But that was before I’d taken a life and ended up here. All education and potential crushed under the heel of the Imperial Justice Committee of Zabria.
So. There I was. Riding as hard as I could after my bull when I should have already been asleep. I did not slow when my bull did – especially when I saw that I was right.
The source of the light was a human female.
But not one that I recognized. This was not one of the others’ wives. At least, not one of the ones I’d encountered so far. Perhaps this was Jaya, the bride Oaken had married in the summer.
But she was spans upon spans from Oaken’s mountain home.
Fool, I hissed at him inside my head.To lose a bride so beautiful.
To let her go, to let her wander the plains like this. What in the great blue blazes was she doing out here?
Her eyes were huge, but she appeared mostly outwardly calm. She moved slowly backward away from the bull, making no sharp or panicky movements. But he shunted his head aggressively downwards anyway, and when he charged, she fell, and she took my heart all the way down to the ground with her.
I felt a hoarse bellow tear from my throat. I urged Wyn on faster,faster, snapping rope above my head in a frantic lasso.
The woman, Jaya, looked so small on the ground as she hunched over her bag, her face scrunching up in anticipation of an impact that never came.
No, the impact was felt in my own arm as my lasso found its target, lodging around the bull’s antlers. The creature bucked and tossed his great head so hard that I knew he’d either rip my arm from its socket or break free and charge the female. Inwardly cursing Oaken and the warden and everything that had brought me to this moment, I acknowledged that there was nothing for it. I submitted to the violent wrenching, leaping from Wyn’s back and landing on the bull’s.
Behind me, I heard Wyn shriek in panic. Blast it all to Zabria and back! Now, on top of dealing with this bull and wayward human, I was going to lose my mount as she fled into the plains. I’d have to come back out and track her down later, if a genka didn’t get to her before I did.
But first, I had to survive riding this blasted bull.
The bracku lurched violently beneath me, but at least he’d aimed himself away from the fallen human as he fought to send me careening to a neck-crunching death. Gritting my fangs, I yanked on the rope at the same moment that my tail looped around his thick neck. He grunted and heaved his body, his head tilting backwards more than I’d anticipated. The tips of his antlers snagged on the flesh of my chest, sending heat, then wetness, sluicing. The blunt edge of one antler caught me hard beneath my chin, slamming my fangs together and snapping my head back with the force. Dazed, dizzy, tasting dust and metal, it was all I could do to maintain my hold.
I would not be able to ride the bull forever. I merely hoped I’d bought the female enough time to retreat into the trees. Blazes, I only now realized through the aching haze in my head that I’d never given her any instructions to do so.
Empire, let her be smart enough to not be standing three paces from me when I am finally ejected.
That moment of ejection came swiftly after the thought. The bracku gave one final, brutal buck, putting all its weight ontoits front hooves and twisting its back end up into the air with a much greater flexibility than I would have previously given the bulky creature credit for.
I went flying, the rope tearing my palm open before it was pulled from my grip. I only just managed to manoeuvre myself into a messy roll that likely saved my spine – and my life. Before I even knew which way was up, I was dragging myself to one knee. I threw my arms wide, as if those two limbs would be enough to stop the bull if he decided to charge the female again. Ears ringing, I distantly remembered to snatch my knife from my belt with my tail. That blade would be better than nothing.
But I did not need to use it. The bull let loose a puff of steaming breath from his nostrils, then grunted and lumbered away. I got unsteadily to my feet, making sure that he wasn’t moving toward the human female. But, no. He had merely left to graze, giving snuffling huffs of breath every now and then.
I transferred my knife to my dominant hand, inhaling sharply when the handle hit the broken flesh.Fine. Tail it is.I grimaced at my bleeding hand as my tail took back control of the knife.
Where is she?
For a moment in my rattled brain, I was not sure which “she” I asked after. My shuldu?
Or the human?
But perhaps it did not matter, because, surprisingly, I found them together at the edge of the trees. At least something had gone right tonight. The human female had indeed been clever enough to move away for cover. And she’d somehow caught my panicked shuldu and taken her along with her. She held Wyn’s reins with a natural ease that reinforced the idea that she must have been Oaken’s bride. Jaya and Oaken had married during the summer, which we had now left behind for the crisp, yellow season that preceded winter. Clearly, this female was used todealing with shuldu, which would make sense if she’d been living with Oaken for some time.
But how had she gotten here? If she’d had a shuldu of her own, it appeared to have deserted her.
“Hello?” she called tentatively over, her human voice parsed by my translator. “Shh. It’s alright. There’s a good girl,” she added, more quietly but still audibly to my ears. She was speaking to Wyn in a low, crooning voice, using her small human hand – the one not holding onto Wyn’s reins – to pet my mount’s neck. Her fingers were pale in the gloom of the tree’s shadows, slender and gentle.
“What are you doing way out here?” I growled, my voice coming out even more angrily than I’d meant it to. Angry was a natural state of being for me. It had been ever since my conviction and exile to this empire-forsaken planet.
No. Even before then.
Since my father’s death and my sister’s ruin.
But even so, it did not feel quite right to speak to this female, with her little white hands, her sweet voice, and large, dark eyes in such a tone. Even if her carelessness had made me bleed tonight.
