“Morning…”
“Where are we?” Kasha asked.
“A ways away,” the third wolf said. Kasha didn’t know the fellow’s name, but his body paint signified they were both in the same tribe.
“My name’s Kasha.”
“I’m Meiss.”
“We’re getting our revenge today,” Reince called out.
The headhunters are good at hunting. But so are we. With three of us we’ll be able to kill them all. One by one.”
Kasha got up and looked over the precipice of endless grass.
“You think anyone else is out there?”
“Don’t know,” Reince said, picking up his spear.
“We may have some more friends. Important thing is to hit the Grimeskins back.”
“Don’t you think we should fall back more?” Kasha replied.
“Uh, Kasha. We go west any further and it’s Shattered Paw Tribe territory.”
“Exactly,” Kasha nodded.
“That’s exactly why we should do it. That way if the Grimeskins want us they’ll have to go into Shattered Paw territory.”
“Yeah but… Shattered Paw will kill us too.”
“And who do you fear more?” Kasha asked. “Besides. If we’re quiet, we can sneak around unnoticed. We can use Shattered Paw as an object. A third party.”
“That’s crazy, Kasha. So crazy it might work.”
Reince motioned for them to get up, and the three of marched further into the grass.
Meerkats
“…Did you just come from that airship?”
By the time Hans gave up chasing the Messerschmitt and turned back to the town, the inhabitants had all gathered and were staring at him. A crowd of a few dozen ‘prairie dogs,’ all of them dressed in flowing white, stood and stared. The man who had just asked Hans the question was carrying a staff and wore a hat that looked like the onion domes which topped so many Russian churches.
“Yeah. I’m, um… Lost, and I have to get back to the airship.”
“Right now? But it is being the hottest time of the day! You’ll get hurt if you are going out now!” The elder’s considerably younger wife chimed in.
“Especially if you are going that way,” the elder ‘prairie dog’ retorted.
“Oh.”
“Why not be staying here until nightfall?”
“Well, I would. But I just got kicked out of my room.”
“I mean be staying with us!” he said.
Hand looked around at the faces of the crowd gathered before him. They looked pretty nice, and they certainly knew this land better than he did.
“Um, alright. Thank you!”
Hans followed the crowd of ‘prairie dogs’ along the stone-lain road and back toward the huddle of white boxes. One of the excited boys came running up to Hans and tried to grab at the Mauser.
“Ah, careful” Hans said, covering the the gun with his arm. “This could be very dangerous.”
“WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM?” the boy shouted.
“A place far, far away. Where the humans live.”
The crowd stopped at the elder’s home and all of them turned to Hans.
“Please,” the elder said, “until you are being fully rested, we want you to stay and having our good hospitality!”
The elder shooed the others away, and led Hans inside his comfortable home, where pillows lined the walls. They gave Hans a place to rest, and soon he was surrounded by flat breads, lamb meat, and inquisitive kids.
“Wow! So what is the war like?!” One of the boys shouted.
That was question sure to darken Hans’ mood.
“Well, it’s terrible. Like a monster that consumes helpless men. You watch your friends get killed and die in your arms.”
The kids’ faces stared blankly at him. How could he make them understand? Perhaps an example of his own experience would paint the right picture.
“Like my friend Ernst. He was driving a supply truck and got hit by one of the enemy’s ‘airships.’ The bottom half of his face was blown off. I took the truck, and tried driving him to the nearest hospital but…”
The kids just kept staring blankly at Hans. They weren’t getting it. And now this whole thing was annoying and angering him. It was hardly a way to remember Ernst, who died in the passenger seat of that truck, gripping Hans’ arm as tight as he could. The kids just weren’t capable of understanding.
Hans was about to do what he swore he never would: Turn war experience into a consumable story. What else was there to do in this situation?
What was the war like?
“Oh it’s so scary! We fight the bad Bolsheviks and there are so many of them!”
“How many?!” One of the boys suddenly lit up.
“Very many! Sometimes there are waves of men as far as the eye can see!”
“Woah! And do they ever win?”
“Oh, yes, if you’re not careful. Once my comrades and I dug a hole and shot at them. There were so many Bolsheviks that we ran out of bullets to kill them with!” He motioned to the wreath of machine gun cartridges around his neck.
“Did you get away?”
“Oh, yeah, we all got away!”
That wasn’t true, but everyone liked a story where the good guys win.
“And when we ran out of this stuff, I had to throw THIS.”
Hans reached to his waist and pulled out the stick grenade strapped under his belt.
“It makes a big explosion when you throw it. BOOOOM!”
Hans gestured with his arms. Even the little girls were awestruck. But the girls asked about different things: Comrades, pets and girlfriends. They giggled when Hans said he had none of the latter.
Later the adults brought out wine. That afternoon Hans got drunk and slept well past night time. His drunkenness didn’t matter, because the entire town seemed to take ownership of him. They insisted he stay that night, which he did, and then stayed the next day, too.
By the time he left, Hans had a full stomach and another great sleep. The villagers waved him off and gave him a sack full of food to carry for his journey. He stuffed the sack into his helmet. Hans knew there was only one thing to do: Find the pilot of that Messerschmitt, whoever he was. That meant giving up his trek to The Velt. It also meant marching in a new direction: North.
To Safety
For a short-legged cat, Asril adjusted well to caravan life. That wasn’t such a surprise. Asril was accustomed to transient existence long before the green-skinned beasts drew near, but that past was something she really wanted to keep a secret. Aboard the caravan she was surrounded by thirteen others who were looking out for her, and there was a shred security in that, one that she hadn’t known for awhile.
She had come to know most of the traveling party by now. Besides Tanjung there were the boys Meru, Bagya and Martaka. Clara had two kittens. Then there were two other girls her age: Tari was the prettiest of them, and she stood almost a head taller than herself and the other girl, Ani, who seemed quite nice to Asril, and often shared dried beef stick with her.
In the days before, Asril watched out a little square window as benevolent springtime sunshine turned to muggy heat, and hilly rice fields gave way to tropical foliage and fruit trees. But the horse-drawn convoy pressed on. Breaks were brief and far between. When the rain came, it pounded down on top of the closed caravan. Ani got sick a few days in, and Asril was assigned to look over her.
She had learned a little travel etiquette over the last week, too: It was up to the entire traveling party how fast the caravan should move, when it should stop and how it should defend itself. But in this case the conductor simply took off out of Miao. A few days passed before he even once pulled over. The passengers all got out to discuss. This gave Asril a chance to look at everyone aboard.