A few stars poked out from the deepening purple sky as she ran west, the sun slipping away behind her. The Koori lowlands, dotted with hearty bushes and scraggly trees, jutting rock formations, and pockets of red sand, reminded her of some tale she heard as a child; something about two siblings who dared leave the protection of the Realm and wandered into the outlands. After encountering the dastardly fiends that roamed the Godless lands, they fled home, eager to go through the Trials and realize their denom so as to never become one of the forsaken.
“Fools,” she muttered to herself, squeezing her hands into fists. Old wounds, awakened by her rage, competed for her attention, but she wouldn’t have it.
Gotta get at least a deerkat, she decided, climbing up the steep shelf that marked the edge of the forest. Even the thought of a prospective meal made her stomach gurgle. At this rate, she’d eat anything, even a bowl of squirming wyre worms.
She wasn’t more than fifty paces within the trees when she sensed movement behind her. Unsheathing her knife, she cocked it back before spinning around to take aim.
“Peace, Nya—it’s me!”
Recognizing the trim outline of her fellow hunter putting up his hands, she sighed and re-sheathed her knife.
“Could’a warned me.”
“Lost you for a second, but I didn’t want to shout and scare away our dinner.”
As Kaden stepped into a shaft of moonlight, she saw the worried look he tried to hide behind his heavily tattooed face. At only twenty years old, he carried more burdens than some of the old men, and had twice the scars and ink to prove it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, clasping her hand around his forearm.
He returned the greeting. “Neither should you.”
“My wife isn’t sick,” she said. “You need to be with her.”
“Without me, you’d bring home a good meal, but I’m not sure my wife wants to start shaving,” he said, one corner of his mouth poking up into a half-smile.
Nya shoved him off with a frown, not caring that he slammed into a tree.
I’m never going to hear the freaking end of that, she thought, picking up her pace to spite him.
“You’re too easy, Nya,” he said, catching up to her and trying to get her to slow down. “You’re not the only one that screws up herbs, alright? I once mixed up an udi mushroom with a revis. Got the entire clan sick. I swear it burned a new hole in my—”
“Quiet,” she said, yanking him by the neck of his tunic to a crouching position beside her. She indicated what she saw with a nod of her head.
Kaden followed her line of sight, through trees and broken beams of moonlight to a grassy knoll. Something massive, bigger than a coguar, lay inside a dugout shelter of mud and stone.
“What is that?”
Nya answered by stringing her bow with an arrow and taking aim. But as she tried to zero in on a lethal target, a lazy cloud slipped over the moon.
Gonna have to get closer, she thought, crawling toward the creature. She could hear the sonorous sounds of its breathing, and despite the darkness, spotted the regular expansion and relaxation of its torso.
She waited for Kaden to get in position, watching him ready his throwing axes out of the corner of her eye.
In better times, she might have asked herself what the beast could be, but hunger and desperation narrowed down the scope of her reasoning to primal instincts. Something this big would have enough meat on the bone to feed the entire clan for days.
But as she pulled back on her arrow once more, she felt something from deep inside her whisper through. The same feeling she got right before she stepped up to the denom elders for her own Determining, and when she first met Sho, piqued her mind; a knowing, a foresight she couldn’t possibly have.
“Screw it,” she said, waiting as the cloud slid past the moon, and once again revealed the monster.
Curled up in a giant black ball, the beast had markings and features she hadn’t seen before: A canine face, a broad torso, reptilian accents and a spiked tail. It appeared injured, with multiple wounds, all in various stages of healing.
And then she saw something that made her pause: An arm draped over the side of the tail.
He’s probably protecting his meal—
No. As much as she tried to convince herself, something didn’t fit.
Kaden gave a low whistle. She looked over to him and shook her head. Not understanding her hesitation, he made to take the first shot.
The arm disappeared. Someone went into a coughing fit. The beast lifted its head, growled, and then gently used its black nose to nudge whomever—or whatever—lay within its clutches.
Nya loosed the arrow just as Kaden cocked back his wrist. The shaft whistled through the air and hit its mark with a thunk. Stupefied, her companion looked at her with one eyebrow cocked upward, and a frown that hinted at all the expletives she’d be hearing once they got back to camp.
Wait, she mouthed to him, motioning for him to calm down as he freed his axe from underneath the arrow embedded into the tree.
The little commotion they made alerted the beast. In the blink of an eye it crouched above a much smaller figure, baring its teeth in their direction.
That’s…a girl, Nya realized, watching as the figure stirred and rolled over onto her side. And she’s injured, too.
In all her nineteen years, she couldn’t fathom how such a menacing, battered creature would come to protect a girl, but she didn’t have time to put much more thought into it as it charged at their position.
Nya shot up a tree, bounding from branch to branch until she gained enough distance to take better aim once it got in her sights. Following suit, Kaden climbed up the nearest tree, readying his axes if the beast chose to attack his position.
But the monster didn’t come near. It didn’t get farther away than twenty paces from its human, though it barked loud enough to awaken the ancient spirits.
Nya kept one eye on the beast, and the other on the girl stirring in the dugout shelter. With shaky arms the girl pushed herself up to a sitting position, and tried to clear off the matted hair from her face. The look of confusion and tears in her eyes struck Nya in such a way she couldn’t help her reaction. Readying another arrow, she took aim at the beast’s bony chest.
“No!”
The girl’s cry rose above the din, silencing the beast and jarring Nya’s focus. Her arrow flew through the air, but hit the ground three feet in front of him.
“No—please—stop!”
“Who are you?” Nya demanded, stringing another arrow and taking aim once more.
Coughing, the girl fell to her side, clutching her chest and throat.
Are those spider bites? Nya lowered her arrow a bit and looked over to Kaden through the break between the branches. The young warrior didn’t take his eyes off the mark, ready to deal death as Nya dictated.
“Please…” the girl said between hacks. “I—I’m nobody.”
Nya sighed, returning the arrow to her quiver and re-slinging her bow. Coming to the same conclusion, Kaden lowered his axe and looked over to her for direction.
We don’t need another mouth to feed, she thought, indicating with two fingers across her neck to leave.
Besides, she had left others behind before. Other unfavored rejects that couldn’t pass the Trials, or ran away before their Determining, too weak and unprepared for the harsh life outside of Realm. Mercy and pity could be afforded by the rich and privileged—not by Outliers struggling with day-to-day survival.
“Fine, nobody. Just get your beast off of us and we’ll be on our way.”
“Don’t leave,” the girl said, her voice barely audible above her companion’s persistent growl.
“Why? What could you possibly offer us?” Nya said, not caring how awful she sounded to the poor kid.
Silence. The kid couldn’t come up with anything, not even a threat.
Weakling, Nya thought, climbing back down the tree.
“No, don�
��t!” the girl cried as the beast took a few steps toward Nya and Kaden’s position.
The beast stopped in his tracks, then returned to the girl’s side, shielding her with his massive body.
As Nya hustled through the brush away from the girl and her beast, Kaden caught up to her and grabbed her by the shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
Shrugging him off, she picked up her step, running toward the thicker underbrush. There’s gotta be a stream up ahead, and if there’s water, there’ll be game trails, maybe even—
“Nya, stop!”
Nya reared around and drew her bow and arrow before Kaden could unsling his axe. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You’re just going to leave that girl? She commands that beast!”
“It’s probably just a stray Shifter. And she’s sick.”
“Fine, so what if that beast is a Shifter?” Kaden said, not moving his hands away from his axe. “He’d scare off half of our attackers.”
Nya shook her head. “No. She’s a burden.”
Frustrated, Kaden tossed his axe down into the ground. “Why do you refuse every new kid?”
The question got to her, digging under her skin in a way she wasn’t expecting. Old hurts ghosted past her mind, but in the heat of the moment, she shut them out.
Lowering his voice, Kaden delivered an even lower blow: “Sho would take her.”
Anger clouded over reason. “She’s a waste, just like the rest of our terminally sick.”
Kaden’s lips compressed into a thin line as his hands tightened into fists. Nya didn’t care how big he was, she’d take him down all the same, and he knew it.
“You don’t know what’s right anymore, do you?” he said, staring her dead in the eye.
“I don’t care about being right.” Without realizing it, she touched her right forearm covered in tribal ink indicating the five years she’d survived in the outlands. “Not if it doesn’t help us survive the day.”
“We should split up,” he said, his voice going flat. “I’ll meet you back at camp.”
Before she could even react, Kaden disappeared into the forest, leaving her alone amongst the insect chatter buzzing between the trees.
He’s going soft, she thought, picking up her route again toward the stream. We can’t have that in the clan.
But as much as she tried to convince herself, she knew her ire wasn’t all about her hunting partner’s inkling of compassion. Having someone who could control a beast would prove a valuable asset. So why did she refuse the kid?
He’s right; Sho would have taken her.
The thought of her ex-boyfriend made her stumble.
No, she cautioned herself, pushing the memory of Sho away as she came to a halt. She loved that boy just as much as she couldn’t stand him. The way he argued every point she made, questioned every decision—not a day went by that they didn’t have some sort of verbal altercation. Yet she couldn’t bear to be reminded of him, and the sense of loss left in her heart when he disappeared on a scouting mission several months ago.
Tracing the tattoos spiraling out from middle of her forearm and up to her shoulders, she silently recited the Chakoa creed: Without a shadow, I seek only the comfort of darkness, and the freedom of its emptiness.
And her own: Without attachments, I am invincible.
After a few calming breaths, she distanced herself from unwanted feelings, and refocused on her objective.
Under the light of the waning moon, she finally came upon her first deerkat sign: A few hoof prints depressed in the soft ground, a scrap of hair caught in the outstretched branches of dead bush. Her stomach growled with anticipation.
I’ll take that thing down with my bare hands.
As she carefully wound her way through the thicker foliage, she heard the sound of the stream trickling through forest, and lowered her stance.
Thunder sounded off in the distance, toward white mountains. She didn’t have to look back to know what was happening. Blue lightning lit up the sky around Hirak mountain, and men and women with white hair and glowing skin would be dressed in ornate robes, stretching out their arms to the sky.
The rapid succession of thunderclaps made her pause. Sounds like someone’s not happy in the Guild.
Not that she cared. No Outlier would involve themselves in the convoluted politics of the denoms, not even if the entire Realm fell into war and chaos.
The northern winds felt good, brushing up against her cheeks and the shaved sides of her head, ruffling the few loose strands in her braided hair. For whatever reason, it made her think of Sho, the annoying way he used to sneak up on her and gently blow his breath against her face.
Slurping sounds caught her attention, but she could not identify the source. Nya bent down and froze, listening and looking through her limited vantage behind a bush. Movement up ahead, too big to be a deerkat, caught her attention; she didn’t recognize the awkward jerks and twitches.
What is that thing?
The smell of sulfur touched her nose, and she brought her hand up over her face to stifle the imminent revolting of her stomach.
Don’t make a sound—
A shrill animal cry pierced the night air, but faded with a whimper. Something larger rustled through the bushes, closing in on its victim.
Nya dared a better look over the top of a bush and across to the other side of the stream. The twisted horns of a blue elk lay in a beam of moonlight, the rest in shadow.
Drawing her bow, she prepared to kill whatever predator felled the poor elk, not caring if it was a bully bear or a dragon, her hunger driving out what little sense of caution she ever possessed.
Until she saw its face.
A Nezra!
She made herself as small as possible as the pale death-dealer glided up to its kill, its bloodshot eyes and gaunt cheeks standing out even amongst the shadows.
What’s it doing here?
No denom—not even the fearsome death-dealers—ever ventured outside the safety of the Realm.
The Nezra descended upon the blue elk, raising its black-tipped fingers and wiggling them at the fallen animal. Nya covered her ears as the elk bucked and screeched, uttering sounds she didn’t think possible from the living.
Why isn’t it finishing the job? she wondered as the elk bucked and kicked, trying to free itself of the visceral attack. Doesn’t make sense. Even with her limited experience, she had never seen or heard of a death-dealer doing something like this.
Before she could think out the potential consequences of her actions, Nya loosed one of her arrows at the elk. Precise aim and a strong arm left no room for err. The arrow pierced its neck, delivering the merciful death blow that the Nezran would not give.
The Nezra hissed and growled, looking around for the disrupter.
Nya carefully notched another arrow, not taking her eye off the Nezra as it sniffed the air and twitched its fingers, honing in on her life signs.
Footsteps, excited whispers; other figures moving in the shadows.
There’s more than one—
As soon as the realization hit her, she took off running, pumping her legs as fast as they would go.
Kaden. Low-hanging branches slapped her face and underbrush scratched her exposed skin, but she forced her way through. Where are you—?
Running through clearing, she spotted her companion plucking flower petals and placing them in his leather sack along a riverbed, unaware of the impending assault that would turn his bones to dust.
Slowing only for a second, Nya stuck her thumb and first finger in her mouth and gave off a high-pitched whistle. When the hooting response echoed through the trees, she picked up the pace.
They met up at the steep shelf that dropped them back into the lowlands.
“What happened?” Kaden asked, putting his hands behind his head and trying to catch his breath.
“Nezra,” she said. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she tried to sound more composed than she felt.
The tanned warrior looked at her with one brow lifted. He knew better than to question what she saw, but she saw the doubt etched into the furrows of his knotted forehead. “We should go back for the girl.”
“No, it’s too late for her.”
“Nya—”
“It’s not safe here. We have to move the camp,” she said, starting her descent down the striated shelf.
Kaden didn’t follow right away, staring out ahead, past red sands and into the dark horizon of the Wastes, where even the bravest of the Outliers didn’t dare travel.
“Move it, Kaden; we don’t have time,” she said, swinging down to a firmer hold between jagged strips of rock. When she glanced up, she saw his hard expression in the moonlight, the bitterness that had already carved its way into his heart.
Nya didn’t allow herself to think of those who wouldn’t make it through until morning—and the others that wouldn’t survive their abrupt move in the middle of the night. Or that worthless girl and her injured beast.
Holding on to her anger, she cursed her rumbling stomach, and the ocean of stars shining down on to them with cold indifference.
Chapter 3
“My name’s Sen—what’s yours?”
No matter what she tried, the giant beast paced back and forth in front of her, still agitated from the excitement of the people in the trees. He vacillated between standing on two legs and flitting his ears in every direction, to limping around on all four.
“It’s okay, they’re gone,” she said, trying to prop herself up by the elbow. Everything felt harder to do than it should, every movement requiring a tremendous amount of concentration against the aching protests of her body.
Still, she couldn’t despair. She made a new friend, even if he stood ten feet tall on all fours and had fangs the size of her head.
“Ahh,” she moaned, pushing up to a sitting position. That got his attention. Her furry companion crawled over on and nudged her with his cold wet nose.
“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing as he sniffed her neck and face. With a grunt and a low growl, he sat back on his haunches, still scanning the forest with his one good eye.
Outlier Page 2
