Medi took the lead and Totomac fell in behind Oser. Maria took a position in the middle and wondered if the grath would try to kill her when they reached their camp. She had her doubts to be sure. The world was rife with the kind of prejudices on display at the ice shelf camp. She was willing to bet the ‘bloodthirsty savage’ narrative was couched in a healthy amount of imperialism, religious doctrine, and a fair share of good old fashioned bigotry held over from the age when the grath had become slaves in their empire. On the other hand every stereotype had a basis in fact, however fragile that evidence was.
They walked for another hour. Maria got a sense with the grath efforts to hide their tracks and circuitous choice of paths that they were trying to throw off any possible pursuers she might have been in league with.
They found a secluded ravine lined with mossy rock on either side to take refuge in. Totomac directed his prisoner, still gagged, into the far end of the rocky ravine and had him sit. The vines unwrapped themselves from around the man’s body and then bound themselves again around his feet and arms.
Mediana thumped her on the shoulder and glared at her, “Help me set up the camp. Be useful.”
Maria held up her hands and smiled as she said, “Of course. That I know a little about.”
The two of them worked in silence except when Medi chose to growl instructions at her. She was usually instructing her about how she was doing something wrong. Totomac sat near their prisoner in quiet meditation. Seniority seemed to have its benefits amongst the Grath.
They were both kneeling near a very small and sheltered fire when the young warrior said, “You really don’t know how to fight.” It was not a question. She was pushing some kind of gourd into the fire as she said it.
Maria shrugged, “I told you that. How did you know?”
Medi studied her with an unreadable expression and said, “When I was pushing you or slapping you on the shoulder. I was testing your awareness. At first I thought you were hiding your real skills.”
The grath studied the cooking gourd and shook her head, “I’m surprised you aren’t dead.”
Maria shook her head and looked back down into the fire, “I have mostly been swinging wildly and getting lucky. Most of my skill with swords comes from using a machete in my old life.”
Medi shook her head, “Chopping at the forest does not make a warrior.”
The Angelus studied her and said, “Can you give me some tips?”
The warrior looked to the rear of their camp where Totomac sat at the edge of the light with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. She shrugged and picked up a suitable piece of wood from the pile they had gathered for the fire and tossed it to her.
Maria barely caught it. She studied the stick and said, “Am I supposed to use this as a sword?”
The warrior got up and brandished her spear with a flourish, “I’m not letting an amateur swing a dangerous weapon at me.”
Maria shrugged and got up. Before she had even brandished her stick the butt of the grath warrior’s spear came around and collided with her leg sweeping her off her feet and onto the ground with a thump.
“Always watch your enemy.”
Maria grunted and tried to catch her breath as she moved to stand. She watched Mediana this time. The warrior stood watching her, leaning against her spear with a flat disinterested expression. Once she was standing she scooped up her stick again and the warrior grath was on her in seconds.
With the short time they had the warrior, who suggested she preferred to be called Medi, proceeded to teach her a few basic tenets of fighting with weapons. Maria lost count how many times she got knocked to the ground. She became grateful that the things she had faced had been doddering half broken machines and lurching oil zombies.
Her father had taught her a few basic self defense moves from his training in the Marines. He had been more thorough with that kind of thing with Layla. She thought that her Dad knew well before anyone else that Layla was not going to grow up to be the person he wanted. It was possible he thought that begging her sister to go on the yearly hunting trips, before settling on taking Maria, and trying to teach then ‘Daniel’ martial arts he might stop the change in her.
Her Dad had been amazing at a lot of stuff but understanding his kids was one of his great failures. She saw Medi’s spear butt coming at her again and heard her Dad say, “When someone sacrifices reach, you have power over them, Peanut.”
She grabbed Medi by the forearm and yanked her past her with the momentum. She snapped her stick out toward the warrior but was stunned by what she saw.
Medi had passed her and let her spear butt collide with the ground. She used the momentum she still had to spin around the haft of the spear and drive a foot into Maria’s chest sending her tumbling back and onto her back. There she was, in the dirt once again.
Medi stepped forward and helped her up with a nod, “You do know something.”
Maria shrugged and grumbled, “It was not enough.”
The warrior shook her head, “Do not doubt yourself. Always believe you are in control. The moment you do not believe is the moment your opponent kills you.”
Maria studied the grath woman’s face with a surprised expression.
Medi narrowed her eyes and growled,”What?”
She chuckled and said, “That reminded me of my Dad.”
“Then your father is wise.”
“Was.”
Medi gave her a pained look that only lasted a moment before she looked away and said, “Sorry. We are done. Practice what I taught you.”
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They did not speak again that night. There was no attempt to keep a watch. When she fell asleep Totomac was still meditating near Oser. Medi had gone out of her way to avoid speaking since their sparring and Maria chose not to ask her about the little camp’s security.
She was a prisoner after all.
Medi woke her with a shove the next morning and pushed her pack into her arms, “Get up. We want to be at the camp before the first true light falls through the branches.”
Totomac was directing a struggling Oser to stand. Most of the camp had been cleaned up. The little camp was beginning to look like they had never been there at all.
Medi directed her out of the camp a short time later.
“I guess it's time to meet my relatives,” she thought to herself as she kept quiet and trailed after her captors.
As they traveled throughout the next day Oser remained either unconscious or muttering through his gag. She suspected that most of his muffled diatribe was either curses on her, his grath captors, or prayers to the Dominus. She didn’t make an effort to annoy her guides with questions. It turned out that Medi was not so reticent to talk.
“Are you one of those twisted ones?”
At Maria’s questioning look she said with a measure of disdain, “The ones who are like us but not.”
She snapped her eyes back to the young woman and said, “No, they don’t have tails and a lot less hair.”
Medi hopped over a log and scanned the ground for tracks as she said, “You are not of our people, and you don’t bear the features of any other of the people I’ve met from the Expanse. Are you from the great southern desert?”
How did she go about explaining where she came from? Lying to these people was no place to start to understand each other. She settled on the nearest truth she could tell.
“I’m from beyond the empires of the east, lands you’ve not heard of.”
Totomac suggested, “She is a Spiritwalker.”
Medi cast a worried glance that she quickly masked with her usual bravado and said, “Is that true? Are you from the spirit world?”
Maria sighed and ran her tongue over one of her large canines as she looked anywhere but at either of the two grath. Finally she said, “I suppose that is the best name for it.”
Totomac chuckled but she could see a new terror in Medi’s eyes. The young grath leaned close and muttered, “I will walk a better path. Do not punish me.”
Totomac shushed the young warrior with a wave of his hand, “She is not of our spirit host Mediana,” he gestured at the now sleeping Oser, “she is of theirs. The one they call Dominus. The Great Slaver.”
Those words made Maria a bit nauseous. She held her hands up and said, “I had no choice but to be brought here by them. Heavens know I would never agree to work for someone that anyone called The Great Slaver. It’s one of the highest sins in my world. Death is too good for the monsters who take part in it.”
Medi stepped closer and nodded with a glint of threat in her eyes, “It’s good that you think that way, outsider. When you discover what we have done to the invaders we have captured, perhaps you won’t spare sympathy for them.”
They continued on in silence. She knew that they were heading further south. The drainages and slopes became less prevalent and the trees crowded closer. Occasionally Medi would stop them to prowl ahead and take shots at small game. The darkening forest meant that more often than not her shots did not find their mark. Oser remained blissfully asleep until they arrived at their destination.
The entrance to their village would have been impossible to find without the two grath. At first it appeared that they had arrived at a titanic tree with massive roots that were partially exposed above the ground surface. Totomac had Oser stand and wait and raised both of his hands. The grath spread his hands apart, fingers placed in some arcane pattern that reminded her of the little sign language she had learned while an undergraduate.
The roots in one part of the tree shook for a moment and then writhed apart revealing a rocky tunnel under the tree. Medi gestured for her to head in first. Acquiescing she spotted the light of a fire on the other side. She went forward with caution hearing a fair amount of chatter from the lit area ahead. When she emerged she was amazed.
The interior of the tree was hollow. There were three small, grath sized, hide and bone tents in the area. Along with them there were wooden ledges cut, or more likely shaped, out of the walls that circled up the inside edge. Spaced out on the ledges the shaped wooden platform formed a larger ledge into the side of the tree to form some cover and provide a dwelling. That seemed to continue well up the tree to a platform that circled high above them. The light she had seen didn’t come from fire but from a bright green bush at the center of the area where what looked like an entire swarm of fireflies drifted in and out. They provided illumination for the bottom level. The same type of bush was scattered all the way up the inside of the tree and the vivid insects were everywhere, drifting between them.
There were at least forty grath inside the tree. Their chatter had stopped when she entered only to be replaced by whispers and glares. The tension eased when Medi and Totomac entered and curiosity followed when Oser, who was now screaming through his gag, was forced to crawl his way into the central area.
A young female grath came forward and moved to Totomac. She put hands on the side of his face in what must have been a welcoming gesture. No one moved out to greet Medi, and she remained close to Maria.
A trio of grath, all female and wearing elaborate leather dresses painted with sigils exited the largest tent at the far end of the area. Each wore an animal mask, similar to creatures from Earth but with the tell-tale four eyes and emaciated affectations that she had seen on animals from Eilyth. One wore a horned goat or deer-like mask, another like a pig of some kind, and the last wore a black mask covered in feathers with four red eyes. Maria realized that she did not see any way for these three women to see out of their masks. She got the sense they were aged but it was hard to tell. One of them, Bird, walked with a gnarled cane covered in living vines.
Pig waved a languid hand at Oser and said, “This prisoner I understand, but this strangely dressed one who appears to be of the People, I do not.”
Before Maria could provide an explanation, Medi piped up, “She is a spirit walker.”
There was a collective gasp by the gathered grath as Medi continued, “But not one of our people’s spirits. She walks for the outsiders, and came looking for their sacred stone.”
Maria gave her a scornful look and turned back to the three female grath, “That is all true, but I don’t have anything to do with their Dominus. I guess I was chosen at random and I was told nothing except that the stone was important to the people who brought me here.”
She sighed and glanced at Oser, who had finally stopped struggling and just watched her coldly as she spoke, “I come from a place where we prefer to talk these kinds of things out before they get aggressive.”
She winced at that and made a middling gesture with her hairy hand, “Well, I prefer to talk things out. I actually can’t speak for all my people.”
The Stag stepped forward and gestured for her to stop talking, her voice a rasp, “Did the outsiders inform you why we took their stone?”
“No, but given what I have heard and seen about The Dominus so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for a good reason.”
A few of the grath whispered at that but the Stag continued, “The stone keeps them warm at their camp without wood, it makes them simple food and water, and it keeps the Noctis away from their camp.”
She looked toward the gathered grath and said, “The stone does nothing for our people. In fact, it makes any of our people who carries it ill. One of our strongest hunters was lost returning it to us.”
There was a murmur of sadness and what sounded like prayers amongst the gathered. Maria noticed that Medi averted her gaze at that.
Bird spoke up, “The outsiders must leave the Expanse. They do not belong here. Every interaction with them has ended in their demand for our food or goods. Recently they threatened to destroy or enslave us if we did not help them survive the coming season of the crone.”
She nodded as she turned to the other two women, “They will leave us in peace now. They must.”
