Catch and Release

Tread would have ruminated on Reur's last words to him if he knew what ruminated meant. Instead, he hurried, but quietly, back to where they had left Raven with the chicks.

He hesitated, though, just at the edge of the temporary camp they had made.

This woman, this Vagal, Raven ... He shook his head. She was hardly attractive, but she had held a position of authority in her tribe. She had been their raptor keeper, akin to a hunt master. Her role had helped to keep her tribe alive. She was used to competence and authority, neither of which, Tread was certain, he or Mucker had evidenced much of in the time she had known them.

Strangely, her cheerful condescending remarks irritated him less than he felt they should. Even when he was ready to gut her alive with words, or a knife, she could just turn and flash her teeth or say "Hello," and he wouldn't think about it anymore.

Tread was coming to grips with the idea of Reur being their leader, and that was hard enough. Knowing that this Vagal exile could command him too ate into him like konig worms hunting for the bloodstream.

Taking a deep breath, he dove into the clearing.

"Did you find your wandering cohort?" she asked casually.

"No. Yes. In a way," he said, vaguely. "Reur is going to get him, but ..."

"We're in the lands of the Send, I think," she said.

Raven perched on the edge of a rotted log, the two raptors hooded and upright not too far away. She had her knife out and was trimming her nails.

Tread smiled briefly, then grabbed the packs. "It might be good if we go back to offer help."

"I think the Send would murder a Totanbeni before they spoke to one," she went on, staring at her fingers as though they were iron.

"Yes. No. Erp." Tread stuttered his way through a few syllables, then pulled himself together with a visible shake. "Look, do you think Mucker is dead?" His voice quavered.

She put the knife away, stood and walked over to him. When she was close to him — he noted absently that her eyes and his eyes were the same level — she took one of the packs from him.

"No," she said seriously. "Send aren't violent. But we can't carry all the packs ourselves. The birds need to be carried by one person, and you can't carry them. So you'd have to carry all the rest of these." She paused while he thought this through, then put the pack she held on the ground. "Reur went in because they won't know what to do with him."

He nodded dumbly. Maybe we're eye to eye because I'm slouching. He stood up straighter.

"So you going in would be suicidal. And me? I don't know what they'd do to me. With the Vagal, I've dealt with the Send. But as an exile, I don't know." She turned away and looked at the birds and the packs.

"I can go scout, and you can wait here," Tread said, finding his voice again. She's still my height.

She shook her head before he was finished. "There's something you're not considering, and I'm not surprised you're not thinking of it. You and Mucker don't have to think of it, and I do know why you wouldn't think of it around me."

"Huh?"

"Magic, Tread. It takes more than one. If anything goes wrong, it would be a town against just you."

"Mucker will be there."

"Yes, but perhaps incapacitated ... hurt," she amended as he looked confused. "And Reur doesn't seem to use magic like we do."

"His tablet is magic."

"In any case," she said, her voice teetering on the edge of patience, "Two will stand a better chance."

"What if the whole town attacks?"

"We'll have to make sure it does not."

"What about our packs?"

"They will have to wait. Show me where Reur left you."

Tread led, inwardly satisfied with what happened. I mean, she came, right? And we might get to use magic together! Oh, man ... That wasn't so difficult. And another part of him was incensed about how she took over the conversation and took on the role of leader when he had obvious seniority.

But she has nice fingernails.

He led her back to the field, generally dissatisfied that she could move as quietly as him. More quietly, the little paranoid part of his mind thought. He shook off the feeling that someone watched them.

They passed the suckmud willow without him having to point to it, and they did not see the tofus. She crouched down close to him on the edge of the field, where, amazingly enough, Reur was harvesting the rice.

"What is he doing?" she asked.

"Harvesting," Tread said, mystified. "We don't need the food."

Her hand clasped his shoulder urgently, and she pointed across the field.

A kid had appeared. He might be twelve, Tread guessed. He was dirty, but not dangerously so. He had short, spiky hair and a look of rage on his face. His eyes were as hard as cobalts.

Raven hissed next to him just as four more boys appeared. They all seemed to be of an age with the first.

Reur kept harvesting, apparently not seeing them.

Tread had a premonition.

"Magic?" he said, keeping his eyes on the lead boy. "Do you know Shell of the Turtle?"

Her hand touched his arm again. "Do it," she said.

Joined, Tread lifted his hand and pointed it at Reur.

"He's a survivor," he whispered. "But this time, he needs our help."

*******

No one thinks I am with Mucker, Reur thought. Two strangers on the same day, from the same direction, and no one made the connection.

"A day for strangers?" he asked Garth, the giant leading him to a hut.

The man grunted. "Sendala is generous," he said, and that was all. Reur thought the worst: Two sacrifices in one day.

"Has your harvest been good this year?" he asked, in an effort to remind the man of how he had saved a bit of it, but he was ignored.

The man ushered Reur into the hut, where giant vats of water boiled. Reur had seen very little iron since he came here — Tread and Mucker hoarded their single pot and cared for it as though it was a newborn baby — so this displayed quite a bit of wealth.

I have nothing to trade these people, Reur thought.

As he washed himself clean in scalding water, he ruminated on this particular predicament. Either there were no konig worms in the mud around here, which he found highly unlikely, or Tread or Raven had returned to aid him from afar. Quite nice of them, really. He assumed only one of them had come, because someone would have to stay with the chicks. He hoped the chicks would be all right. Raven was constantly going on about how Red Feather had mistreated them. She could get quite bitter about it. She wouldn't let him touch them, though, even when he explained what he knew to her satisfaction. Maybe she hadn't forgiven him about Talon's death.

"Or maybe she's annoyed because we kidnapped her," he said out loud.

"Who is we?" Garth asked, harshly. He had not left the room, but months on a ship had made Reur lose his discomfort with cleaning himself near other people.

"Oh, just thinking out loud," Reur said hastily. He considered his options. How long am I a guest before I'm a sacrifice? Not very long, he surmised.

By the time he was clean, dry and clothed again, he had made his decision. He turned to Garth and opened his mouth, then closed it again when he saw Garth's loud expression.

"Are you the tribe's leader?" he asked

"Heli is the chief." Garth had a way of speaking that was not kind, but not entirely brutal, either. Reur got the impression that Garth would happily rip his head off, but considerately serve him a meal afterward.

"May I speak to her?"

"She wants to speak to you when you are clean."

Not entirely bright, either. Probably not encouraged to be. So ... what happens if you mix an intelligent leader with a half-crazed physical maniac? He thought of Firth. Only a mother would have shouted like Heli had.

Then again, what harm can a twelve-year-old boy do?

The crowd was gone from the one building, and Reur was led to one adjacent to it.

"Nice town you have here. What do you call yourselves?"

"We are the Send," Garth answered. This must be safe territory, Reur thought.

"How many of you are there?"

"I will not talk to Totanbeni spy."

All right, add suspicious to Garth's title. "Just the one town. You harvest. Not nomadic, I take it, like the Vagal?"

"The Vagal are as mud underneath our boots."

"Interesting. So when they come to trade with you, do you fight or trade rice for meat?"

He didn't respond, just pushed him not-too-roughly inside. Heli and a few guards waited. Two of them were women. Garth stood by the door.

Reur sighed and spoke as the chief opened her mouth.

"I'm with your other captive," he said. "Mucker is a companion of mine. We mean you no harm. We are lost, and traveling away from here."

"You are not Totanbeni," Heli said.

"No, I am not. As I said, I am from across the ocean, far west of here. Mucker saved me when my ship exploded. Since then, we have traveled together. I am doing research."

"Research?"

Reur cursed language barriers. "I seek knowledge of your lands."

"Spies!" Garth roared, and Reur was slammed to the floor.

"For whom?" Heli asked, interrupting her husband's roars.

"For myself," Reur said, wisely staying face down. "I am a scholar. A ... guider." The closest word I can think of is guider?

"A guider, eh?" A female guard pulled Reur roughly to his feet. He stood, trying to appear meek, in front of Heli. "The guider needs a guide?" The guards laughed lightly.

"Yes," Reur said. "Mucker was an apprentice on a shadelshif, and his guider was killed. He is my ... apprentice now." Reur felt his face go red at the lie, and cursed himself. He plowed on. "He helps me."

"He said ‘we kidnapped her' in the bath, wife," Garth interjected.

"Who is her?" Heli asked.

"No one, an old story," Reur said, wincing at his poor lie.

"It is not just you two, is it?" she said. "There is another one out there."

"If we kidnapped her, she's probably run away by now," Reur said, feeling frustrated. "After all, she was held against her will, right? Why would she come and help us?"

"She could steal more rice," Heli said.

"I helped your harvest!" he protested.

"You can help it more," she said. "If you are a guider."

"Yes! I can help more!"

A look of amazement crossed her face. Reur glanced around the room, seeing the mixed stares of approval and surprise in everyone's face except Garth's, whose sneer couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as a smile.

He looked back at Heli and replayed the conversation in his head.

What did I just say? And then it hit him.

"Sacrifice," he whispered slowly. "Not physical labor."

"I have never seen anyone offer themselves so fervently," Heli said. "So be it. Garth? Prepare him for a midnight sacrifice."

Reur tried to dodge away from the big man. "Wait!" he said. "Wait! You must release my apprentice. You will not need him." Oh, man, oh, did I just say that?

Garth grabbed him and hauled him back. Reur floundered.

"Wait!" he tried. "If guiders are powerful, then you should keep me alive to train other guiders to ... be ... sacrificed. I can do it. Mucker's half-trained already." Oh, boy, did I just say THAT?

"You would train your apprentice only to watch him die? What kind of man are you?"

Reur thought, One who wants to stay alive, but he said, "Then let him go free, so he can learn from someone else. You don't need two sacrifices. The harvest is upon us anyway. It is almost over."

"Yes, but it is wild rice," Heli said with a toothy smile. "There will be another one in a few weeks."

"Arghhh!" Reur said as he was dragged out.

********

Firth dodged around the side of the building as his father dragged Reur outside, and ran into Hartog.

The old man grabbed him by the upper arms and lifted him easily.

"Can't hurt me much in town, where everyone's watching, right boy?" he said.

Firth squirmed.

"What's got you so agitated?"

"Mom's gonna sacrifice the damnen for the harvest."

"Damnen? There are no more," Hartog scoffed. "That was just a story, to scare you boys."

"Look at him!" Firth insisted. "He looks like us, but not quite like us. We pelted him with mud and he didn't flinch or die. He fell in the water and he's all right. He offered to train the other captive so we could sacrifice him."

"The Totanbeni?" Hartog released his grip on Firth. "I just talked to him. His name's Mucker. He has no idea where we are. Not even a spy. Your mother was going to let him go."

Firth stood there, trembling. "What happens if a damnen is sacrificed to Sendala?"

Hartog hesitated. "This man cannot be ..."

"What happens?!" Firth shrieked.

"In the stories, you couldn't. You could only sacrifice a damnen to death."

"What does that mean?"

"The harvest would be lost. There may be farther reaching effects." He shook his head. "But there are no damnens."

Firth screamed and ran off, clutching his head.

"I just made them up to frighten you," Hartog said. "Oh, forgive me, my ancestors. What have I done?"

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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