The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

“When you are S’kot’s human, you may disobey him all you like. When you are mine, you do as I say.”

“She had it coming,” Scott mumbled, trying to finger-comb his hair into place. “She stole my flashlight. And she broke it.” “On what, her face?” Maria demanded, advancing on him. “Hey, you know what? She’s a bitch and it’s okay to hate her, but you are a lying, cowardly little coil of dogshit and you are not doing yourself any favors tonight.”

Finally, at the 45 %mark someone is sticking up for Amber. This took waaaay too long to be believable.

Don’t you want just once for someone to appreciate it?” He shrugged his spines. “Sometimes. I’m still a man and men can be petty, but I try to take the high path. Sheul may yet reward me for my efforts here; your people never will, I think. That cattle’s ass, S’kot, likes to keep them afraid of me.”

I would still need a thank you.

“A Sheulek is more than a warrior. We are the instruments of God’s judgment.”

“You can make a story mean anything, Meoraq. But that’s the thing with you religious people, isn’t it? God is this glorious intangibility, so no proof becomes proof just by how you spin it.”

He had begun this journey to ask Sheul to guide him to a worthy woman. Well, here she was and if she did not have a dumaq woman’s looks, neither did she have one’s mewling mannerisms. She was not the woman he’d expected, but she was a good woman and God Himself had given her to him.

“What does He tell you?” “He? What, you mean God?” Momentarily unpinned, Amber erupted into giggles just as fantastically inappropriate as her hysterics had been. “He tells me I’m going to need saving for the rest of my stupid life, that’s what He tells me!” And Meoraq nodded, either oblivious to her sarcasm or pretending to be. “Then I will always be there to save you.”