Sal lifted his head and blinked sleepily up at Jessa, stretching his stubby limbs out and flopping limply against her belly.
“Look at him,” she picked the baby percer up and held him in front of Jiith’s face.“Look.At.Him.He’s tiny, and fat and adorable.Completely harmless.”
She pulled Sal back to her chest and glared at the syto.“If you hurt Sal, I’ll give you something to really be afraid of.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her vehement defense of the percer.In the last few days she’d shown her capacity for kindness and violence in more ways than one, and it only made me like her more.
If she was ready to fight for a percer, how fiercely would she protect our own children?It made me miss my own mother, who’d been one of the gentlest, most patient turochs I’d ever known and able to scare even the most rebellious child into behaving with nothing but a tail flick.
“Be careful, Jiith,” I chuckled.“An angry female with a tamed percer is a terrible foe to meet.”
Jessa grinned up at me and tucked Sal into the shirt she’d tied around her chest, tightening the fabric until the percer was secured to her front.Sal let out a happy honk and fell back asleep immediately.
“How long do you think it’ll take to reach your camp?”she asked, standing up and reaching for the shoes she’d scavenged.They were too big, but it was better than walking on her wounded feet.If I wasn’t worried about having to fight, I would have happily carried her all day.
“Two days,” I answered, slinging the bag over my shoulder.“A day and half if we move quickly.”
Jiith was looking stronger, but I doubted his stamina would last long.On my own I could make it to camp by dark, but with an injured syto and a limping Jessa?It was going to be a grueling journey.
“You’re certain I’ll be welcome?”Jiith asked as we left the house.The sun was starting to warm the air already and he draped one of the scavenged shirts over his head to protect his face.
Jessa’s skin was pink from the sun, too, but the burn was already fading to a light tan.Humans were much more sun resistant than sytos.Gigi never left camp without human ‘sunscreen’ and a wide hat.
“You’ll be safe,” I assured him, eyeing our surroundings for any sign of the Kwin’s forces and finding the horizon empty of everything but birds.
Jessa moved to my side and slipped her hand into mine shyly.I grinned down at her and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air.
“Smells much better out here,” she agreed, breathing along with me.
***
My hooves scraped overthe surface of the road as I shifted cautiously, making sure to keep my horns out of sight while I watched the syto patrol move in the distance.Jiith had been keeping watch while Jessa and I searched a small store for food and when he’d called out a warning, we’d quickly taken cover.
Jiith crawled under the car we were hiding behind and peered at the small group of blue figures.
“I don’t recognize half of them,” he said slowly.“I see Rijiish, and Pu’ish, but the other three are new.”
“New?”Jessa looked up at me, eyes wide with fear.“How can they be new?I thought that was all of the sytos on Earth.”
I ducked down and considered his words.“The cruiser died six months ago, we knew the Kwin’s personal shuttle crashed here.It’s possible a few escape pods made it down and they just now found each other.”
“How many were on the cruiser?”she asked.Sal poked his head out of the wrapped shirt and let out a soft honk.
“Hush, baby,” she murmured, patting his head.
“There were thousands,” I said.
“Thousands!”
I held up a hand as if I could muffle the word after it left her mouth and she snapped her lips together.
“Sorry,” she cringed.
Jiith scooted out from under the car and leaned against the tire.
“There were eleven thousand sytos on our cruiser,” he said quietly.“But only enough escape pods and shuttles for five hundred at most.Odds are half didn’t even survive the landing.”
“So best case scenario, the Kwin still has hundreds of goons,” Jessa said.
