by Stacy Jones
“Go dammit!” she yelled, waving her bow at him with one hand while pulling an arrow free with the other .
Turning away, she saw the crocodile alien was only ten feet below their branch now and climbing fast. A litany of deep voiced, clucking sounds she recognized as frustrated cussing—regardless of the otherwise incomprehensibility of the language—sounded right before a whoosh of air blew her braid to the side as the winged man gave a hard flap of his massive wings.
Within a second they were above the treetops and gone. All that was left was the sound of beating wings fading into the distance.
With Trrak by her side and grim resolve steadying her hand, Lily dipped the stone tip of her arrow into the pouch of poison and took aim at the horrifying face of the monster closing the distance between them.
L ily took aim at the alien climbing the tree, now only a few feet below the branch on which she stood. She held her breath as she released the arrow… only to have that breath gust out of her in dismay when it bounced harmlessly off of the thick armored scales of its face.
“Fuck!”
Snatching another arrow, she notched it and aimed for its eye, but it was ready this time. It jerked its big head to the side, making her shot miss the intended target but, by luck or chance, it hit the pink, exposed flesh of the corner of its open mouth, sinking into soft tissue there. It yowled in pain and halted its ascent, thrashing its head side to side.
Lily went still, waiting, expecting the beast to immediately fall dead. But it didn’t.
No no no, it’s supposed to work!
It pried the claws of one hand free from the bark to reach up and yank the arrow from its flesh. It threw it to the ground with a snarl, then turned murderous, yellow eyes on her.
Shit. Shitshitshit.
Spinning on her heel, Lily yelled at Trrak and took off. He leapt in front of her to lead the way, guiding her along the limb to the next tree as they ran away from the monster in the opposite direction of the hollow tree.
Her only hope, now, was to lose it in the lattice of branches, make it to the border where other shevari could help her take it down, or put enough distance between them so she could try to shoot it again in the only vulnerable spots she’d found—the eyes or the mouth—and hope that this time it was either a killing blow or the poison would work.
Lily knew the exact moment when it finally climbed atop the branch. She heard it roar, the sound petrifying in its ferocity, and felt the vibration of its running footsteps as it took off after her.
It was moving too fast.
Lily knew with sudden, merciless clarity she wasn’t going to be able to outpace it. That realization sent helpless fear surging through her.
A scream built in her throat as she felt it closing in behind her.
Ahead, in the distance, she thought she could make out the faint but familiar cries of shevari and felt a swell of hope, giving her a spurt of energy.
Her lungs were on fire and her heart was beating so hard and fast it hurt. She tried to fight through the pain and push herself to run faster, to make her aching legs propel her farther away from the gruesome fate closing in on her and closer to the people she could hear not too far ahead.
But it wasn’t enough.
Her building scream tore free when she felt thick, rough arms come around her middle, scraping her throat raw as the high pitched sound of pure terror echoed into the forest. That scream ended on a grunt as the air was knocked out of her. The caging arms banding her middle lifted her off her feet and jerked her back against a hard, cold chest.
Trrak, only a few steps ahead of her, skidded to a stop and spun around, his teeth bared as he leapt at her attacker without fear or pause. Lily screamed a denial as her attacker almost carelessly swatted a huge, clawed hand at her pet, hitting him in the face and knocking him back to skid across the rough bark of the thick limb.
The casual violence the alien used shocked her into stillness for a second before anger flooded her.
“You motherfucker!” she growled, thrashing as hard as she could. “Trrak! Get up, buddy! Please, get up!”
Her pet was stunned and hurt, but he shook his head and pushed unsteadily to his six paws at her plea. He locked his black gaze over her shoulder. Lily could see he was gathering himself to leap again, but her captor made a series of clicking growls and jumped off the branch before Trrak could do more than crouch.
Her stomach went weightless as they dropped, choking out her scream as her insides tried to climb their way up her throat.
They landed hard enough to make her head snap forward, her neck burning from the sharp jerk, but her captor was holding her so crushingly tight she barely slipped down his scaled chest. Her ribs felt like they were cracking, straining against the pressure on them.
Sucking in a pained breath, Lily blinked hard, fighting against the darkness creeping in on the edges of her vision. It was hard to think or plan past the panic and fear suffocating her, but she told herself she had to fight. She had to hang on. Someone had to have heard her screams. She just needed to hold out long enough for them to find her.
She kicked out behind her, hoping to hit his knee joints with the heels of her boots, but his stance was too wide. She only hit air. Her arms were trapped at her sides, but she patted her hands against herself, trying to feel for a knife. She almost cried with relief and gave herself away when she felt the hilt of one with her fingertips.
The monster carrying her started loping off into the forest, taking her who knew where, leaving her howling pet behind, stuck in the trees. His jolting footsteps hurt. His punishing grip around her middle had no give and she grunted in agony, each heavy stride feeling like a punch to the gut. She struggled to pull her knife free through the jouncing and pain. It took a terrifyingly long time, Trrak’s loud, frenzied howling growing distant, before she managed to clear it of the sheath and grip it tightly in her fist.
Raising her hand as high as she could, she stabbed behind her. The first thrust did less than nothing. Her blade glanced off his thick scales, but she didn’t stop or pause, stabbing again and again, screaming in frustration through gritted teeth.
He ignored her, as if her efforts were no more concerning or harmful than the foliage whipping past them. The muscles in her arm were burning, but she persisted until she felt her knife catch on something. Gritting her teeth, she wiggled her blade and pushed as hard as she could. He yowled just as she felt something give. Her knife sank into the flesh beneath the scales on what she thought was his hip.
Twisting and digging her blade deeper, she tried to inflict as much damage as possible. She was rewarded when lukewarm blood gushed over her hand and the monster jerked to a stumbling stop.
She didn’t have time to brace or prepare when he threw her to the ground. Grunting at impact, she immediately pushed herself to her feet and fled, ignoring how fiercely her shoulder throbbed from landing on it.
Glancing back quickly, she saw him glaring at her while he yanked the knife out of his hip, his slitted, yellow stare telling her she would pay for that when he caught her. Her eyes widened when he crushed the stone in his fist and snarled.
Facing forward again, she ran as fast as she could, jumping over exposed roots and ducking under the thin, stinging limbs of the smaller trees.
Light from the rising sun was just beginning to chase away the shadows of night. The murky illumination was enough to let her make out the path ahead, but she knew she wouldn’t manage to evade her pursuer for long.
Sucking in as deep a breath as she could through her seizing lungs, she screamed for her mates.
“Arruk! Frrar! Help me!”
D rrak was bleeding in more places than he could count, but he and Arruk had helped the female warriors kill almost two hands of intruders. Another full hand of enemies had died in Lily’s traps.
But that meant the ones that made it through were fierce and exceedingly hard to kill. He and Arruk had to join forces more than once to take one down.
> They were like nothing Drrak had ever seen, and no two were the same. Some looked almost like his Leelee, but much bigger, and their skin ranged from the green of his Pasha’s eyes to the black of the sha tree’s bark instead of her pale pink. Some were decorated with hard plating, making them difficult to kill, while others had sharp, painful teeth that tore his skin when they got close enough to bite him.
One had spikes protruding from its arms and back—exactly like the spikes they’d seen pinning the brutalized animal corpses to the trees surrounding the camp they’d investigated.
Drrak found out the hard way that it was able to shoot those spikes.
The two that managed to sink into the flesh of his left shoulder burned like poison before numbness spread down his upper left arm, making it hang uselessly at his side. Drrak had lost his spear then, but he was pleased with where it ended up—sunk deep into the creature’s eye.
He felt vicious satisfaction and bared his teeth in a grin when it fell limply to the ground, dead before it hit the dirt.
Fighting with only his knives meant he had to be closer than he would have preferred to the remaining intruders and led to the amount of injuries he now had, but he still thought the loss of his spear well worth it.
Panting, Drrak stood still when the last intruder fell and scanned the dark forest in front and to the sides, searching for any other enemies. He pointed his ears, swiveling them side to side as he tried to pick up any furtive noises of beings either sneaking up on him or trying to sneak away. He did not plan to allow any to live to attack them another day and was poised to give chase if one thought to slink away into the darkness.
When he didn’t pick up any sound other than the heavy breaths of his brother beside him and his tribe mates spread out around him, he relaxed.
Turning to his twin, he examined him quickly. Arruk was standing tall and seemed to have fewer injuries than what he had endured. Drrak felt both pride and irritation that his soft-natured twin fared better than he had. Swallowing back a grumble—a grumble he knew his Leelee would not approve of—he clapped Arruk on the back.
“You did well, my brother,” he grunted.
Arruk glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his lips tipped up at the corners, and hummed in agreement. That look told Drrak he had not hidden his competitiveness well. Pulling a face at Arruk’s unfailing insight, Drrak huffed but felt a reluctant smile tugging at his lips as well.
“Let us return to our Pasha before she grows impatient and decides to hunt us down,” Arruk quipped, but Drrak could hear the genuine worry in his voice.
Nodding, Drrak walked the few paces to the body of the spiked being and yanked his spear free from its eye with a squelch. Slinging the blood from it, he flipped it behind him and looped it through his vine then turned back to join Arruk.
“I will follow from the grou—”
A distant scream cut him off mid-word.
Leelee.
Drrak felt like his heart stopped beating before fear, the likes of which he had never experienced, rushed over him in a wave of cold.
As one, he and Arruk took off, his twin leaping into the trees while Drrak was forced to run on the ground. He cursed the spiked being in his mind, enraged the wound it had inflicted bound him to the forest floor, impeding him from reaching Leelee as quickly as if he’d been able to swing.
Drrak had never been one to speak to the Goddess, but he pleaded with her now.
Please keep her safe. Protect her. Do not take her from me.
Arruk felt the thick skin of his hands tearing from the rough bark as he sped recklessly through the trees, but he ignored the pain, pushing himself harder, faster. His entire being was focused on getting to Lily as swiftly as possible.
He was desperately trying not to imagine what had caused his Pasha to scream like that, but after seeing the horrible beings attacking them, Arruk could not stop the images from flooding his mind. Images of his mate—his heart—bleeding, in pain, dying. Alone.
He felt as if he were unraveling, as if his very soul was being torn to shreds as panic overwhelmed him. His usual calm, level-headedness was gone, crushed under suffocating fear .
Baring his teeth with strain, Arruk swung faster, the forest blurring as he raced ahead, becoming nothing more than a black and white smear.
Hold on, my Lily. I am coming.
Tor used his speed to dodge the thick tail the intruder swung at him, just barely missing the sharp spines on the tip. Darting behind it, he stabbed it repeatedly in the back before it could spin around then leapt back out of its reach.
He glanced quickly at his Mother, still sprawled on the ground from the blow she hadn’t managed to evade. Turning his gaze back to the enemy, he gasped and threw himself backwards, narrowly missing the claws slashing at his face.
Tor pushed his worry for his Mother aside to focus on his attacker. It had already managed to kill two Unchosen males, one Pasha, and had injured Akksha.
He was not about to become its next victim.
His Lily would be furious if he let himself be hurt. She would give him that look that made his tail shrivel in on itself, and her face creatures would scrunch up in what he just knew was preparation to leap from her face and attack him.
Tor ducked beneath its swinging arms and bounded over deadly lashes of its tail, watching for an opening, biding his time until he had a clear shot to the tender-looking skin of its lower stomach.
When the claws on either end of the creature’s foot got hung up in the raised roots of a tree, he got his chance. Rushing forward, Tor dropped to the ground and slid between its thick, oddly formed legs, stabbing his knives into its belly and slashing as he went.
Foul smelling, vine-like coils of intestine spilled to the ground, narrowly missing his head. Yanking his blood-soaked knives free, he jumped to his feet and leapt onto the creature’s back, roaring as he sunk his blades into the tough skin of its neck and rode it to the ground.
His chest heaving, Tor stayed crouched on its back, ready to stab it again, but it didn’t move. The beast was finally dead. Freeing his knives, he stood and hurried to his Mother. She was just pushing herself up, her expression dazed and unfocused. Hooking his upper arms under hers, he tried to help her only to have her shake him off and gain her feet by herself.
She didn’t look at him as she scanned the forest around them, taking in the dead creature, the bodies of the other intruders, the bodies of the fallen shevari, and the exhausted tribe mates still standing.
Tor stared at his Mother for a moment, waiting for… something. Some bit of praise, or thanks for saving her life. But he knew none was coming. Shaking his head—at himself for still wanting her approval and her for still withholding it—he turned away.
He could not help who his father was, could not help that he had died, or that Tor looked nothing like him. But his Mother was still determined to hold those things against him.
This section of the border was clear of intruders, all of them lying dead on the ground. He was no longer needed. He would mourn their fallen when everyone gathered in the Mother Sha, but just then, Tor wanted nothing more than to see the beautiful face of his mate. He needed to feel her two arms wrapped around him in love and acceptance, for her warmth to chase away the grief in his heart.
He planned to call out when he passed near the other watch nests to make sure no one else needed aid, but he wanted to be with his mate. There was an uneasy feeling creeping up on him and he felt an unexplainable urgency to see her, to touch her and reassure himself that she was well.
Without any parting words to his Mother, Tor leapt into the trees above and took off.
He checked in with two other watch nests, was told the intruders there were dead, and was about halfway to The Circle… when a sound cut through the stillness of the forest.
Tor jerked to a shuddering stop, his tail going stiff as he whipped his head from side to side, frantically trying to pinpoint where it had come from.
Another sc
ream sounded, farther away than the first. He would know that voice anywhere. His blood ran cold. He could hear the fear, desperation, and pain in that cry.
“Lily!” he roared, dread and horror slicing through him like a knife to the gut.
Tearing through the forest, Tor headed straight for her. He would kill whomever had caused his Pasha pain.
Frrar had lost all his knives, his spear, and nearly lost his life fighting the intruders. The ones on the ground that made it past the lines of defense were, for the most part, fairly easy to take down with his bow from his position in the branches above. He could take his time aiming, could wait until he found a vulnerable spot on their strange bodies, so he was not using more arrows than necessary.
Unfortunately, he was focused on the ground and had not expected one to be in the trees, didn’t anticipate any would make it past Lily’s poison nets and traps strung between limbs. But one did.
It was like something from a nightmare. It moved like a shadow, silent and swift. Not even his acute hearing picked up its movements and it was upon him before he even knew it was close.
He wouldn’t have known it was there at all if it hadn’t attacked him. He was aiming for a massive creature on the forest floor, the last remaining enemy and one that had already grievously wounded four tribe mates and killed another, when a burning pain lashed across his back. Yelping in pain and surprise, he’d spun, bow up and arrow ready to fly, but there’d been nothing there.
He’d had to split his attention between the huge intruder on the ground and the unseen one assaulting him in the trees… but that division in his concentration came at a cost.
Frrar wasted two hands of arrows trying to take them both down. The one on the ground was covered in tough skin, harder than the bark of the sha. His arrows snapped in half upon impact or bounced harmlessly off of it. The one in the trees moved faster than even his people, appearing in one spot only to disappear before his arrow could find its mark, then reappearing in another with no warning.