The Lord of the Plains (5 page)

Olef said nothing, which said it all.

‘If you wish to eat it, I won’t stop you,
but be aware, you have not enough…you are not strong enough to gain
any benefit from consuming ehlkrid flesh.’

Olef bared his teeth. ‘Where is it?’

With a sigh Aerlid pointed into the forest.
‘Will you at least burn what you don’t eat?’

Olef nodded. ‘Aye.’

With that Olef and the rest of the villagers
headed into the forest.

Chapter 5

Riley shifted nervously in front of the
fire. Aerlid, tired, looked up at her questioningly.

‘I don’t like it here.’ she announced.

Aerlid paused. Neither did he. ‘The children
have been nicer since you saved one of them?’

She nodded. ‘I think…but…’ she glanced down.
They had been nicer. They’d been positively pleasant. ‘I don’t like
it here.’ She didn’t trust that niceness. She didn’t know what to
think of it, how long would it last? Was it truly meant or was it
just another game? She didn’t understand how things worked here…
she had made no friends and didn’t think she ever would make
friends with these people.

Aerlid nodded. ‘I think we should
leave.’

Her face brightened instantly. Aerlid felt a
pang of sadness at that. She’d smiled so rarely since they’d
arrived, she did not feel safe here. When she smiled her whole face
was transformed, as with most people. It was a bright, pleasing
sight to behold.

‘They ate the deer…’ she said uncertainly,
looking at him.

‘They did…’ he sighed, ‘some believe that
eating the flesh of…those things… will strengthen you. And for some
it does… but not for people such as these.’

‘For us?’

‘No.’ he said sharply, and instantly relaxed
as Riley looked relieved.

‘Can we leave soon?’

‘Tomorrow.’ he promised.

The next morning Aerlid informed Olef that
they would be leaving. He received a grunted acknowledgement in
response.

After, they packed up their small supplies
and buried what had been their fire pit.

As they stood ready to leave the children
and adults gathered in the village. Aerlid raised a hand in
farewell, as did Riley. They did not bear ill will towards these
people, but they weren’t comfortable or happy here. The solemn
group responded in kind.

They headed towards the forest. Riley turned
and asked Aerlid, ‘are you supposed to say something?’

Surprised and pleased she had asked he
replied, ‘farewell is good I believe.’

Riley turned back to the crowd and waved
again. This time she cried out, ‘farewell!!’

A few smiles broke out on the faces of the
children and adults. Then Aerlid and Riley turned their backs and
disappeared into the forest.

They travelled through the forest for many
weeks and Riley was happy. She was practically skipping along, when
she wasn’t climbing of course. And she never seemed to tire. They
stopped before it got dark so he might teach her more of fighting,
with and without a sword. While they travelled her lessons on the
world continued. It was a relief to Aerlid to see that she had not
been too damaged by her experience in the gemeng village. It was
also a relief to release himself. He was no longer pale and small.
Every night he sang to his heart’s content.

It was on one of these pleasant days of
travelling that Riley made her announcement. ‘I’m going to fight
with two weapons.’

Aerlid’s step slowed at that and then he
sped up again. ‘Two weapons?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Yes. I need to get a sword smaller than
this.’

‘You can make a dagger from stone, if you
want one you may make it yourself.’

Surprised, she said, ‘no, our weapons aren’t
made from stone!’

‘The hunting spears are.’ he frowned at
her.

‘I don’t want a hunting knife. I want a
dagger that is a weapon like your sword and mine.’ She said, quite
shocked that he didn’t understand this.

He looked at her in surprise, ‘what are you
going to do with it?’

‘Fight with it.’

Aerlid opened his mouth to say something and
then closed it. Where did she think these swords came from? Where
did she think he was going to get a dagger made from the same
material, further, where had she gotten this idea?! He’d certainly
never mentioned sword and dagger- or even sword and shield fighting
styles to her- mainly because he wasn’t familiar with them!

‘The sword you have now is little more than
a dagger. Perhaps when you’re older.’

‘When I’m as tall as you?’

‘I doubt you’ll get as tall as me.’

Riley looked at him askance. ‘Of course I
will.’

‘And how do you know that?’ he asked
desperately.

‘Because I get bigger all the time and you
stay the same.’

Aerlid was silent for some time before
saying, ‘you are going to stop growing, you know.’

Riley, quite stunned by this revelation,
said ‘no I won’t!’

‘You will. Once you reach a certain age
children stop growing.’

Riley was so shocked that the conversation
about swords and daggers ended right there.

After about three weeks of travelling Aerlid
began to detect the scent of the ocean in the air above the smells
of the forest. He began angling towards it. It had been a long time
since he had seen the ocean and it would be a nice change. Not long
after, they reached the coast, the forest never far away.

Riley was excited to see something new, but
Aerlid kept her on the side of him furthest from the ocean. It was
a beautiful thing, and he remembered happier times when he had swam
in it freely, but now he could not be sure of its safety.

The beach was not like the beaches he had
once swum from. The rough scrub and hardy grasses stopped at a
brown sheet of rock. Pits and cracks ran through the sheet, and
closer to the shore parts of it became more pebbly while in others
it retained its structure.

With the ocean calm, as it was now, the
rocks did not seem particularly dangerous, they did not look jagged
from this angle. Once strong waves came up, jagged or not, the
rocks would be very dangerous. But that was not why Aerlid kept
Riley away from the beach.

‘Are we going somewhere?’ Riley asked, as
they walked along the edge of the grass that marked the beginning
of the rocks.

The wind played with her hair and the sun
beat down from the cloudless sky, warming them pleasantly.

‘We are.’

Riley didn’t reply for a moment.

The lapping of the waves was peaceful.

‘Where are we going?’

‘A human city.’

Riley gave him a sidelong look.

‘It will be different to the village.’

‘Will they step on my fingers?’

‘Maybe, though not in the way the gemengs
did.’

‘Hmm…will they like me?’

‘That depends on how nice you are.’

‘I was nice to the two legs.’ She said after
a moment, her gaze focused ahead. She was swinging her legs in a
totally inefficient manner again. That meant she was happy, despite
her solemn tone.

‘Ay, but they aren’t like the gemengs. You
shouldn’t call them two legs.’

Riley didn’t bother arguing with that.

‘No snarling either.’

She didn’t respond. She had mostly grown out
of that habit anyway.

That night Aerlid was concerned about the
safety of camping near the beach. Something could crawl out of the
ocean and attack them, at least in the forest he was familiar with
the dangers. He could always stay up all night watching, but that
hardly seemed practical when the forest was so close.

Riley didn’t mind, so they returned to the
forest to prepare dinner and camp.

After dinner was finished and packed away
Aerlid sat and relaxed. He let himself forget about the mundane
concerns of life and became silent within. The night opened up with
a clarity that always astonished him. The breeze against his cheek,
the grass beneath him, the sounds of animals, the sounds of Riley.
When he was ready he opened his eyes and looked to the moon.

And he sang.

He sang in words Riley could not decipher,
though she grasped the edges of their meaning. They were words and
sounds she struggled to copy. But she knew the tune. And Riley
hummed along with him.

The next day they walked along the beach
again. Summer would soon be ending, today though was a lovely day
like yesterday. The days were usually lovely in this part of the
world.

The travelling was easy and pleasant.

Sometime after lunch Riley spotted a large
bird flying over the ocean. She watched it for a few moments,
noting that it did not skim the surface of the ocean and maintained
a large distance from it at all times. Then suddenly it darted down
and shot back up into the sky, a fish caught in its beak.

‘Dangerous..’ Aerlid murmured. He could
practically feel the relief of the bird as its flapping ceased its
frantic nature once it was far from the ocean again.