Ties
Chapter Six
Panthro flexed his fingers, trying to force
more blood through the constricted veins of his wrists. He was seated on the
floor of the small hut, his hands bound behind his back by sturdy leather
straps. His eyes were closed, his head back as he listened to the sounds of the
village outside and tried not to think about how badly he needed to pee.
He mentally reviewed the information he'd
gathered since his capture. The tribe lived suprisingly close to Cat's Lair,
and seemed to be composed entirely of female humans. Their tree-top village was
a marvel of engineering, and reinforced his belief this was a lost colony of
some sort. The panther frowned slightly, considering the puzzle that he'd
mulled over since his arrival. The women had no knowledge of Thundercats at
all, which seemed to indicate the colony was at least a couple thousand years
old. By now, they should have either died out altogether, or else have spread
well beyond the forest, with at least a bronze-age civilization level. It was
almost as though something had retarded their development, trapping them in the
hunter-gatherer stage.
He thought about the individuals he'd met so
far. Willa, the one who'd challenged him at the field, was the leader and
credited with his capture. He'd not seen her since their arrival at the
village. Then there was the young girl who'd arrived shortly before dusk. She
bore enough resemblance to Willa that the panther had concluded they were
related. She'd knelt before him on the floor with a platter of fruit. She'd
taken a bite, chewed in an exaggerated manner, then swallowed audibly. She'd
pointed at the pear, then at him, and extended the fruit towards him.
She thinks I can't speak their language, he'd mused. He'd decided to play along; no point in
frightening them any further. He had merely nodded and opened his mouth wide in
an expectant manner. The girl had pressed the pear against his mouth, allowing
him a large bite. As he chewed, he'd given her what he hoped she'd take as a
warm, friendly smile. After a moment of watching him, she'd tentatively smiled
back.
She'd fed him several more pieces under the
wary eye of the the guards, then held a bowl of water to his lips so he could
drink. When she left, she paused at the door and favored the panther with one
last, bright smile. He missed her the second she was gone. Friends were
something he had in short supply these days.
Now he was paying for the drink he'd had
earlier. He opened his eyes and looked at the other two humans he'd shared
words with since he'd arrived. His guards, they were two sisters, identical
twins with curly black hair and hard blue eyes. Seated on stools across the
room, they were armed with bows, which they kept knocked at all times. Their
vigilance was admirable; Panthro would have sworn they took turns blinking. The
only words they'd traded had consisted of him asking, "Could you take me
outside? I need to pee." To which the sister on his left had growled,
"Shut up." They had the weapons, so he'd shut up.
He fidgeted uncomfortably, and thought they
did not look any more likely to have mercy on him now than before. Of course,
he could easily escape, but that would almost certainly mean knocking these
twos' heads together, and he didn't want to do that.
On the other hand, he thought, If it comes down to thumping them
versus wetting my shorts...
"Better be thinking about your own
head," he heard Gideon say in
the back of his mind. "They still think you're some kind of demon.
Prob'ly trying to figure out whether you'd make a better statement burnt at the
stake or with your head hung on a pike."
Panthro ignored his grandfather's memory and
listened to the chirping of the insects outside. The was some kind of hum there
now, distant but getting louder. He thought of Wilykit and her insect
collection, wondered if she knew this species. Maybe when he left, he'd try to
catch one for her.
He heard another of the high, trilling calls
the women used for distance communication. He'd heard them on and off all
evening, noting the patterns in pitch and tempo that conveyed information to
those in earshot. This was, however, the first call he'd heard that terminated
in a ragged scream.
The two guards sprang to the door, looking
outside in alarm. When they suddenly realized they'd abandoned their post, they
turned around to find the prisoner gone, his bindings lying discarded on the
floor where he'd been sitting. The peg on the wall where his weapon had hung
was likewise empty. The two looked at each other, sharing that strange silent
communication some twins possessed. Together they charged out of the hut and
down the walkway outside.
Panthro watched them go from where he hung,
pulled flush to the room's ceiling by one powerful arm, his free hand holding
his 'chucks to his side. He grinned at the memory of Gideon's endless lessons
on psycological combat and stealth technique. You were right, Paw-Paw, they
never do look up. When he was confident the guards were far enough away not
to hear, he tucked his 'chucks into the back of his shorts and pushed his right
hand through the thatch, feeling for handholds. When he located a suitable
branch, he dug his claws into it and muscled his way through to the thick
foliage beyond.
On Thundera, Panther Clan had been
tree-dwellers themselves. The great cat moved with silence and ease through the
cover, his dark fur masking him from view of the women gathering on the
walkways below him. He circled the village rapidly, listening as the hum grew
louder. When he'd gotten a comfortable distance from his former prison, he
stopped and relieved himself against a tree trunk with an audible sigh.
Moments later he moved towards the largest
hut in sight, figuring this would be the center of whatever activity was
happening. He could see the women in position now, bows in hand, lighting
torches to break up the darkness. The humming had grown loud enough that the
trees were reflecting the sound, preventing the panther from getting a fix on
it's direction. He found a limb large enough to crouch on comfortably and
afford him a good view of the village and it's central clearing, while still
maintaining his cover.
As he settled in to observe, he noticed
movement near the tree trunks, below the level of the walkways and torches. He
focused his gaze on the darting objects, his feline eyes adapting to the low
light in a way the humans' eyes could not. Even so, the erratic flight of the
creatures prevented him from getting a clear look at them. They rose swiftly
until their blurred mass filled the open area at the village's center.
The women began to fire at the mass, dropping
several individuals with their arrows. For long minutes the deadly missles cut
through the cloud, until the women's supplies of arrows diminished, causing
their attack to falter..
And then the counter-attack was on. The
fluttering cloud of creatures surged outward en masse, breaking up along
the perimeter of the clearing. The air was suddenly full of the screams of
terrified humans fighting for their lives.
The panther frowned. He was reluctant to
interfere - he knew nothing of this conflict, who they were or why they fought.
The fliers had drawn the humans' fire, demonstrating a knowledge of tactics
that hinted at awareness...
"WILLA!" Panthro's head snapped
around at the familiar name. Through the sheltering boughs he saw one of the
women struggling deperately against some kind of winged insect. The creature
had a black, tri-segmented body, as long as the panther's arm, that glistened
in the light of the nearby torch. A stinger potruded from it's anal region,
rearing back to strike. Then the combatants turned slightly, and the panther
saw the terrified face of the young girl who had fed him fruit, saw that terror
transformed into agony as the insect impaled her.
Panthro sprang from his hiding place, racing
through the foliage towards the platform, the girl's wretched cries echoing in
his ears, convicting him, reducing his heart to a cold stone at the center of
his chest.
God DAMN my eyes...
He broke from the foliage, launching himself
into the air above the platform. As he dropped towards the insect and it's
unmoving prey, he saw an arrow punch through the creature's thorax, sending it
and it's victim in a pile to the wooden walkway. He struck the platform an
instant later, hearing Willa's cry to his left. The panther snarled in rage and
charged towards the struggling pair. He saw the stinger emerge from the
creature's tail and draw back to strike. He leapt, throwing himself onto his
back, sliding feet-first towards them. The stinger snapped forward. Willa
screamed.
Panthro's hand shot out, closing around the
thrusting stinger in a tight fist, stopping it cold. Startled, the insect
relaxed it's grip on it's human prey. Instantly the Thundercat rolled, dragging
the monster to the platform, pinning it's legs beneath his broad back. His free
hand snapped backwards, and the insect's head collapsed with a crunch of
fractured chitin.
He sprang back to his feet with an acrobatic
flip, and turned towards the fallen girl, then stopped. The drone of the insects
filled the air, the central clearing rippling with their mass. From all around
him came cries of battle and death as the rest of the tribe fought on. He
looked back towards his friend, saw Willa already there, pulling the unmoving
girl through the door of the large hut.
Panthro turned, moved out along the walkway,
fangs bared, eyes glowing gold in the darkness. All right, bugs...
An insect rose up from below the platform and
to his right. Panthro's 'chucks snapped out; the insect seemed to spontaneously
explode in midair beside the Thundercat, fragments of it's shattered body
raining down to the forest floor.
...Now you're messing with a sonuva bitch...
Back
to Fanfic
Archive