The Lord of the Plains (3 page)

As they entered the town Riley looked around
entranced. She had never seen anything like it. Her small mind was
overloaded as her eyes flicked from one vision to the next.

To Aerlid it was an entirely different view.
The fact that it bore such a resemblance to human settlements was
both surprising and not, but then that was why he’d chosen this
place out of many others. It was a small settlement, with one main
road and two side streets that intersected the main road. A cursory
glance showed a dilapidated, run down place, most likely abandoned.
If one cared to look closer, they would see that despite the
boarded, or just plain empty windows, the sagging rooves and tilted
walls, the buildings were all sturdily built. Despite appearances,
it would take more than a small breeze to level the village.

Aerlid stopped just before the first house
on the main street. Riley stopped with him once she noticed.

Silence.

Riley finally looked over her little
shoulder at him, her brow furrowed and a pout on her lips. It was
an expression that clearly said ‘What are we
doing
?’.
Despite her impatience she remained silent and after a final glare
she turned back to the village.

The silence continued. Riley rocked back on
heels a few times then stopped. Aerlid remained still. Stillness
suited the girl well, but not today as today was supposed to be an
exciting day.

Finally Riley sighed and walked back towards
him. She stood in front of him and frowned. ‘Well?’

‘They’ll come out.’
I think
.

Riley had no idea what they were. She had no
image to associate with the word ‘gemeng’, and so Riley had
alternately imagined rabbits, deers and mountain tigers. She had
settled on mountain tigers, and was now very much looking forward
to living with them. Still, she did not ask. Instead she just sat
down to wait, the anticipation of the promised surprise fading
away.

Soon after Aerlid joined her.

When night fell Aerlid lit a fire. He made a
soup of some dried meat and vegetables they carried with them.
Riley was a poor cook. She had an unsettling habit of throwing
everything in reach into the pot. Aerlid hoped she’d grow out of
it.

They ate. Aerlid glanced up at the slim
crescent of the moon and sighed. Would it frighten them to hear
singing in the night? He had an idea that the people of this
village might be frightened by just about anything. He kept his
gaze riveted on the moon but remained silent. Tonight the song
remained in his heart.

As the fire died down Riley curled up and
slept. Aerlid remained awake.

When the sun rose over the horizon the next
morning Riley awoke, though she did not move. She waited, her
senses reminding her of her surroundings, and slowly got up, her
movements suggesting she was more asleep then she really was. She
often tried to surprise Aerlid in the morning with this trick.

After the pinks and golds had disappeared
from the horizon, and dusky blue had changed to a more lively hue,
Aerlid began making breakfast.

He stirred the pot, murmuring to himself. It
had been so long since he had such things as bread and butter. What
he could do with such things. Riley blinked sleepily in the morning
light, apparently uninterested in his talk.

It was when he was just about ready to serve
the reheated soup that a man emerged from a house two blocks up
from them, right at the opposite edge of the town.

Aerlid did not stop what he was doing,
though he looked up carefully. The man stood alone in the middle of
the street.

He was tall and wide, his face covered in
bristly brown fur. Human eyes glared at the two interlopers over a
muzzle of a boar. He wore clothes; an unremarkable outfit
consisting of shirt, trousers and a belt of a dirty grey colour.
His muscles bulged and strained against the feeble fabric. It was
something of a miracle that it didn’t tear.

‘WHAT ARE YOU?!’ the beast roared.

Riley blinked in surprise and looked over
her shoulder at the creature. Her eyes sharpened. A foe? Could she
beat it or should she run? It looked strong. How fast was it? Where
should she run? All these thoughts went through her mind in the
moment between noticing the beast and the animal intelligence
coming into her eyes.

Aerlid slowly rose to his feet. ‘We are not
threat.’ he said quietly, his normal, even tone sounded hushed and
pale after the roar of the beast.

‘WHAT ARE YOU?!’ louder this time. The
ground shook.

Aerlid was aware of Riley’s slow and careful
movements as she got into a position to run.

‘We are gemengs.’ Aerlid said, just as
softly. ‘We do not wish to be a threat.’

With a stupendous roar the beast raised his
arms above his head. Then he slammed his fist into the earth. There
was a rumble and crack as if like thunder, and then like lightening
a crack in the earth opened and zig-zagged its way towards the two.
Riley swiftly moved out of the way and into the shadow of the
nearest house, out of sight of the beast. The crack stopped. In
front of the fire. The earth trembled.

Aerlid held his hands out, palms up and
slowly moved towards the beast. ‘We mean you no harm. We can defend
ourselves, but we mean you no harm.’

The beast trembled.

Aerlid stopped. ‘We wish to stay here a
while. May we?’

‘You mean no harm?’ the beast rumbled.

‘No harm.’

There was silence. Somewhere, a crow cawed.
‘You know the lord of this land? You know his men?’

‘I have heard he is fearsome. I have heard
his men are too. But we mean no harm, we wish to stay a while.’

The beast was afraid, Riley knew. She did
not need to think it. Many animals were afraid of her. That didn’t
mean they weren’t dangerous though.

With great reluctance the beast said, ‘you
may stay…as long as you don’t make any trouble.’

‘We will make no trouble.’

With a sound that was surprisingly sweet
after the roars that had been pounding from him before, the beast
summoned the rest of the villagers from their houses. Slowly they
came. Not all were like him. Some had skin like Riley. Some had
fangs. But all walked on two legs and had two arms. This was a
great change to Riley, as few animals behaved in this manner. With
uncharacteristic curiosity she approached from her hiding place
near the side of the house.

As the villagers saw that the newcomers were
not attacking them, were not trying to steal them away or flatten
their houses, they relaxed. Even the beast seemed less afraid.

And thus began their life in the gemeng
settlement of no name, known only to its inhabitants as home.

Chapter 3

Living in the settlement was in some ways
very different to Riley’s previous life, though in other ways much
the same. Different, in that there were two legs everywhere. Two
legs her size, two legs Aerlid’s size. And they were not the same
as the wild creatures. They talked and lived in houses and wore
clothes. Riley and Aerlid did not live in a house. They had a camp
between the edge of the forest and the village, just prior to the
first house. Their food was much the same as always, to Aerlid’s
disappointment. These people did not have fields or livestock. If
they had ever had such things they had long since been destroyed by
the lord of this land and his men. In fact, the diet of the
villagers was little different to what Aerlid and Riley ate. If
they did have things not from the forest they hid them well and
certainly did not share them with the outsiders.

Riley was wary of the large two legs. She
had seen the earth open at the roar of the beast (his name was
Olef), but the little two legs did not look much faster or stronger
than her. Those ones were safer until she understood the ways of
these creatures, and whether they were to be feared or not.

Aerlid spent most of his time in the
village, talking with and helping the other villagers. The rest of
the time he spent hunting and taking care of their camp (Riley of
course had to help with such things), and teaching Riley. He was
different here than in the wild. He had paled and shrunk, become
smaller and weaker seeming than he actually was. And he no longer
sang to the moon. Riley noted that it had happened, understood
instinctively that the two legs feared them less because of this,
and she thought no more of it.

Riley learnt many strange and disturbing
things from the little two legs. Rarely did the girl display much
curiosity. When she did it was usually to learn about whether a new
thing was dangerous or not, and how might she fight or flee if it
became necessary? But here the world was so different that she was
forced to spy and listen carefully. At night she crept silently
between the houses and peered through windows, or when they were
boarded up and she could see little through the cracks she just
listened. The two legs did not see her, and that made her
happy.

One day she crept back to the camp,
carefully lest the possibly dangerous two legs sought to catch her
off guard while she was retreating. Aerlid was sitting by the fire,
warming his hands. He gave her a look of mild curiosity as she
approached before turning back to the fire.

‘Are you my father?’ She asked.

Aerlid’s attention swung firmly back to the
girl, he hesitated before asking, ‘do you know what a father
is?’

An uncertain look came over her face. She
had heard and seen things, and discovered that males and females
did unsettling things together, which resulted in the small two
legs. The small two legs created by the large ones, tended to live
with them and be looked after by them. ‘You can’t be my mother…’
she said hesitantly.

‘Oh can’t I?’ Aerlid said, his voice heavy
with sarcasm. The girl’s eyes flicked towards his and narrowed. She
had come to recognize that tone.

‘No Riley, I am not your father.’ Aerlid
relented.

Riley nodded slightly to show her
understanding, and then folded herself gracefully down until she
was sitting cross legged on the ground.

‘Do you want a father?’ Aerlid asked.

Riley looked at him blankly.

Aerlid sighed. Her lack of imagination was
baffling at times, he wondered if she would be the same had he
raised her among people and not in the wild. ‘You know animals have
mothers and fathers too, Riley.’ Aerlid said, his eyes back on the
fire.

‘That’s different.’

‘How is that different?’ he asked, somewhat
surprised she had picked this up.

‘They aren’t like me.’ and she grinned. ‘I’m
smarter than them.’

‘Is that all?’

Riley nodded vigorously.

Aerlid determined not to think any more
about how her mind worked. Dinner needed to be cooked and Riley
needed to be kept from putting dirt in the pot when he wasn’t
looking.

Aerlid watched Riley play with the gemeng
children, a slight frown on his face and a crease between his
brows.

Riley hovered around the edge of the group,
skirting out of reach of the other children whenever they came
close. As he watched a large, hairy child shoved another to the
ground. He had seen the same behaviour with the adults. The
children were really just mimicking their parents.

When Riley returned to the camp she was
tense and wary. Her eyes darted around, as if she expected someone
to jump out and attack her. Despite her discomfort, at least she
had not drawn her sword on the other children. The gemengs had been
suspicious of their weapons; her child sized sword and his, worn
beneath his coat. Gemengs did not have weapons like this. That
would require material, and the skill to shape it, and the gemengs
had neither.