Ales tapped my cheek. “Wake up! It’s your turn to see the old woman.”

I hurt. My arms hurt. My shoulders hurt. My back hurt. My neck hurt. My wrists, my ankles, my hips, everything hurt.

My brain hurt.

I had pain throughout my insides, my outsides, and my in-betweens.

And it was morning. I rubbed my eyes enough to see clearly. Overhead, a large, black-and-brown spider fanned its legs out in mid-air at the center of a window. Beyond this, thick clouds filled the sky in a patchwork of grays, darker grays, and really dark grays.

Ales tapped my cheek. “Come on, man. You have to get up; everyone else is at breakfast.”

Lifting my arms was laborious. My muscles and bones ached, and I had welts all about my wrists where the iron shackles had dug in. I tried to sit up, but my muscles forbade it.

“Come on, let’s go!” He tapped me again, then took hold of my arm and pulled.

“I’m coming,” I said. The air was thick and musty, but I didn’t feel hot. Rather, my fingers were cold and trembling from having fasted for nearly two days, but the pit in my stomach stood in queue behind the pain in my bones.

With Ales’s help, I was able to stand, somewhat, only I needed a few minutes for the dizziness to abate. I looked down once more at my bed with the feeling that I could simply collapse and stay there a few more years. By the time I was able to force some clothes on, I caught a glimpse of Ales rubbing his side, the spot where he’d been stabbed. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Ehh,” he looked up at me. “Still hurts. Doctor still makes me drink that slimy weird shit. Earlier this morning I forgot; she sent your boy Taganu to remind me. They don’t play here, man.”

We stepped out of the old wooden barracks and onto the grass, and he continued. “Some milf came looking for you yesterday.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know how the hell you go off to flirt with one lady and end up with another one bringing you gifts. Also, your boy Davod is no longer with us.”

“What?” I stopped. My heart slammed against my chest.

Ales turned and laughed. “He’s fine! Gods, you should see your face! Nah, man, so right after you left we was all standing around looking at one another. Davod goes to the shed to get a couple of those native bows and says we ought to get some practice in while we wait for Commander. Turns out Commander was up on the balcony watching to see what we would do. Now he’s gonna be our captain, so Commander came and got him real early for some special training.”

“Nice!”

A peal of thunder cracked overhead, and Ales started counting off on his fingers, “Geraln’s in the medical ward with mosquito sickness; doc says he’ll be fine in a few days. Kelint is on permanent wall duty. He’s gonna serve his two years sniping fools who get too close then go home… bastard. We also got a couple new guys. Tobori kid, probably too young for this shit but he’s a local, and some Goloagi dude fought in Kulun. Then they put some weirdo in charge of training us—Bear clan, loves the sound of his own voice. What else… what else…”

A sudden downpouring of rain filled the yard, and we were drenched. The thought of making a run for the nearest shelter crossed his face, followed by the realization that we were already too late. I was soaked through. My trousers, my shirt, my hair, and all in my boots were drenched.

“Oh yeah,” Ales shouted above the clattering of drops filling pools around us. Water ran down his hair on all sides and sloshed across his face. “It rains a lot here.”

That made me laugh.

Breakfast was the usual slop of grainy globs of brown paper. They’d also had bowls of mixed fruit that, allegedly, was very good, but those were gone by the time I arrived. There was also an older woman, native, nearly naked as everyone else, who was about to leave with a metal pot that gave off that miraculous smell of coffee. She wanted my last kren for the dregs, but I needed it.

“Over here,” Ales ushered me to our table, though I already knew most of them. Renou was there, quiet as ever, same as Northstar. Rock, Jame, Gino, Borel, and Faren had all finished eating and sat listening to a burly Herali man with a bear spirit inked into his neck. He himself was the human equivalent of a bison, hair and smell included. To his left sat a small blonde-headed, white-skinned Tobori boy dressed in a brown cotton loincloth and the number 411417 branded into each arm. To his right was as Ales said, Goloagi you could tell from his hook nose though he’d kept his otherwise curly hair cropped short. He had a scar down his face from his forehead, across his bridge, and down the side of his nose, and he looked up at me as we walked in before returning his attention to the bear guy, in the middle of his speech.

“... so then we came to this open area. Like jungle everywhere else, but a flat open grass, maybe five, four-hundred yards across. We stop right at the edge of the trees, and there’s four of them in the middle just standin’ around. Gamus takes a shot, nails one of them shits right in the neck and the rest of them scatter. Stupid shit Maris, he was a Falcon guy,” he glanced up at me, “says, ‘we got em on the run! Let’s go!’ I was like, are you stupid, but of course you don’t say that to your commanding officer. So me and three other guys set up to cover while him and the rest of them charge right across the field and get mowed down ‘cause they got three bloody war parties just waitin’ in the trees. Sami comes up, they gonna circle ‘round you. Best go back to Carthia, and stay off the bloody main road this time. We’s trompin’ through the woods, but you know they’s trompin’ faster, and them pick off Rayul before we get back. Thirteen of us went out that day, three come back. Welcome to bloody Carthia. You must be Caleb?”

I nodded, then sipped, allowing the sweetened coffee to resurrect me in-between trying to wring my clothes dry.

“Alright, so field medic. My name’s Daren, and I’m still alive so it looks like I’ll be training you. Half of you won’t live to see your second month’s wages, so don’t get too attached. This here’s Jezi,” he patted the Tobori kid’s back so hard that he lurched forward in recoil, “what can I say but he grew up here and he speaks the language. His woman is one of Ahmi’s so don’t get any ideas. This other guy here is Malchuk,” he pointed at the Goloagi man with the scar down his face, but didn’t touch him. “He fought in Kulun, now he’s here. Anyway, we’re about to go outside so hurry up, finish your goop, and come join us.”

I wanted nothing more than to put my head down on the table and take a nap. I knew I couldn’t, so my second best option was to put something in my stomach. The slop was bland and grainy, like globs of stuff in a sticky goo that tasted like food. But at that hour it was delicious enough, and I scraped every last line of goo that my bowl would allow and turned around to see if there were any more.

There might have been, but by this time men from other units had begun to clean out the morning’s pots and pans, while others took a rag to the wooden tables throughout the hall. The walls, like most stone buildings in Carthia, were more open than not, with several columns to lift up the roof, and I could easily see whatever was going on outside. Beside the vita’o yard everything was quiet, while in the cluster of grassy domes people went about their day. In the training yard, men faced off one another with spears tipped with bags of red chalk.

By the time I’d finished and joined them, we’d all stood in a line to take turns against the reigning champion, who at that moment was Fluffy, the vita’o Ahmi had introduced us to the other day, the light-brown one with the white spots along her back and white underbelly. She had a contraption in her mouth like a wooden frame that had a small bag of red chalk at the tip of her snout.

Borel was up against her. He held his spear at the butt end so as to give him the best reach, leaving the tip less than a yard from where she stood, shifting side to side on her hind legs. Then in one motion, she lunged forward, batted the spear to one side with her forelimbs, and snapped her neck out to tag him on his shoulder.

“Dammit!” he shouted. Fluffy stepped close to him and rubbed her head in his cheek. He responded by gently stroking under her chin, and she returned to her original spot while Borel passed the spear to Faren.

Faren stood, shaking nervously.

Ales smirked, “she won’t hurt you, man!”

“I know that!” he said. “That doesn’t change anything.”

As Fluffy inched forward, Faren trembled, trying to keep the spear tip towards her.

Malchuk spoke to him in Goloagi, “lower your stance.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Faren did.

“Pull back some if it’s too heavy, you’ll get a better swing on the front end… steady with your front arm… bend your right elbow…”

Fluffy watched and waited as Faren shifted around trying to follow the veteran’s advice, then swayed her head back and forth, only to lift up one of her hind legs, swat the spear down into the ground, and jump high in the air towards him. Faren squealed and dropped the spear altogether, then tripped and fell on his back while Fluffy landed beside him.

“Gimme that thing!”

We all watched as Malchuk took no time in readying himself. I tried to notice what he’d been talking about. He stood with his left side facing his opponent, holding his left hand up with his elbow up and his right hand further back, leaving about a foot of spear behind him. As she tried to inch her way past, he kept the spear trained on her. She waved her head to his left to get around him, and he stepped with her, keeping his back protected, all the while keeping the weapon trained on her body. Fluffy tried to swat the spear to one side, but Malchuk pulled it back. Then she swatted it again, only for him to resume his position before she could get around him. Two things I noticed; he held the spear loose in his left hand. This enabled him to maneuver it better, sliding it forwards and backwards with his right hand. Then, he kept his right arm bent, leaving enough space between hands to thrust forward some, but also enough space to pull it back, all the while using his left hand as a fulcrum.

Then he thrust it at her, and she jumped back. As she stepped closer, he thrust at her again, only for her to tap the spear with her head just behind the chalk bag. Malchuk then tried to yank the spear back, but she’d grasped a forelimb around it, and she reached in to tag him on the cheek.

To my left, I heard someone laughing. “Relax. Don’t attack. Try and force her to give you opportunities.”

It was that man again, the native who’d ushered us all one-by-one to talk to Peyumi. Davod went with him cussing with the best of us, only to come back correcting us all on our language. Borel went with him hating the vita’o, and now Fluffy was his new best friend. Today, he wore nothing but a black silk loincloth with silver embroidery in the shape of a big cat covered in spots roaring and reaching out with its paw.

Malchuk, still breathing heavily, snarled at him, “can you take her?”

The man smiled wide. Fluffy let out a gurgle, muffled through her mouthpiece, then I heard two clicks.

“pʊ ɣʌmiʒisa” he said, gently brushing the side of her neck, “kʌŋʌ ðizʌde.”

I glanced at Faren to see if I could glean whether he’d understood that. He glanced back at me and shrugged.

The man then came over to the spot where we’d decided the challenger should stand, and faced her. She looked at him and groaned. Malchuk handed him the spear with a smirk across his face, then opened his eyes wide when the man refused it, choosing instead to face her with his bare hands. Then, Fluffy lowered her face to the ground and opened her jaws, dropping the mouthpiece.

My mouth gaped open in shock, and as I looked around, I wasn’t the only one. This man, wore nothing but a silk cloth dangling from his belt, leaving his dark-green skin open to the elements. Rippling muscles crossed his chest, his stomach, his legs, his arms, his shoulders; every bit of him bulged of raw power. That, versus a lizard gaping her jaws open revealing jagged, serrated teeth that could rip a man’s throat out in under a second, pacing left and right on claws that ended in talons easily three inches long.

Fluffy inched her body forward while holding her head in place and coiling her neck. The man stood, angled slightly to one side, with both hands open and up beside his face.

He also kept his chin down to protect his neck.

Fluffy chirped, then clicked, then let out a string of gargles followed by another chirp.

“Come on,” he smiled at her, speaking calmly as though he’d done this a thousand times before.

She swayed her body left and right, keeping her head still in front of her, and he matched her movements with his hips, then took two small steps closer. She held still, he took two more steps closer, leaning his body back some.

Then, quick as lightning, she snapped her open jaws forward at him. A flurry of long, white hair poofed as he reached across and caught the side of her mouth, then rolled around taking her head with him. She tried to lift one of her hind legs up, but he’d already trapped her neck in the crook of his elbow just behind her skull and leaned back, putting his entire weight on her. With her forelimbs trapped behind his back and unable to get leverage, she lifted up one of her hind legs and tried to swipe at him with those three-inch talons. The man lifted one leg and caught her foot before she could set it down, bending his knee inwards to trap her leg in position.

Then, teetering on one hind leg, he pushed back and she toppled over, landing on her side while he kept her neck locked tight under his bulging, muscular arm. Her forelimbs were stuck beneath his back, her one hind leg was trapped in his knee, and she let out a shrill caw.

“ŋo’odesa,” he cooed. “kʌŋʌ vʌ ɣemaðadesa.”

Fluffy then let out a long groan as the man faced us with a smile across his lips. “OK,” he looked around at all of us. “Questions?”

“What the hell, man?” Jame blurted out.

The man laughed, then kissed Fluffy on the top of her nose. She groaned, and he explained, “notice the twist in her neck. If you come around to this side, you can see it better.”

I shuffled around along with Rock, who bent over to study the position.

“She can bend her neck easily, so if I don’t twist her like this, she can cut me up pretty bad. The other thing is don’t forget about claws. I’ve seen men figure out how to control their neck, only to find out the hard way that she has talons, too.”

Fluffy groaned again, then let out a long string of clicks.

Borel stepped close, “you’re hurting her!”

The man laughed. He then looked at Fluffy, still with her head still locked in one arm, “ʒɪ zudase?”

She let out a click, and he released her. Immediately, she rolled away from him and hopped up on her hind legs as she’d been before, then shook her whole body and stretched out. As for the man, his chest heaved from heavy breaths and he stood, checking himself over and dusting grass shreds from the incidental flap of fabric that sufficed for clothes. He then twisted around to check out his back side while the rest of us came up to him.

“Gods!” Jame shook his head wide-eyed.

Rock spoke to him in Goloagi, “need teaching you me for this!”

Others patted his back. I was still shocked. “That was incredible. I can't believe that!”

From the side of my eye, I caught Borel looking over Fluffy to make sure she was fine and stroking her neck.

I tried not to fawn too hard, “what did you say your name was?”

The man smiled and turned to me. “Ta’o. Are you ready?”

I still couldn’t get over his foreign look, exceedingly dark-green skin, bright yellow eyes, and straight, white hair that fell down past his shoulders, and yet he spoke Herali as if he were one of us. “Uh… I guess?”

“The Elder of Elders is eager to meet you,” he smirked. “She’s been waiting.” Then he turned to walk away, checking over his shoulder to be sure I was coming with him.

I followed. I hadn’t known what Fluffy was trying to say to the man, but I can’t say I’d have wanted to fight him, either. His back, his legs, his arms were about as muscled as any man I’d ever seen. As with all the women, as with everyone else, he was basically naked but for the black silk hanging down from his waist and walked barefoot in the grass.

We made our way to the end of the mess hall and around the corner, where we walked towards the center of town. “Are you like a general or something?”

Ta’o laughed, then turned to face me. “No, man, they won’t let me fight.”

“Why not?”

“I’m one of The Returned.”

“What’s that?”

We passed by a cluster of grassy domes on the left with a small handful of stone buildings on the right. A young native woman came around the corner; she looked up at him and smiled as we passed. “ko'o ɣo’imesedu ʃʌsæ’æ!”

He blushed hard and grinned, “kʌŋʌ zoʃu’udexa!”

At that she pursed her lips. Ta’o glanced over his shoulder at her back side ever so briefly just as she did the same, and the two of them giggled it off. Then, he looked at me with a pang of embarrassment.

“What did she say?”

He smiled, then looked at her once more. “Uh… she said you’re almost as good-looking as I am.”

With that, we resumed our walk. “That’s not what she said, man!”

“OK, what did she say, then?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“So how do you know she didn’t say that?” he smirked.

“Because…” I sought an explanation. “Because I know.”

Ta’o laughed.

“She seems fond of you.”

Ta’o laughed again, then turned to me briefly. “You’d better be careful with that, man. I heard you tried to flirt with Ahmi.”

I lowered my eyes, and he broke out laughing as we made our way to the left of the massive library.

“Don’t worry about it. There isn’t a man here who hasn’t had a crush on her at some point, myself included. You know she’s married, right?”

“Commander may have mentioned that after-the-fact. Anyway, you didn’t say what that returned thing is all about.”

His expression grew serious. “Alright, listen. I know that for you Carthia is just some place you were told to come serve for two years, but this place is everything to me, and I would do anything to save it. They won’t let me fight, but I do get to serve the Elder of Elders, which is a pretty big deal. That probably doesn’t mean anything in your culture.”

“It sounds important.”

He stopped beside the tall towers of the inner sanctum and faced me directly. “In the traditional ŋa’uxuwi way, when you have a child with a… problem… you take them out and return them to the jungle. My parents loved me enough to bring me here instead. You see people with numbers in their skin, they had the option of life as a slave somewhere else. For people like me, people like Peyumi, so many of us, there is nowhere else we can live, and more come to us all the time. If Carthia falls…”

Ta’o shook his head. He was shorter than me, but not by much, and still on the tall side of average. He had a handsome, yet kind face that belied the laughter he held within, and it wasn’t difficult to see why that woman, and others we passed by, were so clearly fond of him. I could discern no defect in him. “What was wrong with you that you were returned?”

Ta’o popped his eyebrows and looked away to resume our journey. “We’re not having that conversation.”

Thick trees and the unconnected posts of the vita’o yard continued on our left as far as space would allow, even as the outer wall could be seen above the trees wrapping around towards the right. Another cluster of grass-covered domes stood before me, and we kept to the left where a narrow corridor between the tall towers of the inner sanctum and the outer wall was home to a small handful of mud hovels between. Overhead, a stone walkway scarcely wide enough to walk spanned the corridor, with a vertical wooden beam interrupting the stone arch on the side where it connected to the sanctum.

At length, we came to a small mud hut with a grass roof surrounded by a garden of a great variety of shrubs. Tomatoes grew beside thick tufts of grass that gave off a strong citrusy scent, and corn grew with beans trained along their stalks while large, green vegetables took to a vine woven between them on the ground. Stone hexagons maybe three feet across were teeming with herbs, some I knew while others I didn’t, and beside the entrance a small tree held pendulous purple fruits the size of a small apple.

Ta’o led me along a narrow footpath and stood beside the opening that sufficed for a front door. There, he picked one of the fruits and bit into its soft, white flesh, then turned to look inside. “vɪwede Caleb of Gath.”