The Forlorn(25)

* * *

He'd been vaguely aware of the bouncing motion for some time. When was it going to stop? He was going to vomit any minute now. He opened an eye warily. The earth was moving past him. He was hanging over the side of some large brown moving thing. A horse . . . he was tied onto a horse. And that was sunlight falling on his face. Sunlight splintered by pine needles. He must have made some sound because someone said, "Our little bundle of joy is awake, I see. Can we call a halt for a few minutes, Cap?"

"I think we can afford a little time, Leyla. By the sound of it, it will do Beywulf's horse no harm to rest a while anyway." The tall man still sounded remote.

They stopped. The trio dismounted, tied their horses and remounts calmly before turning any attention to S'kith. He too waited silently, his mind rapidly paging through possibilities. In the Morkth-man's philosophy he could see no good reason for what they had done.

The tall man reached into his saddlebag, and produced a braided-handled cattle goad. "The closest I could find. Here, Leyla, you'd better hold it. Morkth females give orders and punishments, you know."

The sight of the goad had made S'kith wide-eyed and rigid with fear. She looked at him, a strange almost feral-hungry expression coming into her eyes. "Well, Morkth-man, fancy a little . . . spanky?" She stood legs apart, and fondled the whip suggestively. It brought a guffaw of laughter from Beywulf, who was untying the knots that held S'kith on the horse's back. "Really, Leyla! Haven't you ever got anything else on your mind?"

To S'kith however the whip was totally unfunny. When Beywulf pulled him off the horse and released him, he immediately sank down on his knees and grovelled in front of her. "Command me, Mistress."

This only made Beywulf laugh even louder. With a look of irritation at him, the girl slapped the whip against the palm of her other hand.

"For God's sake don't hit him with it," said the tall man.

"Why ever not? I've hit men with far worse. And," she licked her upper lip, catlike, "some of them even liked it. Called me mistress, too."

"Not this one. He'd die. As far as he's concerned that's a Morkth discipline prod. To other Morkth it causes pain; to humans irredeemable nerve damage. More than a few blows and he'll start having fits, with pain stimuli coming in from each nerve in turn. It just recurs and recurs until the victim dies. Now, tell him to come and sit here and listen to me. You two prepare some food."

* * *

S'kith sat with the plate of food on his lap, attempting to use the clumsy wooden spoon which Beywulf had quickly whittled for him. He covertly watched the other three eating, and tried to imitate them. His mind was still boiling with what the man called Cap had told him. His hand unconsciously went down to the stitches on his side.

"Leave them alone, man. Eat your food." Cap said.

"Yeah, Morkth-man, what's up with you? Don't you like my cooking?" Beywulf asked, his voice half-mocking, half-serious.

S'kith's natural caution helped him to bite back his first reaction to the question. The food was, well, hot, and tasted nothing like the Morkth rations he was used to. It did all sorts of things to his taste buds, which were unaccustomed to such stimuli. And none of it was alike. Morkth rations were blended to uniformity. If any ingredients were cooked it was because they were going off. He'd never had warmed food before. His taste buds revelled, but his mind revolted. It wanted the comfort of something familiar.

"Well, Morkthy, what do you think of it then?" asked Beywulf again.

S'kith realized he had to give some kind of reply. "I am sure it is very nutritive," he said at last. "Why is it eaten hot?"

"A beautiful fricassee of a fresh young leveret, done in its own blood and red wine with garlic and wild mushrooms, and homemade spaetzle, and you're sure it's very nutritive, and you ask me why we eat it hot. Well bugger me! Last time I'll waste good vittles on you, you odd fish. Eat your nutrition then . . . while it's hot." The broad Beywulf helped himself to yet another plateful as he spoke.

S'kith kept quiet and ate. These mongrel humans were truly strange, but he was a master at adaptation.

* * *

Keilin had walked on determinedly all night. Two hours after the flood wall had come beating down on him, the water had begun to subside. By morning there were only drying puddles on the sand. The hills on either side of him were far bigger now. At last he was coming to some almost-mountains. They still bore no resemblance to the beautiful, forest-clad things he'd seen in the book, but perhaps he would still find those. The air was cooler here too. Going on in the small hours had been agony, but he knew that to stop here was to die of exposure. But the character of the land was changing: There were occasional sparse aromatic-leaved bushes and tufts of coarse grass in the watercourses. He'd walked awhile, until it got too warm, and then found a shaded resting spot among the broken rocks. He lay down, desperately tired. Sleep was slow in coming, he was so hungry, but eventually tiredness carried him beyond the threshold. Till the cool of evening he'd wandered through strange dreams of empty white plains adrift with white flakes.