Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

The new dwarves moved with aggression and purpose to swiftly and forcefully take charge of the scene. They were clearly exhausted, but the first thing that struck Sjívull about them was their fight was entirely undiminished.

There were dozens of them, more than the combined crews of both Wavebird and Syrlla’s Song, each shaped much like Roí and Nikí, but in a wider variety of skin tones and mane colors. They were taller and not as stout of frame, but they were all warriors nonetheless.

The one in charge barely had a mane at all, just a closely shorn field of stubble the color of dried grain. Details like that were all too easy to see under the false daylight the dwarves and their flying ships had brought with them.

The surprising thing was how much they knew. They knew names, they knew the situation, they knew there was no enmity between their people and Sjívull’s…the way they rounded up Wavebird’s crew and contained them was forceful, but not disrespectful. They simply wanted to be completely in control.

And they treated Drynllaf’s injury. Among the many things a Yutül could do, it seemed, was cleansing and closing even quite a deep wound. Not without pain, however; Drynllaf’s howl was one of abject agony, though he took it with good humor. Once his arm was dressed in the dwarves’ cloud-white, totally clean bandages, he sat down next to Sjívull with a grimace and a dark chuckle.

“I think that hurt more than the actual wound,” he commented ruefully. “Always knew I’d get scarred one day. Just wish there hadn’t been so much depending on it.”

“I’m just glad you’re alive,” Sjívull told him fervently. In a rare show of affection, Drynllaf gave him a touched look, put his good arm around Sjívull and hugged.

“Me, too,” he admitted. “Truth be told, I always thought the Honey Halls sounded nicer than the Warriors’ Halls anyway. And I’m definitely glad you’re not being led back to Storm-Rider in chains right now.”

Sjívull joined him in a relieved laugh. He’d thought the same thing a few times. There were many afterlives a good man could go to, but he had to agree that if he got a choice in the matter he’d rather not go to the same place as men like Shulft. He bore them no ill will, but…

Warriors could be a strange lot.

Still…he glanced across at where Roí was being tended to by a worried Ember and one of the new arrivals. “Ember said their gods hadn’t spoken yet…” he fretted. “How can they have different gods? Aren’t there just…the gods?”

“Aye. But that doesn’t mean we know all of them,” Drynllaf replied. He took a sip of water and cleared his throat. “I’ve travelled a long way, young lord. Seen a lot of strange folks from far to the west, and the north. We’re further from home than anyone’s ever been, I reckon, and the dwarves say they’re from even further. Stands to reason they’d know some gods we don’t.”

“And those gods got to have their say…” Something about the thought didn’t quite sit well with Sjívull, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly.

“For which I’m damn grateful, believe me.”

Sjívull looked around at the armed dwarves, at the heavy shapes that had now settled onto the dirt after hanging for so long in the air, and at the array of dwarf-weapons all around them. He glanced back at Roí, Nikí, and Ember again.

“Grateful, yes, but…I have concerns, Drynllaf. I like Ember and her friends, and I trust them, but they must have their Shulfts and Storm-Riders just like we do. What happens when we meet the hyooman Shulft?”

Drynllaf nodded his head slowly. “Aye. Been thinking along those lines myself. In fact”—he gestured toward the hyooman warriors, and then looked at Roí—“I’d wager all my coin the young warrior over there will be one of them.”

“You think he’ll turn out like Shulft did?”

“Men like Shulft aren’t evil, young lord.” Drynllaf intoned in his teacher’s voice. “If anything, that rage burning in his heart should have consumed Shulft a long time ago. He devoted himself to something bigger than his own soul to contain and guide it. He was your enemy, and not a good man necessarily, but don’t make the mistake of thinking him a villain. That man had a steel will, a firm code of honor, and a tight grip on his own worst nature.” He paused and glanced at the dwarves. “A thought I should perhaps share with young lady Ember, too…”

“You mean to mentor her as well as me?” Sjívull asked.

“And teach that fool slab of meat over there how to use a sword properly! Brave young man nearly got his leaden arse gutted.”

“If he’s alright…didn’t you see? Tarrskyn stabbed him.”

Drynllaf’s expression sobered. He gave the dwarves a concerned look, and his expression darkened further when saw that Roí was, indeed, being given a thorough and worried examination by Ember and her Yutül.

Then he looked up at one of the new dwarves and got their attention.

“If not, then I will pray for him,” he said.

Amber Houston

Minor neurotoxin detected. Prognosis: Temporary localized numbness and paralysis. Treatment: Clean and dress wound, observe.

Amber breathed a sigh of relief. “You’ll be fine, you big dummy. How do you feel?”

Roy was in a delicate place, high on the pain, riding on adrenaline, and numb from the carnage he’d inflicted on a man just minutes before. It all combined into a nervous, humorless laugh.

“Tingles a bit.” He flexed his leg in and out, testing it, and winced slightly at the pain. Some part of the real Roy returned and gave her a tight grin around gritted teeth. “Actually, it hurts like hell. I prob’ly shouldn’t do that, huh?”

Amber sighed. “Why did you grab him?”

“He moved toward you, and Nikki didn’t have a clear shot.”

“How do you know she didn’t?”

“I didn’t blow his head off,” Nikki said calmly. Amber gave her a shocked look and got a shrug in reply. “For a second there it really looked like he was gonna grab you.”

“Well, he wasn’t!” Amber knew it. “He was just confused and frightened! I’d bet my life on it!”

“That’s not a safe bet to take, Amber,” Nikki replied.

Roy nodded. “He moved toward you! He’s lucky I didn’t break him, too!”

They both clearly believed it with all their hearts, at least. Amber took a deep breath and decided against arguing it with them, as much as she wanted to. Things had been going peacefully, and now…

“And for your troubles, you got stabbed and poisoned,” she said instead. “You’re lucky he didn’t hit anything vital.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Roy said.

“A poisoned scratch. What if it had been something that more dangerous?”

“And what if you were dead, Amber?”

With an effort of will, Amber buried the urge to assert again that Tarrskyn had not been about to attack her. Still, she gave Roy a long stare before finally replying.

“And what if you were?”

“I’ll be fine Amber. We’ve got heal-gel, and apparently the militia brought a buttload of supplies.” Roy sighed. “Amber, look. I know you’re good at reading people. Always have been. That don’t fuckin’ matter. He moved toward you, and that was it. Maybe he didn’t mean anything bad by it…but then he would have been right next to you, and he might have changed his mind. Then what? You never, ever let anyone approach the principal.”

Nikki nodded. “Personal protection one-oh-one. Roy took extra classes.”

“Since when are you my bodyguards?”

“Since…always?” Nikki looked as though the question honestly confused her. “You think we’d ever let anything happen to you?”

Roy just seemed embarrassed. He gave Amber a kind of a shrug and half-smile.

Amber…didn’t know how to process that. It was a problem for later. So instead she sighed and reconsidered his wound. Tarrskyn’s dagger had been some slim, pointy thing like a triangular needle, and the twin wounds it left had punctured deep into the meat of Roy’s leg, mercifully without hitting any major blood vessels. He was going to need a deep intramuscular regenerative to bind the wound closed, or it would heal slowly and scar badly.

“Okay. I need to put gel in pretty deep.” She gave Roy a sympathetic look as she loaded the canister into her U-Tool and configured it for deep injection. “It’s going to hurt. Don’t tense your leg.”

Roy sighed and stretched out, taking a deep breath. “Uh-huh. Do it.”

Once he’d gotten a bit more comfortable, she laid the U-Tool across the meatiest part of his thigh, then tapped the button. It went thump. The field descended into the wound and snaked its way deep into the tissue, injecting a cocktail of medicine and pulling things together, leaving a thin layer of active gel behind to instantly suture the wound and bind things together. It was quick, and would heal perfectly, but gave absolutely no quarter for comfort.

Roy roared out with a half-manic laughing grin. “Arrrgh! That hurts!”

“Yeah, but it’s over…” Amber took her tool back and then gave him a hug. “Sorry.”

“What for?” Roy shambled up to his feet and tested his weight on the leg. He winced but decided he could walk on it. “Okay. I guess no leg work for…how long?”

“A week,” Amber said firmly.

“Right! Well…we’ve got lots of work to do. I’ll be honest, I really wanna do—”

“Roy. A week.”

“Yes, Doctor Houston.”

“Look around you, we’ve got a ton of big, strong guys around. I don’t think we’re hurting for heavy labor,” Nikki added.

“Yeah, and I bet you’d just love to sit there and watch them work.” Roy snorted. “Smashin’ up your wiring, bending your copper tubing…”

“If they touch anything I made, they’ll regret it. But I’m not the one under doctor’s orders, little brother. You can sit there and admire them all you like.”

“Hey!”

Despite herself, Amber giggled as the familiar McKay banter returned.

They were interrupted by Drynllaf and Sjívull.

“Some brigands are known to poison their blades,” Drynllaf said, crouching down. “I’m glad to see this one doesn’t.”

“Oh, he did,” Amber said. He immediately saw grief and dismay flash across both alien faces and hastened to explain, “Believe me, Roy is fine. We have good medicine.”

“I have a working arm to thank for that. Still…they call it Death Tar,” Drynllaf said skeptically. “It’s said to be a slow death, and…inevitable.”

“We are…not the same people. Not on the inside,” Amber assured him. “Trust me, Roy will be fine. Look at his wound.”

Both looked down, while Roy grinned and tensed his leg with more than a little macho bravado. The only sign left of his double puncture wounds was an angry red inflammation where he’d been stabbed. Roy being Roy, he grinned and showed off a bit too, probably to reassure their lion-kangaroo friends. Doing that must have hurt like crazy. He didn’t wince, either; given his ridiculous pain tolerance, the U-Tool must have been agony. In any case, his seeming well-being didn’t completely assuage their concerns to judge by their expressions, but they did seem glad for Roy’s health.

“Good, then. Because I don’t know who taught him swordsmanship. He needs a better teacher,” Drynllaf grumbled. “Tell him I’ll be sure to thoroughly correct that once he’s back on his feet.”

Amber giggled. “I doubt he will object.”

“Something funny?” Roy asked.

“Drynllaf says you suck with a sword, and he’s gonna teach you.”

“Badass!”

“You chose a side. I daresay Tarrskyn was right that you maybe shouldn’t have, but you did,” Sjívull said. “You are friends of my family now, Lady Ember, and allies.”

“I think we were always going to have to choose one side or another,” Amber said and stood up. She offered her hand, and Sjívull frowned at it for a second before shaking it. “I definitely prefer you to people like Tarrskyn and Shulft.”

Sjívull laughed. “A faint compliment, but it will do.”

The sound of Doug and the quad percolated into their conversation. Amber wasn’t sure who’d called for him, but he was a welcome sight, indeed. He looked nervous, though, and the mud splatters up his leg said he’d gunned it to reach them quickly. The security team waved him through.

“Radio said we have wounded?” he asked, hauling up as Sjívull and Drynllaf hopped sharply aside and gave the quad a look of deep mistrust.

“Had. Fortunately, Roy’s big enough of meathead I could fix ‘em with the U-tool.”

“Hey!”

Doug considered Roy’s leg. “Dude, you get yourself stabbed?”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Badass!”

“Doug!” Amber objected. “Just…get him back up to the outpost, will you? And don’t let him try to walk it off.”

“I’ll go with,” Nikki declared, helping her brother clamber to his feet—or foot, as he shifted his weight with an involuntary groan and leaned heavily on her.

“Ack! Take it easy, you fat—!”

“Okay.”

Now that was the best possible demonstration of how much pain Roy must have been in. Nikki sobered up immediately, nodded, and bore his weight without further complaint.

“Don’t worry, little bro. Let’s just get you back to camp.”

Roy nodded, then held up a hand to stop her before they hobbled toward the quad. He was looking around in the trampled grass, patting his belt with his spare hand.

“Problem?” Doug asked.

“Maybe,” Roy patted his pockets one last time, looked around a little more, then gave up and raised his voice. “Hey, uh…did anyone see where my U-Tool went?”