The Standup Boys' New Hope

Author's Note: This story is one of a series, but they can be read in any order.

* * *

Naka had come to hate the jungle.

When he and hundreds of other men had made their exodus from the city of Izaz, making the ultimate act of defiance against Izazi matriarchy and trying their luck alone, Naka had taken it all in stride; the swarms of mosquitos, the steamy heat, the uneven ground and the tree shoots sharp enough to pierce men's soles had all been small complaints back in the heady days when they first built their men-only settlement, the city of Standup.

But now Standup was fallen. The Standup boys were not alone in this jungle, and the females, human and otherwise, who ruled this insane wilderness had banded together to break down the wooden city's walls and claim the prizes within.

Naka's group had been fortunate. They had had his brilliant judgment and razor-sharp leadership to guide them away from the ruins of Standup untouched by female hands. Most hadn't been so lucky. Of the dozen men who followed Naka, most of them remembered seeing other men escape, but didn't know where they might be. Either way, the vast majority of the Standup Boys were captured, or 'tied to a tree,' as everyone was saying. It was a wickedly accurate turn of phrase. Between the bondage-loving tribal women, the freakishly powerful monster girls and those few musket-armed huntresses who had betrayed the Standup boys, the lost males were not captive husbands to be welcomed, but booty to be coveted, hoarded, bound and fucked raw. It was a fate Naka would not wish on an enemy.

With threats everywhere and no plan, Naka and eleven other men simply walked, on the lookout for edible fruits and with only his keen sense of direction to guarantee they were not going in circles. No one could say what lay ahead, but everyone knew they could not stay anywhere near Standup.

The greatest irony was that Naka had never needed to be here. Most Standup boys joined the movement to flee hopeless poverty, domineering mothers and abusive wives, but Naka had suffered none of those things; he had thrown his lot in with the Standup boys simply to see if he could handle it.

Naka heard movement, too big to be a mere animal. "Heads up! Something's coming!"

Three men drew machetes. Two others stood back to back, brandishing spears, and Naka's most trusted man Ruan pulled a flintlock pistol. Naka's other men held up sticks or clubs, and Intriba, the hideous, muscle-bound brute who had so recently joined the group, simply bared his fists and waited. No man was prepared to go down without a fight.

Human figures crept under the great segmented leaves of a behemoth fern. Just as Naka was about to demand that they halt, he saw to his delight that both were male.

Two men—two unmistakable Standup boys—emerged in front of Naka. One of them gawped at him, then hardened his face and tried to look fierce, not helped by his luxuriant, flowing hair.

The one beside him needed no trickery to look vicious. As thin as reeds and tense all over, his eyes burned with lethality even as he raised his eyebrows. "Men..." He said. "You're all men." He turned to his long-haired companion. "Kervin? Think we're safe."

The soft boy let his guard down. "Thank the stars," he said gently. "I knew we weren't the only men who got away, but I was starting to doubt it."

"Not much to look at here," said one of Naka's men. "We're on the run just like you are. Anywhere but Standup is better than Standup."

"I'm sorry," said Naka, stepping in front of the newcomers, "I haven't introduced myself. I am Naka, and I lead this outfit. I'm leading my men to lower ground. We hope to find water to break our trail, so we can't be tracked."

"Downhill?" The nasty, skinny boy traded looks with his partner Kervin. "Going the wrong way. Izaz is as low as the ground gets for miles. Want to get away? Go up." He jerked a thumb to his side. "That's where we're heading."

"At least that's what the huntresses told us," said the soft man diplomatically. "I am Kervin, by the way. And this is my boyfriend Vot." He shook hands with Naka, and Vot took the cue and did the same.

The name of Vot sent ripples through Naka's dozen. Back in Standup, when the threat of captivity by women had seemed permanently behind them, men had gathered factions and squabbled over control of the city, and Vot had squabbled louder than anyone. Naka had assumed—hoped, almost—that Vot was tied to a tree by now. It didn't help that most of Naka's men were looking at skinny little Vot with more admiration that they had shown for their own leader.

But Naka would deal with that later. "Men," he said grandly. "We're changing direction. We'll march uphill until we find safety."

He started marching, and Kervin and Vot fell into step with the others. In minutes, they were mumbling with the others as if they were longtime friends and allies, which, Naka mused, they were, since they had all been part of the Standup exodus. And to his credit, Kervin volunteered to keep first watch as they slept that night.

The trouble began when Naka woke up, shaking off the sticks, brush and turf he had piled onto himself as camouflage. The rest of his dozen already sat around a small fire, making a watery-looking stew in a tin pan that someone had had the presence of mind to save from Standup. Naka frowned, not because he had missed his chance at breakfast, but because he had always made a point of helping them prepare it.

"Good morning, men," said Naka, seating himself on a high boulder overlooking the others. "That's another night with no incidents. We're making progress. Towards the end of today, we'll need to start thinking about where we're going to resettle. We've put enough distance between us and Standup that I anticipate we'll be safe."

"Plan's already changed," said Vot flatly.

Naka's eye twitched. "What did you say?"

Without sitting up straight, Vot jerked his head at the sky to his right, where a gritty grey pall hung over the rising sun. "We saw smoke. Not a little wisp, either. Tons of it. We're going to go take a look."

Looking around, Naka saw the rest of the group all nodding lazily, and something twinged inside him. "You men..." His temper flared. "You men went behind my back! Why didn't you take it to me?"

"We just did," said Ruan. "You just woke up, and now you know."

"I should have been the first to know!" Naka snapped to his feet. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Kervin shrugged innocently. "What would you have us do, wake you up?"

"Yes! I'm the leader here!"

"Oh, don't be an ass!" The whole clearing went silent as Intriba, big, ugly Intriba, heaved himself to his feet. "You are not our leader! You talk to us like we're your children, but you're the biggest child of all!"

"Child!" Naka fought back the suicidal urge to strike him. "Who led you safely out of Standup when it was under attack! Men were being pinned down left and right, but are you chained up? Are you some woman's slave?"

"We were out foraging, you idiot! We were gone when the monster girls showed up!"

"Oh, yes? And who plunged into the fray and dragged half of these men to safety?"

"Plunged in? We crouched in the bushes, and whenever someone came to cower with us, we stuffed them into a hole in the ground and told them to be quiet."

"Who else was going to do it? You? I seem to recall you were badgering me to make a break for it and leave them all to fate!"

Naka and Intriba faced each other like gunwomen spoiling for a duel. Naka glanced around to see what reactions he was getting, and faces were disappointingly neutral. Vot looked aloof, almost confused—hardly the reaction Naka had expected from the would-be tyrant of Standup.

"I accept the decision to go after the smoke," murmured Naka. "But don't go over my head again. Any of you." On that, he began stuffing his things onto his belt, then stormed off after the fading grey cloud in the distance.

Even in Naka's foul mood, the going seemed to be easier that day. No unexpected pits sent anyone tumbling end over end, no suspicious rustling threatened a monster girl attack, and even those damnable mosquitos seemed fewer.

His first challenge came when a crag obstructed their path. Two steep and too tall to climb, the looming stone landform stretched as far to the left as the eye could see, and it extended to the right until it plunged into a frightfully deep gorge lined with the kind of needle-sharp tree shoots for which Naka still had punctures in his soles.

"Maybe we can climb around," said Ruan. "I see some handholds. And I have a hook we can use."

But Naka's sharp eyes found another way. Crouching by a fallen tree branch as thick as a strongman's arm, he hoisted it up, the bark biting into his soft hands, and hauled it aside. Twigs, leaves, earth and mossy stones tumbled down. Where they had been, a cave entrance peeked out at the world, big enough for two men to walk abreast.

"Shall we?" said Naka smugly.

Two men struggled to light a torch, and as soon as they had it, Naka led the way in.

Light-fearing mushrooms grew in the corners of the cave mouth, where dirt had settled in pits in the rock. But as the men delved deeper, the dirt became scarcer, and the rock became sharper. Naka, who walked as far ahead as the light allowed, found it suspiciously easy to place his feet. He glanced at the walls and stopped. "Everyone, do you see these?" he said, pointing to thick, straight while lines that crisscrossed the stone surface. "These are chisel marks. Someone bored this tunnel. It must go all the way through."

"But who bored it?" asked Ruan.

"Someone long gone, I should hope," said Kervin.

Naka's spirits rose when the tunnel widened out, and they rose further when it opened into a cavern, with boulders and pits and rocky shelves on the walls.

Then he saw dark shapes on the rocky shelves, gently moving. Human forms coiled up on straw beds on the rock, their chests gently rising and falling.

They were not men.

Worse, the woman in front of Naka had sharp spines like a hedgehog's trailing from her head all the way down to the small of her back, a sinister mockery of hair.

He could not suppress a terrified whisper. "Monster girls!" Here was a beast that would not hesitate to capture him and force herself on him, and it was close enough for him to touch. Fear infused him, exhilarated him and made time move faster and slower at once.

"Back!" he hissed at his men. "Get back! D-danger!"

"What is it?" asked Ruan, raising his torch.

"Put that down! Put it away!" Finally, he spat it out: "Monster girls!"

Those words worked their fearful magic on the rest of the group. Eyes went wide, voices hushed, and Ruan turned around. "We're getting out of here."

The flight was swift, quiet and orderly. Nevertheless, as they emerged into the blessed daylight, Naka quickly took a count of all his men. Mercifully, his dozen were all present, and so were Kervin and Vot.

"Well," said Intriba, panting a little. "That went to shit, didn't it?"

"Lucky we're alive," grumbled Vot.

"Ruan," said Naka, "About those climbing hooks..."

The climb proceeded slowly and tensely, no one entirely certain how much time they had before the monster girls awoke. But in another stroke of luck, the whole intrepid band made the climb without a single casualty, and after a few more hours of marching, Naka allowed himself to forget the whole terrifying encounter.

Just when the jungle began to fall dark as the low-angled sunlight failed to penetrate the canopy, the men heard the dreaded sound of a female voice. Not a war-cry or a song or some barked order, but simply a woman talking, as if to herself.

Instantly, every weapon in the group was out. To Naka's disappointment, Vot drew a pitiful pocket knife, and Kervin had no weapon at all, though he looked ready to run and give his assailant a merry chase for her prey.

Far ahead in the brush, a lone female figure strode through the jungle, gabbing incomprehensibly to herself, then stopped and gave an exclamation. Carefully, she picked her way up to the men.

She was human, but she was not Izazi. Her metal-tipped spear gave that away, as did her skin, which was closer to black than Izazi nut-brown; and the strong features of her face, from her protruding jaw to her wise, deep-set eyes. She had cut her hair to a sharp line that traced her jaw, with a little golden bead standing out from her jet-black locks. But her clothes were strangest of all. A thin, pure white cloth made up her asymmetrical knee-length kilt and her tube top, which exposed her stomach, her arms and her legs to the sun and the mosquitos.

"Pomiemfa Shuhana?" asked the woman. "Musaka ushikalat."

All fourteen men gaped cluelessly back at her. Not even the savages native to the jungle spoke such an alien language.

"Mamto Fomafilien," the woman added, pointing off to the side, "shoka omsu nunu amatili."

"Does she want to know where we're from?" wondered Ruan.

"She's a threat," murmured Vot. "Spear's not just for show."

"One against fourteen isn't much of a threat," said Intriba, pounding a fist into his palm.

"A metal spearhead?" asked Kervin. "Izaz hasn't made those for centuries."

At that name, the woman perked. "Izaz? You, of Izaz?"

"We were," snapped Vot, baring his pocket knife. "Leave us, woman. Leave, and we won't have to lynch you."

"Go back to where you came from!" yelled Kervin. "We are not your slaves!"

"We're Standup boys," said Intriba proudly. "You want to put us in collars? Go ahead and try, I dare you!"

Naka had never understood politics, but even he could recognize a debacle in the making. He interceded himself. "I apologize for my friends. I am Naka from the city of Standup, and I lead these men. We do not belong to Izaz, but we were born there."

"You left Izaz?" The woman's thick accent enunciated every word painfully. "What is your city now?"

"We built the city of Standup. Unfortunately, Standup has been destroyed." He straightened his back. "But we haven't. We are men of initiative, grit and ingenuity, looking for a new place to live."

"Tell me about Izaz."

"Izaz is far behind us, where it belongs." Naka paused for emphasis. "More importantly, where are you from?"

She straightened up proudly. "I am Amuset, scout of Queen Meshaid The Third. And I serve Governor Mananat, first at her post."

"By all the gods!" declared Kervin, "It's true! You're from a different civilization!"

Naka committed these new names to memory. "Where can we find your place? Will you take us there?" The men behind him rumbled in protest, and he put a hand back to calm them.

"There, you must work," said Amuset.

Naka flexed his arm muscles. "Not a problem."

"Not that," said Amuset. She thought a moment. "Yes, that. But more. We need to sleep. We sleep, and you sleep with us."

"I am not sure I understand..." As he said this, Naka was increasingly worried he did understand.

Abandoning words, Amuset stepped forward and traced a finger down Naka's sweaty shirt, pushing just gently enough that he could feel her fingertip play over his skin. "We need men."

Behind Naka, weapons were ripped from their sheaths.

"No!" screeched Vot. "Never again!"

"Over my dead body!" bellowed Intriba.

"We still have our self-respect!" put in Kervin.

Amuset stepped back, shocked. Then she smiled. "Such fierce men." She licked her lips. "You will do well on the frontier."

"Men," said Naka, turning to his own. "We need to think about this. If we reject her offer, we're very unlikely to find another, and we can't go on like this."

"I'm not lying with a woman!" snapped Vot, standing with Kervin. "Neither of us is!"

"She just wants to own us," grumbled Intriba. "Like every woman. Well, she can't."

"We might want to consider this," said Ruan.

The whole group fell silent, facing him.

"If we say 'no,'" Ruan went on, "we'll be on our own, and that's not good enough. We can't be wanderers forever. The monster girls would pick us off." Ruan looked over at Naka, his tense face begging for help.

"We struck a blow for male freedom in Izaz," said Naka. "We can do it again, from anywhere civilized. But we can't do it from between the legs of a monster girl. I choose to live another day. Who else does?"

Ruan stood with Naka. So did two other men, then three more, Kervin and Vot glaring at them all the way. The camp was split, seven against seven, when Intriba began to walk. With a lazy, almost reluctant gait, he shuffled to Naka's side and stood beside him. "I may not like it," he assured himself out loud. "But I want to live too."

Naka held out hope that Intriba's decision would draw more of the holdouts. Two more came across, and no more. He turned around. "Ten men," he said to Amuset. "Quarter all of us, and ten of us are yours."

For one terrifying moment, Amuset weighed the offer. "We'll do it. One of you will have to marry Governor Mananat. Which one is a virgin?"

Naka stepped forward. "I have the distinction." Although he was reasonably sure Ruan did too.

"We built our settlement half a day in the way the sun rises. I will go and tell them you are coming. Or..." With a naughty chuckle, she put hungry hands around Naka's waist. "Sleep with me, and I will guide you myself." She punctuated this by kissing him wetly on the lips, releasing him before he had any chance to resist. "Deal?"

Naka did not need long to think. "My navigational skills are more than sufficient for going east. We will take our own chances."

"Hm." Amuset turned around. "See you there, tasty men." She leapt off into the brush.

Naka did not wait for an argument to break out. "East it is. We're almost there, men. By this time tomorrow, we'll be sleeping in beds again."

Ruan and Intriba followed him. Then other feet stirred, and the whole group came after him.

Half a day's march, the black woman had said. And they had started with only a few hours of daylight left. Still, Naka privately hoped that they would find her civilization before nighttime. Such was not their luck, and for one last time, they bedded down in the brush like animals.

Men grumbled about giving up the dream of male independence, of admitting defeat and crawling to women for shelter. Indeed, Naka had once hated all the walls and rules and gun-toting women of Izaz. But a few months in the jungle had given him a new appreciation for walls and guns. He fell asleep with a clear mind.

The next thing Naka felt was hands gently caressing his side. He relaxed, then something like wet cloth coiled over his mouth and his wrists, and suddenly it all became terrifyingly real.

The forces tightened around him, and he tried to scream, but was muffled. He fought, every muscle in his body straining against the cloth-like grip as his it ensnared his ankles. He kicked against the ground, tearing up moss and rustling the bushes, hoping he could wake the others, then he felt a cold prick in his back.

As more of the cold, coarse feelers spread over his body, his felt a different kind of coldness spreading inside him. From his stomach out to his thighs and shoulders, then to the ends of his limbs, his muscles went dead.

The world became a blur. He could see the jungle moving past him, but couldn't feel what was holding him up. He thought the sky had clouded, then realized that he had mistaken a river for the sky. He tried and barely succeeded in turning his head up to look through the jungle canopy.

Rock obscured his view as he was borne into a cave, where dancing, flaring orange candle-glow lit the walls, throwing shadows behind every bump and crack in the stone.

He saw women standing over him, and they were not human. One of them stood with her back hunched, grinning hungrily down at him, her pale skin lit with a frightful red tint by the candles. The spines on her back confirmed Naka's worst fear.