The Lord of the Plains (63 page)

Riley didn’t think leaving a person with
cuts as deep as bone qualified as ‘not hurting’.

She didn’t think breaking bone or leaving a
creature unconscious was particularly safe.

Apparently, the gemengs of the Plains didn’t
agree.

‘What if I surrender?’ This had gone on long
enough. None here challenged her.

‘That won’t help. They’ll chase us.’

‘I think we can run faster!’

‘Probably. But it’s too easy to get lost
here. We could easily end up running straight into another camp.
No, I think you’ll have to kill one of them.’

She was trembling.

The camp was littered with wounded gemengs.
Children and those who hadn’t fought skittered through the mess,
bandaging here, giving water there.

Sweat was getting into her eyes.

The little children made faces at her.

Her sword felt so heavy.

And they just kept
coming
.

Even the children, she realised, even the
children make fun of me.

What was wrong with them?

How was this not getting into trouble?

She’d defeated every fighting gemeng in this
camp at least thrice over.

But they didn’t fear her.

So there was no reason for them to stop.

She was tired. Was this the limit she had
wanted to find? She was going to end up killing one of these
creatures by mistake. A surge of frustration energized her.

Another was down, at least for a little
while, and then the next was already charging at her.

She didn’t particularly care. They’d
certainly had enough chances to stop and accept defeat.

But she also didn’t acknowledge them as a
threat, so she could not make the choice to just kill them and make
it stop.

Much the same way they didn’t see her as a
threat, she supposed.

But they would kill her.

If they could.

Maybe soon she would be tired enough that
they could.

Her stinging green eyes locked onto the next
one.

She had never been this tired.

She didn’t know how much longer she could go
on.

But she wasn’t going to get into a position
where they could kill her because she hadn’t felt up to it.

The next was down.

She began speaking. The next one didn’t
wait. It kept coming. She felt as though she was moving through
cave mould as she dodged the next attack.

‘I will kill… the next person who lifts a
hand against me.’

This one was down.

It didn’t count. It hadn’t waited for her
warning.

Everything went curiously slowly. Another
got up. A male. His face was twisted in contempt and disgust.

She moved it seemed by rote. She couldn’t
remember making the choices, she just moved.

Then it was down and blood was getting all
over her shoes.

And then
another
was coming!

‘What’s wrong with you?!’ she screamed.
‘Look, he’s dying!’

But not
dead
.

A little child was approaching with
bandages. She’d just shoved her sword through this man’s chest and
children were coming up to her, happy as you please. Coming to fix
him up. So he could throw himself at her again.

‘Get away!’ She grabbed the child by its
tunic and shoved it.

Suddenly, her arm felt like it had been set
on fire. She turned, saw. Claws raised. Face a rictus of hate.

It had
hurt
her.

She slashed with her dagger. She was
blocked.

Enough.

She summoned energy and anger from
somewhere. This one went down, his head nearly severed from his
neck.

Another was coming.

Nearly severed.

Not quite.

What did she have to
do
to get them
to stop?!

Another child was coming!

Quickly she bent down and grabbed the man’s
head by the hair.

She growled and waved her dagger at the
approaching child. ‘Get away!’

The grisly nature of her quick work did not
affect her.

She was too tired and too shocked.

She bounded up. The next was nearly
there.

She thrust the last one’s severed head
before her. ‘Look! Dead!
Dead
! Now go away! Go away!’

The next was female. She skidded to a
halt.

She appraised the head sceptically, as if
deciding on its deadness.

Then she turned and walked away. Limped
away.

The children went too. Well, they were not
so frightened by her that they didn’t stop to gather up the
wounded.

One even wanted the head.

‘Mine!’ she growled at it.

This was proof. Without the head they’d come
at her again.

She felt curiously light headed, like she
might float away.

Even more curious was that she could
actually walk.

When she spotted Aerlid it took her a moment
to remember what he was doing there. She was too tired to ask why
he hadn’t come to help her.

Riley stared at herself in the stream. She
was covered in sweat and blood and dirt.

She had a severed head in her hand.

She knelt down by the stream. She more fell
than knelt. But she was down. She dipped her hands in the stream.
For a moment she let the water carry the mess away from them. Then
she scrubbed them. She cupped her hands and washed her face.

After, she turned to Aerlid. ‘Why did they
keep coming?’ she asked.

‘They weren’t afraid.’ he shrugged. He
almost seemed to glow compared to her.

‘Why not?’ she demanded. Her reflection
hadn’t filled her with thoughts of safety, that was for sure!

‘Riley, here the winner of a challenge kills
the loser. You didn’t.’ he shrugged. ‘Not for a great many
challenges. Riley, I’m afraid we’ll have this problem everywhere in
the Plains. If you aren’t willing to kill the loser perhaps we
should think about leaving.’

‘What if I keep the head?’ she asked. She
gazed down at it. Her mind didn’t seem to be making all the
connections it should. Everything was moving so slowly.

It was hard to imagine this had once been
attached to a body. Words had once come out of that mouth.

Aerlid shook his head. ‘I don’t think that
will help.’

‘Well I guess I’ll give it back then.’

Riley turned to look at her arm. It was
still burning. There was a new slice in her clothes. It was more a
graze than a cut. A red line, but no blood.

Well, it didn’t need attention, so she
turned away from it.

Riley continued cleaning herself at the
stream. She said no more to Aerlid.

She didn’t feel like making any decisions at
the moment.

Chapter 54

After some food and a good night’s sleep
Riley felt refreshed. They’d slept by the river. The gemeng’s camp
was less than ten meters away, yet the tall grass provided some
privacy.

Over breakfast Riley thought about what
Aerlid had said last night.

The Plains had proved to be more than a
little disappointing. But the memory of her childhood in peopleless
forests buoyed her. She had been happy then. She had done what she
wanted to do here, albeit not in quite the way she’d imagined. The
fighting had taxed her stamina, and nothing else.

‘Do the strongest gemengs really live here?’
Riley asked Aerlid.

‘Well, I don’t know any stronger, though I
suppose there could be.’

Riley nodded absently. ‘Alright.’ She said.
‘We’ll leave.’

Aerlid hesitated for a moment before saying,
‘we may not be able to yet.’

Riley glanced up at him.

‘You’ve destroyed the fighting force of this
tribe. When the other tribes find out they’ll wipe these people
out.’

Riley’s eyes widened. ‘You mean I have to
stay and protect them til they feel better?’ she demanded.

‘Well, we could still leave.’ he said,
though his tone suggested otherwise.

‘Couldn’t you heal them?’

‘There are too many. It would take me weeks
to heal them all, by then I imagine they would have healed
naturally anyway. Besides, if I fix some and not the others, who
knows what the healthy ones would do to the weak.’

Riley sighed and looked away. ‘Fine.’ She
stood. ‘Let’s go tell them.’ she said grimly. ‘We have to set some
rules with these people. I won’t have them attacking me while I’m
here.’

Aerlid got to his feet and nodded in
agreement.

As they headed back towards the main
encampment Riley remembered something.

‘Why didn’t you want me to fight their
leader?’ she asked.

‘Usually the gemengs will follow whoever
defeats their leader. But I guess that won’t be a problem with
you.’

A week later Riley was warily striding
through the camp. Hoots and insults followed her wherever she went.
A swarm of children followed her. They tried to steal her weapons
right off her belt and cheerily ignored her attempts to swat them
away.

‘Slave, come sweep my tent! How can I
recover living in this mess?!’

‘Come cook for us, slave!’

It was an unpleasantly hot and humid day.
The smell of the grass and unwashed gemengs was overpowering. The
cool water of the river called to her. But she was supposed to be
protecting these people. She needed to check on them
sometime
if she was to do that.

‘Slave, go hunt for us! I’m hungry!’

There was the sound of flesh hitting
flesh.

‘The slave can’t hunt! She’s soft! Only
warriors hunt!’

She was too tense. It was too hot. It was
too crowded. There was a constant din of noise, of people talking
and fighting and cooking. It was too damn smelly! How could a tribe
of less than fifty people be so unpleasant?! It wasn’t as if they
didn’t have access to the river! It was less than a minute
away!

Her round of the campsite wasn’t finished
yet. So she kept going, around animal skin tents, clumps of
gemengs, scattered belongings.