The Lord of the Plains (7 page)

The shine faded from his hair, the sense of
vitality and strength drained from him and his skin took on a more
leathery, lined look. His shoulders hunched slightly. ‘We are
human, we are not gemengs!’ He called again.

No answer. Aerlid glanced at Riley
critically. She didn’t appear
too
strange right now. Perhaps
because she was still sulking.

‘We have food, if we leave it with you will
it be welcome?’

No answer. Aerlid sighed and sat back on his
haunches. Someone was there, he was sure. A human most likely, to
live in such a craftily hidden home. What a human was doing out
here was anyone’s guess. A pity it didn’t trust them though.

‘Stand up slowly. Keep your hands up and
turn around.’

Aerlid fell still at the hard, cold voice
behind them. So lost in thought was he that he hadn’t noticed
whoever it was sneaking up on them. Seiaan, he thought idly, they
speak Seiaan here. That was good, he and Riley spoke mainly in
Akran, but Seiaan was similar (or the version he knew was), and
less complicated, and he had taught it to Riley.

Slowly, Aerlid obeyed. He saw Riley had done
the same. She did not look frightened, just curious, and he could
see why.

A frown lit across his features as he saw
who had ordered him up. A dull, greenish helmet covered its head
and tough, opaque (he assumed only from this angle) glass (or some
other material) covered half its face, leaving only a thin line for
a mouth below. It wore a suit of what he could only assume was
armour. There was plating of the same colour as the helmet over its
chest and thighs and arms. It was attached to what looked like
padding. The plating was very thin, and the padding covered it from
neck to wrists to ankles. It hands were covered in gloves and it
wore sturdy boots on its feet. In its hands it was holding a long
thin
something
. Aerlid had no idea what it was, but
considering the strangeness of its armour he could only assume it
was some kind of weapon.

‘What are you doing here? This is a
restricted area.’

‘We are travellers, we did not know it was
restricted.’ Aerlid said calmly. How much damage could that thing
do, he wondered?

‘Travellers.’ he sounded like he didn’t
believe them.

‘Yes, travellers, faya.’ Aerlid said, using
the Seiaan term for someone with authority.

‘You claim to be human.’

Aerlid glanced at Riley out of the corner of
an eye. Could he claim her as well? ‘I am.’ he said, ‘my companion
is not.’

The weapon quickly turned to point at Riley.
She was gazing at it, with wide bright eyes.

‘We are carrying much meat with us, when I
saw the smoke I thought someone might be willing to take it, that
is all, faya. I meant no offense.’

‘Hmph. Where are you travelling to?’

‘Uh…the house of my mother.’ He did not know
the name of the place they travelled too.

‘You’re taking a gemeng to see your
mother.’

‘She is the daughter of my sister, faya.’ He
lied, a hint of sorrow entering his voice. ‘A gemeng…’ he glanced
quickly at Riley, who was paying no attention to him whatsoever. ‘I
prefer not to speak of it in front of her, if it pleases you faya.
My sister did not survive and I have been looking after her
daughter ever since.’

‘Hmph. Your mother lives in Astar?’

Aerlid nodded, ‘Yes, faya.’ It was somewhat
galling to be so obsequious to this man.

‘Fine. I’ll escort you out of the area. When
you get to Astar you’ll have to be tested…I can’t say they’ll let
the…gemeng…in.’

Aerlid nodded sadly.

He gestured for them to precede him. He
walked behind them, the weapon still pointed at their backs. ‘You
can put your hands down now.’ He said after a while.

‘What place is this?’ Aerlid asked after a
while. He did not see any other humans or signs of habitation.
Craftily hidden indeed.

‘Resource extraction.’ he replied after a
few tense moments. ‘Very well defended.’ He added, a warning note
in his voice.

What did he think they would do? Go find
some big mean gemengs and tell them there were humans here? Aerlid
did not respond, though he was curious nonetheless. He was pleased
Riley wasn’t asking about the weapon though. Of all the things in
the world, the one thing that engaged her curiosity was fighting
and all things related. Yet she seemed a surprisingly peaceful
child, at least compared to the gemeng children.

They walked for almost an hour before the
guard called a halt. The hills here didn’t look any different to
the hills anywhere else, though Aerlid supposed they were.

‘Keep walking that way.’ the guard pointed.
‘Stay away from this area.’

Aerlid looked around. ‘It all looks the
same.’

A small smile tugged at the guard’s mouth.
‘Good. Just don’t wander to the east and you should be fine.’

‘Thank you, faya. May the Lord and Lady
bless you.’

The guard frowned a bit and nodded, though
he didn’t move.

‘Faya, would you take any meat?’

The guard hesitated. ‘Leave it here.’

With a smile Aerlid quickly removed his pack
and began piling up meat they didn’t really need. He left a little
under half in his pack. ‘Thank you!’ Aerlid said, with a deal more
meaning than before, then quickly added, ‘faya.’

‘Off you go now.’ And the guard made a
gesture with his weapon.

Aerlid took Riley’s shoulder and they
started walking. He was aware of the guard watching them for a
while. Aerlid didn’t turn around to check if he left.

Riley, thankfully, did not ask about the
‘creature’, as she put it, until the next morning.

The hills had ended and they were back in a
forest. Riley was happy. He had told her from now on they were only
to speak Seiaan together, something she had accepted without
comment. She was bouncing around and climbing and running all over
the place. So much so that Aerlid ended up carrying her coat more
often than she did.

The forest here was different to the one
that Riley perhaps thought of as home, if she thought of any place
like that. For one, there were no leaves and the trees were stark
and bare. Riley knew what that meant. She gave the trees a
sorrowful look, Aerlid a dark one and climbed anyway.

‘Will we be gone before it gets cold?’ Riley
asked hopefully, speaking in Seiaan, not Akran. Her Seiaan was not
as good as her Akran.

‘I do not think so.’

He stifled a laugh at the expression on her
face. ‘We are almost there I think.’

‘We’re going to live here.’ her tone was
expressionless.

‘Aye.’

Riley didn’t talk to him for the next few
days.

Two days after Riley started talking to him
again they found a road. Riley was thrilled. She had only ever seen
a road in the gemeng village and so they were very new to her. And
this one was much wider than the road in the gemeng village, though
still only made of dirt. Aerlid looked back over his shoulder and
saw the road came from the west. They had come from a more
south-easterly direction.

Not long after that they found an encampment
just off the side of the road. More ‘creatures’ patrolled the
encampment and appeared to be in the process of moving people out
of it.

‘You failed the test. You can’t stay here.’
They heard from somewhere within the camp, and more like it.

Riley stayed close to Aerlid, her expression
closed.

The camp was small and consisted of tents
and bedrolls in a rough circle beside the road. Gemengs roamed
through it. Mostly, these gemengs were skinned, though there were
some furry, scaly, strange looking ones too. Some sat shivering by
fires, others watched the human guards as they hurried the gemengs
who had already been tested out of human lands. ‘If you don’t leave
within 24 hours of failing your test we
will
shoot you. Now
move!’

Aerlid stayed on the side of the road
furthest from the camp and they hurried on. They rounded a corner
and stopped suddenly, for there was a line right in front of them.
At the end of the line was a block of a building. Riley peered
around the line at it curiously. Another thing she had never
seen.

Aerlid raised his eyes above the block,
above the trees and saw, barely visible, the tops of buildings. He
lowered his eyes, his heart beating fast. He had seen cities that
made anything the humans had ever made look like little more than
the encampment back there, still…it had been a long,
long
time…

‘Excuse me, faya.’ Aerlid spoke politely to
the man ahead of him. ‘What is this line for?’

The man turned around, revealing small,
watery eyes with two small horns just above. ‘For the testing
centre.’ he said, his voice so thick it was hard to understand
him.

‘Thank you.’ Aerlid said and the man turned
back around.

Riley was looking up at him. ‘We will stay
in this line for now.’ Riley’s brow crinkled. Aerlid thought he
would have to explain the theory of queues to her while they were
here…another thing she had never come across. ‘Then we will go
through that building, and perhaps after we will be in Astar.’

‘Astar.’ Riley sounded the word out. ‘Is it
a tree?’

‘…No. It is a…it is like a village, but
bigger.’

For a second she looked small and
frightened. She moved a bit closer to him. Aerlid, a fond smile on
his face, patted her head. Slowly and subtly, he began fading and
changing. Riley glanced at him once and paid no more attention to
his change.

The line moved forward slowly. As it moved
he thought. Aerlid, he thought, was not a very human name. And they
were bound to mispronounce it and call him ‘Erlid’ or ‘Arlid’
instead of ‘Ay-erlid’ (the first syllable was pronounced like ‘hay’
without the ’h’). Riley had called him ‘Erlid’ for a while, though
that was excusable in a child, and certainly in a child who could
not even pronounce her own name. She had decided Riley was the
appropriate way to shorten her name and that was what she had been
ever since.

To Riley he said, ‘Call me Arntar.’

‘Arntar.’ she repeated after a moment,
testing it.

‘Now, what’s a good Seiaan family name…?
Meilis. I’ll be Arntar Meilis and you’ll be Riley Meilis.’

‘Arntar Meilis. Riley Meilis.’ She mimicked,
not showing the slightest interest in her new name.

‘That’s right.’ He told her.

And that was the end of that.

That night they camped in line, and the next
too. Once again, Aerlid refrained from singing. He heard from the
people around him that weapons weren’t allowed into Astar. The
gemengs in line advised him to leave his weapons with the guards,
if he failed he’d want them back. The next morning they were
standing in front of glass doors, at the head of the line.

Two guards stood at the door, one on either
side. A third stood in front, he was directing people into the
centre.

‘You,’ he gestured at Aerlid. ‘You’re a
gemeng?’ he asked.

‘No… but my companion,’ and he patted
Riley’s head. She looked up and smiled beautifully at the guard,
‘is a gemeng, faya.’

‘Hn. Well, you can go in together. They’ll
check you too, just to make sure. Some gemengs try and pretend to
be human…’ he shook his head. ‘Oh, you’ll have to hand over your
weapons before entering. You can get them back later if you fail,
not that the testing should be a problem for you… if you’re a
human.’

Aerlid calmly handed over all their
knives.

‘We have to check you just to make sure.’
the guard told him. ‘Some people try to sneak weapons in…’

Aerlid made some commiserating noises and
knelt down by Riley. ‘You must not be scared now.’ His hands
gripped her shoulders tightly. ‘Just do what the nice people say
and everything will be fine.’

A strange feeling was coming over Riley. She
felt lightheaded and tingly. She nodded anyway.