The combat had been swift and brutal. Kokokda had been quite good, very fast and strong, but much too full of bravado and incaution. It had not taken Nukurren long to leave the young Kiktu dazed and bleeding on the ground, even though she had been handicapped by the need not to kill or cripple her opponent. (It would have been tactless to slaughter Kokokda, given that Nukurren and Dhowifa were seeking sanctuary among her tribe.)
Days later, after recovering sufficiently from her wounds, Kokokda had entered the yurt occupied by Nukurren and Dhowifa. For a long moment, she had stood there, saying nothing. At first, Nukurren had thought Kokokda was seeking to renew the conflict, until, from the subtleties of color and posture, she realized that the young Kiktu was simply seeking to acknowledge a worthy foe and, in the confused way of youth, to gain her victor’s respect.
Diplomacy had worked well then, and, Nukurren decided, would possibly work now also, even with a demon.
“You fought well,” she said to the white demon.
“I fought like a fool,” came the instant reply. “I’m lucky to be alive. I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been outnumbered.”
It was the simple truth, of course, but Nukurren tried again to flatter the demon with reassurances of its awesome prowess and skill. She had not gotten far into her peroration when the monster’s—beak?—gaped wide and began emitting ghastly noises, like a swamp haktu barking in heat.
“I think that’s the way the demons whistle when they think something’s funny,” whispered Dhowifa. Nukurren swiveled her eye back to examine her lover. Her arms made the gesture of skepticism. Ochre uncertainty rippled across Dhowifa’s mantle.
“Well, I’m not sure of it, but I think so. As I told you, I’ve been watching them. They do it a lot.”
Nukurren gazed back at the demon. The monster had ceased the hideous barking noises, but Nukurren saw that its—yes, she decided, it is a beak—was still gaping open. Within, on the top and bottom both, were a row of strange little white—stones?
“You are the biggest and ugliest gukuy I ever saw,” announced the demon. Nukurren heard Dhowifa’s hiss of displeasure at the insult to his beloved, but Nukurren shared none of it. Truth, after all, was the truth. Nukurren was the biggest and ugliest gukuy she had ever met.
“And you are also the biggest liar.” A short, sudden burst of barking. “I fought like a stupid young fool, and that’s the simple truth.” More barking, very brief.
“Do not be offended. I’m the biggest and ugliest”—here came a word Nukurren couldn’t quite grasp— “that I know. I’m not the quickest, but I’m the strongest. I rely too much on it.” (A word, again, which Nukurren couldn’t make out, but she thought it was a name) “is always warning me that my overconfidence is going to get me killed.” The demon flexed its injured limb, and a strange crunching motion seemed to briefly flit across the features of its bizarre face. “And sure enough, it almost did.”
A long silence followed. Nukurren tried to think of something to say, but she was feeling very weak and her mind was becoming foggy again.
“You were very brave,” said the demon suddenly. Then, a moment later, its harsh accent somehow even harsher: “Why are you a slaver?”
“I am not,” Nukurren replied.
“You were with them, and you fought for them.”
“That is true. I was hired by the caravan master as her bodyguard. I did not like the work, but it was all I could find for Dhowifa and myself.”
“Why?”
Nukurren hesitated, then, too tired and weak to think of a clever answer, responded with the blunt truth: “We are perverts.” She heard Dhowifa hiss with displeasure, but ignored him. “We are despised and outcast because of it,” she continued stolidly.
Again, the features on the monster’s face crunched, although it seemed to Nukurren, in some way too subtle for her to grasp clearly, that it crunched differently. She heard Dhowifa whisper: “I think that weird thing it does with its face is the way demons gesture.” Nukurren decided Dhowifa was probably correct. Other than the colors of their mantles, gukuy used their arms to express sentiments and attitudes. But the faces of the demons were armless.
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