Mickey Reichert - The beasts of Barakhai

Still ignoring them, Falima pulled food from the pack and stuffed cheese curds in her mouth. Collins glanced at her.

"Very hungry," Zylas apologized for Falima's manners. "Ride most of day. Not time graze."

Falima made a wordless noise around her food.

Collins put aside the issue of how someone who spent half her life as an herbivore and half as an omnivore managed to digest anything but grass. Barakhai clearly followed different natural laws and logic than his biology, chemistry, and physics textbooks. Returning to his original point, Collins cautiously sat beside the albino, this time ignoring his aching muscles. "What about lions? Eagles? Bulls?" He added one he had already seen here. "Big dogs?"

"Know dog," Zylas admitted. "Bull?" His eyes crinkled. "That mean… lie?"

Only the shit. Collins dodged the slang to explain as simply as possible, "Man cows. They have horns, and they're big."

"Pepsa," Falima said around another mouthful.

Zylas bobbed his head. "Pepsa. Bull. Yes. Why?"

Collins waved away another large, flying insect. The answer seemed so obvious, he could scarcely believe the question. "Don't you people fight?"

"Fight?" Zylas repeated, looking at Falima.

"Augin telishornil bahk." Falima drank from the waterskin. It seemed like a lot of sounds to explain a one-syllable word.

"Fight." Zylas cocked his head to the heavens. "No."

"No?" The answer was nonsensical, especially after the barrage of arrows that had nearly killed them. "They were fighting." He jabbed a hand in the general direction of the crumbling fort.

Zylas followed the gesture with his gaze, eyes shadowed by his hat.

"Different. They solen ak opernes."

This time, Falima translated without entreaty. "Royal guards."

Collins considered the foreign phrase. "Solen ak opernes." He remembered now that Zylas had used opernes before to refer to royalty. "Solen ak opernes." He quit practicing the foreign phrase. He had no reason to learn their language; he would have to escape as soon as possible… and never return. "No one else fights?" he asked dubiously. It seemed beyond possibility. "Ever?"

Falima laid out apples, hard rolls, and cheese, then started peering under rocks and rolling logs.

"Sometime," Zylas admitted, loosening a strand of white hair sweat-plastered to his temple. "Not… as group. Not like… like… king cop."

"Solen ak opernes," Collins supplied.

Zylas smiled. "Language go wrong direction."

Collins laughed. He had once watched an exchange between a teacher and an English as a Second Language student via interpreter. At one point, the teacher had used a Spanish phrase that the translator dutifully recited for the Peruvian student-in English. Now, Collins broke bark from his seat with his heel.

Falima rushed in to gather the revealed bugs, placing them in the crock.

Collins wondered how hungry he would have to get to share that meal. "If we could marshal some strong animals, they wouldn't necessarily have to have formal combat training-"

Falima straightened suddenly. "You self-centered bastard!"

The outburst, in perfect English, startled Collins; and he nearly fell off the log.

"Falima," Zylas warned.

But nothing would silence Falima until she spoke her piece. "Is it not enough that we will probably die for saving a coldblooded cannibal? Do you want more innocents to sacrifice their lives for you?"

Collins found himself unable to reply, though regret filled his stomach like lead, and the bare thought of eating now made him ill.

"Falima," Zylas said again, a clear plea to quiet her. He added more in their own language.

"I do not care," Falima replied, still in clear English. "He is a fool and a clod. We should have let him hang."

Zylas said more, punctuated by broad hand gestures that displayed the anger his tone did not.

Collins tried to defuse the situation. "I'm sorry. I really am. I am very grateful that you saved my life. I didn't mean to suggest others should die to help me." He tried to catch Falima's eyes. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."

Falima dodged his gaze. "What sort of dimwit finds himself in a strange place and immediately kills and eats someone?"

"I'm sorry," Collins practically pleaded. He needed Falima and Zylas to help him negotiate Barakhai, but he also desperately wanted a friend. The idea of being alone in a foreign world with rules beyond his understanding overwhelmed him. Nevertheless, he chose to gently defend himself. "If you came to my world starving, wouldn't you start eating every bug you saw?"

Falima hesitated, clearly seeing the trap. "You were starving?"

"Yes." Collins refused to allow her to sidetrack him. Though no third world orphan, he had gone twenty-seven hours on nothing but water. "Would you eat the bugs?"

Maybe," Falima said, then clenched her jaw. "Why? Is that murder where you come from?"

The urge to reply affirmatively became a burning compulsion. It would make his point swiftly and efficiently, but Collins never lied well. "No. But it's disgusting. You wouldn't get hung-"

"Hanged," Falima corrected.

Collins blinked, barely daring to believe a person who could only speak his language because of a magical device thought it possible, even necessary, to correct his grammar. "It's hanged? Not hung? Really?"

"Trust me."

Collins returned to his point. "You wouldn't get hanged." It still sounded wrong. "But you might get locked up." He did not bother to differentiate between prison and a mental unit. It would only weaken his point, and at least he had not directly lied.

Another large, flying thing zipped past Collins' head. He smacked it out of the air. "No wonder you can eat the bugs here." It flew in an awkward arc, then crashed into the dirt. "They're as big as-"

Falima's sharp intake of breath cut off Collins' words before he could make a fatal faux pas. Zylas scrambled to check on the fallen creature, Collins presumed to augment dinner.

Zylas scooped it up but did not add it to the crock. Instead, he cradled it in his hand, massaging it with a gentle finger.

Dread crept through Collins' chest in icy prickles. What have I done this time? Leaping to his feet, he raced Falima to the thing in Zylas' hands. A tiny hummingbird lay there, its colors vivid against the chalky whiteness of the rat/man's palms. Its body was deep emerald, the wings a lacy lighter green. A patch of pink decorated its throat. The long, thin beak was black. "I'm sorry," Collins gasped out, gagging. "I thought it was a horsefly. I swear I did. I-I… is it…"He shuddered at the idea. "… dead?"

"Just stunned." Zylas held up his hand, and the bird's wings became a blur. It zipped into the air and disappeared, to Collins' relief.

"He is a menace," Falima grumbled under her breath.

"Honest mistake," Zylas replied.

Collins suspected both of the English comments had been directed at him, though they addressed one another. To his surprise, he appreciated them talking around him rather than in their own language. At least, he felt included. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm really sorry." He wondered if he had just destroyed their security or enhanced it. If he alone noticed the hummingbird, and it had been spying, then he might have averted capture. More likely, he had whacked some innocent bystander who would now find him less a curiosity and more a danger to discuss with guards and friends. Collins dropped to the ground and buried his face in his hands. The new lines of thought this bizarre world inspired left him with millions of possibilities and little direction. "Perhaps… perhaps, the guards at the ruins might get tired of waiting for me and give up?"

Falima's amused snort shattered that last hope. Even Zylas loosed a laugh. "Not likely. Even best time, guard… zealous." The last word seemed a difficult one for a tyro to choose, and Collins suspected its similarity to the rat/man's name made it easier for him to learn. "They know you corned from there. Want you." He shrugged. "Not go till get you."