Page 54 of Meat

“Back!” Jale bellowed, swinging his arm at the crowd. “Back, rot you!”

Krogg and Ravnar did the same. The three of them were positioned in a protective triangle around Alyx and the baby. The sounds of their loud, angry growls further upset their child, but they also had the desired effect of driving the crowd back. The throng got a little quieter, and soon so did Cyrith.

Still, the other ukkur were curious as hell. In a way, Jale couldn’t blame them.

“What is that thing?” One of the elder ukkur asked insistently.

“It’s a wummum,” Jale said, repeating the first word his mate had taught him.

“A wummum? I’ve never heard of such an animal.”

“Looks a bit like a sick ukkur,” someone else added.

Jale snarled at that. Nobody called his mate sick-looking. She looked perfect. A perfect wummum.

“Not ukkur.” It was Krogg now. “Not exactly.”

Little Cyrith gave a sudden loud cry. That drew a wave of murmurs from the crowd.

“And the little creature in its arms?” Someone else asked. “Is that a wummum too?”

“No,” Krogg answered. “That little creature is an ukkur.”

At this, the stirring in the crowd increased.

“It is? What’s wrong with it? Why is it so small?”

“Nothing is wrong with it,” Krogg said. “It’s a child.”

The word Krogg used was different. The nith word for hatchling. That was not exactly right, Jale thought to himself. The child had not come from an egg. It had come live from Alyx’s belly. But it was the closest word that his language had. Had they used the word Alyx taught them—bibi—it would have only confused the others even more.

“An ukkur child?” Someone called. “Impossible. Everyone knows that the nith make the ukkur.”

“Where did you get it?” Somebody else asked.

Krogg rested one massive arm protectively around his mate, Alyx. She instinctively pressed against him a little harder, seeking comfort from his touch the way that their son Cyrith took comfort from hers.

“The woman,” Krogg said, pronouncing the alien word better than Jale could. “The woman made it in her belly. She made it from our white fluid.”

More muttering from the encircled crowd. More curious looks passed from one ukkur to another.

Jale watched as an especially large ukkur swaggered forth from the crowd.

He recognized this one. A hunter named Varag. He was built like a brick, with stringy black hair and a face lined with a scraggly beard. A puckered scar twisted across his face, an old dueling wound that had left one eye pale and muddy like a river pearl.

Varag jutted his ugly chin toward Jale’s mate.

“You say you made a baby ukkur inside the creature,” Varag rasped. “Well, I want to have a go at it too.”

Jale bristled at the demand, as did Krogg and Ravnar. Acid surged up his arteries. Rage tightened his muscles. He pressed closer to his mate, shielding her from Varag’s ugly, hungry glare.

“Rot you, Varag,” Jale snapped. “She belongs to us. To me and Krogg and Ravnar. You can’t have her.”

The prairie darkened as a cloud drifted across the sun like a curtain. The crowd had gone mostly quiet now, waiting to see how this played out. The tension in the air was palpable.

“You know the rules of the tribe,” Varag hissed. “We share our belongings.”

Heat scorched inside Jale’s chest. His muscles hardened with tension and a menacing growl rolled deep in his throat.