Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 12

But that was long ago. Now, the corporal was almost as quiet, but he took no shit from anyone but Kobeh, and then it was nothing more than words since they understood each other.

The second corporal was one passed on to Kobeh from another section. He was a bit of a snake in Kobeh's eyes and he left his thoughts at that, remembering that he'd sometimes been one of the instigators of Kamiq's torment.

They heard gunfire from behind them and the three lowest ran faster. Kobeh ordered them to maintain their previous pace.

"They try to make you run, knowing that you will fall into exhaustion sooner. Follow me," he said as he began a gentle turn to the left in the tall grasses.

"Why are we turning?" the second corporal asked and Kobeh said, "They may also be before us since they have vehicles. In that case, the noise behind us is to drive us straight to them. Run that way if you like."

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Dusk was just coming on when Magda got up to answer the quiet knock on their door. She was a little surprised that it was Abi himself who brought their evening meal to them. There were small amounts of food for her and more of it for Xhoso. But no matter how she tried, Magda still thought that bags of blood looked absurd on a dinner plate.

He told them of what T'maz and Tozama had noticed and been monitoring and he gave them some directions as well.

"Go there and help the few that will be left who run from the others. I will send help later. You are only to even the odds as you can. Make no attempt to contact or speak with the ones that you help. Only leave and return here."

When the sun was fully down and the dusk truly began, a door opened and the pair shot out into the gloom. Before they reached the closest trees, Magda was gone and flying, gaining height so that she might find the best way ahead.

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The meal that evening was wonderful to them all, though it wasn't much more fancy that a thick and hearty stew that Abi had made with some hard-crusted bread to go with it. Oyan and Mokonyi marveled at the bread, since it wasn't anything like what they knew, though grains made up a large part of their normal diet. What they ate was more like a creamy paste eaten from their fingers.

They all enjoyed it and liked the way that it gave them something to talk about, since almost all of the Ushandi and the Arundi were in attendance. They all wanted to hear about the hunt and how it had gone. The only one missing was the large Ushandi male.

Because of the differences in their physiology, there was no attempt made toward sitting at a regular table. The humans didn't mind, since they never did when they ate a meal and the Ushandi were normally even less formal about something such as this. The nearest that they came to it was at times just like this, when they sat on their haunches and worked oversized cutlery held in their large hands, though it could be a long trip from the plate to their mouths. The ones who had the most trouble were the two Arundi, who clearly weren't used to eating utensils, though they tried out of a want to appear a little less wild.

Bera was the older Ushandi female though she did not appear to be old in any way. She sat with a bit of a look to her, as though she knew that both her presence here and her best manners were required of her. She was a dull and dark gray overall, though it took nothing from her slightly regal-looking beauty.

Janaah and Thelly were younger, not long of an age which was considered adult to the Ushandi, and they struggled a little to avoid appearing more juvenile than they feared that they must to some of the others in any event. Janaah was a slightly mottled gray which varied in tone from almost black near her feet and hands to almost white streaks which grew naturally near the front of her long hair.

Thelly was a slightly tawny color, though it was a dark tan and it was also very rare for what she was. Shades of brown were almost never seen in Ushandi at all. She shared the tendency of darker limbs with Janaah, though in her case, she went in more browns almost all the way to black at the ends of her limbs. Her mantle wasn't the same tawny color; on her, it was a very deep brown. Her mane was even darker, and yet, in a similar way to what Janaah wore, there were lighter, actually blonde streaks near the front.

The coloring of the two and the way that it went on them was indeed rare for Ushandi and though they'd seen it before, it caused both of the young princes to have to make an effort not to stare whenever they saw them, both at the young beauty which they saw there and for the reason of the trait's very presence, though the reason for it had never been spoken of.

Both of them had lighter faces, their manes were very dark, and only one look showed all four of the younger ones something which raised questions in the prince's minds every single time.

Abi began by stating what the Ushandi already knew and he apologized for it as he started in if he bored them in any way. He related the way in which the commerce of the dark realms worked and the need to hunt errant souls now and then. "I had what some might call a hell at one time, but it was the most remote and isolated in where it was - at the very brink of the dark abyss. Almost no one ever came there and I finally grew tired of growing fat and being idle.

I left it and I have wandered ever since. These days, I keep a bit of a home in an old fortified monastery. It suits my needs - when I have them - and it gives my legions somewhere to stand ready for my call.

I also stay in touch with the flow of souls and I employ several good soul hunters to bring the hard cases to me for the higher bounties which are placed on them. Whenever a really difficult or ... perhaps just challenging soul has a bounty applied to it, I sometimes go myself out of interest."

They were asked to tell of themselves so that everyone might have an easier time trying to get to know each other. The humans didn't quite know how to begin, but between them, they told the short stories of their simple lives, leading up to their time of loss and grief and how they had come to be looking for work from Abi as the riders which they were only just that day coming to know in terms of what he had meant. Both of them made sure not to forget to express their pleasure at finding themselves in such startling company.

Even Bera had to admit to herself silently that she was impressed with their sincerity and it gave her a little hope for them all as well.

Bera acknowledged their sadness as though she almost knew the way that it felt though she didn't say it in so many words. She was next and they all listened as she began.

"I am not anything but a commoner," she said, "and it has been my life to struggle, often needing to fight to get by sometimes." She looked around at the others for a moment, as though deciding over just how much she ought to tell of herself. Finally, she just shrugged and said it to the best of her ability.

"I have found that I like to have a mate. That is a simple thing to say, but for one like me, it is harder to do that you might think. I have had males, but I am too prone to want to wander and seek a little adventure for most of them. They all seem to need to keep a female at home. I even had a little one once, and she was my joy for a time. I loved to take her with me, but the male who sired her grew angry over what he saw as the risking of her young life in my foolish travels.

He left me over it and he took my joy from me with the help of the king's guards, for he was friendly with a few and they liked to drink together. The king did not even look at the document which he signed and it was done. I have never seen her since that time.

I also liked to have females mated with me. Well, one at a time, I should say. But though I sometimes found one who could make me think about staying at home - since that is what they all seemed to want from me - I found at last that it is easier to remain alone. I am never happy for it, but at least my heart does not hurt me any more than it always does.

When lord Abidon came to look for Ushandi guards, I had heard of him and his travels all of my life, so I jumped and shouted that I would go. It was my joy when he saw me and called to me, saying that I should come to his side. I hoped that I might find a little peace in my heart here. I see the beginnings of it, so I am content."

She looked toward Abi, "Though I have spent far too much time in fending off a stupid male's crude attempts to romance me, my lord. Also, though they are not known to me, I have also had to come to blows with the idiot every time that he looks at these young ones and begins to walk nearer with the swelling stick and sagging balls that he thinks will reduce us all to whimpering sluts for his stupid and selfish desire."

She looked down for a moment. "Forgive me, lord. I am sorry for that. But it raises my fur to have to step in to prevent what I know would be the violent and selfish mountings of two pretty young females who would not know the best way to defend themselves and make him bleed for his lust. I have left the two males to defend themselves. It was not what I wanted, but if I took on their defense as well, I would never have any rest."

Janaah and Thelly both leaned a little to thank Bera for what she'd done for them at times.

Abi looked down himself and sighed heavily for a moment. "I make my apologies to you all for that. It was my failing. I have heard your words as all of you came to me to complain about Shanok and his actions. I had other troubles and could not be with you then. I guess that he must have taken it as my tacit approval."

He sighed again as he looked up and they saw that he took it rather personally. "I have spoken to him several times over his overbearing attitude, unbridled lechery, and the way that he thought that what he was gave him some right to rule - which it did not."

He looked at the humans and said, "So that you know, Shanok came from the slums out near the walls of the Ushandi kingdom. He found his way into the center of the city and he grew up in the alleyways there. I knew that he had to make his own way from a very early age.

I had the impression that his struggles to remain alive might suit him for the task to lead the Ushandi until I could find my riders for them, but I was mistaken. I do not know if it was the cause or the effect, but either way, it seemed that he had a mean and very cruel streak in him. I was just never near when he chose to let it free."

Abi looked at the two young males and bent his head, "You also deserve my apology, for he treated you even worse. He knew who you are, and he knew that you had no future in your father's house.

I did not expect it, though I see now that I should have. Shanok took it upon himself to act as though your place in your family gave him license to behave as your older brother did - indeed, as the rest of your inbred family behaved. I am sorry for that as well. If he had so much as single a shred of a proper sense of duty, he would have bowed to you instead. I do not think that it is necessary here, but it was his duty to do it unless I told him otherwise nonetheless.

In the time that you have been here, all of you have shown me that, though as their overlord, I will need to act one day to correct the misdeeds of that house, I was not wrong to come and ask for the help of the Ushandi."

"Where is Shanok the Self-Important?" Bera asked, "I am surprised that he has missed a chance to tell us all that we belong to him in the natural way of things, as he so often says it."

Abi shrugged, "After our new friends arrived, I spoke to him yet again and he took it as the chance to tell me the way that he saw things; that all of the Ushandi were his to command, whether in action or only that any and all of you submit to his dominance.

It made me think of Janaah and Thelly very quickly. I felt that they were unharmed as yet and that took my thoughts to you, Bera. Seeing that you were alright as well, I thought of the recent marks which I saw on Noli and Kiriel. I knew at once what had happened. When I asked over it, Shanok almost swelled with pride, so I made certain that it was his last swelling.

We were outside at the time and I showed him a different sort of dominance.

I showed him my right as his overlord.

I did not touch him, but I wished to punish him for what he'd done and his stupid view of things all the same. I let him see the foolishness of his thoughts. When I asked what his thoughts were of the Arundi here with us, he said that he was annoyed that all of the Ushandi were so spineless that they would not agree to the brawl that he wished to start with the Arundi.

I told him that perhaps they saw no need for a thing like that. He said that the Arundi were different and backwards, if you can believe it, and he said that they ought to be put to death.

But I showed him my thoughts then and released our wilder friends here, since they'd taken a time of his taunting in silence. Only the young one stepped forward to fight Shanok since he had the hate to work out of himself. Mighty Shanok the Windbag lasted less than half a minute.

I burned him to ash with my mind. He lies at the bottom of an unmarked hole on the plain over there."

There was silence around the room then and Abi bowed his head to them all, "Please forgive me for not seeing and acting sooner."

He indicated Noli and Kiriel with his hand and spoke to the pair of women, "So that you might know what the others here already do, these two are brothers, the youngest in their line and they are princes of the Ushandi. They have come at my urging to escape the cruelty of their own royal family.

The youngest of the lovely females," he began, "are here out of a similar reason, though the cruelty would have been of a different sort, I think.

The quiet ones there are the Arundi of course, though I have a hope that they might speak a little of themselves."

The female nodded, not wanting to be rude. "I think it is time to speak since others already have told of themselves. I have never seen humans before, though I find that I like them now. The rest are our kin though the families parted long ago. It does not change what we are or were."

She looked at the Ushandi, "Like it or not, we are your wilder cousins, not much civilized in your eyes, I would guess. But I see Ushandi here who I think that I would like to know and that is a change in me. I hope that you might feel such a change also.

For the humans, Arundi live where our cousins seldom go anymore. We must appear as savages to them, living in tribes who often fight each other over little things.

I was a queen once and I birthed a few fine sons and daughters. But none of them fought each other. Because of a bit of treachery, a truce was broken the same night after it had been made. As the people of my tribe celebrated an end to a bloody war, our new 'friends' turned on us."

She looked down for a moment, "My male the king, my daughters, my sons, my kin and all of their families were murdered as they slept later that night. I did not believe that the war could end so easily and I did not trust what was said to me. I left the celebrations in bitterness counting all of the ones that I had lost to the war. I went to sleep at my sister's home, but it had begun before I got there.

All that was left was my tiny sister-son, and he was barely alive and had been left for dead. I took him up and I ran, knowing that it was already too late to do anything else. I cared for him as I could and I raised him to a fine male alone.

Please forgive him for he seldom speaks - even to me - he has not known the company of others and feels uncomfortable among so many, though he does not mean to seem rude. He has known only hatred and killing. His schooling was what he learned as we ran to hide or fight as we needed to, hunted as we were out of hate by other tribes and sometimes as sport by Ushandi nobles."

She looked at the two young males for a moment, "I do not try to shame you, not knowing you at all, and what came of it happened at a time when you must have been small, but the deepest scars that we wear are from the brothers and relatives of your fine queen when they came to kill us for nothing but a hope of laughter.

Why they did it never made sense to me, but your nobles sometimes did this."

She shrugged in an offhand sort of way, "I once thought of it as perhaps a want in them to die, for it never changed anything. We are still here. We still live. Most of the ones who came for us do not.

When I heard that the overlord was coming, we hid ourselves in the guise of the Ushandi and made our way into the city at night where we stayed hidden until he spoke. When he had the Ushandi that he wanted, I raised my voice.

I spoke more for my nephew and less for myself, but he took us both. It was my last risk, knowing that if he refused us, we would die in the middle of an Ushandi crowd. We were taken and protected by the guards of the overlord and kept apart from you so that there would be no fights. Since then, I have tried to keep the peace by staying away when we worked and I said little.

So," she said in her low voice as she looked around at the others, "we are your poor cousins, but I offer our help if it is ever needed. I am Yuya, who was once a queen and is now older and nothing. This is Jojo, my sister-son. I offer peace between our kinds here in this place."

The two princes gasped when they heard their names, but they bowed low, which surprised the Arundi.

"We have heard your names from when we were small," Noli said, "You are the wild ones from beyond the gates who killed five noble idiot males between you in little more than an instant and all others who went later out of a stupid sense of vengeance. I once asked why you were hunted and it earned me a slap from the one brother that my mother had left. It made him angry, so I have held your names high in my heart since then.

We are not there now. We are all free here. I see no differences or reasons to hate anyone. My honor to meet Yuya and Jojo at last."

Kiriel smiled, "My honor also. To have you here makes this even better, now that we know each other."

Yuya looked at Jojo for a moment. Finally, he looked at them all, "Cousins," he said, but there was a pause after it. He looked at the humans and bowed to them and the others, "Thank you for the food ... cousins."

He smiled a little after that and the smile lingered, since he saw that he'd been accepted.

Abi held up his palms then and smiled in a slightly hopeless way, "And then there is me, as you know. All which remains to be said is that, in the first place, you should know by now that I am no man," Abi said, "I am a demon, but I hope that you can see that I am no wild or evil thing. At least, I hope that is what you see." He looked at them a little searchingly for a moment and then he continued, having seen no reaction to speak of.

"The next thing that our beautiful humans should know is that Ushandi and Arundi are not animals or beasts. They are only a different form of demon. There is another form which is more ... primitive in some ways. They are known as hell hounds and there is one here as you have seen."

"Are you friendly with him?" Oyan asked.

Yuya looked as though it was a difficult thing to answer. "We have some common root very far back, I think. There has never been any trouble between our two kinds, but then we seldom see each other and really have very little to say then. I cannot think of a good way to say it."

Jojo looked over, "Different, like... air and stone."

Yuya nodded, "It may sound strange to you, but my nephew is right."