Rivals

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  CHAPTER 9

  “Wake up. WAKE UP!”

  Jackson groaned and opened his eyes. Although he was toasty warm inside his sleeping bag, the forest air was frigid and a layer of dew covering everything, including Asena, who had scurried out of his sleeping bag in the middle of the night. She let out a lazy whine, then stood and shook, spraying them with droplets and the odor of wet Lyote.

  Rubbing his eyes, Jackson tried to find the sun. Instead, he was met with a faint gray light. He could only guess the hour. Next to him, Kay mumbled into her pillow and pulled the lip of her sleeping bag up over her mess of red hair. Sunshine retreated deeper into the confines of his owner’s sleeping bag with a yip.

  “Rise and shine, kids,” Briggs said. He stood next to the truck and pounded on the rusted-out bed for good measure. “We’re burning daylight and there’s work to get done!”

  Kay and Jackson groaned in unison. While they shivered and pulled on extra layers of clothes, Briggs stood next to the bed of the truck. He tapped his hands against the bed to show his impatience. Jackson had no idea how the man had suddenly become such a morning person. In the time he’d known Briggs, his mentor had never been out of bed before nine. Whenever they’d met to train, it was always well after daylight. If Briggs ever instructed Jackson and Asena to get up early to practice anything, they did it alone.

  Prodded by Briggs, Jackson and Kay finally jumped out of the truck, clothed in as many layers as they could fit on. Jackson poured Asena a small bowl of her chow and shoved some water bottles and granola bars into his backpack for himself — he had absolutely no appetite at the ridiculous hour.

  “I’m f-freezing,” Kay managed to get out. She had her arms wrapped around Sunshine, who was zipped under her sweatshirt, to hold in the warmth. The Fenkit squeaked in agreement and buried his nose deeper into the warm fabric.

  “Best thing for that is to get your blood flowing with a good hike,” Briggs replied. He glanced at Asena, who had finished her light meal and was now licking the bowl like she might be able to get more chow if she tried hard enough. “Looks like the Lyote is done — now, there’s a few things I want to go over before we get out there.”

  Briggs held up a finger as he rattled each thing off. “One, you follow my lead and you do what I say when I say it out here. Two, the only Djinn out of its ring is Asena. We might need to her to help with the tracking if we get on something. Midnight only comes out in an emergency, and that damn Fenkit stays in stasis.”

  Kay raised her hand. “Problem. I’m not a tamer and I’m not rich, so Sunshine doesn’t even have a ring.”

  Briggs nodded his head. “Right, right, I figured as much.” He retreated back into the cab of the truck, opened up the glove compartment and emerged with a battered old ring with a small, clear gem. “This oughta do the trick.”

  He tossed it over to Kay. Kay looked down at Sunshine, who buried himself deeper into Kay’s sweatshirt.

  “All right, all right,” Kay sighed. Sensing what was coming, Sunshine leaped out of Kay’s arms. He only made it a couple of feet away, however, before a beam of yellow light enveloped him and sucked him into the tamer ring.

  Kay let out another sad sigh as she stared at the soft, pulsing, yellow light emanating from the ring.

  Briggs nodded, apparently satisfied. He looked at Jackson for his next point. “Third, tell me what to do if we come across a Djinn worth taming.”

  Jackson forced his sleepy mind into gear. This was the part of the process that made him the most nervous — the struggle with a completely wild Djinn.

  “I summon the ring lasso,” Jackson said, punching his arm forward to mimic the action. “And make sure not to miss the Djinn. Once the lasso is set, I have to keep the beam of energy steady while it weakens the Djinn and begins the initial stasis process. If the link is maintained throughout the process, the Djinn will be captured in the stone.”

  “Good — don’t forget, the more powerful the Djinn, the harder it is to hold the energy lasso steady and the longer it takes for the ring to set,” Briggs said, apparently satisfied. “It’s one thing to talk about it and another to actually do it when there’s a wild Djinn in your face ready to eat you. Just stick with the plan and you’ll be fine. Probably. Maybe. I wouldn’t worry. Too much.”

  Jackson wished he could tell if Briggs was kidding, but as usual, the older man’s expression was unreadable.

  With that, Briggs set off from the meadow where they’d parked the truck, and it was only then that Jackson could make out the faintest light bleeding out from the edge of the sky. They followed the rising sun east down a wooded slope. The wilderness was growing lighter and warmer with every step they took. Jackson couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty surrounding them. In the daylight, he could see they’d camped on top of a large bluff with a ridge of mountains running north to their left. The trees were too thick for Jackson to guess where they might be headed.

  “We’re looking for water,” Briggs said when Jackson asked him what the plan was. “A Groggle’s a good fit for your skill level and needs — we’re going to stick with that. There’s all sorts of streams that feed off of snowmelt from the mountains — we’ll find one of those and follow it down to the Running Rock River. It’s full of all sorts of fish that the Groggles love to munch on.”

  “What do we do once we find water?” Kay asked. She’d gotten over having to put Sunshine inside his ring and looked to be enjoying the morning as much as Jackson.

  “Start looking for signs,” Briggs said. “Not just footprints and drag marks from the Groggles sliding into the water — they also shed their skins on a pretty regular basis. We’ll look for those too.”

  Kay made a face. “Gross. Their skin just peels off?”

  “Yep,” Briggs said. “About once a week, depending on how much they’ve got to feed on. Once Groggles are in their more advanced forms, they never stop growing. They just keep shedding skin until they run out of food to sustain the growth or they die. That’s where stasis helps things out for us tamers. It prevents them from growing oversized. Sometimes, you can catch real giants in the wild, as they never go into stasis and therefore keep on growing and growing.”

  Jackson loved the idea of a Djinn that grew bigger so long as you fed it, but didn’t relish the idea of having to pick up shed Groggle skins every time the Djinn came out of its ring. Still, he knew better than to say anything to Briggs about such a minor inconvenience.

  With the sun slowly making its way into the sky, they continued down the hill from the pickup. The trees gradually changed from pines and aspens to open fields of grass. Up ahead, Jackson saw a line of willow trees, which he knew marked some kind of marshland or river. Briggs led them right into it, heedless of the squishy ground. Before long, Kay and Jackson’s boots were soaked through with muddy, freezing cold bog water. They shared an exasperated look but remained silent. Briggs plunged on ahead as if he couldn’t feel the icy mud sucking at his toes.

  They found an opening in the willows that led to the edge of a medium-sized river. Jackson picked up a stone and chucked it across the width of the water as hard as he could. It plopped down in the shallows on the far bank.

  “Let’s hope we can find one on this side of the river,” Briggs said. “Otherwise, you’re going to have to get wet.”

  The way Briggs explained it, the beam of light, called the ring lasso, only extended about ten yards out from the Djinn ring. Jackson would have to be relatively close to whatever Djinn he was attempting to capture when they found it. That meant either Asena would have to wear it down and keep it from running away or — more likely in the case of a Groggle — Jackson would have to stay just out of harm’s way without being too far away from the Djinn he was trying to capture. Once again, he told himself not to think about it.

  Briggs took the lead and they spread out along the riverbank, looking for any sign of Groggle slide marks or shed skins. A couple of hours passed with no success. They hadn’t seen a thing, an
d the only sign that any Djinn were present was the not-too-far-off cackle of a group of Magglecaws roosting in some trees out of sight. Despite Briggs’s assurance that the river was the best place to find a Groggle, they had nothing to show for their efforts besides scratched arms, soggy shoes, and general discomfort.

  Jackson was about to suggest they try a different location when Briggs paused and motioned for them to come look at something on the ground. When Jackson approached, he saw a clear marking in the river mud that looked like someone had slid a log into the water.

  “Bingo,” Briggs said. “We’re in their turf now. Let’s spread out and see if we can find anymore signs. Stay within sight of one another, though. They may be slow on land, but get caught off guard with one of them around, and it may be the last thing you do.”

  Following Briggs’s instruction, they fanned out along the river bank. After another fifteen minutes passed, Kay spotted a couple more slide marks close to one another. Jackson walked over to examine them and paused. A bright blue-green something stirred in the short grass. Curious, Jackson decided to take a closer look. Asena spotted the strange object as well and raced ahead, eager to be the first one to reach it. She skidded to a halt a couple feet away and jumped back.

  Jackson tensed but then realized what the thing was — a shed Groggle skin swaying in the breeze. The peeled layer remained remarkably intact — Jackson could easily make out the outline of the Djinn. This one looked to be decent-sized, almost five feet long from the tip of its long snout to its ridged tail.

  Briggs examined both the slide marks Kay found and Jackson’s Groggle skin and seemed satisfied. “Now that’s more like it,” he said. “We’re in luck — if things go well, we might be out of here by tonight!”

  Over the next hour, the tracks and slide marks became more defined, and the Groggle skins more frequent. Jackson’s excitement continued to grow, and he scanned the riverbank and water ahead of them, expecting to see a Groggle at any time. No Djinn showed themselves, however. He asked Briggs if the Groggles were easily spooked or afraid of humans, but Briggs assured him they wouldn’t run away without first seeing who the intruders on their territory were.

  Jackson had just about given up hope of finding anything before noon and turned his thoughts to the sparse lunch in his backpack when Briggs held up a hand and spun around with a finger on his lips. He hunkered down a bit in the tall grass that grew in the fields along the river and pointed toward the water. At first, Jackson had no idea what he was pointing at and then he saw it — a blue-green log in the middle of the water — a Groggle. Its short but powerful tail swished back and forth, propelling it upstream in the direction the group had walked from.

  “It hasn’t spotted us yet,” Briggs said. “Let’s get over to the edge of the water. That should get you in range. You won’t be able to get it while it’s in the water but I’m betting it will charge when it sees Asena. Groggles don’t normally attack humans, but they don’t stand for other Djinn on their turf.”

  Jackson nodded. His breath was short and his insides shook and coursed with adrenaline. Briggs must have noticed because he gave Jackson a long stare. “Don’t be getting Djinn fever on me, now.”

  “What’s Djinn fever?” Kay said in a harsh whisper. Jackson and Briggs both glared at her for being too loud and she rolled her eyes.

  “It’s what happens when a young tamer finds a wild Djinn and gets excited,” Briggs said. “Usually means he blunders into things and the Djinn gets away.”

  Jackson forced himself to take a deep breath, but he could still feel the excitement coursing through him. He followed right behind Briggs, so close that when the older tamer stopped on the edge of the river in the pebbles, Jackson ran into his back. Briggs cursed, and the Groggle — about ten yards away, almost straight across from them — spun in the water and fixed its eyes on the humans.

  “Quick, get Asena up here!” Briggs said. Jackson whistled and Asena — who had been hanging back with Kay — came sprinting through the tall grass in a red-orange blur. As soon as the Groggle spotted the Lyote, it vented a hiss that sent water spraying and coursed toward them.

  “Get ready!” Briggs shouted.

  Jackson felt the warmth of the empty ring on his hand — the ring’s reaction to a wild, untamed Djinn approaching. The ring began to vibrate and glow with a bright white light. His heart caught in his throat, Jackson raised the ring out in front of him. Briggs shouted encouragement and Asena barked, pacing back and forth along the edge of the river. The beam of white light snaked out and hit the Djinn, causing the Groggle to roll and writhe in the water.

  “Hey, over there!”

  Jackson’s eyes jerked toward the far back, where three people stood watching them. As soon as his concentration left the ring, a sharp crack filled the air. The beam of light — what Briggs called the ring’s lasso — snapped and shattered. In the next instant, the Groggle dove under the water and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 10

  Briggs swore and kicked at the rocks.

  “What happened?” Jackson asked. “Where’d the Groggle go?”

  “Gone!” Briggs said. “Gone, gone, gone! All because of those assholes on the other side of the bank!”

  Enraged, Jackson looked across the water and spotted the Kaleos along with a third person; a woman in camouflage that Jackson didn’t recognize. Lei called out again and waved across the water, but Akamu and the woman just watched them.

  “Hey, there!” Lei shouted. “Hold on — we’ll come over!”

  The last thing Jackson wanted to do after missing out on his prized Djinn was talk to the Kaleos, but for some reason, Briggs seemed keen on it today. While the trio pulled kayaks out of the willows and prepared to cross, Kay ran up, wanting to know what had happened.

  “It got away,” Jackson said, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. “Lei surprised us and I lost concentration.”

  Kay started to say what she thought about the Kaleos but cut herself short when their kayaks pulled up to the bank. Lei gave them a broad grin and a hearty wave. Akamu was wearing what Jackson was beginning to recognize, and loathe, as his characteristic smirk.

  “Hey, there’s the mighty hunters!” Lei said. “How goes it? We saw you had a beam on that Groggle — too bad it slipped away, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Briggs muttered. “A damn shame.”

  Lei’s grin never faded, and if he had intentionally tried to distract Jackson, he didn’t show it at all. “We’ve been out this morning for a few hours. Just scouting things out — not sure exactly yet what we want to tame for Akamu, you know? Shellie here is one heck of a guide, though. We’ve already seen a dozen Djinn or more. Nothing worth taking a shot at — common Magglecaws and a bunch of other trash Djinn.”

  Jackson saw Kay stiffen at the term “trash Djinn.” As someone going into the Djinn medical field, Kay didn’t look at Djinn the same way as tamers. That being said, Jackson would never imagine classifying any Djinn as “trash.” Sure, some were more powerful than others, but each had their unique strengths and powers. It seemed like a shallow, callous approach to take.

  At any rate, nobody had much to say in response to Lei. Once again, he seemed not to notice their lack of interest or desire to carry on a conversation. “Say, I’ve got a great idea — why don’t we team up for a little while? More help means there’s less of a chance for a Djinn to get away — what do you say, Briggs?”

  “Thanks, but we’re pretty good on our own,” Briggs said. “I’m sure your guide will find you plenty of Djinn.”

  Lei shrugged like it didn’t really matter either way. “Suit yourselves! I take it you’ll be scouting out along the river? If so, we’ll head upstream — don’t want to ruin any chances for your young tamer here to catch the big one! According to Shellie, there’s a Tandile mixed in with these Groggles. You’d better keep an eye out — it’s probably more than your group could handle.”

  “We appreciate the concern,” Briggs said. His tone sugg
ested he would have found it more helpful if Lei had tipped his kayak upside down and attempted to drown himself.

  The Kaleos and their guide pushed off the bank with their kayak paddles. “Good luck,” Akamu said. “You’re going to need it.”

  Briggs waited until they passed around the bend upstream before unleashing another stream of curses. “That son of a bitch has always been too smug for his own good,” he said. “You mark my words, he’s just going out of sight, and then they’ll be heading back downstream following us.”

  “Why would they do that when they have their own guide?” Kay asked. “I’m sure those outfitters aren’t cheap.”

  “It doesn’t matter to Lei,” Briggs said. “His pretty boy face has netted him enough endorsements that he’s got more money than he knows what to do with. He doesn’t care about paying a guide all day to do nothing — he’d get more out of seeing if he can poach something off of us or mess up Jackson again.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Jackson asked. The thought of the Kaleos trailing them the rest of the day drove him almost as nuts as it did Briggs.

  “We’ll start moving quicker,” Briggs said. “Where there’s one Groggle there’s bound to be more — you saw all those slide marks and skins back there. “Let’s get one found, tamed and out of here.”

  “Can’t we just go find another river?” Kay asked.

  Briggs glared at her like it was the most ridiculous suggestion he’d ever heard. “I’m not backing down to that pretty boy and his snotty son.”

  And that settled it. Once again, they set off a little ways from the riverbank, this time with Jackson and Asena out front, following Briggs’s instructions. The next time they found a Groggle skin, Briggs had Asena smell it for scent.

  “Can you find one of these, girl?” Jackson asked her. “Find us a Groggle!”