by Sonia Nova
Hazel laughed. “There was no way I was going to catch that!”
When he went back to staring into the water, she looked down at the fish in front of her. There really wasn’t any other word for it. It had silver scales, huge round eyes, gills, fins… And although its shape was oddly lumpy, hopefully it would taste like fish, too.
Zeriq missed his next stab. “Most of them have left,” he grumbled. “I think I scared them away.”
“You got this!” Hazel exclaimed. Honestly, she was just excited that they even had one fish to work with, but if he was willing to stand in the water for a few more minutes and try to get more, she wasn’t going to complain.
He seemed to notice another fish and poised to strike. Hazel started to clap and cheer him on. “Get that fish!”
Even if she was being a distraction, Zeriq didn’t tell her to stop. Plus, she was in such better spirits than she had been in days that she didn’t want it to end.
That was when Zeriq froze.
Not in a “just waiting for the fish to come closer” type of way. He looked up from the water and was glancing around, tense, as if he had heard something. The spear fell from his hand and started to be swept away by the current.
Something was definitely wrong.
Alarm crawled up Hazel’s spine. She looked around the river, but didn’t see anything. Damn her inferior human senses.
But then, she did hear it.
A blood-chilling howl.
Somewhere nearby.
CHAPTER 12
ZERIQ
Zeriq lifted his face into the freezing breeze and inhaled.
A nauseating scent of wet fur and blood overwhelmed him. He coughed, nearly gagging at the scent. The howl was disturbing enough, but that smell… Whatever it was, this creature was definitely not something small and easily avoided, like the two animals they’d encountered on the planet so far.
He waded back to the shore, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. The hairs on his skin stood on end, and some deep instinct within him told him to return to Hazel’s side as quickly as possible. He grabbed his boots and briskly shoved them on.
“What’s going on?” Hazel’s eyes were wide. “What was that? Hey, Zeriq, answer me!”
Panic filled her voice when Zeriq ignored her questions, his eyes once more trained on the horizon. He turned in a slow three hundred and sixty degrees, taking in every minute detail he could register in the landscape around them.
No furry, bloody creature in sight.
But another deep inhale through the nose told him everything he needed to know. Even if he couldn’t see the creature yet, he could smell it in the wind. And the scent was stronger than it had been a moment before.
It was coming closer.
Straight toward their location.
He gripped Hazel’s shoulder and pulled her closer to him, staring into her eyes. She gasped and looked at him with a shocked expression on her face, but didn’t pull away.
“You heard that howl. I can smell the creature that made it, and it’s coming closer.”
“This is bad, isn’t it,” she breathed, not asking the words as a question.
Zeriq just nodded in answer.
There was no knowing what kind of a creature inhabited this planet and made those howls. But from the sound of it, it was big. And without a weapon, in his malnourished state – together with a human female to protect – Zeriq wasn’t too keen to encounter it.
Another howl pierced the air, and Hazel shuddered beneath his grip. If it was close enough for a human to hear and for him to smell…
The creature was nearing them, and quickly.
“Run!” he hissed, grabbing Hazel’s hand in his as he started to run at full speed back in the direction of the shuttle.
They hurried through the snowy landscape, towards the trees they had come from, but Zeriq soon had to slow his pace as Hazel started to stumble and pant behind him. She was barely holding his hand anymore – he was basically dragging her along.
Shit…
They had hardly reached the edge of the forest, but he paused to check on her. Hazel’s face was flushed and her hand cold in his. Zeriq could hear her rabid heartbeat in her chest.
“I can’t… I can’t…” she said through labored breathing. “The snow… It’s too deep.”
Zeriq grimaced inward, glancing at her feet. Although his own footsteps helped clear the path for her, the snow still came up to her calves. It was clear that she was struggling to walk in it, let alone run. He could tell she needed a break, but they didn’t have time for one.
Zeriq took in the scent of the air around them. The disgusting animal scent was getting so strong that he could hardly even detect Hazel’s gentle scent underneath it.
They needed to move.
“We need to keep going,” he said in a low voice. “I’m going to carry you.”
“No… I-I’ll just slow you down,” she said, her face pale and her breathing labored. “You can… you can go ahead. I’ll follow behind.”
Zeriq frowned at her. What the hell was she talking about? Did she actually think he would leave her here?
Without another word – and definitely not listening to any protests she might have had – Zeriq lifted her by her waist and threw her over his shoulder. Hazel yelped in surprise, but quickly realized to hold on to his back as he started to sprint through the trees.
“We’re getting back to the shuttle…” he said. “Together.”
Fortunately, she didn’t protest.
They had been making good progress so far, and now that Zeriq could run freely without dragging Hazel behind him, they were making even better progress. Slow him down, she’d said? She barely weighed anything. And so far, even though the creature had a horrible stench and an ominous howl, it actually hadn’t made an appearance yet.
Maybe… Maybe they could make it back to the shuttle without having to confront it.
The blue tree trunks thinned around them as Zeriq ran through the trees. Soon, they were in a small clearing, and Zeriq glanced around. He recognized it as the clearing in which they had found the berries. That meant they were close.
Just a few more minutes.
As soon as he ran to the other side of the clearing, Zeriq noticed a shadow move in the corner of his eye.
He skidded to a stop, snow piling up around his ankles. He set Hazel down beside him and she looked around, her brown eyes wide.
“What?” she whispered. “Why are we stopping? Did you see something?”
The shadow slowed its movements until Zeriq could make out its form. A hulking, hunchbacked creature slinked on two legs through the trees around them.
And yet… it wasn’t coming closer.
What was it doing? Circling them?
Hunting them…
“Oh! Oh, no…” Hazel’s cry seemed to indicate that she had noticed what Zeriq was watching. He felt her bury her face into his back and wrap her arms around him. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening...”
So, the mystery of what had killed that strange small creature they had found when they first went exploring? It was no longer a mystery. This planet was in no way uninhabited – the nearest inhabitant just happened to be a bloodthirsty and monstrous creature.
The branches and leaves of the trees in front of them rustled and the creature easily pushed the trunks aside with its massive shoulders. It stepped into the clearing and paused, giving them the first clear view of it.
It stood upright, probably a few feet taller than Zeriq, but besides that, it didn’t resemble anything he’d seen before. Its upper body was horribly twisted and hunched forward. Its skin was covered in something between fur and quills, and its jaws were filled with haphazard fangs that jutted out in all directions. Green blood dripped from its lower jaw.
“Stay behind me,” Zeriq said to Hazel. He felt her squeeze her arms around his waist more tightly in response.
The creature�
�s deep-set black eyes flicked straight toward the two of them at the sound of Zeriq’s voice. It started to lumber forward.
“Get back!” Zeriq growled.
There was no way this creature would actually understand his words, but he hoped the threatening tone might make it think twice about approaching.
Apparently not.
The creature continued its approach, and Zeriq bared his teeth at it. He knew that his sharp-pointed teeth were probably not threatening at all compared to the mess of fangs that erupted from the creature’s hairy snout. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to scare the creature away anyway.
Not that he couldn’t fight the creature. Even now, instinct pulled at him, told him to leap at the creature and test its flesh for weaknesses with his jaws. Memories of his time with the Krezlians started to come back. Memories where he was just as cold, in the bottom of the Krezlian fighting Pit, being faced with some impossible assailant straight from a nightmare…
No. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. Those memories wouldn’t help him now. He needed to stay in the present. Things were different in this moment: he had a human to protect. He couldn’t just attack the creature and leave her unguarded.
He stared at the creature in the eye, letting it know that he wouldn’t back down. That was when he realized that the creature wasn’t staring back at him like he had thought. The creature was craning its short neck as best it could to see behind him.
At Hazel.
Before he had time to warn her or think of any way to distract the creature, it pounced.
The size and speed of the creature just didn’t seem to match up. Even though it had the body of some kind of a gigantic hybrid beast, with its elbows and knees turned backwards, it moved like a bolt of lightning.
Without giving Zeriq a moment to react, it had ripped Hazel from where she hid behind him and was loping to the other side of the clearing with her in its arms.
“No!” Zeriq bellowed, barely hearing his own voice.
Not his female.
Pure fury drowned out all thought and he gave in, letting the white hot rage burn through him.
He ran toward the creature’s back and leaped, digging his hands into the fur of its shoulders and gripping it with his legs. He snapped at the creature’s small, pointed ears with his teeth and made contact. Easily, he bit through the cartilage and spit out the bit of ear.
The creature let out a shriek and dropped Hazel. Zeriq watched as the female scrambled for the safety of the trees. Some small voice told him he should follow her. Ensure that she was okay, that she was safe. Pick her up and run at full speed toward the shuttle.
But louder were his instincts to destroy this warm-blooded creature that writhed beneath him, trying to throw him off.
Memories of the Pit flooded back and Zeriq was unable to stop them from playing through his mind this time. The Krezlians had thrown him into the Pit and left him to fend for himself against every other creature they had created to fight for them. The winner was rewarded with more time in the Pit, fighting for survival against ever more powerful monsters.
And Zeriq had always come out on top.
The way to do it was to let rage possess him, follow his instincts to destroy without a thought for anything else in the world. He and his prey were all that had existed until that prey was defeated and lying in a bloody mess on the Pit’s cold, damp ground.
This fight would be no different.
Zeriq let the creature throw him off its back. He rolled through the snow into an upright, crouching position, facing the creature from behind.
“Over here,” he hissed, but the creature had already whirled around and was hulking toward him, building up speed.
He never gave the creature a chance to pounce. Keeping low to the ground, he ran toward the creature and swiped at its side, taking a chunk of fur and skin with him.
The creature howled, throwing its head back and screaming toward the tops of the blue trees and the gray sky.
Hopefully, it wasn’t calling any more of its kind. Zeriq was sure he could take out one of these things, but any more…
Not that there was time to think about that. The creature was already turning its ugly, tiny pinpricks of black eyes onto him for another go, howling like it had gone mad.
Zeriq felt his lips widen in a cruel smile as he, too, revealed his teeth.
Bring it on.
CHAPTER 13
HAZEL
Hazel ran behind the nearest tree with a trunk thick enough to hide her. Her breaths came in short pants and her heart pounded in her chest as she considered her options. Everything within her told her to run back through the woods and to the shuttle. To get as far away from the monstrous creature as possible.
But…
She lifted her hand up to her pounding heart and took a deep breath. She couldn’t leave Zeriq behind. She had to help him. Had to make sure he was alright.
Slowly, she peered out from the behind the tree trunk to watch the fight unfolding in the clearing.
Zeriq charged the creature, his head dipped low and his horns pointing forward. Hazel gasped as the creature dodged the attack, moving to the side with lightning fast reflexes – the same reflexes that had caught her a moment earlier.
Zeriq was still able to graze its side with an outstretched hand, and the creature howled before leaping back.
They circled each other in the clearing, both breathing heavily from the exertion of the fight. Zeriq’s eyes shone with fury and truthfully, his expression scared Hazel. He looked completely wild. Like he was somewhere else and had forgotten everything about her or where they were – or even who he was.
The creature jumped on him and for a moment, Hazel lost sight of him in a whirl of fur and snow. Then, an arc of green blood splattered onto the untouched snow a few feet away and a screeching howl deafened Hazel’s ears.
It took her a moment to figure out where the blood had come from, until the creature scrambled to its feet and Hazel saw it cradling one arm. A huge gash ran from its shoulder to about halfway down its upper arm, and it made strange clicking sounds with its jaws, as if in pain.
Zeriq was winning.
At least, it seemed like it. Not that Hazel had any experience with any type of conflict. She didn’t even watch boxing or wrestling on TV.
Stumbling on its feet, the creature paused for a long moment before it turned on its heel. It started to lope away, holding onto its shoulder and dripping green blood with each step. Hazel’s heart leaped in her chest. Was it leaving? Then… It was over?
Just as she thought they could return to the shuttle, safe and sound, Hazel watched in horror as Zeriq rose from the snow with an expression of pure rage, and started to chase after the creature.
What? No! What the hell was he thinking? Why would he follow it? They wanted it to leave! That was the whole point!
“Zeriq!” Hazel yelled, panicked and torn between staying hidden behind the tree and following Zeriq and the monster.
She glanced around herself in the clearing, weighing her options. If she stayed behind, she would be completely alone and who knew where Zeriq would end up…
Crap.
Struggling through the snow, she decided to follow them. Fortunately, the creature wasn’t moving too quickly now and Zeriq matched its pace, stalking it like some kind of a safari predator Hazel had seen on the animal channel. That was one somewhat violent show she did watch.
Even though the pair weren’t moving as quickly as before, Hazel was still having trouble keeping up. They were moving through an area of forest where Hazel and Zeriq hadn’t explored, and trying to step exactly in each footstep either of them had left behind would take too long. Instead, Hazel pushed straight through after them, trying not to lose sight of either Zeriq or the creature.
This was already a horrible enough situation and ending up alone and lost in the woods would only make things worse.
Her numb limbs somehow continued to move throu
gh the snow and she pushed forward, ignoring the ache of her ribs where the creature had grabbed her and the sensation of heat that was growing in her toes.
Somewhere along the way, she had lost her foil blankets, and her body was starting to prickle in the cold. But the telltale sign of frostbite wasn’t going to stop her now.
She had to catch up to Zeriq and get him to come back. He didn’t seem to realize that he had scared off the creature. That look on his face… It almost seemed like the Ezak-X soldier had lost the ability to step back and think about the current situation. As if he was completely consumed by instinct.
And, apparently, that instinct was to hunt and kill the creature although it was already running away.
Hazel sighed, pushing one foot before the other.
An eerie howl ripped through the trees all of a sudden, and Hazel saw that the creature had paused. It stood some hundred feet in front of her and seemed as if it was howling away its pain. Zeriq was only about twenty feet from her and had paused as well. He stood by a large tree, watching the creature.
“Zeriq!” Hazel hissed, trying not to speak loud enough that the creature could hear her.
She was sure Zeriq could hear her, though, with his enhanced senses. But even though she was barely a few yards behind him, he ignored her and suddenly leaped after the creature as soon as it started moving again.
Shit…
Hazel rushed after the two of them. Apparently, the only way to get through to Zeriq was going to be to let this fight run its course. There was no way to break his concentration from the creature.
Hazel wasn’t sure she was going to be able to wait that long, though. She thought back to barely an hour ago when she had been laughing, watching Zeriq catch food for them. She had been so filled with hope in that moment.
And now she was basically frozen up to her waist, trying to keep up with a horrible monster and the man who, up until just a few minutes ago, had been at her side to protect her.
He had protected her, she reminded herself. That split second the creature had held her in its arms had been the worst moment of her life. Just the memory of its disgusting sour smell and claws against her made her want to gag.