Elephant Escape

 

Bebe dared not look at the Fae warrior who touched her arm. From behind Drindl pushed her forward to the bottom of the stairs, growling his displeasure at her lack of attention to the line. Bebe turned her head to look back over her left shoulder and away from the Fae warrior. She growled back in a low voice that she hoped sounded masculine enough to confuse the Fae warrior and think she was a male. Squeezing her fist to make as large an arm muscle as she could, she struck back at Drindl. The Fae warrior yelled something, then grabbed her from behind and pushed her forward. Bebe stepped up on the first step, her legs wide, her shoulders swaggering as she imagined a miner might look. Alpen reached back to swat at her and she brushed away his hand with an abrupt motion of her arm.

At the top of the stairs, a Fae warrior let Alpen through the opening into the clinic. Bebe waited, eyes down, sometimes scratching her leg like an animal. She hoped that the Fae warrior would not notice her youth. Suddenly she heard a tik-tik bird from inside the clinic, a call to action from Alpen. She sensed that Drindl was moving forward and struck out with her leg at the Fae warrior, who went off balance and fell over the handrail to the ground below.

Bebe moved from the outside light, her eyes adjusting quickly to the dim interior of the clinic. A Fae warrior lay crumpled on the clinic floor as Alpen turned to the other guard near the window opening of the clinic. The Fae guard had wrapped her arm around the neck of a miner, holding the compliant body to her as a shield. Alpen cried out “Mellen!” as he brushed past another miner.

The Fae warrior on the floor reached out toward Alpen’s foot as he moved away from her. Her grasp missed her mark, but her knees gathered under her, ready to assist her fellow guard. Bebe stepped forward, then launched a kick at the cheek of the Fae warrior. She felt her nails tear into the cheek flesh as she rolled sideways in the air and landed in a crouch, ready to defend against the Fae warrior’s attack. The warrior struck out with her right arm toward Bebe, but fell forward onto the floor, her neck at a curious angle. There was a brief spasm from the warrior then she slumped lifeless.

Drindl sprang from the stairway leading to the main floor of the clinic, glancing at Bebe to make sure she was uninjured. He reached for a long stir stick on the clinic table, then joined Alpen who struggled with the Fae warrior. Drindl let out a battle cry as he came forward, and Alpen stepped to the side, pulling Mellen to the floor. Drindl drove the stirring stick through the eye of the Fae warrior, who stumbled back and collapsed.

Seeing the elephant waiting outside the window, Drindl motioned to Bebe, then helped Alpen load his drugged brother into the tent atop the elephant’s back. Bebe glanced down the stairs leading up to the clinic, alert to another Fae warrior responding to the commotion. Several miners had turned and were trying to get away from the violence. As Bebe prepared to step out of the window opening into the tent, the elephant moved forward, guided by his Fae handler away from the clinic building.

“No, you don’t,” Bebe said to no one and leapt onto the tent frame base, the claws of her right foot sinking into the fabric of the tent wall. The Fae warrior looked back at her in panic as Bebe jumped onto the Fae’s right arm. The warrior screamed as Bebe’s foot claw ripped through the skin. Bebe pushed the Fae off her perch from behind the elephant, whose long thick trunk curled up in alarm.

Bebe had seen one of the human soldiers talk into the ear of an elephant and tried the same tactic, trying to keep her voice calm and manly despite the sound of her own heart crashing in her ears. As she sat astride the elephant’s neck, she fought the urge to dig her foot claws into the sides of the elephant to secure herself. She closed her eyes, pretending that she was once again talking her dead babies to sleep, despite the sounds of alarm and commotion from the clinic.

The Fae warriors controlled an elephant’s movements directly with their minds through their finger tendrils. Without that ability, how was Bebe to control this monstrous animal? She used the same technique she had used as a mother, pinching the right ear of the elephant. Like a child, the elephant turned away from the pinch and Bebe’s heart leapt with relief. This animal had also grown up with a mother who used the same steering technique, bothering the child on the opposite side of where the mother wanted the child to go.

Hunched over the giant skull bone of the elephant’s head, Bebe looked back at the clinic, worried that the remaining Fae warriors would give chase. Instead, she was relieved to see the miners attacking the Fae warriors, probably out of desperation for their medicine. Bebe turned back to the tent behind her and made the cooing sounds of a burble bird. She smiled when she heard Alpen’s answering coo, and scratched the elephant behind the large ears, urging the animal forward toward the crest of the hill at the edge of the mine.

 

Just Desserts

 

“Where’s the berry mash?” Fallon asked, glancing around the shed next to the soldier’s quarters.

“The soldiers were kind enough to take it,” Sisseku said, stirring the giblets of the calf in the soup over the fire.

Fallon sighed, looking up to the vent where the smoke from the fire swirled up to the pale blue of the early evening sky. He remembered the words of his father, “Some days will be easy. Cherish them. They are few.” He shrugged on the large cloak to hide his muscles and frame, then shuffled to the soldier’s barracks.

A brown bearded soldier stopped him as he entered the barracks. Bent over, Fallon looked up at the pock mark on the cheeks below the soldier’s eyes. “Hey, old dog,” the soldier said, “this isn’t the graveyard.”

Fallon turned to several voices laughing. Two soldiers held bowls of some liquid that they tipped to their mouths. He couldn’t let them know he understood what they were say. “Hey, I’m talking to you, dog!” The soldier pushed at Fallon’s left shoulder, and Fallon was careful to curb his reaction.

The pressure of the soldier’s hand indicated that this was not his dominant hand. Glancing at the two companions, Fallon saw that they also held their drinking bowls with their left hand. Was this a custom or were these warriors left-handed? There were few left-handed People and those few did not become warriors. These humans would be a formidable force because they were unusual.

Fallon turned to the soldier and made swirling motions with his arms, careful to keep his forearms disguised under the cloak. He put his fists together, one on top of the other, and made stirring motions. The soldier pushed him back. “You animals, none of you can speak,” the soldier said.

Fallon artfully stepped back, feigning a loss of balance before he stood again, shoulders bent. He repeated his stirring motion. In the background, behind the soldiers in front of him, he caught a glimpse of the instinctual hierarchy in this warrior troop. Soldiers of lower station bowed to their superiors who raised their chins to show their superiority. Fallon tried this subtle language, bowing his head forward as he repeated his stirring motion. The soldier stepped back, sweeping his arm. “Go on, you baboon.” Fallon wasn’t sure what a baboon was, but he understood the dismissive and haughty tone of the soldier’s voice.

Fallon shuffled past the soldier to the large pot where the dessert berry mash sat. As he reached forward to pick up the pot, he realized that this would give away his strength. He made a grunting sound as he appeared to strain with the weight of the mash.

“Step back. You’ll just spill it, you dog.” The soldier’s voice came from behind Fallon’s right shoulder and Fallon feigned a cringe, but didn’t step back, fearing that it might signal he understood. Reaching around Fallon, the soldier placed his palm on Fallon’s shoulder and pushed him away from the mash. “Come on, fellas, someone give me a hand,” the soldier said. Fallon followed a respectful distance behind the two soldiers as they carried the pot of mash back to the shed.

Fallon imagined slashing the soldier’s neck but bowed his thanks and waited for the two soldiers to leave the shed. “Do what you have to do and we’ll take it back,” the soldier said. He looked at Sisseku, then glanced down at her hips as she turned to Fallon. He turned to his companion. “This one. I like the way she moves.” His companion laughed.

Fallon imagined smashing the soldier’s teeth, twisting his neck and looking at the eyes as the life left him. He looked up at the soldier with what he hoped was a questioning look and betrayed none of the anger he felt. The soldier mimicked Fallon’s stirring motion. “Stir, dog, stir!”

Fallon turned to the table where he had put the bag Alithea had given him. When he turned back to the pot with the mash, the soldier stopped his motion with an arm. “Let me taste that.” He dipped a finger in the mound of hazel fury berry and stuck it in his mouth. His tongue licked his lips. “Ooh, that’s good. Put it in there.”

Fallon dumped the poisonous berries in the mash, giving a sidelong glance at the soldier. Was this a fast-acting poison, he wondered? If the soldier fell dead no one else would eat the berry mash. He stirred deliberately to mix the berries into the mash.

“We don’t have all day, dog!” The soldier took the wooden stirrer from Fallon. He must have seen a look of defiance in Fallon’s eyes and shook the stirrer in front of Fallon’s face. “Want to fight me, dog?” Fallon looked downward and the soldier rapped the stirrer on the top of his head. He inspected the stirrer. “Better not have any lice, dog.”

When the soldier had finished stirring the berry mash, he threw the stirrer on the table, then he and his companion took the pot out of the shed. Sisseku reached up and swiped her palm over the top of Fallon’s head. He reached up and held her forearm, looking around for water.

“What are you doing?” Sisseku asked as he put her hand in the pot of water, then lowered his head over the pot and cleaned the top of his head with his hand. “It’s just berry mash,” Sisseku protested. Fallon turned to the table, picked up the stirrer and washed it as well. Sisseku looked at him suspiciously. “What was that?”

“Berries,” Fallon said, not knowing how to allay Sisseku’s suspicions. “Ripe berries.” A thought came to him. “They have no fur. Some of our people say that we can catch their disease and will lose our fur. I don’t want us to die.”

Sisseku made a puffing sound with her lips. “That’s just talk. Nothing to it. It’s not a disease.”

Fallon shrugged and the cloak fell from his shoulders as he stood to his full height.

Mine Assault

“First target, the cleaning station there on the left. We’ll mingle with the miners on their way to the clinic, our prime target,” Alpen said. “If we see Mellen, we grab him and go.”

“Treat the miners as hostile?” Drindl asked. Bebe glanced sideway at him, surprised at the matter-of-fact tone.

“Yes. If they are addicted like Alithea said, their loyalty is to the drug and they will treat us as hostile.”

Bebe realized that it took more than eating some energy to feel comfortable in the warrior community. “It’s not their fault that they are addicted.”

Alpen turned to her. “It’s not the wolfbear’s fault that it’s hungry and I’m food.” He held out his hand to her. “We must act as one. Do you want to stay here?”

Bebe paused, then shook her head. “I’m a negotiator. You are a warrior. You go directly to your target. I circle the target, hoping to strike a bargain.”

“Is that what you did when you were attacked in the queen’s castle?” Alpen asked. The look on Drindl’s face showed his surprise at this revelation.

“My bargaining was to strengthen and defend my position,” Bebe said. “My training took hold.” She paused. “I am with you.”

Alpen took her hand and Drindl’s as they gathered in a circle at the edge of the forest. “We spring from the dirt like the energy in the spring. We are separate roots but one tree reaching for our goal.” Hands clasped, they touched the earth, feeling the network of life through their arms and shoulders, down into their chests, through their hips and into their legs, connecting them with the lifeforce. After a moment of silence, they broke the circle, then moved left along the rim of the gaping hole it the earth.

With a curl of his hand and a point of his finger, Alpen signaled to the elephant coming down the main road into the mine. In less than an hour it would return with a load and more miners on their way to the clinic. He signaled to the clinic building, held up two fingers, then made a walking sign as though going inside and held up two fingers again. He pointed to the left rim of the giant mine where they washed the miners before visiting the clinic. Two fingers. Six Fae warriors in total.

Before descending the slope into open view, Alpen rolled in the brownish gray dirt, and Bebe followed suit. Walking between Alpen and Drindl, Bebe assumed the same tired and bent posture as they drew closer to the washing pool.

Later, she would think back this time, feeling a sense of shared understanding with Alpen and Drindl. As the three of them joined the line of miners at the pool, she would have been attuned to every gesture of the Fae, ready to fight or flee. She was an animal, instinctively reaching for motion as a solution to any need or threat. The energy had helped her meld her senses with the earth, and like all life rooted in the earth, she understood the skill of bending with a threat.

She didn’t look at the Fae warrior as she stood, wide stance like a tired warrior who had battled the dirt and his own fatigue for most of the day. She didn’t worry whether Alpen or Drindl would fight or make a run for it. She somehow knew what their response would be because their minds and emotions were entangled roots joined in the earth.

She sloughed off her tunic, then waited in line, hunched from weariness, burdened with a heavy weight on her shoulders like the miners in front of her. When it came her time, she stood placidly as a Fae warrior quickly scrubbed her down with a long-handled brush. Had the Fae warrior gotten closer, she might have realized that, wide stance or not, Bebe was a female. She copied some of the other miners, turning her hips slightly away from the gaze of the Fae attendant and covering her genital area with her hands. She was handed a tunic that felt rough and she tugged it on as she walked away. Drindl was behind her on the path, Alpen two miners ahead as they trudged to the clinic.

Somehow, she knew that Mellen was not in the line at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the clinic itself. Head hung, focusing on the miner in front of her, she disregarded the short sharp voice to her right. Then she felt a Fae warrior touch her arm.

Fallon's Deceit

 

As the elephant ascended the slope of hill to the plateau, Alithea held Erthen close to her. The ground was more uneven than the path to the castle from the beach and she felt that the whole tent might twist off the animal’s body. She peeked out of the flap at the queen’s castle, then looked right to the soldiers gathered outside of the barracks. Beyond the barracks she recognized the field where the soldiers drilled and played games, and beyond that the blue of ocean. “Oh, baby boy, what evil has mama brought you into? We should have left, even if we died in the desert.”

The elephant came to a rest and Alithea recognized the sounds of a slide set up on the left side of the elephant. She shifted Erthen in her lap. He was curious about the hazel fury leaves in her front pouch and the deadly mold-infested berry mash below them. When she opened the tent flap, the boy’s attention turned to the outside. Two Fae warriors near the bottom of the slide and just beyond them the queen stood.

Glancing left, she recognized Fallon as he came from the rear of the travois. Seeing the queen, a tight knot in her throat made it difficult for Alithea to breathe. The queen would see her and Fallon together, perhaps remember the first time she had seen the couple on the beach, and their ruse would be uncovered. Fallon was not of the Washiti tribe but a prisoner from one of the northern tribes. The soldiers would surely kill Fallon. She forced away the thought of what they might do to her and Erthen.

Her training reminded her to breathe from her belly, not her mouth and her tension quieted a bit. As Fallon approached the slide, she wondered if he was hurt. His head was forward, his back curved and he walked with a limp. He shuffled outward away from the elephant and the slide and paused, then lifted his head and made a feeble nod. Oh, you deceitful warrior, she thought.  

She slid down and the Fae warriors helped her stand. She shifted Erthen into the papoose, then walked forward to the queen, who reached out a hand to her. “I’m so happy to see you, my dear,” the queen said. Alithea could understand none of it, but she understood the sincerity in the woman’s voice. “I am so sorry for what happened to you the last time you were here.” Alithea smiled and nodded, not knowing what else to do.

Pretending to adjust the papoose, she turned slightly to Fallon two lengths away. With a quick motion of his fingers, he signaled that the queen was sorry for something. That was enough to guide Alithea’s reactions.

The queen turned to the palace, then looked back and motioned Alithea to follow. When Alithea hesitated, the queen shook her head and said, “He is not here.” She pointed to the soldiers who were helping to unload the food for the banquet. “He is over there. He will never threaten you again.” She put her hand on Alithea’s arm and Erthen reached down and touched the queen, who drew back her hand. Alithea understood that gesture well enough and thought we are not animals, you white naked worm queen. It helped quell any doubts about using the poisoned berry mash.

The queen helped her settle in the room adjoining the clinic in the palace. The queen made eating motions, pointing to her and Erthen. “I will have some of our banquet brought to you, doctor, but here is some of my food packet.” She gestured to her chest as she spoke, then turned to a cupboard and withdrew two food bars. Alithea recognized only the words ‘doctor’ and ‘food.’ She accepted the food bars, then the queen said, “I will leave you alone to get settled. Perhaps you can see some patients tomorrow.”

Alithea recognized only the word ‘patient.’ Did the queen want her to see patients now? Alithea pointed down, close to her chest and asked, “Patients now?”

The queen pointed away from her and said, “Patients tomorrow.” She put her hands together and laid then next to her ear and tilted her head to signal sleeping, then made a circular motion with one hand. “Sleep. Patients tomorrow.” Alithea thought she understood and relaxed.

When the queen left the room, she gave a bit of the energy bar to Erthen, enough to ease his hunger pangs. She would watch his reaction before eating any herself. If he got a bit sleepy, then she would know that this was one of the drugged food bars. She was grateful for the water next door in the clinic and used it to clean Erthen face and head, then washed her hands.

She heard a sound in the outer room and turned to see a Fae warrior leading a limping Fallon from the outside. When the Fae warrior pointed to a gash on Fallon’s right leg, Alithea was worried. Had Fallon reopened that wound? Alithea did not look at Fallon’s face, afraid that the Fae warrior would see a look of recognition. In the papoose on Alithea’s back, Erthen bounced, holding out his arms to his dad, crumbs of food bar falling from his mouth as he babbled “Daddy! Daddy!”

Alithea’s heart sank, knowing that the Fae warrior would report this, but she gestured to the clinic room and led the bent frame of Fallon into that room. Alithea shrugged out of the papoose, then set it down. “What will I do with you, little warrior? You will give up the game.” She opened one of his eyelids, looking for the pupil constriction that would be a sign that the food bar had been drugged. Finding none, she gave Erthen more of the food bar, which he took in his hand and talked to. “That’s right, you talk to your food and be still,” she said.

She turned away to go into the clinic, then remembered that the poisoned berry mash was in the front pouch. She couldn’t leave Erthen in the papoose and she couldn’t let him crawl around. She opened a few cupboards until she saw them folded cloth and pulled one out. Seeing it was long enough, she swaddled Erthen in the cloth leaving one arm half free so he could hold his food bar. He didn’t seem to mind. She propped him up against the wall where she would be able to see him from the adjoining room. His humming while chewing satisfied her that he was content.

She went into join Fallon, who talked to her in some strange language she didn’t understand. When Fallon motioned to his leg, she had him lean back and inspected the gash, then signaled to the Fae warrior that she could wait outside. After the Fae left, Alithea looked around to reorient herself. Remembering where the supplies were, she cleaned the wound in preparation to sew up the open gash. “Stay still,” she said to Fallon, as she glanced toward the outer room where the Fae was waiting.

Fallon pointed to the gash, then said, “Grunt baby talk, mixed language,” and some other words she didn’t understand.

She nodded that she understood, then said, “this will sting,” as she applied some bala antiseptic paste to the old gash. He had deliberately cut open an old wound as a pretext on visiting the clinic. The hair follicles had not grown into the skin on either side of the cut yet. Fallon instinctively pulled his leg away.

“Baby,” she teased and glanced up again to make sure the Fae warrior was not looking. She reached into the papoose and gave Fallon the bar. “It’s not drugged. Eat. No crumbs as you eat,” she said in a stern voice.

“We can leave here,” Fallon said, then added in some foreign words. “Go toward the mine. They won’t expect that. Ow!” He flinched as she stuck the needle into his skin.

“You’ve gotten soft,” she said in a low voice. “Stay still,” she said in a louder voice, trying to sound like this was a normal interaction between a doctor and a patient, and not between two partners. When she finished, she wrapped the leg with a gauze-like covering.

Fallon went to stand up, but she held her palm against his chest.

“Let’s go!” he urged in a low but insistent voice. He looked back at Erthen in the next room and waved. Clutching his food bar in his little hand, Erthen waved back and babbled Daddy, crumbs falling from his lips as he spoke.

She had not wanted to involve Fallon, but she had no choice. Keeping an eye out for the Fae warrior in the outer room, Alithea gingerly reached into the front pouch of the papoose, careful to touch only the leaves of the hazel fury as she withdrew the rounded mass of berry paste from the pouch. She deftly wrapped it in gauze then tied that around Fallon’s leg just above where she had wrapped the wound.

“Take the berry paste inside the leaves and mix it thoroughly into something, a dessert, or porridge, that the soldiers and the queen will eat,” she said. “It is sweet so a dessert would be better.” Fallon started to interrupt, but she laid a hand on his upper leg to quiet him. “Do not touch the paste with your hand. A spoon or stick. Thoroughly. It must be thorough.”

“We can leave,” he implored.

She looked up again to make sure they were not watched. She had to speak to him in the language he knew well. “This is war. For our baby. For our home. This is war.” She straightened up, and said in a louder voice, “Ok. Up now.”

Fallon stared at her for a moment, then looked down at the wrap around his leg. He moved his tunic down and stood.

“Can you walk with that extra wrap?” she asked. He took a tentative step forward, flexed his knee, and nodded. In a lower voice, she said, “Do not eat anything with that in it. Don’t let Sisseku eat it. It tastes good so it will be tempting.” Fallon looked at her directly, then turned to the outer room. “War,” she reminded him softly as he limped away.

Battle Prep

 

“This feeling is uncomfortable,” Bebe said as she held onto a supple evergreen branch. “My stomach. I think I’m going to be sick.”

Taking hold of her tunic, Alpen gently pulled her to him. “Don’t touch the trees until you get used to this. The ground is talking to the tree through you. After you get used to the energy wave from the ground, then you can touch a tree.”

Bebe turned to Drindl. “Did you feel weird your first time?”

Drindl paused, shifting the stake to his other hand. “I can’t remember. I suppose I did.”

“He did,” Alpen confirmed. “Some of the new recruits think there are worms crawling in their legs. We push them down and slap their feet to kill the worms as they emerge, laughing all the time at their foolishness. ‘Stop laughing,’ they insist as they writhe around on the ground. ‘This is serious!’ they cry. ‘All the worms are dead,’ we tell them. We hold some leaf stems up to them to show them and they believe us.”

Drindl’s laugh turned louder at this tale and Alpen turned to him and signaled to keep his tone low.

“This is how you all fight as one?” Bebe asked Alpen, using his arm to steady herself. The tingling in her feet was disconcerting.

“Do you feel it?” Alpen asked.

“My feet?”

“No, your hand on my arm. It’s tingling. The ground is talking to me through you.” Alpen lifted her hand off his arm and let it go.

Bebe stared at her hand. “You’re right. Now it’s going away – the tingle.”

Drindl put his hand on Alpen’s arm, then withdrew it. “I think we’re ready to unite. I can hear the sounds from the mine. It’s not far away.”

Alpen turned to Bebe. “Are you getting used to it?” Bebe nodded. Alpen led her to an evergreen with long needles. “Touch the branch. Feel the spines.”

Bebe rubbed the long green needles between her fingers, the tips tingling as she joined the ground and tree. “I’m part of it – the tree,” she said in a voice of surprise as she looked around. “It’s part of the forest community. They are all talking to each other.” She withdrew her hand, breaking the connection. She turned to Alpen. “It changes when I withdraw, but I’m still united.” She stared at her hand, incredulous at the feeling.

“You’re ready,” Alpen said. They laid their staffs and food down, then Alpen arranged them in a circle, kneeling with their toes dug into the dirt. “Hand to hand.”

Bebe felt the tingle as she took Drindl’s hand in one of hers and Alpen’s hand in the other. Her perception of the world was emerging through her eyes and out of her head. She closed her eyes to stop herself from escaping her body but opened them again when she felt Alpen squeeze her hand.

“Don’t fight the merge,” he said. “You’ll be in three bodies. It takes a few seconds to adjust.” When she nodded, Alpen said, “turn on three.”

Still clasping hands, Drindl and Alpen rotated their palms, and she did the same. At each count of three, they turned their palms from front to back until she was not sure which were her hands, and which were the hands of the others. Her vision changed so that she could see in front of her and behind her.

“Link and pull,” Alpen said softly. They linked arms and pulled at each other. Bebe felt the tingle run through her arms and chest then through her feet and into the ground. The tingle turned into a wave of power, then they unlinked.

Alpen and Drindl stepped away from her, widening the circle. Alpen struck out with his arm and she reached up to grab his wrist, surprised that she was aware of his sudden movement. Alpen smiled. She cocked her head in a questioning glance, then struck out with a kick. He feinted away from her foot.

“You won’t have the specific training so follow my lead when we attack,” Alpen said.

“He’s the big worm,” Drindl joked. Alpen gave him a look. Drindl picked up the pinkle fruit. They had eaten all the tubers. “Should we cache these?”

“No, we’ll continue north after we find Mellen,” Alpen said. “Let’s bring some to use as weapons.” Drindl hefted one in his palm and smiled. The sound of an elephant trumpet drew their attention. He picked up a staff. “The long slow war becomes the quick battle.”

As he strode forward through the trees, Drindl and Bebe followed, their six footfalls making the same cadence as the four paws of a wolfbear.

//////////

As they came to the edge of the trees, the energy dust from the mine glinted in the sunlight that drifted through the forest. Alpen, in the lead, stopped. He didn’t need to signal to Bebe and Drindl behind him. They knew. He crept forward, head above a few feet above the ground as he emerged into the sunlight. Bebe sensed the brightness of the light. Reaching back, Alpen’s fingers motioned them to come forward. Bebe took a position next to Alpen and Drindl flanked the other side.

Bebe’s initial shock at the size of the hole dug into the ground was immediately checked by a cold tactical analysis of the access and weakness points. She identified the clinic building where Alithea had given the medicine to the miners. On the far side was the main road that came from the palace and descended into the bowl of the mine. The dense haze of dust deep in the bowl made it difficult to assess the number of mine workers and guards.

Alpen looked to Bebe. “Did Alithea say the mine prisoners appeared compliant?” She  nodded, her attention focused on the main road where two elephants emerged from the dust with pallets loaded.

“The queen’s people can’t drug the Fae riders, or they lose their ability to control animals. Why are they working in these conditions?” she asked.

Drindl pointed to the two guards outside the clinic. “Alithea said there were two inside when she was there?” Bebe nodded.

“I count fourteen miners and four guards that we can see,” Alpen said. “Triple that for good measure. Fifty miners and guards. A half-dozen Fae riders perhaps.”

“We look too healthy to be miners,” Drindl said.

Alpen pointed to the left, where naked miners were being doused with water, before following the path down the clinic building. “There are no female miners,” Alpen said.

Scanning the area, Bebe said, “They are taking the miner’s clothes. See? To the right.

“Why do they clothe the miners?” Drindl asked.

Alpen shrugged. “We’re too clean to pass for miners. We make a swift assault on the clinic. We must be cruel to be just. If Mellen is there, we leave with him. If not,” he paused, “we find him in this hell hole.”

Hearing his words, Bebe realized that this fight might be their last. Strangely, it did not deter her will or spirit.

“Pincer attack,” Alpen said. “Move.”

Eyes Open

 

“Sisseku, you’ve done this before. I mean, cook for the queen. Does it happen often?” Fallon followed behind the litter as the elephant plodded up the hill to the queen’s palace. He wanted to ask her about Mellen but didn’t want to offend her.

“We make their daily meals, but not like this.” She gestured to the roasted calf carcass. “My partner was good at roasting meat, particularly the Ibik.”

“Yes, where are the Ibik?” Fallon asked.

“The queen and her kind. They have cut off the passage to the northern valley. They hope to drive the tribes from the mountains.”

Fallon had so many questions. How could anyone block the great herds of Ibik? “Your partner? He’s not here with you?”

“They put him to work in the mine. He had an accident.”

“I saw your face light up when the boy sang,” Fallon said. “You have a child here in the village?”

“No, they took the boy to school. He got sick and died. That’s what they told me.” Fallon suspected that the boy was also working at the mine. “Tell me, how did you come here?”

Fallon hesitated, then stalled for time by rubbing his forehead with his hand. How much had he told her? When lying, stick to reality as much as possible. “I was on a boat, fishing in the ocean.”

“I thought you said you were with the Washiti tribe?” Sisseku asked. “They are far inland. Herders, I thought.”

Lying was such hard work. “My father. We argued. I can’t tend his herd all my life. I need my own herd if I can attract a partner.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“At first, I went south of the Dallesa tribe, then I met someone who was originally from the Cawthingi tribe. Fishing was so much easier than herding, he said. I helped him build a boat.”

“He fooled me. He just wanted to get back to his tribe, the Cawthingi up north.”

“The breakwater pier they have built out into the ocean has diverted the fish schools. Most of the Cawthingi have come south. Not enough fish.”

Fallon guessed she had been here at least a year. He wanted more information but dare not be truthful with her. As far as she knew, Sisseku had lost her partner and her child to these beasts. Why wasn’t she angry? Where did her loyalties lie? Fallon was in too vulnerable a position to trust her. “There were Cawthingi guards who captured us.”

“Where did your friend go?”

“The guards took him away somewhere.”

“He used you to get back to his people,” Sisseku said. The haunch of the calf began to come loose from the bindings on the pallet. She made a piercing whistle and the elephant slowed. They resecured the carcass and Sisseku whistled again and took a position again behind the travois. She pointed to the long building at the top of the hill. “The barracks. Have you been to the castle before?”

What was his story? Stay close to reality, he reminded himself. “Uh, no.” How to steer the conversation back to Mellen? “Did you partner help build the palace?”

She looked sideways at him. “That’s the palace and the barracks of Marten, the leader of all the tribes before the war. Do they talk of Marten in the Washiti tribe?”

Pretend casual, Fallon told himself. “Yes, a great warrior, I hear.” He shrugged. “My father only mentioned him a few times, I’m afraid.”

“Marten was a great warrior, but he underestimated the humans, the queen’s kind.”

“He knew of the humans?” Fallon asked. “I had never heard of them.”

“You are from a southern tribe and never heard of the humans?”

Fallon grew cautious at the suspicion in her voice. “As a child, I heard of them. I thought they were myths meant to scare children.”

She laughed. “They are fearsome in battle, I am told. They have better weapons. The elephants are formidable.”

“They fight?” Fallon was incredulous. They looked like slow, lumbering beasts on the trail.

“The southern tribes, the Dallesa and the Washiti, laid down their arms when the elephants battered down their defenses. You are lucky you left your family, or they would have put you to work in the mine.” They were coming to the steep rise to the plateau where the queen’s compound and soldiers’ barracks stood. Sisseku leaned into her staff to steady her up the ascent up the path. She looked at his hands and Fallon’s easy stride. “You stand like a warrior. Why did they send you to the village to cook?”

Fallon scrambled for a reason and couldn’t find one. He built on his previous lie. “I was surprised also. Maybe the Cawthingi who tricked me into building the boat said a good word for me. I am a good woodcutter, not a warrior. I climb hills like this often.”

She nodded, her breath labored as she spoke, “Watch the calf carcass as we go reach the plateau.”

Fallon stayed close by, steadying the load as the pallet tipped and settled on the flat plain. When he straightened up, he saw a dozen of the human warriors standing together outside the barracks. They were dressed much like the two warriors that he and Drindl had killed and buried. Fallon steadied his breath. He might have been able to fool Sisseku with his story of being a herder and woodcutter, but these warriors would recognize him as one accustomed to battle.

The Mission

 

At sunup, Drindl returned to the pinkle tree with his treasure, some root tubers that he had taken from a gorgy. He shook Alpen and Bebe awake, then held out the cleaned tubers for their inspection. “There’s some water down the hill,” he added. “I cleaned them up. He was eating them so they should be all right.”

Bebe took one and bit into the stringy meat. “How did you know where to look?”

“A gorgy was digging them up. He would have make good eating, but we don’t have any fire tools. We wrestled.” He held up his arm to inspect it. “He grazed me with his teeth, I think.”

Bebe looked at the arm. “He didn’t break the skin. You were up early.”

Drindl had a sheepish look. “I, uh, couldn’t sleep well.”

Bebe smiled. “It’s good, Drindl. They’ve been putting something in our food. I think our fast helped purge it from our bodies.”

Chewing the fibrous roots, Alpen looked around. “Nothing to carry this fruit or the roots.” He looked down at what was left of his tunic. It was too dirty. “Show me the water. I’ll clean this and we’ll use it as a satchel.” He took off the tunic, put the pinkle fruit in the dirty tunic. Bebe and he followed Drindl down the hill until they came to pond at the bottom of the slope. After rinsing his tunic and the pinkle fruit, he made a makeshift satchel. Bebe rinsed her tunic, then threw it over her shoulder.

“Put it on,” Alpen insisted.

“It’s wet,” Bebe protested.

“We’re not animals,” Alpen said. Bebe looked at him, daring him to go on. There was a tone of desperation in his tone, as he glanced at Drindl. “Please. We don’t have much left.” Drindl looked away and she shrugged the tunic on.

They walked back to the pinkle tree where a gorgy snuffled and chewed the pinkle fruit they had left. Its head lifted, saliva and pinkle bits falling from the broad snout as it huffed at them. “You would make good eating, fatso,” Alpen laughed. Their mood lifted despite the loss of some of the fruit.

They continued north, trusting that the mine was beyond the forest before them. They stopped at the trumpet of an elephant ahead. “We’re here to get Mellen,” Alpen said. “Our weapon is stealth.”

//////////

“I’ll put my sword down.” When Drindl laid an invisible sword on the ground, Bebe laughed. Alpen wasn’t amused. “Sorry,” Drindl said to his mentor. In advance of battle, Alpen was shifting the dynamic between he and Drindl.

Bebe pointed to the sky above the treetops. “What is that? Bugs?” The wind had shifted toward them and a haze drifted over the forest. It was the first thing they had seen flying in the air since they arrived. As they neared the forest’s edge, it was less noticeable, and they picked a wandering path through the evergreen trees. The trees thinned and they came on a stand of leafed trees. Bebe picked a few yellowing leaves, rubbing them between her fingers. “This isn’t autumn yellowing. Maybe bugs.”

Drindl inspected the bark closely. “I don’t see any bore holes.”

They both turned to Alpen when he said, “Energy dust.” He took another lick, then nodded. He held a leaf to Drindl, who took a taste, and agreed.

“Let me try. I’ve only had a taste or two in my lifetime,” Bebe said. Only warriors ate energy, but she had secretly tried some when she was younger. One of her friends said that a woman couldn’t have baby girls if she ate energy, while others disagreed. She cautiously touched the leaf to her tongue, then spit. “It’s bitter.” Alpen and Drindl smiled as they waited. “Oh, wait,” Bebe said, “there’s a spicy, sugary something.”

“That’s energy,” Alpen said. “Even in these small concentrations, there’s nothing that tastes like it.” He looked at the branches above. “The dust is blocking some of the sunlight, slowly killing these trees. Hey, where are you, Drindl?”

“Here.” He stood at one of the evergreen trees, peering at the bark. “The needles won’t hold much energy, but it’s enough to repel bugs that want to eat these trees. The energy is good for the evergreens, but it's killing the leaf trees.”

“I didn’t know you knew so much about trees,” Bebe said.

“I was training to be a farmer, but then I got a growth spurt and Sarten wanted me in the warriors.” Even Alpen was surprised.

“We have a few makeshift spears and some pinkle fruit and roots,” Alpen said. “The energy will help.” He looked at a leaf. “Maybe. Don’t know how much energy is really on these leaves.”

“I’ll bet this killed the faeries we saw yesterday,” Bebe said. “They were breathing it in.”

“This is why there are no birds,” Drindl said. “No bugs. Nothing that is small and flies in the air. Larger animals like the gorgy this morning are not bothered.”

“We’ll have to lick a lot of leaves,” Alpen said. He picked some and handed them to Bebe, but she shook her head. “We need every advantage.”

“But I won’t be able to have any girls if I eat energy,” Bebe protested.

“My mother was a warrior,” Drindl said. “I have a sister, so I don’t think that’s true about the girl babies.”

Bebe turned to him. “Your mother was a warrior? I didn’t know women could be warriors.”

“There’s not many,” Drindl admitted. “She fought with the Glade tribe.”

“Your mother is a Glade?” Alpen asked incredulously.

“Was. She died in that dispute with the Cawthingi over trade routes.”

“Sarten knew your mother was a Glade?”

“I think so. He knew my dad. He’s Jade.”

“Drindl, we have spent months with you, and you are a mystery,” Bebe said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

He shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

“How many nights we sat around the cooking fire trading stories and you didn’t tell us your mother was a warrior?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was a traitor or something,” he said.

Bebe shook her head,  then turned to Alpen and took some more leaves out of his hand. “Tell me when to stop.”

“You can’t have as much as we do. You’re not used to it,” Alpen said. He looked ahead. “The mine isn’t too far. The energy will be taking effect as we get there.”