Free Caine Black Knife by Matthew Woodring Stover

GIFT
    And you know
already it’s not a dream.
    You know it by
the smell of scorched pig fat trailing up from the lamp’s
smoking wick. You know it by the dirty yellow light leaking in
through the veiny grease-smeared parchment that covers the shack’s
lone window, by the grey splinters in the weathered plank door on
trestles that passes for a table, by the mildewblackened straw humped
into a pair of beds back by the earth-wall hearth.
    But you know
only that this is no dream; you have not yet guessed that this is My
Gift to you.
    There is the
feel of alien muscles, too long and hard for human; your arms are now
a double-span longer than your legs. Your pebbled hide slides over
ribs too heavy, not flexible enough, guarding a heart that beats too
hard and too slow. Pale northern sun barely warms your spinal ridge
through the heavy leather of your tunic. Your trifid upper lip parts
around your upcurved tusks and you growl, Kopav Dust Mirror. They
tell me he dens here.
    The smaller of
the two ogrillo studs inside swivels on his stool till his back is to
you. His spinal ridge is bent like a bow: pup rickets, maybe. His
skull crest is bald and bleached with age. You smell human.
    The big one
snorts. Hrk. Human.
    You take a step,
clearing the doorway. I want to find Kopav Dust Mirror. I can pay.
    Bet you can,
citybred. The small one glances over his twisted shoulder. Nice
boots.
    Yeah. Hrk.
Boots. The big one snuffles a gust of corruption. Something
rotten’s stuck in his teeth. Maybe it’s just his teeth. Don’t see boots like that in Hell.
    Or Ignik Dust
Mirror. Either one. Ignik ’Tchundiget.
    Don’t
know you, citybred. The little hunchback flips one fighting claw
forward over his fist, examining it ostentatiously. Name your
clan.
    Black Knife.
    Both studs go
still. They stare at you so they won’t look at each other.
    Finally the
hunchback says, Ain’t Black Knives. Ain’t since the
Horror. His shell of overplayed boredom has dissolved into wary
tusk-display.
    You shrug. I
can take that up with Kopav.
    Black Knife?
Hrk. Black Knife? The big one sniggers. Looks more to me like
No Knife. He looks at the other. Good one, hey? No Knife.
    Your heart
thumps into a heavier cadence that swells your brow ridges with angry
blood, and you look down at your arms, at the sleeves of your tunic;
sleeves longer than any ogrillo ever wears, sleeves so long they’d
foul your fighting claws. If you had fighting claws.
    Your wrists are
empty as a human’s. Blank except for wads of scar tissue.
    The stumps of
your shame.
    You give your
shame the answer you carry in a sheath sewn inside your tunic: an
SPEF KA-BAR, seven inches of matte-black chrome steel blade so sharp
that just its pressure against the side of the big one’s neck
draws a thin chain of blood-beads gemlike along its edge.
    This enough
knife for you?
    Hey now. He
doesn’t move: not as stupid as he looks. Hey now.
    The hunchback
rises, slow, hands up and open, the human gesture of surrender. His
fighting claws fold along his forearms. No need to hook red, hey?
Easy now. Just say what you want, hey?
    I want some
eyeball with Kopav Dust Mirror.
    You might
like to tell me what for, he offers, sidling closer.
    You might
like your fuckbitch’s head where it is. You add a little
pressure to the knife. Blood spoor pumps your salivary glands. Keep
your teeth off my kill.
    Hey—hey,
fuck! The big one looks puzzled. Offended. Not frightened. Not
hurt. Hey, I’m cut! He cuts me. Hey—
    The hunchback
considers this. Here’s the call, citybred. Come back two
league-walks after sundown—
    Your eyes flick
toward the window, instinctively, to check the light and gauge the
hour, just a flick, less than an eyeblink, but they knew you’d
do it and the big one jerks his head back from your blade and one
fighting claw jams for your groin while his other slashes for the
forearm