Lightspeed: Year One

Tiger looked uneasy. He whispered, “At close range, he’s unstoppable. But he has no patience.”

The female kept retreating, staying always just beyond the reach of Lion’s sword. She attacked again, and again she got through, pricking his other shoulder. He hardly seemed to notice. His expression was dark now. He kept advancing.

Lynx said, “We have to help.”

Tiger hesitated. “He . . . would not like that.”

Lion roared, slashing at the female’s head. She backed out of reach, then quickly counterattacked, striking his chest. Three stains now blazed on his tabard. The blood from his shoulder wounds soaked down to his elbows. He seemed to be slowing.

Lynx said, “If you won’t help him, I will.”

He drew his shortsword and ran in a wide arc, so that he circled behind the female, then charged her.

As he neared, she pivoted and thrust at his face. Lynx ducked and retreated. Instantly she turned back to Lion, but now he had closed with her, and she was doomed. When she attacked, he locked her wrist and wrenched her sword away. He smashed an elbow into her face, and hurled her over his hip. Then Lion was upon her, straddling her, pounding his fists into her face, knocking her head this way and that. Soon she was unconscious, with blood oozing from her muzzle, but the blows kept falling.

Lynx murmured, “Wait,” but Lion ignored him.

Finally, Lion stood. His chest wound had bled a red blotch around the holy form of Cat that was embroidered on his surcoat.

Lynx said, “Are you all right?”

Lion’s eyes were full of fury. “I told you to stay back! You could’ve gotten us both killed!” He shoved Lynx aside and stormed on past.

Tiger came forward and knelt to bind the female. He said, “He gets like this. Just let him calm down. It’ll be all right.”

The templars marched the dogmen east. The prisoners were not spoken to, and when night fell they were bound at wrist and ankle. Tiger took the first watch while Lion dozed. Lynx sat a dozen yards away, off by himself, leaning on a boulder.

The monkeyman settled down beside him and nodded at the prisoners. “So what happens to them now?”

Lynx said, “The templars will want to show them off, charge money to see them, that sort of thing.”

The monkeyman’s voice was soft. “You said these might be the last dogmen on Earth.”

“They might,” Lynx agreed.

“And then they’ll be executed?”

“Yes.”

The monkeyman caught Lynx’s gaze, held it. “And you’re going to let that happen?”

Lynx glanced over at Tiger, but the templar was too far away to hear them. Lynx hissed, “Of course.”

The monkeyman said, “No one has ever called me squeamish, and I have no love for dogmen, but to wipe out an entire race . . . That’s evil, Lynx. You must know that. Whatever some old legend says.”

“You’re just a monkeyman. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand more than you can imagine,” the monkeyman said. “I’ve flown among the stars, and slept for ages, and I remember Earth as it was, when monkeymen—as you call us—ruled all. We made you, Lynx, you catmen, in our labs. The dogmen too, and all the rest. We made you to be soldiers, and I guess we did our jobs too well, because I awake to find that you’ve beaten us. But that doesn’t—”

“This is blasphemy,” Lynx said. “I warn you, not even Cat’s favor will protect you if—”

“What? Him?” The monkeyman jabbed a thumb toward the satchel where Cat slept. “He’s an animal, like any other. I raised him from a kitten.”

Lynx stood. “I should kill you for that.”

The monkeyman glared up at him. “Fine. Kill me. Like you killed my race. What’ve I got to live for?” He gestured toward Lion. “Rouse your maniac friend there. Tell him to chop off my head. He’d like that. And would you? I thought you were different.”

Lynx scowled and stomped away. He sat down beside Tiger, who asked, “What’s wrong?”

Lynx said furiously, “Nothing.”

Tiger glanced at the monkeyman, then said, “Monkeys lie. That’s why they should never have been granted the gift of speech.”

Lynx crossed his arms and agreed, “Yes. They lie.”

For the next two days, Lynx refused to speak to the monkeyman, but doubts gnawed at him. Much as he hated to admit it, the monkeyman was right about one thing: Lynx was different from the templars.

He had always thought of himself as faithful, but traveling with them had made him see just how shallow and perfunctory his belief really was. Lion’s faith was like fire—it gave intensity to everything he did, but it was a fire that was raging out of control and would someday consume him. And Tiger’s faith was like a mountain—immense, solid, and immovable. But Lynx realized that his own faith was more like the wasteland itself, existing only in the absence of anything else. The monkeyman’s briefly spouted heresies made sense to Lynx in a way that the wisdom of Father Cougar never really had.

That afternoon, Lynx found himself walking for a moment beside the female. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “You fought well.”

She looked up, startled to be spoken to. “What?”