Olivia (25 page)

“Urga walked the world, and this time, she did not bother with calling for her mate.  She stalked him like a cougar, with claws hidden but at the ready.  And after many days had passed, she found him coupling with Bahgree on the banks of a river.

“Urga began to be furious, and then she saw how sick and thin and weak he was, even as he thrashed in the River Woman’s grip.  Dawn came at last, and Bahgree slipped back into the waters, leaving the Great Spirit unconscious on the shore.  Urga ran to him, but when he opened his eyes, there was no memory of her inside them.  Urga realized that Bahgree was stealing the life and the soul out of the Great Spirit, and she vowed to have vengeance done.  First, she moved the Great Spirit’s sick and sleeping body away from the river.  Then, she used her powers to transform herself into the shape of the Great Spirit, and she lay down on the river bank to wait for Bahgree.

“When night fell, Bahgree rose from the waters, as naked and beautiful as ever, and she moved towards the transformed Urga with a mocking smile.  Urga grabbed hold of Bahgree’s arms, then changed back into her true form, and began to fight with Bahgree.  Bahgree struggled, trying to go back into the water, for there she would be safe, but Urga flew with her up into the sky and then plummeted back to the ground, pounding Bahgree into the rocks again and again until she pounded all the power out of Bahgree’s body.  Helpless, Bahgree fell to her knees in the sand, begging for her life.

“‘You shall live,’ Urga told her.  ‘But the earth will never welcome you again, and you shall have no power over it and its kind.  You will be as water, formless and cold, forever cursed.’  And then she kicked Bahgree in the side and sent her scurrying away into the water.

“Now,” Murgull continued, “You would think that would teach Bahgree a lesson, but Bahgree was angry now, and she wanted revenge.  With her watery body, she returned to the Great Spirit while Urga whelped her new child up in the sky.  Even without her powers, Bahgree could not be resisted, and the Great Spirit coupled with her for many days, until he sparked inside her.

“When Urga came back to the world and found Bahgree’s belly swollen with child, she was furious, at the Great Spirit as well as Bahgree.  Urga ripped a handful of fur from the Great Spirit’s back.  ‘To remind you what you should avoid!’ she spat, and threw the fur at Bahgree’s sex, where it remains to this day.

“But Bahgree had what she wanted.  She bore a little, bald female child in her own image.  Wingless, hairless except for the hair that flowed down her back like water, and the curse Urga had placed on her sex.  That child was the first true human, and all of your kind are born of her.  Bahgree’s daughter, like Bahgree herself, continued to breed among Urga’s children, seducing males away from their mates and driving them mad with passion.”

“That’s kind of a scary story,” Olivia said slowly.  “Is that…Is that really what gullan believe?  That humans are descended from…from a demon?”

“Old stories.”  Murgull shrugged.  “Legends.  Was the first elk truly born from the hollows of a tree that Tovorak the First One struck with his spear?  Were the first fish truly beads of semen that spilled down Bahgree’s leg as she crawled back into the river, eh?  Long nights and cold winters have a way of making stories, and stories have a way of changing from one age to another.”

“Don’t you have any other stories about humans?”

“Many.” 

“True stories?”

Murgull eyed her, pulling and scratching at the loose folds of her neck.  “A thousand years ago, they say, when this tribe was new, one of its hunters spied a human female bathing, and was so inflamed with desire that he stayed all night, watching her.  For nights, he followed her to her tribe and gazed on her, until he went mad with wanting her and carried her away, here to Hollow Mountain.  For days and nights, he lay with her in a secret lair, and at last she caught his spark.  But the crying of the child drew many ears and his tribe discovered her.  The leader cast mother and child both from a cliff and killed them, driving her mate so mad with grief that he cut his wings and threw himself from the same cliff, so that he could lie with their broken bodies forever.”

“Do you think it really happened?” Olivia asked.

“I have never found anyone who did not believe it,” Murgull said.  “Especially now, because it says our kinds may breed together.”

“Cheyenne…One of the other humans said that there’s been some bad feelings from some of the other gullan who don’t have human mates.”

“True, very true.”  Murgull rubbed at her neck.  “Feelings and more than just feelings.  There has been talk, dark talk, angry talk.  They fear you, yes, fear your human powers and the madness you hide in your smooth bodies, but fear does not keep them from wanting to bury their little pricks in a nice, tight hole.”  Murgull sneered, then gave Olivia a thoughtful sidelong stare.  “This Cheyenne, eh?  Does she call herself the Mojo Woman?”

“No, that’s someone else.  And you don’t have to be afraid of Mojo Woman anyway.”

“Afraid?”  Murgull straightened sharply, incredulously, then blew out a gust of her witchiest laughter.  “You think old Murgull is afraid of that poison-spitting fool?  Ha!  Ha ha!  I have crushed more than one snake in my days, oh I have!  I fear nothing in all this mountain, and nothing under your human sky either.  Ha.  But she does your kind no good with her talk of trapping souls.”

“I know.  I only just learned my mate’s name, after all this time.”

“And you are the first, I think.”  The old gulla eyed her, rubbing at her neck.  “Brave man, to give a daughter of Bahgree such power over him.  He must truly trust you.”

“Maybe he just finds me irresistible.  He told me my name was like water to him.  He compared me to a river.”  Olivia looked up, hurt.  “Does he really think of me that way?  Like Bahgree?”

“And is it so terrible to be irresistible?  Is it such a curse to drive men mad when they come to your pit, eh?”

“I guess not,” Olivia grumbled.  “Sure feels that way sometimes.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, nothing.”  Olivia raised both arms and dropped them in a shrug of mingled embarrassment and exasperation.  “He just does so little for me.  Most of the time, he just…gets on and gets off, you know?”

Murgull snorted.

“And he’s big,” Olivia added.  “So when I’m not, you know, into it, it’s a lot like getting hit with a hammer a few hundred times, every damn night.”

“He’s a man, little sister.  A good man, eh?  A brave man, strong man, but just a man.  And men are cattle.”  She ran her eye critically down Olivia’s body and grunted speculatively.  “What they know is enough only to sink their tool in the right pit.  Anything else, they must be taught.  If you do not teach him, you cannot blame him.”

“I’ve tried!” she protested.  “Sometimes it works.  Sometimes…we’re just not built the same way, Murgull!”

Murgull heavy hand smacked cheerfully down on her shoulder, knocking Olivia sprawling.  “Little sister, you speak words I understand very well.  Stand up and let old Murgull have a look at you.”

Olivia stood up and held still while the old gulla poked at her chest and stomach and pinched her thigh, but did let out a startled scream when Murgull lifted her skirt.  Murgull recoiled, blinking at her as if surprised, then walloped her up the side of her head and lifted up the skirt again, this time actually wedging her hand between Olivia’s thighs to prod impersonally at her pussy.

“What in the hell are you doing?”  Olivia scrambled back, shoving her skirt down with both fists.

Murgull caught her by the gold buckle of her belt and hauled her roughly back, thumped her down on the bench, and pointed one claw menacingly at her face.  “You want help, eh?  Or just to moan and whine?”

“Hey, I am not where the problem is!”

“Ha!  You want pleasure in the pit, you learn to give it!  And you will not find another female in this mountain who will tell the leader’s mate so freely of the ways of coupling, eh?  Now, when the making of whelps is so forbidden?”

There was that.  Olivia kept a protective grip on her skirt, frowning, but she was thinking of Cheyenne, whose captor was apparently risking castration when he snuck out for a tumble with his hideous girlfriend.

Still…

“I’ll answer questions,” she said, “but I’m not showing you my stuff.”

Murgull’s good eye narrowed.  “Do you want help?” she asked again, blackly.  “Or just to moan and whine?”

Damn it.  Olivia fidgeted on the bench for several scathing seconds, and finally threw up her hands and sat furiously back.  “Help,” she said mutinously.

“Then shut your flapping mouth.”  Murgull hunched over to jab at her some more, muttering and rubbing at the scars of her neck.  “Problem is, you feel too much, I think.  Thin skin, little body…flimsy claws good for nothing.  And this!”  She pulled the skirt up to aim a ferocious scowl at Olivia’s naked pubis.  “It does not take a big man to hammer at that tiny hole!”

“We are,” Olivia said, gritting her teeth, “just exactly the right size for our own males.”

“Must be, I suppose, since there are so many humans.”  Murgull leaned down to sniff once, her grotesque face furrowing in concern.  “Strong musk, even now.  Potent.  Not always a good thing.  But a powerful thing, yes, that much is so.  So!”  She struck her hands briskly together.  “Your hands are nearly useless against your male.  Good heavy pelt on that one, and skin is too thick anyway.  But there are things even you can do.  Old Murgull will show you.”

11

Vorgullum was filling the fuel box when Olivia finally returned to his lair.  He looked up warily, as though he suspected she might attack him, but at the same time suggesting that he might not be too difficult to conquer.  She smiled at him, and went to pick at the remains of the supper he had brought.

“It is well past nightfall,” he said, joining her.  “Where have you been?” 

“With Murgull,” she answered vaguely, picking up the TIME magazine and flipping through it while she ate.  She wasn’t entirely sure he would approve of the kind of girl-chat she had been engaging in with the tribe’s oldest nuisance.  When she’d taken the edge off her hunger, Olivia put down her magazine, clasped her hands in her lap and gave him her most direct and interested stare.  “What did you do today?”

He seemed taken aback by the question, enough that he had to stop and think about the answer.  “I went out with a hunting party to search for game.  We have not had fresh meat for a day now.  My chief hunter found a herd of elk, and we killed two, butchered them, and brought them back.”

“Big elk?”

He gave her one of his crooked little smiles.  “Elk only come big.  And these were males,” he added.  “Strong bulls, with antlers as long as my leg.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No, no,” he assured her, simultaneously swelling his chest.  “After all, there were four of us, and we each had spears.  Of course,” he added, “one of the others was hurt.  Badly scratched.  From here to here,” he informed, drawing a line from his shoulder across his chest.

“But you were so quick and strong,” Olivia purred, dropping her eyelids and giving him a long, smoky look.  “My mate, the fierce hunter.”  As with any male, the best stroke was always to the ego.  Olivia didn’t even need Murgull’s advice for that one. “My own strong bull.  My wild, passionate elk.  Elk are passionate, right?”

“When they rut.”

“Are they rutting now?”

“Very soon.”

“You’ll have to hunt them again after they start, so you can come back to me with their spirit inside you and be my passionate elk.”

“Now you are teasing me,” he said, but he was smiling. 

“A little.  But I’m still impressed.” On impulse, she leaned forward and raised her chin.

He touched a claw to her inviting forehead, then bent and pressed his brow to hers. “I would rather hear your simple words of praise than songs of adoration, but they did please me, even so.  You make me very happy, my mate.”

“I am glad.”  She looked up at him, studying his face as though it was new to her again.  “And I want to be happy, too.”

He leaned back, a guarded expression turning him briefly to stone.  “What would you have me do?”

“Would you relax?” she said, and laughed a little.  “I think I’m past asking to be dropped off at the nearest human camp.”

His expression never changed, but some of the tension went out of the rigid way in which he was holding himself.  “Are you?”

“At this point, my miraculous appearance back home would cause more problems than either one of us could live with.”  The reality of this squeezed her heart once in sorrow.  “Believe me.”

“You do not…wish to return to your home?”

“Oh, I do.  But I can’t.  Even if I did, after all this time…”  This wasn’t going at all the way she intended.  She sighed.  “I think I killed the mood.  Can we just sleep…just for tonight?”

He was considerate enough not to look disappointed.  Vorgullum turned his attention to banking the fire while Olivia undressed and crawled into the pit.  When he came to stretch out beside her, she snuggled into his chest.

“My brave hunter,” she murmured.

She felt him smile against the nape of her neck.

“Not even a scratch.”

He thrummed.

“My fearless warrior.”

“If you wish to sleep, I suggest you do so before I am possessed by the spirit of a rutting elk.  I have seen them mate twelve times without rest.  You are warned.”

She drowsed a little while, feeling his body gradually relax, then reached up and tugged gently on his chin until he opened his eyes.  She said, “I am going to do such things to you tomorrow.”

He swelled at once against her thigh.

“Good night,” she said, and rolled over.

12

Olivia wasn’t certain quite when she dropped off to sleep, but she was awakened in the middle of the night by Vorgullum tossing restlessly beside her.  She lifted herself partway out of the pit and glared at him, as though doing that would force him to be still.

He groaned sleepily, muttered something unintelligible under his breath and started to roll over.  He pinched his wing, gave a weak yelp and rolled back onto his side.  For a moment, he was still.  Then he sucked in a deep breath, released it in a sigh that carried her name, and began to snore.