Chapter Nine: The Face of the Enemy

Courtney stirred slowly from unconsciousness, the touch of something on her face rousing her from an induced sleep. She heard the shuffle of feet moving away from her, as if an intrusion on her nightmare. She smelled dampness in the air, a certain earthy scent that permeated the air. Sounds that were not familiar to her reached her ears dragging her back into the waking world, incessant clicking carried through to her on a muggy wind. Her face wrinkled as the unfamiliar sensations hit her and she cracked her eyes open getting a floor level view of an unfamiliar room. Painfully she pushed herself up from the awkward sprawl of where she had evidentially been dumped. Her head throbbed incessantly and her vision was slightly blurred. Courtney shook her head trying to clear her eyes, only to aggravate her headache. She raised one hand and rested it on her forehead, which was hot and very sweaty.

She blinked several more times and looked about her trying to get her bearings. She was no longer on the landing of that she was certain. She squinted in the dusky light trying to make out just what it was she was seeing. The place was almost human in style, like the pictures she had seen of natives of the jungles. It was a large undivided hall of some sort. The floor was made of tightly fitting lengths of wood and smooth under her hands, polished by many decades of foot traffic. The walls were made of dank wood planks and tied together with what looked like dried sinew tightly on the bottom half of the wall loosely slatted on top allowing the muggy breeze to sweep the space. Beyond the wall she could see shadows moving along the outside of the dwelling, slightly hunched over and walking in a way no Soua ever did.

Courtney turned her attention back to the inside of the lodge or hall. The room was not furnished with anything save several crudely woven blankets and some cured animal skins piled near the post. There were no decorations within the room; the place held no sense of style or grace that she knew of the Soua. Down the middle of the room she was in was a large post or tree trunk that obscured the opposite side of the dwelling from her sight. The pillar was dotted with shackles and as she looked she could make out tiny strips of rotted skin dangling from several of them. Courtney grimaced at the possibilities that suggested. She was quick to turn her attention elsewhere. Around the trunk the floor was cut away dropping directly down to the floor below them. Through that hole she was able to glimpse open space and she got a sense of height, as if they were not directly on the ground but slightly above it.

She was certain that this was no Soua dwelling, and she felt the muscles in her jaw tighten as the only other conclusion came into her mind. The Noa had taken her.

Courtney remembered being separated from Gui' and trying to hold her own against the still thick number of Noa on the landing after the bridge had been blown. It seemed to her that they knew she was responsible for the loss of their access and came with a fury she had not seen. The fight had been worse than the nightmare hunt on Shisari so many rotations prior when they had ended up fighting Yhi, and inadvertently completing her Raya before they had thought her ready. The Noa had quickly surrounded her and she became acutely aware of her vulnerability without Gui'Yata's assistance. They had beaten her down, ripped her mask from her face, and she had been very certain of her own death there in defense of her own city. She remembered slipping into unconsciousness as the Noa continued to viciously beat on her. She was surprised to find herself alive actually, and she wondered vaguely why she was spared, and where they had taken her? She shook her head again deciding that it was not a good time to question her luck. Not that she was altogether safe, for she was still in the middle of what was a well established Noa Camp.

A noise to one side of the pillar in the room alerted her to another presence and she directed her attention to the source. Her headache was quickly forgotten as she concentrated on who was with her in the room.

At the moment all she could see was a hunched and squatting shadow, and at first she wondered if the Noa had somehow found her more interesting as a prisoner than as a meal. She had seen what the Noa would do to some of their more obstinate foes, and she was certainly surprised to find herself in possession of all her limbs. Courtney squinted trying to make out the details of the silent observer near the center post.

The figure rose slowly to its feet, the shadow was tall and upright, this was no Noa. The figure stepped into the mottled light filtering through the slats pulling back a hood. Courtney drew a surprised and frightened breath a identity of her captor, jumping to her feet. It was a man and he paused tilting his head to one side looking intensely at her face. His face was dirty, gaunt, and deeply lined and a sort of sour expression drew the corners of his wide mouth down. To her surprise he was clean-shaven. He blinked slowly with deep sea blue eyes, startling and vivid coming out of such a worn and haunted face. His hair was cropped short all the way around but stood out at different angles in matted spikes, and it was so dirty that it was hard to tell what shade it was.

He wore around him a crude floor length cape complete with a hood. It was fashioned from carefully selected skins that all matched in shade and texture, darkly gray and there was fur lining the neck of it from what she recognized as nlanka. She could only think that it had to be stifling hot to wear in this climate or perhaps it was only being worn now for some show of superiority. There here was not a bead of sweat on his brow. His chest was bared, muscular and smooth winking out at her from under the opening of the cape just under the simple bone fastening at the neck.

One arm hung limp at his side, his fingers barely brushing the tattered fatigues she could see from under the cape. Combat fatigues she noted with a surge of butterflies, just as the boots were standard army issue. His other arm remained hidden from her sight and she felt her hackles rise at the thought of what the man might be hiding under that formless cloak.

Courtney's gaze moved back to the man's face her eyes searching for some hint of purpose on his features. He continued to stand there staring at her for long moments and neither of them moved. When he shifted again, Courtney jumped despite herself, then slid into a defensive position as he began to move closer to her. His eyes restlessly looked her up and down, and a question formed in his face that said she was a mystery to him. His eyes suddenly shifted back to her face those blue orbs drilling into her. Then he spoke, or she thought he did, what came out was an unintelligible stream of clicks in varying tones, pitches, and lengths. It reminded her a lot of the Saruku, the language of the young when they were first trying out their vocal talents. It was uncanny just how much the two were similar.

It was Courtney's turn to tilt her head to the side as the man repeated whatever it was that he was trying to say to her, "Mister, I don't speak, Noa." She said gruffly resisting the urge to step back from his proximity to her, "You want to ask me something you have to use my native tongue."

The man's eyes furrowed at her almost as if he didn't understand English at all. Then he looked down a moment his face contorting heavily then he looked back up at her, "W… Wh… oo… rrrrr… Y…Y… Yooou?" he asked in an exaggerated way.

"The better question is who are you?" Courtney retorted. And she jumped back as he put his hand up waving it up and down.

"S…low," He said next, "L..lon…g time si…nce…l…last use. Wh…o… arrre, you?"

"I am Raha," Courtney replied, comfortable only to give her Soua hunting name.

"I…am…Skiateta," he replied, his skills with English seeming to come back more quickly though the last word what should have been his name was again an unintelligible singsong of clicks. He shook his head seeming to realize that she would not understand the translation, "Thomas….Gr..gregory, Sergeant, Third Infantry D…ivision, f…ormerly of the Organization."

Courtney drew another sharp breath, Third Division had been the division that Gerard had been in charge of in the assault on the ship. Her theory and the Soua's fears had been realized, here was a human, a survivor of the fields beyond Donona Landing. He had arrived here at the same time she had, he had lived here the past thirteen rotations as well.

"Why am I here?"

"I s…aa.ved your life, y…you… should be grateful."

"Thanks," Courtney said sarcastically, "Why are you driving the Noa to kill us?" she added as the thought occurred to her.

"'Us'?" He said cautiously his eyes narrowing at her use of the noun, "You a…are not Brethren…why do you say 'us'?"

"Because the Soua are my people, my family."

He seemed confused by that, "Y…ou came here…willingly?"

Courtney's mouth snapped shut, "No… no I did not. I came here much as you did."

"A prisoner?"

"No, I was a… guest…" She winced as his look darkened, "I was brought on board because I had been injured. When the ship had been forced to leave…by your attack," She added pointedly, "I was stuck on board. To keep from being killed, I trained to be one of them, and I am now a member of their society." Her head lifted in pride at that statement.

The man named Thomas bared his teeth in an ugly reaction, "My time was not so pleasant…Raha," he spit the Soua word mocking her hunting name. His English had nearly smoothed completely, and she wondered if that was in part due to the anger he expressed at the mention of the "Brethren", as he named the Soua, "I was beaten, cut, toyed with, fed little if anything at all. They did not clean our cell, there was no place to sleep. We were plagued by festering sores, rashes, some died from the atmosphere, your precious Brethren did nothing to make us comfortable. Those of us that were left were near death when the Brethren made planetfall. We thought that we had been through the worst of it, we hoped they would kill us mercifully," He laughed a sharp bark, "If only…instead they simply released us sending us unwillingly into the wilderness, to our deaths."

Courtney looked away seeing ugly images in her head. She could not defend the Soua against such accusations, because it was not beyond their species to do such a thing to enemies. She had been largely unaware that there had been prisoners on board, nothing that she could remember was said of their presence. Even when she had found out she really had no concern for their treatment, truthfully she harbored a grudge with them for forcing her on the trip. For a long time she had told herself that they deserved what they got. After that she had been too occupied with her training and studies and their presence faded from her mind altogether.

"But I did not die!" he shouted hoarsely, snapping her attention back to him, "I didn't!" He quieted again after that, "I watched…yes I saw many of my friends get swallowed up, torn apart, or liquefied by the creatures that occupied that field. Many of my nights are spent remembering the horror of that day. I emerged from that field, a field that none of the others made it through…Only to be found by the Clan." Courtney looked down as the other arm moved and again she drew her breath in sharply in horror. His other arm was not an arm at all, it was a sickly and pale stump criss-crossed with teeth marks, and the skin was slightly translucent, "They argued over whether or not I was food, until their Shaman decided I was their Skiateta, their savior. I was the herald that marked their ascendance over the Brethren. I am to return the planet to its rightful owners, I am to help them take it away from the sick monstrosities that the Brethren have become. We will destroy the technology that was never theirs in the first place, we will force them to live as they should live, off the land, as a hunter should. I have shown the Clan the way to defeat the Brethren…gladly, though I do not share their vision about the outcome of this planet. I will do my part!"

"But why?" Courtney asked, almost afraid of the answer.

An insane look flashed in his eyes, "Why else? Revenge!!"

The wave of Noa warriors below Taysa began to ebb, the jumble of bodies thinning and disappearing into the jungle surrounding he city. This was an event that took the remaining citizens by surprise, again the Noa held the advantage in numbers and yet again they retreated. The defenders huddled in a small group not far from the southern perimeter of Taysa. They were panting, bloody, weak, tired, and hungry. They were nearly out of power cells for their weaponry and had been allowed no time to recharge them.

Quona slowly looked up and regarded the rest of the group, "We will not last if they attack again," he uttered in a tired voice.

"I do not know why they turned back," Temasu voiced what they all were thinking, young enough to be so brash as to say it aloud.

"They may just be taking a short pause before they eliminate us," Nobaya offered.

"Or their orders have changed," Gui'Yata interjected as he joined them from the village. All eyes turned to him as he towered over the kneeling group of warriors, "I believe that they have been recalled to another purpose."

"What is that you hold?" Quona inquired seeing the mask clutched in his hand, "Another Noa cull?"

Gui'Yata only shook his head, handing the mask to his grandfather, his mandibles clicking loudly. The older Soua took the proffered helm looking at it closely, "This is…Raha's mask!" He stated, "Is she all right?"

"She is gone," Gui'Yata answered weakly, "They have taken her."

"No!" Nobaya said in horror, knowing only too well what the Noa did with 'prisoners'.

Gui'Yata looked down nodding slightly before slumping down next to them, "We were separated during the battle against the second wave of insurgents. By the time I was able to return to the spot where I had left her, she was gone."

The young Soua looked down flexing his fingers on his left hand in an attempt to speed up the return of feeling in that limb. There was still only limited movement in his arm, and he wondered fearfully if he had treated it too late and that the damage was permanent. He looked at his fingers seeing how cool they were in comparison to the rest of his body temperature. He growled under his breath knowing that he should be seeing a Soyasa about his injury, but too concerned about the disappearance of his partner to care.

He looked around him seeing that all of his fellows had similar injuries to his own and like him none moved to take themselves out of the fight, "What else was lost?" He asked knowing that his consuming search for Courtney had detached him from the bigger picture of the health of the city's population.

"The losses are surprisingly light," Quona answered him, "You and Raha's quick actions may have saved us from a total loss. They seemed to grow weary of scaling the tree below us even as the bodies mounted higher. Our only losses came from the group that ambushed us from behind. There are fifteen injured and eight dead…and one missing," The Quona added solemnly.

"We need help," Tomakaya said gruffly, "We will not last another assault we are too few now."

Quona nodded slowly not looking at the younger Female, "That is already in the process of happening, Tomakaya. I have sent a team to make a patch to the message units and they should be about finished."

Suddenly a warrior burst through the contemplative group dropping to one knee in front of Quona and signaling his respect for the old warrior. Quona reached across the space between them tapping the young hunter on the shoulder, "What is it Kremaa?"

"Quona, a small group of Noa escaped the landing!" Kremaa replied crisply, "There was a human with them, a male human…"

"Gerard?"

"No Quona, this one is conformed differently from the clusu Raha returned with."

"Then it is true, Bahlana was right," the Quona said looking away from the messenger.

"There is more," The young hunter blurted.

"What?" Quona said in a tone that promised retaliation if protocol was so badly broken again.

"Quona, forgive my impertinence, but the Noa carried something away with them. A body."

"One of the warriors? But why?"

"Quona it was too small to be any warrior but one."

"Raha," Quona whispered his mandibles tightening over his jaws until it began to hurt. He looked back up at the warrior, "Which direction did they go?"

"Quona?"

"You obviously followed them for some distance, or else you would have been sooner to me with this report!" The grizzled old Soua snapped.

"Y…Yes, Quona," Kremaa stammered, "They moved northeast toward the Lmarianta swamp. I…I know of a large Noa settlement there. I turned back before reaching there, forgive."

Quona looked away blinking and dismissing the youth with a wave of his hand. Kremaa stooped low in respect and then moved away from the group. The grizzled Soua did not look at anyone for a long time, only fingering the skull that rested in the crook of his thin neck.

"But why?" Gui'Yata said breaking the long silence that fell after the report was delivered. Temasu had possessed enough sense to retire from the group just after Kremaa's arrival and now only the remainder of the Eesan remained behind.

The Quona shook his head, "I don't know."