Walooth shook his head. “Not at all. Some of my best observations have been from the teriaf canopy.”
Eyuul raised both brows, clearly impressed. The teriaf was among the highest levels of the jungle canopy.
“You will do,” Eyuul said and directed Walooth to take his place among the hunters of his group. Eyuul gave Shaagra a grim nod and raised his laser-bladed spear before turning to join his hunters.
With a swift gesture, the dozens of Vori slipped into the heavy jungle. The Mother was on their side, providing a thick cover of mist, eight spans high from the jungle floor, concealing each of their number as they entered into it.
It did not take long before Shaagra was sliding among the thickest parts of their territory as they neared barrier zone. Shaagra smelled them long before he saw them. The foreign musk of the offworlders singed his nose, heavy with perspiration. Where that was heady and attractive on the flesh of his mate, he found the scent of the Kampi foul, like meat left rotting in the sun.
The barest rustle in the trees was the only whisper of presence from the Vori who had taken arboreal positions of attack under direction of Eyuul. The Kampi were armed with large laser guns, weapons that they were pointing at every little thing that twitched around them. The jungles of Vora were rich with wildlife, creating cacophony of sounds and movement that easily concealed any sounds and noticeable movement of the Vori.
As the first line of Kampi neared, Shaagra raised his fist to the Vori obscured within the dense growth of the brush to his left. A call of a tngoriin, a small winged reptile that glided between the trees, rose up in response.
Code that his hunters were ready to engage.
His coils tensed and drew up as he readied himself for attack, his rattle discs silent on his tail. Their enemies would have no kindness of a warning to alert them of the dangerous ground onto which they were transgressing.
It was far past time for such things.
The Kampi should have taken the credits. The Kampi should have taken the punishment and never come.
The Kampi male walked up so close to him that Shaagra could see the sweat beading his skin, its bright eyes darting around warily. His finger was held tight to the trigger, prepared to fire.
Shaagra sprung out and ensnared the male in his coils, jamming his spear into the weapon, disabling it with one strong stroke. The muscles in his tail tightened around the male, choking the breath from him so not a sound could escape before dealing a brutal slash with his claws across the velvet-soft vulnerable throat.
Everywhere around him, he saw Vori pick off Kampi with predatory grace. One minute the male would be there and then the next, the male was pulled into verdant growth and disappeared leaving nothing to mark their path but silence and the occasional broken weapon.
It had the desired effect of making other males grind to a halt, their eyes shifting with an edge of panic to see dozens of their number disappearing into the mists. Males began to quickly move back away from the dense edge of the jungle until a hard, commanding voice pushed them forward again.
Shaagra grinned, nothing more than a gleam of fangs in the shadows and mists. They would play on their fear. With a sharp call, he signaled his hunters to retreat to the next territorial zone so that none of the Vori would be fired upon by nervous Kampis coming into the mists.
He caught glimpses of Eyuul, Orith, and Berol moving as a coordinated set. Nothing more than a flash of color of their crown coils or tails. He knew the other brothers had stayed behind to reinforce the guard of their mother. Shaagra was grateful to have them. They were among some of the more accomplished hunters in the clan and fell upon their enemies with deadly precision.
Shaagra tilted his head and listened to the sounds of the area they had pulled back from. The Kampi were now shouting back and forth among each other as they entered the heavy mist. Possessing broad hooves, they could not move silently like a Vori. Shaagra almost wanted to laugh aloud at the ruckus they made as they crashed through the growth. But now was not the time for levity. Judging by the noise alone, there were far greater numbers pursuing them into the jungle than they had encountered in their initial strike.
It was obvious that the enemy was now engaged in active pursuit, seeking to chase down and kill the Vori. Shaagra frowned. He did not want to draw them any closer to the nesting ground. But where?
The peaks of the Shagorith pushed up from the mist and clouds. Shaagra smiled to himself. Most of the Etale clan were not familiar with anything but the perimeter of the mountain, but Shaagra was born in those mountains and grew up in one of the few pockets of land where the shoyla were absent.
Shaagra let out the complicated series of rattling growls and clicks to direct the Vori to the mountains. The hunters fell into what he assumed was a stunned silence but then after a long minute he heard the confirmations scattered through the jungle at all sides and above.
With a swipe of his coils, he changed his course and headed toward the darker jungles of the Shagorith, so dense that in many places light barely penetrated the trees. This was the environment favored by the shoyla, who used the heavy shadows to their advantage. Every hunter was familiar with the shoyla, so he trusted them to use care traversing as they made their way higher into the mountains.
Every now and again, he would intentionally lag to snare and bring down a Kampi that wandered too far ahead. The brittle crunch of their bones beneath his coils and the quiet gurgle as they drowned on their own blood was music for him. Death was the song that pumped through his veins, singing seductively to those who would come and harm his mate, who would destroy his nest.
He knew the second that the shoyla discovered what easy prey the Kampi made. The horrified scream that rent the air made his skin shiver all the way down the scales of his tail. The screams tore through the Shagorith jungle one after the other. The clatter of numerous legs of many hungry shoyla was a soft drone in the background.
It was by chance that Shaagra was in the right place to witness the ruthlessness of the shoyla against the prey in action. He had the ill fortune to move around a massive tree and come to face to face with a Kampi. The male’s eyes widened in fear and he whipped up his weapon with intent to shoot. Shaagra’s coils tightened on themselves, and with dread he prepared himself for the likelihood of his death even as he drew up his spear. In the back of his mind, he sang the death song. Either he or his enemy would fall, but the Mother of the Nests would receive the blood of the fallen. He only prayed that it would be the blood of his enemy, not his own.
Father guide my hand, Father let my spirit forth,
Spend the hunter’s fortune, and the warrior’s blood fierce,
Mother accept the offering to let my nest persevere.
Shaagra pulled back, his muscles tightening, drew in a breath, and raised his spear against the gun when a mass dropped from the canopy. The black bulbous body was a dark blur; only the eight massive legs were sharp and clear in his vision as the fore of them snagged the male into its embrace. The shoyla, one of those born of the dark weave of the Mother at her loom, had preserved him.
He inclined his head respectfully toward the creature and pulled back. He did not see the danger at his back, so focused as he was to safely remove himself from the vicinity of the shoyla. The laser blast hitting the tree beside him, followed by a curse, alerted him to the Kampi. Shaagra spun around, hearing the gun charge and the static of the impending discharge.
A brilliant, rare blur dropping from the branches fell into his peripheral vision, striking and coiling tightly around the male, but not before the laser went off. Walooth cried out in pain but tightened his hold on the male, slashing viciously with a filed point at the end of the gun.
Shaagra rushed up to his side, but by the time he arrived, the Kampi had gasped out its last breath, and Walooth was a bloody mess. A laser burn scorched his right side from rib to hip, and ragged wounds pierced his hide in numerous places from the Kampi’s final efforts to escape.
Shaagr
a gently turned the male in his arms.
“Walooth,” he breathed. “You will be okay. I am taking you back to the Etale nesting ground. Rest. You have honored my nest.”
The male gasped out in pain as Shaagra lifted his heavy body and the seized length of his coils in his own. With care, he quickly made his way down the side of the mountain. He tied Walooth’s will to his as he chanted.
***
Vadal surrounded Reggie, clutching her to his chest and the long length of his tail settled in a mass of coils all around her. Despite the nervous edge that lingered in the atmosphere around them, Reggie found his presence reassuring.
Nothing would get past Vadal. She knew it.
They lay like that for what seemed like hours. The soft stroke of his hand on her head or back more than once almost put her to sleep. It wasn’t until his hand stilled that Reggie knew something was wrong. His tail kicked up its menacing noise and he gently deposited Reggie on the floor in the furthest corner before assuming a protective stance.
“Do not move from this room, Reggie,” he said as he left.
Reggie stared after him, aghast.
He just up and left her there by herself!
She debated if she should follow his instruction or stay on him like white on rice. It didn’t feel particularly safe staying there like a sitting duck, that was for sure, and experience did inform her that it was always safer beneath his coils.
That decided it for her. With mumbled curses when she took an unfortunate spill over a pile of pillows, Reggie struggled out of the mess and into the nest common. Vadal was nowhere in sight.
She chewed her bottom lip. Where did he go? It couldn’t have been far. She really didn’t think Vadal would completely abandon her in the nest.
A loud crash from the forenest caught her attention. Slipping as quietly as she could on her toes, Reggie crept to the door. A great length of Vadal’s coils were immovable from the doorway, the tail wedging itself in such a fashion as to anchor onto the inner wall of their nest. From there, Vadal appeared to thrust himself outward to engage the enemy, the heavy coils of his crown locks rippling around his head like dozens of angry serpents.
She could smell the disgusting coppery tang on the air and immediately wanted to hurl. Reggie could hear the wet splatter of blood from just outside their nest, and Vadal’s flanks were gradually becoming mired in dark rivulets. She tucked herself in there, just behind his tail, and waited.
Each time he pulled back inward to the nest, her breath would catch, wondering if it was finally over, and then every time he shot forward with death in his intent, Reggie suddenly found it hard to breathe.
After a while, all she could do was crouch low and hope that soon it would end. She eventually crept into what passed for their kitchen and grabbed a heavy knife. No way would she be left entirely defenseless if the Kampi got past Vadal, though she wasn’t sure how she’d be able to go on if that happened.
Still, she wouldn’t go down without a fight, nor would she surrender.
Her weapon gripped firmly, Reggie eased back down into a crouch just behind Vadal’s coils and contented herself to wait and watch, every nerve and hair tingling on alert. She wasn’t much backup for Vadal, but she had his back one way or the other.
***
Vadal tensed his rear coils, anchoring himself solidly to the entrance of their nest with the strong barbs on his tail. He was determined to be unshakeable from his post. The Kampi would have great difficulty getting past him, even in death should they succeed in taking him down.
The smaller Kampi males came in short bursts of two or three at a time. He was fortunate to catch them by surprise. He waited in the dark shadow of the nest, and then as soon as one wandered near, he sprung forward as quick as lightning running across the sky. He used the laser-bladed spear when they were far enough away to allow its reach. Otherwise, he utilized his lengthened claws to slash out at the males, slicing throats and disemboweling soft bellies.
His skin and scales drenched in blood, he feared he would never get the stench from him, and the gore clung heavily to his claws. Males in their death throes looked up at him in wide-eyed horror before their eyes became glazed with the veil of death. He was glad that Reggie was deep within the nest where she would not have to witness what one of their kind couple had become.
The trickle slowly began to wane, and Vadal felt an ember of hope that perhaps the worst was over—until he saw him. Slightly larger than the others and grizzled with the first signs of age, the male wore symbols of authority, and his gaze was unshakeable as he approached Vadal’s nest. The male wore death like a war-prize and Vadal was not eager to face him. He was not a hunter, not a warrior. Vadal hissed low in his throat and allowed his tail to send a warning threat in hopes of convincing him to flee the blood-drenched gore of the nesting grounds.
Rather than react with fear, the male gave him a chilly smile that spoke of a fondness for causing pain and misery. Was this a male who sought to have control of his mate? The very thought of it summoned such fury in him that he found himself instantly tensing, awaiting the heat of the battle.
“I am not going anywhere, Vori!” the Kampi shouted. “I am King Orudo-Vas, King of the Far Reach Compound. Know the name of one who brings death to your door. Know the merciless hand of Torg-Mek-Fa, the divine lord of the world of the dead.”
Vadal would waste no words on the male. He had nothing to offer him but death at his hands. This king would be king no longer. His only son unable to reproduce due to Vadal’s venom, the line of Orudo-Vas would die with him, and Vadal could not summon any sympathy toward him.
The king approached no closer than a full tail-length of distance. He bore neither laser nor gun. A metal double-bladed sword was enfolded in a solid grip. A king who liked the old ways of his people, Vadal guessed. He could respect that, even as he sent the male to pay homage to his ancestors.
Vadal emerged as far as he dared from the nest, a spear gripped tightly in his hand, the promise of death on his face and crown locks that writhed around him like an angry swarm.
When the light of the sun touched upon his skin, he swore that the king paused and drew slightly back with a sharp intake of breath. That he summoned the core of his own nerves to face Vadal without flinching was laudable in Vadal’s estimation.
The male was neither a fool nor a coward.
With furor, Vadal struck out with the long reach of his spear. Every thrust the King parried and deflected. Every strike against him Vadal fended off. They were locked in the earnest battle, neither giving any ground. Vadal grit his teeth in frustration, uncertain of how to draw the male into a mistake.
What would Shaagra consider?
Vadal snorted. Shaagra would tell him to quit being a fool and to retreat and keep their mate safe.
Retreat.
Moving low on his coils, Vadal did just that. He pulled back in a clear retreat, as if exhausted by battle. This was apparently exactly what the Kampi king had been looking for, judging by his exultant shout. Deep within, Vadal buried his smile and waited like a shoyla in the trees. He waited until the male leaped forward, his blade raised. Then he struck. Shooting forward, he buried his spear deep in the gut of the male with such force that a quarter of the length burrowed into the soft flesh, piercing through to the other side.
What Vadal hadn’t expected was for Orudo-Vas push forward against the force of the spear, his blade rising to cleave into Vadal’s head. Then he felt a hard pinch against his shoulder and a sudden weight, then an arm shot past him holding a long carving knife, burrowing the blade through the eye of the male, bring his trajectory to a sudden horrible stop.
Vadal panted, staring down at the mess of the male in front of his nest, and looked in disbelief behind him at Reggie, who still clung in shock to his back. Her face was so pale that not even her lips carried a hint of their natural pink pigment.
Gingerly he took her into his embrace, ignoring how terrifying his visage may be. All he cou
ld do was hold her and shudder against his pent-up nerves.
“Reggie. My brave mate,” he whispered, trying to soothe the shaking of her body. It seemed ages before the tremors finally ceased and she blinked up at him with teary eyes.
“I killed him,” she choked out.
Vadal nodded proudly. “You did, my mate. You helped to keep your nest whole. I thank you for my life.”
She stared at him. “You thank me? Vadal, I wouldn’t be alive if not for you. You guys have saved me so many times I have lost count. What I did here was nothing. I was fucking terrified!”
He stroked his hand down her arm and smiled. “It is not nothing, Reggie. You risked everything against great odds, battling your own fear, to save my life. That makes it the most precious gift.”
Her eyes teared up. “I love you, Vadal.”
Vadal’s hearts softened at her declaration. They had joined; they had mated. But never before had she uttered those words to him. The full commitment of her heart to his keeping. He swore to himself that never would he do anything to damage the gift she gave. Vori males didn’t always find love with the females who claimed them. To have found it was the greatest treasure on all of Vora.
He crushed her to him, pressing his lips to hers until she made a weak noise and laughingly pushed him away.
“Seriously, babe. You’re completely covered in gunk. Once you’re all cleaned up, I will happily jump you.”
Vadal laughed. “My hearts are yours, mate. I love you.”
***
Shaagra chanted with all the power of his hearts until he finally reached the healer’s alcove. There, attending hands reached quickly for the smaller male. Shaagra breathed a sigh of relief and surrendered the male to their care as voices took on the chant securing the male to the world of the living as they worked on his wounds.
As he exited the alcove, Shaagra saw all around him the myriad hues of his clan sweeping into view as males left the mist. Several of them burned with the injured or the dead. None had been left to the Shagorith.
Of the many Vori who had been injured, few were grievously so. But the even fewer fatalities made his heart sore. Those who had passed were tragically young and inexperienced, newly initiated among the hunters. No matter how he tried, they had not been dissuaded from their purpose. The Vori hunter was to protect and provide for the nest. They all knew this and embraced it. It was seen as an honor to die protecting the nesting ground, but Shaagra at that moment could only keenly feel the loss, as did so many of the clan as females cried out for their slain young.
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