Harry drifted in and out of consciousness.
He finally awakened to the sounds of rain slapping a leather tarp draped over his head and distant thunder. The aroma of cooking meat greeted his nostrils, and the heat from a nearby fire warmed his skin.
The pain in his wrist was excruciating. Still in shock, he wasn’t coherent enough to wonder why he was still alive.
Mixed with the sounds of the rain, Harry began to hear groups of aliens talking amongst themselves as they milled about the camp. He decided his analogy of snapping rubber bands was definitely accurate and he couldn’t think of anything else to describe the sound of the small, light-footed creatures. The other group on the other hand, the giant gorilla lions, had a serious and threatening tone that reminded him of waves crashing against a rocky shoreline.
The light-footed creatures scurried off, and for a time, the camp was silent. But then Harry heard a third type of voice from within a nearby tent. Harry wasn’t sure if this creature was speaking or singing; her voice was that lovely. He believed the voice belonged to the little fairy nymph he had seen earlier. Desperate to see her again, he forced his eyes open, but the angel was nowhere to be seen, and the lovely voice ceased as quickly as it had begun.
Weak and moving as little as possible, Harry risked a look around. He lay in a hammock made of leather hide. It was tied to two small boulders that levitated in the air. Tents that surrounded his immediate area blocked most of his view, but he was able to see the campfire about ten feet to his left. He saw one of the fur-skinned giants sitting near it, and his blood ran cold.
The woolly beast in samurai armor sat on a log underneath a similar leather tarp and toasted something on the end of a poker. The fierce-looking giant wasn’t the same samurai who had cut off his hand. This one was much larger and was covered in mounds of sun-fire red fur that not only sprouted wildly from all parts of his armor and tunic but also framed his muzzled face.
The beast didn’t seem to notice that Harry was awake, for he continued to sit near the fire with his eyes closed and hands open in what seemed to be some type of meditation pose. Abruptly, the samurai opened his black eyes and stared at Harry through the campfire’s smoke.
Harry stared back and suddenly realized what the samurai cooked over the fire: a human hand. He would have cried out if he had been stronger. Instead, he looked at his right wrist, hoping against hope that what he saw wouldn’t validate his most recent nightmare, but bloody bandages at the end of a stump confirmed the worst: his hand had been severed.
Harry looked back at the furry giant across the campfire. The red-haired samurai slipped the freshly cooked hand off the end of the poker, hesitated to glance up at Harry, and took a bite. Even over the sounds of the heavy rain, crackling fire, and talking servants, Harry heard a loud crunching sound as the samurai bit into his blackened hand.
“Oh God!” Harry cried. His arm started to bleed through the bandages.
Another fur-skinned samurai suddenly appeared next to him and quickly took his wounded arm in its clawed hands and began unwrapping the bandages. The captain thought that this black-furred samurai was probably female because she was far more slender than the other two (although still twice the size of a man), and her movements were nurturing, like those of a nurse.
Once the bandages were off, she grabbed a thick cloth and thrust it into his left hand. She put the cloth over his bleeding stump and applied pressure, indicating that she wanted him to hold the cloth firmly in place. Harry did so, and the samurai rewarded him with a quick, gentle stroke on his forehead. Her fur felt luxuriously soft on his skin.
The black-furred giant then removed something from a worn leather pouch that was slung over her shoulder. It looked like a root of some kind. She inserted it into her mouth and chewed it heavily, the way a dog might chew a thick bone. Her lips smacked loudly.
Just as Harry was feeling slightly relaxed, she quickly grabbed his severed forearm in both her hands and startled him. The bloodstained cloth fluttered to the ground.
She opened mouth wide and reared back her head. Harry saw her gaping maw of triangular-shaped teeth and struggled, but she effortlessly pinned him with her elbow. Her head shot forward with surprising speed but stopped short of his severed wrist. There was a loud THWOOOTTT sound as she spat a black, tar-like substance onto his bloody stump. He heard a hissing sound and felt his flesh burning beneath the tar.
Harry continued to struggle, but she held fast. He realized that she wasn’t trying to help him, as he had thought, but rather was tenderizing him. His hand was nothing more than an appetizer. She was getting him ready to be the main course.
Harry screamed.
#
To Harry’s surprise, he woke up the next morning. The rain was gone, and it was no longer chilly but a comfortably warm day. A gentle breeze swayed his hammock.
Harry was even more surprised to realize that his arm didn’t hurt anymore. He quickly looked down and saw that a hard black shell covered his wrist. He gave it a few practice hits with the knuckles of his left hand, and it produced resounding thunks. The covering was rock hard. In fact, Harry felt better all over, although he was ravenous. The black-furred giant had been trying to cure him, after all.
Harry heard the purple servants moving about the camp, but clinking sounds coming from the opposite side of the smoldering campfire grabbed his attention.
Still sitting on the log where he had parked himself the previous night, the red-haired samurai dug through the rucksack Harry had taken from his plane. The large beast sniffed a pack of Lucky brand cigarettes. He took a tentative bite out of the pack and chewed for a second before shaking his head wildly in disgust and spitting out the tobacco. He continued to spit for the next minute or two.
Realizing that Harry was watching, the beast looked at him suspiciously and growled. The message was clear: “Don’t even think about messing with me.”
Next, Big Red, as Harry had come to think of the giant woolly beast, took out a can of rations. More carefully this time, he tasted the can with the tip of his tongue and seemed to smell the food within. Big Red bit right through the can with a loud crunch and proceeded to lick the can’s interior with his long blue tongue. Harry realized the beast could easily do the same to his bones at any time.
Big Red continued to dig through Harry’s pack. He systematically removed the binoculars, flares, and spare clothes and threw anything inedible onto the tundra. Suddenly, Harry’s hopes rose. He remembered that the rucksack contained a spare pistol and clips and reasoned that the beast would chuck these items to the ground with the rest of his supplies.
As if on cue, Big Red removed Harry’s spare pistol, barrel first. He was about to toss the pistol to the ground, just as Harry had predicted, but then seemed to sense Harry’s keen interest in the metal object.
Harry’s hopes were dashed, but then Big Red pointed the weapon directly at its own face, and its thumb dangerously close to the trigger.
“That’s right, you son-of-a-bitch,” Harry heard himself say. “Go ahead and pull the trigger.”
Big Red heard this and stopped fiddling with the weapon to glare menacingly at Harry.
Harry held his breath and remained quiet. He quietly hoped that the stupid creature, which had taken part in severing his hand, would pull the trigger and blow its damn head off.
Just when Harry thought nothing was going to happen, there was a loud BANG as a single shot rang out.
The purple servants let out cries of surprise and scampered off, but the old, battle-scarred samurai arrived on the scene with a leap and a roar. The black-furred nurse soon followed.
When the gun smoke cleared, Big Red still sat upright, but his eyes were open wide in surprise. The bullet had partially penetrated his skin, right above his muzzle and directly between his eyes.
The battle-scarred samurai seemed to ask him what had happened in a crude language. Big Red responded with an animated speech that included gestures to the pistol on the ground, to Harry, and then to bullet that was still lodged in his face.
Black Fur stepped forward with a dagger and easily pried the piece of metal from Big Red’s face. Battlescar let out a hearty laugh at his friend’s expense.
The ridiculousness of the situation suddenly hit Harry, and he started laughing and quickly lost control. He laughed so hard that he fell out of his hammock and kept laughing as he rolled back and forth on the ground while holding his sides, which felt as if they might split.
When he finally settled down, he looked up and saw all three fur-skinned giants staring down at him, along with half the little purple servants in the camp, who had come over to witness the spectacle.
Harry didn’t care; it was just so darn funny — like watching one of those new Bugs Bunny cartoons with the dopey hunter. He took another look at Big Red, who rubbed the tiny bullet wound, and started laughing again.
When Big Red realized that this laughter was at his expense, he let out a lion-like roar, jumped to his feet, and headed toward Harry. Black Fur tried to stop him but didn’t even succeed in slowing down the much bigger samurai. Harry wasn’t laughing anymore. Big Red’s jaws were inches from Harry’s throat when he suddenly stopped.
The wood nymph was back.
The purple servants dropped at her feet, pressing their faces firmly into the ground, and even the fur-skinned giants (with the exception of the older one) took a respectful step back.
The lithe nymph moved over to Harry and planted one sandaled foot on his chest, but she was so light that he barely felt any pressure. With the flexibility of a contortionist, she crouched low, so her face was close to his, and gently caressed his face, exploring it with her hands. Her long, thin fingers danced across his skin. She felt its texture and frowned in disapproval when she pricked her delicate fingers on the stubble of his beard.
The fragrance of her hair reminded Harry of autumn rain in the forests back home. He couldn’t tell if the scent was natural or the result of incense, but it was intoxicating nonetheless.
“How did I get here?” Harry asked, resigned to his fate but wondering at it none-the-less.
She seemed surprised at either his ability to speak or at his language. She touched his lips, waiting for him to speak again.
“My name is Harry,” he said. It was something to say; he wasn’t really expecting a reaction.
She turned her head from side to side like an inquisitive bird, just as she had done at their first meeting. She looked back at Black Fur as if to see if the woolly guard understood his words any better than she did, but when Black Fur didn’t respond, she turned back toward him.
“Harry,” she repeated questioningly.
He stared at her, “Yes, that’s right.” He smiled. “My name’s Harry.”
“Harry,” she repeated more confidently.
When Harry pointed to her, she placed her hand on her own chest with the same questioning look. When Harry nodded, she said, “Asha.”
There was a quick bark from Black Fur, a respectful but gentle reminder of some kind? Asha rolled her eyes at this and added, “Dan-Sai. Dan-Sai Asha.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dan-Sai, Asha.” Harry presumed that Dan-Sai was some sort of a title, like princess.
There was a loud grumbling sound, but this time it came from Harry’s stomach and not from one of the large guards.
Princess Asha’s eyes went wide at the sound.
“Sorry. Just a little hungry,” Harry explained.
The princess seemed to grasp the situation immediately. She stepped off Harry and quickly uttered commands to the groveling servants.
The captain watched as the servants rose to their feet, without lifting their eyes from the tundra floor, and quickly scampered off to do her bidding. When Harry looked back at the princess, she was gone, as were the giant samurai.
Finding himself alone, Harry gathered up his gear one-handed and placed it back into his rucksack. When he thought no one was looking, he picked up and holstered his gun.
Harry didn’t notice the battle-scarred samurai watching him from the shadows.