8: Flat

Chiro wasn't hurt by my blow, not by a long-shot. "What do you mean, competition?"

"I'm going to be Lady of the Hunt," I said stiffly.

Chiro leaned against the boulder. "So," he said after a minute, grey eyes narrowed. "It's not enough that you stunk up my Marl. I might have offered my protection to a frightened soul in an unknown land. Might. But aid a potential competitor?" He leaned forward, the muscles in his arm taut, and I was quickly becoming aware that maybe a bit of politeness was in order, because the only thing keeping me safe was his good (or more likely, neutral) will.

I crossed my arms, glancing back toward Akta's fire with a flicker of nervousness. It wasn't just the pelt I'd stunk up. Mom was right about my tact. I needed to have better control over myself, especially my tongue. "Well, that's not what I—"

"It's what you said."

"You had me in the moment," I huffed.  Carefully, I rearranged the furs to keep myself as dignified as possible, which really wasn't much considering it was all I had. "Anyway, the Walrus is asking the King, so until he decrees me in the running or whatever, I'm not official competition."

Wolves howled to the darkened sky; some other animal let out a fierce screech. Chiro angled his head in their direction, and as the screeches intensified into snarls, glanced back at me. "You're a maiden."

"Lady." I pulled my hair to one side, combing the knots to hide my nervousness. Mom always said, dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I didn't have much in the way of dress, which meant words were my only asset at current. Besides the ones covered by the cloak, anyway. "Demon blood runs through my veins, same as yours."

"Are you an unmarried young woman?"

I sighed. Shit, he had me there. "Yes."

"So by definition you are a maiden," he said, smug as a, well, a cat. "Are you a mistress of the household?"

"That remains to be determined."

He rested his elbows on his knees, watching me through wisps of embers. "So it remains to be seen if you are a lady."

"I take back what I said earlier. You're smarter than I pegged you for," I decided, taking advantage of the fire's warmth before he made a decision about turning me away. I stuck my feet nearest the flames, hoping the blood from my cut heels might congeal quicker.

"You want to stay a prince of these men, you need a lot of brain or brawn or both." In the distance, whatever prey the wolves hunted died with a horrible, abrupt wail. I winced and rubbed my ankles, trying not to think about prey. In a languid stretch Chiro removed his tunic and tossed it to me with the friendliest tone I'd heard yet. "The occasional glimpse of haunch is making me hungry. Put it away, please."

Self-consciously I grabbed at my thighs; I wasn't a perfectly conditioned athlete or anything, but I wasn't deserving of a haunches label, was I? Nevertheless, I scooted around to put my back to him despite the fact that he'd already seen me naked, next dropped the cloak, then slid on the tunic; it was still warm from his body, a light cotton whose sleeves my arms got lost in. It didn't cover my legs much, but it was over my butt and crotch and I didn't have to keep holding it closed like a shower curtain as I'd done with the cloak.

"Won't it stink?" I asked, grateful for his kindness if not wary.

"You'll wash it."

"Well I won't wash you. Keep that in mind."

"Unless I catch you in the Hunt."

"Thought you were on the fence about joining us."

He sucked the last drop of blood from his finger. "If there was one chicken left in the entire world, wouldn't you want to be the one to eat it?"

"I would save it," I said.

The conversation grew cold like the night wind blowing through the grass. Chiro sat in stony meditation, shirtless with the wind ruffling his sandy hair. I brushed the dust from his pelt, hefted it in my arms and drew myself to his side of the blaze. As if on cue his eyes lifted. "I'm not cold," he said. "It's for show, a reminder of what I'm capable of."

"You were nice to me, so I'm being nice to you." Very slowly, I draped the cloak around his shoulders. My hand brushed against his arm accidentally, and it lingered there, against hard muscle, against a heat that felt a degree away from uncomfortably hot.

"Thanks," he grunted, playing along for all of thirty seconds before taking it off.

"Why are you a million degrees?" I asked. This time, I sat beside him, close enough my sleeves touched his bare skin whenever the breeze rattled through.

He flinched away. "Will you stop asking questions?"

I sighed and looked up into the dark sky. "I'm in a land where the sun's green and lizards fly and what's dead apparently doesn't die. Forgive me for wanting to know what I'm getting into."

"I'll tell you this, then. Gone from here is gone. You die here, there's nothing else."

On that note,  we sat together, listening to the wolves and the men and the strange wind. After a while he placed a calloused palm on the flat of my back, pulling me toward the ground. I jerked back, alarmed.

"The hell are you doing?"

"Going to sleep. I am tired. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when we arrive at the palace and I have some peace and quiet away from you.  You asked for my protection. Lay down and I will keep you warm."

I watched him carefully. "Just sleep, right?"

He snorted and sprawled against the ground, laying an arm beneath his head. One grey eye fixed on mine, and then it shut and he took a big, peaceful breath. I half-expected a tail to pop out and quietly flick back and forth. But it didn't, and I wasn't sure sabertooth demons had much of a tail anyway. I looked towards the larger fire, and finally eased myself against Chiro, tensing a little as he curled around me. It actually felt nice. I would've really liked the comfort of another body, if I was snuggling against someone back on earth instead of with the man who'd run me through with a sword.

*

"Does Chiro really eat humans?" I asked the Walrus in the light of dawn. The sun, a few green tints from true white, was a welcome relief, even if it wasn't the sun I was used to. My reluctant ally had ditched me in the morning, but I was unharmed and made it back to camp without worse than a few cuts on my feet.

"He doesn't like the taste as much as some of the others do," he told me, helping me onto Chiro's stallion. The herd had returned only a short while ago, placid and calm as the day was long. "He'd clean his fur if you bled on him, but he's more the type to show off his kill than eat it."

"Good to know," I told him, actually smiling at Chiro when he reappeared carrying the cloak, pausing to scratch the Smiling Dark's chin.

Akta, tall and imposing and eerily pretty, cut my view short as his horse clicked between us. "If you ruined my bride, I'll not be happy, cat."

Chiro's shoulders rolled back in a smooth shrug. "She's intact. See for yourself."

"Woah, no!" I exclaimed, crossing my legs side-saddle style, even though I had the tunic to hide things now. "I'm not some kind of champion racemare. You can't just spread my legs and have a peek."

Akta ran a nail down my spine, his breath hot against my ear. "Can't I though?"

The wolf nipped at Akta's horse. The animal kicked, missed the predator's head by inches, but reared and sent its rider flat on his back. Chiro laughed, I laughed, and the wolf looked up at me, its tail lifted and wagging just slightly as if waiting for approval.

"Good job," I told him, albeit reluctantly. "But I still don't forgive you for Lucas or my calf."

The wolf's ears flattened, but Chiro hopped up and called the rest to move.

The imposing wall, interspaced by several posts and lookouts, marked the end of the plains and the beginning of the active kingdom. The wall was made of a stone with the charm and glitter of blue granite. Several spots had twisted carvings and rune-like markings; more than one in the shape of a circle intersected by what appeared an arrow. Many areas were scored by cracks, claws and scorch marks. As we neared the gated entrance it was those sections which had me feeling more than a little concerned about  what other nightmares lurked in this land.

"Did a Marl do that?" I asked Chiro, pointing to one long slash of what I counted to be seven talons.

Fed up with my endless peppering of questions, he didn't answer. The dour eyes of stone gargoyles followed our progress as we approached the castle itself. One of them blinked.

Never in my life had I gone further than Alaska, but I'd seen in my research for special effects dozens and dozens of actual castles. Medieval ones, modern ones, buildings that weren't castles but stood as powerful as them on the horizon.

None of them, I thought as tremendous gates cranked upward in anticipation of our arrival, none of them were grander than this. The stonework rose dark and mossy, a giant sentinel of the ancient forest whose tangled vines and redwood-tall trees rose behind it. Mountains stood beyond, distant, small. Even the forested hills could take no glory from the castle's angular lines and curved turrets. Its adornments, weather-worn, battled-tested, were lavishly designed and carved rather than plain stone and shingle, a testament of some former king's greatness.

As we entered into the inner bailey- a broad courtyard bustling with the first life I'd seen other than our party-all men and horses halted. Chiro lifted me from the horse to the ground with a word to stay put until further notice. He and the rest, except the Walrus, who made his own path, kicked off for a far gate.

The other denizens of the Mid, generally human in appearance with a few animal shapes among the crowd, gave me a wide berth. A couple of children, all boys, were playing some kind of a ball game; they stopped when they spotted me, scampered away to watch from beneath an awning. There was something reptilian about them, something in the way the eyes reflected in the shade, that made my skin crawl.

And so I stood alone in the center of the courtyard as one of the stone gargoyles descended its watchtower and ambled straight for me. The earth sunk beneath each of its six paws. It half-hopped on haunches higher than its shoulders- all the power was in its hind legs. Big, black eyes watched mine. Its nose was squashed like a bulldog's, though its jaw length and ears were more close to a hyena than anything else. Dwarfed, mutilated wings hung uselessly from its back, while two diamond-edged tails scraped against the stone courtyard with a shrill pitch.

Not Master, it growled in a tone that resonated through my mind, thick neck stretching toward my hand. I stood still as the statue it wasn't. Air funneled through its nostrils with a hollow hiss.

"No," I replied, unsure what else to say or do. "I'm not your master."

The stony head nodded. Come, Not Master.  I brings to Master. All six legs sunk into a crouch. There it waited and there it stood waiting until I took the hint and climbed on. Its hide was rough and solid like a rock. This was gonna scrap me to bits.

Lays flat, it instructed. Holds tight.

I held its limp wing joints because the neck was too wide for my arms, and in the next moment it was scuttling past the curious crowd and straight up the wall to the main keep.

If I wasn't afraid of heights (which I was), I'd be petrified now (which I also was). The minute we went vertical and gravity pulled down on my dangling legs, I started to panic, started to sweat, felt my grip loosen. It was fear which locked my burning muscles into place as we shot, up, up, and up.