Dark Warriors: A Dark Lands Anthology (Darklands) (29 page)

He hadn’t even kissed her.

Well, didn’t she deserve something? He’d teased her often enough, made her think of things she’d known were impossible. He owed her this. She refused to live on dreams, wondering what it might have felt like…

Determined, she straightened her spine and stepped closer to him. Her eyes flicked to his lips. “You owe me this,” she whispered, too softly for him to hear. Gently, she touched her mouth to his. There was no experience behind the move, but it rocked her, wrung a sound from his throat, something between protest and growl.

She pulled away, shaken. She’d stolen a memory, and it left her dazed with a craving for more. Dey looked in his eyes, and felt remorse. Her first kiss, and it had been stolen from unwilling lips, not given.

Unable to face him any longer, she looked through him instead, turned and walked away.

It was a death sentence. Keg clenched his fist and fought the urge to chase her down. No one survived the swamps alone for long, especially not a frail young woman. No matter how much her race had learned about living here, even though her father had been a hunter, he could not believe she’d make it alone. Not for a year.

Even if other humans found her they would also shun her, for the collars were widely known and respected. In a few days she’d activate the locator and he would come for her. In the meantime he’d be having nightmares about that kiss.

A shudder passed through him. It had been the wrong time and the wrong place, but definitely the right woman. She might not know it, but she’d just sealed his determination. If she could still want him after all that had passed between them, then he would claim her. Until then he’d undoubtedly suffer sleepless nights dreaming about where her kiss could have taken them had they only been alone…

Seven months later…

She’d gotten used to silence.

Birds called to each other in the early morning haze as Dey guided her symbiont-boat among the wild rice. The ripe seed heads shattered easily into her boat with the help of a long stick. The slow, methodical work kept her from thinking, and that was good. Sometimes she’d work until she dropped. Other times she’d pick up her camp and ride off to explore one of the sites on her ancient maps.

It wasn’t nearly as much fun alone.

The rage burned hot as she worked to store her hard-earned grain. The fierce electrical storms would be here any day now, thundering through the land and driving all creatures into shelter. The ruins she’d chosen to shelter in weren’t ideal, but she’d fashioned a pallet and a door, and the alcove she’d chosen had survived millennium. It would last another season.

She was lucky she’d found her great symbiont. Or rather, it had found her. It was much easier to survive with the cycle than without. Certainly no predators could outrun it, including Beast sleds.

The war zone was perilously close to Dey’s wanderings, but she felt relatively safe from them. They had no reason come this far into the swamp. And if she ran into humans…well, the weight of the collar around her neck reminded her that she might as well not exist.

It was thoughts like these that made her careless. Instead of carefully checking her home against intruders, Dey simply slung her leather rice sack into the corner. There came a blood-curdling squeal, a hiss, and then a blur of fur and sharp teeth launched at her. The swamp vermin’s poisoned teeth sank into her thigh, injecting burning venom. Dey screamed as the acidic stuff entered her bloodstream. One sweep of her knife and the deadly thing fell off her thigh, but it was too late. Already in the grip of fire and nearly numb from poison, she staggered to her bed and crashed on the furs. The odds were five to one that she’d survive, even with her symbiont, which flowed to the sight of the wound and pulsed as it tried to stop the venom’s spread and close the wound. Her last thought before she blacked out was that no one would ever find her body if she failed to wake.

Voices roused her enough to open her eyes. A man and a woman were in her shelter. She tried to call for help but could barely move her lips. Thirsty. Her dry throat begged for water.

The woman glanced at her and started. “She’s awake.”

“I don’t see anyone,” the man replied as he helped himself to Dey’s supplies.

“But…”

“If it has a collar it ain’t human. Don’t look again.” He loaded his arms and took the supplies outside; all the rice and her dried meat. Dey was going to starve. There was no way her weak body could provide for itself.

Dey used her eyes to plead with the woman, but she looked away, guilty.

“She did something to earn that collar,” she muttered, as if trying to justify her actions. Eyes averted, she picked up the last sack and followed the man out the door.

They left the vermin’s body. Nobody would eat such a nasty thing.

Five months later….

The Beasts didn’t know she was there. Too busy looting their sacked village, they moved among the smoking ruins, shooting stray children who tried to run from their hiding places. Women screamed in the dusk, pleading for mercy that was finally granted with death’s embrace. Usually only the males were killed and the women and girls loaded, unharmed (if viewing such carnage could be termed that) into transports and taken away. Dey had learned enough of the Beast tongue to know that the women would become Beast wives, and the girls were wards until they were old enough.

This carnage was unheard of.

Dybell, the leader, had just finished with a woman and slain her. Dey watched with a hunter’s detachment as he laughed to his friend, joking about the deed.

Making him her next target.

Dey needed more guns. His looked nice. Of course, he and his companions weren’t just going to hand them over.

She smiled coldly and caressed the butt of her rifle. She couldn’t stop him now and survive, but a patient huntress could extract a great deal of vengeance. Melting away into the night, she took out a perimeter guard on her way past, confiscating his weapons.

The hunters had just become prey. She’d found the way to survive the swamps.

A long time later….

Eyes silver as moonlight watched the Beast camp. A strand of venom-bleached hair escaped Dey’s braid and brushed against her cheek. Impatient fingers brushed it away as she raised her binoculars and studied the Beasts. Long ago she’d smashed the shell transceiver into a thousand bits, and she had no intention of making her presence known. Curiosity drove her, and she had plenty of time to indulge.

Finally she put away her viewers and made her way back to her symbiont cycle. It was near dark, and she had some trading to do.

Her fingers brushed against her neck as she swept her silver braid over her shoulder, and she smiled. The cursed collar was long gone. She’d nearly killed herself when she’d shot it off, but it had been worth the pain, and her symbiont had healed it.

Ever since she’d been robbed and left for dead, Dey had accepted that she was completely alone. She survived because she was strong. The men in this war-torn part of the swamps were little better than animals, and the women who outnumbered them were grim. Hopeless. The ones she traded with now had formed a community in the swamps. There were a few men, but most had died in the wars. Now the survivors fought the swamp, and in these untamed reaches it was battle enough.

The patrol she saw didn’t really bother her. Sometimes the guilty conquerors brought the women and children food and supplies. They always behaved themselves; Dybell’s decimated patrol had been an aberration. Dey remembered what Keg had told her about the shortage of women among the Beasts. Maybe these were hoping to sweeten up some of the younger woman and carry them off for wives.

Thoughts of Keg made her eyes narrow. Had she been less trusting, he’d never have had the chance to trap them the way he had. Even knowing it was his job, that they’d been warned; that Luna had been the one at fault didn’t ease her distrust and anger for him. Her sentence had been up months ago, but she’d stayed away because of him. Part of her wondered what had become of Luna, but not enough to go back. Likely they thought her dead. Good. It was better that way.

Kegtaar stood in the center of the human camp, dressed in full battle armor. His helmet was retracted, as were the helmets of his three friends and sub commanders, but it didn’t help much. Even after they saw that Beasts looked like their men, the women still held back. “We need to work together if our races are to survive.”

“You just want women,” one woman spat. Middle aged and wild haired, Megin was the most difficult and bitter of all.

The others murmured and stirred uneasily. One woman held her baby in her arms and tried to hush his wails while two young children peeked from behind her ragged skirt.

As if we might attack at any minute, Kegtaar thought. His jaw clenched, but he forced himself to remain mild. It had only been a year since the war had ended. These women had lost loved ones to battle. No matter how much their races needed each other, this wasn’t going to be easy.

Especially if he had to force the issue. The Beasts needed wives, and his superiors had determined to get them however they could. It was the duty of commanders like Kegtaar to woo them a bit, first. No sense in creating more alarm than need be. Besides, they did not want to leave any frightened children hiding in the woods when they collected the women. Part of their mission was to get to know the population of the village to ensure that every valuable female was rounded up. The Beast women might be able to produce daughters now, thanks to the special plants on their recaptured territory, but it would be a long time until those daughters grew up.

Not every man was willing to wait.

“If we’d wanted to harm you it would have happened already,” Ri-chan, his second, pointed out. “Kegtaar-Ra has brought you nothing but good.”

“After he slaughtered our men!” Megin shouted.

Kegtaar shot him a warning look and raised his hand against the murmur. He didn’t need this. It was hard enough making the woman accept their gifts of food and supplies. Had they not been desperate he was sure the women would have thrown them in his face, but they had children to think of. Most of them were from city-towns and had no skills to help them fend for themselves out here. All he wanted to do was help both their peoples.

Before he could say anything soothing, a woman’s mocking laughter broke through the tension. As one the crowd turned to see who found humor in such a brittle situation.

Kegtaar’s first shock was the symbiont cycle. All the great symbionts in this part of the swamp had been destroyed in the war. The only ones left were a long way away, in a settlement he hadn’t seen in two years. The second was the woman. Silver, even white hair was common among his people, but he’d yet to see the color on a human. She was armed. A powerful rifle was cradled in her arms as she reclined on her bike, one black leather-clad leg braced on the ground and one on her seat. Dark glasses, a costly luxury in these stark times, hid the color of her eyes, but her cynical, amused expression spoke her thoughts.

When she spoke his heart nearly stopped. It was the voice from his dreams, smoky and vibrant with maturity.

“Well, well. Still trying to get laid, Keg?” She slung the rifle strap over her handlebars and sauntered over to him as boldly as an old lover.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” When she saw his eyes go to her throat, she smiled. “Shot it off. Had no need to go back then.”

Horror made him stiffen. “You could have been killed!”

No humor shown in her smile. “I was already dead.”

“The hair?”

“Rat venom.”

“Your rifle?”

She leaned forward a fraction and said mockingly, “It’s amazing what a man will give you for a little of your time.” It was a lie, for she’d wanted to hurt him, but it didn’t give her the satisfaction she’d hoped.

His face closed. “So that’s what you’ve become.”

As always, the lie choked her until she added lightly, “Actually, I stole it from a corpse. I haven’t seen anything in this swamp worthy of my ‘time’.” Her gaze raked over him insultingly.

She shifted her weight to one foot and smirked. “Did I hear you correctly? You want these women to just give up their freedom and bed down with the enemy as if you haven’t just fought a bloody war?”

His words sounded as thought they eased between two grinding stones. “It’s the only way to survive.”

“Ah, to depend on you. What an appalling idea.”

Twin fires blazed in his eyes. “And you have a better plan?”

“The only way to survive is to count on what’s in here.” She made a fist over her heart. “The swamps taught me that.” She turned her back on him, started to stride away.

His hand on her arm stopped her.

One silver brow rose as she glanced at it. “I thought you were here to teach these women about trust? Getting close and heavy with me seems a brilliant way to do it, then?”

He let her go, and she sauntered off without a backward glance.

Kegtaar’s gaze dropped to the unconscious sway of her backside. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him without fear or awe. She treated him like a man, and he couldn’t help but respond like one. Dey might have won this round, but there would be another.