by J. F. Lewis
Kholster spoke Tol passably, but he had never been good with the language of vibrations and tail slaps Zaur used to supplement their verbal speech. He did know one phrase well. He tapped the message out with his warpick and watched to see what the Zaur would do.
<
The lead Zaur grabbed one of the others, forcing his head toward the ground. Kholster stilled himself again, grinning wickedly from his vantage point between the trees. Years of tracking over rocky terrain or underground might have dulled his skills for the forests of his old home, but not so much so that he couldn’t outwit a few Zaur. He waited until the other Zaur looked like it was about to rise and then moved forward, using the loping, skip-like run the Aern had developed in the wars to ensure the Zaur knew who was coming for them, to repeat that same phrase with every few steps.
Bloodmane is coming. If only that were true.
*
After only a little digging, Rae’en managed to widen the air shaft enough to lean in and get a look. Holding onto the withered roots of the tree, she slid down far enough to look both ways. The root snapped, dropping her unceremoniously into the tunnel proper.
In the tunnel, Rae’en found traces of blood.
Whatever it is, in the dark our blood looks the same. Something had put up quite a fight, but this was where whatever or whoever it was had been taken down. A lance pinned a Zaur corpse to the tunnel wall.
Rae’en tugged the weapon free of the wall, bringing the dead Zaur down with it. The sight of shredded muscle, covered thickly with clotting blood, pulled at Rae’en’s senses. Her stomach grumbled hungrily. Now is not the time for the Arvash’ae, she told herself.
Perhaps only discernible due to the nearness of the Arvash’ae, Rae’en caught other scents beneath the reptilian pall. A human maybe? And some other smell. Like the half-blood in the Arena. An Oathbreaker?
Zaur never take prisoners, she thought to her Overwatches. “So where are the bodies?”
Teeth gritted, Rae’en skipped over the body of another dead Zaur. Rough gashes around the reptilian throat of the Zaur corpse showed that the creature had been garroted with a length of chain. A gentle breeze carried the earthy scent of sweat and blood through the underground passage. Rae’en’s nostrils flared; a low growl slipping past her lips.
The Arvash’ae. Early. She snarled, her mouth watering. Something about the reptilian scents was more appetizing than the most succulent cuts of beef. I should have been fine for at least another three days. Back to the vent. She forced herself to turn, teeth clenched, hands tightening around Testament’s haft to keep them from shaking.
She took one step and then another, heading back the way she came as she fumbled in her saddlebag for the soul-bonded ring on its fine chain. Out. Out. Out. Report this to Kholster. Out. Out. Out.
As her fingers searched her saddlebag in vain, she heard the first hiss.
“Scarback?” said a voice. “In my tunnels.”
There were more of them than she wanted to see, but having turned away from the air vent, she could not bring herself to turn back toward it.
Just as her questing fingers closed on a loop of the ring’s fine chain, Rae’en’s amber pupils widened slowly, inexorably, as the Arvash’ae began to take hold. Forgetting all thought of finding the ring, making a report, Rae’en charged.
*
Kholster dashed into the clearing, roaring like an irkanth. One of the Zaur rose up on its hind legs, lifted its crossbow, and fired a quarrel at him. The bolt went through his right shoulder, the tip poking out through the skin on the other side. Orange blood rushed from the wound, and a barking laugh tore free of Kholster’s throat.
“What are you doing in my forest, little lizards?” he hissed at the scouts in their own sibilant yet guttural language.
“Death to the scarback,” snarled the one that had fired the quarrel. It dropped its crossbow, drew its Skreel blade and charged on all fours. “Tear its brood father’s scars from its back!”
“These are not my father’s scars,” Kholster answered, tensing.
Skreel blades, Kholster mused. How long since we’ve seen one of those?
Nostalgia can still cut your nose off, Vander shot back.
Skreel blades of the Zaur were made for slashing, with the blade extending out from the bottom of the fist and then cutting back at a right angle almost to the elbow of an average Zaur.
I hate those things.
That’s because you’re no good with them, Vander thought. Caz likes them. Maybe you should bring him back a pair?
“For Warlord Xastix!” The others leveled their crossbows, shouted, and fired, but Kholster was no longer there.
Leg muscles stronger than any Zaur’s propelled the Aern into the air, and as he landed the sharp end of his warpick caught the Zaur leader a piercing blow to the head, driving deep into his temple. Kholster pivoted, lifting the impaled Zaur into the air, then slammed his victim into two of its comrades, pinning all three to the ground.
Kholster’s amber pupils dilated widely, almost totally obscuring the jade irises. With the first kill, Kholster felt the thrill of battle come upon him, washing the pain from his shoulder and stirring his inborn urge to kill. Some of the younger Aern called it the rashiel, a half-step between normalcy and the Arvash’ae. Kholster just thought of it as the hunger for the kill.
His field of vision expanded by thirty degrees on both sides, and all his senses sharpened. He missed the comforting weight of his warsuit, the familiar grip of his first warpick, Hunger, and the sound of his brother Aern fighting, but the battlefield was still home, even more so than any other home he’d ever known.
Kholster jerked Grudge free of the dead Zaur and kicked one of its trapped companions in the mouth as the Zaur tried to strike him. The remaining Zaur dropped to all fours and rushed him with their angular Skreel blades. Kholster laughed out loud in delight.
“I’ve missed this!” Turning to his attackers, Kholster felt two blades rake across his mail, sending yellow-white sparks into the air. One of the Zaur opened a long slash in Kholster’s forearm, a thin line of orange welling up and running down to his wrist and onto the bone-colored leather which wrapped the haft of his warpick.
I’m getting sloppy.
No. You’re playing with them, Vander sent back in reply. You’ve missed them, too.
I wonder if they still taste the same.
I hardly think they come in different flavors now, came Vander’s answering thought.
Continuing his spin, Kholster skimmed the ground with his weapon and caught the fourth Zaur in the chest with his gleaming warpick, its wicked beak punching straight through the reptile’s splint armor, where it stuck fast. He released the haft and flipped over the Zaur as the lizard collapsed. Twisting through the air, Kholster landed crouched and ready to pounce, facing the other four Zaur.
*
Rae’en’s vision narrowed, a sliver of black creeping in around the edge of her irises, eyes locked onto the Zaur watching her. She knew there was something she was supposed to do other than kill Zaur, but even after pushing herself part of the way back, she couldn’t think what it could have been.
With the tunnel curving to the left and then sharply to the right around a deposit of hard-to-work Jun stone, Rae’en knew to expect an ambush. She leapt high and swung Testament low, striking a waiting Zaur in the skull. An unconscious Oathbreaker female with blood on the chain binding her wrists was surrounded by ten Zaur. Two of the lizards, larger than the others, stared at Rae’en with luminous orange eyes. Their bright-yellow scales were dotted with a black diamond-shaped pattern. Armorless except for thick bands of steel on their lower legs and forearms, both strange Zaur charged her on all fours.
Five other Zaur fired crossbows over the heads of their charging companions. Rae’en tucked and rolled, avoiding all but one of the bolts. The lucky bolt struck high into her upper thigh. The pain would have dropped an Eldrennai to the ground; balanced on the edge of the A
rvash’ae, Rae’en stumbled but did not fall. Shifting her weight to her uninjured leg, the Aernese warrior swung Testament in a deadly defensive arc, rotating with the weapon, using its weight as counterbalance.
One yellow-scaled Zaur attempted to dart under it, but Testament’s forespike sank deep into its side, killing it instantly. The unexpected contact sent Rae’en into the cave wall, tearing her weapon from her grasp. Testament pulsed with warm yellow-green light, and the scream of the dying Zaur was eclipsed only by the triumphant sound of Testament’s irkanth roar. Rae’en’s heart soared.
Three smaller, ruddy-brown Zaur slithered along the tunnel floor toward Rae’en, Skreel blades clicking wildly against the cavern floor. Both died sizzling, horrible deaths, screeching in pain as bolts of violaceous energy struck them from the Oathbreaker’s position. Rae’en tore the crossbow bolt out her thigh and impaled the third approaching Zaur neatly through the eye with it.
As five Zaur with crossbows threw down their weapons and drew blades, the surviving yellow-scaled Zaur charged toward the Oathbreaker. She spat two more bolts of sizzling fury. One soared high above her attacker and the second scarcely missed. Hissing furiously, the unusually agile Zaur leapt upon the still-prone figure, following with twin blows to the Oathbreaker’s head. His five remaining companions held back, unwilling to engage the Aern.
“What now, scarback?” the yellow-scaled Zaur asked haughtily.
Rae’en shouted incoherently. The more thinking part of her tried to force its way back to the fore, but she was into the Arvash’ae far too deeply to pull free without eating her fill.
Rae’en clamped her jaws shut and tried not to heed the call of the warm meat of the Zaur corpse lying next to her. Her belly yowled in protest. Aern and Zaur looked simultaneously toward where Testament lay.
“That the warlord wants you alive is all that spares you,” the Zaur said savagely.
Both scrabbled for the weapon; the yellow-scaled Zaur reached it first, but Rae’en landed on his back, her fingers over his claws, and sank her teeth into his neck. The two archers, having reloaded, opened fire again. Rae’en released her grip on Testament, grabbing the Zaur by the shoulders instead and using his body as a shield.
Oh no! Blood ran from his neck wound into her mouth. I think I just—
The world narrowed to a single thing, the Arvash’ae, as her jaws closed, tearing a mouthful of muscle and scales from the dying Zaur’s neck. Focused as she was on the glorious ripping, tearing, and chewing of fresh meat to fill her stomach, she barely felt the blows raining down upon her from the four remaining Zaur.
*
“Do something useful before you die,” Kholster hissed at the Zaur again in their own tongue. “Where is this Xastix?”
Expecting no answer and not waiting for one, he grabbed a fallen Zaur’s blade and tested its weight in his right hand. Skreel blades were built exclusively for slashing strikes. Zaur warriors tried to close with their opponents, to slash with their blades, and, more importantly, to bite with their fangs. Some used spears or strange serpentine axes, but most seemed to favor the Skreel because it gave them the freedom to remain quadrupedal.
Not to be outdone, Kholster rolled forward at his foes, his right arm extended with the Skreel blade facing out. He brought it down like an ax on the neck of one of the prone Zaur as it tried to struggle out from under its fallen comrade. The blade shattered when it hit the ground, but Kholster managed to parry a quick succession of blows with the hilt before springing to his feet and dropping the hilt and the scant inch of remaining blade to the forest floor.
Arms spread wide, he beckoned to the remaining Zaur, who hissed at him in unison.
Zhan says you’re just trying to show off.
You’re relaying this, Vander?
Should I not?
The thought of his army of exiles watching their kholster battle the enemy the Aern were created to oppose made him swell with pride. No, it’s fine. Share it all.
Sound and everything?
It’s fine.
Color bleached from his vision, the scents of Zaur forest and myr grass muted as Bloodmane shared his senses with the other exiles. Burning stabs of pain announced the joining of his sensation to theirs, and he felt the presence of others in his mind, riding alongside him. This, he thought, must be what it feels like for the warsuits to be always connected.
A sea of voiceless emotion surrounded him, a wordless connection, weaker than the one he felt during a shared memory or a full-scale announcement.
I, of course, would have been able to convey color and scent without degrading my own perceptions, Vander chuckled.
If I were an Overwatch, and you my kholster, Kholster sent, then I would taunt you in a similar fashion.
Good-natured laughter echoed through the link accompanied by an overwhelming sensation of mirth from the rest of the exiles in response to the oldest debate many of them had ever known. Kholster fought the joy and focused on the task at hand. Aern would take killing Zaur over jokes any day.
“Go away, scarback,” hissed the one on the right.
“We are here for the softskins: the weeds and the magic slingers, not for you,” spat the one he’d kicked in the maw. It stood, rising up on its hind legs, and ran a careful finger over ruined fangs. Black blood trickled down its claw; it yowled in pain and sprinted off.
“Three to one.” Kholster grinned. “Tell me where I can find this Xastix and I’ll let you little lizards scurry back home.”
“We’ll take your head to him when we cut it from your dead body!” shouted a Zaur. Without any distinguishing scale markings, these Zaur all looked alike to Kholster.
Charging as one, the three Zaur lunged at him, and Kholster leapt up and over them, kicking the center one on the back of the head as they passed beneath him. While they were still turning to face him, he wrenched his warpick free of the fallen Zaur’s chest and swung it in a wide circle, leaning back slightly against its weight.
“Come on!” he shouted.
Separating, the Zaur moved to surround Kholster, just as he had known they would. With incredible speed, he stopped his turn and tossed the warpick end-over-end at the Zaur he faced, rushing after the spinning weapon as it flew. Grudge caught the surprised Zaur in the face and let loose a hawk-like battle screech, striking the reptile dead as it rose to meet Kholster. Grudge enjoyed the fight almost as much as Kholster, and her excitement in the combat gave her voice. Dark blood sprayed from the wound, covering the Aern as he snagged the weapon’s grip and wicking along the painstakingly etched blood oak leaves on the head of weapon, bringing out the detail work in bold contrast.
Faster than its cohort, the Zaur on his left side cut a deep gash in the Aern’s nearer leg, dropping Kholster to one knee and leaving him momentarily exposed to a slash from the Zaur on his right. If the Zaur had struck lower, its Skreel might have connected, but the reptile swung for the base of Kholster’s neck and he ducked under it, seized the Zaur’s outstretched paw and pivoted on his good knee, sending the helpless Zaur into its companion.
The two went down in a pile of seething, angry scales. Kholster lost his balance from the maneuver and fell onto his back, hard, barely maintaining his grip on Grudge. He felt the head of the crossbow bolt in his right shoulder strike a tree root and rolled his eyes in exasperation. It was stuck fast.
That’s what you get for trying to impress the troops, Vander chided.
Think you would do better? Kholster asked.
I can take charge if you want.
Kholster’s barking laughter rang out. Just keep watching.
Reaching up with his left hand, Kholster grabbed the shaft and tried to break it off. The bolt, made of some exotic metal he didn’t recognize, bent instead of breaking. Kholster swore.
Let me know when you get to the impressive part, Vander sent again.
You’ll know it when you see it, Kholster sent.
Dragging the warpick and the dead Zaur on the end of it to him, Kholst
er tried to work the weapon free but couldn’t get sufficient leverage with only one hand. He swore again as the last two Zaur regained their composure and began their advance. With no other choice, Kholster drew up his knees, tucked in his chin, and thrust with all his might into a backward summersault. The bolt still gripped firm into the root, but the bent shaft pulled through and out of his shoulder with a disturbing metallic twang. Kholster landed gracelessly on his backside, then threw himself to his feet, reaching for Grudge.
The two Zaur froze in their tracks, turned, and ran.
“Never run from an Aern,” Kholster chortled, charging after them into the forest, the cadence of his steps still declaring over and over again <
It’s actually not a bad move, Vander thought at him. It’s been a long time since you were truly one with The Parliament of Ages.
Kholster didn’t answer, his mind given over to the thrill of the hunt which Uled had forged into him. He didn’t like to be grateful for anything his maker had done, but he did enjoy the hunt almost as much as he enjoyed the taste of Zaur.
Are they quicker than they used to be? Kholster asked as the two Zaur split off in separate directions, crossed paths with one another again, then split up once more, confusing his senses and making it hard to track both Zaur.
You’re slower, Vander shot back, and that pattern they’re running is one you aren’t used to without an Overwatch’s map.
No, Kholster thought, they know this terrain better than they should. They weren’t running blindly; they purposefully led him across terrain which slowed him down.
They’re running a scent trail set up to elude pursuit and set up an—
Kholster missed the broken-fanged Zaur until the last moment. Twenty arms shy of catching the two fleeing Zaur, Kholster sensed the incoming attack and managed to block the Skreel blade with Grudge’s haft. “Ambush,” he chuckled. “Almost.”