Chapter 16: A True Animal Intelligence

  "Research Log, Year 9, Month 6, Day 21, (Day 2,944)

  “Today we had our first of many hand-to-hand combat lessons, and Mada took to it quite well. All diordna children begin training at his age to prepare them for the day they will be called to battle by the Drol, no matter their station or profession. As such most drolian citizens are competent fighters. I myself am not the best of fighters, but I know enough that I can teach the basics. I will need to take more lessons eventually to better prepare Mada for the day he is drafted.”

  Mada and Nagemai left Nevets behind, dropping him off at a hospital. There was no way he could continue in his condition, and Nagemai’s machinologists didn’t have the tools to help him the way he needed. They’d stopped to wait for nightfall, which none of them liked, but they needed the cover of darkness to go unnoticed. Mada didn’t like seeing Nevets go, but he understood. Nagemai promised they’d find a way to be reunited, but it was better that he heal than that they stay together.

  Even though he understood that he felt like he was losing Nevets. He’d managed to find a new ally in the short na, and already that ally was gone. Ripped away as surely as Ekivia had been. He still had one support still in Nagemai, though he wasn’t sure how he felt about her. Had she not brought her army here in the first place Ekivia would be alive and they would be working on the articles with Nevets that would give Mada the freedom to live in the world as a normal diordna.

  But no, that wasn’t exactly true. Iakedrom was there to take her from him even before Nagemai arrived, and might have taken Nevets and Mada both as well if it weren’t for Nagemai. And the general had even helped them save Ekivia from the investigator. Mada didn’t know how they would have managed that otherwise.

  Nagemai was his last ally for now, and a powerful one at that. She was the piece they needed to back the research done by Ekivia and Nevets. Mada didn’t know how they’d get that research finished and published, but with Nagemai’s help, he believed they could.

  They’d been riding for a few days since leaving the army on a panth stolen from an officer’s house by Nagemai’s army, Nagemai driving it with Mada sitting behind her on the saddle. She wasn’t wearing her regular white because it would be too conspicuous, and Mada was wearing his cloak, mask, and gloves to keep his features hidden in case anyone saw them.

  They hadn’t slowed much on their journey, except to drop Nevets off. Still Mada had gotten to see some things he’d only ever read about. The region was possibly the most fertile anywhere and was historically sometimes under Redaeli control, though the Drolian’s always managed to take it back. They passed quite a few farms along the way, but the most interesting sight was when they saw a farmer out with dousing rods, searching for a new field to plant.

  According to what Mada had read the rods were coated in clumps of annam from metal pods, and when the farmer found fertile ground the two tips of the rods would be drawn together. Then they could seed the area by spreading annam and oil across it. This would then draw out the living annam from the dirt and it would cluster into pods eventually.

  But that had been two days back, and they hadn’t seen anything as interesting since. But Mada would have been grateful for a distraction. The mount had incredible endurance, running for days on end, but the same couldn’t be said for Mada. He was itching to get out of the saddle and stretch his legs.

  “We’re close,” Nagemai said as they crested another hill.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mada said with a grunt. “I might not remember how to walk by then though.”

  Nagemai laughed. “I’ve been there more than once. The walking isn’t the bad part. The real struggle is when you have to sit down again, and not just in the saddle. The bruises are a real pain in the ass.”

  “Did you really just say that?” Mada asked, smiling.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Nagemai said, and he could hear the smile in her voice though she wasn’t looking back at him.

  When they crested the next hill Mada saw what Nagemai had described to him. A forest of boulders down below. When she’d first described it Mada hadn’t really known what to expect. Boulders as large as small houses dotted the landscape, so thick in some areas that it looked almost like a massive mound of rock. The “forest” was less dense near the outer edge, with smaller boulders interspersed between the truly massive ones, the smallest of which looking almost like roots jutting from the ground around large trees. It was early in the night, but that way the moon lit the area made the boulders look almost like an army of mythical creatures, hunched and waiting for something to happen.

  Mada couldn’t imagine how such a place had come to be. It was like something large had pushed the boulders up through the ground so that they looked like bubbles on the surface of water. Woven around the boulders were small streams of water. They appeared to be diverted from a river nearby, though Mada didn’t know if that was intentional or natural.

  Nagemai sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this place,” She mumbled half to herself.

  “You’ve been here before?”

  Nagemai nodded. “Long time ago. Before I was made a general.”

  “Were you a spy or something?” Mada asked. The Redaeli hadn’t held this region in generations as far as he remembered from the histories Ekivia made him read.

  “No,” Nagemai said. “I was a priest at the time. It was near here that I was offered the title of Egeil.”

  “I’m still not sure what that title means,” Mada said.

  “That’s alright,” Nagemai said. “I’ll show you what it means after we find what we’re looking for.”

  “Alright…” Mada said. She’d generally been forthcoming about almost anything they asked her before, so it was strange that she would withhold this. Mada supposed that meant it was either private or extremely delicate information.

  “I’m sorry,” Nagemai said as they approached the first of the boulders. “It’s just that it can be dangerous to tell others what it means. I almost never use the title for that reason, but I had to reveal it to you to gain your trust. But once we’re safer I promise I will tell you.”

  “I understand,” Mada said, though he didn’t entirely. Still, she hadn’t given him a reason to distrust her. “So what do you think we’re looking for?”

  “I can’t say,” Nagemai replied, steering the panth over a wide, shallow stream of water and around a particularly large boulder. “I hope we’ll know it when we see it.”

  “If Dytie sent the marks then maybe he’ll show us,” Mada said. “Or maybe there will be some other kind of marking we’ll recognize.”

  “Maybe,” Nagemai said. “I guess we’ll see soon enough.”

  “Yeah,” Mada said, then an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. “Do you… Do you think these marks might be a warning against making more of me? A show of Dytie’s disapproval? It seems like we’ve been through a lot, and I feel responsible for it somehow. If Dytie approved then why would all this happen? Why would…” He took a deep breath, his throat closing with emotion.

  “Why would Ekivia die?” Nagemai asked for him. “I think you misunderstand Dytie. He allows us to make our own decisions. If he stepped in every time those decisions would lead to us or others being hurt then would we not just be prisoners in this world? I suppose all of this could be a sign of his disapproval, but it is just as likely not. And by the same token, it is just as likely that those marks are a sign of disapproval as they are a sign of approval, like the marks on the Chosen.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in Dytie or the Chosen,” Mada said, surprised by her defense of them.

  “It doesn’t really matter what I believe,” Nagemai said. “It matters what you believe. I’m not going to try and force a belief on you, but I will try and help live well within yours if I can, and living well means not living in pain because of those beliefs. I won’t try to make you a prisoner of my ideas, just as I believe Dytie won’t do to us. And yes I believe in Dytie, though my relationship to him is complicated.”

  Mada grew thoughtful, allowing the conversation to die. Nagemai made some good points, but they made him uncomfortable. He didn’t quite know what to do with them.

  His stomach growled, interrupting his thoughts. He had a pack of food over his shoulder, taken from Nagemai’s army when they left. It was running a little low, but would probably last another day or two. Then they’d have to find more food somewhere.

  “We can stop and eat once—“

  The loud crack of a cnido silenced her, and an instant later a bonelette shattered against boulder, throwing shards into the air that lightly peppered the side of Mada’s mask with a soft ticking sound. Nagemai spurred the panth and it leaped forward between boulders. Mada swiveled his head around, trying to see who had fired the cnido at them. Between boulders as they flashed by, he saw them. At least three panths ran parallel and behind them.

  And one of the riders had a prosthetic arm.

  The panth sprinted between boulders, tearing the ground with its massive claws and jostling Mada in the saddle. Nagemai steered the animal with expert precision, weaving so closely to rocks that Mada thought his legs would collide with one and he’d be scraped off.

  Mada looked around, trying to keep track of their pursuers. From the brief glimpses he got it seemed that Nagemai was going slightly faster, but not enough to really get ahead of them. She steered their mount deeper into the boulder forest, toward the area where the boulders were larger and closer together. That would provide them greater cover, but it would also make it harder to track their enemies.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The clap of a cnido rang through the air, followed by the sound of a bonelette shattering against stone nearby. Their enemies weren’t firing often, they probably wanted to save ammunition since once it was gone they would have to replace the entire weapon, but Mada didn’t doubt that they would hit one of them eventually.

  The gaps between boulders grew tighter and tighter, and Mada flinched away from them as they passed by.

  “I’m going to try and draw them away,” Nagemai said without looking back at Mada. He was glad she didn’t, or they might have plowed straight into a boulder. “You find somewhere to hide until we’re far enough away, then try and find what we came here for.”

  “What?” Mada said, confused. “It’ll be too dangerous for you to stop and let me off. They could catch up. And on top of that I have no idea what we’re actually looking for.”

  “You’ll just have to do your best to find it,” Nagemai said. “And don’t worry about me. I won’t be stopping.”

  She swerved sharply, nearly throwing Mada from the saddle. The panth squeezed between two large boulders, scraping his shoulder and leg against stone as it did. They burst out into a small open space and Nagemai shoved Mada from the saddle. He bounced as he hit the ground, the wind leaving his lungs. By the time he stumbled to his feet Nagemai had already vanished on the panth.

  Struggling to breathe, Mada stumbled into the shadow under the lip of a large boulder. He didn’t think their pursuers would try and squeeze through the gap Nagemai had taken, it would slow them too much.

  He heard the sound of a cnido again in the darkness and prayed to Dytie that it wasn’t the one that would hit its mark.

  **********

  Iakedrom crouched behind the head of his panth, trying to take cover as his quarry shot back at him. It was dangerous approaching directly from behind like this, but it was also the best way to keep up with someone in a situation. A second shot rang through the night.

  And the bonelette struck Iakedrom in the shoulder just above where his prosthetic attached.

  He twisted in the saddle from the impact, involuntarily jerking the reigns of his mount. The creature turned, catching Iakedrom’s leg on a boulder and scraping him from the saddle. He rolled as he hit, protecting his head with both arms.

  “Damn it!” He shouted into the night as his calling bird fluttered down and landed back on his shoulder. “Damn it!”

  “I lost track of you Iak,” Fosia’s voice said from the bird. “You alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Iakedrom said, standing and beginning to limp after his mount. “I just got scraped off my saddle by a boulder.”

  “Want me to swing back and get you?”

  “No, I’ll find mine,” Iakedrom said. It should have stopped once he was no longer holding the reigns, though at the speed they were going it would have taken it longer to do so. “It’s got to be nearby. You just concentrate on catching that panth.”

  “Sure thing,” Fosia said. “I’ll keep you updated.”

  “Good luck,” Iakedrom said.

  “You too.” The bird shook as the call ended, fluffing its feathers.

  Iakedrom sighed, eyes turning red in frustration. He couldn’t believe he missed that first shot. They managed to catch up by pushing their mounts as hard as they could, replacing them three times on the trip. They got the drop on their enemy. Then he threw away their advantage because he didn’t think they could get closer without being seen, and cnido’s weren’t all that accurate from a distance. He was relying on the new weapon too much lately instead of carrying a bow like he used to. But it was hard to draw back a bow with his strong arm replaced by a weaker prosthetic.

  When this was over he was going to…

  He heard a sound in the darkness, not ahead of him where his mount would be, but behind him. It sounded like a boot on stone. He turned, holding his cnido with both hands to keep it steady, and crept toward the sound.

  A silhouette crossed the gap between boulders, continuing deeper into the rock forest away from the direction his officers and their quarry were headed. Iakedrom crept after the figure, stepping carefully so as not to scuff his boots on a rock and give himself away. He saw the figure again momentarily as it turned around a boulder, and he turned to circle around the other direction, hoping he could get the drop on whoever it was. He’d only seen two riders on the panth earlier, so maybe this would be their third companion.

  He nearly forgot the pain in his leg as he circled the boulder quickly. He reached the other side and heard another scuffing sound around the side of a different boulder. Closer this time. He followed, weaving between rocks and doing his best to move swiftly and silently. He heard a clack ahead of him, around the side of a medium sized boulder, and he crept toward it. He expected he would catch the figure any moment now.

  Someone grabbed his shoulders from behind, yanking him backward and throwing him to the ground. As he hit the dirt he nearly lost his grip on the cnido, but managed to keep hold of it despite the jolting pain through his back. The figure leaped toward him to try and pin him, but Iakedrom rolled out of the way and leaped back to his feet.

  He raised the cnido, but the figure was too quick, rushing forward and slapping the weapon aside before Iakedrom could raise it fully. The figure maintained his forward motion, driving his shoulder into Iakedrom’s upper chest, wrapping his arms around Iakedrom’s torso and tackling him.

  Iakedrom had practiced grappling plenty in training, but never before had his life depended on it. His opponent gripped Iakedrom’s prosthetic tightly, preventing him from raising the cnido to attack. He’d instinctively held it in his right hand though since it had been his dominant before. Iakedrom tried to pull free, but the na’s grip was too strong and he was pinning Iakedrom with his entire body weight.

  His opponent forced his arm to bend at the elbow, and Iakedrom resisted as best he could but the prosthetic was weaker than his other arm. He punched at his assailant, but couldn’t get a good strike on him because of the way he was pinned. Iakedrom reached over, trying to use his good arm to free his prosthetic. The na elbowed him in the head with his free arm as he did so, disorienting him. But not so much that Iakedrdom didn’t notice the marks hidden beneath the na’s sleeves as they slid downward.

  He immediately knew who he was up against. The na with two prosthetic arms, marked by Ekivia to pass messages to the verds. Mada.

  Iakedrom reached up, grabbing the mask on his opponents face, pushing his fingers into the eye holes, scratching at the na’s face. Mada shook and twisted his head, shouting and pulling away slightly. The twisting caused the straps on the mask to slip over the top of his head and his hood to fall from his face.

  Iakedrom froze when he saw what Mada truly was.

  And in that moment of distraction the creature pinned Iakedrom’s wrist with one hand and gripped the bent elbow with the other, then pulled up, twisting his prosthetic with enough force to tear it from his body. The pain was dulled as the connection between him and the arm was severed, but it still stung. Blood dripped from the limb in Mada’s hand and it tossed it aside.

  Shocked back to the moment by the pain, Iakedrom twisted violently, taking advantage of the fact that Mada no longer had a solid grip on him. It was too slow to stop Iakedrom’s spin, and he brought his elbow up as he twisted and slammed it into the side of Mada’s head.

  The force of the blow sent Mada to the dirt on once side, and Iakedrom scrambled around to pin the creature. He managed to get on top of Mada, but with only one arm it was difficult to control the fight. He grabbed Mada’s neck, trying to strangle it. He needed to…

  A sharp crack echoed off the rocks around them and Iakedrom jerked from the sudden pain in his side.

  His grip slackened a little, but he couldn’t let up now or he’d be dead. He pushed himself upward with one leg to get his entire weight behind his next attack, then drove his other knee into Mada’s stomach. The creature gasped, and Iakedrom grabbed the wrist holding the cnido, forcing it to point off into the air as it squeezed the trigger a second time, sending the bonelette into the night air above them.

  Mada reached across and struck the inside of Iakedrom’s elbow, bending his arm and causing him to fall forward slightly. Then the creature kicked upward, driving his knee into Iakedrom’s back. It made his knee drive deeper into Mada’s stomach, but the creature didn’t seem to care at the moment.

  He grabbed Iakedrom’s neck in a surprisingly strong grip as it came into reach and it pulled him downward. Instinctively, Iakedrom released Mada’s weapon hand to grab tat the one gripping his neck. Even as he did it the logical side of his brain screamed at him that it was a mistake.

  Mada fired a second time into Iakedrom’s side. Then a third.

  Iakedrom shouted and his body shook with pain. He couldn’t maintain the grip and Mada easily pushed him off to the side. His hand went to his side, and he felt the oil oozing from the bonelette wounds there. His breath came in gasps, not unlike Mada’s own as the creature rolled and pushed itself onto hands and knees.

  Black sorrow and white fear replaced the red in Iakedrom’s eyes as he pressed his shaking hand against his wounded side.

  Dytie, please help me.

  He watched through obscured vision as the cnido slipped from Mada’s hand and the creature curled up over his knees, placing his forehead on the ground then circling his arms around his head in the position of prayer. It shook almost as much as Iakedrom himself did, though it hadn’t been nearly as hurt as Iakedrom.

  “Dytie,” the creature whispered. “If you truly have been, are, and will be, please help me.”

  The shock of the moment nearly made Iakedrom forget his pain. This creature spoke as clearly as any diordna. If he hadn’t seen his face and knew the truth he would have thought it was a diordna.

  Not only did it speak but its prayer echoed Iakedrom’s own.

  It sat there, trembling, whispering its prayer to Dytie even as Iakedrom did the same. Then as though spawned from the darkness of the night a messenger bird fluttered down and landed on one of Mada’s arms. The creature looked up at the bird, clear droplets of water falling from its eyes like emotionless tears.

  Mada slowly stood, expression suddenly resolute. Though the bird didn’t speak any message it seemed as though Mada had understood something from its arrival. It was as though Dytie had heard and answered the prayer of this creature.

  Mada walked away as though it suddenly knew where to go, leaving Iakedrom in the dirt between boulders, oil oozing from his side, mind reeling at what he’d just seen and experienced.

  He finally knew Ekivia’s big secret. Everything he’d learned before indicated that Mada was a diordna, but white hair covered its head and blood colored the pale flesh of its shoulder where its shirt had been torn. Mada is, and had always been, an animal. Iakedrom wanted to hold to his earlier conclusions, but even in his disoriented and pained state he knew that he would have to reconsider everything.

  He remembered rumors from twenty years ago saying that Ekivia had been trying to duplicate diordna in the form of an animal, but they said she’d failed and he’d dismissed the idea. Her research was destroyed, her reputation tarnished, and her license taken.

  But this didn’t look like failure.

  Iakedrom didn’t know how close this creature was to being a true AI, but he did know that it had bested him.

  Iakedrom’s head swam and he felt as though he were standing and perpetually falling over. Still, he had the presence of mind to reach for his calling bird as it fluttered down out of the darkness to land beside him.

  He pressed a finger down on the bird's foot and spoke the code that would connect him to Fosia.

  “Fosia…” His voice was weak and raspy, almost a whisper. “Help.”

  “Iak?” The bird said. “Iak, are you there? Iak!”

  She knew where he fell from his mount. He wasn’t in that exact spot, but he was close. He hoped he was close enough that she could find him in this maze of boulders.

  He tried to reply, to give her more details, but he couldn’t get his voice to work.

  Then his eyes closed.