compromised. You must agree to pay a bride price to compensate for their loss. Also, you must agree to participate in a marriage ceremony to make it legal. I will not allow any of my children to be bastards."
"You want a priest to oversee our union?"
"A civil ceremony will suffice."
"I would have to think about that one."
"It's non-negotiable, but I'm sure we can arrange something. In exchange, I will become your consort and the mother of your children."
"You really mean that?" The naivete in his voice was unmistakable. It made her wonder if he was really as despicable as he seemed.
"I give you my word."
"How long would this courtship go on? You could try to use it to create an inordinate delay."
"How about for as long as it takes to negotiate the bride price?"
"That would be acceptable, but I would require that we be married as soon as it is paid, and we perform our consummation immediately after that."
"Agreed."
"Who do you want to perform the negotiations?"
"My butler, Aelfraed, can handle that, but I want him brought here. I'll also require a matron of honour and a bridesmaid for the ceremony. My housekeeper, Mrs. Widget, and Maggie my lady's maid will do."
"I can agree to all that."
She lowered the pistol. "Very well. Then it would seem we have a deal."
From "The Adventure of the Deadly Monkey Girls"
Cheu'rut-Monkey Hunter paused on the trail through the woods and sniffed the air as his bat-winged ears flexed and swiveled to catch every sound. The human females were close; he could sense them. He bared his fangs and extended his claws as his ears folded and flattened against his tigrish head. Those monkey-girls were good, he would grant them that. No human before them had survived even five hunts, and the vast majority did not survive one. That pair had completed twenty-two, but that would end soon. He was the premier man-hunter in all of Wunderland. No human had ever escaped him, not even the vaunted manrretti, the thought of whom gave most Heroes cold chills. He had no reason to believe those two would be any different, but he had not gained his partial name by being so foolish as to thoughtlessly scream-and-leap like his erstwhile competitors had done; he was cautious and possessed foresight, traits often derided by others, but they allowed him to survive.
He had trained for weeks to prepare for his encounter: analyzing video of their previous hunts, devising moves to counter their speed and reflexes, studying every centimeter of the arena ground, and setting plans for ambushes and traps to counter their intuitive intelligence. His only worry was that some other Hero would kill them before he was ready. His strategy was to pursue them without trying to catch them, not at first, to wear down their stamina. Then let them try to fight him as they had the others. He had entered the arena with three other Heroes; they were now dead, killed by the humans in hand-to-hand combat. He wasn't sure what was more embarrassing, that they were so mindless in their attacks, or that they had been defeated by monkey-girls who barely stood tall enough to look them in the sternum. But they would not find him so easy to dispatch. He would disembowel them with one swipe, then rip out their throats. His reward would be the privilege to feast on their succulent flesh, and the right to claim a full name and to mate. He could taste their sweet blood on his tongue already.
A twig snapped behind him; he tensed, narrowing his eyes.
"Hey, you, Tigger!" a high-pitched, squealing voice called out. He spun around, crouching, his arms flung wide, his tail twitching and swishing. No more than ten meters down the trail stood one of the humans, the one with the large mane of golden hair and the prominent monkey mammaries.
The one called Sunny
"Yeah, I'm talking to you, you overgrown tabby! I'm right here. Come and get me!"
She was close! Cheu'rut screamed and leapt at her, sprinting at full speed. She turned and ran out into the open field. It was going to be easier than he thought! There was no place for her to hide, and she couldn't outrun him. He quickly closed the distance between them; he would have her in two more leaps...eh?!
As she passed a pile of boulders, she collapsed backwards on the ground, slid to a stop, and scrambled on all fours inside them. He landed at the base and raked the ground with his hand, trying to catch a leg with his claws, but missed. There as an opening to a tunnel. He crouched down, looking inside, and saw her pressed against the back of a small cave, wedging her body tightly into the cramped space. She grinned at him, an expression that he knew meant humor in humans, and raised her hands to her head. Jamming her thumbs in her ears, she waved the fingers at him as she stuck out her tongue.
"Hah, can't catch me, you humongous freak! Nyeh, nyeh!"
Screaming, he reached in as far as he could to claw her out. He could just barely touch a boot, and she kicked at his hand as she laughed.
"Hey! Tuna-breath!"
The shout came from above. Looking up in surprise, all he saw was the head-sized rock hurtling towards his face.
Eile had hidden among the boulders above the tunnel while Sunny snuck up on the Kzin. His orange, yellow and black-striped coat looked especially beautiful, so much better than the mangy fur of the other three. She figured they must've been outcasts, only slightly better than telepaths and slaves, being given a chance to redeem themselves, except that really all they were meant to be was cannon fodder, to distract her and Sunny while the professional hunter sized them up and prepared for his attack. Well, he was in for a rude awakening; she and Sunny had turned the tables on him. They were hunting him, and his pelt would make a great addition to their collection.
She was worried Sunny might get too far away. Though they had discussed the maneuver quite often over the past month, Sunny could be reckless at times. It had nearly killed them twice, but she didn't seem to learn. For once, though, she stuck to the plan, much to Eile's relief. When the Kzin was preoccupied with trying to extract her from the cave, Eile picked up a large stone, stood up, and raised it over her head.
"Hey! Tuna-breath!" She threw the stone as she shouted. The Kzin looked up moments before it hit him squarely in the face. It looked to her like he wore an 'Oh, shit' expression in that last second.
The rock knocked him backwards off his feet flat onto his back. She snatched up the sharpened stakes and threw herself off the boulders as Sunny crawled out of the tunnel. She tossed a stake to her partner and leapt on top of the Kzin's stomach as Sunny ran up to his head. Raising the stake, she drove it down into the neck, striking first at the throat, then the carotid artery. Eile targeted the liver. The heart was too well protected, beneath the ribcage and a wall of solid chest muscles, and above the tough diaphragm, but the liver was more vulnerable, and there were major arteries that ran around and through it. They stabbed at the Kzin's body with such force and single-minded purpose that they almost didn't hear the long, low, mournful tone of the sthondat-thigh horn. When it did register, they paused, panting, then looked at each other and broke out into wide, raucous grins.
"We did it!" Eile yelled.
"Wah-hoo!!!" Sunny cheered, waving her arms in the air and swinging her hips.
"Twenty-three hunts!" Eile added. They leapt at each other and slapped palms together, then pranced around the body, skipping, jumping, and brandishing their makeshift spears as they laughed and shrieked for joy.
Graf Differel Van Helsing watched the two girls dance over their fallen opponent like wild savages, until Thagn-Riit shut off the viewscreen. She turned her chair to face the Kzin overlord of Wunderland. He was typical of his species: 2.35 meters tall, about 225 kilograms in weight, looking like an anthropomorphic bear with a tiger's head and wearing a tiger-skin suit. His massive barrel chest testified to his powerful musculature, but his prodigious strength was enhanced by Wunderland's low gravity. She knew from reading anatomical reports of dissected bodies killed by the resistance that Kzinti had flexible spines, giving them great agility, but she could clearly see the large fangs in his mouth when he talked,
and his polished, black claws kept slipping in and out of his fingertips whenever he was agitated, such as that moment. He was sitting behind his desk, so she couldn't see his tail, but she always considered it comical that such dangerous aliens would have ludicrous naked, pink, rat tails.
Not that she would dare laugh to his face. He was supreme commander of the forces that had conquered Alpha Centauri fifty years ago, the equivalent of the rank of marshal in the old Wunderland armed forces, and while aging, he was still a deadly and formidable dictator. He was also the third son of the Patriarch, which gave him considerable power and authority. He had overseen four so-far disastrous attempts to conquer Earth and the Sol System, but he had learned from his mistakes and he was preparing a fifth fleet that was scheduled to depart soon. Considered opinion believed his latest attempt would succeed.
"It would seem they win again," she said, as she brushed one-half of her asymmetrical haircut out of her face.
"So it would appear," he replied. His command of English was superb, better than hers of the Hero's Tongue. His manner was also calm and controlled, a rarity for his species. "I will transfer the proceeds of our wager into your account within the hour."
"In gold."
He smiled. "Of course." For a Kzin, a smile was an implied threat, but he had adopted several human expressions