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52.
Maryan and Alex were out on the alluvial plain one early summer day.
The sky was blue and cloudless, though it was a whitish blue that sometimes meant lots of moisture. The moon had seemed real large the night before, like an omen, though it probably meant moisture was magnifying it. So even though it was sunny, they weren’t excessively warm, and thought that was just all right.
They were gathering berries and flowers, always looking for new herbs. She was about a hundred feet from him, when they heard a noise.
They looked at each other, then around, and at each other again.
“Did you hear something?” she called. He could still picture her as she stood there, wearing a wool kerchief over her head and a long leather dress. She looked beautiful in a lean and grave manner, holding her basket with both hands.
He put a finger to his lips and snapped an arrow to his bow. Cautiously, he walked through knee high grass toward her, cocking an ear for further noises, and looking north for signs of their old enemies the rippers.
Then more noises—voices?—they ran toward each other, but it was too late.
A man-like thing burst into the clearing coming from the sea. He was covered with short dark fur and had a head somewhere between human and animal, with black human ears but less a face than a boxy tapering snout covered in the same dark fur. He bled dark red blood from gashes along his torso, and appeared weak.
Maryan screamed and dropped her basket.
In the same moment, several other beings came into view riding on smallish horses. That was the noise they’d heard—the clatter of hooves, muffled on the beach sand, occasionally clanging against a rock. The men on the horses were no more men than their quarry.
As the victim burst into view, several deafening shots rang out. The creature fell on the ground and slid in the dust, dead.
Maryan and Alex tried to run, but the riders were upon them, circling them. Nets flew through the air, fell heavily upon them smelling of rot and fish. Alex struggled, but the riders had ropes through the net, and it tightened with him inside like in a purse. The riders dragged him some distance over the sand before stopping. Maryan was being similarly manhandled a few yards away. Alex glimpsed her white figure in a net being dragged. She was on her back, head slightly raised off the ground, and hands helplessly raised to her chin.
Now Alex got a better glimpse of their captors, who dismounted and strode, swaggering and grinning, toward them. The Siirk were chilling to look upon, a mix more of reptile than anything else, though they had streaming white manes that hinted of some long-ago mammal in the stew. They wore fancy, well-tooled leather and cloth clothing, with wide belts and guns. They had leather leggings and boots. But they were lizard-like—men with lizard teeth and leathery faces. They were covered with a random mix of gray and white scales, particularly from the lower lip down, on the pale softness under their chins, along their jowls, down into scaly necks. Their eyes were like dark buttons that radiated a kind of gloating ruthlessness. What made them all the more scary was their similarity rather than dissimilarity from humans. Alex shivered to think what genetic experiments by man or nature to produce these beings.
Their leader presented himself before him and rubbed his belly. The rasp of scales over scales was audible. “Si-i-r-k,” he said in a loud hissing voice (sounding sort of like “silk” or “seelk,” with a nasty kind of self-satisfied drawl on the “ee” as if being a Siirk tasted good). “Siiirk!”
The Siirk wore an amulet—a plain disk, dark brown, maybe metallic, about six inches long and as thick as his index finger—on a leather thong around his neck.
Alex was terrified that he meant he and Maryan would taste good. He looked at Maryan fearing for her composure, but she sat stolidly, even bravely, waiting for their next move. They’d talked often about the dangers of their new world, and in one glance their eyes agreed that most likely this was the end. She made a small kiss with her mouth toward him, which he returned, trying to smile. If they killed them, he hoped they would kill her first, quickly, and then him just as quickly.
“Siirk!” the leader bellowed again, and someone kicked Alex in the side, below the kidneys, sending him doubled up on his elbows and thighs. “Siirk!” the creature yelled; he looked upward and gesticulated with his hands. Downward. Something would come downward. Rain? A bird? An arrow. He yelled at him, and stamped his feet in frustration.
The next Siirk they were to meet was Omas, the overseer, who had a stick with a leather thong on the end. Ouch! That thing bit! He had another leather thong on the other end, and that one had a brass ball in it a third the size of a small marble. He never did use that on him, but he now understood what had torn gouges in the body of the fleeing Thuga. For that was their name, the slave people—Thuga, which he took to mean “I spit on you,” because whenever the Siirk spoke that word, they made as if spitting.
The three Siirk they most dealt with daily were Omas, the overseer; Nizin, the paramount chief; and Kogran, his equally swaggering son.
They opened the nets so they could set their feet on the ground and walk; but they kept the nets over them, and each of them tied by a twenty foot rope to the saddle of a horse. On the two horses wrote Siirk warriors in brass-studded leather armor, their white manes blowing from under leather helmets.
Omas gave them each one taste of his lesser lash, across the buttocks, and he felt a pain like fire. He heard Maryan suck in her breath and gasp, but she did not cry. Omas walked around them, brandishing his lash and giving them “haw, haw” ‘s that sounded threatening and educational all at once.
They walked them down to a fleet of boats that lay beached. These reminded him of Viking boats Alex had seen in pictures, but the boats were smaller and wider. They had a simple square sail that could be angled for tacking.
The boats had simple wooden seats—for Siirk only. Alex and Maryan were made to sit on the floor, getting their butts wet with the thin bilge that rolled back and forth.
It seemed the Siirk had come for slaves and cattle. They appropriated their entire herd, and planned to walk them eastward to Siirk territory under the guidance of horsemen. There were a dozen boats, 100 heavily armed Siirk, and maybe thirty Thuga, most of the latter in leg chains. Of this party, about ten Thuga walked among the cattle, for they were cattle themselves in the eyes of the Siirk. And they appeared to be docile, unintelligent creatures. Half of the Siirk were land-based, and 20 of those were mounted. The rest carried pikes and walked—foot soldiers, he presumed.
Nizin, the paramount chief, sat in the boat with Maryan and Alex. Nizin gloated over them like a great prize. He saw the intelligence in their eyes, and laughed, nodding, as if to say, yes, I know you’re bright, but I’m always going to be a step ahead of you. His smile had something dirty about it, and he wasn’t sure if he planned to eat them or to molest Maryan.
Soon the expedition set off, for the Siirk were not ones to waste time. The dozen boats sailed slowly in the quiet sea about 100 feet off shore. The lazy pace of the cattle, which had to be whipped to move along, slowed those on shore. The Siirk sat in middle of the boat where the rocking was least, while the six Thuga rowers sat in the back of the boat, and a Siirk with a whip behind them. The cracking of that whip happened more frequently than he think was warranted. The Thuga had a bovine, mute quality and they kept rowing. They never spoke with one another.
Soon the boats began to outpace those on shore, particularly when the cattle had to be transported through the water to go around outcroppings. Nizin waved the boats on impatiently, looking at him like a child who’d just gotten a new electric train set for Christmas. It was just the dozen boats then, with their Thuga rowers and Siirk soldiers, and them, heading into the unknown—and no good, he was sure of that.
He managed to whisper “I love you,” and Maryan whispered the words back to him, and Omas brandished his whip, but Nizin brushed him off. Nizin came and sat down on his haunches and stared into their faces. He motioned with his hands: Speak, speak! I want to see you speak!
“He wants us to speak,” Alex said.
“Careful, he may understand English.”
Nizin bounced with delight and pointed at her. “Ingish! Ingish!” he nodded and motioned for her to say more.
“Go screw yourself?” she opined.
Nizin shrugged. “Ingish.” he shook his head and mumbled several times, “Ingish.” He pointed at Alex and laughed and yelled: “Geedeen!”
“English?” Alex asked.
He nodded joyfully and looked over his shoulder at Kogran, who laughed and nodded. “Geedeen!” they both said.
“Geedeen,” Alex said agreeably, but that seemed to make them mad.
After a while—how often and how many different ways can one say “English” and “Geedeen?”—they tired of this game and retired to their bench.
The hours went by, and the monotony of the shore was unbroken—forests as far as he could see.
Alex began to notice some odd things. For one thing, one or two of the Thuga appeared to be feigning dumbness. They had bright, furtive eyes that they kept pointing downward.
Secondly, the Siirk had a strange ritual whose true and horrifying nature soon revealed itself.
As the daylong cracking of the whip continued, and Alex’s ears tired of it, suddenly, on a nearby boat, a Thuga jumped up, threw his oar in front of him, and dove overboard.
Instantly, all the Siirk rose to their feet and began cheering while those Siirk in the affected boat took turns taking pot shots at the unfortunate. They watched his body float mutely in the waves as the cruel armada kept on course.
The Siirk, one by one, took turns slipping quietly overboard, and furtively swimming to a boat in the rear that was completely enclosed by leather curtains. It was being towed by another boat with a double complement of Thuga overseen by two Siirk with whips and other Siirk with guns. Each of the Siirk made this trip, spending a bit of time back there, and just as quietly slipping back into the water, swimming back to his boat, waiting a moment, and then sneaking on board. The practice, so strange at first, was so constant and so commonplace, that Alex began to ignore it.
Maryan and he managed to sit close to one another, so much so that they could link index fingers and communicate their love in silent little tugs.
They made landfall in the noonday heat and the Siirk sat down to rest in the shade of some great trees overgrowing the beach. Several Thuga built a fire. They produced a huge cooking pot, which they filled with water, and into which they emptied sealed jars of some powder—instant soup, Siirk style. The Thuga made deep lowing noises, looking often at the fire. At least they could express their hunger.
One of the Thuga spooned out a bowl of soup intended for the others, and took a furtive sip. Instantly the lash of Omas descended. Cursing and kicking him, Omas smashed the heavy ball down on him several times. He cringed with what pain the animal must be feeling. The Thuga lay silently for a few moments, with nobody tending to him. He thought he was dead. Then he began to move, slowly, with his arms wrapped around his torso. Staggering painfully, he brought two bowls of soup, one for him and one for Maryan. As he knelt to set the bowls down, and Omas let them lift their nets to eat—showing his brace of muzzle loading pistols in the process, as a warning—He saw that the wounded Thuga glanced sideways at Maryan with a look of cunning. He was one of the bright ones who were somehow different from the rest. They always had water by their side, and Maryan used her jug to wash down one of the creature’s worst gashes, which was not only open to the flesh, but actually dripping blood. He had a bruise around his eyes, and she dabbed that gently with the hem of her dress. He was afraid for her for a second, but the Thuga acknowledged her gesture with the faintest nod and then rose to shuffle back to help feed the others of his kind.
He was slurping the salty, greasy liquid that tasted sort of like pineapples and fish, when he heard a shout.
Several shots rang out.
The Thuga—he’d overpowered a Siirk, and shot that Siirk and another Siirk, threw the empty pistols aside, and ran on powerful legs back west along the beach. Instantly, the Siirk began shouting and betting, while several of their number aimed long rifles and fired. Miraculously, the Thuga moved sharply leftward and vanished into the bush. He had no idea if he’d been hit or not.
Instantly, the overseers got to work, using the lighter end of their whips on the cringing Thuga, until Nizin signaled enough. Couldn’t whip them dead because then who would row?
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