The Lord of the Plains (100 page)

She walked over to where she saw Karesh. He
was asleep on his stomach. His back was heavily bandaged.

The people in the medicine cave were all
very busy. She let them be and walked the few steps to the
surface.

She spotted a guard and walked over. ‘What
happened last night?’ she asked.

When he saw her he looked relieved. She was
a bit surprised at that. ‘You killed the monster.’ He stated, his
eyes wide. ‘But it got you as it was dying. Karesh came and saved
you and… I didn’t see. But I was told he was disappearing.’

‘Disappearing?’ she frowned.

The man nodded. Then he pointed. Gemengs
dotted the slopes, cleaning up after last night. Riley spotted
Gakra and walked down to him.

‘Gakra.’ She called.

He looked up at her and pointed at something
on the ground. Riley walked over and looked. The rock was porous,
like a sponge. Gakra jabbed at it with a rock and Riley saw it
crumple away. It left a sharp-edged hole in the ground. That would
be very dangerous- it would be easy to break an ankle in a hole
like that. The holes would have to be filled in with dirt or small
pebbles.

‘The monster did this.’ He growled. ‘Where
it fell, the ground gives way. Its body disappeared quickly. There
was nothing to burn. Just all this…’ he spat, ‘mess. It has stopped
now, but it was eating away at the rock all morning.’

Riley remembered avoiding the tentacles,
avoiding the goo that rushed from the creature when she stabbed it.
Whatever had done that to the rock had been on Karesh’s back. She
looked up at the cave entrance.

Lucky to be alive didn’t cover the half of
it.

There was still something else she needed to
know. ‘Gakra, if I was unconscious and injured, would you finish me
off or help me?’

Gakra’s truculent face stilled, became
thoughtful. ‘I don’t know.’ he said in his growly voice. ‘But
whatever I did, I would expect the warriors I command to follow my
lead.’

Riley nodded, expecting as much. It seemed
Karesh had been an excellent choice of second in command for more
than one reason.

Chapter 85

‘There are ehlkrid out there much stronger
than the ones we’ve been fighting.’ Riley was saying to Aerlid. It
was a few days since the jellyfish had attacked. Aerlid spent most
of his time trying to heal Karesh. But he still had to take care of
the other wounded. Riley herself had not yet fought, on Aerlid’s
instructions. The tired, aching feeling was better, but not
entirely gone.

‘We can’t do this forever Aerlid.’ She
continued. ‘I want to talk to the Ehlkrid King.’

‘No, Riley, I will not help you with that.’
Aerlid snapped. ‘You talked to Andalla, I assure you the Ehlkrid
King is no better!’

‘You may be right. But I need to try. We
can’t do this forever. Besides, if we don’t deal with the ehlkrid,
Andalla will come and do it for us.’

‘Why don’t you try talking to the ehlkrid
who attack us?’ Aerlid jabbed snidely, anger and irritation shining
through his tiredness.

‘If it was just myself fighting them, I
would, Aerlid. But I can’t try and have a conversation while my
gemengs are fighting. Please, I must try.’

‘No. No I will not. I fetched Andalla for
you. If you had any brains that should have told you how hopeless
this is! No, and I will hear no more about it!’ and Aerlid spun on
his heel and stalked off.

Riley was frustrated, but not surprised.
There was nothing she could do. She didn’t know how to contact the
Ehlkrid King herself, and pushing Aerlid wouldn’t have achieved
anything.

And so everything continued as normal. They
fought, the gemengs died. The numbers that died each night were
small, but most nights, they lost a few. The numbers were building
up, even though Aerlid was such a good healer that deaths only
occurred if an ehlkrid did something like decapitate a gemeng.
Still, if this went on as long as Aerlid thought it might, for
years, eventually, they would lose. Aerlid had reduced his healing
with little encouragement from Riley; fixing her and Karesh had
drained him. The effect on the number of wounded was obvious, only
giving Riley more incentive to find a way to end the fighting
sooner rather than later.

The scouts sent out to find where the
ehlkrid hid during the day were still unsuccessful. The scouts were
not supposed to fight the ehlkrid, just find them. About five
gemengs were in each group. If they did stumble upon the ehlkrid,
there was no reason to think they wouldn’t attack during the
day.

Karesh slowly healed. Aerlid could not focus
as much on him as he would have liked, and so the process was much
slower than it could have been. But he was alive, and he could walk
and do other work, besides fighting. His wings no longer worked and
his back and shoulders, and by extension his arms, were weak.
Aerlid thought he would be able to fix his wings eventually. One
day.

The humans visited one more time.

‘Do you want to see the ehlkrid?’ Riley
asked as the group was getting set up in one of the caves. A few of
the people were the same as last time, some were different. There
were more than last time too.

The leader nodded. ‘Yes, we won’t attack
them, but we wish to observe the fighting.’

‘Fine. But make sure you stay out of the
way.’

‘Of course. Is it alright to have another
tour of the caves?’

‘Why?’ Riley asked, her eyes narrowing.

‘We’d like to see how you managed,’ he
replied politely. This man was friendlier than the other woman had
been. ‘If things go badly in Astar, we may need to move back into
the caves. Unfortunately, we have forgotten how to live there.’

‘Alright.’ Riley said slowly, thinking of
what she could show them without putting her own people in danger.
‘I’ll show you.’

‘You have the time?’ he asked,
surprised.

‘I’ll make the time, there aren’t many here
that can speak your language.’

‘Thank you, we appreciate it.’ he replied
pleasantly.

True to her word, Riley found the time to
show them around. She also posted ‘guides’ around the cave the
humans were staying in. The excuse was to prevent them getting lost
within the caves, but really Riley didn’t want them wandering off
and mapping the tunnels.

After the tour and a night looking at the
fighting Riley went to speak to them again, expecting to say her
goodbyes.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
Riley asked.

‘Everything you are doing is excellent.
You’re being very helpful.’ The man smiled.

Riley observed him a moment longer.

The man just smiled in response. ‘Will you
be able to give us another tour?’ he asked.

‘I’ve already shown you everything.’ she
smiled.

‘Yes, I know. But it’s nice to wander around
instead of staying cooped up here. I’m afraid we haven’t finished
observing the fighting.’

‘Hm, alright. I’m afraid I don’t have the
time to do that myself. I can send some gemengs with you, are you
alright with that?’

The man nodded.

Again, she was surprised. Surely they should
be more nervous than that?

But she said, ‘I’ll organize it then.’

She left and went to find some guides. She
was very clear in her instructions to the chosen gemengs; the
humans weren’t to see any more than she’d already shown them.

‘And tell me if they do anything strange.’
Riley added.

Turak watched the humans closely, his arms
crossed across his broad chest. To him, everything the humans did
was strange. So he was going to tell the Master everything they
did.

Not all of them were with him, worse, they
all looked the same, so he counted and made sure none snuck
off.

He didn’t understand their words. They
talked a lot, quietly and in groups together. As if they didn’t
believe that he really didn’t understand them.

Seeing them all bundled up in a group again
he suddenly walked towards them very quickly.

‘What are doing?!’ he demanded. Of course,
they couldn’t understand.

Still, they spread apart, looking at him in
fright.

He grinned, bearing his teeth. It was then
that he realized one was missing.

Quickly he looked around. ‘A human is
missing!’ he called loudly, alerting all the gemengs nearby. He
wasn’t the only one watching them after all.

The other gemengs sprang into action. The
humans were looking a little haggard.

A few long, tense moments later Turak heard
a growl.

He turned and saw another gemeng holding the
missing human.

‘Bring him here!’ Turak declared, one eye on
the other group.

The man was very pale. In his hands he was
holding a good sized rock. Turak frowned at it.

The man smiled and carefully put it on the
ground.