more. Maybe be allowed to bask in her sweet and womanly aura for a moment before I return to the other side of the fence that separates us warriors from the women and their husbands.
But no. I belong on this side. The side where there are no women.
Even if the fence were taken down and we could mix freely with the alien females, talking and joking with them, eating with them and getting to know them, I would stay on this side.
I don’t deserve to be allowed anywhere near a woman. Much less a wonderful woman like Dolly, who plainly has the sun in her.
Nobody has failed this tribe more than I have.
The events of that terrible day fill my dreams at night and my thoughts in the daytime. Mia and Eleanor both vanished on the way to Bune. I was supposed to be the leader of their escort, their main protector. And then I was distracted by strange noises in the jungle, turning my back on the two women as they both went into the fog and darkness.
I searched furiously for them, ordering my men to disregard the strange noises and locate the two females at any cost.
Then I went and got myself tricked and very nearly killed by Hani’ox, the least worthy warrior in the tribe. The dishonor! The failure!
The shame.
The memory makes me groan in anguish. My fingers seek out the still sore scar on my chest, prodding and squeezing it to give me more pain. I deserve no better.
For many days, I wished I had been killed on that day, that those who found me had let me bleed out on the dirt.
But now I’m glad they didn’t. Because I think I know how to free the tribe from the dragon danger. I am working towards it, and soon it will happen.
It will mean the end of me, of course. I long for that. It will be a bliss to let go of this shame and this pain. Dying in the defense of the tribe will erase it all. And I will need to die for the plan to work.
I can hear the men under my command assemble behind me, ready for an evening patrol in the jungle.
I clench my jaws in the usual determination.
Those who fail the tribe deserve death. And I failed more than anyone ever has. I must atone.
I turn. “Everyone ready?”
All seven of them slap the hilts of their swords as one. “Ready, Swordmaster!”
I take them in. Seven strong warriors, all from different tribes, all with different colored stripes. All honorable. None as accomplished a swordsman as me. None as experienced at combat. None of them made a Swordmaster at age twenty-five.
None having failed the tribe.
I would change places with any one of them in a heartbeat.
I slap the hilt of my own sword in readiness. “Warriors! What are you?”
“Warriors!” they roar.
“What do you do?”
“We fight! We protect! We win!”
“Will you fight today?”
”Today and every day!”
I keep my face serious, although this ritual I’ve come up with would have seemed ridiculous to me before. But it does something to the men, makes them more alert, more proud, more brave. Other squad leaders have copied it, too, and that must mean it works.
“Then let us go and win.”
“We always win!” comes the ear-shattering finale.
I lead them into the jungle, my ears still ringing. Let nobody say they didn’t know we were coming.
3
- Dolly -
I swallow the last of the non-coffee and make a face at the bitterness of the fluid. “How bad is it out there?”
Aurora strokes a hair out of her face. “The jungle? Depends on where you go. Close to the village, it's pretty safe. Within a mile in any direction, no dinos have been seen for months. The dragons keep their distance to Aragadon and Kyandros, so they shouldn't be a problem, either. Right, Mia?”
“Right,” Mia says, leaning to the side and cracking her back. The rocks around the main fire are not the most comfortable chairs. “Kyandros keeps an eye on them when he's out flying. He can't track them all, but he says they don't come that close to the village anymore. We've defeated too many of them.”
“They're scared of us?” Sophia asks, chewing on turkeypig stew.
Mia grins. “Yeah. They actually are. The dragons are scared of us. It has to mean we're doing pretty well.”
I look up at the trees. “Because I need to find some wood for the next batch of soap. Trees, I mean. I