Chapter 4. Here Kitty Kitty

Alcatian warships are remarkably self contained, but by design they're not really made for long voyages and Fail was a long way from the warm waters of the Middle Sea. So, shortly after the start of our morning talks, the ship pulled into a small port just shy of the Pillars, the massive cliffs that separate the Middle Sea from the ocean.


The men all wanted to stretch their legs, and while it was tempting to spend time in the little tavern, I was more than happy to leave that to others when Jona invited me for a walk along the beach. We stopped and bought some cheese and fruit, and even attempted to purchase a new dress for me first though, something I really needed, but not exactly something I wanted to attempt with Jona in tow.


Later in life, I’d get over issues with my size and what sort of clothing I could get my body into, but I was very young then and a store bought dress was only the stuff of tall tales back in Fail, so I dutifully went into the store and looked at the clothing they had for sale. Not surprisingly, there were no dresses at all and while they did have some tunics and even trousers in large sizes, large is a very relative term. I ended up leaving the store with a woolen night shirt, an itchy brown thing, which was probably made to hang down to the knees of an obese man of normal height. On my frame it fit quite differently, although it did fit across the bust and hung at the bottom at just about mid thigh. It wasn’t a big win, but it was a win nonetheless, since at least I know had something to wear while I washed the dress I’d brought from home.


We strolled down the beach for about an hour before finding a spot with some rocks to sit on and were laughing and enjoying the scenery, when first one and then two huge wet and furry shapes emerged out of the waves some ways ahead of us. Jona pointed them out to me and was making a big deal out of telling me all about Sea Lions when, as they got closer, he turned pale and grew silent.


The smaller one, which was bigger than most, if not all horses, turned to look at us, and its huge golden eyes gleamed for a moment, before both animals seemed to literally disappear over the rocks into the interior. Jona got up, drew his sword and gestured to me to start moving back the way we’d come, but before we made it even a few dozen yards, the beasts leaped down from the massive rock on either side of us, leaving us no where to run to but into the surf.


Although I didn’t know what to call them at the time, the massive semi-aquatic felines were in fact, SeaTigers, a terrifying species which sees everything as its natural prey, including even bears. Jona, to his credit, backed up with a sword in one hand as his hand caressed my thigh, momentarily instinctively putting both of us in a defensive posture.





But then, as the beasts got nearer, towering over us, he panicked.


“Run, Fiona” he said, “I’ll fight them as long as I can.”


If a man said that to me now, I’d probably laugh, but I was young, with no real notion of my own abilities. Like an idiot, I started to argue with him.


“No. They’ll eat us both. There has to be some other way” I shouted, looking up at the rocks. There was a ledge, about twenty feet up, and without really thinking about it, wrapped an arm around Jona’s waist and jumped onto the ledge.


I promptly set him down and started to even ask if I’d hurt him when the beast made its first jump, sending it nearly onto the ledge with us. We turned and it didn’t take a catapult engineer to figure that our ledge wasn’t nearly high enough to keep us safe, especially when a good foot of it fell away.


I let Jona try at the thing the next time, but the beast knocked his sword away with a swipe of its claws. We backed up as far as we could, and the next time, when the beast got its front legs onto the ledge, I kicked it squarely in the nose, sending it yiping down to the beach.


We had no time to celebrate, however, since at that point, the ledge gave way entirely, and when I looked up there were massive fangs moving towards my head. My arm shot out, and somehow found the right spot as my hand plunged through the muscular throat of the beast and crushed its windpipe. It didn’t die immediately and to avoid its claws, I sprung up and into it, turning it over on its back as it finally stopped moving.


By that time, the other beast was on its feet and it seemed really annoyed as it eyed me crouching over its dead mate. It roared though, instead of charging right away, and I grabbed the only thing handy to throw at it, the body of the other cat.


That confused it, gave me time to see that Jona’s leg was trapped under a rock, and the same sort of rage that had hit me at the Battle of Fail hit me again, only differently. This time, I wasn’t mad and my rage wasn’t fueled out of revenge. This beast wanted to eat me and my friend, and I wanted us both to live. I'm not going to say it was calculated, but it was not a murderous sort of rage, more like a desperate one.


With no weapon and no training I now realize how lucky I was to survive even a moment against a clawed predator five times my size, but I was young and stupid, and had no other options. I didn’t even wait for it to strike, which would have been a much better strategy.





I charged it, screaming as I did, and when the beast crouched to strike, leaped up in the air, spreading my legs out to the side, pushing down on its head and vaulted over it as I made my way to Jona’s sword.





Once again, the beast was confused, and it stalked me slowly as I picked up the much too small sword, moving towards it slowly.





“Here, Kitty, Kitty” I said, holding Jona’s sword in my right hand with my left out for balance as I tried to make what seemed like a proper swordsman’s stance.


Then, for a moment, my courage vanished. The beast looked at me and I knew my little toothpick of a sword wouldn’t help me. I might kill it, but this time, I was sure I’d be disemboweled by its claws.

“Twunk!!!” came the sound, followed a second later by another. The beast howled in pain, with one arrow sticking out of its eye socket.


Kevin and Kale, two of my bunkmates, emerged with bows, followed by even more men shouting and waving their hands as they drove the wounded beast away from Jona’s prone body. Before I was even sure he was alive, they’d dispatched the beast.

It was a wild and wooly adventure, to be sure, and not one I’d ever want to repeat. But I did get one good thing out of the whole adventure. SeaTiger meat turns out to be quite tasty, and the hides and teeth, even when split among all of us, were more than enough to buy the entire platoon a great deal of the best wine the port had to offer.