Chapter 9 Draw Out

Lindsay woke up after a three-hour nap. She knew what it was! She sprinted all the way to Sirix's tent, bursting in on him with Nol, Donil, and Kalo. He was pointing to a map saying, "We'll go through this pass-" when she tore through the tent flaps. "What is it, Indsayee?"

"We shouldn't move!" she panted.

"What was that?" Sirix asked.

She collected herself. "We shouldn't move. They're expecting it."

"Expecting it?" Nol said.

"Yes. They're planning for you to move. I don't think they'll come back here again. It'll probably be the last place they look."

"I doubt they think that much," Nol scoffed.

A crease appeared between Sirix's brow as he spoke. "It's an interesting idea, but what are you basing it on?"

Lindsay wasn't about to tell him she'd seen it in a movie. "Just a hunch."

Sirix put his glass of flaxa fruit juice down with a final sounding thud next to the bottle. "You're asking me to bet the lives of my people on your hunch?" He frowned.

Lindsay's face burned with embarrassment. It sounded so stupid when he said it like that. "Well, I mean, like the Art of War says to know thine enemy and... and..." she tried. She'd heard the book said that, she'd never read it, but it sounded right.

"Yes, I know what the Art of War says. It's on the bookshelf next to my father's journals. It belonged to my grandfather."

She slumped, looking defeated. But she knew she was right. "But why would they come back? They have to know by now you never stay in the same place. And what happens if we don't move and they come back? At least we'd have rest and food and time to prepare. If we leave and they catch us early, where will we be?"

"Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated." Sirix mumbled what was probably Sun Tzu's actual quote. Sirix took a swig of the bright purple liquid straight from the bottle as he pondered a minute. "Hmmm... You make a good point. They'll have learned our pattern by now. I'd hate to think we were allowing ourselves to be herded to exhaustion like losa." He slammed the bottle on the table. "We stay." he declared. "Everyone, burn the bodies and get some sleep. Prepare for repairs to start tomorrow. Except you, Indsayee, I wanted to speak with you further."

The others exited the tent seeming relieved and yet, nervous. If she was wrong, they might very well face another battle in the morning, but she knew she wasn't. She knew it.

Sirix's tent was much larger than the normal living quarters of the Bonat. At its center was a large, segmented table that formed a septagon with an open center when they were all put together. Behind that by almost a yard, was a piece of furniture that resembled a desk. It was covered in maps and papers. Leaned up against the desk were piles of golden orbs, like treasure carelessly left about as though to say he either wanted to show his wealth, or else wanted to show he wasn't afraid that anyone would be able to take it from him. Behind the desk were three tall shelves filled with books and documents Lindsay couldn't read. In the corner, on the opposite side of the room, was a cot of woven fronds, like the ones all the other tents had, a thick, green blanket covering it.

Sirix poured another cup of the purple liquid, putting it on the table. "Have a drink," he said. She took the cup. The juice sloshed slightly over the top. "I thought so. You're still shaking."

"I'm just tired."

"You can lie to the rest of them, tell them you're fine, but don't lie to me, Indsayee."

"The Nobillo I killed... he wanted to sacrifice me to something he called The Immortal. Why do they want me so badly?"

"I have an idea. I'm not completely sure, but I think it has something to do with the way you saved Nol and I today." He tipped his head back and drank from the bottle. "Has that ever happened before? Where you knew something was about to happen?"

Lindsay downed the liquid in one gulp and nodded. It tasted fruity and went down smooth. "Lots of times."

"How long?"

"My whole life. As far back as I can remember." She sat down in a chair. "I used to think I was just lucky, that I had really good intuition." She stopped. He probably wouldn't believe her if she told him. She pushed her cup forward for him to fill it.

He sat, pouring more from the bottle. She took the shot and slammed it down for another. He obliged. It probably wasn't alcohol, or, if it was, it was very weak, but if she learned anything from Psych 101 it was if she believed it was alcohol enough it could produce similar effects and she needed something to calm her down.

He urged her on, "But then?"

"Then those psychos at The Hollow said I had ESP, they called me a precog." She sank another shot. "Which basically means I can see the future." Another shot. "But, apparently, I'm not very good at it when I'm not on Ritalin. Not good enough to be one of them anyway," she said, bitterly. "Not that I want to be bred like some show pony. But I guess if you're not good enough for making babies you get sacrificed to aliens on some crazy planet," she slurred slightly. Either the drink was doing its job or her brain was as she took another. She smirked at Sirix. "Though, honestly, given those choices, I'd rather be sacrificed to aliens than spend the rest of my life barefoot and pregnant in some cave."

"You're not drunk," Sirix said.

"Yeah, well, I need to be."

He looked at her seriously. "Well, I need you not to be."

"Fine. I get it, I'm not drunk, but I'm still going to try and feel that way."

"As long as you don't let it interfere with your answers, I don't care."

"Fine."

"What is Ritalin?"

"It's a drug that helps you focus."

"That's not a lot of help."

Lindsay stood, strolling around the tent like she was drunk, her drink sloshing onto her as she walked. "Nope! Not on this stupid planet! You don't even have guns! Everyone fights with spears and harpoon and knives."

"Oh, we have guns."

She rounded on Sirix. "Then why don't you use them?!"

"Because they don't work well enough. Between the robes that hide their armor and the feathers and the flying it's almost impossible to get a good hit and it uses a lot of metal. It's more than we can afford to waste on those mutants."

"Mutants?" Ok, she was back to sober reality now, the image of those large blank orbs and sharp teeth front and center in her mind.

"Children of the Immortal. The Nobillo mixed their genes with those of that thing they call The Immortal in hopes of creating a superior race. Obviously, the results were not as they hoped. Now they use them for their grunt work."

"So, what do the real Nobillo look like?"

He took out a piece of charcoal and began sketching. "They are smaller in build and stature and have three sets of wings. The outer sets of wings are white, but the innermost set is deep purple." A large set of white wings sprouted from his charcoal onto the paper, followed by two lower, smaller sets, the last one he shaded in. "Their eyes are bright green or copper with purple pupils - I can't really show it here but they have two sets of inner eyelids." He drew large eyes on the being with strange large irises that consumed most of the eye and pupils that were shaped like a wavy "w". "They usually have dark or tawny hair." The face took on a vaguely hawkish cast as he drew. The hands had six longish fingers and the feet, long toes. The mouth was almost lipless, the body long and pale. "Their skin is either like yours or the color of flaxa root. And watch out for the claws, they retract." The creature he sketched was oddly beautiful, regal even, but unsettling at the same time.

"What is The Immortal?"

"I'm not sure. It might just be made up, or a machine, or it could be some sort of alien. My grandfather was only vaguely aware a cult had formed around it before they took over and the Citadel fell. But they worship it as a god and seem to think it has the ability to absorb the characteristics of anyone whose blood it consumes."

"You think it might be fake? But what about the Children?"

"Genetic experiments. The Nobillo and Korsuch were obsessed with them before the fall. They may have created something they wanted to keep hidden so they created the idea of The Immortal to dupe people into becoming willing samples to work with."

"That's insane! They're like alien Nazis!"

"Probably." Sirix shrugged. "My grandfather strenuously opposed them and, as the Bona Serat Corsar goes, so to do the people. When they proposed using the Stone Gates to bring humans in for their experiments that's when the Bonat drew the line during the last Council of Five meeting."

"The Council of Five?"

"The five sentient races. The Nobillo, the Korsuch, the Bonat, the Olaru, and the Desni. Though the Desni never attended, they were always given a place in the council."

Lindsay was completely transfixed. "Why did the Desni never attend? And who are the Olaru?"

"They felt the council was made of inferior races and it was beneath them. The Olaru..." he sighed and began sketching a furry creature that was less than half the size of the Nobillo and looked a lot like an overlarge hamster, "they agreed with us that this was a step too far. They were so horrified by the idea they met it by proposing all the gates be destroyed. My grandfather was uncertain, the Bonat were fond of the humans, especially my grandfather who had made particularly close friends with one who had accidentally stumbled on one of the gates during some sort of battle. I suspect they were bonded, but I was too young when he passed to ask."

"Bonded?"

Sirix made a gesture of a finger going into a circle. Lindsay's eyes grew wide with understanding. "So, he was afraid if they closed the gates he'd lose his... bond?" She wasn't sure what the right word was there.

"That was probably part of it. With a vote of two to two the council sent a delegation to consult the Desni. But it was all over before they made it. The Olaru found out the Korsuch had been using the gates to bring humans over for testing for over a lanc. They sent out spies to destroy the gates. They managed to destroy the gate of the Korsuch but there was a mistake while they were doing the Nobillo's gate, they were only able to damage it enough that it only goes one way - that was the gate you came through. The Nobillo were outraged and declared it an act of war. In a single day, they razed the kingdom of the Olaru to the ground, so only ashes remained."

"And the Olaru?"

"They became a delicacy."

Lindsay felt sick at his words. They knew the Olaru were another civilization. And they ate them.

"They were hunted to extinction. The last thing they did before their capital city was destroyed was to destroy their gate."

"Which means the only gate that still worked..."

"Was in the hands of the Bonat. It all happened so fast. My grandfather often told me of the day the Citadel fell. They came in from the sky without warning. He watched them swooping in from the top of the Citadel, picking up our people and dropping them from great heights. The air was filled with screams. Then the Korsuch came in with their war machines."

"Good thing the Bonat were a warrior race," Lindsay said.

Sirix laughed. "A warrior race? We were the religious leaders of the world!"

"Wait. So the Bona Serat Corsar isn't a warrior king?"

"A warrior king? No! What gave you that idea?" He laughed even louder. "The Bona Serat Corsar is the high priest of the Bonat. To attack him at the Citadel, it was spitting in the very face of our god!"

"I'm sorry, I just assumed since you were the Bona Serat and your grandfather was, that it was like a king..." She felt supremely stupid now.

"No, the Bona Serat Corsar is a position appointed by the people for life."

"So, you're not a king, you're a priest?" It seemed unbelievable. Nothing about him made her think of any clergy she knew.

"Yes, the high priest for my people. The few of us who are left. We were a peaceful people; we only became warriors out of necessity. Until the Citadel fell, the Bonat had not had a standing army for a thousand lanc."

Lindsay thought for a moment. "That does explain why you were so disorganized. And why I never see any groups training together."

Sirix huffed indignantly. "They're good soldiers. They followed my commands perfectly."

"Well, I mean, yeah, but those commands were basically climb a tree and wait until you told them to jump. And even then, they weren't all together. Be honest, if it was something more complicated than climb, jump, and stab, could you trust them to do it together?"

He sighed. "No."

"Even the mutants can fly in tandem."

"You've made your point. But what do you want me to do about it? As we've established, I manage, but I'm no warrior king. I wouldn't even know how to begin to train them to act as a team."

"But if they could, do you think you could figure out a way to beat those raiding parties?"

He placed a hand to his lips, brushing his middle finger across the scar as he thought. "I have some ideas."

"Then I can train them. I was the captain of my volleyball team and every summer since I was sixteen, I helped coach the travel soccer team."

"I don't know what either of those things are."

She placed a hand on his arm. "Just trust me on this. Give me a plan and I'll make sure they can do it."

He thought for a moment, then stood, taking another swig of the bottle. He gazed at the pile of golden orbs that leaned against what passed for his desk. He shrugged, spreading his arms wide. "Fine. What have we got to lose besides our lives? And we're going to lose those anyway if something doesn't change soon. Part of being a Bona Serat Corsar is recognizing when someone else needs to step in because you can't do it on your own."

He sighed. "I put my life and the lives of my camp into your hands," he said, making a low bow. He looked up from his bow, his expression serious. "Don't make me regret it."

It was a lot. It wasn't just the lives of these blue aliens on the line, but hers as well. If Sirix died, she'd never get home. But she could do this. She knew she could. She might not be a military mind, but, if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was build a team. How to balance strengths and weaknesses to create an unstoppable force. That was her job, Sirix would handle the rest. Lindsay's eyes flashed with determination. "You won't."