Artemis Child

Monster Earth Ch6

We spent our days learning from them, training with them and teaching them what we knew about forging. Or at least what Gena knew about the art. The morning had not completely arrived, the remains of a thick night fog still rolled lightly across the ground. I was shoveling rocks as requested of me from the village. They still didn't trust us males so we had this little tent hut thing in the middle of the village. The rocks were Gena and the high Queen's idea. They have talked closely about inventing wagons and more modern things. Gena had been painting stories of our world to all of the towns people. I on the other hand was a hand of labor for those ideas. I had been given new clothing fixes that was made of some kind of fur and cloth mixture. My Jean's were patched with this and given some type of black crushed berry to stain it. It had a fruity scent to it at first that now was a faded fragrance. My shirt had been replaced entirely for this fiber cloth material that was made into a tank top of some type, I threw my leather jacket back over it after getting it washed from the glowing red material.
  A soft horn called through the opening of the trees, a worn area that had a lot of traffic from something massive. The very creature to be the culprit emerged from the area. It looked like what the bastard child of a four trunked elephant and a raptor would make, only much larger. Atop the beast was a thick leather and wooden platform that would be considered a saddle for the Centuaride controlling the beast. Large piles of albino rabbits, elk, snakes and other animals rested on the back of another that followed closely.
  The rider was the war chief that Marc had a problem with before we were captured. He spotted me shoveling stones and sand from a piled next to the tent. I had barely gotten the starting of what the queen requested of me. The sound of the beast footsteps came to a halt as the rider made them stop in front of me. "More tribe orphans." The War chief spat, climbing his catself down from his platform saddle. "Survived the change?" He asked looking me over, but looked back to all the villagers approaching to praise the war chiefs return. They removed the hunted animals and set up a table from a massive cut in half log, with the largest of each animal on the top. "Bless the waters!" He yelled into the air removing a knife from his human hip to carve up the weird snake thing with bone spines sticking out of it. "Bless the waters." The villagers said in unison. The sound of cheering over took them as he finished carving the hunted animal rather quickly. Skin, meat and organs in separate piles.
  "You. Orphan. Come carve this one." The Centuaride offered seeming generous as gasp and murmurs washed through the group. I layed down the shovel-thing, and walked forward to the creature. It was some kind of large beetle, its legs bound and horn beak mouth was tied shut. I could hear the voice in my head whispering something, its hide too tough to cut it seemed like. The Centuride offered his blade to me he was actually smiling, which didn't mean anything good. I spun the beetle thing in circles on it's back as I looked for a way to carve it. Looking at the joints where its head connected to its body I plunged the blade down hard on that opening.
  The blade chipped violently, what deflected off the hide and cut the high end of my left ear. The laughs of the War chief seemed to make the whole village laugh. "You still know nothing, Orphan. Rymiks must be cooked whole to open up." The Centuaride said reaching to take the broken knife from me. I summoned the blade from my metal hand and proceeded to cut through the exoskeleton of the beetle in one chop. The knife sunk into the log below, another clean cut would put the beetle completely in half.
  The crowd looked shocked at my blade. The Centuride didn't flinch, he looked at the blade with envy maybe. There was this want in his eye, like he would cut my arm off to get that blade. "That smell you have now. You each smell different, but yours is that same defiant smell. You smell like feeling. Like drawing in mind." He said taking in a breath. "The small one. She smells like winning the hunt. Like standing over my foes."
  There was a smile on his lips as he talked about a female in my group. A small feeling of jealousy was starting to rise in my chest. "You keep away from her." I stated, looking the Centuaride over. I recognized something that he had, Lexi's bone sword. It was strapped to his panther back.
  "you should get back, labor orphan." The Centuaride warned and waved me off as he motioned for a new knife to be handed to him by one of the others in the crowd. They complied, I did not. "How about, go fuck yourself. We did the trial thing. Killed more of the rock things than anyone else here apparently. We didn't ask to be here in your village, but you want us here." The War chief made a fast motion to silence me with a simple stab of the new knife in his hand. I grabbed the blade, its tip just barely prodding the skin of my neck. The blade edge rolled slightly in my metal hand as it was a weak mineral material compared to my metal hand, but before I could move another muscle I noticed arrows were already notched and aimed at me. Too many to try to escape. "Pussy." I called him as he smiled and gave a faster punch than his previous attack to knock me out. My jaw rattled as I fell to the ground, he had been toying with me before but this was one tough cookie.
   I awoke hanging upside down from my feet. My clothes were all gone and I was just hanging there. I couldn't move my arms but they were not bound, they lay just under me dangling unrestrained. "Awake the orphan is." A voice said from the dark that surrounded me. I was in some kind of hut basement thing. The walls were all dirt and roots, but the ceiling was that of roots bound on logs. A small fire was off to one side just enough for me to make out shapes around me, but not accurately determine an escape.
  A piece of metal could soon be heard as my hearing fully came back. It was scratching against a stone, being sharpened possibly, Gena was teaching them too much. It caught a bit of the fire light every now and then still letting me know it was there. I couldn't see who or what held it but they weren't on my side so it didn't matter.
   "What are you?" A voice asked me, I looked around with my eyes since no other body part would comply. "An only child." I stated back trying to adjust my eyes to the dark. "Where did you get that arm?" The voice asked. There was this pause from the metal grinding like they really wanted to know. "My friends made it." I answered honestly. "You smell of wild berries and.." The voice said smelling the air as they paused.
  "Virginity." Was said with a small laugh. "Don't blame me it's the pants on that one." I said but wanted to snap after hearing that. "Also it's not my fault, it takes two to tango, so when you are dancing alone you arn't really doing the danc..." a punch to my ribs shut me up real quick, I wheezed and gasped for air as I swung from side to side.
  "No. Fresh childlike innocence. But also rotten eggs." There were two of them in the room. One to ask questions, another to force them to be short and sweet. "So why can't" I coughed. "Can't I move my arms?" I asked into the darkness. Another punch this time to my lower back. I was swinging now in small little rotations. "Whenever I get out of this. I'm gonna kill you guys." I warned them as I tried moving my arms again. "You will not be getting out of this." Another voice said, this one had to be the War Chief. "One dead orphan will be fine."