Page 44 of Finding Her Heart
Instead of going to sleep, he kept her awake answering questions, teasing her with kisses and touches. Annabelle hadn't talked so much in years. There had been no one who cared to listen to her. Doku-ni looked into her eyes and heard her every word.
She shared the tale of her life, the things she remembered since meeting him. He stopped her several times to ask questions. The more they talked, the more snippets of forgotten memories surfaced. She tried out Orki words as they came to her, and he corrected her pronunciation. Only laughing once or twice. She laughed too, feeling silly. Human throats and mouths were not made to form Orki words.
She told him about becoming the Woman of Woe and death dogging her footsteps, real and imagined. He hugged her when the weight of sadness threatened, pulling her into his arms with a reassuring purr.
"Orki create woe, bring woe, give woe to worlds. Anna, my redress, my treasure. Every word Anna say to Doku-ni shows Anna heart for Doku-ni."
She asked, still confused, about the metal plate and his silence. He told her the story with bleak despair, recalling the loss of his redress—it wounded to hear it. Acting hastily, he lost his purpose for living. He left the village without her under a cloud of his greatest failure. Never defeated in battle, Benjere's rejection cut him off from the only battle he needed to win. He should have waited until Annabell had come of age. All the Orki knew of the growing distrust in the village, huumon's forgetting the Peace Law and their history.
But Annabell responded well to meeting Zerzer. He had not wanted to wait and chance her learning to fear them. Not bound to huumon time or customs, he understood she was young, but he would wait until Zerzer said she was of age. No one questioned a war beast’s sense of smell. Zerzer would know when Annabell was ready for her first heat.
"Many huumon words, few Orki words. Anna meet Eid, Eid teacher."
As it grew late and she became sleepy, she realized that instead of riding at night tomorrow, they were going to leave the tree during the morning hours. "Why do we ride in the morning?"
"This is the nesting grounds of the first heat. This is known to predators who have learned the smell of war bride. They will come. Danger to redress."
"There is danger to the Orki?"
"Danger to redress."
Annabell couldn't imagine what danger there might be. There were plenty of small carnivorous hunters dangerous to people, yet what could threaten the war brides of the Orki, specifically? "But you killed all the raiders."
"Breakers of the law die easy. Many hungries do not die easy. Swarm of one mind, oil from the earth by the hundreds. The hive will come. Anna listen, see only Doku-ni, stay with Zerzer, be safe."
"A hive? Swarm? Like insects? What kind of insects? Doesn't sound very safe." Living on a farm taught her what a swarm of insects could do.
"Hungries from before men and cities. They were meant to be alone, found queens. Many, many hungries, Annabelle will be careful, Doku-ni will take great care. Zerzer will take great care. Many hungries die in the light. Hungries fear the fire. Annabelle will stay with Zerzer. Doku-ni will use long knife. Kill the hungries, go to Homeland."
"Homeland. Where you live? Do all Orki live together? How many other human women live there? Will I be able to see other people, other Orki?"
"Homeland has big fire, big community, Annabelle will see what she will see."
She wanted to know what she would be seeing. But he distracted her with more touches, building the urgency of her need until she lost all desire to do anything but take him inside of her.
*
They left the camp with the morning light of the Child bursting bright in slices between the trees. Crossing the river, Annabell kept her eyes out for dangerous fish. She thought she saw a shadow in the water, but no one raised the alarm. Nervous and on edge thinking of the hungries, she didn't know how to manage the possibility of facing new woe.
Annabell's curse hovered over her, a dark specter of foreboding. Anxious, she washed her hands and face repetitively. Phantom dirt clung to her cheeks, and her palms were stained with blood-shaped memories. Scrubbing hard, desperate to get clean. "A little water does redeem. A little water does redeem."
Doku-ni pulled her into his arms. "All is well, Anna."
"Something bad is going to happen, and it will be my fault." The words slipped out. He couldn't understand. Woe hovered like a bank of storm clouds on the horizon. Dark and heavy, heavy with negative energy, she knew it would be a bad one.
"Anna, be safe. Stay with Zerzer. Stay with torch."
Safe within his embrace, his chest under her cheek, Annabell told herself she believed him.
The land on the other side of the river had a less magical forest in comparison to trees big enough to house the Orki. Fewer greens, normal-sized woods. She recognized the Silverleaf from home, and the oak and knotted ruth. Following the path of an old, rock-lined streambed, the group threaded through lands that rarely saw humans. Only Orki war brides had come this way. Women adventurers, Annabell's ancient relatives.
The group leaving the camp that morning doubled in size. With restrictions on what she looked at, Annabell had wondered if there were more native originals than before, but she had not been sure. Instead of being in the saddle with her, Doku-ni and all the other warriors walked. The organized formation of rows in front and in back of Annabell made the change in Orki numbers obvious.
Doku-ni and others held long spears with wicked-looking pointed metal ends. Annabell kept her eyes on the back of his head, saw him lift his spear as if answering a command before breaking into a run. He ran smooth and lean, keeping pace easily with the war beast. Watching the movement of his muscles was one of the most enthralling things she had ever seen. For him, running was an effortless skill. This male had no limits.
Focusing on him, she didn't see the first falling tree until separated leaves interrupted her vision. The tall skinny thing descended with a crash with no wind on a beautiful day and no explanation for the trees to be falling. Doku-ni said the hungries would come from the ground. Her heart in her mouth, she saw the second tree crash down in front of the riders. The War Beast and Orki didn't miss a beat, jumping over the greenery while somewhere a woman shouted in distress.
Annabelle got her first sight of the hungries. As tall as adolescent children with ghoulishly wide, sharp-tooth grins over blunt pig snouts, their naked, wispy-haired bodies shone in the morning sun. Emitting a hum of clicking-ticking insect noises, they attacked the Orki party from both sides of the riverbed. Every time a tree fell, twenty, thirty, forty creatures, moving fast and desperate, poured out of the black hole at its base. Monsters of nightmares, bizarrely obscene with bulbous stomachs and exposed genitals, their numbers multiplied too fast to count.
