A Slave to the Servants Ch. 34

"Stay very still," she ordered curtly. "They see movement better than they see anything else."

I recognized Kana's voice and did as she asked.

Rose and I maintained our pose back to back as transports swooped in and the men started to fight creatures that dotted the hall. The thing I'd shot at had been one of very many lying in wait. Kana stayed with Rose and me, seemingly acting as a guardian.

"Use your weapons if you need to humans," she commanded. "Aim for the place where the arms meet the body, they are weakest there."

I took several shots at creatures attacking the men and I heard Rose do the same thing. We did what we could from our position to help. Kana had been right, the best place to shoot was where the body and arms connected. If your aim was good, that type of shot dropped the creatures almost immediately. My aim was remarkably good.

The men on the transports fought the snake like things with ferocious intensity. I watched amazed as they swarmed down the halls seeking out the hiding spots the invaders had found. The men moved with an odd synchrony. No words passed between them, but all of them seemed to be working as one unit.

The hunt was strikingly quiet, organized, and ruthless. Kana, Rose and I stood rooted to our spots as the men removed the danger from the halls. Suddenly a transport dropped down beside us. I stared blankly at the men on the transport who weren't even looking at us.

"Get on, women!" Thom growled suddenly.

He turned to face us and looked thoroughly disgruntled. I got the impression he had been waiting for us to follow the same invisible commands the other men were. Unfortunately we had no idea what signals they were using to communicate.

Rose and I leapt on and Thom continued to stare at Kana.

"Get on," he ordered.

"I will fly myself," she told him cooly spreading her wings.

"Follow closely," he demanded facing forward again, "do not get in our way."

The transports were zipping around us in the interior of the camp. They were spreading out in a very organized fashion. The men seemed to be searching every nook and cranny for the attackers. The entire hunt was absolutely silent and utterly efficient. I'd never seen anything like it.

It was like watching bees in a hive or fish in a school. The men seemed to be responding to something outside themselves that was guiding them. I looked back and saw Kana flying very close behind us. She did as she'd been asked and stayed out of the way as the men took care of their camp.

Rose and I were delivered back to the large cave used for healing. Men were stationed at the opening to the infirmary now, looking alert. They separated long enough to allow us to enter and then took up positions in front of the opening. They formed a literal wall of flesh between the injured and the aggressors.

"You are carrying a child," Thom said bluntly once we were inside. "The other women in your circumstance are staying in safe places, you must do the same. Do not leave this room. I will let you know when the danger has passed."

Kana had followed us in and she watched Thom with the oddest expression on her face.

"Your eye is not well enough to send you out, but you can help us defend the injured in here, should it come to that," he said bluntly.

Thom spoke with an authority I'd only ever heard from Gunth. He looked as firm and resolute as the old man usually did, too. His decisiveness seemed to surprise Kana.

She agreed to stay and Thom was gone. The men at the entrance to our hall stood attentively, ready to fend off an attack. They seemed oblivious to the activity in the infirmary, their attention was focused outward.

The Sister that had lost her wing walked slowly over to stand next to Kana. The men had wrapped and dressed the stump on her left side. They had tied it so she would not inadvertently move it while they tried to heal the flesh.

"It is The Great Harmonious Spirit. They are answering to The Spirit," Kana said simply and the other women seemed taken aback.

"That does not exist anymore," she said gruffly.

"I have seen it," Kana said quietly. "The Great Harmonious Spirit is here. It is real and the men have embraced it again. It was not permanently lost to us when we put them on the compounds. They have found their essence again. This is where they belong."

The woman with one wing made a bitter sound and Kana ignored her. She settled behind the men at the doorway awaiting attack. I'd never seen a woman without beads take orders from a man, but that's certainly what she was doing.

Rose got my attention and I went to help the Healers. We worked relentlessly for the longest time. When we had a moment to rest, Rose and I watched the men in the room.

The Healers seemed as tuned in as the men in the hall had been. They worked with seamless efficiency on the wounded. None of the beaded women seemed the least surprised, but I saw the eyes of the unbeaded follow the men.

Kana's sister sat on a warm stone as I carried dirty towels by. She called out softly and I stepped closer to her. I watched her war with herself before she bent her head to speak quietly to me.

"Have you seen them this way before, human? Are they like this all the time?"

It was easy to see what she meant. The concentration the men seemed to have was amazing. Their focus was unbreakable. Even the injured seemed to be following the internal commands and accepted whatever needed to be done.

"No," I answered looking around, "never like this."

The woman looked down at me and I sensed she just wanted to talk to someone about what she saw. Kana was busy and her Sister with the stomach wound was too gravely injured to talk much. Evidently, I was a suitable set of ears.

"The men used to become this way in times of great stress," she said slowly. "We called it The Great Harmonious Spirit. It bound them together and they became one. Their strength was in their perfect cooperation and numbers. My female breeder and her line have not seen this since we put them on the compounds."

I could connect faintly to Damien and his Brothers and I felt the calm buzz of their thoughts. It didn't feel markedly different from usual, but then to the men, I guessed it wouldn't. This organization would feel right.

"It must be a defensive instinct," I said watching the woman. "When the men are free, happy, and connected; it seems they can help each other."

The woman settled on her stone and looked around. "It used to be their strength, but it was not enough. They died and they made choices we did not..."

The large woman stopped talking and just looked around.

"Everybody has to die sometime," I said thinking of my own children and remembering how I feared for them, but I still wanted them free. "Living free makes the time you have worthwhile. This is how anyone would wish to live."

"My Sister agrees with you," the woman said, looking over at Kana. "She has for a long time..."

We stood in silence as the woman watched her Sister.

Tyle and his young family approached us suddenly. They stared at us as though waiting for something.

"We must change the dressing," Aryn explained when neither the woman nor I moved.

The woman hesitated and Tyle asked her politely to lay on her stomach.

She didn't move. "There is no point to what you are doing," she said harshly. "I cannot fly even if this wound is healed. My wing will not grow back."

The woman's refusal to do as they asked seemed to startle the young men for a moment. The wounded men in this hall were not refusing anything, most of the women were too injured to argue much. The compliance came from different places but it was the norm.

A woman's prerogative, I thought to myself, it exists here, too.

"I cannot fly either," Tyle reasoned thoughtfully. "If I wish to rise into the air, I take a transport. There is much to do on the ground, though. You have been left to us by The Great Harmonious Spirit. Your purpose must no longer be in the air."

The woman seemed stunned as the young man's statement.

"You must know The Spirit," Tyle insisted. "You are a woman and I know you carry many generations of knowledge. The Spirit is alive and well in all of us, just as it was long ago. Even without the ability of flight, you have a talent The Spirit needs. Lay down and let us help you."

It took a moment, but the woman slowly lay on her stomach. She gave the boys access to the injured areas and they worked quickly to remove the old dressing. It was soiled and bloody. The sharp smell that permeated the area when the bandaging was off told me infection was threatening to set in. The boys saw and smelled what I did. They cleaned the whole area very thoroughly.

"I have heard there are places the women cannot fly, due to the wind," Tyle said as his Brothers murmured assent.

I had heard this, too. The T'vailk mountains were supposed to be so wild that women couldn't fly during certain parts of the year. My attention went to my stomach where my little one seemed suddenly more active. She must be curious about those mountains.

The woman on the stone looked back at Tyle before agreeing. She talked about the T'vailk mountains in detail. At one point, she and her Sisters had mined there, so she was quite informative.

I rushed and threw the dirty linens away before returning to listen. As Tyle and his Brothers applied a treatment to the damaged wing she told them all about that area of the world. The interest the young men had spurred the woman to talk more. She responded to them and they continued to interact.

She told us things I'd never even read about. As usual, there were things you'd only know if you lived there. The details of life in those mountains was fascinating to all of us. The storms made it a very different place.

"They say our cousin still in Ciara's belly is a woman of that line," Aryn said proudly as the boys finished. "My male breeder is excited for his Brother. They say it is rare to breed a female of T'vailk mountain heritage."

I'd never seen a female on this planet look so startled. The woman's head raised and she looked right in my face and then down at my big belly.

"That is not possible," she said firmly.

The boys took her opinion in stride.

"Our cousin Kennedy and her Sisters say it is," Tyle responded. "They say the growing life is too fast to be a Paterian that isn't T'vailk. They are very smart girls. Many that have heard their argument believe it."

The woman looked between us a moment before she settle back down. I got the distinct impression she wasn't going to argue, but she did not believe us one bit.

"You call the women here cousin," she said instead.

"Yes," Tyle answered, binding the injured stump with deft and practiced moves, "this camp is important to us. We would do anything for our campmates. We provide whatever they need, whether they are men or women."

The woman snorted and muttered something. It sounded like she said 'what can you provide a woman?'

Tyle and his Brothers grinned. Their attention switched seamlessly off the injured wing, which was now bound, to the rest of the woman's body. Aryn slid his hands along the woman's undamaged wing as his Brother touched her back. I recognized what they were doing probably constituted a massage.

The woman flinched as Aryn's hands slid across the contours of her right wing. Her head whipped around and she watched him with narrowed eyes. The young family just ignored her reaction and continued to stroke systematically.

The wings were sensitive in places, I'd learned that from listening to my campmates. Men in the compounds would not know that and only focused on the spears, where the sensation was burned out. In the camps it was not uncommon for a man to find the places a woman liked her wings touched. Men talked and I'd overheard their conversations about it. Tyle and his family were well versed in this particular physical attribute.

The soft parts of the wings that caught the wind and helped the women soar were very delicate. They could detect minute changes in resistance. It made the wings an extra sensory organ. Women liked to have those parts stroked lightly from the center outward. Even when the wings were folded, light pressure to those areas could be pleasing. It was supposed to be extremely calming.

"You are tense, cousin," Tyle smiled, "let us relax you."

I flushed hot remembering how my family used that phrase. The boys meant literally relax, though. They stroked her undamaged wing and rubbed her back. I watched her surprise fade as the gentle stimuli drove the tension from her muscles. Despite her resolve to be irritated by this, the stress of the last several days was too much. She fell asleep as Tyle's family caressed her.

The young men finished and moved away. I realized I'd just been staring at the interaction. I wondered if what we did would be enough to convert the opinions of any of the unbeaded women here. It would be awful if they started to take men back once they were healed.

"You look troubled, Ciara," Aryn said quietly approaching me.

I was surprised when his hand came out and stroked my belly the way my family would have. The touch was gentle, just like Kein would have done. Aryn was family, though, and touch was important in the family. I smiled as the baby moved against his hand.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

"The women," I whispered to him, "I'm worried they will try to take you all back to the compounds."

Aryn smiled and patted my shoulder.

"These women were sent to us by The Great Harmonious Spirit," he said. "They have a place in our camp now and will stand with us. Don't worry, Ciara. Everything is happening as it should."

I returned the smile and put on a contented face so Aryn would move away. This seemed like a pointless argument to get into right now. The men were very set in how they viewed things.

The stubborn part of me wanted to tell Aryn that it wasn't a spirit that had loaded these injured women on transports and settled them here. Men from the camp had done this and I still wasn't sure it was a good idea. Most of the unbeaded women didn't believe The Great Harmonious Spirit existed. We had no proof the women wouldn't turn on us once they were strong enough.

I turned and watched our guard at the door. Kana had obviously seen the truth and was on our side. Her diligence and readiness to listen were testament of that. The rest of the unbeaded women here, I just wasn't sure. At the moment, most were so badly injured they couldn't fight even if they wanted to. When that changed, I wondered what would happen.