Olivia (115 page)

“Unreasonably?”

“My father had been dead for two years by then.  But it mattered to me.  It mattered that I—knees, Olivia—that I had the body I’d always wanted and not the disappointment I’d always had.  As I recall, I took myself straight home to try it out.”

Olivia laughed, attacking the dummy.

“Let’s see,” mused Doru.  “I had my first taste of thumperjuice, my first coupling partner, my first early ejaculation, my first slap in the face, and my first hangover.  All in all, an eventful evening.”  He watched her strike at the dummy.  “What about you?”

“Me?”  She stopped her maneuvers.  “What about me?”

“When did you become a woman?”

“Oh gosh.”  She thought about it.  “I guess when I was in college.  I never had a dorm, but in my second year, I moved out of my parents’ place and into my own place.  God, that place made High Hill look like paradise.”  She glanced at him, then gave her head a self-deprecating shake.  “You’re not getting any of this, are you?”

“I think I get the taste of it.  Go on.  You were alone for the first time.”

“We humans like that, you know.  I mean, we like friends and we like family, but we also like knowing that we can survive by ourselves without needing to be rescued.  So I was extremely proud of myself for surviving.  I felt like I was in control.  I felt confident and strong, like I could do anything.” She pushed the memory to arm’s length and studied it, smiling.  “So I went to a gathering where the thumperjuice flowed freely, and since I was so in control and could have any man I wanted, I threw myself into the arms of a stranger.  ‘Make me a woman,’ I said.”

He kept a tactful silence.

“No,” she said, as if he had spoken.  “It was not pleasant.  It was quick, it was messy, it hurt, and he threw up on me afterwards.”

“Oh, Olivia.”

“I was drunk enough that I didn’t take it too personally,” she admitted.  “But it did set me back on the idea that I was a survivor.  I don’t think I ever thought of myself as being quite that strong or capable again.”  She thought about it, stabbing the dummy, and then laughed.  “Until I got here.  Being taken like that has a funny way of refining a person’s character.  None of us are who we used to be.”

Doru continued to be quiet for several long minutes.  Finally, “Olivia, do you know what Vorgullum is doing at Hollow Mountain?”

“Yes,” she replied calmly.

“How do you feel about it?”

She drove the spear through the dummy and into the tree.  “Angry,” she said, and turned to face him.  “But resigned.  Everyone seems to feel that your lives are somehow more important than human lives.  I don’t pretend to like that, but I do understand that your race is dying.  You need us, or think you do, and I suppose you might even be right.  But I don’t like it, I don’t approve, and I won’t lie and say I do.  You can’t possibly know how it feels to have your life stolen in such a terrible way.”

“I admit this,” Doru said evenly.  His eyes were full of pain, but his voice was steady.  “But Olivia, you can’t know how it feels to hold a living child in your hands and see it die of the deformities you have helped to sire in it.  My son.  Two daughters.”  He broke off and looked away until his eyes were dry.

“The old leader tried to breed us, not in a natural way, but as…as humans do with their animals.  He put the healthy ones in pairs and told us to couple.  And we did,” he said after a short pause.  He looked away, his hand flexing on the haft of his spear.  “I didn’t know the females, any of them.  One of them died in the birthing chair.  We were told it was preferable to finding another tribe or taking human mates.  I remember agreeing with him.  But it didn’t work.  Nothing worked, so then what?  Our elders were dying and there were no young.  And then came Vorgullum and yes, he ordered us to do something terrible, but it is the only thing that has worked.

“I’ve held three infants, Olivia.  My blood was in their misshapen bodies.  I won’t tell you it’s worse than the death of your freedom, but believe me when I say it was the worst that I could feel.  I took my Tobi away from her family, friends, and tribe.  I robbed her of freedom, of choice, of her native tongue.  I felt her sobbing in my arms when I brought her to my pit and I hated myself for doing it, but I would do it again a thousand times.  None of that pain is equal to watching my child take only one breath.”

They looked at each other.  After a moment, Doru came forward and took the spear out of the tree.  He stood with his back to her and his wings fanned against attack.

Wordlessly, she laid her hand over his arm.

He said, “I know I don’t have to tell you how it feels to have your mate leave you.  I liked Tobi.  I still do.  I had no idea she was in love with Tina until she asked me to release her.  I would have taken them both for my mates if I thought for a second they’d agree.  Now she will have my child, a fine healthy child, and I will not be permitted to raise it for my own.”

“I’m sure she’ll—”

“Oh, she’ll let me see it.  She’s no Beast, to say I’ll never touch it, never hold it.  But she wants the rearing of it herself and she’ll have it.  That’s her right.  My Tobi,” he murmured.  “I confess, I’m curious to see which of us it will most resemble.  She’s so quick and scrawny, like a little snake.  She always made me feel oversized and awkward.  And she had a snake’s fangs when she was frightened or angry.”  He shook his horns to dissolve the memory.  “A useless point to ponder since she doesn’t want me at all.” 

“Her loss,” Olivia said, running one hand through the thick pelt of his shoulders.

Doru hopped back onto the stump, the spear in one hand, and reached down to pull her up beside him.  He caught her by the waist and let her hold him around the neck.  “Maybe that’s why I care for you so much,” he mused, flexing his claws in the wood.  “I’ve never known a woman so enthusiastic about being with me.”

He bent his knees and threw out his wings.

“Well, me and Chugg,” she said.

He uttered a croaking cough, aborting the flight and nearly falling off the stump.  “Chugg,” he shuddered.  He glared at her, an impressive sight this close to him, and leapt into the air.

She waited until they had gained enough altitude that he couldn’t drop her and said, “What about Karen?”

“Never coupled with her,” he replied.  “Despite the fact that she once crawled into the bath with me and applied her lean body to mine in the most astonishing manner.”

“Well, that sounds fairly enthusiastic.  Why didn’t you?”

“She was Bodual’s mate.”

She laughed at him.  “He couples with yours!”

“Only when I’m there!”  He grinned at her quickly, then returned his attention to the mountain up ahead.  “Besides, that’s different.  She was throwing herself at every male in the tribe. I think the only reason she came after me so fiercely was because I was Bodual’s friend, because she thought that would hurt him the most. But she was doing more than simply sneaking around in dark places behind her mate’s back.  She pressed that bare body against mine with complete abandon, but she never asked my name.  I couldn’t get out of the bath fast enough.”

“Perhaps she didn’t find an exchange of names to be very important.  How long was it before you told a human yours?”

“That was different.”  He thought about it for a moment.  “Three moons, I think.  And only after Vorgullum admitted you knew his.  We’d have done it sooner, but that Mojo Woman’s madness put a lot of us off.  Imagine trying to trap a man’s soul in a candle just to frighten him.  And humans are already so terrifying.”

Olivia regarded him with some amusement.  “Sure we are.  The little bald defenseless ones.”

“Defenseless, hell.  Every time I come to your pit, I think I’ll never rise from it.  I’m not a superstitious man, but sometimes I feel as though you’re drawing out a part of my soul.  Sometimes I think you could kill me if you wished to, and with damned little effort.  If I didn’t trust you so much, I’d never dare to sleep beside you.”  He considered his words.  “Of course, I have no idea if I could resist you, if you really meant to have me.”

Olivia could think of nothing to say so she mock-growled and bit at him in a parody of mating madness.  Doru laughed and growled back.

Olivia said, “You make me feel sorry for Karen, though.  She’s not like Carla.  She’s just looking for someone she can live with.”

“She may not hate herself, but she doesn’t like herself much either,” he replied.  “And you’re right, she’s not quite as bad as Carla, but it’s a damn near thing.”

“Sampling the goods, eh?”

He barked out a laugh and landed close to the women’s entry shaft.  At this hour, the mountainside was empty, but she could see patches of worked soil that proved someone was at least thinking of recreating Hollow Mountain’s garden.  Doru took a moment to scan for trespassing males (or perhaps just for game; he was never really turned off in that regard), before returning his attention to her.  “What do you want, Olivia?  A list of the women I’ve coupled with?  You’ll be disappointed.”

“You could never disappoint me, o mighty spear-carrier.”

He eyed her with a faint smile and an expression of reluctant acquiescence.  “Well, let’s see, as humans go, there’s been only Tobi and only you, Carla and Karen’s efforts notwithstanding.  As for gullan, there were the females I was bred to, but I’d rather not count them at all.”  Doru tapped his claws against his spear haft, staring pensively at the moon.  “Furluu, of course, on occasion.  Chugg, the once.  Ugh.  My first, who suffered me once and never spoke to me again, understandably enough.  And there was one female, now dead, who met with me in secret for several years before she caught the sour cough.  I buried her.  I think that’s it…no, there was one time with Golgun.  She beat me in a riddling contest.  Pity, that.  I stood to win a whole box of thumperjuice.”

He glanced at her, then smacked the haft of his spear against the stone.  “Well, out with it, woman.  Tell me yours.”

She blinked, then took a fraction of an instant to decide on how much to tell him.  “After my first, there was another man and we were together almost a year, but we lost touch after he left college.  That’s it for me and humans, but there were some near misses.  Vorgullum, of course.  And…Kodjunn.”

“The
sigruum
?”  Doru looked impressed.

“Sudjummar, which you know.  Logarr, after the challenge.  And you and Bodual.”  She debated briefly, not wanting to sound either bragging or blasé.  “And the Great Spirit.”

“So, let me see,” he said, counting them off on his hand.  “You’ve lain with the leader, the
sigruum
, the metal-maker, the chief hunter, the chief hunter’s best friend, a blood challenger, and a god.  That’s impressive as hell, Olivia.”

“Any recommendations for my next conquest?” she inquired wryly.

Doru leaned on the spear and considered it.  “No,” he said at last.  “You’ve already won the biggest, strongest, most important male of all—me.”

“Well, if you want to keep me,” Olivia said, “you had better make yourself worth my attention.  A woman doesn’t live on a man’s spear alone.”

“But it sure passes the time,” he added, tossing his to the ground and seizing her by the waist.  The tenderness of his kiss belied the sheer strength in his hands, but then he released her and took up his spear again.  “Training is over,” he said apologetically.  “I need to be doing something to put meat in our stores.  You can climb down by yourself, can’t you?”

“Sure.  Bring me back a bear,” she teased, slipping on her climbing claws.  “I want to wear the teeth.”

He eyed her intently for an instant, then flew off.

5

Shortly after dawn, Wurlgunn strolled into the common cave with a ferocious gulla-eating mountain hare in one hand and pleasantly said, “You aren’t going to believe this.”

There were several dozen tribesmen gathered already, most of them females setting optimistically about getting the hearth-fires ready for a victorious feast.  They all looked up expectantly as two other hunters arrived, lugging an enormous bundle of meat between them.

“Damark!” Amy cried, leaping up.  “Is that an elk?”

One of the litter-bearers shook his head.  “It’s a bear,” he panted.

Olivia’s jaw dropped.  She was not alone.  For a moment, there was absolute silence, and then a tremendous communal howl of pleasure rang out from the throats of the gullan.

“Bear fat broth!” Thurga bayed, and jumped to help the hunters with their burden.

Doru appeared in the doorway, his chest swelled with pride.  He beamed at Olivia, spear in one hand, belt-pouch in the other.  “My people,” he said grandly.  “There sits my worthy mate, who bid me hunt a bear.  Her love was my only armor, and I stand before you without a scratch.”  He held out the belt-pouch.  “The teeth,” he said.

“Teeth?” Thurga gasped, the lure of the bear’s fat forgotten.  “You took the beast alone?  For trophy?”

Quite suddenly, Olivia remembered that the only time any gulla was permitted to take display trophies from a kill was if that hunter had stalked and killed the beast without aid.  She looked wide-eyed at the bear meat still being brought before the tribe and realized this was no yearling bear, but a full-grown male.  Her legs turned to water and she dropped back onto the bench, staring at Doru with a curious blend of admiration, horror, and awe.

“Alone, I paced the forests,” Doru began, crouching theatrically.  “Alone, I found the first tracks.”  He stalked the imaginary bear, spear held at the ready.  His eyes lit on Bodual, who was helping to spit the first haunch of meat.  “And then I found him!”

Bodual yelped and took off running.

Doru took two bounding leaps and landed in front of Bodual, a damned impressive movement, catching his friend in one hand and thrusting the spear between Bodual’s arm and ribs.  Bodual staggered back dramatically, moaning, groaning, rolling his eyes, and holding the spear in place with both hands.

“Such a battle commenced, I am astonished you could not feel the thunder the beast made when at last it dropped to the earth,” Doru continued.

Obediently, Bodual tossed the spear away and fell over on his face.