Jane Carver of Waar (3 page)

I was way too late. The one guy who was still breathing when I found him died by the time I found anything to bind the gushing wound in his leg with. I felt like a fucking idiot.

Up close the dead guys looked pretty damn human. Too human. Back in the rangers I’d had to help clean up a helicopter crash after a training exercise went wrong. A lot of these guys were just as young as those kids had been, and they’d died just as scared. I decided I didn’t like Square-Jaw too much.

What made it worse was that they looked like kids I knew. Hell, back in my punk-rock run-away days most of my friends had haircuts just like these guys. Except for the purple skin and pointed ears, I wouldn’t have given any of them a second look walking down Hollywood Boulevard. Their eyes were a little longer, their canines a little sharper, and they were a tad shorter than the average American guy, but they had hair where we have hair, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, and everything else where you’d expect to find it.

This nearly freaked me out more than all the rest of it. Weren’t aliens supposed to be more, uh, alien? They always were in the movies. Shows you how much I know about the universe.

I looked at the coach. There was one guy left to check on. Long-Hair. What was I supposed to do if he was still alive? Help him out? He probably still had that dagger on him. I didn’t want him stabbing first and asking questions later. On the other hand, if I was stuck here, I’d have to meet the natives sooner or later, and one-on-one with some wounded sap with a dagger was probably better odds then alone against a healthy, well-armed posse. I snatched up one of the fancy swords and hopped up onto the overturned coach.

Or at least I tried to. My leap overshot it and I hit the ground on the far side. At least I was getting better at landing. I tried again with a more controlled leap and dropped softly beside the open coach door.

I looked down inside. Overstuffed red leather benches, scads of throw pillows in rich fabrics, candleholders on the side panels. Of course everything was topsy turvy; the pillows thrown against the opposite wall and smeared with food from a bronze tray that had been dented in the wreck.

Lying in the middle of all this high-class debris, with a bloody hand to his wounded head like one of the tortured saints from the stained-glass windows back at Saint Sebastian’s, was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

His mane of black hair was spread out like a halo around the face of some Roman emperor’s boy-toy; high cheekbones, straight nose, and lips like Elvis at nineteen. His body continued the beauty parade. He was built like a ballet dancer, with flawless skin a shade darker than the chick Square-Jaw had dragged off, and he covered it only a little more than she did. He wore a flimsy white, ankle-length, sleeveless vest thing, open in front, and a tiny white silk loincloth that made it pretty clear that these guys were human all the way down to the important parts. And how!

He wasn’t my usual type anymore than the gal was. I tend to like a guy who can make me feel delicate. Big Don had been six four and about a yard and a half wide, and when I was in his arms I’d felt protected from the whole rotten world. But I’ve got what you might call varied tastes. I like to sample the whole buffet, and sometimes I want to be the one who wraps her arms around some poor little boy and tells him everything’s going to be alright.

And then screw his brains out.

The kid moaned. His long lashes fluttered and a pair of pale violet eyes looked up at me. That gaze was like an electric shock. It made my mouth dry. It made my skin prickle. It made my... well I’ll spare you the gory details. Let’s just say that any worries I’d had about making friends with the natives went right out the window.

I gave a little wave, just to show I was friendly. “You okay?”

He frowned like he didn’t understand. “Who are you?” His voice was soft and clear, like a choir boy’s. “Come you to aid me or to kill me?”

Well, of course he didn’t understand. The odds of him speaking English were... But wait a minute. I’d just understood him. It wasn’t English, but I knew what he was saying.

Suddenly I realized that I had a whole new language in my head just waiting for me to take it out of the box and plug it in. Where the hell did that come from? Then I remembered the babble of voices that went rushing through my mind after I’d touched the jewel in the cave. That gizmo wasn’t just a transporter, it was a translator too, a goddamn tourist’s dream! Instant travel, and you speak the language perfectly when you get there. Who the hell thought this stuff up? It sure wasn’t these sword swinging refugees from a Conan movie. What was up with this place?

Long-Hair started groping around for his dagger without taking his eyes off me. “Speak, sir. You alarm me with your silence.”

I snapped out of it, “Uh, aid. I mean I’m here to aid you.” That jabber tumbled out of my lips like I’d been born speaking it. It was like that sensation when you realize you no longer have to think about all the steps of shifting gears, you’re just doing it automatically.

I dropped into the coach and knelt beside him. It was dark in there. It took me a second to adjust. I squinted at his eyes first. A concussion would have been the icing on the cake. He looked okay. Both pupils were the same size.

I could see why Square-Jaw had left him for dead though. He was as bloody as a pro wrestler at the end of a steel cage match—head wounds always look like a splatter movie—but the cut didn’t go all the way to the bone and he’d slowed the bleeding by keeping his hand pressed over it. He was seeping, not gushing. That was a good thing.

I breathed again. “How you feelin’? Any other wounds?”

“I...” Suddenly he jerked like somebody’d zapped him with a cattle prod. He tried to sit up. “Wen-Jhai! Beloved! Where—”

I pushed him back down. “Sorry, brother. She’s gone. The big guy with the teeth took her.”

He struggled against my hand. “But then we must—”

“You ain’t doin’ nothin’. You’re too hurt and... and your pals...” I didn’t know how to say it.

He did. “Dead?”

I nodded. He closed his eyes in pain. “The butcher.”

“The quicker we get you patched up, the quicker you can go after him. Now, you hurt anywhere else?” I almost laughed, listening to myself. All of a sudden I was coming on like some super para-med, like I knew what I was doing. Stupid, I know, but the minute I started to take care of this guy I calmed down. Works every time, doesn’t it? As soon as you’ve got somebody else worse off than you, you start trying to solve all their problems and forget about your own. Probably why so many fucked-up people become guidance counselors and psychiatrists.

He sighed. “You are kind, sir.” He raised a feeble hand. “Only my arm. I seem to have fallen on it...” He stopped, staring at my boobs. “Sir! You are a woman! And... unclothed.”

“Uh-huh. Good eyes.”

“But...but... My apologies, mistress. My wound must have disturbed my sight. I thought...”

“It ain’t the first time, pal. Don’t worry about it.”

“No no, forgive me for mistaking you. ’Tis unpardonable. And you are in distress. Did those ruffians...?” He turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at me. “Please mistress, help yourself to a garment.”

“Hey, I ain’t freezin’. We gotta fix you up first.”

He bumped his arm and turned several shades lighter than his girlfriend. He gasped. “Very well. Is there a man in your party who might assist me?”

What was I, chopped liver? “You don’t want my help?”

“I’m afraid I require more than tender words and gentle ministrations, mistress. With my head and this arm, I may not be able to climb out of the coach on my own.”

“Pal, I could probably fold you up and put you in my pocket, if I had a pocket. I’m the only one here, so maybe you should let me have a look at you.” I reached across him to pull his matted hair away from his wound. He jumped again, this time looking at my arm.

“By the Seven,
are
you a woman?”

So my arms were bigger than his. My arms are bigger than a lot of guys’. Hitting the iron relaxes me. “Brother, what planet are you from?”

Well, duh. Now that I thought about it, I was the one from another planet, and if all the chicks around here looked like Miss Teeny-Bikini, I guess I could see why he was a trifle confused. I sighed. “Sorry. Don’t freak out. I’m not from around here, but I am a woman, and I’m here to help you. You got a needle and thread?”

“In my lady’s baggage, perhaps, but you don’t mean to...”

“Relax pal, I used to sew leather wallets in juvie crafts class. This ain’t much different.”

I jumped back out of the coach and searched through the jumble of luggage that had fallen from the roof-rack during the crash. There were big wooden trunks wrapped with iron bands, and fancier chests made of polished woods and decorated with six-sided symbols. Most had smashed, and all kinds of rich fabrics and fine china were spilling out. I dug through clothes, jewelry, funny-shaped crockery. Finally I found a little gold sewing kit in the shape of some cute animal I’d never seen before.

Back in the coach I cleaned Long-Hair’s cut with water from a cracked clay jug, doused my needle and thread in some liquor that smelled like cranberries and Everclear, and sewed him up, then tore his gauzy kaftan into wide strips and tied it around his head. It made an ugly turban that unfortunately hid a lot of that beautiful hair. I made the splint by smashing up a fancy wooden make-up box and binding two long slats to his arm.

He was pretty brave under my “tender ministrations,” only flinching and whimpering a little, and never complaining. He reminded me of a kid too proud to let on how scared he was, though he thinks his life’s blood is spilling out of him—which in his case it was.

He was less co-operative when it came time to get him out of the coach. “I cannot allow it, mistress. No true Dhanan would permit a woman to lift a burden as heavy as myself. And am I so poor a man that I must beg assistance in the first place?”

Well, nobody can say I butt in when I’m not wanted. I shrugged. “Hey, I ain’t stoppin’ you. Go on, take a crack at it.”

He stood up, jaw set—and sat right back down again, sheet-white, his eyes rolling up in his head. “A passing weakness. If you will allow me a moment to recover.”

I crossed my arms. “Dude, you need a week in bed watching game shows, with someone who knows a hell of a lot more than me takin’ care of you. We gotta get you home.”

I put an arm around his waist. He flinched from my bare skin. “Mistress, I protest. I weigh too much...”

What a little priss. I slung him over my shoulder, pulled myself out of the coach one-handed, then eased us both down to the ground and sat him down, his back propped against one of the trunks. His eyes were as round as poker chips.

“By the Seven, mistress, such strength is impossible! Why, you carry me like so many bedclothes. How do you come by this...” He gasped and looked around at the carnage. His face sagged like somebody had pulled the bones out of it. “Lau. Sil. Cousins.” He put his head in his hands.

I didn’t know where to look. I never do when people get all emotional. After a while he stopped snorfing and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “My apologies, mistress. I dishonor brave men with these tears. They were true Dhanans. They would never have wept...”

He stopped, staring at me in the sunlight. “Mistress, you are...” He went pale and started trying to back away from me, eyes wide, but since he was already pressed against one of the trunks, so all he did was dig grooves in the dirt with his heels.

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter now?”

He made a weird hand motion at me. He put his thumb and middle finger together and touched them to his left eye, his right eye and then his mouth. “Begone, mistress demon. I do not wish to travel yet to the lands of the dead.”

“Demon? I ain’t no demon. I ain’t even a Hell’s Angel.”

“Tease me not, tormentor. Have you not a demon’s dead pink skin, its hair of flame, it’s green eyes? Do you not have a demon’s unnatural strength and size?”

I laughed. Maybe I should have been insulted at the less than flattering description, but it was too funny. So hell on this planet was full of big, pink, red-headed chicks? Pretty much what Father Flanagan always told me. “Buddy, calm down. I promise I’m no demon. I’m flesh and blood, just like you.” Well, okay, not just like him. He was an alien, but you know what I mean. I held out my arm. “Go on. Pinch me.”

He shrank away. “If you be no demon, explain yourself. What are you? From where do you come?”

That was a tricky one. Did I tell him I was an alien from outer space? Not smart. I’d probably be taken to the local version of Area 51 and get dissected. But telling him I came from “across the big water” was risky too. These guys probably knew exactly who lived across the big water, and it was a good bet it wasn’t dixie-fried biker gals. I decided to play dumb. “I don’t know. I woke up on that stone there, right before you were attacked, and I can’t remember anything before that. Do you know where I came from?”

He looked toward the stone disk and froze, then the weird eye-touching motion again. “So strong. Could you be...? By the Seven, that is worse even than...” He trailed off.

I stepped forward. “Come on, pal. Don’t leave me hanging. What do you mean? What’s worse? Worse than what?”

He shook his head. “No man speaks of this.”

He wasn’t putting me off that easily. He knew what the stone disk was. My heart thumped. Maybe he knew how to get me back home. “Bro, if you know something, some way to get me back to my own people...”

Suddenly there was an edge in his voice. “I know nothing. Be silent.”

“Listen, you little pipsqueak. I’m only asking a civil...”

“Do you dare speak to me this way?”

“I just saved your life, pal. I’ll talk to you anyway I damn well please.”

That made him pause. He nodded. “Forgive me, mistress, you are correct. That was ungracious. I owe you a debt I cannot repay. But there is danger here. We must leave quickly.”

“Not unless your house is right around the corner. You need to eat and rest first. You lost a lot of blood.”