Prime Valkyrie

by Michael-Scott Earle

  I wasn’t holding a weapon in my left hand, so I figured that these things were really damn smart.

  I scanned the campfire line and saw two more of the creatures step into the light. This wasn’t good. I might be able to take out this one fucker with my stick, but I couldn’t defend against three.

  Then four more of them stepped into the light from my right side.

  I looked at the hollowed out tree while I waved my stick at the fucker in front of me. The hollow of the massive pine was large, but the opening was big enough for two or three of these wolf-creatures to come at me at once. I’d also be stuck in there, and wouldn’t be able to retreat if I needed to.

  One of the incoming monsters darted toward my right side and snapped at my leg. I lifted my foot up so that he missed, and then I brought my heel down on his skull. The armadillo-wolf yelped when my foot hit it, but he made an almost immediate bite at my foot. I threw myself backward and felt the thing’s teeth scratch against the bottom of my boot sole.

  One jumped at me, and I managed to get my stick into his mouth before it could bite my face off. The thing was heavy, but I was stronger than most men, and I managed to twist my hips sideways and fling him into two of the other armadillo-wolves. His jaws were strong though, and he ended up taking my stick with him when he flew.

  I ran back toward my tree, and I heard jaws snap behind me. The trunk was too wide for me to get my arms around, but there was a knot in the wood about four meters up. I increased my sprinting speed, felt my boots start to break, prayed they would hold out for a few more seconds, and then jumped onto the trunk.

  My right boot slammed against the tree bark, and I pushed off hard to help give me some extra height as I brought my left foot against the trunk. The boot started to break apart, but I pushed off as hard as I could so that I could turn and try to make a grab for the knot.

  My fingers wrapped around the top of the knot, and I quickly pulled myself up so my legs were as far off the ground as I could get them.

  I heard scratching down below me and planted the bottoms of my boots against the tree so I could lift myself farther away from them. The creatures were making jumps up against the trunk, scratching the surface with their claws, and then trying to bite me. They were still a few meters short of reaching me though, and I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Not tonight, fuckers,” I spat. They seemed to understand that I was taunting them, and they stopped their movements so they could look at me. Then they growled together, and I felt another chill of fear descend my spine.

  They were super smart.

  I looked up for another knot, or a branch, or anything I could use to climb higher, but I didn’t see anything close enough for me to grab easily. The first branch of the tree was still a good three or four meters above me, and the knots between looked like they wouldn’t hold my weight.

  Fortunately, the knot I grabbed onto was large enough for me to get both of my feet on. It was still too small to be comfortable, and I wasn’t looking forward to staying up here for a long time, but it was better than being eaten by a pack of armored wolves.

  “I don’t suppose you all would want to just fuck off and leave me alone?” I asked them as I glanced down at the forest floor. The creatures had been silent since I first spoke, but my question made them growl again.

  One of the creatures moved over to the campfire by my tree, and it started to sniff at my backpack. It didn’t find anything of interest there, but then it reached the pack of food I had opened, and let out a whine that sounded like surprise. The rest of the armadillo-wolves turned their heads around to stare at the other one, and they darted toward him as soon as he started eating the package of food.

  The creatures tore into the packs of food urgently, and their feeding frenzy turned into a massive dogfight. The struggle allowed me to see the exact size and shape of their fearsome teeth and jaws. These creatures were all sorts of bad news, and I had been lucky to escape on the tree.

  I couldn’t stay up here forever though. Eventually, these things would finish fighting over my food. Then they would wait for me to come down. I was going to need a plan. I might be able to shift and take a few of them out, but I doubted I’d be able to fight all of them. All it would take was one tearing my throat open, and I would be dead.

  The pack of beasts stopped fighting. There had been eight of them, but three were now dead, and the rest continued feeding on the few packs of food I’d thrown. They finished eating them in half a minute, and then the group sat on their haunches and looked up at me.

  “Well, shit,” I said after I stared at the pack of animals for a few minutes. My legs were starting to get uncomfortable, and I had to switch the position of my feet on top of the knot. I was also starting to get cold again, and another shiver ran down my spine.

  How the fuck was I going to get out of this?

  If they had just given me a gun, the journey would have been a lot easier. I could have shot these fuckers without breaking a sweat and then gone back to sleep. But the spear had been next to useless against the pack. I knew that these rites were supposed to be completed by a group of young Nordar, but I couldn’t imagine a group of kids getting through this mess alive.

  Maybe that was why this pack was here. Maybe they knew the Nodar dropped off their young here, and they learned they could get an easy meal.

  I looked up at the tree again and leaned my head around the trunk in an effort to find anything else I could grab onto. The bark had some deep valleys where I might be able to grab and pull myself up, but the activity seemed akin to kicking the can down the road. I would need to eat and drink. It would also be colder the higher I got on the tree.

  Eventually, these things would have to leave, or I would have to fight them.

  It was probably better to fight them while I was fresh.

  I glanced back down at the campsite and debated my options. I could shift up here, then try to jump down and land on one of them. Maybe I could break its back when I landed on it, then I could cut into the others before they could jump at me. I would have to keep my chin down to protect my throat, but I’d also have to keep my arms free. All it would take is one of them clamping down on an arm or leg, and I would be pinned for the others to bite me.

  As I studied the creatures, I noticed that one of them was shaking his head and looking at the ground. The behavior seemed a bit odd, but then he opened his mouth and vomited purple blood. The other scaled wolves turned to look at him, and he leaned down to puke again.

  Then his limbs froze, and he fell to the ground. He twitched once, twice, and then a third time before he lay still. It was obvious he was dead, but it took me a second to realize what was going on.

  The food had been poisoned.

  Another one of the armadillo-wolves started to puke, and the others turned to look at him. Then another one started to puke.

  Soon they were all growling, puking blood, and twitching on the ground.

  Then all of them were dead.

  “Hot damn,” I gasped as I looked at the pile of dead creatures surrounding the tree.

  The device on my wrist vibrated, and I looked at it while I clung to the bark.

  Niflheim threat completed.

  “Even better,” I said. Then I reached back down to the knot, hooked my fingers on top, and lowered myself down to the floor of the forest. My camp now smelt of disgusting vomit mixed with rancid blood, but I was alive and had completed the first part of three challenges.

  I had gotten lucky, though, and I understood it wasn’t going to get any easier.

  The fires were burning happily, but I knew I couldn’t stay here. The scent of blood was filling the air, and the wind would be carrying it in all directions. Any predator or scavenger within two kilometers would be here soon, and I needed to clear out before I had to fight any more of them.

  I grabbed my backpack, adjusted the ties on my left boot, and then pulled a few brands from the fire. I held them in my hands like torches, and ev
en though they didn’t burn that bright, they still provided a bit of light and heat. It would also be easy to light a new fire with them.

  I moved away from my camp and into the dark forest. The temperature probably wasn’t much lower in the trees than it had been in my circle of light, but the darkness added to the chill factor, and my arm holding the burning wood began to shake. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a gun or a vehicle, or be back on Persephone.

  Or to be with my friends again.

  An inhuman scream resonated through the freezing forest, and I turned back toward my campfire. The light was impossible to see now, but I guessed something smelled the blood on the wind.

  I picked up my pace a bit more.

  There was another embankment ahead of me, and I made my way down the loose dirt and into the belly of the snow filled ravine.

  There was another scream, and it filled the air as if a thousand trumpets were being played out of tune. It still sounded as if it came from back at my campsite, but it wasn’t that far away, and I didn’t know if the creatures there would be able to track me.

  Madalena did this shit when she was fourteen? Granted, she said she had been in a group, but this was still fucking insane. I was a grown man, a Marine, a trained killer, and I could shape-shift into a weretiger. The Nordar were tough motherfuckers.

  I heard another screech, but this one came from the direction I was heading. I was still in the small gorge, and the screech had sounded above me. I didn’t know if the creature who made the noise knew I was down here, but I decided I wanted to be safe instead of sorry, and I started running away from where I thought the noise originated.

  There was another screech, and I turned to look behind me. The glow from my brands provided enough light to see eighty or so meters behind me, but I didn’t see any movement in the gully where I ran.

  I turned around, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw an uiun-bair standing fifty meters in front of me.

  It was like the creature knew I would be coming from this direction. It stood on its hind legs, with massive paws raised like it was a praying-mantis. The stuffed one I saw in Madalena’s waiting room had been huge, but the white furred monstrosity standing before me was much larger. It probably stood five, maybe even six meters tall, and each of its six paws was as large as my chest.

  The thing opened its shark looking maw and screeched to the cold night sky.

  Four other screeches answered in the distance, and I let out a long exhale. The steam came from my nose and mouth, curled around my face, and then disappeared into the cold air as if it never existed.

  I was so tired, and hungry, and cold.

  But more than anything I was really fucking angry.

  I wasn’t going to die here. Fuck this monster. Fuck Madalena’s father, fuck the Magate Order, fuck Alloprize, Nebula Gammon, and Elaka Nota.

  Fuck that blond bastard who experimented on me.

  Fuck the SAVO.

  I wasn’t going to let any of them win. I wasn’t going to let them rule the galaxy. I was going to find my women.

  The six-armed shark-bear monster looked down at me with a snarl, and time seemed to stop.

  But I was shifting. I was changing. My body felt the strongest it ever had, but my mind embraced the rage and forged it into blades of malice that sprung from each of my fingers.

  I felt my bones bend, elongate, and change along with my muscles and tendons. I felt the fur spring from my skin, and the cold instantly vanished. My teeth fell out and were replaced by razor sharp fangs that wanted to tear this monster’s throat out.

  My vision changed, and I saw the confusion in the uiun-bair’s eyes. It had expected a man. It had expected an easy kill, but now it was faced with a monster more terrifying than it had ever imagined.

  And the beast wondered if it was about to die.

  “You are,” I growled as sprinted the distance between us.

  The shark-bear monster hadn’t expected me to move so fast, and it was a half moment too late in getting one of its massive paws up so it could strike me. I dove at its right leg, and I scythed both of my paws across its right knee joint. I expected a bit of resistance to my claws, but they sliced through the thick fur as if it was made of soft clay. The creature screamed a moment after I struck, and it tried to bring a paw down to crush me, but I’d already darted through his legs.

  I swung my left-hand paw out at the back of the creature’s left leg. My claws sliced clear through the monster’s hamstring, and it howled in pain. The uiun-bair tried to spin around and bat me away with its claws, but I’d already jumped on its massive back, and I was using my claws as a climber would use an ice axe to scale a mountain. Each of my finger claws dug into its flesh with a spray of thick blood, and the monster let out another screech as I clawed my way up toward its massive head.

  The uiun-bair’s neck was surprisingly flexible, and the beast was actually able to turn its shark-maw toward me as I scaled his back. It snapped at me, but I was in mid-climb and my left hand was ready. I punched through one of his eyes with my claws, and the thing stumbled forward. I rode it as I climbed up another half meter. Then the thing tried to shake me off with each of its six arms.

  It was too late though. I’d reached the monster’s shoulders, and my own jaws sank into its thick neck.

  My mouth filled with its blood. The liquid tasted coppery and warm, and like victory. I felt a set of the creature’s paws move up to scrape across my back, but I tore my head up as I pushed away with my arms. The movement tore a massive chunk of the creature’s flesh off in my mouth, and blood sprayed through the night sky like a fire hydrant spewing water.

  The uiun-bair screeched and tried to paw at me again, but I bit down on the other side of its neck while I dug my right hand talons into the wound I’d created on the other side. My claws drilled through the warm flesh of his neck before they found its spine, then I tore another bite out of him while I pulled my arm back. His neck bones were as thick as a baseball bat, but it shattered in my hands, and my movement caused his head to rip free of his body.

  The uiun-bair collapsed on its knees before it fell forward, but I had already sprung clear of his twitching corpse.

  I was soaked in steaming blood. It felt as if I was standing in a sauna, but the beast who lived in my soul relished the taste and scent of the giant monster’s death.

  And I did as well.

  I leaned my head back and let out a roar. It filled the night louder than the uiun-bair’s had, and the other screams in the forest suddenly grew quiet. I knew they were coming, and that was fine. I’d kill them all, just like I did with this one.

  I saw another uiun-bair lumber down the side of the gully and then roll down the slope. It really did move around like a bear and trotted toward me on all eight of its legs. This second one wasn’t as large as the first I killed, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be as fun to murder.

  The shark-bear skidded to a stop as it got closer, and the temporary halt to its momentum provided me the opportunity I wanted. I dashed toward the crouched monster and sprung onto its back before it could rear up and strike me.

  My claws tore into its shoulders and neck as easily as I would fling up snow, and my quick strikes caused the air to fill with a shower of blood. I scooped up large pawfulls of the creature’s fur and flesh with each strike. There was soon more blood outside of the monster than left in its body. It collapsed with a death moan, and I let out another roar of victory.

  I scanned the top edges of the short ravine and saw four other uiun-bairs. They crouched along the edge and watched me with glowing red eyes. Steam from the gore on my body spiraled into the air, and I gestured for them to come down and feel my claws.

  The creatures stared at me for a few more moments, looked at each other, and then moved away from the edge of the ravine. They were running, and I was half tempted to chase them down. I actually stepped toward the edge and reached my hand out to grab onto a root I could use as a ladder, but then realized it
would be a waste of energy.

  These monsters knew I was a more terrible creature than they were. They would leave me alone.

  I reached down to the corpse of the second monster and plunged my claws into the still warm flesh. I found its massive heart, tore it out, and bit into it. I felt a purr of pleasure escape my maw as soon as I began my feast. The human aspect of my mind began to plan what I could do with the other parts of the two corpses.

  The heart was about half the size of my head, but I ate it in less than a minute. Then I pulled out the monster’s liver, ate it, and then went to work on skinning the uiun-bair. My claws were sharp enough to do the work on the first corpse, but then I felt the tiger part of my DNA trying to take control of me, and I forced myself to shift back into a human. The change was harder than expected, and exhaustion hit me almost immediately. I still had enough energy to skin the first monster, but the task was much slower, and the sky was beginning to brighten by the time I finished.

  Were the nights short on this world? Or had I just lost track of time and spent all night running, fighting, and skinning these creatures?

  I now had two massive pelts. They were covered with a lot of blood that might attract other creatures, but I didn’t have any more energy to worry about it. I rolled them both up, folded them twice, and then set them on my shoulders. They probably weighed a hundred kilos combined, and the shift back to my human form took most of my energy, but I wasn’t ready to sleep yet.

  I crawled up the side of the ravine, set down my load so I could repair my boots, and then picked up the pelts before moving again. Each footfall quickly became agonizing, and I started to stumble with every third step. Gone was the confidence I’d possessed when I was in my tiger-man form, and I knew I needed to find shelter soon.

  I didn’t know how much longer I walked, but the desire to sleep became overwhelming. I was now stumbling every other step, and I feared I’d faint soon. I normally slept right after I shifted back into my human form, but that must have been four or more hours ago.