Chapter 17

The words, “We know what you did” rang hard in my ears. The Wilds — these Earthmen who somehow had ended up like numerous women on the planet Sevir, though unlike us females they hadn’t been forced to be humanhorses — had listened in to the plotting between myself, Taiwo and the Orc-like creature as locked in our cages overnight we sought to find ways out of a very real death threat.

I thought I was being clever but for some reason I had never imagined the Wilds would simply listen to what we were saying. Perhaps I believed stone walls were impervious to sound, but whatever the reason we found ourselves once again in danger of being killed.

These men had the Egri princess Itritha bound and gagged and at their mercy, as were we three females. But everyone in a world where resources are scarce and opportunities even rarer tries not to waste their chance of an advantage, and the Wilds were no different. Maybe more so as they had far less at their disposal than the majority of the dominant Egri females. They wanted something, and it turned out myself and my human companion would help them.

Thus we found ourselves not dying on the end of crude spear or as a target for their archers, but heading towards the Yrri camp and its sizeable army. Allow me to fill you in on the background of our survival, though if I am honest I am not sure dying at the hands of the Egri under Itritha, being slaughtered by the Wilds or being at risk of being torn apart by the green-skinned and sharp-toothed Orc creatures was really any different in the end. Life on Sevir was hard but made almost intolerable but the continual threats of dying horribly: I doubted anyone on this planet died peacefully in their sleep in a soft bed.

Now you will say that as a humanhorse charging to battle, with the sword-wielding warrior Akrith on my shoulders, I shouldn’t blanch at the idea of death. I had seen other human women die around me and understood the reality of war. It was perhaps the only way out of an exhaustingly harsh life on Sevir. Sure, I had been sent back to Earth and it was only my fear of what would happen to my friend Cerys with the Mage Ruben that spurred me to return to this planet in the hope I could help free the Welsh girl. Now I was wondering, given that I had inadvertently condemned Taiwo to this unexpected life, if staying in London might have been better. Less interesting, but definitely less threatening.

I reflected a lot on this as I carried Taiwo on my back as we trudged northwards towards the mountains.

Oh yes, I was once more a humanhorse. I suppose, given my time on Sevir being devoted to either pulling a plough, being ridden as a war mount and hauling a wagon then my destiny was just that. However carrying an Egri is quite different to bearing the weight of a human like Taiwo.

Yes, she is a little smaller than me and while strong, having been a fighter in the secret clubs of London, the black woman was heavier than Akrith was, though in fairness Akrith did wear iron armour and carry weapons. Taiwo bore none of those things, and thankfully she managed to spread her weight by the way she sat on the adapted saddle, thus making carrying her more easy. I might have dropped her if there hadn’t been two reasons: first, my wrists were bound to my waist and secondly, there were four men of the Wilds riding with us who made it clear if I or Taiwo or even the Yrri female we called Gree made the slightest untoward move they would kill us.

Maybe they would spare the bound and gagged Itritha, as she was the prize they could use again, but the rest of us wouldn’t survive long. So, I carried Taiwo as best I could and Gree led the still fuming but helpless Egri princess through the thickening trees and up gradually rising ground to where Gree had indicated her people were.

I will give Taiwo her due, however. When I told the Wilds that she was a fighter from Earth they insisted on a demonstration of her bare-handed abilities. It was impressive the way she flattened one of the men who might have believed he could better the black woman in unarmed combat. The poor chap had gone down at the second punch after a kick to the groin that probably would have removed most of his manhood. I could tell that whatever the rest of Wilds thought, Gree looked impressed and even gave a small smile. There was definitely something more than hand signs blossoming between her and Taiwo.

So what did the Wilds want from all this? Good question, but from what I could gather from the Wilds leader — an Australian I couldn’t help but call ‘Bruce’ in my head though he never introduced himself to me — the plan was to trade the Egri princess in return for some material help from the Yrri. They wanted swords and proper iron-tipped arrows with better bows to launch them, too, and perhaps some sort of promise that they wouldn’t be threatened if the Yrri came down from the mountains. To carry anything they could get, the four Wilds men not only rode what looked like exceptionally strong female humanhorses (I was quite envious of their muscles, I admit) but had brought along two spare humanhorses in tow, though these also acted as relief mounts for the men.

And what would the Yrri want with an Egri? A hostage, obviously, so they too could negotiate with their traditional foes. Maybe they could trade the princess for a Mage and have some sort of unnatural power on their side. Or maybe they would enjoy torturing the small female because the Yrri thought torture was the best entertainment one could have. All of which made me wonder what they would do to Taiwo and me when they had finished listening to Gree.

Could we trust Gree? I confess I didn’t know. While she had, thanks to Taiwo’s ability to work out some complex sign-language with the creature, gone along with our hypnotism-like game and pretence of verbal communication, there was every possibility she would simply hand us over to her people. Unless of course Taiwo and myself would be kept to be given over to the Egri in some way, or the Yrri might like the idea of humanhorses too. In fact, it was a reasonable bet that these Orc-types had already captured a number of Earth females from raids on both the Egri and the Tankic and made full use of them. Well, that would be better than being tortured to death.