"Look!" A feminine finger pointed. "They come. They come!"
There was a quick rustling of bedsheets, muffled voices, and the mild scraping sound of dead coals as someone poked a stick into the long-extinct dinner fire. Beneath some coverlet, a woman's baby wailed its hunger into the darkness of the morning.
"Quiet him!" someone hissed. "They'll know we've been waiting..."
"Enough of your foolishness already," an aged grandmother snapped back. "Everyone else has fallen asleep at their dinner fires, as well-- half of Looks Thrice wants to be the first to see the Star-Child dragged back through the palisade."
"If she survived," another voice piped pointedly.
The same grandmother shook her hoary head and cackled grimly. "Oh, she survived," said she, with the finality of a pronouncement from the fabled Pomoq. "There is something special about that one. The Star-Child...whether Sorceress or not, she shall survive to achieve great things. Mark my words!"
And a flurry of shame-faced busy-bodies scrambled to kick soil over their fires and snatch up their sleeping wear, still damp from the morning dew-drops which kissed the leaves and the blue-petaled weed-blossoms.
Unwilling to be noticed and seen as the gossip-mongers that they were, young men rushed toward their lodges with armfuls of bedding supplies. Their women followed, some with toddlers clutched against hips as they wiped the sleep out of their large, blinking eyes, and a few limping grandmothers hobbled after them as quickly as they could. But deserted that the common area now appeared, there would still be plenty of eyes peeking out from lodge doors that were only partially closed-- oh, yes. Everyone in Looks Thrice wanted to be the first to know if the Star-Child had survived, if there would be proof that the Draca had done her bidding, and what had become of Malaraq, of Tuchek, and the two youngsters Dijaq and Luka. The outcome of this arrival would be told and re-told around bonfires likely for generations. Never before had there existed a woman-- nay, a mere child!-- who could command, let along communicate with, the creatures who formed Dragura's deadly entourage!
Pomoq's lodge door swung open with a piercing squee-ee-eech (he had been reminded more times than he could recall that the hinges would have to be oiled); a brilliant, green-winged bird darted out from the inside and flitted merrily away toward Hallow's Wood. Squinting, Pomoq doddered out into the misty morning in his Healer's Cloak-- the black one with the heavy hood-- and he leaned generously on the supporting end of his trusty walking-staff. His rheumy eyes blinked maddeningly, and the creases in his leathered face seemed more pronounced beneath the dawn star-light.
Behind him, Gormaq and Amiechek shuffled out of the lodge and into the morning with impatience and worry in their large, moist orbs.
Amiechek-- who, as always, was dressed in her matronly finest-- placed a hand on Pomoq's bone-like shoulder. "Can you see them?" she whispered.
"Never mind if he can see them," barked Gormaq disdainfully, whose aging heart was full to the brim with concern for the daughter whom he considered his own, as though she had sprung from his very loins themselves. "Are they safe? Is my Ziuta safe from those shiftless Draca?" Elbowing Amiechek roughly out of the way, Gormaq ignored her haughty protests and gripped both of Pomoq's shoulders, shaking them-- hard. "Has my daughter lived?"
Pomoq peered first at the gnarled hands which grasped him, then inquisitively up at the peaked face which stared into his own. The tip of Gormaq's bulbous nose was dotted with a few beads of fresh dew-- or were they perspiration?
"I would first ask that you remove your hands from my person and take a few steps back, my child," Pomoq said in a withering tone, and Gormaq appeared immediately ashamed.
"Truly, you must forgive me, Esteemed One," he begged, "but my daughter--"
"Ah, the beautiful Amek. Blossoming into a true bud who may yet bear you the grandsons that you have spent many a cold night praying for," Pomoq said breezily, as the palisade doors swung open and two young men rushed into Looks Thrice, heading straight for the small group of Council Elders.
Gormaq reddened. It was usually quite difficult to make him flush. "Of course, a very beautiful girl indeed--"
"But you were referring to Ziuta. Yes?"
Gormaq remained silent, hating himself for feeling inferior beneath Amiechek's penetrating gaze. The fat old woman actually seemed to relish watching him shudder beneath Pomoq's tongue lashings.
"...Well, Esteemed One--"
"She has survived," Pomoq said shortly, as though speaking to a youngster who has been told too many times that he must stop making a nuisance of himself.
"And Malaraq?" Amiechek asked, a little too eagerly, as Pomoq used the staff to pivot and begin his slow shuffle-and-step, shuffle-and-step, so he could meet the youngsters who were falling over their own feet in an effort to reach them first.
"Gormaq?" called Pomoq, without looking round.
"Yes?" The flutterings of hope began to bud in his belly.
"We are not among friends. Remember that, and hold it dear," came to cryptic response.
Not among friends? What on Weema's great green paradise could he possibly--
took a quick glance at Amiechek. Although she took great care to compose herself and looked very stately that morning, adorned in fresh draperies and frocks with a long, dark veil affixed to the bun at the nape of her neck (in case of news that the youngsters had died and mourning was in order), she looked positively furious at this last remark.
The cogs in Gormaq's brain unjammed and finally began to whirl; he had never liked Amiechek...not in the least.
What could Gormaq have meant? Was it possible that he already knew?
Steeling himself to take a peek at the obese woman through the corners of his slitted eyes, he took in her multiple rolls of ample flesh, the breasts that would have drooped well past her knees without her custom-sewn brassiere, the plump feet that were practically stuffed into her plain black shoes, and the drawn, white face that might have once actually been beautiful to some man who had been courting her-- she had, after all, given birth to Warumachek. What was this attachment the Matron seemed to have for this Malaraq, anyhow? No one in the Council was blind or deaf. Amichek clung to the withered, bleak-faced man the way a puppy clings to its dam's udder.
Disgusting.
Well, the two seemed made for each other: they were just as black, just as mean, just as miserable, and Gormaq did not understand for the life of him why Pomoq had given them spots on his precious Council.
Sighing, Gormaq shuffled on to join the others as the two runners finally came panting into view; he recognized them immediately as Tuchek and that other boy-- the sullen one, Dijaq, who did not realize his own good luck that the dazzling Waru hung on to his arm like an oyster-- and the two stopped before the alarmed Pomoq with fear in their eyes as they gesticulated between pants and tried desperately to relay their story.
Luka, Ziuta, and Malaraq were mysteriously absent. What could have happened to them? Were they wounded, and did they need some sort of help?
Somewhere off in the distance of the palisade's double-doors, which had been swung open and never latched, the nerve-freezing howl of a man in great, deep, torturous pain rang out in a helpless ululation.
Gormaq knew that voice.
It was Malaraq.
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Attracted to the mass of flesh which was now liquefying rapidly, cow-flies had amassed in great numbers and were swarming over the sickly-sweet scent of rotting meat. The buzz of insects had grown progressively louder until it was difficult even to hear Malaraq's pathetic moans; he had long since lost the strength to cry out with any more conviction.
He lay, spread-eagled on the ground with his wrists bound above his head, tears dribbling down his blubber-filled cheeks until they, too, were sucked dry by cow-flies that craved every bit of moisture that they could find. Malaraq trembled continuously and had turned a ghastly shade of green. Sweat poured from his brow as the cow-flies swarmed, settled, and re-settled. Some sucked at the sweetened, congealed blood, while still others laid their eggs in the soft pockets of the meaty mass. A few eggs, planted hours earlier, had already begun to hatch. Those areas were now squirming with tiny, rice-sized maggots that writhed their ways through the wounds, creating tiny tunnels as they gorged themselves on flesh and blood.
Ziuta stared with wide, sick eyes; it was the sort of thing that weakened her, horrified her...yet she could not have turned away from the wicked debacle even if she had pushed herself.
"He's got blood poisoning," said Luka tonelessly.
"And you know this because..."
"Seen it." The boy had perched himself on a large boulder where he could look down on them both; casually, as though amongst friends in Looks Thrice and not sand witched by a blanch-faced beauty and a man who could be dead in hours, Luka had rolled one of his smoking papers into a long tube after stuffing it full of his special 'grass'. This he lighted with the strike of a match, put it to his lips, and inhaled deeply, sighing with contentment as the first doses of grass struck the nerves in his lungs.
Ziuta glared up at him with a mixture of loathing, longing, and wonderment. Although Dijaq's handsomeness would cause any girl of age to look twice (Ziuta certainly thought he was comely), Luka's body and features had been exquisitely fashioned in the womb, and Ziuta suspected that he knew it. But for the mysterious scar on his neatly-chiseled face, Luka had no flaw whatsoever. His features were nicely symmetric, the grey of his eyes intense and full of passion, and the thick, nearly golden hair which his mother had sworn never to cut out of gratitude that this sickly son of hers had survived, now hung in a loose braid over one shoulder. It was difficult for Ziuta to even imagine anything that had once been sickly about this amazing specimen of young man.
As always beneath the clothing he wore, the muscles in his biceps bulged gently, practically begging her to run the tips of her fingers across their surface, and the rest of his body was lean, fit, well-built. There was not an ounce of fat on his body, but Ziuta considered herself an excellent judge of people's character. Whereas Luka might have had some deep feeling of well-intentions toward her, she sensed with a growing dread that he wanted her.
Would he harm her? She did not believe it. Did he love her? He had said so many a time...but she couldn't be sure. And why did her woman parts tingle so when she thought of him lying her gently down on some smooth bench, pushing her garment out of the way so he could have easy access to--
He wants me-- and I want him.
It is wrong-- immoral. I would hurt Dijaq by lying with this man just as Luka would break Michek's heart...and blessed Rosavati, why would I consider lying with him at all?! He is too smooth, to easy with his words, always knowing just what to say. There is no counting the number of women he has probably been with--
"You are who you are," Luka said calmly, interrupting her thoughts to blow a ring of smoke into the air above him, "just as I am exactly who the Twin Moons have meant for me to me. Ziuta is Ziuta-- and Luka is Luka. Ought one to be ashamed of that?"
Ziuta turned away with an irritated flush. When she dared to look back, Luka was taking another drag on the smoke-stick. He flashed her a wink.
The audacity!
"How can you be so-- so cold?" Ziuta asked flippantly.
A shrug, "I am who I am."
"Then why can't you just leave me be?"
"Can't do it, sweetness." Luka leaned back and turned his head slightly (Ziuta could see his magnificent profile when he did) and looked solemnly up at the stars. "I vowed the moment I saw you that I would have you-- or did you forget?"
Ziuta huffed angrily. "I am not some-- some prize to be fought over and carried home after the highest bid!" she snapped. How dare he? "I am a woman, and a strong woman, at that! I will not see you break the heart of the one who will soon be your wife; she is like a sister to me-- and I will no longer stand by and watch as you disparage Dijaq. Thinking that you know everything, Mr. High-and-mighty!"
"Did you forget that I am the one who initially saved your life?" Luka reminded her. An edge had crept into his voice.
"Oh? And where were you just this past evening, when Malaraq almost took the head off my neck with his sharp blade and you stood there motionless? It was Dee who saved me, not you-- and I can tell when someone has fear in his eyes for the Draca. Dijaq was the only one among us, besides myself, who did not show such a fear. To him, I owe more to any other member of this village-- except, perhaps, for Mother, Gormaq, and Sashek."
Luka had straightened and was glaring down at Ziuta as though he might like to slap the sense out of her. "You cannot forget what we had-- what we felt!" he growled. "I held you. I cradled you to my chest as though you were already my own-- and you hardly scrambled to climb out of my embrace. You liked it. You enjoyed it! You rested that lovely head against my chest while Dee just stood there-- emasculated, as usual. Do you remember that, Ziuta? Do you?"
Ziuta raised her chin and glared up at him with eyes ablaze. "I hated it," she lied, slowly and deliberately, enjoying it immensely when a small glimmer of fire alighted in Luka's pained eyes. "You smelled bad. You sweat too much. The only reason I did not struggle more was because I was too exhausted to resist!"
Luka made as though to slide off the boulder; his expression was a veritable thunderstorm.
Ha!
"These meek Evening women you have in Looks Thrice might fall for your good looks and sensual antics, but a young girl like me knows better than that. I come from good stock: the Night People of Kiwa, of whom I will always be a part-- and the humans, from whom I inherit my excellent abilities of self-control. You will never 'have' me, Luka. I will not allow it. Never!"
For a moment, Luka's glare was almost poisonous. "Dee will never measure up to me," Luka said quietly, "and don't you forget it, child from the Stars."
Ziuta ignored him haughtily and pointed to Malaraq, who had stopped moaning and was by now shaking all over, as though in the throes of a seizure. His eyes had rolled backward into his head; sweat poured, and the living maggots within the deep, raw teeth marks writhed, making the entire pink mass seem alive.
"Do something," she said simply.
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