When Jack awoke on the third morning of his journey with the Chian’dir, the war party’s mood had picked up noticeably. Chances were, most folks from Earth wouldn’t have noticed, Chian’dir body language being what it was, but Jack could feel it in the air. It was like during the war. When you broke camp before heading away from the front. It was all the same chores, but everyone was so damn happy that it bled into the air.

As the war party got close to their destination, Jack marvelled at the trees that surrounded them. When he had arrived on Arenia, the forest was mostly just pine with a few spruce mixed in near the water. Not all that different from what he’d experienced on trips up to San Bernardino or San Jacinto. After a couple days hiking, though, it started raining on the regular, and those trees had gotten bigger, shifting to cedars and hemlocks—trees more suited to the damp environment. Now though… now the forest was composed of trees whose size Jack could barely comprehend. Solid and towering, like giant sequoias or California redwoods, but with a thicker branch structure that twined together in the canopy, each tree lending strength to its neighbour. It was more like a single massive organism than a collection of individual plants. They were like nothing Jack had ever seen.

“I take it we’re close?” Jack said to Canus, who marched beside Jack at the head of the party. Jack hadn’t been bound during the journey, so it felt more like he was a part of the group rather than the prisoner he knew himself to be.

“Yes, we will be there soon,” Canus said. “We have been gone for a month. It will be good to return.”

Canus gestured at one of the scouts, and the small Chian’dir darted ahead, disappearing into the trees to tell the village of their coming. Before long, Jack heard drums in the forest. Someone in their war party produced a drum of their own, and they beat a counterpoint to the rhythm coming from the village. The two drums increased in tempo until they were a frenzy that intertwined seamlessly.

Never one to keep his eyes straight ahead, Jack noticed that there were other Chian’dir hidden in the bushes around them. They were armed to the teeth and keeping a close eye on Canus’ war party as they approached. At first, it seemed odd. Then something clicked.

“The drums are a password, aren’t they?” he said. “If the rhythms don’t match, those fellas in the trees are gonna rain hell down on us.”

A smile crept onto Canus’ face as he grinned. “Are all humans as smart as you, Jack?”

“It ain’t smarts. If you took a look at my Tome, you’d know that. But for a grunt like me, war ain’t chess. It’s a street fight, and in that case, paranoia is your friend.”

Canis guffawed in his Chian’dir way just as the drums reached a final crescendo, then cut off abruptly as the war party emerged from the bushes into an enormous clearing, entering the village proper.

It was a hell of a sight. At first, Jack was surprised by how small the village was. Just a few buildings inside a large clearing. Then he noticed a large ramp at the base of one of the trees and realized that the ground-level structures were exclusively working facilities: smokehouses, tanneries, and the like. The majority of the village was set up in the trees, and it was spectacular.

Big, sweeping ramps ascended the trunks, supporting latticework wrapping around their hosts like fig trees reaching for the sky. High up above them, Jack could make out hundreds of huts of various sizes supported on platforms at varying heights, each of which was connected to neighbouring trees by thick ropes. There were no bridges to be seen, but the reason became apparent when Jack saw a Chian’dir leap off a platform high above the forest floor and grab onto one of the thick ropes, casually pulling himself hand-over-hand until he reached the far side, utterly ambivalent to the 30-metre drop beneath him.

Jack couldn’t help it. Try as he might, all he could think about when looking at the village was Ewoks. From an architectural standpoint, at any rate—Ewoks were hardly the bloodthirsty forest-dwellers the Chian’dir were.

Although, come to think of it, didn’t the Ewoks try to eat Han and Luke?

Were those little bastards helping the rebellion or just hunting stormtroopers for meat? Now there was a disturbing thought.

It made him miss Dottie. She would have loved Star Wars if she’d been alive when it came out.

Every Chian’dir in the area was staring intently at Jack. He simply nodded in return, but as they made their way across the clearing, he noticed a strange pattern. While there were some infants and children, and a bunch of the scouts—who were basically just larger versions of the children—almost everyone else was a warrior, their vast bodies looming at least seven or eight feet tall. Between the scout and warrior size, though, there was nothing. Even the largest scout was at least three feet shorter than the smallest warrior. And as for females, he saw nothing. Even the young were being cared for by warriors who were either maimed in some way or too old for battle.

Odd.

The party’s procession took them to the foot of one of the giant wooden ramps. A figure was standing there, waiting for them. For the first time since entering the village, Jack saw a Chian’dir female. She stood partway up the ramp and was totally unlike anything he had encountered so far. While the scouts were small and lanky, and the warriors brutish and powerful, this Chian’dir was tall and lean, with a more pronounced maw that somehow made her look both more savage and more erudite. Her fur was red and streaked through with fiery yellow, and she was so different from the rest of the Chian’dir that Jack couldn’t help but wonder if she was another species entirely.

The elder looked at the war party and nodded.

“You have wounded,” she said. Her voice was almost as low-pitched as the warriors but possessed a clipped clarity of diction that was absent in the male Chian’dir speech.

“I do,” Canus said.

“And what of this?” she said, gesturing to Jack. “If you were planning to gift fresh meat to the Elders, I would have hoped for something younger. This human is ancient.”

“He may appear weak, but he is the one who wounded my people.”

She bared her teeth. “I find it hard to believe the human could hurt anything. Except perhaps the jaw of any Chian’dir who attempts to chew his meat.”

“Hah hah,” Jack said to the Chian’dir elder. “I may be chewy, but I still got a few kicks left in me.”

The elder’s eyes widened slightly. She looked at Jack with renewed interest. “It speaks the Chian’dir tongue?” she said.

“He does, Elder Kaeso,” Canus said. “And his name is Jack.”

Again, his name’s announcement caused a visible reaction in the Chian’dir who hadn’t been a member of the war party. Even the elder responded, although her reaction was only visible through a slight alteration in the colouring of the hair around her head.

“A human with a name? Interesting,” Kaeso said. Canus nodded. “And where did you learn the Chian’dir tongue… Jack?”

Jack frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only language I speak is English.”

The elder cocked her head slightly. “You are speaking the Chian’dir language right now. Look at your Tome if you don’t believe me.”

Jack scowled at the creature but obliged her by summoning his Tome and flipping through it, discovering a section he hadn’t seen before:

LANGUAGES

Arenian Common, spoken: 100%

Arenian Common, written: 100%

English, spoken: 100%

English, written: 100%

Chian’dir, spoken: 100%

Chian’dir, written: N/A

Spanish, spoken: 7%

Spanish, written: 1%

“What in the Sam Hill?” Jack said. Now that he actually thought about it, he realized he was speaking in the same strange dialect he’d heard when Canus’ war party first found his campsite. It came so naturally, Jack hadn’t even noticed. “I’ll be damned. When did I pick that up?”

Kaeso looked intrigued. “You don’t know? Your notifications would certainly have told you when you reached fluency.”

“You mean the little paper thingys?” Jack said. “Maybe. They were annoying, so I made them go away.”

The elder’s eyes widened. “You made your…? Never mind. For now, look at your backlog.”

Jack shrugged and opened the old diary again. The section with the unread notifications was so thick that he just skipped to the end and searched backwards until he found the one he was looking for:

LANGUAGE LEARNING COMPLETE!

Chian’dir, spoken: 100%

By witnessing the death of the Chian’dir Harix according to the customs of his people, you have learned the Chian’dir language.

“There she blows,” Jack said, still looking down at his Tome. “It says I learned it because I saw that Harix character get killed ‘according to the customs of his people,’ whatever that means. Seems like a strange way to learn a language if you ask me.” Jack looked up from his Tome to discover the elder staring at him intently, not even blinking. It was unnerving.

The gathered Chian’dir fidgeted uncomfortably as the silence dragged on, but nobody was willing to interrupt whatever was happening. When Kaeso finally did close her eyes, they stayed shut as she turned her focus inwards.

Jack felt a chill wind blow through the area despite it being a warm and sunny day. Damned creepy, but at least it was quick, only lasting a moment before the elder opened her eyes and nodded. She glanced at Jack one more time, then moved past him to inspect the injured Chian’dir.

“Tell us of these injuries,” she said to Canus.

Canus grunted and indicated the large Chian’dir whose arm Jack had broken.

“Gathos did not shy from battle, but he did not react quickly enough,” Canus said. “His elbow is torn apart. If it heals, I doubt he will retain his place in the war party, but he will still be a capable trainer. He has the temperament for it.”

The injured Chian’dir nodded. “I feel no shame in my loss, Elder Kaeso. The human was a worthy opponent.”

Kaeso nodded. She said nothing, but she did pat Gathos on the shoulder. It was a small gesture, but it prompted an enormous grin from the large Chian’dir.

Next, she walked over to the two makeshift stretchers that held the injured scouts. Canus approached the one who had tried to stab Jack, placing a hand on his shoulder and standing up tall.

“When the human engaged with Gathos, Pash was the farthest scout from battle,” Canus said. “He raced ahead, a warrior in mind if not body, and very nearly claimed victory. A lesser opponent would have fallen to Pash’s attack, but the human, Jack, narrowly executed a counterattack and thwarted Pash’s assault. The result was the leg wound you see before you.

“Elder Kaeso, I would not ask this of any other elder, but I request Pash be granted the blessing of Rebirth.”

There was an excited whoop from the surrounding Chian’dir. Jack didn’t know the meaning of Canus’ words, but based on the lack of enthusiasm from Kaeso and the severe look she gave Canus, Jack speculated that there was a layer to the moment he didn’t appreciate.

Turning toward the injured Chian’dir, Kaeso rested a hand on Pash’s sweating forehead and closed her eyes. A tense look of concern passed over her face. Removing her hand from Pash’s face, she opened her eyes and shifted her attention to the bandage covering the scout’s leg. She unwrapped the field dressing with great care, but when the last of the bandage gave way, she reared back from a smell, as did everyone else nearby. Jack knew all too well what that smell meant, and from the looks of the Chian’dir, so did they.

Pash’s upper thigh was black and weeping around the two knife wounds, the flesh already decaying from the sepsis that had set in. During the war, they would have cut off a limb if it started to go sour like that, but Pash’s injury was pretty high up the leg—any attempt at amputation stood a good chance of killing the guy as soon as they got to the femoral artery. Still, at least Pash would have had a chance. They had left it too long though, and now there was little hope of survival for the Chian’dir scout.

Shaking his head, Jack turned his attention back to the elder, who appeared caught in a moment of indecision.

“You overstep yourself, warleader, and put me in an awkward position,” Kaeso said. “The granting of a Rebirth is a decision for the Elders alone.”

Canus dipped his head. “My apologies, Elder Kaeso.” Surprisingly, he did look genuinely chagrined.

“However,” she said, causing Canus to perk up as she glanced at the festering wound, “I understand your logic. Scout Pash may attempt the Rebirth.”

The whooping erupted anew, with many of the Chian’dir pounding on their chests and congratulating Pash. Pash himself looked slightly shocked—Jack suspected this wasn’t an outcome he had even considered.

When the shouting died, Kaeso moved to the other scout, the one who had pushed Jack out of the tree. He was huddled on his stretcher, avoiding eye contact with the elder.

“And what happened to this one?” she said.

“He got hurt,” Canus said, growling at the scout. The lack of elaboration on his injury clearly had some deeper meaning, and the Chian’dir nearby took an unconscious shuffle backwards, even the ones who weren’t in the party.

Kaeso emitted a slow series of low chucks from deep in her throat, an ominous sound if Jack ever heard one. “I see,” she said, glowering at the wounded scout. “And Harix?”

“A failed challenge. His body feeds the forest.”

“As is right,” she said. Then she chuffed and bared her teeth at Canus in a Chian’dir smile. “I will admit that I am not ready to see you join our ranks. Your work as a warleader is valued.”

He returned her baring of teeth and nodded deeply in respect.

Kaeso clapped her hands to signify the end of proceedings, causing the gathered Chian’dir to disperse. Some of the scouts came to Kaeso and spoke with her quietly before they left, something she acknowledged with silent gestures if not words. None of the warriors did though, for reasons that were beyond Jack.

When no more scouts were waiting to speak with her, Kaeso turned to Canus. “The human will need to be placed under someone’s care.”

“He will stay with me,” Canus said.

She nodded in approval. “Good. I will speak to the other elders.”

“I will await their summons. Will the moot occur tonight?”

She shook her head. “No. There is more to this human than you realize, and much to discuss before you will be needed.”

Canus seemed confused by her statement but bared his teeth in acknowledgment before parting ways; Kaeso heading up the ramp, while Canus led Jack to a different tree on the far side of the clearing.

Jack glanced at Kaeso as they walked across the clearing, not at all surprised to see she had stopped and was staring at him from partway up the tree. Did she know he came from Earth? It was possible. Hell, anything was possible on this planet. For all he knew, she had a magic spell that would tell her the colour of his underwear.

Jack and Canus reached the ramp on the other tree, and Canus led Jack high into the canopy—more than 50 metres by Jack’s guess. Which wasn’t to say that that was where the village started. In fact, they had begun passing occupied platforms when they were less than half that height, but those homes were apparently reserved for the scouts. Every warrior they saw on those levels seemed to be simply passing through on their way to someplace else.

Eventually, Canus stopped climbing and walked to the platform's edge, grabbing onto a thick rope that extended nearly 20 metres horizontally to an adjacent tree. Canus clearly meant for them to transit across the rope “bridge” but hesitated at the last moment, looking Jack up and down.

“I had not considered getting you across,” he said. “Perhaps I could carry you on my belly in the manner we carry our young?”

“Like hell you will,” Jack snapped, shoving past Canus. He grabbed the rope and swung his legs up, wrapping them around the rope so that his head pointed towards the far platform. Then he hauled himself across the gap. Most folks would probably be more scared, given the enormity of the nothing beneath him, but it wasn’t like that would make the task easier. Hell, most of doing a rope transit was nerves anyway—it wasn’t technically challenging—so it didn’t take him long to make his way to the other side. Once there, he dropped onto the platform and awaited Canus’ arrival.

The Chian’dir warleader crossed the gap much quicker than Jack had—not surprising, considering he swung hand-over-hand and had at least a 4-metre wingspan—and landed in front of Jack with a toothy grin.

“You are full of surprises, Jack,” Canus said. “I had expected a human to be afraid of a fall from heights such as these.”

“Only a fool’s afraid of falling. Now hittin’ the ground—that’s the thing to worry about.”

Canus let out a howling laugh that echoed through the treetops. He gave Jack a companionable slap on the back, forcing him to grab onto the rope to avoid being hurled headfirst into the tree trunk.

Condition “BROKEN RIB” resisted (Well-Aged)

Stumble resisted (Well-Aged)

“Come,” Canus said. “My home is this way.”

Jack followed Canus, his mind on the notification that had popped up when Canus hit him. It was similar to when Harix attacked him in the clearing, and Jack made a mental note to look into it when he found a moment alone.

One look at Canus’s house made Jack question if that moment would ever come.

“This is where you live?” Jack said. The hut was shockingly small, its footprint barely larger than a camper van, with a single sleeping mat lying on the floor. The only other thing in the room was a large wooden dummy whose purpose became evident when Canus started stripping off his weapons and armour and mounting them on the dummy for storage.

“Of course,” Canus said. “We take our meals together, train together, work together. The only purpose of a home is to sleep, so why would I need more?”

“But you’re a warleader,” Jack said. “Don’t you have a family?”

Canus burst out laughing as though Jack had said the funniest thing in the world.

“I ain’t in on the joke,” Jack grumbled.

Canus shook his head, still chuffing in delight. “I had forgotten how strange some of the other species are. Living in little breeding groups instead of as a tribe. We are not like you humans!”

“Fine, so you’re a bunch of commies. That’s all you had to say.”

“No, we are not simply ‘commies,’ whatever that is,” Canus said. “You humans—you are born, get large, then die. You do not live as one with your community. We are better. We are born as males and get cared for by the old warriors. By our fourth year, we are fully grown scouts, ready to join the hunt. Upon our tenth year, or earlier if an elder allows it, as with Pash, we undergo the Rebirth. Where the body goes to sleep and tears itself apart. Not all survive, but if you do, you emerge as a warrior.” He thumped his chest in emphasis.

“For most, they will never undergo another Rebirth,” Canus continued. “It is only those who become warleaders—who lead the war parties and mate with the elders—that will attempt the Rebirth again. That happens when we are deposed, as Harix tried to do. Had Harix succeeded, the party would have returned to the village and I would have undergone a second Rebirth, emerging as an elder. A female, ready to lead the tribe. In this way, only our strongest and smartest mate and continue the tribe forward.”

That took Jack a moment to wrap his head around.

“So, you’re saying that at some point, you deposed your old warleader, he turned into a lady, and now you could conceivably mate with him? Or her, I guess?” he said.

“And I have, many times,” Canus said, chuffing. “Why would I not? She was the strongest of our warleaders, and as an elder, she has some of the highest Intelligence and Wisdom. Why would I not want the best for my offspring? Besides, we have a bond, her and I. Just as I would have had a bond with Harix. But Harix was not worthy of that bond, so now he is meat in the belly of scavengers.”

“If you say so,” Jack said. “Can’t say I understand it, but to each their own.”

Canus bared his teeth at Jack. “Do not underestimate that bond, Jack. Even now, my former warleader argues in favour of your life, and she does so because it was I who brought you in and not another warleader. The time of my protection over you is done. Now, your life is in Kaeso’s hands.”