Chapter Eleven
Daniel
Within a day of Kai-Tai’s visit, Soo-Kai knew something was wrong in the forest. Where before the forest lay empty, now there were too many people. She could taste them in the air. She said as much to Rolf as they stood outside their house in the early morning.
Rolf looked around at the familiar trees. Everything seemed the same to him. He always marvelled at Soo-Kai’s sensory powers, but he never once doubted them. “Do you think your mother attacked the castle?” he asked her in concern. “Maybe King L’Hage has sent reinforcements?”
She shook her head. “I cannot tell. If Kai-Tai is still in the forest, she is too far away. I cannot smell Destroyers, only humans. But their genetic code is unfamiliar.”
Now that puzzled Rolf. He knew that Soo-Kai could identify the genetic fingerprint of every race on the planet. And it was one part of her memory that she wouldn’t forget. For her to say that they were unfamiliar could mean only one thing.
“Do you think they are off worlders? Aliens?”
She nodded. “Yes. It is the only answer. Sometimes they are alone. But often they intermix with those whose DNA I can recognise.”
“What can this mean?”
“It is the year of the ship,” Soo-Kai said simply. “Maybe Kai-Tai has succeeded in gaining entry to the castle as she intended, and has contacted the ship. But why this would bring more humans I cannot say.”
Rolf was thoughtful. After Kai-Tai’s visit, Soo-Kai had told him about the Nakora Tabek, the Navak ship that returned on a fixed orbit every twenty-eight years. It came to pick up survivors from its original crew, but the technology to contact it had been lost long ago. Only in the Althon Gerail, its sister ship buried under the castle, did the possibility exist that such technology may have survived. So far, no one had managed to get inside to find out. Rolf had written it all down in Soo-Kai’s journal.
“Maybe we should investigate?” he said.
Soo-Kai looked at him. “To investigate could be dangerous.”
“What would Gustavo and Mai-Zen do? What do you want to do?”
Now it was Soo-Kai’s turn to be thoughtful. “We will wait.”
They didn’t have to wait long.
The next day, Rolf was on his way back from one of his trading visits to a nearby village. He always went alone on such trips. It worried Soo-Kai, and she didn’t like it, but she understood.
She had gone with him once, and her beauty had turned heads and attracted too much attention. The villagers had recognised her as a Destroyer, and while the men were envious, the women had been hostile. Rolf had been frightened. He had convinced her to stay behind after that, telling her that he was far more worried about her than he was for his own safety. She gave in, but always met him halfway. He was almost at the point where she would be waiting for him when it happened.
He was walking along the trail he had taken many times before, pulling his little cart behind him. It was laden with food and provisions and ever more cloth. Rolf was thinking about the good deals he had made this trip for his finished garments, when the child suddenly appeared.
It was a little boy. He ran out in front of Rolf and stood there staring up at him. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old. He wore short grey pants, a white shirt, and a blue jacket. He was panting and out of breath, and he looked quite scared.
Rolf was as surprised at their meeting as the little boy obviously was.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Daniel,” the boy replied breathlessly.
“What are you doing in the forest all on your own? Where have you come from?”
The boy turned and pointed back the way he had came, and then he coughed and fell over.
Rolf looked at him as he lay on the ground. He was so surprised it took him a while to notice the arrow sticking out of the little boy’s chest. Then he dropped his cart and ran. Another arrow struck a tree as he ran passed it.
Rolf ran for his life. But he knew it wasn’t going to be fast enough. He could hear the sound of horses, and they were getting nearer. Soon he could see them. Three riders. Rolf changed direction, darting among the trees, but it was no good. One of the horses overtook him, and Rolf was kicked to the ground by its rider.
As Rolf lay panting on the ground, his pursuers reined in their horses and dismounted. A man with a bow in his hand held the horses while his two companions walked purposefully towards Rolf. As the two men came closer, one of them drew his sword and smiled evilly.
Rolf looked up, expecting to be killed, when Soo-Kai jumped out from the trees and sliced at the man with the sword, striking his head from his shoulders. Before the second man could even draw his sword, Soo-Kai had spun round and thrust her sword deep into his chest. That left the man with the horses. Soo-Kai bounded after him. The man quickly dropped the reins of the other two horses and tried to mount his own horse, but Soo-Kai sliced at his back and he fell. His horse bolted in panic. As the man lay wounded on the ground, Soo-Kai held her sword point downward and plunged it into him.
It was all over in a few seconds.
Rolf sat up and looked around at the carnage. Soo-Kai ran to him, hugging him tightly.
“Are you hurt, my husband?” she said anxiously, her voice filled with concern.
“No, I’m alright,” Rolf replied in a weak voice. He was staring at the headless body that lay nearby as if he was mesmerised. “There’s so much blood,” he muttered.
“Are you angry with me?”
Rolf looked at her in surprise. “Angry? Why would I be angry? You just saved my life.”
“But I killed three without your permission or your order.”
“I’m glad,” Rolf replied, his expression hardening. “They killed a child, Soo-Kai! A child! I was with him only a moment ago!”
“Show me this child, my husband.”
Rolf began to get up. “Yes. This way. I’ll show you. Just a child he was. A child.”
Rolf led the way back through the trees. Soo-Kai took the reins of the remaining two horses and followed him. She replaced her sword in her back and watched Rolf closely. That was twice she had nearly lost him. Once when Kai-Tai had come to visit, and now, when Rolf was returning from the village. The forest was rapidly becoming a dangerous place.
They found the little boy where he fell, Rolf’s abandoned cart nearby. Rolf knelt down next to the small body.
“A mere child,” he said sadly. “He said his name was Daniel.” He looked up at Soo-Kai. “Why would they do such a thing? Why would they hunt him like an animal? Why would they want to kill him?”
“It is not only children that you humans hunt in the forest,” Soo-Kai reminded him.
Rolf nodded. “Yes, you are right,” he said in dismay. “My people are often cruel and heartless. They hunt your people out of habit, and they use what little they remember of the past as an excuse for their lust and murder. But I can’t understand why they would want to kill a child. It doesn’t make sense, Soo-Kai.”
Soo-Kai had knelt down next to him. Now she lowered her head and sniffed at the boy. She took two quick breaths through her nose, and then she touched the boy on the forehead, her fingers brushing lightly over his skin. “Yes, there is sense here.”
“What sense?” Rolf demanded.
“The boy is an alien. His DNA is not of this world, although it is similar to those of the race who first settled here. Those that hunted him must know this.”
Rolf stared down at the little boy. “But he looks so normal, so like us.”
“What of his clothes, Rolf. You are a tailor. What do you make of them?”
For the first time, Rolf stared at the boy with more dispassionate eyes. He looked at the boy’s jacket and shirt, and he felt the cloth and the buttons. He even examined the boy’s shoes. Slowly he nodded, and began to catalogue the differences.
“You are right, my wife. The material of his jacket and its lining are unfamiliar to me. The f
abric of the shirt I know, but the buttons are made from a tough bone or pearl that I have not felt before. And the stitching, it is so straight and precise. Too straight for the hand of a man, I think. It is as if it were done by some machine. And his shoes are unlike anything I have seen. They are not leather, and they are not cloth. They seem old and worn, and smell strangely, and yet their colour is so strong and vibrant.”
“What do you make of the jewellery that adorns his wrist?” Soo-Kai asked.
Rolf picked up the boy’s lifeless hand and stared at the white dial and numerals. “It bears the face of a clock. But I have never seen a time-piece so small.” He moved his head closer and listened. “Yes! It ticks! I hear it!”
“We must leave here,” Soo-Kai said abruptly. She stood up and reached out to Rolf. “Come, my husband.”
Rolf looked up at her in astonishment. “We can’t just leave him!” he exclaimed.
“We must.”
“But why?”
“Because they hunted for him, and because they hunted you when they found you with him. We must leave him so that when others come they will find him and know that he is dead. That way they will stop looking.”
It all sounded perfectly logical, but Rolf couldn’t bring himself to leave. “But what about the three men you killed?”
“Did you recognise their colours?”
Rolf paused and turned to look at the horses. “They bear no Royal Crest. They will be from the castle garrison.”
“Yes, the castle my mother and other Destroyers have gathered to attack. These three will not be the only men to die at the hands of a Destroyer this summer. No, it is the boy that is important. Those at the castle must know of the aliens. As before, I picked up their scent alone, before others came and intermixed with them and enveloped them.”
“They captured them,” Rolf said bitterly. “The boy must have escaped.”
Soo-Kai nodded. “I detected the scent of the boy and the men who pursued him close to that of yours as you returned home. It filled me with alarm and I came forth as quickly as I could. I am sorry I was too late for the boy, but it was you I worried about.”
Rolf stood up at last and put his hand on her shoulder. He smiled weakly. “It’s alright, Soo-Kai. I know you would have saved the boy if you could. And you’re right; we better go before any more men-at-arms come in search of their companions. But I can’t help feeling sad. He was just a little boy.”
They left him there, dead on the trail. At first, Rolf kept looking back as they walked away. He pulled his cart behind him while Soo-Kai led the horses. Soon the body of the boy was lost from view, and even the trail was left behind as they turned from it and headed home.
Rolf was silent and depressed as they walked along. Soo-Kai knew what ailed him. It wasn’t just the death of the boy; it was the death of his dream. A little boy would have delighted Rolf so much. She had told him that if they were successful, she could only give him girls. Rolf said he didn’t care, that he would love a daughter as greatly as a son. But Soo-Kai could see the look of torment in his eyes. Daughters of his own and an adopted son would have been a dream come true. Soo-Kai couldn’t stand his sadness.
“Do not be downhearted, Rolf,” she said to him. “Where there is one, there maybe others.”
Rolf looked across at her. “I asked you yesterday what you wanted to do. You said to wait. Well I can wait no longer. I want to know what’s going on, where these aliens come from, and why men from the castle hunt them.”
Soo-Kai nodded. “Yes. I too feel this way. This is why I kept the horses, because tomorrow we will have need of them. Tomorrow we ride to the castle.”