Oratus

by A. R. Knight

  She has no doubt those stumps are going to tear Gray to pieces. Would tear her to pieces too.

  Gray’s eyes snap open as the vines pick him up. He struggles, but the vines have him taut. Those claws, wet and ready in the rain, can’t move. He tries to lash his tail and it bounces off his living manacles. Which leaves Gray with one option - his own mouth.

  His teeth are razors, and they act as such. Gray’s neck is long enough to get him within snapping distance of the vines holding his foreclaws, and with a couple of quick, tearing bites he gets part of himself back.

  That’s all she needs to see. Gray’s fighting, and she’s not going to stand here any more and let him die.

  The Mossox sends another batch of green forth, a twisting onslaught of leafy doom, but before it reaches Gray, she leaps in between, her four claws, two talons, and one mouth enacting a visceral demolition that covers her in sticky plant juice, her scales sporting a borrowed emerald skin.

  Without really trying, she’s managed to cut Gray free, a fact becomes readily apparent when her friend - the term slides through without her stopping it - jumps past her straight at the Mossox’s still churning grinder.

  Gray, though, times his leap right and jumps up and over the rocky teeth, landing instead in another nest of vines. Here, though, the length of those tendrils works against them, as by the time those long green hairs manage to orient to Gray’s position, he’s cutting them down by the forest-full.

  Whether through panic or anger, the Mossox rears up, its root-like legs visible now that their vine cover is gone, and she sees the mottled pink underbelly of the creature. Where, just hours ago, she’s carved herself breakfast. This one makes for a big target, and it’s not one she’s going to miss.

  She takes a quick two-talon step, then leaps into a four-claw grip on the beast’s underside, setting to work like Gray taught her - with reckless abandon. This works for all of a second before the Mossox calibrates to its precarious position and plunges its front back down. She doesn’t know if Gray’s still on its back, but she’s coming real close to the ground.

  The Mossox’s front legs hit with a bone-rattling shake, and now she’s tearing not to kill the thing but to survive. Either she gets through, or the Mossox, sinking lower into the ground, is going to crush her into nothing. Her tail feels the pressure first - the unrelenting solid earth. This certain death drives her into a frenzy, a red-hued state of sheer twitching muscle and frothing anger that sends all of her pushing, raging towards her own survival.

  7 To The Mountain

  Daylight came back in strips and slashes. A dull gray glow filtering through the greasy wet coating her eyes, her scales, her everything. Except her vents, which gulp in the bits of fresh air that flow through the offal to her, and this gives her strength to move again. This hurts, and there’s snaps and creaks as her bones and muscles realize that they’re not quite dead yet, but they’re awfully close.

  “Are you alive?” A voice she doesn’t expect, but, after a second’s hesitation, welcomes.

  “Bronze,” she hisses. “Here. Underneath.”

  That’s all she has the air for, but that’s all she needs to say. The tearing intensifies, and soon she’s seeing eight sets of claws ripping away the dead Mossox’s remains. It feels similar to breaking out of the sac, like being born, only this time she emerges barely alive instead of fresh and ready. Gray has to help her stand in the middle of the great beast.

  The storm, having decided to plague other parts of the planet, leaves a glistening sheen on everything which, in the afternoon light, makes the forest appear golden. Mist rising from the ground as it warms back up, and where the fog catches the light, haphazard rainbows form. It would be enchanting if she had the mind for such things. As it is, though, she’s twitching her claws, her talons, her tail.

  Some are chipped, all are sore, but being pressed flat against the ground hasn’t ruined her.

  Gray notices her examination and offers up a light hiss, “You didn’t need to come back for me.”

  “I know,” she replies. “I did it because we need you.”

  She says this last part loud enough for Bronze to catch; the big Oratus is prowling around the edges of the Mossox, occasionally snapping bits of thick hide and sticking it into his mouth. Foraging their kill. He ignores her, which sparks a snarling fire in her gut.

  “Why did you run?” she lurches towards Bronze, though whatever intimidation she’s going for stumbles along with her left leg, and Gray has to catch her. Still, her vents work, her mouth moves, so she keeps going. “You didn’t even turn back. Not once.”

  “I’m here, so clearly I came back,” Bronze replies, tearing at another scrap of flesh. “I knew we were being pursued, and expected you both to keep up with me.”

  “You ran.”

  Now Bronze looks back at her, and she sees the same dangerous glint Bronze had when she first met him fighting Gray. The Oratus has pride, and she’s able to wound it. As she’s considering this, she feels a tap on her tail. Gray. She catches him in her left eye and sees caution on those scratched, cracked scales.

  Neither of them are up for another fight. Coward or no, Bronze could tear them apart if he wishes.

  “I scouted ahead. Not my fault you’re not as fast,” Bronze replies, but leaves the end of the sentence hanging, an opening for her to cut in a reply. To swing the argument over the edge.

  She closes her eyes for a moment. Those flaring coals inside her still want to push forward, consequences be damned, but no. It’s not her right to push Gray into this, and there’s a kernel of very real, very sharp fear deep inside. She’s not ready to die yet, not after she’s just come back. So she allows her vents to breathe out her own anger.

  “Just, next time, wait?” She offers.

  A peace offering. Keeps her pride and his intact.

  “I will,” Bronze accepts the exchange.

  They relax, and, the immediate hazard of the moment passing, the three of them set gorging themselves on the feast they’ve made for themselves.

  “How did you know?” She asks Bronze as they finish. “You were running differently before it attacked?”

  “This.” Bronze again shows his bracelet. “After we ate the small ones, I searched for them. Found that they tend to travel in groups, with larger ones protecting, avenging their young. And if you had listened, beyond the thunder, you would have heard it coming.”

  “So you knew, and didn’t tell us?” Gray counters, getting a bit of fire back.

  For the first time, Bronze falters. His mouth hangs there. His vents suck in some air, but no words come out. Until he glances towards the bracelet again, “This thing is hard to describe. It’s like a fog that covers your mind. Once I’d found what was after us, I kept digging, trying to learn how to get away, what it would do if it caught us... and I started to run. I only realized you weren’t with me when the storm broke away.”

  She’s thinking that, perhaps, Bronze couldn’t be trusted with the bracelet if he can’t keep himself under control, but before she can put that thought to words, Bronze turns his back to them and gestures onward. Says they ought to get moving if they want to make some progress before real nightfall comes again. She stores the thought for later, but she’s going to take a second look at everything Bronze does from now on.

  The going is slow now, what with her and Gray shambling rather than loping along. Every step sends twinges from myriad places racing up and down her nerves; tiny aftershocks from the quake her body endured. As the anger at Bronze fizzles away, the adrenaline goes with it, leaving her struggling to keep going as the daylight shifts more and more towards that purple orange pastel.

  At least the scenery changes here at the edge of the jungle - the ferns make a gradual shift to long, wavy grass as the covering trees add spacing and then vanish entirely. She sees why - behind them, the jungle’s wide valley is visible, but here the plateaus slant down into a wide plain. The wind is picking up, blowing cool air against
her scales. Fluttering insects hop from stalk to stalk, while darting, leather-winged creatures snatch others for dinner. Batches of woolly-pink seedlings drift along the air, and she sets her foreclaws to the task of keeping her eyes and vents clear.

  The Mountain juts up without interference in front of them. The plain doesn’t go far before rising to its foothills, and then the peak - now obscured by some remaining storm clouds. They’re close. Up there, on that gray monolith, waits her name.

  And she’s going to get it.

  8 The Last Trial

  They spend the night around a pool of muddy water. It’s not elevated, but the grass is tall enough to provide some cover and Bronze, checking his bracelet, doesn’t think there’s many predators out here. At least, none that would tangle with three Oratus. She’s grateful for the rest, and when dawn comes, she’s reluctant to move. Until she sees Gray pointing to the distance, towards the Mountain.

  “Today,” Gray hisses. “Today we make it up to the top. Today we earn our names.”

  “Do you think it’ll be that easy?” She says. “The climb? Then we’re done?”

  Gray doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t press him. They’re still sore, hungry, and she doesn’t care to start an argument. But she keeps an eye turned up there, to the peak touching the cloudless sky, as she stretches out. Bronze declares it’s time to go and, with nothing to pack up, they leave.

  Without the snarl of trees and ferns, the run goes easy and hours pass as they roll through the plain and up into the foothills. Up to where the grass gets shorter and the ground rockier. Where the purple flowers and white-tipped stalks give way to a darker scale. The bugs and leather-winged things disappear.

  They keep going; their destination too close to stop now. She feels the Mountain looming, its bulk curling towards her every so slightly, so that it seems as if the peak is directly overhead.

  It’s what she’s staring at when her talons hit something that’s not ground. Something hard, that shrieks an unnatural sound as her right talon slides along it. The noise makes her look down in the dirt at the slab of faded yellow metal that she’s landed on. The rocky black dirt is busy reclaiming the thing, but the corner she struck is still making a play for the air. The tip is oranged-over with rust, and there are charred streaks mingling with the yellow paint.

  “Where do you think that came from?” She asks Gray and Bronze.

  “I would talk with the bracelet, but I don’t know what to ask,” Bronze replies.

  He’s unsettled. Tense at the sudden twist to their plans. She wonders if he’ll run again, like with the Mossox.

  She looks at Gray and pauses. There’s something moving up his back, a bright blue circle crawling up his spine, traveling towards the back of his head. Gray, though, has his eyes on the metal plate, as if he recognizes it. She can’t ignore the circle, though.

  “Gray,” she starts as the circle centers on the back of Gray’s head.

  “Let’s see what’s beneath,” Gray says and lurches forward towards her, crouching towards the plate. In the same instant, there’s a high-pressure whine and a brief flash. The ground behind Gray glows hot white before the rocks themselves melt into sludge.

  There’s no hesitation.

  All three of them scatter. Instincts take hold, call for her to take cover, to find somewhere to hide. Except the only thing here are slate rocks and cliff edges. A steep slope and nothing more.

  The sparse cover goes for the shooters and she sees them now; they’ve crept around the bend, a small group of four things, and one of them has an awfully long, metal weapon, but other than the fact that it’s aiming her way, she’s not sure what it is. She spots the blue circle tracking towards her, and she jumps as it gets close. There’s another flash and more molten splotches appear where she stood a second ago.

  “We have to close,” Bronze roars and the big Oratus begins to jump and claw his way up the Mountain.

  For once, she agrees with Bronze. She pushes with her tail as she jumps, the extra push adding another couple of meters to the move. Her claws scrabbled as she lands, gripping into the hard soil and pulling herself the mountainside towards the foursome. She hears Gray behind her, skittering on the rock.

  It hits her that this is first time she’s actually hunting. Chasing after prey, and even if these things are deadly there’s no doubt in her mind that they are just that: prey. A thrilling flurry flickers through her muscles. She accelerates the climb, keeping her eyes locked on the target. The one holding a long weapon, the one now angling towards her. As she gets closer, out of the shadows she can see its mottled brown and red skin, with scraggly feathers sticking out from its arms and body. One bright green eye looking up from its bulbous head, the spot where its second should be only a tan-scarred gash.

  As fast as she’s going, though, there’s still no cover. The creature has her zeroed.

  A rock flies hard and fast and strikes the creature in its right arm. It drops the weapon, its harm hanging limp, as the rock bounces back down the Mountain. She doesn’t hesitate - she’ll thank either Gray or Bronze later. No sense in giving her prey a chance to recover. Another quick lunge with her talons and then she gathers her legs and leaps up towards the outcropping where the foursome waits. As she swings over the top, she keeps moving her tail and bashes the first one back in the cliff wall behind them.

  The other three creatures look at her. She’s alone up here, even through Bronze started further up the Mountain. Where is he?

  She banishes the thought in favor of instinct, as the creatures are moving. She presses on to the one that’d held the weapon and shoves it to the ground. She sees, in its face, a sad defiance. She hesitates. She should be sweeping through the prey without a second thought. Yet this one, and the one she’s pinning to the rock with her tail, is pitiful. Up close it’s clear these things are sick, weak and struggling.

  These are pieces of meat, not creatures worthy of her efforts.

  The other two, the ones she thought Bronze would handle, are cowering now. Sinking back against the cliff wall and holding each other. Gray catches up to her then, and she can see two other rocks in his claws ready to release. He lands in front of the fearful pair and they, like the one beneath her, make him pause.

  “What are you?” She says to the one under her talons.

  “We are the last trial,” the scene speaks in a raspy, dry voice, and then breaks into a broken-hearted laugh.

  9 Inside the Rock

  “The last trial?” She asks. Bronze and Gray never told her anything about trials.

  The creature slides one eye towards her claw, the one pinning him to the rocks. She lifts it, slightly. Adjust its points to angle right towards the creature’s thick throat. No uncertainty as to the consequences of an escape attempt.

  “Were the last trial,” the creature croaks. “We used to be all over this mountain. Fortifications, squads and gear all set up to give you monsters what you deserved.. To prove that we were better.”

  “Better than who?”

  “Better than you,” the thing replies. Then it laughs again. “You want to see what your quest gets you? Look at us. Every one of you that succeeds sends more of us to lives like this. Every name you earn strips one from us.”

  She glances at Gray, whose returning the same confused look. No help there. She turns back.

  “I don’t know what you are, but you tried to shoot us. Why?”

  “Because they think you’re perfect now, so they’ve forgotten about us. There’s nothing left to do but die slow and take as many of you with us as we can.”

  She’s too far gone into thought, doesn’t catch it right away as the creature rolls out from under her claw. Plunges towards the rifle. But she’s too fast, he’s too slow. Too weak. She doesn’t want to kill, but she can’t stop herself. It’s an instinctual strike; her claws make a quick slice and now there’s some red rocks on this mountain. The other three rock back, somehow pressing themselves even deeper into the rock. />
  “I don’t know,” Gray hisses, apparently unconcerned with her casual murder. “If we leave them alive, they might come after us.”

  She looks at the trio. They seem about as dangerous as dirt, but she agrees with Gray, so she takes the dead creature’s weapon. Bends it, breaks it with a creaking crack. Splits those halves smaller with her claws, then throws the tiny pieces behind her down the mountain.

  “Now they are no threat,” she says to Gray. “We can be better than animals.”

  Gray doesn’t object, though he does give one last dead stare back at the three creatures before the two of them begin climbing on the ledge and up the Mountain. Bronze is nowhere to be seen. He must’ve gone straight up, not even waiting a moment for them.

  “When we find him, he’s mine to kill,” Gray says as they climb.

  “I won’t stop you.”

  It’s still a gentle grade up. Lots of chipped rock, and in shadowed clefts of soil small plants struggle for light. A trail comes out of the rubble, smooth, crushed rocks more well trod, and it leads to an opening not far above them. A cave that heads down into the mountain. Not up, towards the peak.

  “Should we scale outside?” She asks.

  Gray glances up. The mountainside gets steeper and steeper until they would be straight climbing, depending on their claws and soft enough rock to keep going. “I don’t see Bronze, which means he went inside,” Gray says.

  Suppose there’s that too. For her part, she’d like to carve a piece of the coward as much as Gray, but she also wants to find out why he left. What’s the point of joining up with them only to leave every time they get into a conflict?

  Pursuing Bronze takes a temporary precedence over the peak, and the two of them step into the cave. It’s not all that dark; small glowing lights are embedded in the walls. They emit a soft yellow that glistens off the smooth insides, which are far too clean and rounded. Nothing natural. She sees more metal as they move, supports built to keep the tunnel up. After spending a couple of nights in the jungle and plains, it feels strange to be back among more artificial things. Yet everything she sees tickles her senses, knowledge on the edge of her mind.