road we’d come from. “Who… who was that? You shot… who…”

“Ahh,” she nodded. “ŋæɣʊye zevoŋi peðayaŋa sewu’oŋiŋazidɪ”

“Right…” I tried to smile that one off. I had to start with something simple. “What do you call this… coconut?”

“Ahh,” she smiled. “Sem… kokaŋo.”

“OK, so… I like to drink coconut.”

“Hmm?”

“How do you say that? I like to drink coconut.”

She nodded confidently. “tixe bobade kokaŋo.”

“Tihe… is that like?”

“tixe… like… boba duink… de I, kokaŋo.”

I tried to copy her. “tihe bobasday koknao.”

She laughed lightly and nodded. “ti. Yes. Eh… I shoz. Bye-bye, OK?”

“You’re cute.”

At that, her eyes bulged and her whole face froze. She turned and rode Blue back towards the tall grass stalks, turned to look back at me, took a few more steps, then turned and looked at me again before disappearing into the woods.

What the hell was I thinking?