Page 4 of Taken to Lemora
“I mean they’re um…the females!” He jumps, like someone has just come up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He even turns around, but there’s no one there. His upper shoulders shrug and he exhales, looking exhausted. He rubs his forehead and runs his upper right hand over the top of his head, where his tines shoot up like thick tusks.
He has a whole row of them studding his spine and though his are not as thick as some of the pirates’ I’ve seen, they’re certainly thick enough to impale someone if they were to run into his back on accident. I sigh whimsically…I wish I had tusks. I wish I had tusks covering every inch of me!
“Look. I’m only here alone because there aren’t that many pirates Rhorkanterannu trusts to go looking for humans. They’re delicate and very, um…easy to want to keep? Especially the females. Though some of our Niahhorru females are going mad for the human males, too. They’re a veryalluringspecies. I’m here searching for a human female. Herannathon is looking for her, actually, but we haven’t seen Herannathon in two dozen solars.”
“He’s missing?” Thatissomething of significance. I almost feel…sorry. I liked running into him at these stupid ohring functions, though I’d never tell him as much.
“He isn’tmissing, so much as he’ssearching. We’ve gotten reports from an Eshmiri friend that he’s tailing an Egama battle pod.”
“An Eshmiri friend?” I balk, jowls quivering with the force of my surprise. “What do you mean an Eshmiri friend? Do you mean fiend? Is that what you meant to say?”
Tevbarannos laughs though it doesn’t look like he meant to. He shakes his head and smiles at me with all of his pearly teeth. “Centare, Raingar. A friend. Her name is Ashmara and she’s a friend of the Niahhorru and the humans. She caught his signal some time back and, according to her, he’s been waiting for the Egama to dock somewhere to gather supplies, but they haven’t. They should be running out of food soon, so he’s hopeful, but he hasn’t been able to latch on mid-flight. They seem to know he’s on their trail at all times and are consistently evading him.”
“Well, good for all of them, including your Ashmara friend, whoever he is,” I say, trying to get him to correct his previous insinuation that this Ashmara character is female. All Eshmiri are male. Everyone knows that.
I start to stomp off again, but Tevbarannos holds me back, the ungrateful whelp. “Rhorkanterannu sent me to try to help, just in case the Egama thought to stop here to trade. But then we heard that Igmora and Tyto had a female of their own and we wondered if maybe Herannathon made a mistake and the trade was conducted already.”
“Well, why don’t you just ask them! I don’t understand what you’re telling me all this for. I don’t deal with flesh peddlers, pirates, hoomains, or any of the lot! I am Lemoran!”
The male groans at me, likeI’mthe insufferable one. He rubs one hand down his face and blocks me with two when I try to shove past him. “I’m coming to you because I want to know if they’ve extended you an invitation to see the female. They are asking for a pouch of kintarr just to view her and since you hold the most kintarr here, I was hoping you could tell me if she matched Herannathon’s human’s description.”
My jaw opens, then shuts. I can nearly hear it creaking like a rusted hinge. On the one hand, I’m appalled by the idea of flesh peddlers — even ones so renown as Igmora and Tyto who spendrotationsgrooming their acquisitions to become the most exotic and skilled pleasurers in the galaxy — but I’m almost, just a little,offendedthat Igmora hasn’t come to me.
She knowsthat if she wants kintarr, there is no one here to match our supply. Does she think even less of us Lemoran chiefs than she does Rhorkanterannu’s youngest pirates?
I frown and narrow my eyes. “You were approached?”
Tevbarannos nods so guilelessly it makes me immediately annoyed because it’s impossible to be annoyed with him. “By Igmora herself?”
He nods again.
I frown harder. “And you made an offer,” I say. It is not a question, but an assumption.
“Centare, I told you. We’re not looking foranyhuman. We’re looking for a human. A female. She has light brown skin…almost like helos? But not quite so bright. I’m not sure. It’s white but not white and pink but not pink. Do you know what I mean?”
“Nob!” I growl, huffing between my lips, “HowshouldI know? I haven’t been approached!”
Tevbarannos’s eyes widen. “Truly? But…but…but,” he stammers.
“Out with it!”
“You hold the most kintarr!”
And I feel myself heat slightly. My horns…they’re feeling even more tender than they did. They haven’t felt tender like this since…ever. Since never. Even when I was a youngling and my horns were growing in, my head hurt, but my horns didn’t hurt at all. Now it’s the ohring horn part that hurts. That rough exterior could penetrate the flesh of any living creature, Oosa included — we’re their greatest adversaries in the gladiator’s arena of Evernor. But pained as they are like this, I couldn’t attack a Walrey! I hate it. Just like I hate this whole ohring conversation. Hate it!And I hate that Igmora didn’t approach me most of all.
“I…”
Tevbarannos cuts me off. “Word is that the current bid for the female is already up to four.”
“Four pouches of kintarr for the female?” I huff, somewhat assuaged. “That doesn’t seem like so much for a female cultivated by those degenerate…”
“Centare, centare.” He shakes all four of his hands at me before slowly repeating, as if speaking to a youngling, “Fourtuns,Raingar. Tuns, not pouches.”
I choke on my own saliva. Tevbarannos is clapping on my back with two of his hands, which doesn’t help matters much. The only thing thatwouldhelp me regain my breath — and my sanity — is knowing that he made some kind of horrible joke and that he didn’t just offer the two most despicable creatures on this side of the quadrants enough kintarr crystals to power a small city for a rotation. An amount that would take my entire clan half a rotation to mine.
“Shrov,” he curses in Meero.
“Ohr,” I curse in Lemoran, still choking. “Who offered them four tuns? Who offered them that much? Don’t tell me it was a pirate. I know you don’t have that much kintarr or access to it and I swear to the stars, if you or Rhorkanterannu try to rob me, I’ll rip off two of your arms. The bottom two.”
