Mantivore Prey

by S. J. Higbee

  MANTIVORE PREY

  ARCADIAN CHRONICLES: BOOK TWO

  by

  S. J. Higbee

  Griffinwing Publishing

  Published by Griffinwing Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 S. J. Higbee

  Sarah Jane Higbee asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-911139-17-1

  Cover art by

  Mhairi Simpson

  Griffinwing Publishing

  www.sjhigbee.wordpress.com

  For Mum – who won’t be reading this, but

  whose belief in me and my writing

  has been so very important…

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  Also available from Griffinwing Publishing

  THE ARCADIAN CHRONICLES

  Mantivore Dreams (The Arcadian Chronicles #1)

  THE SUNBLINDED TRILOGY

  Running Out Of Space (Sunblinded #1)

  Dying For Space (Sunblinded #2)

  Breathing Space (Sunblinded #3)

  Sunblinded: The Complete Trilogy box set

  CHAPTER ONE

  I opened my mouth, but as anger and grief sliced through the muffling exhaustion enfolding me, nothing came out. Why do I care so much? I hated her.

  “Kyrillia - are you shady?” asked Felina, before slapping her hand to her forehead. “What am I babbling about? Course not. Where’s Seth? Or those advisors always wafting around you like a bad smell?” She craned her neck to look past me.

  I licked my lips with a sand-dry tongue. “Seth’s in a meeting.” He’s always in meetings, these days. When did I stop minding about that?

  “Well haul him out’ve it. He’s been through this, so he’ll know how to help you.”

  Recalling his concerned frown whenever his gaze fell upon me these days, I shivered, pulling my vari-coloured robes around me.

  “You’re going into shock,” announced Felina, “Where’s that healer of yours? She’s usually about.”

  “I’m just cold.” I glanced around the chilly room, wondering why I hadn’t bothered to ask for the fire to be lit. And suddenly hoping Madam Healer-Prime wouldn’t show up early for my back massage. While she was always kind and attentive, I needed space to come to terms with Felina’s news. And the way it had wrenched me out of this torpor…

  “I still reckon Seth should be with you.” As Felina’s image on the holopad leaned closer, I longed for her to enfold me in one of her huge hugs. But she couldn’t, because she was over six thousand miles away in the heat and poverty of The Arids.

  Vrox thumped through my head like a hammer, awash with grief for his own mother, who’d died defending him as a cub. But his mother was nothing like mine. My mother had plotted to have me convicted for a murder I didn’t commit.

  So why did I feel like I’d lost an arm on hearing about her death? I blinked, trying very hard not to cry. Never mind about the loss of dignity, weeping was pure agony as my mantivore-silver eyes recently had become allergic to my tears. I drew a shaking breath. “What’ll happen now?”

  “There’ll be an investigation, of course. The Council in Reseda will make sure the best in the Province will be looking into this case. Cupert Peaceman won’t get within sniffing distance.”

  I nodded, finding Felina’s brisk practicality easier to deal with than her sympathy. “I could send someone. There’s lots of detectives in Gloriosa who’d do a prime job of looking into her... case. They get lots of practice – there’s a bunch of folks who get murdered every single day, here.” Longing for Cnicus lodged in my throat. I’d give anything to join them. Go home…

  When I took on the post of Brarian Overlord just over a year ago, I’d been so sure it would be temporary. Convinced that within a handful of weeks, some roostering Bridgedeck Uppie cousin of mine would strut from the ranks of distant relatives littering up the place, pull some flashy moves in the Nodery to demonstrate his right to the Command Codes and wrest them away from Vrox. I’d even written a resignation speech, full of open-hearted acceptance of a better claim to the post of Overlord. I’d planned on retiring to a corner of The Arids, thousands of miles away from Brarian Place and Gloriosa Prime to live quietly with Vrox and Seth as the local Brarian.

  But the months had crawled by slower than a one-legged hexapede and here I was. Still stuck as Brarian Overlord, ruler of the roaching planet.

  I was rocked by another blast of grief from Vrox, who lumbered to his feet.

  Why don’t you go back to sleep? It’s colder than an Uppie’s smile, so you’re better resting on that heated bed of yours. If I need you, I’ll yell… I tried to screen my dismay at having the mantivore thump through my head, while coping with Felina’s news, but judging by Vrox’s snarled curses, I’d failed. Just for a change…

  “…what they’re like around here, bless their sunslagged souls,” said Felina, looking expectantly at me.

  “I didn’t quite…” I faltered.

  “I was saying your notion of sending your Uppie Peaceman to track down who murdered Mai won’t work,” repeated Felina, more patiently than I deserved. “This is Cnicus, remember. The folks here reckon anyone not born within a nemmet’s spit of the village walls is a foreigner. They’ll clam up tighter than Eswin Washer’s wallet if anyone from Gloriosa starts asking questions. You’d end up having to MindTrawl the lot of them just to find out what they had for dinner.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I muttered, increasingly distracted as Vrox’s irritation and grief were building into a poisonous need to cause trouble. “I gotta go, Felina. Vrox is marching down the corridor towards the guards and that never ends well.”

  Felina tutted. “He’s pulling these stunts way too often.”

  You’re right. Don’t know how to stop him, though.

  Vrox snarls gleefully, gathering speed as he lopes towards these pathetic uniformed nuisances…

  Racing to the door, I managed to open it just as the mantivore arrived, baring his teeth in a gloating snarl as all seven foot of him loomed over the stony-faced guards, his neck-crest erect, his bioluminescent scales pulsing a threat display.

  Get in here, now! If there’s one more incident between you and the guards, I’ll confine you to your quarters. My breath hitched in shock. Did I just speak to Vrox like that?

  His head jerked round; his silver eyes closing in a slow, sad blink as he gazed at me. The luminous orange and red vari-colours strobing across his scales abruptly muted to flickers of mourning blue, his neck-crest drooping and his greeting huff heavy with grief.

  The sound immediately took me back to the stinking underground cell where he’d spent endless years, sitting in his own filth and only existing through the shafts of light and colour he’d gleaned from our MindLink. I remembered the times I’d been hurt over yet another slap or sharp word from Mother, when Vrox would Send images of himself as a cub playing in his burrow, along with blasts of encouragement. He’d honed my cooking skills, and lent his strength when as a child, I’d been tasked with washing and feeding my paralysed father. Yet when he’d come to me for comfort, caught up once again in his grief for his long-dead mother, I was pushing him away! How could I?

  I hugged him, thankful my thick robes protected me from the scar-roughened scales across his belly, as he crooned his sadness for his mama… my mother…

  His small body is trapped by the weight of hi
s slaughtered mother and dying siblings. He skids on blood-slicked scales, trembling as one by one, their bright minds flicker into nothingness…

  I panted, my heart racing, shuddering with grief and fury and fear.

  Why are these monsters killing us? Mama? Please… stop bleeding! You’re a queen – you mustn’t die!

  I-I need to honour your courage… your beauty… your fierceness… Ahh… mama! I howled with Vrox. Tears leaked from beneath my goggles, burning my tender eyes as I wept for my poor, murdered mother. The mother who’d tended me, protected and nurtured me—

  No! No, she didn’t.

  I pushed Vrox away, reeling at the images cartwheeling through my head and barely able to stand as I struggled to fight free from the mantivore’s memories. Mother Mai did none of those things! I can’t recall a single hug or kiss from her. Ever. After working me to a standstill, she plotted to have me Collared, happy to see me sun-slagged in the fields by day and raped by night as a field-slave. I recalled her testimony at my trial as she’d spun all those wicked lies designed to destroy my life, while looking so beautiful even I’d wanted to believe her.

  Giddy, I sank to my knees, the cold radiating from the stone floor anchoring me to the reality of here and now. My tear-scalded eyes blurring behind my goggles and my mouth on fire, as I drooled bloody saliva caused by the blisters speckling across my tongue.

  Vrox, still caught up in his flashback, was trying to pull me further into the trauma of his violent capture as a cub.

  But I focused on the pain and the floor, as Felina had taught me, which blocked him from further entangling me in his terrible memories. I hope…

  He whimpered.

  I looked up, just in time to jerk backwards as a string of TributeDrool streamed from his throatsacs and pooled on the floor, instead of trickling across my head as he’d intended.

  His grumbling curse rings around my skull as he envisages me with a nemmet’s head, trying to bite my own ankles.

  Scrambling to my feet, I shouted at him, trying to free him from the memories that held him in thrall.

  Blinking, he snorted.

  Thank the skies you’re back—

  He pounced, his claws slicing through my robes and digging into my skin.

  “Vrox! It’s me – your cub! You need to snap outta this—ˮ

  His response thundered through my mind, shivering my vision and battering my sore head. Vrox knows she is Cub. It is her duty to offer up this TributeDrool to her mother, her Queen, as a memorial to her life. Such petty concerns about a clash between a mother and her queenling shouldn’t prevent this from taking place.

  But Vrox wasn’t the only one whose temper was fraying.

  Full of mantivore emotion, I jumped into the puddle of TributeDrool, splattering the thick blue liquid across the floor and over Vrox’s feet. I yelled over his outraged snarl, “That’s what I think of any honour for the witchbitch! She wasn’t a queen – she was spoilt trash who stole her sister’s husband. Didn’t even know how to use the Node!”

  Which was when Seth rushed into the room. “What’s going on?”

  Though I was splashed with TributeDrool and bleeding from Vrox’s claws, Seth took me in his arms and held me, stroking my hair as I sobbed out the sorry tale of how Mother had been found strangled in her bed, more or less as Felina told it. Leaning into the warmth of his hug, I realised it had been far too long since we’d last held each other.

  I soon stopped crying because it was far too painful. My eyes felt like I’d wept ground glass as I closed them behind my goggles and continued leaning against Seth, wrung out and hurting.

  “And you? What d’you have to do with all of this, hm?” Seth’s icy tone could have frozen suns as he spoke to Vrox. “Why were you howling, when it was Kyrillia’s mother who’d died?”

  Vrox whimpers, turning to Cub and expecting her to explain matters to her mate…

  Nah… you’re on your own with this one.

  Vrox stares balefully at Seth, his vari-colours beginning to pulse orange and red as he rumbles a threat.

  “Kyrillia’s the one that’s just heard that her ma’s been murdered, yet you gallop to her side and make the whole sorry business all about you.”

  “It wasn’t like that!” In fairness to the poor old mantivore, I had to set Seth straight. “Hearing the news about Mother tipped him back into his trauma over his horde being slaughtered around him when he was a cub. I just got caught up in them.”

  Seth gazed first at me, then turned on Vrox again. “So you push all your mantivore stuff onto her. Again. Bleeding sores around her mouth, and look at this – bloody tears and rips in her robes!” Seth paused, evidently struggling with his anger. “I’m warning you. The Prime Council are panting to find an excuse to lock you up again because of your horrible mantivore manners.”

  Vrox flicks his neck-crest, snarling a dismissal.

  “And I’m getting beyond tired of watching you treat Kyrillia like a used nosewipe. Especially after you almost killed her!”

  “I’m better!” I protested, wishing Seth would cut the mantivore some slack.

  “What about your eyes? They’re still silver. You can’t shed those goggles except at night or in a dark room, your light sensitivity is so extreme. You need daily medication to help with the pain and you’ll likely be blind by the time you’re thirty.” He turned back to Vrox. “All down to you dragging her into your misery!”

  The mantivore huffs, indignant that my pathetic weakness is his responsibility.

  “She loves you. Why don’t you try to be more worthy of that love?”

  Vrox blinks slowly, puzzled at Seth’s words.

  “He’s a mantivore lord, designed for hunting and protecting his horde. You’re asking the impossible of him!” I snapped, pulling away from Seth. Then, sensing Vrox’s smug satisfaction, I turned on him, too. “And you can stop acting like an upswept Bridgedecker!” Anger had my head thudding and pain spiking through my tender eyes in agonising flares. Eyes streaming, I groped for a chair. “I need more pain-meds.”

  Vrox snorts disgustedly, sending a blast of contempt at Cub’s weakness as he stomps from the room.

  “I’ve called for Ellern,” said Seth, kneeling by my side and taking my hand. Before spoiling it. “I still think you need to get someone else in. It can’t be good for you – all these meds she’s got you taking.”

  “Don’t do this now, Seth!” For some reason, he’d taken against Ellern, the kind, competent physician who’d designed my goggles when I’d become photosensitive after my eyes first turned silver. She was now my official Healer Prime, and he’d chosen this moment to once more nag about seeing someone else. Which would mean having to explain my increasing weakness and pain to some Bridgedecker medic who wouldn’t understand me nearly as well as this kind-faced lady who was always on hand, now approaching with her usual swift grace.

  “I’ve got a meeting. I’d cancel it, but it’s really important—” Seth began.

  “Yep. They all are, these days. Off you go. I’ll be fine, now Ellern is here.” It came out sharper than I’d intended. But it’s no more than the truth.

  “I’ll be back soon as I can,” he murmured, his face pulled into his habitual frown, before nodding curtly at Ellern as he ran for the door, clearly relieved to be escaping my doomy company.

  Ellern’s smile was like a drink of water in the Arids. “Your Ladyship. Oh dear…” she gently tutted, as she gave me my next pain-patch, before examining the puncture wounds inflicted by Vrox, which were deeper than I’d realised. “Let’s see, now…” Her voice was low and soothing, as she continued cleaning and dressing the bloody holes in my arms, before checking my eyes. She’d been working on lotions to ease the inflammation afflicting my eyes since they’d turned silver. So she duly administered her latest batch of drops once the blinds were closed, then got me to swill my blistered mouth out with yet another mixture, which smelt and tasted like goat’s piss. Despite the foul taste, I was a lot better bu
t whether that’s because Vrox had slid into sleep, exhausted by his outburst – or due to Ellern Healer’s potions, I wasn’t sure. She was just giving me a head massage, when the door chimed.

  I drew breath to ask who it was, when Ellern snapped, “Who is it? Her Ladyship gave strict instructions that she isn’t to be disturbed!”

  Shaken at the way she’d taken it upon herself to speak on my behalf, I wondered if she normally behaved in this high-handed manner, but somehow couldn’t remember…

  Arlester’s harried voice trickled from the speaker, “Many pardons for crashing in on you, Your Ladyship, but this won’t wait. The journos have got to hear of Mai Brarian’s death and are yammering for a statement.”

  “Of course,” I said, pressing the button to allow Arlester in. How can I officially discuss Mother’s murder when I don’t know how I feel about it?

  “Her Ladyship is too unwell to deal with this just now,” said Ellern.

  Arlester looked agonised. “There are already wild stories appearing. One has the mantivore attacking Her Ladyship, for starters.”

  Ellern tutted. “Nothing unduly wild about that one, I’m afraid. I’ve had to dress a number of wounds inflicted by the creature.”

  “It was an accident,” I said quickly.

  Unlike most of my courtiers and advisors, Arlester didn’t regard Vrox as a monster, but even he looked hoed flat at Ellern’s comment, while he spluttered his apology at having disturbed me once more.

  “Afternoon Arlester, I heard some of the Bullits on my way here. Do we need to say something to at least ease down the rumour-froth swilling around?” said Seth as he strode through the door.

  Relief at hearing his voice had me blinking back burning tears as I murmured to Ellern, “Thank you for your help. You may now go.”

  “What about your scheduled back treatment, Your Ladyship?”

  “Her Ladyship’s recent news has voided her schedule until further notice,” said Seth, coming across and putting a hand on my shoulder.