Sami and Say-it-Again sat on a ledge, looking out on the dark mass of jungle. In quiet fear, they waited for the expedition to return. That morning, a team of fifty Mauves had gone into the jungle, loaded down with minesweepers and autocannons, to make peace with the Sabers. So far, no news had come back.
Nothing louder than a murmur disturbed the air. Say-it-Again squeezed her eyes shut in silent prayer. Among the tents, women worked fitfully at half-finished tools and bits of clothing. Older women prepared bandages and sutures in anticipation that the expedition would come back mauled, while a gang of seven- and eight-year-old girls wrestled over a rubber ball, oblivious. Beside one of the bigger tents in the center of the camp, a man smiled as he watched two little boys painting on a scrap of leather, guarded by a pregnant sarge and two sour-looking riflewomen.
"I'm scared," said Say-it-Again, no longer ashamed. "What if the Sabers come here and then..." Her voice trailed off.
"And then?" said Sami.
"I don't know. I'm just scared."
Only the old warriors and their favorites had gone to meet the Sabers, leaving Sami and Say-it-Again behind.
"They should have gotten to Saber territory, right?" said Say-it-Again.
"Definitely."
"And did you hear an explosion?"
"Nope."
"So... it's going well?"
"Yeah, I think it did." It's a shame. The Mauves could have knocked off the Sabers and saved Bonde Wakulima the trouble.
A few minutes passed. "I should really work on that skirt," said Say-it-Again, for the fifth time.
Sami debated whether or not to ask about her work when a sound arrested her thoughts. It wasn't a mechanical sound, but a harmony of footfalls-- a hundred, at least. Mauve emerged into the camp, her stark old face colored with victory and with her officers trailing behind her in a chevron formation. Sami had never seen so many weapons in one place. Barrels pointed at the sky, bombs rattled on bandoliers, and machetes stood out against dark skin, while the hilts of many more poked up from belts.
Once the Mauves were past, more women came who didn't have pink hair. There were twenty of them, dressed in black or white, but crisscrossed with fur bands, tattered red ribbons streaming from their wrists and ankles, chrome weapons gleaming in the torchlight. The leader was a scraggly, muscular beast of a woman, with knotted coal-black hair that spilled over gunmetal shoulder pads. White fangs had been painted under the corners of her mouth, and a necklace of dimpled white stones-- finger bones, Sami realized-- encircled her neck. A red skull symbol emblazoned the left side of her jacket, framed by a silver gear, and on the right, straps held an assault rifle with an ostrich skull strapped to the barrel. Two serrated knives hung at her belt, and her pants were brown cloth striped with thick black stitches, accented by kneepads that had tire spikes welded on. Her boots, which were as big as cinderblocks, punished the ground with cleated soles.
Two women marched beside her, looking no less savage. To her right, a slender woman wore glittering, chrome-studded armor pads over her leather-bound shoulders, with a wooden plank filled with nails strapped across her armored chest. To the left, a stout woman wore the skull of a big cat over her head, its upper jaw shading her eyes. Gas tanks hung on her flanks, hooked to a nozzle in her hands.
Thirty or forty more warriors marched after them, each more outlandish than the last. They would have looked silly if they hadn't been so close and so terrifyingly real.
The fanfare that had greeted Sami and the scout team was nowhere to be heard, deadened by fear.
"Is it her?" whispered Say-it-Again, hiding behind Sami. "The one in front... I think that's her!"
