Olivia (93 page)

There were five humans in the common caves.  Damark stepped closer to Amy and she patted his arm absently, looking back at Olivia with a thoughtful expression.  Ellen put her hand over her baby-hard stomach and let Mudmar rest his hand on her shoulder while his gullan mate, his true mate, touched the other.  Anita, sitting beside the male appointed her by Murk, made a discreet thumbs-up gesture and winked.  Sarah J., mateless in Sung’s absence, only twirled her spear and kept quiet.

Olivia faced Thurga again and folded her arms in unconscious imitation of Vorgullum at his most authoritative.  “We didn’t get to choose to come here.  We didn’t get to choose our mates.  We choose to stay.”

“Forgive me,” Thurga said, crouching slightly and looking at the floor.  “I should not have questioned your wisdom.”

“Feel free to question me anytime,” Olivia replied, allowing herself a faint smile.  “Keeps me honest.”  She touched Thurga’s shoulder briefly, and then sat back down beside Sudjummar.

“So,” murmured the metal-maker, not looking at her.  “That’s done it for sure.  Come with me.  Pretend we’re getting thumperjuice.”  He stood up and moved over to the stack of stolen human goods brought in earlier by the hunters.

Puzzled, Olivia followed.  “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”

“I sure didn’t think so.  But there are three males out there working themselves up for a challenge.  I’m going to provoke one.  I need you to be ready.”  Sudjummar stretched his good wing around her and lowered his voice until it was scarcely audible.  “Now,” he said calmly, “I think I know you very well, Olivia, and what I am about to say is going to make you absolutely furious, but I ask you to stand very still and quiet and let me say it all.  Promise?”

“Promise.”  She braced herself.

“There is going to be a fight.  I plan to win, but if I don’t, here is what will happen.  The victor will ask you to come to his pit, claiming you as his mate.  You can refuse.  No, Olivia, you promised.  Hush.  If you refuse, he will demand the right to couple with you once as victor of his challenge.”

“Oh weeping, creeping Christ, I knew it!” she hissed.

“You can refuse him,” he went on.  “If you refuse, you will be taken to the women’s tunnels as an unmated female.”

“What’s stopping you from coming directly to the women’s tunnels to fetch me out again?”

“Nothing.  Except perhaps the knowledge that if I do, I’ll almost certainly meet my challenger on the other side for a fresh fight.  As often as it takes, until I stop coming to claim you.  If you agree to couple with him—”

“You’d better not be telling me to,” she spat.

He waited for her to stop talking, began again, “If you agree to couple with him, he will take you to a certain chamber here off the commons.  Once there, he’ll ask you again if you refuse him.  You can, and after you sit there for a while, he’ll return you to me.  In the eyes of the tribe, I will have lost the challenge and you will have coupled with the victor, and all will be satisfied.  He might challenge me again if he’s feeling spiteful, but sympathy will be against him if he does, so I doubt it.  Do you understand?”

“Do I understand?  You’ve got to be kidding!  You’re about to butt heads over me like a couple of rutting goats and you expect me to prance off into the corner with whoever the hell wins, and I’m supposed to
understand
that?  Oh, but I can always refuse,” she said bitterly.  “There’s some comfort for me as I stand over your broken body.  I can always refuse.”

“In the event that you ever do stand over my broken body,” he said quietly, “I advise you in the strongest terms not to refuse.  Not in public, at any rate.”  He cast a swift glance over his shoulder.  “I’m running out of time if I’m going to have the advantage here, Olivia.  Tell me what you would have me do.”

“Oh, you…”  She didn’t bother to finish.  “Go,” she said at last.  “And for God’s sake, don’t lose.”

He offered Somurg, and when she accepted the baby, Sudjummar turned and moved away from her with studied casualness to melt into the crowd. 

Olivia dropped heavily onto a bench and stared helplessly into her sleeping son’s scowling face.

“I told you it would be ugly.”

She glanced around at Doru, prepared to unleash some of her anger on him.  He was not looking at her, but instead leaned up against the cavern wall, scrutinizing the gathering as intently as if there were prey that moved among them, unseen.  His expression was calm, almost uninterested, but his body betrayed terrific tension.

“You know, I had actually begun to think of you people as civilized.”

One ear twitched.  “You’re not exactly catching us at our best,” he replied.  “How civilized would your race act if they had lived three hundred years without the right to choose a mate?  Three hundred years!  To have the barest handful doled out to privileged few and know that you were not selected because you weren’t fit enough to breed.  And then to have the most—”  He broke off, lowered his horns a moment, and continued. “Most desirable among them set aside and finally there is a way, a right and just way if not a particularly
civilized
way, to possess her.  What would your race do?”

She was miserably grateful he did not look at her.  She knew she would never be able to meet his eyes if he did.

Abruptly, Doru tensed and straightened up. “Get ready, Olivia.  Here it comes.”

Vorung was easing through the gathering, his eyes grimly fixed on Olivia.  Olivia stood up nervously, scanning the gullan for any sign of Sudjummar, but the metal-maker did appear to be present.  Her instinct was to back up, but her knees were against the bench, and the cavern doorway was beyond Vorung.

The graying male stopped before her, his wings fanning out and forward slightly. 
Cutting me off from the herd
, she thought. 
Where is Sudjummar
?

“Olivia.”  He thrummed her name openly, displaying his chest and flexing his arms and legs in the posture Olivia had come to associate with a blatant gulla come-on.  “I’ve come to court you.”

“I’m not interested,” she said, and was faintly pleased by her icy tone.

“But you are alone.”

“I’m with Sudjummar.”

“Not at the moment.” 

“You told me you didn’t want to take me from my mate.”

His nostrils flared.  Vorung lowered his horns.  “Your son,” he said distinctly, “looks ill.”

The cave had gone very quiet.  The gullan were retreating to the walls, pulling their humans with them, clearing a space.  Still there was no sign of Sudjummar.

“My son,” she replied, “is sleeping.”

Vorung advanced.  “You grow thin, Olivia.  The metal-maker does not provide for you as he should.  You deserve better.  Come with me,” he hummed.  “I will bring you meat of my kill.”

Sudjummar stepped silently and easily between them, his powerful frame rippling in the firelight as he put his hand on Vorung’s shoulder and pushed him back.  He stepped forward as Vorung stumbled, shoved him on the other shoulder, advanced further, thrust both arms flat against Vorung’s chest and knocked him flat on the ground. He lifted his foot and drove it at Vorung’s head, stopping just short of crushing his enemy beneath his gleaming talons.

“What,” Sudjummar said reasonably, “do you want with my mate?”

Vorung eyed the talons poised above him. 

Minutes crawled by in silence.  Sudjummar lowered his foot to the ground and held eye contact awhile longer.  When Vorung did not speak or move, the metal-maker turned his full back and limped to where Olivia stood clutching Somurg.  He caught her eye, shook his head warningly.  It wasn’t over yet.

Vorung rocked onto his hip, then gained his feet, and stretched his wings.  At the same time, the coarse hair on his head, shoulders and biceps began to spike outward like the hackles on a dog’s neck.  To Olivia, it looked as though he had doubled in size.

Sudjummar swung back to face him, his own body undergoing the same transformation as he lowered his horns and snarled wordlessly.

“Stand down,” growled Vorung.

“I defend what’s mine!” Sudjummar spat.

Vorung advanced on him, his wings arcing out impressively.  “What will you do, half-man?  Limp on me?”

The two males now stood alone in an empty circle ringed by frightened humans and solemn, watchful gullan.  Olivia reached tentatively to the back of her neck, half-expecting to find her own hair standing on end.  She felt cold; her face would be white as chalk.

Doru’s hand closed over her shoulder.  “Steady,” he murmured.  “Believe it or not, it’s almost over.”

Sudjummar raked his talons through rock, towering over his opponent with the massive body so much like Vorgullum’s own.  “Stand down, gray-flanks, or I’ll snap you like a dry bone!”

“You are made of dry bones,” Vorung scoffed.  “Dry bones and a mangy pelt!  What can you give this woman but fleas, crippled rat!”

“Palsied pervert!”

“Challenge!” screamed the other, and threw himself forward.

Sudjummar caught him with his left hand and slammed him face down on the ground with a terrible impact.  He limped around him in a wide circle, so that Vorung’s next leap would bring him away from Olivia, if he had the strength to move at all.

Vorung pushed himself raggedly to his knees, then to his feet, and looked groggily around.  He glanced back at Olivia, and the sight of her seemed to draw him back into furious focus.  His wings snapped out, he crouched like a cat, and sprang.

Sudjummar met him again, this time with his lame foot planted square in the center of Vorung’s loincloth.

The older gulla let out a whistling howl and dropped to his knees.  His wings snapped to his body like wet rubber.  He grabbed himself with both hands, bent double, and ground his forehead against the stone floor.

Long minutes passed.  Sudjummar simply stood and waited.

At last, Vorung made a sound.

The metal-maker tipped his head to one side.  “What?”

Vorung whimpered again.

Sudjummar limped a little closer, started to bend down.

Vorung’s hand whipped out, caught the smith’s good foot, and flipped it into the air.

Sudjummar let out a cry and dropped onto his back.  His good wing snapped tight against his body; his withered left wing struck the ground, then bent, then cracked in two.  Sudjummar and Olivia shrieked together.

Vorung couldn’t leap up, but he did manage a clumsy pounce, landing on the thrashing gulla and raising his clawed hands for a final blow.

Olivia started forward and Doru took her shoulders.  She struggled and he let her, but pulled her back against his chest and held her firm.

Vorung’s claws came down.  Sudjummar caught his wrists.  His huge hands closed.  And tensed.  And twisted.

And broke them.

Vorung threw back his head and howled, but Sudjummar did not release him.  The smith continued to twist his hands, continued to tighten and grind at the bones as they were crushed against each other in his grip.

When Vorung started pitching wildly back against the wall, Sudjummar threw him aside, rolled to his feet, and kicked him in the chin.  Vorung landed on his side, then dropped onto his belly, drooling blood.

Sudjummar seized his foe by one horn, yanked him up and lifted his right arm like a hammer.

“Concede,” croaked Vorung.

Sudjummar paused, his club-like hand poised at the arc of descent.

“I concede,” Vorung said again.

Sudjummar uncurled his fist, reached his hand under the other’s arm, and hauled him to his feet.  Without further interest, he turned away and limped back towards Olivia.

The circle of gullan began to break up. 

Holding her wailing son, scarcely able to reconcile what she had seen, Olivia maintained enough presence of mind to know that both rivals needed medical attention and fast.  “Get Tina,” she commanded shakily.  “Tell her Sudjummar’s wing is broken.”  She did not mention Vorung’s wrists.

Three females set off at once to obey.  Less than a minute later, Tina bolted into the room with a backpack over each shoulder.  The paramedic stopped cold in the center of the room, stared at first one, then the other, and then back at Olivia.

“Sudjummar,” Olivia said.

Tina looked at her hard, but knelt and explored the break.  “It’s clean,” she said curtly.  “Should heal pretty quick.  Rumm, help me get it in place.”

Sudjummar didn’t make a sound as the human and gulla pulled his bones apart and fit them back together.  A splint was fashioned, and Tina stood back as Rumm, far more familiar with gullan anatomy, bound it on over the bent angles of his wing.

The paramedic faced Olivia, pointedly keeping her back on Vorung, who still lay on his belly, holding his wrists out at a terrible angle and making a thin, whining cry in the back of his throat.

“Is my mate well?” Olivia asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“He’ll heal.”

“Then see to that other one.”

With obvious relief, Tina swung around to inspect the damage.

Sudjummar stood up and advanced on Olivia, his eyes glaring, his hand held out in a gesture that stank of ritual victory.

She wanted to stay long enough to hear whether or not Vorung would be crippled for life.  She went to Sudjummar instead, feeling light-headed and nauseas.  When he took her by the arm and led her swiftly from the cave she was absolutely certain the first order of business would be a solid, ceremonial screwing in that fabled tunnel set aside for that purpose.

She was wrong, however.

“I am in a great deal of pain,” he whispered, as soon as they were far enough down the passage so as not to be overheard.

Olivia stopped at once, her hand going to her middle before remembering that she wasn’t wearing her belt pouch or her pack.  “My things are at the forge,” she replied.  “Can you make it that far?”

He turned a tight smile on her.  “Could you carry me if I can’t?”

“No.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll just have to try.”

They traveled blindly down tunnels they both knew by heart.

“Olivia, there is something troubling me,” he said at last.

She made a small sound of inquiry.