Hearts of Ishira (Hearts of Ishira Saga) (74 page)

He laughed at her eagerness as they joined the small group of men and women that Hunter had asked to accompany their leaders on the expedition. With very little fuss, they were soon on their way. The men were, as usual, walking on the outskirts of the group, with one warrior beside his woman and her other team members nearby, on the perimeter of the line. Three men protected Hunter… one on either side, one behind, since he was in the lead.

Arianna’s feminist side knew that she should be affronted because the men saw the need to protect the women, but on the other hand, she felt safe and protected, more than she had at any point back on Earth, where it seemed women were expected to take care of themselves at all times. She admitted once more that Hunter’s society seemed so much more inclusive. They took care of one another, were ready at any point to step in and help where needed, and they cross-trained in a number of areas, always willing to learn something new, so that they would be prepared for nearly anything.

The group walked for awhile, following Hunter’s lead, the women quietly talking among themselves but not bothering the men who were guarding them. After about half an hour of strolling through the woods, the group broke through an area of underbrush and onto the banks of a river. The water was wild and rushing, boiling over the rocks in its path, and Arianna heard a few squeals of delight from girls who had been drawn to her mountain college town as much for the recreational options as for education. She grinned as those women surged forward to inspect the river, listened to them talking about kayaking or rafting, but tuned them out as they began going into detail about these sports to their men, who seemed genuinely interested in their excitement.

“These are the plants I was referring to, in this location,” Hunter said, taking Ri’s hand and drawing her to the right, along the marshy ground leading to the water’s edge. This was no lapping lake with beaches on either side, but a river that moved swiftly enough to cut the banks as it went. Here, the water was at least two feet deep right off the edge of the bank, but in the marsh grew tall, stringy plants. Before she touched them, though, she looked at Hunter pointedly, then at his scanner. He grinned lopsidedly at her. “I have already tested them, little one. These should not harm you.”

But he took out his ever-present epi-shot, holding it at the ready… just in case. Her laughter mixed with the sounds of the river, charming Hunter to his marrow. Grinning, he put the shot away. She knelt by his side as he cut one of the stalks and passed it to her. She detected a sweet smell and brought the cut end to her nose, sniffing deeply.

“Wow! It smells so sweet… almost like honey or something.” Before Hunter could warn her, she darted her tongue out and captured a bit of the sap from the plant’s stalk. She grinned hugely at him, her eyes widening in delight. “It’s like sugar cane, almost!”

Of course, she had to explain that to him, then, but her discovery was communicated to the girls, and before long, they were all happily sucking on the sweet stalks. A few of the men were watching their ladies rather avidly as the girls licked and sucked the sweet juices. Hunter was one of them, and when Arianna picked up on his sudden amorous vibe, she grinned up at him around the thick stalk in her mouth. He sucked in a harsh breath and sent her an image of her mouth around
his
stalk, looking at him exactly the way she was now. Her breath caught at the erotic image and she grinned wider, her eyes narrowing as she trailed her tongue up the stalk, circled the cut end delicately with her little pink tongue, then lapped at the sweet liquid as it continued to well up through the straw-like channels of the plant.

Hunter’s growl warned her that she needed to pay more attention to the task at hand, but she noticed that many of the men were cutting extra stalks of the stuff and wrapping bits of cloth around the cut ends to keep the liquid from being lost.

“Woman, you would tempt one of your priests with such suggestive behavior,” Hunter murmured to her, sending a wonderful little shiver over her. Then he smacked her butt, startling an indignant yelp out of her. “But we are here for a reason. Back to work, woman!”

She chuckled at him and moved back toward dry ground, sitting down for a few moments to study the fibrous plant.

“Well, it’s certainly sweet,” she pointed out, “Which might mean having another natural sweetener for our foods. We’re used to being able to make cakes and cookies and other desserts, but you guys don’t seem to have stuff like that.”

“We did not know of these plants,” Hunter shrugged. “We had such delicacies back on our world, of course, but since landing here, we have become used to not having sweets unless they were fruit. Without being able to create leavened bread suitable for such delicacies, we weren’t motivated to try. This is, indeed, a find, though I would like to caution you not to take such chances again as tasting something like that without extensive testing first!”

She grinned unrepentantly at him.

“You wouldn’t have let me touch it at all if you thought it would hurt me,” she pointed out softly. “So relax. At most, it might have made me a little ill or something, but I wasn’t afraid it would actually do much damage. Now sit down and chill.”

He sat down to ‘chill’.

“Okay, so it’s a sweetener, which rocks. It also seems really fibrous, so we need to take some back to the compound, allow it to dry and see what happens. We might need to process it somehow, if it dries out too much, but I think that it has possibilities.”

“So it is a good find?” Hunter asked. She sensed that he was unsure about whether or not it pleased her, as far as the fiber aspect was concerned. She dropped the stalk, took his face between her hands, and swung herself over him so that she was sitting astride his thighs, her arms locked around his neck. He looked startled, but she felt his pleasure as she leaned down and kissed him with all the enthusiasm that the double-find had raised in her.

For the rest of the afternoon, Hunter led them to various parts of the forest, moving further from the compound until they were at the last patch of vegetation he had found. He was bent down, cutting some samples for her to inspect, and the rest of the group was chattering happily, some still sucking on the ‘sugar cane’ stems, when Arianna sensed something close by. Her head came up, her mind casting about for the source of the energy.

Hunter also felt it. He sprang to his feet and as one, he and Ri turned to the west, their Reader senses on high alert as they sought the source of the new thoughts and emotions. Arianna was barely aware that the group had gone silent the moment she and Hunter had stiffened and turned, and that several of the men were now surrounding them as she and Hunter mentally probed the forest in search of the new threat. The men had their weapons drawn and she sensed that the women were grouped once more in the center of a circle of warriors. Secure in the knowledge of being protected, Ri closed her eyes, took Hunter’s hand, and reached out with her mind, taking Hunter with her.

Between them, power swelled and expanded out past the group, through the trees and underbrush. Their minds passed the various non-sentient creatures that were native to this world, seeking the source of the tumultuous thoughts that had alerted them to begin with.

When they found the creatures, it was a shock. The creature was furred, tall, but hunched slightly. Spines bristled from the long backs, and tails tipped with more of the spines swished in agitation. They had four eyes each, almost like spiders, and long, very long front arms or legs. As Ri watched, one of the females used a long forearm to sweep up four of her young and scurry away from Arianna’s probing mind.

Another of the creatures stood before the cave’s entrance, its head up as it reached out to meet Ri’s mental touch. The brain power of the beast was incredible. Ri felt it but did not intrude into the thing’s psyche. The thoughts were alien, but Ri and Hunter were able to pick up on ideas and images. The creatures had a complex hierarchy, were already forming rudimentary written language, had discovered music, and the one Ri was contacting seemed to be the historian. The creature did not automatically attack, but kept its mind open, though Arianna sensed that the moment she made any sort of aggressive move, the thing would shut down or attack.

Beside her, Hunter was having a similar experience, though with the alpha of the pack. She could barely sense what he was feeling, but they quickly learned that the humanoid group was very close to the hunting area of the creature and its ‘pack’. There were many young, as well, and the mothers of the pack were, understandably, irritated and bristling at the intrusion into their area. It seemed to be the same mind-touch that she had felt back at the lake. The creatures were sentient…… just alien.

Beside her, Arianna sensed Hunter gesturing to his men. He kept hold of her hand, kept them connected, as she reassured the creature gently that they meant no harm, and that they would leave the area immediately. She even added a thought that if one of their ‘people’ would escort the Thorsani/human contingent to the edge of the creatures’ territory, they would mark the spot so that future hunting parties didn’t accidentally wander too close.

She sensed hesitation from one of the creatures as it briefly touched her mind, then acceptance and a lessening of the antagonism that had been spearing toward the group of humans and Thorsani. Within the blink of an eye, Ri was back with her group. Hunter was carrying her back through the woods, his thoughts staying with her until she was fully in control again.

They waited until the entire group was safely out of what Arianna sensed were the boundaries of the creatures’ land then they all stopped and rested just a bit. Hunter let Ri drop to her feet, now that she was no longer in contact with the creatures.

“Commander?” one of the men asked, stepping forward as though expecting a report. Hunter nodded at him.

“There are sentient beings in that area,” he told them without preamble. “They have young and we were intruding on their hunting lands, perilously close to their nesting areas. Thank you all for moving quickly and without question.”

Arianna knew that the last sentence was tacked on for the girls’ benefits, since his men would have done nothing less, nor expected praise for it. The girls seemed pleased, however, and reassured, which helped ease the general tension level of the group.

“Sir, how did you know?” one of the other men asked as the group began walking quickly back toward the compound.

“I sensed the patriarch, the alpha, of the pack,” Hunter admitted. “Had Arianna and I not been linked, though, I would not have known about the young, about the mothers in the nesting areas. It is odd that I can sense the male, but not the female, and Ri can sense just the opposite.” She nodded to confirm what he had already figured out.

“I think,” he went on quietly, “That from this point forward, any time we explore into new areas, both Arianna and myself should go, so that we can sense either sex of this new species. I would not want to surprise them and trigger an incident with an emerging sentient species. We will respect their territories and if they choose, establish communications.”

“That’s a good idea,” Arianna agreed, taking his hand once more. She could still feel eyes on their group, knew that there were pack members shadowing the humanoids, making sure that they left the area. But she didn’t feel the sentries unless she was joined to Hunter’s mind through their contact. Strange that they seemed to have to be touching for them to sense the opposite sex of the creatures. She would have to ponder that later.

Once the humanoid group was safely within sight of the compound and Hunter had declared that their ‘shadows’ were retreating back to their own territory, the group heaved a collective sigh of relief and dispersed to see to chores for the evening. Ri sank to one of the stone benches, suddenly very tired from the outing and the encounter with the beings. Her head was swimming and she felt unaccountably weary. Hunter murmured her name and quickly scooped her into his arms, cuddling her close as he took her to their quarters. She tried protesting, but he shushed her.

“Let me take care of you,” he sighed against her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I fear that you have not had nearly enough of that in recent years, and you deserve it.”

“I can take care of myself,” she muttered, her feminist pride stung. He chuckled, the sound rumbling against her shoulder and head where it rested on his chest.

“I know you can, little warrior,” he assured her, kicking open their door and quickly moving to lay her on his bed. “You are strong, wise, and have a will that matches my own, perhaps surpasses it sometimes. But you are home and I am here, and as long as I am beside you, you do not have to be strong.”

She stared up at him, tears in her eyes at his sweet, fervent words. He knelt beside the bed, stroking her hair back from her face as she looked at him. “Just let me take care of you, eh? You do not always have to be my little warrior.”

“Neither do you,” she whispered, reaching up to tuck a lock of his long hair back behind his ear, then lingering with her palm on his cheek. He turned slightly to press a kiss to her palm, letting his cheek nestle in her hand for just a moment. “You can rest, too, when you need to.”

“I know,” he said simply, smiling tenderly at her. “With my little warrior there to stand guard, I know that I can be weak when I must. It is good to have someone that you can be weak with and strong for, isn’t it, my sweet Arianna?”

She smiled and nodded, then let him cover her with the blankets. She sighed and relaxed against the mattress and pillows, sinking into their softness. Hunter hummed to her beneath his breath, his hand stroking her hair until she drifted off into sleep.