The Forlorn(42)

It wasn't quite all night . . . but pretty close. Dawn was only a few hours off when they bedded down for the night. And before midmorning they were off again. Keilin was obliged to ride for an hour or so the next day, but when he saw how Kim was struggling even to walk after the long ride, he realized that running wasn't too bad. Amphir was far south in the wide plains beyond the mountains. It took them nearly three weeks to reach it, by which stage the party had become familiar with each other, and Keilin could ride. The one and only advantage of riding, he decided, was that he could talk to the other riders without craning his neck.

He had begun to establish relationships with the rest of the party, all except its leader. Cap remained aloof. He was without a doubt the commander of the party, but there was a complex hierarchy under that. Bottom of the pecking order was the Morkth-man. He would literally do anything anyone told him to. He showed no emotion at the occasional taunts. On the other hand he was both strong, and potentially deadly, as Keilin saw in a brief incident with foolishly optimistic bandits along the way. After that Keilin made a careful point of leaving the taunts to other people . . . particularly Kim who, after the first night, treated S'kith as if he was something unpleasant she'd stood in. But then that was only one of the aspects of her behavior Keilin found inexplicable. The fact that S'kith knew Keilin had another core section, and had contrived to hide it was odd, too. The other thing he found bizarre was the Morkth-man's attitude to Beywulf's cooking. The shaven-headed man always treated the meals as if they might bite him, but ate with a strange kind of greed.

Beywulf, the cook, was a bizarre mix between an axe murderer and mine host of the homely tavern. It had taken Keilin a while to realize that his slightly high-pitched voice and crude manner hid an intelligent, complex persona. The only thing that could always distract him from crude jokes and stirring for mayhem was exotic food. When he discovered that Keilin had come from the east coast, he grilled him about the curries and spices of that region. He'd only been there for a week as a bodyguard once long ago, but still his knowledge of the cuisine was a great deal wider than that of a street child's. Marou had been fond of food . . . Beywulf was fanatical. It was infectious. Keilin spent hours dredging his memory for the methods the women of Port Tinarana, and the more exotic refugees from across the gulf, used to enliven their poor diet of fish and lentils. The two of them were even immune to Leyla's put-out-at-being-ignored little barbs about the two housewives swapping recipes again. After her third comment Beywulf finally rose to the bait with a lofty reply, "It is a well known fact that women can't cook. They just have to."

"That just proves how stupid men are!" she returned cattily.

"Couldn't agree with you more. Luckily they're not my species. Now, about preparing that masala . . ."

The species comment lay in Keilin's mind. He brought it up that evening while they were dicing a tough piece of venison, which would later make part of a heavenly meal of herb-scented meatballs in a piquant lemon sauce. He put his fingers at risk by turning to ask Beywulf what he'd meant by it.

"Watch your hands. I mean just what I say. I'm not human . . . or at least I'm only half human. According to Cap I'm a Gene-spliced. I'm a descendant of the military-bred creatures that the humans made to defend themselves against the Morkth. I'm part chimpanzee, part Kodiak bear. I have natural speed, strength and agility that no ordinary human can rival. I also have a decent sense of smell. I'm faster and more deadly than a Morkth warrior-prime. For our services the human race rewarded us generously. They feared us `better' humans, so . . . I'm sterile or damn near. I've one child by another of my kind. I've had two other cubs . . . they both died. Cap kept my Wolfgang from dying. That is why I have left my inn and my family to go on a quest I have no interest in." There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice.

Leyla put an arm around his shoulders. "Never mind, you hairy Don Juan. If you hadn't been here I would never have discovered that your kind are perfectly in proportion, all over. You're so wide, and so hairy . . . nearly all over." This brought a coarse guffaw, and an even more coarse riposte, and the moment was broken.

By Leyla, Keilin was usually hypnotized the way a rabbit is by a snake. She made him make a fool of himself at least five times a day. He desperately wanted to impress her. He dreamed about her at night. Very vivid dreams. His night senses were honed enough to be aware that she amused herself with at least Beywulf and S'kith. He kept hoping . . . but she treated him as if he was a joke and worse . . . as if he were a child.

As for Kim, she was the one person Keilin felt he understood less each passing day. She had become positively fatuous about Cap. And if she told him that she was a princess now . . . he might almost believe her. He even got to half-believing the crap about being descended from Queen Lee. Fat joke, what would a Princess be doing with stolen goods, starving to death on the run? But still she became more stuck-up by the day, behaving like one of those fancy tarts on Deale Street. She expected to be waited on by all of them, especially Keilin. Next thing she'd be fluttering her eyelashes and behaving like one of the really cheap girls down on Dock Street. And all of this while speaking more fancy lah-di-dah than ever.