Kanti 6 (Patreon)

Hey folks! First off, I'd like to thank all of you for being so wonderful, for continuing to support me and my writing. This really means a ton to me.

This month has been surprisingly hard on me. When the pandemic struck, it hadn't bothered me much at all—personally, I mean, I feel terrible for everyone who or whose loved ones have caught COVID-19—but I really welcomed the chance to work from home and hadn't given it much more thought. The protests, however, those have occupied my thoughts constantly.

Human rights—and whatever you might call those similar rights for other species—are really important to me. That's probably not much of a surprise, I guess. Four of my books, after all, are about characters without basic civil liberties living in a society that assures them that they are free. It does sound ... oddly familiar, eh?

Anyhow, my thoughts have been preoccupied and I haven't been writing much, so I've been occupying my free time by editing @RickGriffin's next book. It's going to be really great. You guys will love it, I promise!

I just managed to complete a new Kanti scene, so I'll post it here. I hope you enjoy and again thank you for your support!

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Kanti led the group into the woods. At first, the going was very rough and every step through vines and brambles that blocked their path was a battle. But soon, the trio stumbled upon a well-worn path. Though they lost some control over the direction they went—they were still able to choose a direction whenever it forked—the going was so much easier that no one suggested they go back to blazing their own trail.

“So,” whispered Mila, “what do you suppose made this path? One of those … garr you mentioned?”

Kanti shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, “but garr have a real distinct smell—a bit like ammonia and urine. Once you smell it, you won’t forget it.” The scruffy geroo sniffed the air. “I don’t smell them, if it makes you feel any better.”

Mila raised his muzzle, sniffing the air as he walked for a long while before he seemed to relax. “So, they were pretty bad, huh?”

Kanti nodded. “Blaze—the sourang that hired Saquel to kill my former master and me—he got killed by one. I didn’t see it, but that’s what Sekara said. You remember Sekara, that lio gal with the eyepatch?” He waited for Mila to nod. “That’s how she lost her eye, too, in a garr attack. She wouldn’t have made it out at all had her mate not dragged her off when the garr were distracted.”

Taking down a sourang was an impressive feat. Tikkatikkachitter’s people were huge in comparison to the geroo, but Mila gasped when Kanti mentioned a lio being defeated by them. The lio were legendary for their fighting prowess and determination. They had declared war on the krakun, after all, something few free races could claim. The geroo respected how fierce the lio were the same way that … well, in the same way that the sourang seemed convinced that the geroo were warriors.

Kanti pondered this as he walked. Perhaps the lio didn’t deserve to be feared, to be placed on a pedestal. Sure, they were at war with the krakun, but even a kerrati would fight when backed into a corner. Perhaps the big cats were not so different after all.

“I like the woods,” said Tikkatikkachitter suddenly. “The air is much cooler here. And it smells better than in the sewer, of course.”

Kanti looked back at her and smiled. He’d been so focused on his conversation with Mila that he’d almost forgotten that the big alien was with them. Thinking about it, he felt a little bad that he’d excluded her by speaking in his native tongue. He hadn’t meant to. It was just habit for him to respond in kind when someone spoke to him in geroo. He vowed to be more conscious of that in the future, to include her, even when Mila didn’t.

“I like them too,” said Kanti. “I bet they’re very pretty in the daylight.”

They walked along and, in krakun, Kanti explained, “Mila was wondering if the garr live out here. I don’t smell them, but maybe the wind scatters their scent, so it doesn’t get as concentrated, as easy to detect. Have you seen them before?”

“I have not,” said the sourang. “I have only heard stories.”

Kanti stroked his chin. “Well, we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” While he walked, he pulled his pack off his back and reached in to remove two weapons—his metal knife and the wooden sticker that had once belonged to Saquel. But when he tried to hand the thing to Mila, Tikkatikkachitter grabbed it.

“Slaves are forbidden from having weapons,” she reminded him.

“Well,” Kanti said, pulling the weapon away from her, “today he’s more than your slave, he’s your bodyguard.”

But when he tried again to give Mila the sticker, the sourang intercepted it. “It is forbidden,” she repeated.

Kanti stopped and turned to stare at the alien. “I don’t give a pair of kerrati tails whether it’s forbidden,” he said. “All sorts of dangerous creatures might live out here and Mila trained endlessly how to use this thing.”

“Forbidden.”

“Look,” said Kanti as he gestured with the metal knife. “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m lousy with a knife. No one ever taught me combat stuff and I’ve never trained to use it. I’ve been in two whole knife fights in my entire life. I won one and lost one—and I only won the one I did because Tish had already beat Saquel to a pulp, first. Had I fought him on even terms, I assure you that my second fight with him would have gone as poorly as my first.

“Frankly, Tikkatikkachitter,” he said, “it’s a good idea for you to accept his help.”

“Absolutely not,” she said, inserting her tail between the two geroo and pushing her slave a little farther from the weapon.

“Fine,” said Kanti. “Then you take the knife and you do the stabbing in case we’re attacked.”

He tried to hand her the sticker, but she crossed her arms defiantly. “No. Sourang do not do that.”

Kanti laid his ears flat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean just that,” she said. “We handle all of our problems diplomatically. We don’t fight.”

Kanti rolled his eyes. “Oh, well that’s very comforting. I’m sure that if we encounter a pack of garr, a diplomatic solution will be of great help.”

“Well, sourang solutions worked just fine,” she said, “the last time the apartment was raided by garr.”

Mila’s ears stood at attention. “Oh? How did—”

Kanti held up a paw, cutting Mila off. “You … really don’t want to know,” Kanti assured him. He closed his eyes and shivered at the thought. The sourang had used their own slaves as live bait, leading the garr into the apartments so they could feast on the slave crews that cleaned krakun apartments. After that, the krakun had fumigated the building to get rid of the garr.

The sourang plan had worked but at what cost? How many powerless slaves had been killed just so the sourang wouldn’t have to risk their lives fighting?

“Fine,” Kanti grumbled as he put the sticker back in his pack, but this time he positioned it so the weapon’s handle stuck out the top of the pack, easy to access. Mila stared at the weapon, longingly. “Since I’m the only one armed, I’ll go first,” Kanti said. “Tikkatikkachitter, you’re the tallest, you stay in the back. Mila won’t be able to see over you if you’re in the middle.

“Mila, you stay close,” he said with a smile. Mila hesitated for a moment, then he nodded. Once Kanti’s back was turned, that would put the wooden handle in a convenient position for him to grab, should he need to pull it from Kanti’s pack.

“I am not stupid, warrior-Kanti,” complained the sourang. “I can see what you are doing!”

Kanti shrugged and continued down the path. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he called over his shoulder, his ears wide. He hiked along and soon he was humming. “Grip my paw,” he sang, quietly at first, “and across the grass we will fly.”

Mila surprised him by joining in. “Just you and me, our pelts warmed in the starshine.”

Kanti yarped a laugh. “Join us, Tikkatikkachitter!” he shouted before the two geroo started belting out more of the song…

The black, the cold; you and I, we remember,
But he won’t, my dear, oh, no he won’t!
The cub in your belly’ll know only Blue Horizons!

Mila didn’t know all the lyrics, but Kanti did, so the pair sang the show tune all the way through to the very end. When they were finally finished, the trio walked in silence before the sourang said, “I did not know that song. You two sing very…”—she paused as if searching for the word—“loudly.”

Kanti yarped another sharp bark of laughter. “Well, I would try to sing in krakun, but I don’t know if I could translate as I sang. Besides, it’s such an ugly language. You could never sing a love song in it.”

“A drinking song, perhaps?” offered Mila.

“Yeah, that might work,” agreed the scruffy geroo. “But what’s a drinking song without wine? It wouldn’t be very fun.” He sighed and took a sip of water from the canteen hanging off the side of his pack. “Oh well. Tikkatikkachitter, you’re up. You sing the next one.”

“What?” gasped the sourang.

“Mila and I sang the last one,” he explained. “Now, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, no, no,” she said with a flick of her fingers. “I am not a singer.”

Kanti snorted. “Neither am I. Mila’s got a decent voice, but our lack of skill isn’t stopping us.”

“No,” she said again.

“Oh, come on,” pleaded Kanti. “It helps pass the time. It’s gonna be a very long night if you don’t want to sing…”

“Very well,” she eventually sighed. “But you may not ridicule me. I warned you that I am not a singer.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kanti said. “What will you sing for us?”

“I am not sure,” she said, taking a moment to think about it. “There was one I used to sing to my daughter, to help her fall asleep.”

“A lullaby?” asked Kanti. He’d never heard a sourang lullaby before. He hadn’t actually ever heard a sourang sing anything before. “Sure, sing us that.”

“It was called, ‘Close Your Eyes’. The lyrics are very stupid and repetitive,” she said, shyly. “It is a song for young pups, but … I suppose you would not understand them anyhow.”

Kanti shook his head and Mila said, “Nope.”

“Okay, very well then.”

Tikkatikkachitter began to sing and Kanti’s eyes opened wide. He had never heard anything so hauntingly beautiful in his life. The music seemed to seep in around them like a mist drifting between the trees.

As she had promised, he had no idea what she was singing but the experience still brought tears to his eyes.

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16VrsXxGc1OeU7yNU4p0EQPUQK39XUpUOnQ37YPQAKeg/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?