Krygor’s Hope: Braxians 3

by Abel, Regine

  The Sarenians considered the Blood Hunt as a trial for the most talented among them to prove their worth. Deaths often occurred during these hunts that didn’t necessarily have sentient beings as prey, as was currently the case. But the creatures didn’t worry me as much as the Guldan Ambassador who had every reason to make sure my men and I never reached the Monolith. The risk of retaliation from my people against his was way too high. He had counted on my death in the Arena shortly after our arrival. I also could not count on him not to play dirty, especially not after their betrayal on my home world. The need to win at all costs tended to reveal the worst side of people.

  Unlike the females doing their Hunt in the Garden, we only had a ten-minute head start on our pursuers. As we had a much longer distance to travel and on a harsher terrain, our bubbles were launched before the women’s Hunt began. It gave me hope that I could reach my mate before any fool could make a move on her. But it also meant that I needed to make haste so that my enemies, who probably already knew the terrain, wouldn’t catch up to me before I could reach the river.

  I kept my eyes peeled for anything that could be used as a weapon but came up empty. The almost eerie silence in the forest made me uneasy. It was far too quiet. For a moment, I wondered if maybe I was heading in the wrong direction. The broad and thick leaves of the trees blocking out the sun made it harder for me to get a proper sense of direction. And yet, I felt confident I had not been turned around.

  And then I heard a loud squeal of a beast. Correction, make that a couple of them… at least. I froze, wondering if I should start moving in a different direction. But the way they screamed implied more that they were fleeing from something rather than being the ones giving chase. With my captain, Yulan, having landed in that general area, I couldn’t dismiss the fact that he might be the one chasing away some wild beast while trying to reach our rendezvous point.

  I rushed towards the screams that kept moving northwest, careful not to trip or twist my ankle on the gnarly roots covering the ground. But just as I ran past a thick outcropping of rocks beyond yet another giant tree, my heart lurched. I crouched down for cover at the sight of a couple of Guldans focused on throwing what looked like rocks wrapped in some kind of leaf. They were running, oblivious to my presence, trying to keep up with their quarry. It took me a second to realize they were hurting the squealing beasts.

  Further ahead, a savage roar rose through the forest—Yulan’s war cry—the sound muffled by the distance and carried by the wind. I cursed inwardly at the cowards’ tactics, using wildlife to eliminate us rather than facing us head on. Then again, the scrawny bastards would not have stood a chance against us. I couldn’t hasten to my captain’s side to help him fight the creatures. Taking out the Guldans took priority as we would otherwise be in too vulnerable a position.

  Sneaking up behind the first one proved quite challenging despite the large trees behind which I could take cover. The uneven terrain and the speed at which he ran required for me to be extra careful not to give myself away. Although they didn’t appear to have any weapons, I didn’t put it past them to break the rules to win at all costs. Cutting diagonally along the path he was following, I hid behind a large trunk and grabbed him as he passed by. I yanked him onto the opposite side of the tree, breaking line of sight with his partner and slapped my hand over his mouth before he could scream. To my dismay, I noticed the presence of two more Guldans on top of the second one I had already seen.

  Wasting no time, I snapped my first victim’s neck. A quick look at him confirmed he had no weapons; surprising. Throwing caution to the wind, I rushed towards the second Guldan who was too focused on the beast to see me coming. I grabbed him by the throat and bashed his face in with my fist without stopping my race towards the third one. Hearing the panicked yelp of his companion, the third male tried to flee towards the fourth one, foolishly thinking that their joint forces would give them a chance to prevail against me.

  I didn’t have to chase long; the uneven terrain threw the third Guldan onto the ground, cracking his head hard against a root so thick and ancient it almost looked like it had turned to stone. Dazed, the fool scrambled to get back up, but he never got a chance. Careful not to meet a similar fate, I rushed to him and jumped, landing with both feet at the base of his nape. His shoulders and spine collapsed under my weight and the force of the impact. The crunching sound mixed with the gurgling breath that whooshed out of him further fueled my bloodlust. A violent spasm coursed through him, and then he went still.

  The last Gulden threw a wrapped rock at me and then dashed towards the beasts that surrounded Yulan and shouted threateningly. At first, that struck me as odd. But then I realized he was hoping they would turn on me. One of them indeed pulled away from my captain to face the incoming menace. The Guldan waited until the last minute to throw his last covered stone at the creature. Whatever that leaf was, it appeared to be repulsive to the beast.

  As my prey had intended, the beast veered in my direction. However, the fool had waited too long. In its momentum, the creature failed to completely miss him. Resembling a giant crab with massive tusks, the beast stumbled on the uneven terrain while attempting to make a sharp turn. One of its long legs, which ended as a spear, violently struck him on the side, sending him flying straight into a tree. He struck it sideways at an odd angle, breaking his spine. His shout of agony stopped abruptly as he lost consciousness—or maybe even died. Either way, I would not waste any more time on him. The way his broken body crumpled to the ground, he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

  However, eliminating the weaponless Guldans had been the easy part. The three beasts, at a height with us, were getting into each other’s way while attempting to get at my clansman. For the first time, I was grateful for the narrow space the forest afforded us. Yulan was doing a great job of staying just out of reach of their potentially fatal blows. Repeatedly using the large tree trunks as cover, he would circle around them, then dash at a leg of one of the creatures to knock it out from under them before taking cover again.

  I joined the dance, knowing it couldn’t last eternally. In the distance, I could hear the rumbling of the river. From my flight in the bubble, I already knew we were on an elevated plateau. If we could get the creatures to the ledge and knock them over, they would not survive the fall. Yulan appeared to have come to the same conclusion. We coordinated our efforts, making slow progress to lure them where we wanted. But as we drew closer to the edge, the trees thinned, presenting us with a new challenge.

  For the next few minutes—which felt like an eternity—we tried in vain to come up with a solution. Just as despair was beginning to set in, sudden movement in the branches overhead startled me. While dodging the incoming attack from one of the creatures, I warned my clansman of the presence of Sarenian Hunters in the trees.

  “Do not kill the Crawmaws!” one of the Hunters shouted. “They must be returned to their mother before she goes on a rampage.”

  Jumping down the tree on top of one of them, the Sarenian bashed the head of the beast with a branch covered in leaves similar to the ones that had wrapped the rocks. The creature shrieked and tried to knock him off. The Sarenian managed to hang on a few moments, and then the creature violently rearing sent him flying off. To my shock, wing like fins spread from his back, and he glided instead to a nearby tree. He clung to a branch, settling on it with impressive dexterity. A few more of his people took turns repeating similar behavior with the three creatures driving them away from the ledge and deeper into the forest.

  Confused, Yulan and I stayed out of their way. However, it was already too late. A furious roar in the distance resonated through the forest. The three young creatures rushed towards the sound, having no doubt recognized the call of their mother. But if those were the young, I shuddered at the thought of what the adult version would be like.

  As soon as the young Crawmaws left our vicinity, the Sarenians all scrambled up the trees using their claws, scattering evenly in
a circular fashion as if laying a trap. The ground shook as the adult Crawmaw made her approach. Realizing we were about to be fucked, Yulan and I reached for the lowest but thickest branches we could reach and pulled with all our might to try and get ourselves some sort of weapon. Taking cover behind a tree, we waited, heart pounding, for the beast to reach us.

  A quick glimpse into the trees revealed the presence of about six to eight Sarenians. To my surprise, they were all clawing off pieces of bark the size of a blade and pressing their fangs to it. It took me a second to realize they were coating it with whatever venom they possessed.

  “Bash the face in,” said one of the Sarenians to me. “Do not let the head come out. We will take care of the rest.”

  That comment confused me. Technically, the Crawmaw did not have a head. Just like a crab, it had spaced out eyeballs on each side of the gaping hole that served as its mouth—or so I thought. However, I had no reason to challenge the Hunter’s comment. Even though they had come out here to hunt us, the Sarenians understood the angry mother represented the greatest threat to us all. We would settle our differences afterwards. Strangely enough, I would not have joined forces with the Guldans in a similar situation.

  As soon as the beast entered the trap area, the Sarenians took turns jumping off the tree onto its back in a perfectly choreographed dance. I rushed out from behind my cover to bash in the face with my makeshift weapon. On closer inspection, I realized what the Sarenian had meant about the head. It wasn’t a mouth per se that gaped between the spaced-out eyeballs, but the opening through which the actual head would come out like a turtle. And even that did not quite qualify as a head. It looked more like a trunk from whence the Crawmaw could shoot thick, long, black darts that were more than likely covered in poison.

  I barely managed to dodge out of the way before it fired three of them in quick succession. The trunk-like appendage could stretch over nearly two meters and move in all directions, allowing it to fire even at a target behind or above her.

  “Control the fucking head,” a couple of the Sarenians shouted.

  Unlike with the children, the Hunters weren’t striking the mother with branches of those plants that had repulsed her young. Instead, they were stabbing the joints of her articulations with the bark coated with whatever venom they had put on it. Despite the confined quarters in which we fought, the adult Crawmaw still managed to fling her legs left and right, striking violently at the surrounding trees, attempting to impale us with the viciously sharp tips of her legs, and firing those damn darts every time we failed to bash her ‘face’ in.

  Yulan and I were kiting the creature around the narrow circle where our temporary allies were helping us battle. I couldn’t say at which specific time Zartag finally joined us, but between the three of us, we effectively managed to prevent the creature from rearing its head. Like we had done with the children, we rammed into its legs to get her off balance while striking at its face. The Sarenians reminded me of an army of ants—although flying bugs would probably be more accurate—as they continued to dive onto the beast’s back, stab its joints, and then glide off—for those who possessed those strange wings—or jump off if they didn’t. It was disturbing watching the wingless ones jump off and climb a tree in a blink with the dexterity of a cat only to immediately backflip onto the creature again to stab another joint. They moved in a constant motion that would have been a mesmerizing ballet were we not fighting for our lives.

  The creature seemed all but invulnerable aside from the fleshy part well-hidden in between the articulations. It took me a while to understand the purpose of that attack from the Sarenians. For the first twenty minutes—at least—of the fight, the Crawmaw seemed mostly unaffected by that tactic. On our end, we couldn’t find a single section of its body that could be vulnerable enough to any blow we could give it without a traditional weapon. The shell covering every inch of its body might as well have been titanium it was that hard and impenetrable. However, as time went by and the number of pieces of bark embedded in the joints increased, the beast’s movements became increasingly stiff and jerky.

  It shamed me to admit that without the Hunters’ help we more than likely could not have defeated the creature on our own. But with our joint efforts, the beast eventually found itself immobilized. Yulan, Zartag, and I charged the Crawmaw simultaneously from the same angle, toppling it over. Its legs jerked in a vain effort to try and get back up. Without missing a beat, I rushed back to its face. This time, I didn’t prevent the head—or rather the trunk—from coming out and grabbed it with both hands. Putting a foot on its face between the eyes, I prepared to pull and tear out the trunk, but the alarmed shouts of the Hunters stopped me.

  “You do not kill a mother,” one of the Sarenians said in a stern voice. “Her young would die. They never should have been used as bait to begin with. The punishment you exacted on the Guldans is well-deserved. Our venom will wear off in a half hour or so. No other creature in this forest will be able to harm her in the meantime.”

  But even as he spoke those words, his fellow Hunters all descended from their trees, surrounding us. I carefully let go of the trunk. To my surprise, it didn’t swiftly re-enter the shell as it previously did but hung limply where I had left it. I realized then that the Crawmaw hadn’t simply toppled over from the stiffness caused by having too many pieces of bark embedded in her joints, but because the poison had effectively paralyzed her.

  My men and I closed ranks, making sure none of the Hunters could get the drop on us. It didn’t go unnoticed, eliciting amused smiles from the Sarenians.

  “We have just hunted together,” said the male who had kept me from killing the creature. “I can no longer hunt you as prey. I will not try to spill your blood this day. Good luck on the rest of your journey.”

  The seven other Hunters each made a similar comment, some of them content to nod their heads before turning around and leaving. We didn’t know who else might still be tracking us in the Gauntlet but didn’t intend to stick around to find out. It also would not be wise to waste time while the poison wore off. However, it worried me not to have seen the Ambassador among the Guldans that attacked us.

  With a nod of our own, my men and I turned around and headed for the cliff, which we followed looking for a path down to the river. After racing along the ledge for a good fifteen minutes, movement on the other shore drew my attention. Uncertain at first due to the distance, I finally recognized the shape of the horns gracing the head of the female standing by the water. Then the Sarenian male by her side extended her a hand. Seeing her take it willingly and follow him as he led her away ignited a rabid fury within me. As battle rage set my blood on fire, I picked up the pace, ready to obliterate any who would dare get in my way.

  This time, I was the one on the hunt.

  Chapter 17

  Hope

  Faolen and I made good time marching north towards the Monolith and hopefully towards my daughter. He seemed impressed by my ability to keep up a steady pace. Then again, few people understood the level of fitness required to perform on stage day in and day out and how much strength was actually required for pole dancing.

  Faolen turned out to be a rather pleasant companion as we hastened along the shore. He regaled me with a series of anecdotes and stories about his home world. It was fascinating learning how he grew up in a large pod with eleven other siblings before finding his sire at the age of ten. Like him, his father was a great Hunter. Despite that, he remained with his pod until the age of fifteen.

  “Why didn’t you join him sooner?” I asked.

  “Because he was too young to be a proper mentor,” Faolen said with a smile. “The Prince is one of the rare exceptions. As the heir, he needs to be groomed early on to take on the important responsibilities that will befall him. As soon as he found his sire, he moved from his original pod to a new one permanently in residence at the Palace.”

  “He seems surprisingly mature for his age,” I said pensively.


  “He is an old soul,” Faolen said with a nod. “An ancient prophecy spoke of the rise of the young Prince. Since our falling out with the Korletheans, we are now blind to any new foretelling that could be of relevance. In many ways, it is for the best. Knowing the future has a way of depriving one of their freedom of choice. However, with the Great War looming on the horizon, knowledge is power.”

  “I have heard rumors of that Great War,” I said with a frown. “It disturbs me that everyone takes it as something inevitable. Instead of all of you preparing for a bloody battle, why not work towards a solution to prevent it?”

  “Because it is a prophecy, not the vision of an Oracle that could be averted. Prophecies are inevitable,” Faolen replied. “If—”

  The sound of footsteps to our left drew our attention. The Hunter they belonged to had made no effort to be discreet, clearly wanting to announce his presence. Faolen immediately took a protective stance in front of me and bared his fangs at the newcomer. The Sarenian gave me an appreciative once over before smirking at my companion. He advanced by a few steps, his demeanor provocative, and then stopped.

  “Relax, brother,” the intruder said with a taunting glimmer in his eyes. “However delectable your catch is, there is no pleasure to be had with a non-consenting female… unless as part of consensual role playing. As for you, my brother, I suggest you find yourself another mate. Word out there is that her Braxian easily defeated a Crawmaw without weapons. Only a fool would risk his wrath. The Garden is filled with sweet peaches eager to be caught and devoured. Off to hunt I go. Safe travels to you both.”