The Lord of the Plains (36 page)

‘Hmm.’ he said curiously, which was a better
reaction than Riley had hoped for. He’d been so unreasonable about
the giant cats. ‘I can’t say.’ he said finally. ‘If it came from
the north there’s a good chance it would speak a version of Bedon,
but you don’t know that. I can’t say if it would know anything
else. Do you intend to talk to it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘To avoid a fight.’ If they could come to
some agreement perhaps the drakilis would not have to be
harmed.

‘Well, unfortunately you don’t know
Bedon.’

‘Could you teach me?’

‘Could I teach you?’ he spluttered. ‘In one
night?’

At her unrelenting gaze, he muttered under
his breath. ‘Oh I could force the words into your head.’ he said
grimly. ‘But you wouldn’t be able to do much else while you held on
to them. You’d forget them very quickly.’

‘I just need to talk to it.’

‘If it attacks you’ll have to let the words
go to fight.’

‘Then I’ll let them go.’

Aerlid glared at her. ‘Very well. Let’s see
what we can do.’

First Aerlid taught her a few simple words
in ancient Bedon. It was a guttural language, but he had taught her
a gemeng language with those sorts of sounds before so she could
make them without too much difficulty.

The word he taught her was, ‘yield.’

After that he put his hands on her brow.
Whatever it was he did it made her eyes water and her head throb.
But when he talked she could understand, though it was like
listening through water. And then it just trickled away.

‘You’ll have to hold it. It’ll be very
difficult, but you should be able to hold it for a day. Once you
let go though, it’s gone.’

So she practiced. Once she learnt to grab
hold of the words with her mind the difficulty changed. It was like
gripping something that was constantly pushing her hands apart. He
was right. She couldn’t fight while holding on to it; it would be
difficult enough for her to walk to the lair.

They practiced for only a few hours.

He told her she needed to sleep. If she
intended to hold the words for any length of time, she had to be in
top form.

When Riley approached her unit, minus Jann,
she was not dressed in her military uniform.

They looked her over, wondering what this
meant.

She wore her black clothes, gifts from
Aerlid’s people. She had outgrown them some years ago so the
beautiful black fabric had been mended with dark blue Astarian
cloth. It was a patch work of an outfit, but she had always
intended to try and fight the drakilis as a gemeng, not an
Astarian. And that required proper clothes. With her clothes and
black hair, so different in colour and length than the Astarian’s,
she looked completely foreign.

In her arms, wrapped in furs and cloth, were
her dagger and Aerlid’s sword. The sword she’d had in childhood was
too small for her now. Aerlid had gotten her a proper sized one
from Garrondin some time ago, but he said if she was to fight a
drakilis she needed a real weapon. This presented a different
challenge, as she was not used to the balance and weight of his
weapon. Despite knowing this, Aerlid had insisted that the switch
was worth it.

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ Geilar
asked.

It was a real struggle to answer. She almost
lost her hold. She felt some words trickle away and hoped they
weren’t important. ‘I intend to fight it as a gemeng. Alone.
Please, lead me to the lair. I must remain silent to prepare.’

That was all she could say as she was losing
her hold on the words fast.

Seeing the intent look on her face, and
being aware this had likely been her intention all along, her unit
did as she bid.

Riley remembered little of the trek to the
lair. She didn’t know where her unit waited, all she knew was that
she was alone and that was good.

‘Hello?’ she said in Bedon, and hoped Aerlid
had guessed right about the drakilis’ language.

She could not become aware of her
surroundings in this state. She was very vulnerable.

‘What enters my lair uninvited?’ the words
came slowly to her, but she understood them.

‘I wish to talk.’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘The people who live near here are
frightened of you.’

‘As they should be.’

She let more words trickle away as something
tickled her senses. The world came into focus. The creature was
silently approaching. Riley let the furs fall away from her
weapons.

‘They have sent me to fight you.’ the words
were coming slower now, ‘but if they are not….’ blank. Her mind
went blank and she froze. She rifled through the words, trying to
find one to fit. Anything. Something creeping closer.

She took a few swings with Aerlid’s
sword.

‘We can come to an understanding. We don’t
need to fight.’

The sound of claws on stone.

The sound of rushing air.

The words dropped away, gone forever.

She rolled to the side as the drakilis
lunged for her, barely missing.

The words were gone, her head ached and
throbbed, but she could fight.

The cave was dark and musty. She glanced
towards the entrance and was surprised to see night had fallen. Her
eyes had adjusted while she had been holding on to the words, and
she could make out the shape of the drakilis. Longer than her, and
slender. It was crouched over in the cave and had two legs and two
arms with a human shaped head above.

She stuck her dagger into her belt and again
made a few practice swings with Aerlid’s sword.

The creature crept around her. Riley
followed it, turning so it could not get behind her.

Riley was not too disappointed her talk had
failed, not really. She wanted to know how strong she was. She had
passed the tests twice, but she didn’t feel weak. She didn’t feel
like she was only a little stronger than a human. She would defeat
it, and then they would talk again. She only knew one word now, it
would have to be enough.

The drakilis darted forward, jaws snapping.
Human shaped head, but not a human shaped
mouth
. Riley was
forced to back away. The cave wall hit her back. She slashed with
her sword and felt resistance as flesh was met. But not enough, the
drakilis came on. She slashed again, ducked, stabbed with a dagger
that was suddenly in her hand. Spun, she was free. She stood.

She was back in the centre of the cave. The
drakilis was making sounds of pain. It turned slowly. They circled
each other warily.

This time she went on the attack first. She
feinted with her sword and while the drakilis was focussed on that
she attacked with her dagger.

She struck home. It squealed and thrashed. A
claw caught her side as she moved away.

Before she could recover the drakilis lunged
at her. It spread out, taking up the entire space.

With no room to manoeuvre Riley was forced
to attack.

She parried one claw with her dagger. In the
same movement she thrust forward with the sword. It staggered. She
slashed again and it retreated.

‘Yield!’ she called. Her hip was burning and
her right arm was stinging from the un-parried claw.

The squeals turned into growls, growls that
perhaps meant something, but not anymore.

Riley went into guard position as she called
again, ‘yield!’

It tried to rise, failed. Then with
astonishing speed it lunged at her.

Riley was ready. She dodged and slashed, and
found herself on the other side of the cave.

‘Yield!’

On the opposite side of the cave the
drakilis was still.

Cautiously, she said again, ‘yield.’

‘Yield.’ it growled grudgingly.

Riley carefully began approaching, still
keeping her weapons up. It was injured. If it had truly yielded,
she could do something for its wounds before leaving.

In a fluid movement she stuck her dagger
back into her belt and stretched out her hand to touch the
drakilis.

Suddenly the drakilis lunged again, teeth
gleaming. Riley sprung back. It came on, its claws scraping, caught
flesh. She fell and slashed with Aerlid’s sword.

A scream.

Riley breathing heavily, shuffled away,
still on the ground. Her eyes remained on the drakilis.

It thrashed, claws sharper than knives and
teeth even worse gnashing and scraping. Then it fell still.

Dead.

She stood and looked down at the creature.
It was then that she felt regret. She had not come here intending
to kill it.

The regret faded. She had fought. It had
fought. She had won.

She left the cave to bring the news to her
unit and the villagers of Garrondin.

And some far more important news to
Aerlid.

As she walked down the trail that she didn’t
remember, the vision of the Plains from the cliff played through
her mind. She wanted to know. The drakilis had not really tested
her. She wanted to be tested. She wanted to know.

The Plains would tell her.

PART 2

Chapter 28

Cavachi was hard to miss.

‘Don’t be alarmed when you see them,’
Messenger repeated for the umpteenth time. ‘They don’t look like
us, but they are human.’

Mr Briggs grunted. ‘So you’ve said. Just
concentrate on flying. Do you think I can’t remember that?’

Messenger had flown this way dozens of times
since he had first become lost and stumbled across Cavachi. Today
he was not flying a Predator. A Predator had room for only one
person. Today he was finally taking one of the members of the
Council of Astar to Cavachi. Mr Briggs was also the leader of the
military. As a councilman outranked the Commander of the Astar
Military, Briggs was known as Mr Briggs, not Commander Briggs. He
was a grim, stern, forbidding man, just as all the other officers
in the army were, so that didn’t bother Messenger much.

They were approaching the mountains. The
view still held the power to take his breath away.

What bothered Messenger was his reaction to
the Vachi. Messenger had been stunned when he’d landed to
investigate the towering elegance rising from the side of the
mountain. It had been risky, but he’d never seen any building so
beautiful. He’d taken the risk, and he thought it’d been well worth
it, even if this meeting between the leaders of Astar and Cavachi
went badly.

If Cavachi itself had stunned him, the
people had shocked him even more. And then they’d told him humans
had once come in many different shapes, sizes and colours, before
the gemengs had fractured and nearly exterminated their race.

He had never known humans could be anything
except pale-skinned, with mostly blonde or light brown hair. A
human with black hair was unusual enough. A human with black
skin?

‘I’m sure you can, sorry, sir.’