by M. G. Herron
“Andale!” I shouted over the frightened sound of the Torlik boy, now crying as he cowered behind his father. “Come at me, you ugly, oversized roosters!”
That seemed to catch their attentions. All three of the multi-hued raptors whipped around and stared at me.
Their intelligent eyes chilled my blood, but I stood my ground and snapped the cloak again, drawing the gold raptor after me and away from the father and his child.
The crimson Jel’ka took a few steps closer to me. I backed up as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough. The Jel’ka lunged and ripped the cloak out of my hands as I brought it down over his head, spinning away. The second raptor snapped out and ripped a chunk of cotton out of my shirt with his teeth. At the same time, a stinging sharp heat sliced down my side, and although I made it out the med unit door, it was with three bright red slashes burning across my ribs.
As I stumbled back into the practice track, I came nose to snout with three more of the brightly feathered Jel’ka.
A whip cracked from the direction of the stables, causing more Jel’ka to spill out onto the track. They cast up a haze of dust as they headed in my direction.
“Gunn!” Anna shouted from the med unit doorway. “Look out!”
Her warning was redundant, but I couldn’t spare a second to tell her that. “A little help here!” I said instead.
I thought about retreating back into the med unit, but my way was cut off by the first three raptors who had found us. Besides, even if I did make it there, the Jel’ka’s eyes were all fixed on me now. They would follow me, and then everyone in there would be in danger.
So I moved toward the only corner that was open to me, searching for a weapon I could use to defend myself.
I grabbed a length of wood from a pile of exercise equipment, spinning it in my hands to test its weight. When the next Jel’ka charged, I jumped aside and rapped him on the head with the staff.
It just seemed to piss him off.
I danced backward, parrying a swipe of his claws with the staff, then dodging a head-butt from another raptor to my right.
Back and back they pressed me, pushing me into the corner—corralling me, I realized.
Looking over my shoulder, I noticed that the rectangular sewer grate in the corner was just a few feet behind me now. The lock had been removed, the lid pried open.
Through the opening, it was a dozen feet or more into shadow-filled darkness.
The whip cracked again. My attention was drawn to the stables. A one-eyed Torlik stood there, half-visible through the haze. He wore coveralls and a sour expression.
“Yarnow,” I growled.
Who else had unfettered access to the Jel’ka? I’d been so focused on finding the Pangozil who attacked Vinny that I hadn’t considered whether or not he had a partner on the inside.
Obviously, he did.
The whip snapped out from Yarnow’s hand and cracked in the air a third time.
The Jel’ka lunged forward, snapped their hungry jaws. One of the creatures caught my staff in its teeth and snapped it in half, leaving a jagged broken spear in my hand.
With the shortened but jagged spear, now half the original length, I dodged one Jel’ka after another. A set of claws swiped across my thigh, sending a numbing heat up my leg. I broke out in cold sweats, realizing for the first time that no one else could make it through the Jel’ka to help me. I could see a blonde head bobbing in my peripheral vision, but she was too far away to make a difference.
In reaction to the shocking numbness of the raking claws that had cut through my jeans, I kicked out, sending a little raptor—possibly a younger Jel’ka—toward the opening in the floor that I was using to keep the Jel’ka off my back.
He scrabbled for dear life, diving sideways to avoid falling into the open pit.
I had only a moment to wonder what was down there. When I looked back up, the Jel’ka had surrounded me on every side. Saliva dripped from gleaming teeth. Feathers quivered. Claws flexed.
The largest of them stepped forward. The others stopped attacking, apparently giving their leader room to make the kill. He flexed his muscular legs, then bounded forward.
I brought the splintered wooden rod up as I fell back into darkness. The brightly feathered predator followed me down.
The wind was knocked out of me when we struck the stone floor together, the raptor on top of me.
There was a wet squelching sound as the sharpened stake I was holding impaled the Jel’ka.
Then a sharp crack as a bone in my right arm near my wrist, bearing most of the raptor’s weight, snapped.
Pain flooded my entire being.
I opened my mouth in a silent scream.
20
I’m pretty sure the pain of my radius snapping in half was the only thing that kept me conscious.
The Jel’ka struggled, thrashing on top of me. I gripped the end of the staff embedded in his chest with my other hand as blood seeped over my knuckles. Eventually, after what seemed an agonizing eternity, the creature exhaled a wet, wheezy death rattle and went limp.
It was a bloody miracle.
Hardy har har, I guffawed internally.
The pain, it seemed, was making me loopy.
I remained pinned to the ground beneath the Jel’ka for seconds of relative quiet following the creature’s death while I gaped for breath. It felt like a linebacker had fallen asleep on top of me, so densely muscled was the creature’s body. I twisted my hips, heaving the dead weight to the side, and off of me.
At last, my chest expanded to its full capacity and, with a choking inhalation, I drew a draft of rancid air into my lungs.
I kicked myself away from the dead Jel’ka, worried that it might gain a second life and turn to tear my throat out with its knifelike teeth. I’d had enough surprises today. I didn’t want to chance it.
When the Jel’ka didn’t rise, I finally struggled to a seated position, still gasping in ragged breaths. A lance of pure, white pain shot through my arm to the shoulder when I accidentally put weight on my right palm, sucking air through my teeth as I tried to control the pain, to focus.
I continued to watch the dead Jel’ka warily, though it still didn't move.
This was the second creature to die in as many days. Rashiki would not be pleased, and I wasn’t happy about it either. If it hadn’t been a matter of life or death, I wouldn't have even considered harming the beautiful beast.
There’d be time to worry about Rashiki’s losses later. At the moment, I had more pressing problems—like the hissing, snapping sounds that echoed down from above me, bouncing off the walls of the cave.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that I was in a room roughly squarish in shape, cut from the rock as if by a giant spinning blade. Wave-like marks marred the walls. Three were otherwise flat, but the remaining wall was pockmarked with cave-like openings.
On the floor nearby, a dark red stain led to the hollow closest to the floor. Like a large brush had drawn a streak of brown paint from where I sat into that darkness.
My stomach turned as—through the fog of my pain—a whiff of iron mixed with the sweet scent of rot, made its way to my nostrils.
I gulped audibly.
That blood came from somewhere.
The world spun around me for a moment. I had to shake my head against the pain and disorientation and brace myself on the stone beneath me.
“Fuck.” The expletive was a feeble resistance. I needed a doctor. I needed to get the hell out of this place.
Overhead, the Jel’ka were edging around the opening I’d fallen through, peering down into the pit, obviously agitated that they couldn’t reach me.
None of them seemed eager to jump down, though. Not to get at me, or to avenge their dead companion.
Huh. That was strange.
Or was it? My eyes were drawn back down to the dark streak of blood. Maybe it wasn’t so strange after all. They didn’t seem like stupid creatures. Alien, yes. Not of this worl
d? Certainly.
But stupid? Not a chance.
They weren’t coming down here for a reason. And when I realized what that reason was, my intellect piercing through the pain, chills crawled down my back and arms.
“Anna!” I shouted. “Hix, Rashiki, somebody! I’m down here!”
No one responded. Not sure if anyone even heard me. There was shouting in the distance, lots of it. Then a crash, like someone had rammed a car into the wall. How did they get a car up there? I hadn’t seen any cars, unless you counted Rashiki’s floating pod. A whip cracked in the distance. One by one, the Jel’ka I could see in the square opening overhead turned and peeled away, disappearing from my sight.
I took a deep breath to sigh in relief, but swallowed it. I wasn’t out of dodge yet.
I looked around the stone cavern. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the pale walls, which reflected a feeble light coming in through the opening above. There were no sources of light inside the room. The mouths of those caves in the wall I was facing were dark as midnight, draped in shadows.
Were the Jel’ka scared of the pit because Yarnow dropped naughty dinosaurs down here for punishment? Like “the shoe” in a prison, it would be an ideal place to leave a troubled inmate for a period of solitary confinement.
A heavy, invisible edge scraped against stone, and my vain hope that place was as innocuous as a prison cell evaporated like smoke.
I struggled to my feet as an alien creature—uglier than any offworlder I’d ever seen—unfolded itself from the shadows of the lowest cave, smudging the paintbrush stripe of still-wet blood.
My mind must have been moving slowly after my fall because I suddenly had a very good idea what happened to that limp goat Yarnow had been carrying.
“Anna!” I shouted, a quaver of fear ringing in my voice now. “A little help down here!”
“We can’t get to you!” she yelled back. Her voice range out this time, but it was distant. “He—AH!”
“Anna!” I shouted.
“…oh by the seven suns… in the Fetraxian pit…” That was someone else’s voice. Rashiki? Hix?
“Fetraxian pit?” I shouted back, my voice undeniably shrill this time.
Meanwhile, the creature—the Fetraxian—had finished unfolding itself.
Its body was large and slung low to the ground, heavy, bulbous. The attenuated parts I’d seen unfolding turned out to be legs, five of them, jointed in four different places so the legs bent at acute angles.
Its hide was thick and scaled and scarred all over. Long ranking lines stood out in a white contrast to the natural, dry dark green of its shell.
The scars were especially dense around what seemed to be its thick neck. Putting Rashiki’s comments to the tourists together with what I was seeing before me, I realized that Yarnow must war the vicious Jel’ka against this Fetraxian to toughen them up.
A head rocked forward on that scarred neck, picking me out across the room. Three eyes, bunched close together, gave the Fetraxian a goofy, cross-eyed expression.
There were three flat stumps in a ring around the eyes, where once deadly horns—or tusks—must have been. Whatever they were called, they had been sawed off at the base. I’d seen pictures of poached rhinos and elephants who endured similar treatment, and the hallmarks were obvious. The creature had been neutered of its best natural self-defense mechanism and turned into a kind of punching bag for the Jel’ka.
I had a moment to pity the creature. Just a moment. Then the eyes split and I realized that I was looking at both its eyes and its mouth. The massive beast bellowed at me. Rancid spittle flew across the room to speckle my face.
My pity evaporated in a cold wash of fear. Its defenses may have been stunted, but it could still murder me. A creature that large? Against a one-handed human without a real weapon to speak of? The odds were stacked against me.
And there was nowhere for me to run.
I’d experienced pain and tragedy in my life—the painful memory of losing my mother sprang to mind—but few trials in life had tested the limits of my fortitude like the past twenty-four hours. I’d never been in so much pain. I’d never felt so bone-tired.
I’d never been so scared, so completely out of my element.
Is it any surprise that in this moment, I thought of Alek and Gonzalez and Vinny? Of never again being able to share pizza and beer with them, to joke or laugh together?
I thought of the possibility of never finding out what lay in store for Anna and me. I’d already squandered so many chances with her. What if that wasted time was all the time I’d been given?
Is it any surprise that in the depths of my fear, I also saw the face of my father? My drunk widower father, who had been valiantly trying to drink himself to death on a south Texas beach since my mother died. He clung to life because of me, his estranged son, who only visited during holidays despite living a half day’s drive away.
What would happen to him if I died down here? Who would tell him I was gone? If Dad survived my funeral, dealing with the debts I left behind would surely break him.
These thoughts rang against the steel of a deep-seated desire not to die in this stinking stone pit.
I still had so much left to do. So much left undone. I couldn’t die down here. I wouldn’t.
These complex thoughts and emotions passed through me in an instant, in the time it took the Fetraxian to spew his rancid breath in my direction and draw another one.
I realized the first bellow was an attempt to scare me away. I had a moment, maybe two, to act.
Gritting my teeth and holding my injured wrist close against my body, I fell on the dead Jel’ka and found the smooth end of the staff with my good, left hand. Planting my boot on the Jel’ka’s body, I yanked hard.
It didn’t give. I yanked harder, but the shaft of the wooden rod was buried so deep in the Jel’ka’s body that I couldn’t remove it.
Sweat dripped down my forehead as the Fetraxian took a step forward.
I yanked again, with all the might my one arm and weakened body could muster, and this time a squelching sound heralded the freeing of the broken wooden half-staff.
I stumbled back as the sudden release of pressure threw me off balance. It was lucky I did. The Fetraxian—apparently recognizing that I now had a weapon—bent and bounded forward, crossing the distance in a single, giant leap. It shook the stone under our feet when it landed, before taking a swipe at me with one jointed forelimb.
Regaining my balance, I ducked under the leg and sprinted around to his back, forcing him to spin in the enclosure if it wanted to follow me.
Up close, I could see that the lowest section of the Fetraxian’s abdomen hung low to the ground, practically dragging across the stone.
I guessed that it held the weight of its most recent meal. A whole goat was a lot to digest. It also explained the lumbering slowness of its first attack. Still deadly, but if I couldn’t run away, maybe I could run circles around it, harry the Fetraxian’s flanks and give Anna and Rashiki some time to figure out a way to get me out of here.
I stopped at the beast’s rear, dodging this way and that as it swung its head around, trying to find me. It bellowed in frustration, its rancid breath filling the relatively small space, but at least this time, it was facing away from me.
The Fetraxian jumped and spun in one swift motion—faster than before. I had to leap and roll to avoid being struck, tucking my shoulder to my belly-button and coming back up to my feet at its flank again.
This time, I lashed out with the length of wood. I got past the legs and scraped at the abdomen, but my weapon didn’t even come close to scratching or breaking the thick green hide.
When it spun, I was still off balance from my attack. One of its legs caught my splintered staff and knocked it out of my hands. The blow sent me staggering toward the wall and I accidentally braced myself on my bad wrist, an instinctive reaction from not being used to dealing with the new injury.
Stars danced before
my eyes as I gasped for breath.
I managed to reach down and wrap the fingers of my good hand around the gorily slick length of wood. Ignoring the way my mind wanted to cringe away, I turned and lifted it to defend myself.
This time the bellow exiting that malodorous maw deafened me at the same time as it blew my hair back, painting my face with sticky saliva. The joints of the attenuated legs that held up the Fetraxian pressed against my shoulders.
I shoved the piece of wood into its angry, open mouth.
The Fetraxian pulled back to snap its jaws and unintentionally bit down on the sharpened spear.
It let rip a horrible, almost dog-like yelp of pain and scrambled back.
Unfortunately, in pushing itself back, its jointed legs lashed out and shoved against the wall.
And against my broken wrist.
My arm had been cocked back as I shoved the oversized splinter into the Fetraxian’s mouth. It was a bad stroke of luck and timing that my injured wrist got caught between the wall of solid limestone and the beast’s oversized and hairy foot.
Then it was my turn to scream as the Fetraxian ground the bones in my wrist and hand into a thousand tiny pieces.
The creature lashed its massive body around the pit, slamming me violently against the walls before finally retreating back into one of the caves.
That was the last thing I saw. My head must have struck stone. I remember the world’s axis tilting, pain giving way to numbness, and a dark shade closing around me. I think I tried to call for help, but it must have been a feeble attempt.
I soon lost consciousness.
21
I woke on a double bed fitted with thin white sheets. My mouth was as dry and torn as a pair of old jeans. My tongue, a strap of leather. A plastic tube fed IV liquids into my arm. My right hand was encased in a soft bandage.
I still had the hand, and seemed to have control of it, which I took as a good sign. It burned like fire, but the pain was of a different quality—slow, throbbing in rhythm with the beat of my heart rather than the orange explosion of agony it had been when the Fetraxian crushed it.