No, I can’t just lie here doing nothing. I grab the soaked net with one hand, sit up, and throw it into the air, right in the dactyl’s path.
It shrieks from anger as the net gets entangled in its talons. It beats its wings furiously as it tries to get free, but it’s too late. Crat'ax stabs upwards with his spear, hits the monster’sunderside, and causes it to shriek again, this time obviously in pain. The dactyl hits the surface close enough to splash us with water, then struggles out of the sea and manages to get airborne again. But it’s lost all thought of attacking us, and it makes its laborious way towards the shore and the jungle, barely above sea level, dripping something dark.
Crat'ax dips his spear into the ocean to clean it, then turns towards me. “Are you all right, my love?” He gently helps me sit up and checks me all over.
“I think I’m fine,” I tell him. “But he got you.”
There’s a trail of two talons along his shoulder, where blood runs down his back. “Oh. I didn’t notice. But I think that ends our boat trip.”
I touch his back and arm. “Can you still move?”
He grabs the oar and starts to paddle. “Well enough to get home. It just stings.”
I reach into the sea and scoop water into my hand and onto his back. “This will sting worse.”
He chuckles as the seawater washes the blood off his skin. “It really did. Do it again.”
“I will clean it when we get home,” I promise, deciding that using that word about the village doesn’t feel all that unnatural.
“Very good,” Crat'ax says as he looks up and around, scanning for more dactyls as he speeds up the paddling. “It won’t be long.”
He’s not completely right. We’re clearly paddling against the current, and it takes us much longer to get back than to get out here in the first place. I offer to take turns paddling, but whenCrat'ax lets me hold the oar, it’s so heavy that I realize I can’t really work with it.
Instead, I keep his morale up with tales of how heroic he is, how wonderful a warrior he is, and how I will reward him later.
We enter the bay and paddle towards the village in stilts. In the distance, I spot the mysterious platform. There are two men there now, sitting in a canoe and looking like they’re checking on whatever it is they’re keeping there. Again, I shudder.
Crat'ax turns his head and follows my gaze. “Ah. Hopefully that will soon be gone.”
“Gone?” I echo.
He nods, and his jaw tightens. “I will talk to the men. After the splix run.”
The canoe on the platform rocks gently as one of the men rises and adjusts something out of sight. I can’t see what they’re doing, only that whatever it is requires ropes and care.
“What is it?” I ask.
Crat'ax doesn’t answer at once. He keeps paddling, his eyes on the water ahead.
“Something dangerous,” he says finally, in a voice that tells me he’s not going to say.
The village comes closer. The stilts rise from the water like welcoming arms. But I don’t feel entirely sure what I’m being brought home to.
17
- Crat'ax-
Morning light slips through a space between two planks of our hut and falls across Callie’s hair. She sleeps on her side, one arm flung over my chest as if she expects me to vanish if she lets go. Her breath is slow and warm against my skin.
I lie still. I do not want to wake her yet.
A bruise darkens my shoulder where the dactyl’s talons caught me. Callie cleaned it last night with care and quiet anger, as if she blamed the wound itself for daring to exist. When she finished, she kissed it—soft and serious—then rested her head on my chest again. I have not told her how much that simple gesture unsettled me, in the best possible way.
She stirs now and blinks up at me. “What are you staring at?”
“I am checking that you are still real,” I say.
She rubs her eyes. “I was hoping for something more flattering.”
