I lift her chin, look into her half-lidded eyes. “Mika! Please, God… Mika, please be okay.”
She mumbles something unintelligible.
“What? Mika, I can’t hear you.” I put my ear to her lips, so close her labored breath is like thunder.
“Above,” she whispers.
“What did she say?” Syl asks, turning in place.
“Above,” I say, confused. “We know, Mika. Above us.”
“No.” She gives her head a little shake. “Right there .” She lifts her uninjured arm, shaking violently as she points at a nearby branch. “Shoot now! ”
I don’t question her. I turn, making sure my rifle’s on assault mode with a quick brush of my finger, then I sight and fire.
The shot fires, a lance of white tearing upward. When it passes through the spot Mika indicated, something explodes. A welter of blood, almost black, appears from thin air as the arm of… Something… Is torn off at the shoulder. What can only be a scaag appears from thin air, shrieking in agony before falling from the branch. It plummets, bouncing off the trunk of the tree before hitting the ground.
“What the fuck…?”
Syl crosses, standing above it. It looks like an ape, but it’s green, and more powerfully muscled than anything that exists on Earth. Its claws are short, but I don’t think it needs them; arms like logs look like they could rip me in half effortlessly. Its tiny eyes are closed in a rictus of pain and its mouth is open, baring long, filthy teeth.
I kneel over it, fascinated and horrified. This thing is an absolute unit, and if there dozens, hundreds more of them…
It’s eyes open, dart to me. Before I can stumble back, one giant hand lifts, reaching for my head.
With one long claw, Syl pierces it’s skull, so fast I barely see her move. She tears through its brain and the scaag spasms, fingers taut and hanging an inch from my face.
I fall back on my ass, swallowing. “Shit. Thanks.” I can almost feel its sausage fingers choking the life from me.
Syl nods, scales paler than normal, face grim.
“Uh…” I swallow against a mouth like sandpaper. “That thing was… Invisible. Until I shot it.”
“Yes,” she says, somehow looking grimmer.
“Are they usually invisible? Like, is that normal?”
“No. The scaag are an army, mindless with fury, and they kill anything that sets foot in this place. But nothing I have ever read or seen indicated that they could move unseen.”
“Evolution?” Mika croaks, reaching for me with one hand. Her other arm hangs useless at her side.
“Perhaps,” Syl says. “It has been a long time, hundreds of years, since we attempted to harvest anything from here.”
“No,” I say, hefting Mika. She seems stronger, and bends to pick up Inferno, but her eyes are pinched with banked pain. “No,” I repeat. “It’s this place. The citadel. Testing with us.” I grit my teeth, suddenly so angry at how stupid this is, at the sight of Mika injured, that I want to fight. To kill. “Fucking with us.”
Judging by the riot of sound above us, it won’t be long until I have my chance.
Syl cocks her head. “Something occurs, Mika. You guided Sam, knew where the scaag scout watched from. How?”
Mika shrugs, looks tired but ready to fight even with one arm hanging limp. “Same way I can tell where there are runes on the wall. It was more like a glowing outline, like a signature. But I could see it.”
“Then you are our eyes,” Syl says solemnly. “You will guide our weapons.”
Mika laughs, a little crazed. “Yeah. Great.”
“This is as good a place as any.” We’ve luckily come to rest in a small clearing, maybe twenty feet across, but above us is an open gap of sky, and the trees around us are far enough apart that the long fronds don’t blot it out.
A sky that’s completely alien. Two suns, one far larger than the other, hang directly above us. They’re framed by long purple clouds like billowing snakes that trail across a sky as blue as that on Earth. Which is almost more disconcerting. We’re on an alien world. I feel like the sky should be bright green or something.
Mika’s not looking up, though. Her eyes are on me, taking in my naked chest, and despite the pain she’s obviously in, a little smile tugs at her lips. “Pretty romantic, ripping off your shirt to save me. Nice, view, too.”
I laugh, a sound almost drowned out by the approaching scaag. “I don’t know if you’re crazy, or high off sap, but I think I like it.”
Syl eyes us speculatively. “If we survive this, I will enjoy mating with you both.”
I cough, my quip to Mika forgotten. “Yeah, lets, ah… Let’s survive. Then.”
Mika doesn’t answer, but she shifts her gaze to Syl’s lithe body and lingers there.
No time to think on that. The scaag are all around us. “Mika?”
She turns a slow circle, eyes everywhere. “Groups of two or three. Most of them are in the trees, but… There,” she says, pointing. “Three of them, creeping from the tree line.”
I squint at the spot she indicates but can’t see anything. Fear bubbles up my throat, squeezing it tight, and I take deep breaths, try to school it. I flip my rifle to shotgun mode. “I can’t see them.”
“Nor I,” Syl whispers. “But that is no concern, now. What is, is. Mika will tell us where they are, and we will kill them.” She grins, bares her fangs. “Like this.”
With that, she explodes forward, from stillness to motion in a blink. She flicks her tongue forward in a long arc as she goes. It extends so far I can’t understand where the hell she keeps it; stretching it at least five feet, she whips it from side to side, and I can’t understand what she’s doing until it smacks wetly against something that’s not there. Something invisible.
Oh.
Syl’s a dervish, following just behind her tongue with claws extended, punching them into the body of a scaag that appears the moment she pierces it. The creature shrieks, spraying spittle in Syl’s face, trying to reach up to grapple her. She pulls her claws free, ducks its outstretched arms. Her hands are blades she stabs into its belly and groin, and she lifts it above her head. It’s ridiculous, incredible; the scaag is at least three times her size. She whips it above her head, throwing it forward, and it flies a scant few feet before slamming into something invisible and bouncing off. Syl doesn’t hesitate, erupts forward, and a moment later another scaag lays dead at her feet, twitching as it slides from her claws.
“The third one is running away,” Mika says, awed.
“God damn .” She killed them both in less than ten seconds. “Syl, you’re incredible. ”
She turns to us, dripping gore, and smiles a smile that makes me fucking happy we’re her clan, now. Her scales lighten, just a bit, drawing my eyes along her shining curves. A blush? “Thank you, Sam.”
It is a blush. That my words caused it, after what she just did… I shake my head. What an odd creature. Woman. Alien.
“Behind us,” Mika whispers. “Four more. Clearing the tree line, just there.”
I put a hand up. “I got it, this time. Mika, tell me when they’re close.”
Syl returns, stands above us as I crouch, take aim. Almost as soon as she reaches us, she darts away again, and I can hear the slap of her tongue just before something else dies messily.
Mika crouches next to me, breath labored but steady at my ear. “They’re being cautious, watching Syl. Wait for it…. Wait…”
I grimace, finger wet against the trigger. Mika’s hand is hot against my back, fingers slightly curved, tense with anticipation. The clearing is still, almost quiet but for the scaag that remain in the upper trees. Syl moves again somewhere behind us, and there’s another wet gurgle as her claws find another target.
I want to ask how she can tell where they are, how she’s killing them, but I don’t dare. Mika’s breathing stops as she holds her breath, and I know the scaag are close. I have to wait until they’re in range, and anticipation twists me up i
nside. It’s so simple for Syl… How does she do it?
And then my eyes drop low.
The scrub. It moves, smashed flat as the scaag stalk toward us. Only teen feet away, max.
Of course. They may be invisible, but they’re still here .
Mika opens her mouth to warn me, but I’m already firing.
The air in front of my rifle tears itself to shreds. It’s as if I’ve opened a portal to a world of blood and bone, summoned an explosion of gore. Four scaag are torn to bloody slag, their bodies and bones liquefied. My shot even tears a furrow through the ground, lighting bits of scrub on fire before sloshing blood instantly puts it out.
Syl flows behind us, halting with a hand to each of our shoulders before the last bit of scaag hits the ground. “Sweet broodmother,” she whispers.
“Goddamn right,” I grin, standing. “Mika?”
She turns a slow circle, silent for long moments. “They’re all around us, but they’re not moving. Just watching.”
“Good,” I say, checking my rifle. It’s still recharging, and I wish I knew how long it’d take, wish I’d tested it more back at the arena. “Gonna take me a moment to be ready for another shot.”
“I do not know if the scaag are stupid enough to attack after such a display,” Syl says, still sounding a bit awed. “But now is our chance to plan our escape.”
“Seize the day, eh?” I scan the tree line, wonder again which way is which.
“Seize… How does one seize–”
“Never mind,” Mika winches, cradling her still useless arm. “Syl, how long does it take for this to wear off?”
Syl frowns. “It doesn’t. Your arm is poisoned, and soon it will die. In a few hours, you will begin to hallucinate as the tree’s sap slowly works into your bloodstream. If we have not cut the infected arm from you by then, you will go mad, and it will drive you into a base frenzy. You will forget your everything you have ever known in your need to mate with anything living. You will mate until you die of exhaustion, and where you fall, a new tree will grow. All that you infect with your poisoned fluids will go mad themselves, spreading their seed and rot, perpetuating this forest of death.”
Mika’s mouth works. “Oh. Good.”
There’s something in Syl’s words that halts me despite the situation. Pain. “Syl…How long does she have?”
She turns away, scanning the trees. “Hours, perhaps.”
I glance to my wrist. 01:31:45 “Well, then look at the bright side. We’ll be in the convalescence field long before then. Or the Shepherd will come.” I wink at her. “Either way, I don’t have to worry about death by snu snu.”
Mika closes her eyes a moment, chuckles. “That’s comforting. I think.”
“Snu snu?” Syl asks, baffled.
“Never mind. The scaag?”
“They’re still around us,” Mika says, voice low. “Just watching. I think your gun scared the shit out of them.”
“I will get the lay of the land,” Syl says, eyes on the treetops. “Protect yourselves in my absence.”
“Absence?” I check my rifle. Fully charged. “Where are you going?”
Syl points upward.
“How? Won’t the sap mess you up?”
“Yes, which is why I will avoid it. My tongue is resistant to it, as are my claws.”
I eye her skeptically. “Can you climb one of those with just your claws and… Tongue?”
“No,” she grins. “But you can help me. Follow.”
I trade a confused glance with Mika, then shrug, following her to the tree line. Around us, the scaag shuffle and hoot in low menace. “Mika?”
“Group right there,” she whispers. “I think they’re…. They’re about to charge.”
“Time to teach them another lesson, then,” I say, turning. This time, I don’t wait, just aim where she indicates. I pull the trigger, and the sound is thunderous as the air before me turns to fire.
The scaag shriek, caught at the edge of the blast, and five of them appear from nowhere, their fur bursting into flame. They flee into the forest, howling in pain and fury as one of them falls, his body melting.
They're not my only casualty. One of the tree’s fat trunks is blasted into splinters, and it slowly teeters, starts to fall. “Look out!” I shout, pushing Syl and Mika forward.
It falls with a mighty crash just behind us, spraying bits of dirt and brush upward in a mighty arc. We duck under, and I shield the women with my arms as bits of sod and bramble shower us.
“Sap? Did any hit you?” Mika asks, turning me and running her hand over my back.
“No,” I say, trying to look backward over my shoulder and failing. There’s no numbness, no sting. There are about twenty little nicks and scratches from the flying splinters, but overall, I got super fucking lucky. “Okay, so that was dumb. No more lumberjack games for me.”
“Syl!” Mika shouts again, but she’s only greeted by the sound of battle and death from the forest. It sounds distant. “Shit! She left us.”
My back aches, but the pain already dulls, and I can still move. “What do we do?”
“I have no idea,” she says, sounding half pissed and half panicked. “I can’t believe she left us.”
“Scaag?”
“Everywhere. They’re watching, but they’re… Crap!” She leaps forward, brings Inferno down like a hammer. The gem explodes with flame as it bashes into something, a scaag whose forward charge dies instantly as Mika’s strike rips through its head. Its momentum takes it forward a few more steps, bowling the two of us over before it crashes into the underbrush behind us in a flaming heap.
I stand, pull Mika up. “Jesus.”
She staggers against me, Inferno still blazing like a little star. “Yeah!” She shouts in fury, holding her staff above. “You see that? You see this?” She nods at my rifle. “Don’t fuck with us!”
I shake my head in wonder. “What happened to the shy girl I met… Well, a few hours ago, I guess.” Jesus, it feels like ages.
Mika plants Inferno in the dirt, and even filthy and swaying with one arm useless, she looks badass. “I don’t know. But new Mika is pissed. ”
I bump her with my shoulder. “I like new Mika.”
“You know? I think I do, too.”
I watch the ground, finger on my trigger. “Where’s Syl?”
“Here,” the alien says from just behind us.
I spin, almost fire at her in panic. “God dammit, Syl, Stop doing that!”
“What?” she asks. She’s completely covered in gore, and her chest heaves huge breaths, but she’s smiling.
“Sneaking up on us! Haring off to fight alone!” Mika shouts, as angry as I’ve ever seen her. “We are clan, remember? You don’t leave us behind to fight on your own!”
Syl seems genuinely baffled, taking a step back before straightening. When she speaks, she’s not angry, not like Mika, but her tone is deadly. “My people are a race of warriors. In battle, there is not always time to discuss plans like old matrons. You sense opportunity, to fight, to kill, to send a message to your enemy,” she says, indicating her blood-spattered scales. “You seize it, or you die.”
“That’s fantastic. Lovely. Except, we’re human.” I close my eyes, try to control anger borne of desperation. I have to make her understand. “We haven’t fought with you, don’t know your ways.”
Syl grits her teeth, doesn’t seem convinced. “The worthy survive.”
Fantastic. That doesn’t solve shit. I grit my teeth. There must be a way to get this through her head.
“We don’t have time to discuss this, now,” Mika says. “The scaag are grouping up. They’re gonna try something.”
“This way,” Syl says, reaching to tug us along. We slip through a few more trees, come to smaller clearing.
“They’re following, staying back,” Mika says. “Still at least twenty of them, though. They’re ringing us.”
“Syl, now would be a great time to let us in on this plan of yours,” I s
ay, trying to aim everywhere at once. I raise my rifle above my head, shake it at the forest. I feel like an idiot, but if it reminds the scaag why they want to stay the hell away from us, I can deal with that.
Syl looks skyward, and then hisses in something like approval. It’s hard to tell, with her, if it's just some random alien snake noise or communication. She turns, takes us in. “Your weapon is recharged, yes? You are capable of defending yourselves?”
“Oh no,” Mika says. “You’re not popping off again, not without telling us what the hell you’re up to.”
Syl narrows her eyes. “Yes. Communication. Fine. I’m going to climb one of these trees, attempt to discern our location. This forest is vast, but there are several rivers that bisect it. If I remember my schooling correctly, to the north my people have a series of outposts, set up long ago to monitor scaag activity. They are the only landmarks of note near the forest.”
“Sounds promising.” I frown. “No offense, but I can barely remember the lay of the land where I grew up. If you’ve never been here, how do you know your way around so well?”
“We will never visit Threvia, so we are taught. Extensively.” Syl looks away. “To remember.”
Mika opens her mouth to ask another question, but I still her with a hand to her wrist. Syl doesn’t look like she wants to talk about it, and we don’t have time to ask.
Mika gives me a hugely exaggerated wink. Got it.
Oh man. She’s losing it fast.
“Sounds as good a place to start as any,” she says, a little too loud.
“Yeah.” In every trial so far, the path was clear, and it was obvious where to go. This time, lost in a jungle with no clear indicators as to a path… “We need to find the exit door, and considering how much time we’ve been given, I doubt it’s on some random tree near where we started.” My plate reads 01:22:17. “Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing else close? Any other possible location we could work toward? A mine with precious minerals? A quarry manned by your mortal enemy? Any other place you could think of that the Citadel would put the exit?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she says, still looking skyward. “The jungle is vast, unchanging. Judging by the climate, I hope we’re near the northern end, near my people. If we’re not…” She shrugs.
Aspirant: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 15